My eldest learned to read at four with Bob books. She did not know all her letter sounds before starting: she just knew most of them and had good phonetic awareness. She picked up the rest as she went.

Not all of it is verse, but can I recommend How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare? We do this in addition to FLL.

I like Bravewriter Jot It Down and the Writer's Jungle, but I don't like the Arrows: I just didn't find enough retention, the spacing made it difficult to implement for me... I used Writing with Ease instead.

There are books my daughter has just loved and read over and over, and we tend to buy those (which included The Magic Treehouse, The Little House Books, the Rainbow Fairies books, and all three of Rick Riordan's series: so a mix of good literature and fluff). Mostly, though, we use the library.

My oldest was 4, but my current 4.5 year old still has trouble differentiating d, b, and p.

Some of the spacing between copywork would make reading the book in sections to fit the Arrows really uneven, so we just read. If we hadn't gotten to the next copywork passage, my daughter would pick a passage from the copywork jar after we finished working with the last passage. However, maybe you'd be better off getting advice from someone who liked using Arrows.

Is the Salsa Spanish Spanish used in Latin America or Spain? I looked on the website, but I still can't tell as someone who knows very, very little Spanish.

If on a budget, I'd do Jot It Down/Partnership Writing/whatever your appropriate level is. I would skip The Writer's Jungle for now. I would not do The Wand/Arrow/whatever the appropriate level but either get back issues from homeschool buyer's co-op or pick your own copywork using WWE.

We are doing Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) for second grade, but I would love a supplement that helped my daughter right off the bat know some phrases to use on the playground with the Spanish speaking children there. She will say, "Hi, how are you?" when she goes to the playground, but little kids don't really want to have those kinds of conversation. A CD with phrases like, "Can I have a turn?" "Please don't destroy my sandcastle!" "Do you want to dig with me?" "Do you want to play tag?" etc... that she could use right off the bat I think would be highly motivating. I speak pretty much no Spanish (though I'm trying Rosetta Stone, too). Any suggestions?

I use Bravewriter with First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease (which we loosely follow), but my daughter is younger and we started at the beginning. For Bravewriter, we have the Writer's Jungle and Partnership Writing. We do not use the Arrows, but instead we use Writing with Ease to help us pick our copywork/dictation choices from our current readaloud.

Is he studying a language or an instrument? I'd play music in whatever language he studies or recordings of whatever pieces he is learning on his instrument.

I, too, love Letters from Father Christmas! For other chapter books, we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (since the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve returning allows Santa to return) and The Dark Is Rising Every December. I'm hoping to try A Christmas Carol this year.