The Nine Lives of Aristotle by Dick King-Smith is hilarious. It's more a short chapter book but my 7 yo and I just read it and he laughed a ton. Warning: Aristotle's owner is a witch, although quite sweet, but it can't be edited out if that's a problem as there are drawings throughout (and she's always in the big black pointed hat, etc.).

We use TruthQuest as our "spine" if you will. We aren't currently using a narrative like This Country of Ours because we just didn't click with any we tried. There tend to be some good overview books that cover a time period that gives us the framework to fit all the more specific books. DS *adores* history. He would have us read about it for hours a day. We pick our own books from the list and always search for others if needed. Some topics covered in the guide we skip and others we camp on for a while. We don't do a lot of hands-on but we are doing a little summary page on different people as we go along. I always wanted to use Sonlight but it wasn't a good fit for us when it came right down to it. I'm not sure we'll continue with TQ after we make it through the first three guides, but for now we're sticking with it. It's not as hard as it seemed at first; I let go of lining up everything perfectly and if a book comes in a little late, we read it anyway and enjoy.

That's very similar to us here as well for actual seatwork. We do math, Latin, phonics & reading, copywork, and memory work (poetry/bible verses) in 60-75 minutes each morning. We will add spelling and grammar when he's in 2nd grade (and/or doing 2nd grade work which will probably be mid-year). We do lots of other things throughout the day but it's not really seatwork (history, science, literature, art appreciation, hands-on art, PE, music appreciation). It can go amazingly fast can't it?

The "If You Lived with..." books were wonderful here. Others have mentioned them but I'll repeat them since they have a ton of information. Books for: Indians of the Northwest Coast, Hopi, Cherokees, Iroquois, Sioux. These next two are both simpler but overview the groups in a quick manner: The Very First Americans by Cara Ashrose and North American Indians by David Gosline. My eldest son pulls them out all the time just to flip through. We've also enjoyed the series by Bobbie Kalman with books like Life in a Longhouse Village and Life in a Plains Camp for more details/pictures but if I had to pick I'd go with the "If You Lived" books. By far, the book that was most loved by DS was Who Were the First North Americans by Philippa Wingate. It's in the Usborne "Starting Point History" series and was filled with lots of tidbits. He pores over it. More Than Mocassins has a bunch of ideas for crafts and costumes and games and so on. Our library had a fair number of "Native American" type activity books. Yours probably will too. We don't do them (our son wasn't interested) but Evan-Moor has History Pockets as well: Native Americans for Grades 1-3. HTH!

We've only been officially homeschooling for a few years so our list is fairly short: Handwriting Without Tears ETC Get Set, Get Ready, Go For the Code (the rest of the books were terrible for DS) R&S Math TruthQuest History (we'll do all the American History for the young students... not sure after that)

"Annie and Snowball" series... Cynthia Rylant, who writes the "Henry and Mudge" series, has recently spun off a series about Henry's cousin Annie. You might try those as well. My son likes them okay since he knows who Annie is from the Henry books but they are definitely more "girl". "Annie and Snowball and the Prettiest House" "Annie and Snowball and the Dress-Up Birthday" Those two for sure are out as our library has them both.

Many we read were already listed but we also enjoyed a series by Dick King-Smith at that age... it's about a little girl named Sophie and her pets. "Sophie's Snail" is the first one and it's delightful. There are six books in the series. I can't wait to read them to the next one coming along. :-) I'll get to enjoy them all over again. "Babe" by him was also wonderful.

We're using level 1. We've made our own flashcards with index cards and use those. I also use manipulatives in teaching concepts but we easily made the ducks from the teacher's manual and used those from many things. We also have blocks, frog counters, etc. to use as necessary. It looks like we're one of the few ones who use the blacklines but we do. DS really needs time for some things to cement. If it's obvious something isn't sticking we've stopped progress in the lessons and just used blacklines for a few days to a few weeks. In fact, that's all he's done last week and this week. There are some blacklines like coloring the right coins and the dot-to-dots that he was glad to have... just something that seemed like a fun reward at the end of the lesson. (Not sure what they have in the higher levels.) We do *some* of the extras. They have helped. I just choose to do them when I know it is helpful or he'd enjoy them. If we do the extras we do them all first and we use a little lap white board to write them out. Concepts are introduced in that way before they show up on their worksheets, and DS has loved being familiar with something when he did have to do the problem. He's a very auditory and social learner so for now he's not doing it independently. I sit right with him. On things he knows he zooms along but for things that he is learning he vocalizes the problem and I talk him through it. I don't expect that's how most kids are but this is an area he has struggled in (math). The basic summary: we do flashcards, then the speed drill if there is one, then we do any of the extra before/after activities, then the worksheet, and finally any fun extras like the dot-to-dots. If he needs more practice we'll do a blackline sheet the next day. I correct on the fly as he's doing the work and he erases and fixes immediately. Hope that helps!

She has a website with additional reviews on it, btw! http://www.cathyduffyreviews.com I've found it quite helpful.

We love it here! We've used it from preschool through the 1st grade book. DS has quite legible print and enjoys the books. We'll use it with our younger son for sure.

AHYS is "American History for Young Students" and AOR is "Age of Revolution". Each one has 3 volumes, btw. You can read more here: TruthQuest History Buy/Sample page

We're using Phonics Pathways (PP) with our wiggly very auditory son who loathes busy work. He adores PP however. He detests ETC although we've done books 1 & 2 slowly over about 2 years. With PP we read the list of words and/or sentences and he's done (5 minutes max). We do it twice a week right now; he needs time in between to let it simmer. The other three days he reads me from early readers. Sometimes he clicks with the new thing and sometimes we just do the same page(s) over again. Sometimes we don't even read the words but have him write out 4 or 5 words from the list and we're done. Very short to the point lessons with no scripting. He knows what to expect and I can pace it to fit where he's at. His reading is taking off, he isn't complaining about doing the PP, and it's easy for me to teach. Our library had it so we tried it for a while first before I bought a copy.

