:iagree:

both of my girls went through this phase around 3 or 4. Luckily sister or brother going with her was sufficient. If the others are older, maybe they would be willing to accompany for a while? My ds3.5 hasn't (and hopefully won't) hit this phase yet. FWIW, the phase didn't last long.

Where two or more are gathered there is much silliness at our house. Dc are 3.5, 5 and 7. I know the day will come when they are not so happy to just be silly together and that it will be quieter, but kind of sad too.

Lucky for me - and especially our kids - DH is an artist. I can usually get away with saying "ask Daddy when he gets home. If you are going to try and do big projects they make projectors specially for people to trace something small into something big. You learn these kind of things when you can't draw:001_smile:

:party: Congratulations! Our first day (yesterday) went great! Even managed to fit kindergarten and preschool into the 2nd grader's school schedule (I was worried about it) Today - not so good - harder to schedule we have CBS for 2 hours in the morning and I have to figure out better how to work around that.

[ But, I still feel that dh and I are just surviving, not fully living and enjoying our life. Yes, we are in a busy season with young kids, but shouldn't it be more than surviving? We do have good moments and good days, but lots of just survival days - yearning for the day to be done, the kids to be in bed, and just to read or watch TV. I dread tomorrow often, I don't think it should be like that! Is this mostly depression???? Or, do we need to be working on these other things? Some of that (maybe even a lot of that) is the stage in life. It is amazing how our small children who we love so very muchcan suck the energy right out of us. I agree with what others have said. I really the like the idea of you and your husband each making priority lists and then coming together to discuss them. If things are at the bottom of both lists, they could be dropped for this season in life and taken up again later (if you still want to)

good point my dd7 writes very well and very neatly, which is I why I was comfortable going into copywork more as handwriting "practice" so to speak. If she was still having trouble with forming her letters correctly we would still be using a book.

For 1st grade last year we did a handwriting workbook (usually just from Walmart or the Dollartree). For this year (2nd Grade) handwriting is copywork from a notebook I have of quotes that I have written on kindergarten or second grade ruled paper. If we do cursive we will go back to a workbook of some kind.

I love tea and have for years and the only thing I use are tea bags, and I recently started collecting and usung tea pots. I like mint teas, especially with a little bit of honey or agave nectar. Hot cider is really good for those cold morning too. Peach tea is wonderful also. Celestial Seasonings has a great new tea - Acia Berry Mango Zinger. I've heard/read it is best to let the water almost come to a boil, but not quite, I don't usually do that since I have a whistling tea kettle and I usually forget I put water on until it starts screaming at me.

I'm trying to decide this as well. We just started 2nd grade yesterday. I was thinking that we may start cursive after Christmas. Her handwriting is beautiful, but I want her to have more options. I use both print and cursive and a combination of the two, but I have noticed that cursive is faster - and thus works better for things like taking notes or journaling. My dd7 already has neater writing than her dad, who's cursive is completely illegible and has to print to be read.

How old is your little one? I do think age plays into it. How much do they like reading other things? Does it just not seem to be sticking? I think it is more an observation game than a guessing game.

Will they still do that even if you got it from somewhere else? I ordered mine from Walmart 2 years ago.

I wouldn't worry about the switching hands for writing, let him experiment. I do think he need his eyes checked by an eye doctor. The squinting would concern me and he is not too young to see a professional.

My copy was missing pages 6-7 and 10-11. I've had it for two years and only noticed it last week because I was starting the book with my younger daughter (we started with Phionics Pathways with my older daughter before we discovered OPGTR). I checked out a copy from the library and am taping those pages into my book (the pages were there, but nothing was printed on them).

You may want to check out Spelling Power from the library and see if that works for him. It is not just a workbook and you only study the words that you don't know how to spell. It may be worth a try.

Last year when we did 1st grade. I would let her take a break after 3 subjects (same plan this year). In theory the breaks were only auposed to be 15 minutes, but I wasn't good at enforcing it. Also all 3 kids have quiet time for 2 hours (how long the youngest was sleeping) after lunch. We rarely finished before 4 or so, unless she was reallly ambitious. For example today we finished most of school in three hours (still have history, piano and drawing) with one 15 minute break and 1 ten minute break. (1st day of 2nd grade)

I have notebooks all over the place, so/but I keep most of my records on the computer. I have my weekly lesson plan for all three kids that I do on excel - it has two columns one for the specifics (lesson #s, pages, titles, etc) and one left blank for any of my notes. Anything we all do together (me reading out loud, CBS) is at the top and then they are listed by age. Right now one week printed out is three pages long. I will keep these for all year and then put them in an envelope or folder (I just don't like throwing things like that away just yet) and start a new one each year. I have a different folder that I put book report forms, or other things that have caught my interest enough to print out, but that I haven't decided when (or if) we will use.

I think it will be great! That is our history plan for 2nd grade (same for 1st last year). It works great for us and all of my kids love history (even the 5yo and 3.5yo. I can't think of anything else you need. Maybe read a few of the supplemental books listen in the activity guide when interest is there (or you think about it an advance).

Just read more posts, You may want to switch to Spelling Power if you are going to change how you do it anyway. It should only take about 15 per day, but you only study words you don't know and the book goes all the way up through high school and adult levels.

I think it is alot to do both History and science everyday - we alteratnate, because they both take quite a bit of time. I also saw SWR on both lists (isn't that spelling?), maybe once a day would be enough?

We are just starting FLL2 (same book as FLL1). FLL1 introduced nouns, verbs and punctuation/sentence tyoes (statement, question, exclamation). It is very easy and only narration days take us more than 5-10 minutes (copywork sometimes included in that). Each lesson is only about 1 page long - I don't think any are over 2 pages and it really seems to cover the basics.

We just finished SOTW 1. My dd(7) and I really enjoyed it and had no trouble identifying fact from story or illustration. SWB makes clear what is supposition and where that comes from. Try it out see how your kids do with it and correct or at least make clear things that you don't think are accurate.

My 3-1/3 yo boy loves to do puzzles. I just have to train him to do only have one out at a time (they are small jigsaw puzzles 25-100 pieces and when 2 - 63 piece Care Bear puzzles get mixed together it makes me crazy.

My 2nd grade dd does quite a bit of writing during the day, but I do try to alternate writing and reading so that there is not too much all at once. However, I have noticed that she complains that she needs a break because her hand hurts - I give her a break and she writes or draws!:001_huh:, so you may need to determine if writing is the problem, or writing grammar (or any subject) is the problem.

We are just starting BJU Math K5, it sounds like that would probably work. For my older dd, we did math workbooks from Dollartree. Only other thing is maybe some practice tracing letters and numbers, not necessarily a handwriting book, at this age it is very hard for them to make the letters on their own, but tracing is good practice.