I think you could get the books from the library and buy the cards. When we read the books (cards and all...the cards ARE great), you could write to Scholastic and ask for sets of code numbers without buying the cards. Don't know if you can still do that; look around on the website to see if you can. The only other thing is that I think that the book bought new comes with a certain set of cards and I can't quite remember if you can get those cards in the bought packs. Clear as mud?

I ran a science co-op for 4 years and wrote all my own labs. If I was going to do it again, I would use GEMS guides. I didn't know about them at the time!

The video series "Biomes of the World in Action" http://www.libraryvideo.com/product.asp?mscssid=QKH8LA4M80XP8KV6WQ176P1Q39PKFESA&sku=V7070 is a great series. Also here is a site to print out pictures and definitions of various landforms. Haven't tried it though... http://www.montessorimom.com/montessori-geography/ If you search "webquest landforms" or Webquest biomes you should get lots of great lesson plans.

There are lots of suggestions here: http://www.historicalnovels.info/Ancient-YA.html#YAEgy

Jeff Corwin Experience (geography and nature) Acorn the Nature Nut (nature) Time Warp Trio (history) Canadian Geographic for Kids (Canadian Geography) Cyberchase (math) Between the Lions (phonics)

I used this program when it was called Explorations and Aplications up to grade 5 and I think it is excellent. Tons of games, thinking stories, mental math, problems.

We did The Brain a few years ago. It works remarkably well with GEMS Learning about Learning. We learned a lot. We've also done The Elements and Excavating English with much success and are currently working on Mapping the World with Art.

Mythmatical Battles. http://www.mythmaticalbattles.com/ You have to know the multiplication facts to play this game and it's a lot of fun!

This looks like a great website for learning any of these languages. http://yabla.com/ Has anyone tried a sub to it? I think I will ask at Homeschool Buyer's Coop to see it they can get a deal!

We are using Breaking the Barrier + OLI + Francais Interactif + various games and quizard flash cards. I've made a break down of the resources from OLI and FI that go with BTB if anyone would like it.

Have you seen these excellent resources from public schools of North Carolina? We use MM and also use the week by week essentials to review (and sometimes touch on topics we haven't covered yet). http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/mathematics/elementary/

Do you know about The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones? There are 3 volumes and all the episodes are history related. My library carries all 3 volumes, so I will give you an example from vol 3. The title show is "Tales of Innocence" which features Indiana Jones as a teen. There are excellent special features about some of the action in the show. In this example they are: "Unhealed Wounds-The Life of Ernest Hemingway", "The French Foreign Legion-The World's Most Legendary Fighting Force", "The Secret Life of Edith Wharton", Lowell Thomas-American Storyteller". We have watched several episode so far and they are thouroughly enjoyable and educational.

Charlotte Diamond and Carmen Campagne.

http://moviesheets.com/ Movie Sheets contains one of the largest databases of classroom movie worksheets on the net. These worksheets are based on films that teachers have viewed then subsequently created film guides for.

Ah way up there. I still had to look around! :-) Thanks,

I can't figure out how to access the resources. Am I missing something? thanks!

Great documentaries can be found at topdocumentaryfilms.com. There are several to do with chemistry that we plan to watch later in the year. Sometimes a doc has been taken off and if that is the case I check You Tube directly, or documentarystorm.com or documentaryheaven.com.

Raz-kids (another web site for Reading A-Z) has online books that are read aloud.

http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ I was looking for french books and came across this site. The books are beautiful.

You don't have to sign in to use You Tube. You just type in the name of the video you want and if someone has put it on You Tube, it will be there. For example, last year we watched the entire BBC series The Great War on You Tube. I just looked up the order of the episodes on Wikipedia. When we are studying a certain topic, say for examle, the water cycle, I just go into NeoK12, or Brainpop, or Top documentaties to see if there is something on the water cycle.

I posted about this website awhile ago because I think it is fantastic. I love the video clips and the games as well as the ability to create a presentation out of the photos they have.

crime Scene Chemistry is a GEMS guide. Found here http://lhsgems.org/gemsguides.htm

Reading A-Z has some readers based on history. Mainly in the higher levels though. What about Brainop? Lots of history based episodes there.

For us, yes the history outline would be done during history time.