I guess I just value her opinion and really wish I knew which books she was criticizing so I can tell if she is being a too-conservative curmudgeon or if her insights are legitimate. People get so secretive when talking about curricula on Facebook sometimes! Not just Alveary; I see it with other things too. They’ll be like “I didn’t like the values in some of the books we had to read.” I’m like, hello, what values and which books?? Everyone is always so vague like there’s a curriculum police out there. All I’ve been able to find, Alveary-wise, is that some people didn’t like the choice of “Hidden Figures” this year as part of the history (their history rotates and I think this year was modern). And some people will mention that some of the older kids’ books had a more liberal bent to them.

It can go both ways too. I think Ambleside is probably the most infamous for assigning books that would be awfully challenging for most children at the ages recommended (I’m looking at you, Peter Pan for a 6 year old). It’s tough, though, to gauge because it can be so child dependent. That’s why I wish they would stop all the secrecy and just say which book that they thought was too easy, so I could check it out! When I watched the Alveary’s YouTube videos on their book lists, nothing struck me as particularly out of place, but nor am I familiar with all of the books. I want to read good books to my kids, and challenge them too, but it’s tough to parse through all the bias. There are some flavors of Charlotte Mason purists that would exclude most, if not all, modern books for children, which I think does them a disservice.

I’m really intrigued by the Alveary. I am ever on the search for a nice history/literature program and I really like what I’ve seen from their model so far. I always love hearing from people about the good and the bad of a program they use. Please give me all your opinions! As a thanks for reading my post, I bequeath to you some Facebook drama. Cindy Rollins (author of Mere Motherhood and she does that podcast “The Mason Jar”) and Angelina Standford have openly made very disparaging comments about this curriculum. Denouncing it, saying it is not rigorous, implying they have some kind of agenda (I mean…don’t we all?) and calling their recommended books “low-quality.” Here’s what drives me crazy about this kind of Facebook rhetoric: 1. It’s disrespectful. It’s a bad look when people who call themselves Christians are openly bad-mouthing a curriculum made by other Christians. They could have done it in a constructive way, but it honestly seemed more demeaning and dramatic than helpful. Which leads to the second thing that drives me crazy: 2. The criticism was vague and unhelpful. “Not rigorous” they exclaim, with nothing to back that up. The Alveary teaches Shakespeare and Plutarch like any other basic Charlotte Mason curriculum, so whatever it is I wouldn’t call that gentle. Furthermore, they call their books “age-inappropriate” and too-easy, then proceed to give no examples. Can we move on from vague-booking and just be honest? Here’s feedback that would actually be helpful. “The Alveary uses x book at x grade and here is where I think that would be more appropriate for the average student, and why.” Or “The Alveary uses x book and here is why I think it is not a good choice, and furthermore, here are a few ideas for better choices for that age and subject.” That would be a lot more helpful than smugly saying “they have an agenda!” Then locking the comments. Classic. This didn’t feel like something I could post on Facebook anywhere so I’m posting it here. I’ve been stewing over this for a while with no one in real life to talk with about it! I really respected those women so it was kind of disappointing to see them talking like that to a public forum, especially since they hold so much sway in the Charlotte Mason world. Anyway, please give me some “robust” comments on the Alveary (the joke is, they also mocked the Alveary by putting “robust” in quotations…it was pretty immature). The end 😂.

My son will be 4 in September. Some things I’ve started with him: AAR pre reading. This is such a lovely program! We call them “Ziggy Lessons” and I swear that zebra puppet was worth every penny. HWT pre-k. We have a few of the bells and whistles. The teacher’s guide is very good, even though it’s written for a classroom and there’s a lot we skip. We’ve been playing a lot with the wooden letters. He loves to build “mat-man!” I’m going very slowly with him on this. I don’t want to push writing too early, but I want to teach correct grip and habits for later. Crayon rocks have also been great for this! Things I want to start this year: Gentle Classical Preschool. I’m so excited about this beautiful program! Love the books, love the handicrafts, love the catechism, the manners, the memory statements, love it all! Some of the work will be easy (he knows his letters, colors, shapes) but I think repeating is good. Kate Snow’s preschool math at home. Gentle Classical has plans that go with it so I’m looking forward to that. Wee Folk Art sprinkled in when I want to do a seasonal activity. Sorry for the long post; Im at that stage of homeschooling where talking about curricula is very exciting to me 😂

Alright you guys have sold me. I’m just gonna do ARR. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll get something else, but I have a good feeling about it. When I compare teacher guides, it is much more *soothing* to my brain than the LOE teacher’s guide, which overwhelms me. I’m doing it. This is it. Decision made. No more researching phonics programs. Thank you all! Now I’m on to overthink about handwriting for a while. 😄

