If they are doing it with a large number of words, perhaps a phonics review is in order? If they are reminded of the rules the pronunciation may come easier.

:lol: Have you ever had to go buy a gallon of milk and have everyone drink as much as they could, as fast as they could, just so you could have the empty milk jug? I have! :lol: We usually drink organic milk, which only comes in half-gallon cartons in our area, so I didn't have any jugs on hand or in the recycling bin. I think I ended up making rice pudding with the rest just so I wouldn't have to pour it down the drain. This is one thing I haven't started doing with the filing system (filing baggies full of what we'll need for each week) but I definitely should. I did go and buy a few week's worth of "common" and not-so-common household items today for the experiments and history projects we'll be doing over the next few weeks. Paper plates are not a common item in my house. Neither are wax-coated bathroom cups, petroleum jelly, or aluminum foil. We seem to accumulate plenty of strange items, though. I guess that just goes to show that we are not a common kind of household! :tongue_smilie:

Literactive Road to Reading It's free, and my kids have had a lot of fun with it.

Thank you!!!

Very nice! I'm totally jealous.

It was actually very helpful! Nik is also a huge history buff, so I think we'll go ahead and read it and then re-read it in the future. The plans are great! I've been looking them over all evening. Thanks again!

I love hearing what everyone is up to!

It would be faster for me to list what isn't on my wishlist! I can list a few, though: The Well-Educated Mind Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma You Wouldn't Want to Live in a Medieval Castle, and other books in the You Wouldn't Want series microscope

Wow! Thank you! I haven't decided whether we will read this yet or wait until they are a bit older. It looks like your daughter is 6? Do you think she understood most of the book, or do you wish you had waited a few years?

Nate, age 5, is blasting Girls Just Want To Have Fun and dancing and singing along. :lol: Nik is pretending to be a knight and using his new Latin words to complete the effect. "Salve good sir! Where are you going this fine day?" :lol: Guinea pigs are popcorning all over the place. I guess they like Cyndi Lauper, too! :tongue_smilie: I just finished a late lunch and am getting ready to go work on my filing system. But first I'm sitting here enjoying the hilarity around me. My kids make me so happy. :D What's happening in your house?

We've started school and I am LOVING this system! We have accomplished so much! I can't believe how many resources I had that were just sitting on the shelf that we are actually using now that I've ripped them up and filed them! I only have the first 6 weeks done at this point. It does take a lot of time initially, but wow! does the work pay off. I'm using the two-pocket folders with the 3-prong fasteners that I found for $0.15/each at Wal-Mart. I filed all of the work in the left pocket and as things are completed they go into the right pocket. I've seen comments about not liking the idea of having to empty the completed folders at the end of the week. I'm lazy enough that I decided I'm not going to do that! All completed work will stay in the folders, except for history and science which he automatically files in his 3-ring notebooks when he does them. I like the idea of having a nice progression of their work to look back through. I'll have to buy new folders every year, but at $10.80 for both boys it's an expense I can manage. And if it ever gets to be an expense I can't manage, I'll just empty them at that point to re-use them. I had other thoughts I wanted to touch upon, but my mind has gone blank. I'll be back to edit my post if I remember what they were! lol

I agree!

I'm planning on the kids studying the following in depth. (Copied from my blog, which accounts for the strange formatting.) ETA ~ It didn't work. You can see my blog post here.

We live about 15 minutes away from my parents. I talk to my mom on the phone about twice a week and usually see her once a week. It seems about perfect for me. My mom and grandma live about 6 miles apart from each other and talk on the phone every day, but only once! I wish I had some good advice to give you. It sounds like a tough situation to be in!

Thank you!

Christy by Catherine Marshall Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I have a Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 that I adore. The crocks fit inside each other, so they don't take up any more space than 1 crock would, but I have the benefit of being able to make all different sizes of meals. Love it! It doesn't have a timer, it's just has simple low, high, and warm settings.

Thanks! The Molecularium Nanolab is a fun computer activity that might interest some of you.

What about Great American Artists for Kids by MaryAnn Kohl?

You're using many of the things that we're using with my first-grader this year, so I think it looks great! The differences in what we're doing are bolded below. We're also doing Song School Latin, composer study, piano lessons, and art. SOTW, Vol. 2 + AG WWE FLL HWOT AAS, Level 1 no formal phonics (Nik reads at a 4th grade level) Math Mammoth, Noble Knights of Knowledge, Afterwards: Folk and Fairy Tales with Mathematical Ever Afters RSO, Earth & Space, unless we decide to go with interest-led studies Mine, too! Nik would happily do history for hours every single day if I had the energy to do it! As it is, he reads the history encyclopedia for an hour or two every day, and devours history books from the library. I thought about skipping SOTW since he's naturally interested in history, but he loves it so much that he begged me to buy volume 2.

:lol: I'll let you know after I watch it again! :tongue_smilie:

Maybe I need to watch it again. It was always my favorite. Or perhaps I just have terrible taste! :lol: Yeah, I'm definitely going to need to watch it again.

Don't forget to watch Fiddler on the Roof!

Oh boy, if I didn't already have baby fever I certainly would after seeing beautiful pictures of such a gorgeous baby!

Carcassonne is amazing! I would love to live there. I would also choose Spain. I went as a teenager and it was such a wonderful experience! I loved France, too, but the Spanish parts of our trip stand out in my memories. Madrid, and surrounding areas, offer so much. El Escorial, Valle de los Caidos, Palacio Real, Museo del Prado, Plaza de Espana are all things I enjoyed. Hearing the monks chanting in El Escorial was one of the most amazing experiences of my life....and I'm not even remotely religious.