Thanks for sharing this - what a nice resource! I've picked and pulled from a number of these resources you've listed, I have some of these books and get others from the library. I am adding the history pockets this year for my 2nd and 3rd grader, and I love the world map you had linked. We are going to do our first few lapbooks this year, I got a few from CurrClick's sale (more than we needed), and will check these out as well. Not that I need another curriculum to print off and get ready, I'll be checking it out more thoroughly over the weekend. I feel this is an area we always need to do more in, and this will help me get it done a little easier. The photos of the American History projects looks fun! I'll be adding some along the way of SOTW as we get there. Fun stuff! :hurray:

Thank goodness I'm not the only one. ! We take so many rabbit trails in one week, that we end up in a totally different place than one I thought we would be so I do NOT plan Science, History for sure. I do have a list of the topics we are covering and make sure we touch each topic along the way. But if they want to spend 2 weeks studying Jupiter then we stop and do that. Math I just have to block out the time, and wait and see how quickly things happen. I love my beautiful planner, and wish it could be all filled in for the whole year. For now I have to be happy blocking off the time. Just never going to happen :)

Nice to hear others do special things on the first day too. I'd like to add this to our first day - would you be willing to share it?

If I may ask, why? 2nd grade or 3rd? Does it depend on the child? Is there math at a 4th grade level in it or . . . some other reason? Just trying to understand why and have an advanced mathy lego loving boy also. Would love to add this maybe for us but undecided.

Listening in . . . My 8 yr old boy is doing the same - he is enjoying the Warrior Cat series alot by Erin Hunter. But he really likes cats. It's about cat clans and their lives. She has like 20 books in the series. She has more books about Dog clans, and Bear clans too. http://www.warriorcats.com/books Waiting to hear other suggestions :)

I just got back from the library in search of some classics to read on the deck, in a comfy chair before school starts. I grabbed Austen's Persuasion which I have not yet read, North and South by Gaskell (about Victorian England not the US Civil War), Madame Bovary, and Wuthering Heights. I reread Pride and Prejudice recently, and tried 2 of the "next Pemberly" type books but they were rather boring. Suggestions from the peanut crowd? I'm on an English kick but doesn't have to be.

You could check out Sing Spell Read Write. Complete program, colorful, good amount of writing, low sight words, and you could just use the TM with the student workbooks if you wanted to to keep cost down. (Readers can be found on eBay if you want them fairly cheap - $15-20 per set). There are games if you buy the complete set and an easy resell anytime. ( A plus for me!) The TM is well organized, and the progression I found very thorough for a first grade program.

Thanks for your input everyone. It's pretty stupid that we worry about getting them to read, and then want to pull the reigns back and say - hey not so much reading!! LOL But I believe in what Hunter said too - that there should be a balance in his day. I'll let him have at it as long as chores are getting done and he is getting enough exercise outside and not cranky.

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll take it to heart. Oh - and it's too dark in his room that he shares with his brother to actually read anything. Truly. Dark. But am looking into a book light for him or I've told him he can come down and read in the LR before the others are awake. That's been working.

The 8 yr old is reading the Warrior Books over the summer. He is blowing thru 1 every 2-3 days. My question is, what time limit would you put on reading everyday? He will read non-fictions we have from the library too - but these Warrior books are becoming an obsession. I make sure it's a balance of outside summer time, exploration in the woods and pond, and building with his siblings in their fort (last week they made a huge bridge out of pallets we had in the back of the shed, decorated it with various things, and made a Sumerian oven complete with a long paddle for the bread they were making - I smiled big when they told me :) The thing is; he is hiding the books in his bed and trying to read in the dark in the morning before others are up. Stopped that one. The first thing he wants to do is read when he gets up, not even eat. (Which I don't allow of course. . .) Chores are getting behind. I think If I let him he would read all day and not move off the couch or the deck chairs. It will be blowing snow in a few months and probably 5 below zero, and then I won't mind as much truly. And it's great to see him really enjoying reading. How would you handle and how much time would you give at this age for free reading?

I like using the workbooks and having all the lessons done for us. I looked at the The Complete Writer but have little extra time to dedicate to searching for lit selections. I'm an open and go girl. :) This year I'm getting the student pages as PDF's from the website and then having them bound for each level/student so I don't have to tear out, copy, and keep a master for the child to come. But you could just use plain paper just as easily.

Brandenburg has some great out of print books and novels they've restored. Good stories to supplement history of all kinds. Biographies too. They have the McGuffey Primer and Readers which I thought interesting. . .

Thanks for chiming in and for your experiences. I keep thinking I need to start thinking about more things that would push him forward since he is advanced in math and reading, but I also don't want to push him further than he is able to go too soon and derail him. These help alot! I will wait and see how the next year progresses for him and go from there. . . .

No, no, no!! I was sure I was done for next year! - but I can't pass some of this up - :laugh: Looking now!! Thanks OP for the tip. Their email of the sale went to my promotions folder which I rarely check. Looking at the art, music, and some lit studies.

