I mistyped, so no wonder you couldn't find it! It does require your email address, but I didn't sign up for the newsletter and I haven't been spammed from it: https://www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/download-curriculum/ If you filter to second grade and language arts, the pdf readers will be in the units 1-6 that are marked as Skills (i.e. "CKLA Unit 1: Second Grade Skills-The Cat Bandit"). Some of the listening and learning units are nice read alouds, but I got the most use out of the readers. The "ancillary" materials were a waste for me. My second grader loved units 1-4. We didn't use unit 6 since we're covering a different era of history right now. I also cut Unit 5 short, since the story got kinda dark, and I didn't want to end the year on a sour note. Ruth

This year, my second grader started out the year barely reading Bob books. We were wondering if we needed to spend money on a dyslexia coach. Now that we only have a few weeks left to our school year, she is reading fluently and is reading a mixture of picture and chapter books....in her free time! Her progress this year was more than I had dreamed possible. We did: phonics instruction 5 times a week readers 5 times a week spelling 5 times a week (my perfectionist kid was begging for it) grammar 2-3 times a week, mostly done orally composition 3-4 times a week (mostly journaling on story paper, but some writing assignments over the spring) handwriting 4 times a week literature read aloud 5 times a week (in addition to bedtime stories) The biggest difference I saw was midyear when I started using the CK12 free language arts program. They have free pdf readers included, and I think getting daily practice with those stories made her realize she could read "real" books. The readers alternate a full page of (large size) text with illustrations. At first, I would cover up all the lines of text except one, but after a couple weeks, she realized she was reading the whole pages and was no longer intimidated by how much there was to read on each page. Ruth

I use a variety of projects from different blogs and books as vehicles to teach techniques. Once they have the basics down, I like to expose them to mixed media techniques, so they can see how to effectively combine supplies. I put my art schedule (with links to the various project websites) on my blog. So far I just have K, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 posted. I won't have 3rd and 7th grade posted until sometime this summer. Artistic Pursuits was okay, but not really worth the extra money for my family. Artpacs are awesome and less than half the cost, but they are consumable, so not cost-effective if you have more than 2 kids (assuming books can survive being passed down through all the kids). Art history tends to be child-led around here, so I don't schedule it in. They seem to cover as much material anyway, and probably retain it better that way. Ruth

Our schoolroom is a west-facing sunroom in Georgia. We put down some insulation under the floor when we installed linoleum and that helped a lot. We have one HVAC vent in the room, but with all the windows the room is typically 10 degrees different from the rest of the house. We alter our start time based on the time of year. In the warmer months, we start early because it gets pretty hot by early afternoon. I close all the curtains at noon and run the ceiling fan, but it still gets warm enough to turn brains into sludge. If school drags on too late in the day, we end up finishing the work in the east-facing living room. In the colder months, we're more likely to lounge around for an hour or two in the morning before getting started. Sometimes I'll send my sixth grader to read her literature in her bedroom so she can stay warm under her blankets. In January I usually set up a space heater in the room. For all the temperature issues, I love doing our schoolwork in a room with a lovely view. Ruth

Kensington Rutherford Try adding a suffix to a last name, like: -dale, -vale, -field, -caster, -chester, -wick, or -haven. Ruth

Builderdude has a 4-part series on gears: I found this playlist, but haven't actually watched it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdow00OGvSRO_ye-rhpygkB_9TvsqMF2w Instruction on using Technic is hard to find. I spent the last year hunting down resources for this. It seems that people are either intuitive with Technic or not, and those that find it intuitive are not great teachers. The book you mentioned was the only way I could teach myself well enough to teach the girls on my robotics team. Ruth

The second grade Artpac has something similar, but it's a path through a small town. They color all the buildings for art, then every time they read a book, they get a sticker to put on a brick in the path. Every 7 books, they reach a building and get a small prize related to it (i.e. animal crackers at the zoo, a penny and a candy at the bank, etc). It's been a great motivator for my second grader. http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/012276

We're making our way through Ellen McHenry's science books. http://ellenjmchenry.com/curricula-for-sale/ Ruth

