Twice! Well once was BC (before children). ;) 2 years ago I drove from KY to Utah (Not all the way across, but who's counting?) and back with 3 kids 6, 8, 10. We camped the whole way. It was a grand adventure. We didn't push through on the driving days - the max driving at any one time was 4 hours (with pee breaks). Then we'd either stop the car for the day by setting up camp and taking a hike or bike ride or take a long break outside at a park or other entertaining place (biking, hiking, playing, museum etcl). Then we would eat dinner and get back in the car and drive for 2-4 more hours depending on where we wanted to end up that next day. It was a joyful trip for us. :) Good luck! Kimberly

Thank you so much for that detailed response. I will check those out for sure. I'll also looked into those "bite size" things too. :)

In the fall, I'll be leading a group of 3rd - 5th grade kids through Physics RSO 1. I'm considering using that RSO 1 with the older kids (mostly 7th graders) and using an additional resource to "beef" it up for them. Recommendations of a curriculum or resource to use? Kids expect homework (reading, defining, etc.) (2 sessions of 1.25 hours each week). It would be easier for planning to beef up or simplify rather than using 2 different curricula. Secular preferred.

Or any other ideas that also incorporate more cultural studies with the geography? For this age group? 6-9/10

Thanks...I'll take a look at that Trail Guide....We're going to be doing activities and such in the class; so, I'm just looking for "intro" material for home reading...but obviously I need other options. I wasn't thinking of it as read-aloud as an enjoyable story, but rather they kids wouldn't be expected to read it themselves....but maybe even if they're just looking for a certain bit of info it's still too much. I agree with their age guidelines generally for the entire core, but for individual books within a core, I've read them to younger students with success before. I just don't have personal experience with that book.

My oldest, the only one who currently does Latin, loves Lively Latin. I love that it's pretty self directed. If I wanted to learn Latin I could, but I don't have to. There are on-line lessons/videos if you want to use them. If you already know latin or you are good at just reading it and figuring it out you don't need the on-line part. It has grammar, vocabulary, history, stories, and much more. :) PS: My signature line is completely outdated.

I will be leading a co-op class a couple of days per week and I'm thinking of using Bookshark 5's text Journey To the Eastern Hemisphere kinda as the spine along with the notebooking pages that goes with it. I know students won't get through all of Bookshark 5 just in 2 days per week, but they would read from that Journey book at home and do follow up activities and such in the class sessions. Here's my question, do you think the Journey to the Eastern Hemisphere is accessible as a read-a-loud to younger students? I know the Level says it's good for 10-13. Most of the kids in the classes are in this age range. I've also got a group of kids who are mostly 8-9. These kids would likely have their parents read the book (or sections) aloud to them at home and then we would follow up with activities and such in the classroom sessions. Does this seem like it would work? Does anyone else have a better idea for a "World Cultures and Geography" guide/curriculum that would work? Thanks! Kimberly

I'm sure I posted this the other day, but I can't find it in my search. So, maybe it disappeared. :) Does anyone have an activity guide or specific plans of what you did if you've read this book? Thanks, Kimberly

I'm leading a book group (middle schoolers) through Dragon's Gate by Laurence Yep. Do any of you have a lit guide or activities you've done with this book? Thanks, Kimberly PS: I'm sure my signature line is all out of wack ...so here's what we're currently doing 12 year old daughter: Lively Latin, OM History 7, OM Math 6, OM History 7, OM Science 7; Bookshark 4 (just because she wants to do the extra reading - no pressure). IEW US History 10 year old girl - public school and mostly loving it. 8 year old boy - Easy Peasy (when I'm not home). OM 2, AAR 3, LOF, Miquon for fun,

The theme based books from IEW were an easy start for us with that type of writing in 4th grade.

Thanks Merry - I'm glad you chimed in for us as well. Actually I do have a question about the visual processing...will a regular eye doctor check that out for us? Or should I seek some sort of specialist? I'm trying to see if her tracking is a vision problem, a brain problem, or just a practicing problem. ...Obviously there is something going on since she'll be 9 in October and it's still not natural for her. I've got my older sets (Pre- and Level 1) for sale, maybe if both sell we'll get the Level 3 - the Phonics pathways does practice words out of context and not rhyming....but of course it doesn't have the same introduction to each phonoeme group... For my oldest context and telling her the rule just a couple of times when she saw it was all she needed. NOthing like a struggler to make you question your ability as a homeschooling momma. :)

I've got making an eye appointment on my to-do list. Thanks for that suggestion.

My struggling reader (8.5) just finished AAR level 2 (we took over a year and a half for AAR1, and finished AAR2 in about 1 year). She is reading Bean and Ivy (easiest Lexile level of the bunch) with support - usually between 1/2 and 2/3 of each chapter herself and we chime in for the rest. She is proud to have read it, but doesn't initiate much reading on her own. She still has trouble with tracking instead of looking at the first letter (or any letter in the word) and guessing (no diagnosis, but probable "issues"). She makes mistakes with words and sometimes keeps reading and other times does notice the problem and goes back to read again. At the end of AAR 2 I did a quick teaching of each of the leap words and a quick run down of the new phonemes...then I had her read the rest of the reader aloud. This worked well for her. She liked the challenge and the "finishing the level." She wants to be able to read more independently and I want her to as well! It's caused a block in other areas of her schooling because she wants us to read everything to her (and there's only one of me with 2 other kids who need work ask well). She wants to be able to read independently for those reasons (redoing lessons because you can't read the questions at the end is no fun)- but not really for joy (yet?). As we got toward the end of AAR2, I felt like she was able to move through and progress quickly than the program allowed us. It seems that the word cards (getting them memorized) seemed to slow us down because they took a long time to memorize and I felt like we couldn't keep moving forward with the stack of cards growing (each reader story was one day's worth of lesson when we got to it). So, now I'm contemplating what to do with her. I have Phonics Pathways (which worked very well for my oldest daughter). We've been using that for the last few days. The progression/sequence is different than AAR; so, we're doing a bit of review work right now and will move toward the long vowel sounds soon (I think it's in 4 pages from where I placed her). We are easily doing 2 pages of this per day in about 15-20 minutes (plus a read aloud in the evening). I guess I'm wondering if there would be any benefit to continuing with AAR 3 (and eventually 4) beyond the extra practice and slower pace? Since I have the letter tiles (we also use AAS and will continue that) I can depend on those if we hit snags in Phonics Pathways. Honestly, I feel like we don't need the $100 expense right now either, but I don't want to short circuit her reading progress either. Support, encouragement, ideas encouraged. :) Thanks, Kimberly

We use Scribd too. :)

Yes. I've had the converstaion with the grandparents since the oldest was an infant. After 10 years, I'm just going to accept that they are not going to turn the TV off at their house. So, I have to make another plan - and I can't afford additional days of childcare right now. If this were a sitter situation they would have been fired long ago. It's hard to fire grandparents when you don't have any other reasonably affordable options. I did talk to Grandma yesterday about the work they MUST do before any "fun time." - Including excersising between lessons on the computer. The nice thing is that with Acellus I can live monitor what they are doing and I can call and ask to talk to them and tell them to work - instead of relying on grandma to make sure it gets done.