Thanks, Karen, that does help! Looks like the first book might be a good fit for our oldest.

How do you like it? It looks interesting to me but I can't figure out the age ranges... it shows up too small on the screen for my old eyes. Can you tell me what ages you are using it with?

I like the idea of doing the flashcards for LC I and also doing Lingua Angelica. Rhondabee - I had definitely considered Spanish but DH nixed the idea earlier. I think his concern is that it will be confusing for him. (Our library has a huge section of books in Spanish and it seems Spanish resources are everywhere.) It's definitely on my radar as a possibility... hmmm.

Hi Shannon! That's a great suggestion... especially sine we did that book over the holiday break and DS loved it. (He was calling himself "servus" tonight while washing the dishes...)

We're going to be finishing up Prima Latina very shortly. DS *adores* it. He has always loved playing with words. We've done it orally this year. I'd like to give him another year before we start something like Latina Christiana or Latin for Children so that his reading has more time to catch up. However, he would LOVE to keep learning more vocabulary. Latin is one of his favorite subjects. Could I use one of these programs or something else and do the vocab ONLY this next year? Has anyone done that? What program (if any) would you recommend we use?

We're gluten free and it definitely affects behavior here. We're also Feingold (http://www.feingold.org) Stage 1, casein free, soy free, peanut/cashew free, and perfume/dye free. I completely agree with JamBerry that eliminating all foods that have gluten is easier at first than replacing them... the kids don't like the new foods if they just ate a wheat waffle yesterday, for example. But 4-6 weeks later when you introduce them to a new rice flour muffin, they are thrilled and gobble it up. (At least, that was our experience.) There are tons of websites talking about gfcf diets ("gluten free casein free") which would give advice and recipes even if you don't go casein free too. I also definitely recommend the book "Is This Your Child?". Our library had it and it helped *enormously* when my son was 2 years old and I was wondering what in the world was going on. Our family eats almost 100% for the most restrictive member. DH *does* eat a few things the rest of us don't (like cream; even I can't handle casein). We eat a large variety of foods... tons of veggies, fruit, meats, eggs; and also a variety of grains (rice, corn, buckwheat, millet). We don't get sick often and we're all at healthy weights. ;-) To give you an idea of what we feed them: Breakfasts might be stuffed eggs & rice; buckwheat waffles & sunflower seed butter; a gluten free breakfast sausage and bananas; grapefruit, melons, bananas for fruit. Lunches have things like turkey deli meat, split pea soup, turkey vegetable soup, fried fish in small pieces, hamburgers, quick steaks, tuna salad, chicken salad; always fruit like melon, bananas, grapefruit, mango, figs, olives, pineapple, pears. Usually a gfcf muffin or rice or leftover waffle or cornbread. Dinner is things like meatloaf, roast turkey, fish, hamburgers, turkey burgers, pork chops, stir-fry shrimp, roasts; always veggies such as acorn or butternut squash, zucchini, potatoes (sweet or white), corn, peas, okra, green beans, lima beans, turnips, etc. Also rice or muffin or cornbread. Hope this helps a little... we eat differently but we also don't eat that different if that makes sense.

Just thinking out loud here a bit... Could you use FIAR but actually buy the books instead of the library? I know some are OOP and wouldn't be practical (unless you could get to the library for that one), but many are such classics that they have them in paperback form all over the place. I've seen a number at garage sales, thrift shops, etc. and definitely see them listed all the time used. Oh, another thought... What about having your husband swing by the library on his way to or from work or on his lunch break? Not sure if your library is like this, but ours lets you put books "on hold" even if they are available somewhere in the system. They just grab a copy and send it to my designated branch and put it on the "holds" shelf. You could have 3 or 4 "on hold" from the FIAR list at any time and use the ones that come in first that way. (You could even have them sent to a branch near where your husband works instead of the one closer to home if that makes it easier for him... obviously I'm in a city with more than one branch library!) Just some random thoughts to make FIAR work for you. It's a wonderful program!

We planned on doing the count this year too... I had forgotten all about it until you posted. THANKS!

Looks like you've decided but I'll throw another vote out for not needing the DVDs. I have no Latin background at all but the teacher's guide has been plenty clear and the CD was helpful. It's all we've needed at this level.

Thank you! I enjoyed that very much... definitely something to share with my DH tonight!

Maybe you were thinking of My Father's World? (http://www.mfwbooks.com)

We're the same way: DH is adamant that we not introduce Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. too early. We have discussed ad nauseum just using textbooks and adding living books to that. For now, we're not but it's still in the back of our minds as the backup plan. What we have done is gone with TruthQuest American History. It took a bit to get rolling but now we both absolutely love it. Our discussions are really wonderful and we've not been upset with any book she recommends. We definitely edit extensively; I may check out 5 books for a topic and keep only one. (Sometimes our library doesn't have any she recommends so I grab what I can on the topic.) A couple of times we've just dropped the topic altogether and moved on. She saves Egypt/Greece for 5th grade. Our plan is to do the American History guides for 1st - 3rd and then do a year of Old Testament history and bible geography in 4th. Oh, and probably some state history/geography that year as well. TruthQuest *has* taken time for me every few weeks to flip through the new books and decide what we will or won't use. That may not be the best fit for you because of the time spent picking. I think My Father's World would definitely be something to look at as well as other's have recommended. They also save ancient history for later (4th grade). Their program is complete with the books they sell in the kit; you don't have to ever check out or buy an extra book. They're also on my "backup" plan.

I've had my eye on these trying to decide if it was worth buying or not. Thanks so much for the positive review!