I used to give them to my youngest when she asked to do "school". At 3-5 years old, she loved to scribble on worksheets. Ruth

Maybe I want something for reading/grammar? It just doesn't feel like I'm doing enough for her. My oldest went to public school for preK-2nd grade, so I haven't done the reading instruction thing before. Maybe Phonics Pathways is a bad fit for us, since we've been at it for so long and she still has so far to go? She's only covering about 1/4 of a page a day, so I'm not sure we'll even finish by the end of the year. She says she wants to be able to read more, but she's unwilling to do a second (5 minute) session of Phonics Pathways on school days. Or maybe instead of curriculum, I need a book for me to read to tell me supplemental things I can do to encourage her reading and language use? For instance, I know it would be helpful to label household objects so she could see the words in print, but doing that to the whole house feels overwhelming. I was hoping for a resource that would break things like that down into weekly tasks. Ruth

I have a young second grader who is just about to finish up her first grade language arts (we were given Harcourt Language 1). Given the free price tag, it worked okay, but I don't want to spend the money to get the second grade level since I don't love it. I am already reading aloud chapter books 4 days a week, using the fifth day for poetry or short stories. I have already bought Writing Strands 2 and intend to use that for composition, as well as keeping a journal. She will continue to use Building Spelling Skills 2. We're in the last 100 pages of Phonics Pathways and she's also reading aloud readers to me at least three times a week. She is still learning vowel blends, so she's not doing much independent work yet. We are a very STEM focused family. I need something that will hold my hand and give me lots of ideas for how to create a language-rich environment. I'm looking for something that is more than just grammar, but I'm not sure exactly what that would be. Whatever it is, it NEEDS to be secular. Thanks, Ruth

I have been using the 36 week hanging file folder system for 3 years now. If I get behind on one subject, I move that week's work in that subject to the next week's folder. Each week, I move that subject to the next week's folder until we either catch up with the rest of the subjects or we finish that subject for the year. If we get ahead in a subject, I just pull out the work from the next week's folder. Usually, it's history that gets changed. The library sometimes has more good books about a subject than I was expecting, so we spend 2 weeks on a topic instead of one. Also, if we have a sick day, I will start splitting the weeks up. For example, for this week (10/3-10/7), we are doing week 7, day 5 and week 8, days 1-4. I don't take a sick day very often though. Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment to get my foot x-rayed (stress fracture), but we still finished our schoolwork for the day by 5pm. I reserve sick days for when people can't think straight (i.e. fever). School ends for the summer whenever we finish week 36, day 5. Last year we had a bad year due to a death in the family, so we didn't finish until the last week in June and had a short summer. The year before we ended in May. Ruth

This year we've been going through the middle school lessons from this website (they have free lessons for K-12): https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/scope-and-sequence Ruth

My 7yo gets up around 8am and usually finishes schoolwork by lunchtime. My 11yo sleeps in until 10am, finishing her schoolwork around 5pm. The only subject with any overlap between the two girls is history, so that's usually the last subject for my 7yo. While it makes for a full day of work for me, each girl gets my undivided attention. My 11yo doesn't usually need much help, but I'm available to answer questions and discuss topics. The biggest problem I've had with this schedule is lunchtime. My 11yo is eating breakfast an hour before I have lunch with my 7yo. Fortunately, the 11yo can make her own lunch, so I just have to remind her to eat something at 1pm. If I forget to remind her, she doesn't eat and then her blood sugar plummets and she gets really cranky/tearful. I had many days of one hour sobfests after spelling pretests (I missed 5 whole words! That's too much work for one week!) before I finally figured out the problem. Ruth

I just use Crayola markers through 4th grade. I start buying finer tip Crayolas when child expresses interest in more control (instead of only desiring faster color coverage). I also gradually increase the number of colors available, as the child is able to remember to put the cap back on each time. In 5th grade, I start introducing Sharpies, and also the rainbow of gel pens. I'll probably buy my 6th grader some Pentel markers for her birthday this year, since she's been eyeing my personal stash for a few months and has been using her own markers responsibly. Ruth

