You may be impressed with the shelves, but you wouldn't be impressed with the stacks on the floor. :) I guess those are my version of the jumble.

Thanks so much! I will have to check these out.

Yes, I do, though occasionally I'll switch someone out and choose another, whether because he's from the historical period we're studying or because we have an opportunity for a live concert in that term with works by a specific composer. Even if I switch it up, I still usually use the AO selections for that composer.
We watch YouTube videos once a week with performances of the pieces we're studying. I also finally got an iTunes subscription this year, and I am loving it. I make playlists on my iPhone, and we play them during our chore time after breakfast: Hymn review, folk song review (including French songs), specific composers, and even poetry review. The last two years I used Freegal through my library in the same way. I really loved it at first, but after a while I found that they had updates about three or four times a year that would somehow make me lose all my songs and playlists. It allows you to have five free songs per week, and I was able to build my playlists gradually week to week. Of course, now that I've switched to iTunes, I've noticed that my playlists in Freegal have been surviving updates, so it may be fixed now. It would happen that way. :) Freegal's selection is more limited than iTunes when it comes to Canadian folk songs...I use a lot of Alan Mills and I love that I can just get even the most obscure song on iTunes.

I know, right? I see that a lot on Facebook groups, and always feel like I want to remind people that it's easy now, but it wasn't always. :) I hope the nature study idea works for both of us. So far so good here. :)

I did not read that at Afterthoughts. Could you share a link? Is that just free reading, or actual school reading? I'm not sure I understand how that could be possible, at least with multiple children with a range of young ages. I read aloud for over 1 hour every day for school (15 minutes Bible, 15 minutes literature at breakfast, 15 minutes Canadian history + 5 minutes of poetry at teatime, 10 minutes with my Year 1 student, 10 minutes with my preschooler before school starts to fill his love tank, and 20 minutes of Plutarch twice a week with my Year 5 student.). Plus another half hour free reading at bedtime. I can see half an hour being a good amount to read aloud each day once my kids are all reading all of their own school books. *eagerly waiting to see the link before saying any more about it.*
So far, saving templates from year to year has not helped, because I have different combinations every year. Also, each child is different. You will probably see what I mean when your kids get a little older. I actually do follow AO history (church history and world history), except that I substitute Canadian for American history. It really doesn't make sense to me to do American history with my Canadian children.
I like your thought of keeping them all in the same year as long as possible. I've seen and admired how Dawn Garrett still has all three of her children in the same year together (http://ladydusk.blogspot.com/). It would not work for me, because it would mean bumping JJ(8) up to Year 5 with SA(10), and I really don't think he's ready for that. JJ also reads everything himself, so it would make no sense to put MM(6) (who doesn't read independently yet) in Year 3 with him.
So there you have it. Your plans sound so relaxed, and I wish so much I could be that relaxed, but when it comes down to it, I always realize I just can't be (for what always seem to be good reasons, at least to me.).
In other news, the plans are working out really well, and school is going very smoothly so far. (Hoping to put a diary-type post up later.)

Thanks Melinda! Sometimes I just need to write it all out to see it clearly. I like your point about smaller chunks and sleeping on them. I can see how that would be more peaceful.

We all loved that book! It's also helpful to hear that The First Canadian was not quite up to that writing standard. I guess we'll have to keep reading to see how they all stack up.

Thank you! I do gravitate towards older books. I think there are good books being published today, but it's harder to find them because of the multitude of twaddle all around them. (Needle in a haystack!) It's so much easier to go back to the books that have stood the test of time. I see myself as forming my childrens' taste with what is good, true, and beautiful, and hope that in the future they will be able to recognize it wherever they meet it.

Yes, I have continued to use the three strands, more or less. I'm still using Singapore Math and DreamBox. I've been less consistent with strand #2 this term, but my boys have been missing it so I will make sure to plan for it again (this is the strand that requires a bit more planning for me). I always have a math/science inspiration book on the go, usually a read-aloud at morning time. We have been doing Mathematicians are People too and coordinating it roughly with our history studies.

Origami and Papercraft: A Step-by-Step Guide by Paul Jackson and Vivien Frank, isbn 1861603312