How about some lapbooks or other books from homeschoolshare.com?

First I am sorry for your family's loss. Winterpromise has an American history that would probably fit well with Core 3 if you are looking for books to add to for your younger one. Also Heart of Dakota has some programs for the 6-8 age range. Though I'm not sure how they would fit with Core 3. Guest Hollow has the free schedule for American history and also uses some great books with pictures like Winterpromise does that would keep a child's attention longer. As for readers, Winterpromise may have some listed in their LA 1 that tie in with American history. Though they are tougher than a K level. For just regular K level readers, Nora Gaydos has a few wonderful sets that my kids love!

Thanks for the reminders!

Thank you for your help. I have the textbook for WWE, so maybe I'll just try to follow that more closely this year using WWE 2 suggestions.

Great question! I heard MUS had a CD for math info. Though I don't know much about it. :bigear:

I did not use WWE1 since I was using FLL part 1 and it had many of the same assignments. I'm beginning to think I really don't even need WWE2 since I'm seeing a lot of the same work in FLL part 2. Those who have used it, would this be a correct statement, or should I buy the WWE2?

Wow! Thanks so much for sharing your hard work!

Beyond does have spelling lists in the back of the guide. I think it depends on your school of thought. If you like a more CM approach, than Beyond should be a great fit.

If you liked 5 Minute Devotions, you may like God Thought of Everything Weird and Wacky by Bonnie Bruno. My kids have easily transitioned into that devotional since it's along the same theme.

:iagree: The space looks great!

Great! It's nice to see that the public school can admit that parents can teach just as well if not better.

Forgive me if this has been posted already, but I didn't see it with a quick search. Disneyland is doing a special Not Back to School Days for homeschoolers Sept 8-11. http://notbacktoschooldays.com/

My DH enjoys listening to books on CD during his daily commute. So I got him a new book to listen to.

Here is a link to an older thread that has some ideas: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79768 Also, this is scheduled in the activity guides that match each volume.

We felt the same about Abeka math but hated to give it up since it covers such a wide range of topics. So when it came to money, we just pulled out the real money and did the problems. We are also going to try a mix of MUS and Abeka this year. We bought the MUS things and will plug them in to the appropriate places during Abeka spending a little more time on any topics that need it through MUS practice sheets.

We plan to use WP American Story 1 this year. I didn't like the looks of their current spine, so I searched out an older version of the program so we could use the DK American History Encyclopedia instead.

I can't combine my two since DD will be going into 2nd and DS is going to do Pre-K (4 yr old). They are just so far apart in skills that I can only combine them for Bible. Though DS does tag along during some of the history and science activities.

I can't speak for the Cornerstone books, but we have the DK American History book. My DD thinks it's a lot like the Usborne History Encyclopedia. So if you liked that book, there's a good chance you'll like the DK book.

I have a monthly auto transfer into a savings account set up for homeschool expenses. I added the prices for all my dream curriculum (which happens to be be pretty expensive) and divided the cost new by 12. That's roughly how much I put into thee savings each month. Then I search and search to find it used so that we have money left over in the account to pay for other activities.

I believe Calvart uses this text.

:lurk5: Looking forward to hearing the responses.

WinterPromise has Hideaways in History for the younger set (or could be used with the upper elementary if you used the older version with all 4 SOTW volumes scheduled). They also have Sea and Sky for an upper elementary.

I just received the program and have yet to look it over to decide about lessons. As for how often to practice, you would need to have children practicing most every day. Obviously there are some days that life happens, but you should aim to have them practice at least a few minutes every day.

This book looks great! We're coming to an end of Ancients, does anyone know if there are more books like this?

I have thought about this as well. What I think we're settling on is doing most of the WTM suggestions. By using FLL and WWE it's a do the next lesson like a text book would be but it seems more child friendly than a straight English text. For spelling, we plan to use All About Spelling which is working at your own pace with a do the next lesson plan. SOTW seems to be the same way. You can just do the next thing and decide how much you feel like adding from the AG for the elementary years. This year, we are using a science text as our base (we got it free from my school teacher Aunt), then we'll add library books to flesh out some of the subjects. I think this should work well for us since we can take things at our own pace and not feel like we are behind on the schedule.