Ditto. We have an 1898 concert upright that is "normally" tuned (meaning it sounds like any other piano I know). It plays beautifully. I know there can be significant structural issues with antique pianos that make it imperative to have one professionally evaluated before you purchase, but if yours is in good working order, I can't imagine why the tuner is taking exception. Did he then offer to sell you a new one? Or buy yours? And I also agree, pianos have soul. I have trouble "connecting" to shiny black ones. We bought ours from the grand daughter of the original owner (well, more precisely, the child for whom it was purchased). It has lived all over the country and has been played by four generations before coming to live with us. Good energy. :thumbup1:

I use Homeschool Tracker to do something like you described. I created a "lesson plan schedule" reflecting our general week at a glance, added lesson plans for each subject, then submitted the lesson plans (using the schedule) to the assignment grid for each child. There's a nice preview feature that lets you look at the assignments it has generated before you commit, which can help alert you to any issues (like the realization that, at 5 days/week, we would finish third grade grammar in January) and make adjustments to the schedule. Then, I'll just print out the daily assignments for the next month or so, and stick it in a notebook. I'm not sure if the lesson plan feature is available in the free "Basic" version.

And have since first grade (our 4th math program). There is plenty of material; I don't think we have ever done every page of a book. We don't test, just get to the place where my 7 year old has mastered the topic, then we move on to the next topic or book. We're getting ready to start third grade and are halfway through Multiplication 1. (mainly because we've been dragging our feet through memorizing the tables) I can't imagine that there is that much meat in the shapes department - how many basic shapes could there be that kids haven't picked up well before first grade? :confused:

Oh, good. I was actually returning to edit - first, GWG also has diagramming, which I've always found helpful (it starts in 3rd grade and is part of the natural flow, not a unit in itself). Also, I don't want to imply that I don't think writing is valuable; my 7 year old writes in the course of her studies. I just don't think critical analysis of a 7 year old's writing (picking apart passive/active voice, demanding conventions be followed, etc) serves a great purpose in the context of grammar, other than causing anxiety and possibly overshadowing the learning of the mechanics.

I haven't used SF, but we do use GWG and it's the first grammar program we've actually completed, let alone ordered for the next year. Looking at the 2nd grade SF samples online, I'd say they are fairly similar in style and, in general what they cover. SF covers more style related writing topics, particularly writing for tests, whereas GWG covers homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, dictionary use and writing a friendly letter. GWG has two pages per lesson, three lessons per topic. In the 2nd grade there are 95 lessons, plus three review lessons at the end of each topic (i.e. verbs). There is no test prep, presumably because the Tamela Davis, the author, was writing for a homeschool audience. I really have no idea who would expect a second grader to write the pieces SF has, or be cognizant of active/passive voice, or using a scoring rubric to determine whether an author's writing is good. Frankly, those exercises (minus the scoring rubric) were the focus of English 101 in college, and can certainly be addressed much further down the educational career than early elementary school, with kids at an age where holding the pencil and putting something legible and fairly accurately spelled is a challenge. (we will ignore for the moment the rest of the rant about how the grammar stage is for soaking up the rules, not honing self-expression :D) I would say that GWG is the gentler approach, and I think it covers more. Aside from my jumping up and down, did that help at all? Peace, Angela

Thanks! I was wondering if I should do 20-30 minutes a few times a week or a shorter period 5 days a week. (and for the life of me, I can't remember if I had Latin every day when I took it in high school... my mind, like Swiss cheese!) It seems like the few times a week will drag it out to the place where I'm belaboring the point. My plan is to do one lesson over two weeks, since there is a lot of content. That should take us out to 32 weeks. On a completely unrelated topic, Alane, can I ask how you like 100 Easy Lessons? I ordered it to use with my 4-year-olds, but it hasn't arrived yet. Their pre-K schedule is next on my to-do list.

Try Googling "lighting gel". They're available from a whole slew of places, in rolls or sheets. :)

We do, using Homeschool Tracker +. You can populate the book information with their ISBN lookup feature, which makes it really easy, either as a resource (part of your curriculum) or under the student reading log. At the end of the year, we just print out the list to include it in our year-end review.

Hi! I've lurked here on the boards for a while, and have found great resources and tips. Thanks, everyone! I had to actually register, though, because I am polishing my lesson plan schedule for our school year and the one item I have left is Latin. We will be using Lively Latin (found right here and exactly what I was looking for) and I'm just not sure how to incorporate it into our schedule; three days / week? Five? Right now, our week looks something like: Grammar: Growing With Grammar, 4 days Handwriting: Spencerian, 5 days Spelling: ??, 4 days Math: Mammoth Math Mult/Div, 4 days History: SOTW 3, 4 days French: First Start French, 5 days Science: Living Learning Books Chemistry, 2 days Reading: ad hoc (we read books, what we're doing and how we schedule it depends on the book itself) We also have piano lessons on Tuesday mornings and our homeschool co-op will begin meeting on Friday mornings in September. There are also a monthly book club and art classes to be scheduled in at some point. So, I'm wondering... for those who use Lively Latin, how do YOU schedule it? Thanks!