I have boys 18 months apart. And so far we've done history and science together. At what age would you break this pattern and start the older on more individual work?? And what topics would you introduce that first year? I'm thinking in 4th things should change for him. He is a great reader but will need some help transitioning. How have most of you done this??? He will have done biology, human body, earth science and astronomy, with chemistry the focus for next year (4th grade) not this coming year (3rd grade). We'll be thru SOTW 3 by the start of 4th grade I believe. We are a little behind now and I'm not too concerned about it. Other tips for individual work on the other subjects also appreciated. For his 4th grade year I think we'll be using R and S Grammar and Spelling and probably stick with Singapore Math but maybe add in Beast Academy and online math drill facts and IXL or other programs I've seen talked about. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I feel this pain. There are many different ways to approach geog and I don't have the best way for us yet. (Pair it with history, or science, or lit or do stand alone . . ) This is an area that we need better materials for. Have you looked at Evan Moor Geog? They have Daily Geog Practice, as well as regional books you can find at various online stores, or take it to your seat workbooks. And it's not lit based. After printing off COAH's program, and not really using it. And then trying to do it on my own from the net, I think the EM books now look better to me than I originally thought they were. But I too am still searching. :closedeyes:

We are using Intelligo right now as a guide or intro into content, for my sons 7, and 8 and it's pretty good. My boys want to go deeper so we've added the Nat Geog Kids Space Encyclopedia, DK's 1 Million things about Space, and a box full of Seymour Simon content readers, and other ones (all from the library which I love so I don't spend more money), and use my night atlas. The photos are so engaging I wish every subject was this easy. We have a few other very large reference books that I pull from here and there. (Again, library). Then we do a notebook page, and illustrate the topic. Since this isn't a hard push we do it 4 times a week. I have topics planned for the next 4 months, but any time schedule can be created with Intelligo. We are adding more topics than they cover, but only because we want to. It's been awhile but I'm sure I can send you a few pages as a sample if you want to see the unit study. Just let me know.

We used SSRW first, then I bought Phonics Pathways and AAS - and used the tiles from AAS to build words and make it a little more fun. Both SSRW and PP are very solid programs. PP is the least expensive by far. But we have more fun with SSRW - so it's up to you! You can piece SSRW together on eBay for less than the full kit online if you want to.

FWIW - I have boxes and boxes of materials ahead ( I know I'll be cutting back things just like you are now) - and next to them are the 36 and 72 count boxes of my favorite chocolate bars. Ha! :drool:

Ok here's what we do . . . We read aloud alot, we define new words we run across as we read them. When they speak the words they use are wonderful. When we do science they will write out definitions of the new concept words we learn. (I guess we should keep them in a special child created dictionary or something, right now they are just in their science notebooks.) Oh - we have Word Ladders by 2 different companies that brings up new vocab, we do those 2 or 3 x a week but just for fun. Should I be doing more? Do I need a vocab program at this age? We are starting GSWL and SSL come fall also. There's new vocab there I think. I'm not sure there is really time to add another program to our day. But I'll listen to your thoughts and take recommendations. I've seen a few posts about vocab where people dropped it saying it was not really worth it etc.

I agree with Arcadia on the need for it. I used them, but we probably could have done without them. I'm not the best at printing things off consistently, so I like to always have more than we need. Shot in the dark - I just checked to see if I could mail it out for you cheaper here and have you paypal me, but it was 42.00 cheapest slowest way so no savings there. Ouch!! Print from MEP :)

I use sticky tabs while we are reading to mark a page with a passage on it that grabs my attention. Good grammar, vocab, and structure. Then I don't have to go back and look for it when it's time to do narration or copywork. It was very helpful and less frustrating. :) I encouraged them to illustrate it if they felt led to, but didn't require it every time. I like Critterfixers idea about doing chapter summary narrations also.

Sounds like you have most of it. The new workbooks would be good to have. The readers you can take or leave, just supplement with other good books in lieu of them. I have a both versions of the readers, and the older ones are more fun I think to read with better stories. They really got watered down in the revision. There's a set on eBay now if you want them: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sing-Spell-Read-Write-Readers-1-17-/181442322661?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a3ece20e5 and they come up almost every week. If you want it you can get the PreK activity sheet set from Rainbow Resource I think they still sell it. They are nice to extend lessons and reinforce. Plus it is a big pack and it helped us here to keep little hands busy and do her own school sheets while the older ones worked. Overall SSRW is very easy to use, and we enjoyed it here. And the little one learned alot from hearing the Level 1 songs, it surprised me to hear her sings the songs too when she was just 3. Have fun with it!

You are what you read, watch and eat. This has turned out to be really true! Who knew?? lol We are a reflection of what goes into our minds and ultimately our souls. The TV and the net sources out there are highly monitored here. For content. I don't need my kids to see such disrespect for others, (especially parents and elders) sex, or graphic vampire type shows. I remembered being scarred by my husbands game Resident Evil - (and I was 24 at the time!!). We don't live in a dark cave, but we have no regular TV. We were spending more time searching the guide channel for something good than actually watching. The day that ABC Family showed Coyote Ugly on a Saturday afternoon did it for us. Plus the commercials now are so terrible. It seems all they want us to focus on is sex. And more of it. We rotate classic shows for evening times or when it's raining out or we feel like watching one: Waltons, Little House, Grizzly Adams, Gilligan's Island. Even Hogan's Heroes and others of course. And we enjoy the old cartoons like GI Joe, Strawberry Shortcake, Peanuts, Old Looney Tunes and Pink Panther for some mornings. Our shows are chosen. And we spend more than enough time with it. Americans' are now so fat and lazy I believe BECAUSE of the magic box everyone now has hanging in their rooms. We have Netflix and I get a ton of shows from the library along with others we have purchased over the years. ****Food for thought: At a soccer game just last week, 4 Mom's on a blanket not even watching their sons, heads down, surfing, and texting. What is so important it can't wait??? While TV and media sources can be fun don't get me wrong, they can be also very addictive and lead to bad behaviors, concepts, and missing out on life. I love TV, but I think of all I could've done without it. I'd have 5 languages under my belt by now.

Listening in. . . . :lurk5: