good point, carmen! so the BOC you're thinking of is the tanglewood one or the SCM one? or your own? hmmm. will my questions ever end? that's what you must be thinking ! :)

so should i buy the Teacher Text AND the student text (with cd) or just the student .... ???

so there's a carmen's ancients and now there's going to be a carmen's geography?! :) WOWSERS. you're like a one stop curriculum shop :) seriously, thanks for the admonishment about trying to do TOO MUCH. :)

i'm trying to land on a bible curriculum for our family. DH would like for it to be "open and go" as much as possible. i'm not into crafts and all that for reinforcement .... mostly this will be done at dinner table and/or breakfast/bedtime. i've looked into the explorer's bible study: beginnings I. we have a 4.5 and 6 yr old .... we sort of span both brackets I and II. would you recommend just going with I? also, what do you know about the Discovering Jesus In Gen/Ex books put out by the Hunts? Training Hearts, Teaching Minds? what are some other options?! I'd like to focus as much as possible on character traits . . . not just more bible STORIES.

i'm sooo glad i found this thread tonight! :) this helped me clear up my questions! :) thanks you gals. you're such a fantastic group of schoolers!

ok. after sitting here and thinking through it some more, i think what i've realized is that i need to do a basic map orientation/skills approach to geography for awhile and then dig into more of a global study for the latter part of the year :) that's the point at which i'll involve these great resources. for now, it's our dry bones Daily Geography from evan moor. please tell me i'm on the right track with that?!

good to know, paige :) we're trying to be as creation based as possible without being crazy with it. it's just a part of our family fabric.

did you ever figure out what you're going to do? i was just reviewing the thread to see if anyone had followed up. i'm no help. :( did you look at the natural speller?? or sequential spelling? i don't knowanything about either of them other than what i've gleaned from "looking inside" online and a few reviews. reviews are so subjective ...

ok i'm REALLY relieved to hear that it grated on you, too. :) whew! so latin primer is better? where should i look at it? is it ok for a first grader?!?! he's my oldest. i was hoping to let DD (age 4.5) tag along a bit with latin as well as spanish.

so everybody has told me that i should own the books material world and children like me. so i did what i was supposed to do and bought them when i found a good solid used copy. now what do i do? DS is just in 1st grade .... and i'm probably just going to use the evan moor daily geography. we're doing the ancients .... with bible interwoven. i really don't mean to seem dumb about this. is it just something that i "have on hand" for great moments that arise? or is there some "curriculum" that specifically guides me in using it as a resource?

in particular, i'd like to hear thoughts on the song school latin. i just found that tonight. yah yah. i'm a little slow coming to the latin party :) bear with me!

i like the winterpromise thing. but man that's expensive, isn't it? i wish i could SEE what it looks like on the inside. Simplycharlottemason has a free PDF BOC. it's nothing fantastic, which is, of course, why it's free. tanglewood has one for like $3 or something. i am using their corebook this year. it's a LITTLe more interesting than the SCM one is. i'd prefer to not have it hanging all over our wall, as we don't have an isolated "school" room. plus, i think it will be harder when we have more than one child doing the timeline activities. so is it standard that you fill the BOC or the timline with timeline figures, or do you DRAW in what you want to record? i guess i'm a little confused b/c some of the BOCs seem like you would notebook EVERYTHING in there, including bible verses, poetry, artists, music, ReadAlouds, great lit, etc, in addition to history-proper topics. then it seems like others are more just straight up "history" {the timeline figures way}. hmmmmmm. wow. it's like the more i learn, the more i question. also, paige, is your science curriculum a creationists approach? carmen, i definitely think you should do "carmen's ancients" :) as my daughter would say "FO SHO!" i'm getting ready to PM you.

:lurk5:

talk to me about whether this ACTUALLY worked to use in your homeschool setting. it's so attractive to me. am i being fooled into a ridiculously expensive approach?

i went on hearsay and bought prima latina for my rising first grader (fluent reader already), and received it last weekend. i'm really surprised at the gal's voice on the pronunciation CD. i sang latin in college (i was a piano performance major and had choral requirements ...) and am shocked at how un-pure her latin sounds. :( is there anything better for a first grader that i should consider? or should i just not let DS hear the cd? i bought the dvd as well but haven't had a chance to watch it. is it just as bad? or is it really helpful? i wanted something user-friendly and low-prep-time... and a departure from our "normal" curricula. thanks for your thoughts!

i am wanting to implement as easily as possible a timeline (and/or BOC) for our first grade year, as we dive into the ancients. we're either going to use Carmen's ancients or SOTW's approach. still trying to decide, but i think that's a side issue to my question. i'm totally overwhelmed at how to build a timeline. i bought a poster-sized laminated timeline from Geography Matters at our local homeschool curriculum fair this year, but is that enough? what do i put on it? when? how do i integrate that? do we also do a BOC? is there more than ONE BOC? is something like the BOC laid out in the SOTW activity guide {i haven't received my copy yet even though i've ordered it ....} HELP! i don't want to miss the key part of our historical exploration, and DS LOVES the idea of time. he's SOOOO excited about egyptians and greeks right now. we've spent the last month really building up the idea (checking out books from the library, etc . . . ) and laying the foundation. i don't want to blow it :) i love having all you seasoned moms to call upon! thanks!

again, i say wow! i'm going to risk asking a question here ... wish i knew the answer already: when you're talking stone and bronze ages, what years are those? ugh. my pathetic mind. thank goodness i'm homeschooling so i can finally learn this stuff!!!! ;)

:lurk5:

glad to hear all the votes for "war." i agree that reading the directions when you're with your child does tend to zap "the moment." i'm going to study up, as well :)

wow this is FANTASTIC!!!! i had no idea there would even be some "ancient" history i could take advantage of! thanks for ALL THIS info!!! keep it coming!!!

in late july, DH and I are going to celebrate our anniversary in scotland (just outside edinburgh) with friends of ours who live there and then will be hitting london on our way home (with a possible day-ish trip to paris). since we're doing the Ancients here at home this coming year (and since i've completely submersed myself in that world to prepare), i've not studied up on "medieval" yet . . . or anything more recent. i know i should take advantage of actually BEING THERE this year so that i can utilize the experience when we do get into medieval, etc. so what kinds of things should i make sure we go see/do/experience? what kinds of items should we bring home with us that will bring to life that part of the world when we get to those subjects in our schooling at home? what should i "absolutely not miss?" we have tons of time and freedom for 2 weeks . . . and i want to maximize on it!

you're RIGHT where we are! :) we play the corners game with the oldest a lot. it has lots of varieties that i can tailor to what "drill" i feel like he needs work on. also, we liked go to the dump for a long while. we liked playing "memory" in the ways she suggests, like comparing the tally cards to the numeral cards (if i recall correctly . . . it was over a year ago when i did that one :( ) also, i've introduced the oldest to monopoly -- the real one, not the JR. he LOVES it and even though it's a slow-going game when you have to explain the intricacies, it was a really fun way to show him how math "works" in the real world!!! i'm interested in replies you get!!! i noticed in your siggy that you have "artistic pursuits" listed. what's that?! :) sounds exciting! PM me!

any body use the Geography Songs Kit ?

we're only in our second year of schooling and i'm trying to figure out how to most effectively conserve money without running myself wild by going to the library every day. i use and abuse my library's selection but some things i need ON my shelf for those spur of the moment teaching opportunities. furthermore, i've been thinking about all of this even more b/c of all the WONDERFUL resources out there for the study of Ancients this year. i want to have science/bio/history readers, read alouds, reference books, etc. i'm pretty savvy when it comes to amazon/half.com/craigslist; and we have a lot of great used book sales here for homeschoolers (though of course i've missed all three in the past 2 weeks b/c we 've been out of town). how can you go about buying readers without spending $4 on every one? how do you narrow down what you'll buy and what you'll just get from the library? do you buy ahead for the entire year or as you go? i need help on this very practical/pragmatic/potentially pedantic part of schooling!

so is the Evan Moor Daily Geo not as good as the MCP??