I use the assessments from Let’s Go Learn each year. If they are in your budget, they’re a great way to find out what your kids strengths and weaknesses are in Math and Reading.

Which is more challenging for the middle grades? And which one provides the best explanations and scaffolding for independent work in your opinion? We wouldn’t do the composition exercises in either program.

Jim Weiss, Magic Treehouse, and Paddington for that age.

Wow thanks Lori! Off to do more book shopping.

Thanks! That looks like a fun read aloud, actually.

Help me diversify my reading list for next year a little.

I’m thinking over history for my fifth grader next year. As I understand it, each week she should produce a list of facts from an encyclopedic spine, a summary or two from her further reading, and a one level outline. So 3-4 pieces of paper, right? How much editing did you insist on for this work before the final copy went in the notebook?

Great! I’ll do the same.

Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. And yes, I’m going to use the Oxford University Press series.

Core Skills Social Studies by Steck Vaughn worked well for me when we had to have a workbook year.

Excellent! I have both sets. There is a ton of nicely organized free, vintage stories on that site as well.

The one thing I would love to have for My Book House is a chronological index. Anyone aware of any?

Before I dig out my graph paper and waste time, does anyone have any schedules correlating this series with SOTW or KHE?

I just bought a My Book House set at Half Price Books. It’s been there a few months, and I stopped by to admire it multiple times, and that was just ridiculous. The stories are lovely, of course, and the indexes are impressive.

Ooh, I’d be up for a book club.

I am going to lose it with a whiny, self-pitying 10 year old. Everything in her life in unfair, no one appreciates her, anything that requires consideration for anyone else is unreasonable. I know it’s hormonal (she was the sweetest child until this year), but man this is trying. *screaming*

My girls loved it. I give it mixed reviews. Visually stunning and with a strong cast, but the script had an obvious lack of depth compared to the book. Though, I will say that I enjoyed the audiobook my girls put on last week a lot more after I’d seen the movie and had the images in my head.

Honestly sometimes being a sensitive parent who cares about your child’s emotional wellbeing isn’t just compatible with telling them no, it requires that you do. Or in plain English, kindergarteners don’t make parent decisions. Acknowledge her feelings about your choice to remove her, but be clear that the decision is already made and not up for debate. I’d plan a fun first week of home kindergarten and talk about it a lot. Make a stack of favorite books to read together, go shopping for new crayons and paint, maybe even plan a field trip. At this age, distraction is still my favorite parenting technique.

Seton Home Study (Catholic) Bookshark (secular) Sonlight (Christian) Christian Light Education (Mennonite)

I did need to update the signature! I’d be using it next year with a 5th grader, while my youngest two use SOTW 1

You can also find the Story of Civilization and Story of the Bible audiobooks on Scribd. I am so excited they went back to unlimited audiobooks.

If you use this for logic stage history, do you assign the entire series? Or roughly how many chapters do you do a week? A got a few volumes out of my library and they look great. But it also looks like a lot of material, even though it would be for a strong reader.

My Anne fan suggests the Dear America books, though they have a different girl in each one.

Oh, what about the Grandma’s Attic books?

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson has a very moral girl as the main character