:grouphug: I'm so very sorry for your loss.

I made it with cardstock according to the directions, but did so in an 8.5 x 11 size so I could hole punch it and put in in his notebook.

I like the brown. Where did you find the music poster above the piano? I want one!

Thank you to everyone who commented. These are exactly the kinds of ideas I need! Thank you! Nik likes most of what we do, but I know he would love it if we added more fun. And I want it to be more fun! I want to be outside the formal schoolish box, but I trip myself up with those boxes I feel compelled to check. Last year for the first 6 months of K I did everything on my own and used living math books, living science, etc. I felt like I spent HOURS every week searching for ideas, materials, activities. I wore myself out, and decided halfway through to go with SOTW, R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, etc. Life got easier, but it certainly didn't seem as much fun to me. It also felt too much like my public school education, with textbook-type programs. I guess I'm just in that new homeschooler phase, trying to find what works for us, and struggling and stressing excessively. He wakes up around 7am and has time to play until 10am, when we start school. We work (with many interruptions from 5-year-old brother) until lunch at 12pm, so probably an hour-and-a-quarter to an hour-and-a-half of work. After lunch we do the history or art projects or science experiments, which he loves. I've been trying to adjust things this last week, though, and we did all of our science and art on the weekend with Dad. That was even more fun, and Dad and I agreed that we should do it that way most of the time. This sounds wonderful. I'll be trying some of these ideas next week! I'm going to ask Nik which subjects he wants to keep doing exactly as we are now and drop or change up everything else. The bolded and underlined speaks to me. THAT is what I want to do. Would you be willing to share what a typical week would look like for you?

I'm going to have to find a way to purchase these videos. I have already watched your son's dictation video. That is one adorable boy! The video definitely inspires me to keep up with the WWE model. I'm definitely convinced to stick with copywork and narration, but I think we'll drop doing the WWE workbook and try doing it with our history studies to see how that goes. History is his favorite subject (he spends an hour or two every day reading the UILE!), so it may make him tolerate the narration and dictation. Thank you so very much to everyone who chimed in with an opinion! Your comments were of great help to me.

Nik (almost-7 and in first grade) likes everything we're doing, except for WWE. I keep thinking about dropping it, because he does draw and write a lot on his own every day, but it just feels like a mistake to drop it. I mean, it's writing! That's pretty important, right? His handwriting isn't very good, in my opinion. I don't think letting him pick sentences from literature he's reading would improve how he feels about copywork. And he hates narrating. Hates it! He has good comprehension and an amazing memory, so making him narrate when he doesn't want to feels useless and perhaps even dangerous. Why dangerous? I'm afraid it's going to make him start to not like reading, which he currently loves. Ok, I've already talked myself into dropping WWE for now. I'll come up with other writing activities (any recommendations that are really fun?) I'm going to quit making him narrate, unless someone can give me a very good reason that I shouldn't.

One of our main reasons for homeschooling is to give our children what we feel is the best possible education. For us, that means that in later years they will have a rigorous classical-style education. However, I feel it is important to give little children lots of time to play and learn from life experience. I'm a box-checker and list-maker by nature, and I'm having a difficult time balancing my need to check those boxes with my desire to give the boys a truly FUN elementary education. Nik, almost-7 and in first grade, (and the only one doing any formal schooling at this point) likes everything we're doing, except for WWE. I think I'll drop it for now, details to come in another post. These are the things we already use that Nik either enjoys or truly loves to do: SOTW + Activity Book, R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, Song School Latin, Math Mammoth/Noble Knights of Knowledge/Afterwards: Folk and Fairy Tales with Mathematical Ever-Afters, First Language Lessons (he doesn't love this, but doesn't mind it and it takes less than 5 minutes to do), All About Spelling, Hooked on Phonics Advanced Reader, Discovering Great Artists, Classics for Kids, and lots of literature and audio books, movies and games. Sometimes what we're doing feels a bit too school-at-home, though. Should I drop most of what we do and start unschooling (with lots of strewing to make myself happy.) We also limit screen time and I wonder if we should try letting him watch more educational movies and play more educational games. What activities do you do to keep learning really fun? (Unschoolers especially encouraged to respond!)

