I agree with another poster... if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Unit studies work well for your family, keep using them. Who cares what CM said about it? Things are so vastly different today. Unit studies were the most painful thing we ever tried with our eldest. He LOATHED it. Absolutely and utterly. And we tried three of them before it occured to dense mom that it was unit studies he couldn't tolerate, in general, and not the particular program! I can totally see them working for my younger son, however, as he learns completely differently and *needs* connections made for him. I won't do a formal program with him but do keep his learning style in mind.

Good for you! If you're like me, the stress is in the choosing not in the teaching! I also debated and debated what to do between LFC and Lively Latin and we have just been thrilled with our choice. (We went with LL and it's been so clear.)

I have one! I'm not so sure my sons will be finding ladybugs here in a couple of weeks.

Wonderful links! I'm going to spend the evening checking them out. My library seems to have a not very good online catalog. "Switzerland Fiction" finally did show Heidi but it showed a bunch of books that have absolutely zero to do with Switzerland (not even in passing), so it took a while to wade through. Our library does have "A to Zoo" on their reference shelf now that I had a title to work with. Picture books are generally easy to find on Amazon and the library system, it was the longer chapter books that weren't/aren't showing up. So hopefully this will help some! And definitely looking at "All Through the Ages" as well! That sounds so helpful!

We read and loved the one on Albert Einstein in that series! Good to hear others in the series are worthwhile.

I'm having a terrible time finding longer books set in a particular location (that is, Japan or Germany or Mexico). I can find non-fiction books about the country with no problem on our library website and then using Amazon to ferret out more titles. But for the life of me I cannot come up with a search that will help me find longer books . For example, "Heidi" by Spyri doesn't come up on the library searches for the Alps or Switzerland. Or even "Night of the Ninjas" (a Magic Treehouse Book) doesn't come up for Japan searches. Any tips? A website that works wonders for searching the setting of children's books? A search term that will help me narrow this down? A reference book at the library?

I do, on our family website! :) Tiger and Panda

Lively Latin! It's been wonderful and the teaching is so clear. We did Song School Latin when my eldest was 7 and it was pretty much below him but the songs *were* fun. We'd already done Prima Latina when he was 6, however, and this was a filler while I tried to figure out how to proceed. Our younger son was 4 at the time and he learned a bunch without it being a formal program for him -- he just liked listening along. If you really like the Latina Christiana series I'd start with LC I with those ages. We liked PL just fine but my son *loves* Lively Latin. We learned well with PL but I think it'd be too young/easy for two of your kids, maybe all three. Everything in PL is learned again in LC I so you're safe skipping it. I will say that we've dropped the history in Lively Latin altogether because it didn't work out with what we were already doing. The actual Latin lessons are clear and have lots of review. We're in Chapter 11, btw, of 16 and still going strong. I expect to use LL 2 next. Even though we liked Prima Latina I didn't like the looks of LC I. It looked confusing to me as the teacher; I never had Latin in school (or elsewhere!) so I needed something clear. I was very, very torn between LFC and LL... but in the end I am so glad with the decision we made! It's worked out well and Latin is one of my son's favorite subjects. It's super easy for me to teach and learn alongside him. I'm having a blast with it, to be honest. :)

You are in many ways describing my 8 yo, 2nd grade son! Singapore was a huge nightmare: tears everyday. MUS was completely foreign to him; he loathes manipulatives. His strenghts are in language and drawing and he loves to read; math and numbers, not so much. We did R&S 1 about 2 years ago (he was 6) and he liked it to start with but it really, really bogged him down after a while. That's when we tried Singapore, MUS, and so on. We did MCP for kindergarten, btw, and he liked it just fine but it wasn't enough practice really for him. Just not enough cementing of what he'd already learned. We're using Saxon and have LOVED it. I know Singapore is the popular math program on this board lately but Saxon was suggested in WTM and we finally tried it. What a breath of fresh air! I had avoided it because people said it bored their kids. Maybe it will get more so at the higher levels but right now the variety is awesome and we're not presented with a page full of the same kind of problem over and over again. My son actually says he's "good at math" now. Doesn't love it but he doesn't hate it either. He loves that there is a variety of problems on each page. No silly graphics. No distracting colors. Skills are taught in steps, he masters them, and is able to move on to the next step with confidence. I am so, so glad that I went with SWB's advice on math! It's been such a wonderful program. The further we go the happier I am with it. We went back and did all of Saxon 1 and are 2/3rds of the way done with Saxon 2. We love R&S English btw so I had considered a return to R&S Math but it just wasn't the right fit for how he learns and Saxon has been wonderful. My younger son loves numbers and math and even so I plan to use Saxon as our main program.

