Ambleside Online is probably the most useful site for me.

My son is 7 and in first grade. I also have a son that is 5 who listens to most of our read-alouds. We are using Ambleside Online, adapted to fit the needs of our family. ~ Every day we read a chapter from our current read-aloud. We try to cover one book and one audio book per month. ~ On Monday we read a chapter from The Burgess Bird Book for Children. ~ On Tuesday and Thursday we read one of Aesop's Fables. ~ On Wednesday we read a chapter from Clara Dillingham Pierson's Among the ____ People series. ~ On Fridays we read one story alternating between Just So Stories, The Blue Fairy Book, and James Herriot's Treasury for Children. ~ Once per week we read a chapter of Paddle to the Sea for geography. ~ Once per week we listen to a chapter of an audio book for history. We're listening to The Cat of Bubastes right now. ~ Every other week we read a chapter of Mathematicians Are People, Too. ~ Once per month we read a story for philosophy. Plus I read whatever books my 5-year-old brings me to read. My 7-year-old reads aloud to us a few times per week, as well, usually from history books. ETA ~ I forgot about daily poetry and the bedtime stories my husband reads to the boys.

I am so very happy to hear that your family is safe!

My 7-year-old first grader is in book 5, but it is way too easy for him. We've already finished books 3 and 4 this year. I think we'll finish up this book and book 6 by the end of the year. I don't have books 7 or 8, and I wasn't sure I would purchase them but seeing them on Angela's blog makes me think they might be more on Nik's level than the current book is. I probably should have saved boosk 3-5 for Nate to do when he gets to that level. Hindsight and all of that, right?

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have a 7-year-old who is hugely into history, particularly anything that has to do with war. He also loves comic books. The Adventure Tales of the Civil War and Reconstruction looks like something he would LOVE!

I've had trouble keeping up with memory work, also. We do great with Latin because we use Song School Latin and I use the coloring pages provided and print them 6 to a page to cut out as flashcards. We also do great with All About Spelling, because the cards are provided. I've made a few other cards using this flashcard maker, but I seem to have trouble deciding what is important enough to add to our memory work box. I bought Living Memory by Andrew Campbell and am going to make cards using it. I'm planning on trying the Simply Charlotte Mason system.

Marc has vetoed Gabriel and Bronwyn for this baby. ETA ~ Wow, there are a lot of people on this thread that like Bronwyn!

:iagree: Our Easter egg hunts are family affairs. We go to Marc's parents' house (Catholic) and she has an egg hunt for all of the grandchildren. Each child gets a certain color of egg, that way she can hide the ones for the littles in easier places, and the ones for the elders in higher and harder places. This makes sense, but in our little family hunts there is at least one child (the eldest) who is faster at finding than her cousins and who would think it absolutely hilarious to find all of the eggs and leave none for the rest of the kids. And no, she would not be willing share with them, either. She would prefer to laugh and let them know that she found them and wasn't sharing. Her mother would make her, but the cousins would all be upset already and the day would be ruined. MiMi's way of one color egg for each child keeps all of the kids happy.

Congratulations!

My kids attend Mind-Fires Academy.

Aside from the above advice, I would see if your library carries the Words Are Categorical series by Brian Cleary. We LOVE these books, and they have really helped my son grasp grammar terms. I think seeing so many words of one type together in a fun way (as opposed to a boring list of them) was very helpful for him. Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What Is an Adverb? Another book Nik really enjoys is The Usborne Word Detective.

:iagree: If I had absolutely no money, even for the cost of ink for printing the free stuff available, I would absolutely use MEP in this way! Treat the computer screen like a textbook. Copy, or have the students copy, the problems onto notebook paper and have the students solve them. It isn't ideal, but it's certainly workable and cheap.

NY's score is an A-, but the history education that I received was terribly disjointed, missing a ton of content, repetitive of certain content, and is one of the reasons I started homeschooling. I graduated with high honors, but my first grade son already knows more than I do about world history and knows much of what I know about American history! I hope NY's standards have improved immensely since I was in school, because it didn't deserve an A- for the years I was there. I graduated in 1997, BTW.

Ambleside Online (with modifications to make it fit our family) All About Spelling Song School Latin Story of the World Discovering Great Artists

I could have written this post word for word, right down to the almost 11 years of marriage, if you took out the military couple and changed DH's cousin to my cousin!

I hope things pick up for you soon so you aren't too exhausted by the time your little one arrives!

I'm thinking of you. I hope your little one is in your arms very soon!

Hannah_hs_helps Yahoo Group

I didn't. I'm almost 17 weeks and have only felt better for about 3 weeks. I figured that a first grader and preschooler weren't going to miss out on much if we took it really easy for a few weeks. We listened to audio books, I made sure my first grader was reading, and we watched educational tv and movies. That was it for school. Congratulations!

We need a "Like" button. I've only been using it for a few weeks, and only for searching, and I have almost 600 points. I can't wait to buy something with an Amazon giftcard that I wouldn't normally buy because it isn't a necessity!

Awesome! I see that your daughter is 7. I have a 7-year-old son who is not in love with math, although he does fine at it. However, he adores reading and loves the Horrible Histories books, which the Murderous Maths books remind me of. I thought they were for older children, but if your daughter is enjoying it maybe we should give one a try. Off to order The Awesome Arithmetricks.

I'll just wait until I need the files before printing them. That way if you've updated anything I'll have the newest files. Thanks again!

I love the upgraded memorization cards! Will there eventually be upgraded files for all of the volumes?

The girl I thought was named Carmen is Julie. I'm terrible with names. I thought exactly the opposite. The girls were terrible. Pia was great, and Lauren and Thia were pretty good. I couldn't stand the rest of them. We recorded it and had to fast forward through a lot because it was so awful.

We only have Zeus on the Loose, but my son loves it! He would happily play it every day if I was up for it.