We're finishing up week 4 and it's still going great! I ended up buying some clear plastic report covers to put all of their checklists in so I wasn't having to transfer things from folder to folder every week. I printed out a copy of their schedules which states which subjects we try to get to each day for the front. After that are the checklists and logs, including things like the FLL1 checklist, AAS checklist, reading log, memory work log, and small stickers for them to use after a lesson has been completed. We bought two of these desks at a yard sale and the boys keep their folders and checklists in their desks. It makes it look like school at home, but I like that they look more comfortable when writing than they did at the too big table we used before. As far as corrections go, my kids are still littles, so I do all of their work with them and we correct as we go. However, I think if I had more children, or older children, I would have them turn in their folders at the end of the day for correction and just hope I could keep up! lol I do think that correcting problems that they get wrong is beneficial, so I wouldn't skip it.

I'm glad I could be of some help. :)

For artist study we are studying only 3 artist per year in-depth. This year those artists are Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. We study six works of art by each artist, which is one work every two weeks. On the first day of a new artist we read a book about him. So far our favorite books have been the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series by Mike Venezia. Then we fill out an artist biography notebooking page about the artist. (I've made up my own for other artists based on this basic template.) Lastly, we begin looking at our first selection of the artist's work. We spend only a couple of minutes looking at it. Then I ask a few questions from this list. This is the only day that art takes very long, and it only happens three times per school year! That's manageable for me! The second week that we study a work of art we try to reproduce it, or do a coloring page on the piece if I have one. If we're running short on time we simply study the work for a few more minutes and I ask a few different questions to get them thinking about the art. For once weekly art projects we're using Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl. I love this book! If you haven't seen it I highly recommend that you use Amazon's Look Inside! feature. We read the brief biography of the artist and fill out the name, dates lived, and location born on a biography notebooking page for them, then we get to the project. I love that the artists are in chronological order, it just seems to fit with the classical model. The boys' art notebooks are like little art timelines. I take a picture of each project and print it on cardstock (I don't worry about being fancy and printing on photo paper.) Then we tape it to the notebooking page. For composer study we use Classics for Kids podcasts. We listen to one per week. There are four per composer, so we end up studying nine composers per year. You can read more details about how we do it on my blog, but I'll give a summary here. The first week of a new composer we listen to the first podcast, then we do the activity sheet and fill out a composer biography sheet, made myself using the same template as the artist biography notebooking page that I linked to above. After we finish the bio sheet we watch or listen to some of the composer's work using YouTube videos. For weeks two through four of the composer we only have to listen to the next podcast and watch/listen to another YouTube video. On weeks when we're feeling crunched for time we listen to the podcasts in the car and skip the YouTube videos. I try to make a note that we didn't get to them and I'll pop one up at random times when I'm sitting here at the forums and the kids are playing nearby. I just mention who the composer is and they generally listen. Ok, this turned out to be a very long post! lol Hopefully it is helpful to someone.

:iagree: Right down to the brand of apple cider vinegar. It's amazing how quickly the ones we had disappeared after I tried this method! I think in 2 days every single one was dead.

I had it bookmarked!

:)

Family Math for Young Children

I have these bookmarked: Notebooking2Learn Scientific Method Notebooking Pages Notebooking2Learn Scientific Methos Lapbooking Pages Notebooking Pages Experiment Pages (scroll to the bottom) ScienceClass.net Graphic Organizers

Apples, Bubbles, and Crystals I'm using it with my Ker and we're enjoying it. I found it through a recommendation on the American Chemical Society website.

It worked this time. Thank you!

I get the following message. ETA~I logged in at HSLaunch, and now when I click your link it takes me to my page. ??? Very weird.

I was thinking the same thing. My kids do that to me all the time. We do so many cool things that it's almost as though cool is commonplace.

Can you replace the entire amount of oil with applesauce? I'm trying to get my kids away from cereal for breakfast, so we've been eating whole wheat waffles with peanut butter or fruit sauce. If I could replace all or most of the oil with applesauce I would be so happy!

Oh, wow! I missed that one. That sounds so nice and easy! I think I'll give it a try next week. What a great idea to try each recipe and post a review!

I just downloaded it without paying. On the right side of the screen is a download button. Thank you, sarawatsonim!

We had a morning like that, minus the cat. I spent the morning cleaning and reorganizing and posting here. Now the boys are asking to start school! What a perfect day.

:lol:

Does anyone else think it is hilarious how many threads there are about Nutella right now?! :lol: