He has a wonderful compilation of poetry too.

I've tried to go with a few recommendations for cutting and pasting into my blog, but it hasn't worked. Any more ideas? I soooo appreciate it!

I've started a blog on blogger.com. I really love it, but I was wondering how I can add a third column like many of you have. I'm just using one of the templates on blogger. It only has the main blog section and one column on the right. I would even be willing to spend $ to get a nice one set up. Thanks!

I've never used it, but I saw a neat looking Missionary Lapbook on the In the Hands of a Child website. It had about 4 or 5 misssionaries that it focused on. Maybe that is something you could use?

I've used the 2nd and 3rd grade curriculum (through Winterpromise) with my oldest. It has worked really well for him, and I like it a lot. I tried the 1st grade curriculum with my younger son and it didn't fly. I think it is a bit dry for his age (no color and a lot of problems). I might switch him back as he gets older. I think Maria has pulled together an excellent curriculum. It's a mastery approach, which is why I think my older son does well with it. We tried Singapore and he just wasn't getting it. However, my younger son is doing well with Singapore and Horizons.

My oldest son is 9 and has always been a sweet sensitive kid. He never has been happy about doing school (homeschool or ps), but this year he has become such a contrary guy! He is very moody and bursts into tears at the slightest frustration. His motivation for school has always been low, but he seems to really hate it now. We actually enrolled him in the PS for awhile, but it wasn't a good fit (middle of the year and a fast-paced teacher). He was excited to get back to homeschooling and was motivated for about two days. Now its back to being stubborn and emotional! The only thing he enjoys is our read alouds and history. He is really a wonderful kid and I'm assuming he will outgrow it, but I was wondering how some of your boys did at this age. Thanks!

We learned this from a PS teacher friend. I think there is an entire curriculum out there, but it is very basic. If you have to add 8 + 5, you start at 8 and touch the 5 in five different spots. It is basically the counting on method, but my 6yo thinks it is so cool! Thought I would pass it on.

Here is a link I asked about this. Maybe it will help: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63884&highlight=cursive

It is pretty simple. Most pages just have one letter to trace and then a space for the child to print his own. My 1st grader was not impressed. I think he wants to jump into actual words not just one letter at a time. He wants to do Cursive Handwriting (HWOT) like his brother. I wish I had just bought that. It is much less expensive ($8 versus $23). Now that I compare the two, I think HWOT has more to offer!

My 4th grader has been working on cursive for 2 years and is still pretty slow, so I thought I would go with my 1st grader's enthusiasm and get him started early. I didn't think about how his manuscript could improve along the way. Thanks!

You might like Otter's Science at this link: http://www.ourlosbanos.com/homeschool/index.html

Hi, We are doing Los Banos American History which is great (and free!). You can check out their website: http://www.ourlosbanos.com/homeschool/index.html Wendy She also has a neat curriculum for science (Otter's Science)

My 1st grader is very eager to start cursive (like his brother). His manuscript is OK (not great), but I ordered New American Cursive curriculum for him to try. My sister thinks I'm doing him a disservice by not perfecting his manuscript first. Any opinions? Thanks!

I'm not sure if you are looking for read-alouds or readers for your 4th grader. My son is reading the Matt Christopher series for fun. He also is going to start the Great Brain series by John Fitzgerald. We just got done reading the Penderwicks and the Misadventures of Maude March as a family. There is also a sequel to the Penderwicks out now. All are highly recommended!

1st/4th I've been pleasantly surprised with FLL1 for my 1st grader. It didn't work with my older son, but it seems to work well for my 2nd son. I also like the simplicity of WWE for him. Takes all the guess work out of what to do next. Flashkids Spelling and Just Write is a winner with my 4th grader. We've also loved two new read-aloud books I want to mention: The Penderwicks and The Misadventures of Maude March!

My oldest son did Headsprout in 1st grade. He loved it, especially the first half. When he did it, we were able to just pay for the first half, and then decide later if we wanted to continue. We did continue, but I think he benefitted the most from the first half. It is a great program, especially for struggling readers. My second son picked up reading quickly and didn't like the program at all. I think it went too slow for him. We also used Starfall.com, which is a lot of fun. We used Spellingtime.com ($5/month) which is high quality too. My youngest (3yo) is actually learning a lot from some inexpensive Clifford Reading CDs for the computer! Good luck!

Hi, We are doing Early American History this year and I would like to do 3 or 4 lapbooks. The lapbooks I've seen for sale seem very detailed. I just want to find one that doesn't include a curriculum with it. I'm not very artistic, but good at cutting and pasting from the internet! I just need something simple. Does anyone know where I can find this? Or does anyone want to share some photos of ones they have completed? I just need a few ideas to get me going I think. I'm interested in Colonial America, American Revolution, Frontiersmen, Lewis and Clark, Gold Rush, etc. Links to some blogs would be fine too! Wendy

We have used several of the "Classic Starts" books to indroduce our kids to some of the classics. I think they are well written and short enough to for them to sit through at their ages.

The Great Brain series Peter and the Starcatchers A to Z Mysteries by Ron Roy Baseball series by Matt Christopher

I have several of the One Small Square books. Noeo science uses them some. They are beautiful books that have a lot of information. They cover the ecology of each ecosystem (how the animals, plants, habitat work together). If you were going to focus your science program on different ecosystems, this would be a great resource. It would be nice to use this as a starting point and then find additional books about the animals that live in each environment. For example, the One Small Square Arctic Tundra has a lot of information about the animals, the tundra, the extreme cold, and permafrost. You could add some nice books about polar bears, caribou, wolves, etc to stretch it out a bit. My kids seemed to like them, but the books have so much information that they began to get a bit of a glaze to their eyes after a while! HTH! Wendy

We used Flashkids Language Arts 2, Spelling 3, and a little bit of the Reading Comprehension 3 last year. They worked great for us because the exercises were fairly short and it was easy to follow. The LA was a nice introduction to grammar for my son. He seemed to learn quite a bit and the best thing was that he didn't get frustrated. We just did a little bit every day. The spelling had about 4 pages per lesson. We did two pages per day. We did a few of the Reading lessons to beef up for the state testing. I think these workbooks are great if you are looking for an easy way to get grammar and spelling to fit in your schedule. I wanted to spend more of our time on writing (we used Just Write) and reading fluency. I figure we will be hitting grammar year after year, so I wasn't looking for a mastery approach curriculum. It was also nice to give my son something he can do independently. I think that was one of the reasons he liked them. HTH! Wendy :001_smile:

I'm curious to see what responses you get! We're doing STOW 3 with more American History blended in too. I'm currently working on a schedule to mix Los Banos, some SL lit and STOW together. I'm hoping I can fit all of STOW 3 in this year with the mix. I know Paula's Archive has some charts that put STOW 3 and Hakim's US History together. I'm still looking for a good spine. I just ordered Rainbow Book of American History and am thinking of getting the CLP History texts too. I think Hakim is a bit over my boys' heads right now.

I like Caroline Kennedy's book A Family of Poems.

We like Draw, Write Now but more for the copywork than the drawings. We have a book that my boys like called "1-2-3 Draw" by Freddie Levin. You can buy individual books like "1-2-3 Draw Pets and Farm Animals" or "1-2-3 Draw Dinosaurs," etc. Ours is a collection of 5 books in one. The ISBN is 093921783X. We also have Mark Kistler's Draw Squad which would be pretty fun if you have a motivated artist. Its funny and educational. It's a bit more difficult than the 1-2-3 Draw series. You might check Rainbow Resource for more drawing curriculums. HTH!

It sounds like a notebook timeline is what you are interested in, but I just wanted to let you know about a timeline by Konos. Its a large 4'x4' banner that hangs on the wall. It's heavy duty with grommets at the top and is made of a wipe off/flexible plastic. I love it. I can roll it up when we don't need it. I always tended to forget about putting our figures on the timeline until I had this one.