I second the zinc recommendation. And if you need more help than that, try a sulfur mask-you can get them at drugstores and they help a lot.

I feel this way too this year. My oldest is in 6th. What I am doing is working on simplifying our routine so that we are done by at least lunchtime every day. We are doing nature study for part of our science this year, so at least once a week we have an educational reason to walk. I tried to stack outside activities on to as few days as possible to give us a couple of free days at home. And I am debating having one of those free afternoons be "family project time" where we can cook something special, or make a craft, or do something seasonal. With tea of course :).

Yes, thank you for the warning! We are nearly done with it. I am going to have to pre-read now. We've really enjoyed it so I would hate for it to end on a bad note.

Thank you so much! Bookmarking to keep my four year old busy:)

I do pretty much no lesson planning. I start thinking about what we will use for the following year the January before. Over the summer I sit down and think about how much time we will spend each week doing each subject/piece of curriculum and come up with some sort of routine which I print out each week and check off. After that, it's pretty much just do the next thing.

Right there with ya ;).

My kids are doing Nanowrimo too! They loved it last year and my oldest has already started her plotting. I am thinking of doing it alongside them.

Ours is up. Better late than never, right?

I would just continue with it and not worry too much about whether or not he gets everything. Parts of speech are extensively reviewed in Grammar Town, which I am going through with mine now. Even I get a bit confused sometimes, but the importance for me is not that they can identify every part of speech every time, but that we are going through the process of analyzing the language and learning to think in new ways.

Ours is here: Week 5.

I also have a 9 y.o. reluctant writer. He has been doing great this year with Writing Strands 3.

Mine hardly slept at all :glare:. But they did sleep much better on their bellies. I was too nervous to let them do it at night-but during the day I was okay with putting them on their belly and I just kept an eye on them. And at night they were always in our bed so they slept a little better even on their backs-though of course that option is not popular among the doctors either...

My 6th grader is using Sonlight science Core D. I love it because I don't have to very involved ;). Science is a hard thing for me to fit in. But she just does the readings-and the books are great-and answers the questions on the activity sheet. All I have to do is check the answers and I can tell how much she understands. The TOPS kits SL includes have been a big hit too, though they are a little bit of a pain for me to fit in b/c they have to be scheduled daily for four weeks at a time.

I have to second The Nature Connection rec. My 6th grader is loving this book! It is not at all too young. I have a 4th and 2nd grader using it too, but my 6th grader seems to get the most out of it.

I used it for part of the year last year with my first grader-and we are finishing it up this year in 2nd. He loves it. He actually reads many of the science and history books to himself, along with the reader. He likes to sit and study all the pictures in the books. A couple of the read-alouds kind of flopped-especially Understood Betsy! But for the most part, he doesn't complain about anything SL related we do. Spelling/math is another story!

I have only used Sonlight...depending on how well your child reads it can be very low teacher involvement. With my ds7 I just hand him the book-they are usually quite easy to read and have lots of pictures and things to study-and he reads it. When he is done, we go over the activity questions. In first grade I would write down his answers for him, now in 2nd I am trying to get him to do more of the writing. Once every week or two there are experiments. We watch them on the DVD and then do them. It usually takes us 30 min. to an hour to do them, but that's b/c he is really into doing most of it himself and is pretty pokey:). Older kids can often do the experiments independently. I combine my 6th and 4th graders in one SL Science, but a 4th and 1st grader might be a bit tougher.

Our first report of the year, for our week #4 is here. Look forward to reading everyone else's!

We are finishing up Core D this year (with dd11 and ds9). We plan to go on to Core E in a couple of months. We have really enjoyed it. The books are good, the kids are enjoying all the American History, and they LOVE the TOPS kits included with the Science portion. I am not using the language arts portion. I bought it, but I just don't like the looks of it. I am also using Core B with ds7.

I make each child up a list of inependent work for the week. Readings, memory work, Latin chants, spelling, handwriting, etc.. Any time they finish early, and I am not ready for them, I just tell them to do something from the list. For history and other together subjects, I try to start after a natural break, like after we have stopped for a snack, or after lunch, or first thing in the morning before everyone scatters.

I decided to do Latin for Children and we actually started with A, which I debated about long and hard, but I think the review is going to be helpful.

We are using it! It's great! Don't have much on my blog about it yet, but you are welcome to visit :) I have told myself I will start doing weekly reports again beginning this week. We are working on it 2-3 times per week.

I "only" have four- and just three of those are school-age. Right now I just have everyone pile everything on a certain part of the kitchen counter. As I have time, I go through the pile. I require that all workbooks be left open to the page I need to look at, but I usually have to nag to make that happen. I can see from this thread this is only going to get more complicated as the kids get older so I appreciate the ideas.

Have you looked at the Bravewriter classes? We've never taken one, but I am always hearing about them.

I have dd11, ds9, ds7, and dd4. These times are rough, we usually don't hit them as well as I'd like, but it's something we shoot for. I by no means have this down to a science and I am very frazzled much of the time! 8:30-9:30 is math. DD 11 can pretty much do her lesson independently. I do have to remind/nag/prod. I start with one of my boys and once they reach the independent part of their lesson I grab next ds and work with him. If someone is waiting to start math with me or finishes early, they have a list of independent work to do. 9:30-10:30 we work on content subjects-lit, history, science, etc. DD11 & DS 9 are doing SL Core D and DS7 is in SL Core B. I split my time between the two cores. The kids do their independent SL reading if I am not teaching their Core. 10:30-11 we have a break. 11-12 we work on language arts. I work with my two olders together while ds7 does more of his independent work. Then we switch. 12-1 we break. I usually read-aloud something during lunch. 1-2 we do more content stuff, plus either Spanish or Latin. This is our schedule 3 days a week and then we have 2 shorter days due to outside activities. On those days we go with no break and stop for the day at lunchtime. Friday is one of the shorter days and that's our art day. We listen to classical music while doing art-so two things get done at once. We are going to more of a year-round schedule, so I'm trying to keep the daily hours relatively short.

Mine empties the small trashcans in the house, sets the table with silverware and napkins, and helps pick up after lunch and at the end of the day. I will be watching this thread for more ideas!