I'm a bit late tonight but I did get our photo up. :) Our family blog

Take a look at TruthQuest History. It's not the four-year history cycle but it's been wonderful. We have covered soooo much material. We had planned on doing SOTW originally but when it came down to it, it was a terrible fit for us when our son was 6. We went with American History since he was excited about it and it's been wonderful. We're studying Ancient Greece right now with TQ and it's going great. Here's the website: www.truthquesthistory.com There's an active forum on Yahoo Groups and discussions on TQ show up here often as well.

We're about 2.5 months into using R&S 2 and we're really loving it. We usually have him write one section and do the rest orally. My plan is to stay with it all the way through for both boys. Right now, we'll definitely start the younger boy in R&S 2 as well. FLL was a HUGE flop here. DS loathed it and learned nothing of value. :(

We are doing both but started with Latin. We are finding that the Elementary Greek program we're using (by Open Texture) moves quicker through the grammar than the Latin programs we've used so we're very, very glad we started with Latin. We've always planned on doing both, btw, but I am so glad we started in this order. We have "hooks" if you will from our familiarity with Latin to hang the Greek grammar and format onto. I'm not sure we'd be doing so well with the Greek at this point if we didn't. We're obviously fairly young here and our eldest *loves* languages so take my comments with a grain of salt!

My son liked some of the ones mentioned: A to Z Mysteries (followed up by Capital Mysteries by the same author) Encyclopedia Brown Cam Jansen mysteries -- and there are Young Cam Jansen mysteries that are shorter, reader style; he may be "past" those but they'd introduce the character to him Dinosaur Cove series Magic School Bus series Andrew Lost series

We'd be using FIAR with my 8 year old if he didn't FIGHT me about it, so I totally understand looking for something you can do that is both interesting and educational that won't cause a lot of "discussion". You've got math and reading and those are always my must haves if things are going to go haywire. Still thinking about using FIAR for the younger one. I think he'd love it, actually... and maybe it would sneak something interesting in for the older boy. Hmmm.

We'd be using FIAR with my 8 year old if he didn't FIGHT me about it, so I totally understand looking for something you can do that is both interesting and educational that won't cause a lot of "discussion". You've got math and reading and those are always my must haves if things are going to go haywire. Still thinking about using FIAR for the younger one. I think he'd love it, actually... and maybe it would sneak something interesting in for the older boy. Hmmm.

We just started All About Spelling with our 2nd grader and I am so impressed. He's a fantastic reader but an atrocious speller. We have used Explode the Code (not really spelling but phonics review), then SpellWell, then straight dictation for months. He actually asked me for something with clear rules because he was frustrated with not knowing how to spell what he wanted to spell. His spelling is rather creative. Here's their website link: http://www.all-about-spelling.com/

Definitely switch paper! My son had the same issue; he writes much better on smaller-lined paper (and that dashed line drove him NUTS).

We learn them before we move on that way the worksheets/lessons are using words we are already familiar with so we can focus on what she's trying to teach and not struggle with what the Latin is saying. I literally do cut the grid apart and make flashcards using half an index card. I glue the printed out Latin words on one side and write the English in pencil on the other. We review it once a day until he has them down and then we move on. It takes 3-5 school days for us to learn them and move on. Then we do review the previous flashcards periodically and at random times I'll hear him chanting the chants to himself as he draws or rides his scooter or what have you. They get stuck in the brain!

This is too old for your eldest yet, but it may work eventually for you: http://classicalacademicpress.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3

Very cool! :)

20 minutes is plenty here to finish but it may depend on the program. We're doing Saxon 2 and we do the meeting book/calendar, drill sheet (25 problems), introduce new topics, and then he does the worksheet. For us, we've been making steady progress and he understands what he's doing. So I'd count that as successful but we're also only talking about an 8 year old, so as time goes on I expect we'll spend more time. HTH!

A couple more... All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor The Children of Noisy Village series by Astrid Lindgren Fairchild Family Story series by Rebecca Caudill (first one is called Happy Little Family)

Hand raised here too! We're doing Bigger with extensions with the 8.5 yo and Little Hands with the 4.5 yo. Older boy is doing DITHOR as well. :)

Little Bo Little Bo in France both by Julie Andrews Edwards (about a sweet little cat) The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles also by Julie Andrews Edwards (make believe animals/creatures) The Mice of the Herring Bone series by Tim Davis (probably not what you are looking for but our eldest *loves* this series of good mice fighting bad dog pirates alongside the Queen's navy who are all cats) The Cricket in Times Squares series (we especially liked the second one, Tucker's Countryside) The Lighthouse Family series by Cynthia Rylant (early chapter books but we did them as read alouds for the 4 year old) Freddy the Pig series (the first one had us laughing and laughing; we've listened to a number on CD-book)