We will start tomorrow, the earliest day possible to register and begin our "180 days." Starting early allows us to take off days as needed and without worry. We did this last year, and we only had about 8 days left to complete by the time May rolled around. We don't take a lot of long breaks, but a 4-day school week isn't uncommon.

I found a nice animal encyclopedia at the end of our animal study for $3 at a used bookstore. It is the Kingfisher Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals. The entries are relatively short, but the feature I was excited about the most is it lists the order, family and sometimes the species for most of the entries. It was very difficult to find that information on-line, and I wanted to introduce my daughter to some of the Latin/Greek vocabulary in action.

I have oregano, thyme and sage that come back every year. I don't water them or anything. The thyme and sage survive, but the oregano really thrives and tries to take over.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful because I haven't seen the program you are talking about, but I'm assuming it is mostly writing prompts? Some people don't believe in doing creative writing in the earlier years, so I'm also not sure what your goal is. I've been immersing myself in books about teaching writing lately, and they all seem to agree that writing prompts tend to be detrimental to young writers when used for creative writing purposes. It seems to be acceptable to use them no earlier than 4th grade only for practicing target skills like grammar. What seems to be more helpful is to assist them in brainstorming what they like to do, places they have been, etc., to give them ideas from which to choose. In the beginning, kids need to write about themselves and what they know, not how they would spend the day if they were a bird (if you know what I'm getting at). It seems to make a lot of sense in theory, but I don't know how well it translates to real life yet ;) I'll let you know after this school year! Trying to get my 1st grader to write a short 2-sentence journal entry last year about "anything" was like pulling teeth...

I got the National Geographic for Kids, and I have been very unhappy with it. As mentioned before, the content is not appropriate for the age range you are seeking, particularly the features (which are really advertisements) for upcoming movies. It was a major waste of money for us. Whenever the Little Kids magazine came out, I emailed customer service (through their online form) asking them to transfer our subscription because of the content. They never responded nor did they change the subscription. I feel like the Little Kids version would be below the level of my child, but I didn't even want her to see the other magazine :( I have several old (like 10 year+) Big Backyards and Ranger Rick magazines given to me by another homeschooling mom. DD especially loves reading the stories in RR, but she is reading at around a 4th grade level. I'm not sure if the magazine format is the same, though.