ohh..these are great ideas. Anyone know of a book that has carpentry type ideas too?

We have started our homeschool this week, and my son is missing his "Dad" time. My son loves legos and has his own tool sets (including a real drill and hand saw). He loves building things and helping his dad around the house. They took apart the sink and painted the deck recently. Does anyone have ideas about a curriculum, books, or project kits I can give him to keep up with his hands-on nature? I looked at exploration education, but I'm not sure it has enough "building things" to keep his interest. We have spent a load on lego kits (that he just loved!). Thanks!

Winslow is a bit isolated but not too far from Flagstaff. Flagstaff has a large Christian homeschool group that is very active. http://www.flagstaffhomeschool.org/ .They do field trips to Phoenix, ski trips, etc. AZ is a great state to homeschool, not too many requirements. Feel free to PM me, we live near Williams, AZ.

I always appreciate the ideas that bounce around on these forums. I may not follow the "workbox" idea, but it has inspired me to tweak my system a bit. I hesitate to criticize someone's ideas just because they don't fit my household. I always glean something from the creativity of others and am so appreciative of the folks that are willing to share!

I used the Book of Virtues by William Bennett. I also mixed it up by letting them do copywork on favorite sports heroes. I cut and paste from Wikipedia. I was trying to increase their cursive speed and it helped to copy articles about people they admired.

Legos, legos, legos..... Connect 4 Othello Zoombinis Headsprout.com

I bought a nylon wall file for my boys. I print out their weekly schedules on Sunday night. Each slot has a folder with their schedule for each day. 5 for my oldest, and 5 for my middle (Mon - Fri). The folder has the day of the week on it. The printed daily schedule has check boxes for them to mark when done. It worked well last year. I also used old Lego tubs for each child's curriculum and put them on a shelf, so they know exactly where to get their stuff and can carry it around the house. I got this from Oriental Trading. They also have some neat bins I considered using too.

We did WWE 1 last year and my son didn't have a problem with it. This year I bought the Startwrite software and am planning to reduce the size. I also am finding many other useds for the software (copywork, etc.!)

Oh... I thought of one more. Easyclassical.com has a great schedule for Kindergarten that you might like. My middle son used it. It was very easy to implement.

My son enjoyed the Rod and Staff preschool series. We also added a few Kumon books, Singapore Earlybird Math, and Click n Read phonics online. He will still be a older Pre-Ker next year and I'm planning to add more read alouds to our schedule, possibly using Sonlight Prek or K, or Five in a Row. I'm also going to add some lapbooks from Homeschoolshare.com. I'm trying to decide if I should continue with Singapore Earlybird Math (which I really like) or switch to Rightstart Math A. Hope that will give you some ideas.

I'm looking to incorporate Arizona state history with our history program this year, but I can't find any resources. Does anyone have any ideas where to start?

I have the 3 Rs covered for Kindergarten, but I'm trying to find some fun stuff to add to it. I'm looking for something that coordinates read-alouds with lapbooks or projects. I know about FIAR but was wondering if there are any other programs out there? I like the lapbooks on Homeschool share and thought of putting together my own schedule. Maybe someone would be willing to share something they put together? Thanks!

I've been trying to figure out this too. What I'm going to do is use History Odyssey Level I Modern (it uses STOW 4), Abeka's History of Our United States, and throw in readers/read alouds from WP and SL. I want to include my 2nd grade so I may use American Story and throw in a lot of additional biographies and picture books. Once I started looking, I realized there were a lot of books to use that don't focus on the wars so much. I want to touch on that, but also cover the other interesting things that have happened since the Civil War. We used the free Early American history curriculum from Ourlosbanos.com last year and it was wonderful. I heard that she's coming out with a Later American History study to be ready by this fall. I'm sure it will be great too (and FREE!). She's awesome.

We've been doing MM for 2 years now. I love it. My 4th grader has done really well with it too. He really does well with the mental math and transferring simple concepts to bigger ones. I think it is like Singapore with more problems (which my son needed). We do skip through some of the problems, but he has learned so much that I really hate to skip through much! We do 1-2 pages per day. The only thing I supplemented was multiplication drill. My younger did Singapore with Horizons this year and I've decided to switch him to MM next year too. I think the MM first grade program is a bit dry, but I think he will be ready for the second grade program. I bought the full year curriculums through Winterpromise. Don't forget about the test pages you can print out too! Wendy

My 4th grader was getting stuck too. I had him do Flashmaster, Timez Attack and worksheets. I finally found that the best method was to just pick a number to work on everyweek (like 8s) and do flashcards everyday and memorize the skip count. We would often follow with Timez Attack for fun (although he would get frustrated if he didn't have the solutions down before he started the game). I found he really didn't like any of the "gimmicks" really, he would rather just drill, drill, drill! LOL. We also would do a complete times table (grid) every few weeks for review.