I like Evan Moor's Building Spelling Skills. Writing Strands has worked well for us for independent work. Teaching Textbooks is great for math if she can use a computer (and is ready for 3rd grade math). Artpacs are pretty independent for good readers. Ruth

We're using Adventures in Fantasy this year, to get my writer from composing single scenes to a whole book. Ruth

Maybe read a biography of someone (i.e. Churchill, Shakespeare, etc), then watch the Dr Who episode(s) with that person in it? This list would help with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_historical_characters I did see this free TPT that is associated with the class: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sample-Lesson-Traveling-Through-History-with-Doctor-Who-1394730 Ruth

You probably already know this, but just make sure you read through the actual lessons and not just skip based on the lesson title. When I was trying to figure out how many initial lessons to skip in 7/6 last year, I realized the lessons cover more than just what the title indicates. Ruth

Writing Strands does a great job of breaking down writing tasks into small steps done each day, so it never feel too burdensome. In just two years of using Writing Strands, my oldest went from hating writing to spending her free time writing fanfiction. She started with Writing Strands 3 in 4th grade, but she had already written paragraphs by then. My understanding is that Writing Strands 2 gets kids from writing a single sentence to writing a full paragraph. I'll probably be starting it with my second grader in January. I have Writing Strands 1, and it is just a collection of word games to play (no actual writing involved), so more for the 2-5yo level. Ruth

Bridge to Terabithia Five Children and It a Roald Dahl book? For something short, I'd recommend any book by Andrew Clements. His books are quick reads and funny, but also insightful and great conversation starters. Christmas seems like a great time to have those kind of discussions. Two years later, we still talk about Frindle at our house. Ruth

Last year, each WEEK my 5th grader would: *read at least 4 chapters of a novel assigned to her for literature and read one short story *language arts loop: either 1) do a unit of vocabulary and play a word game, or 2) a grammar assignment and Mad Libs *do a unit of spelling *composition loop: either 1) write a blog post or 2) do a writing project from Writing Strands *do 4 lessons in math and a fun number-related activity (i.e. connect the dots, personal finance, etc) *listen to a chapter of Story of the World, read related encyclopedia pages, read related library books, do the chapter outline, read a current events article, and maybe do mapwork and/or an activity from the activity book *Chemistry (fall science was astronomy) -read pages in McHenry's The Elements and do related activities, read related books, do a chemistry demonstration or two *do 2 pages of Logic Countdown, one puzzle each in Mindbenders and Brain Games, work on a programming project in Scratch, and play an online logic game *read a lesson in Spanish, do oral exercises with me, do related workbook activities and watch an episode of Salsa *Art loop: 1) read about watercoloring and work on a watercolor project or 2) do a 3D drawing project *do a multimedia art project, draw something in a doodle book, and color something *do an exercise video, research a disease online, and maybe do an active video game *read from Learning to Learn and discuss with me *work on a life skill, such as cooking or home maintenance How each week's workload would be divided up would depend on what activities were happening each week. I was also teaching a 1st grader, who took the majority of my attention. Breaks would be taken when she needed, so schoolwork might stretch from 9am to 5pm, but she wasn't continuously working that whole time. If she worked continuously, she would finish in about 5 hours. Some of my 5th grade plans are on my blog: Ruth

Initially correct answers don't get marked. If it's all correct, I just write "100% A+" at the top. Incorrect answers get an X by them, or sometimes I circle the problem number (DD likes me to change it up) Corrected answers get a smiley face. Ruth

For a non-academic approach, try reading aloud Frindle to the kids. Ruth

I shove my kids' artwork into a file folder (each kid gets one folder per grade level) in my file cabinet. I don't keep any artwork that won't fit in a standard file. At the end of each year, they pick their favorite piece to go in a frame on their bedroom wall. Everything else stays in the file. When Grandma comes to visit, the file gets pulled out to show off. When they're off at college/moved out, I'll work on a more permanent solution (i.e. binder with page protectors, with dividers for each grade), so I can hand it over to them. I figure I can work on that when I feel all empty nestish. If you don't have a file cabinet handy, maybe you could use folders that are 3 hole punched, so you can put the folders in a binder, but just shove the papers themselves into the folders? Ruth