My DS will be a 2nd grader next year. We have finished OPGTR and I'm trying to decide what to do next. Should we just focus on spelling and reading? He has just flown through the book with no problems. My plan is for him to do Sonlight 2 Intermediate Readers schedule next year and Spelling Workout B. I'm curious as to what others have done. Any ideas?

We're using Math Mammoth. I agree it would be a good resource for tutoring. It is a mastery approach, so you could just pick the areas that need work. I like that it has a lot of problems. Sometimes we do them all, sometimes we don't if they understand the concept. I think it is similar to Singapore but at a slower pace.

This is just a thought...feel free to ignore all of my advice! But...a wise homeschooling friend told me that when it comes to phonics I should just pick a curriculum and stick with it throught the end. I didn't do that with my oldest child and I was always concerned that I had left something out (we did part of 100EZ, part of Alphaphonics and some ETC). When my second son was ready for phonics I picked OPGTR (although I do like Alphaphonics too) and we are almost finished. I started it in K and he is just finishing it up at then end of 1st. We slowed down in some places and went faster in others, but now I am so glad to finish the book. I feel like I haven't missed anything! Maybe you could just take a short break and do some reading and online games? I used Headsprout with both boys and they loved it (although they didn't complete it all). Another one is Click n' Read or you could just do Jumpstart, etc. HTH! Good luck!

I'm not sure if these have been mentioned. My coffee is not ready yet... Dick King-Smith books Janette Oke's Animal Friends (my niece loved these) Rascal Ribsy (Henry Huggin's series) Brighty of the Grand Canyon (all Marguerite Henry's books) Benjamin West and Cat Gramilkin Gentle Ben (Walt Morey books) Jim Kjelgaard books Shiloh Sounder Old Yeller Dog Named Kitty (Bill Wallace books) Dog Who Wouldn't Be (Farley Mowat books) I also have to plug Owls in the Family. It was a laugh out loud story. Great family read-aloud!

Going off the previous post. What about 5th grade? Anyone interested in sharing their plans? Here is ours for DS 10yo Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5 Science: BJU Science 5 Math: Math Mammoth 4 (w/Calculadder and Timez Attack to supplement) Spelling: Flashkids (Harcourt) Spelling Skills 5 Logic: Logic Liftoff, Grid Perplexors Latin: Prima Latina (or Lively Latin) Writing: Meaningful Composition 4 Bible: Memoria Press Christian Studies I Lit: Sonlight 4 reading list (and others we like) History: History Odyssey Modern Times, STOW, and WTM Logic stage guidelines Art, Music, Spanish and Typing will be done in unit studies with Artistic Pursuits, Classical Kids, Rosetta Stone, and Typing Instructor for Kids.

DS 7yo Math: Math Mammoth 2 Writing: WWE 2 Grammar: Growing With Grammar 2 Spelling: Flash Kids (Harcourt) Spelling Skills 2/3 Reading: Sonlight 2 book list Latin: Prima Latina Logic: Lollipop Logic, Dandylion, Building Thinking Skills (occassionally) Science: BJU Science 2 Bible: Memoria Press Christian Studies I History: History Odyssey Modern Hx (w/older brother), but using easier texts/picture books I'm also hoping to do Spanish, Typing, Art, and a Composer Study as unit studies. I'll be using Rosetta Stone, Typing Instructor for Kids, Artistic Pursuits, and Classical Kids

You might check out Mathmammoth.com. You can buy the whole curriculum, or just purchase the sections needed. I think it is very similar to Singapore but with more practice. My kids do well with it.

I had my 4th grader start with GWG3 last year and he did well. I only had him do 1/2 a lesson each day (I helped him get started) at the beginning of the year, now he does the full 2 page lesson. The textbook is a must. It covers all the new topics and then the child does problems in the workbook. My 1st grader did GWG1 this year and I realized it has a lot of the same information as GWG4 (although easier). I think the idea with GWG is that things are repeated year after year. I really like the program. It is simple and straight forward. She gradually introduces new topics and there is review scattered throughout. I thought about skipping to GWG5 next year, but I think I will stick with GWG4 since my son is learning yet he is not overwhelmed. That way I can push harder on other subjects like math and reading.

We did Headsprout when my oldest was in first grade. We started with 100 EZ Lessons and then supplemented with Headsprout. We both loved the program. He was struggling a bit with 100EZ and Headsprout helped keep him moving along. I bought it again for my next son, but he didn't use it as much because he picked up reading much faster. The graphics are awesome on it and there isn't much competition on it (which my kids just can't handle!). I think the first half of the program was the most beneficial part. My oldest never really finished the last 20 or so lessons. He was reading well by that point. I recommend it. It is much more comprehensive than Starfall. I think click n read is similar but I don't know for sure.

*bump* Trying again!