Here is the problem that the modern homeschooler faces: There are too many good things. I am having the hardest time selecting that very first phonics program. It’s silly, I should just pick one that looks good and go. But I’m not even sure of my own philosophy, and end up getting swayed in many directions. There are so many opinions out there. Handwriting and phonics together? Research shows that this is good! But also not good, because tying reading to handwriting might be frustrating if there is a large gap between the two skills. Spalding is the best! Teach them all the sounds at once! They’ll be excellent spellers! No, don’t do that, teach them one sound at a time to get them reading faster. Ugh. Why do I agree with all of these contradictory statements 😂. Ok. Ok. I am finally between three. Let me muse about them here for a moment. All About Reading. Logic of English Foundations. Memoria Press’s First Start Reading. I just need to choose >.< if I can pull the trigger on one, it will get me to stop worrying about it. All About Reading has my favorite readers. So beautiful! MP’s seem nice too. I like that MP has nice copywork that goes hand in hand with it. I could combine literature with it and say, yippee hooray, that’s our K. Haha. But I don’t know. I don’t know. Ugh. Logic of English seems so wonderfully thorough. I really want to pick one program and stick with it until my child is a strong reader. Give me your anecdotes. I’ve read so, so many. Pros and cons. Please make it harder for me 😂. Ellie, I already know you’re gonna pop up in here and recommend Spalding. Nooooooo. Thank you guys for any suggestions 😂 love these curriculum review threads.

Thank you for the offer! I actually did go ahead and buy them, I think they will be worth having on our shelf.

I see many Charlotte Mason curricula that use these books for teaching history. They can be tricky to find for a good price, even used. Beautiful Feet Books is having their annual sale tomorrow, and it’s the cheapest I can find them. Are these worth it? Are they really that good? Or are there better biographies out there for that age?

Understood Betsy! Of course I loved it. However, I feel like this book is almost more for parents than for children…I wonder what ages children usually enjoy this one? I think it may have bored me a bit as a kid🤣. Man, it just made me wish I could give a life like that to my children. We certainly live in a world that restricts the independence of children.

Everyone seems to love Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, so it’s interesting to see another take! I’m hoping to read Anne soon. My own friend, to her horror as a teacher, just didn’t like her and couldn’t suspend her disbelief while reading.

Holden is a very subtle character, and I think on the surface he comes off as annoying and pretentious to most people, but I could see how deeply he was hurting and how outraged he was that the world was moving on without his brother. Even his parents and sister didn’t seem to get it. The book is him processing this loss without directly talking to the reader about it. Ahh everyone always hates on Holden so I gotta show up every once in a while to defend him 😂 I’ll check out the other book you mentioned, too!

Thank you for this post. It’s tough to find posts from veteran homeschoolers who stuck to a certain way of educating all the way through. I’ve always been curious to see what the fruits of certain methods would have in our children! Ive always been fond of SWB’s way of the student learning to research on their own and educate themselves. It’s so different then the way I was taught to spoon feed kids in public schools with worksheets and PowerPoints.

I agree, but I would have felt better if he had at least used a stall instead of the urinal right next to me. Then again, he could have just used the men’s bathroom in the first place. I wish the changing table had been inside the stall like it is in some places.

I normally don’t post in the chat board, but I was reading this thread and something happened to me today so I thought I’d share my two cents on why I think having a bathroom for just women is important. Today I went to a restaurant with my family. I took my 6 month old daughter to the bathroom to change her diaper. They did not have a woman’s bathroom. They had a men only bathroom, and a door with a man/woman both on it. So first of all I was like wow, let’s get rid of women’s bathrooms but not men’s. Truthfully I didn’t care though. I’ve never been one to care about the bathroom thing, and never felt all that unsafe or anything in a bathroom before. Well. I take my daughter into the mixed gender bathroom to change her diaper, and a few seconds after I enter, a man comes in. I knew in my gut that this guy had seen me go in and followed me intentionally. I had just put my daughter on the changing table, so I just turned and ignored the guy, changing her. He peed in the urinal right next to us. I was so, so uncomfortable. All I could think about was how this guy could do anything to me or my daughter. It was such a small bathroom and I felt too close to him. I did not feel safe at all. I’ve never felt unsafe in a woman’s only bathroom. Just saying. Maybe you think I’m overreacting, and maybe I am, but I understand what people are talking about now. That dude was given the social *ok* to follow me in there, when he normally couldn’t have been emboldened to do so. Ugh. The whole situation gave me the heebie jeebies.

I’m surprised that I’ve seen a lot of dislike for Wind in the Willows. All I know about it is “Toad’s Wild Ride” at Disney so I figured it must be well loved.

I lied, the next book I finished was Pollyanna. Adding this to my list of good classics. I teared up a little at the end when, no spoilers, but everyone was coming to visit her. In some ways this book weirdly reminded me of the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life. Does anyone else get that sort of theme/vibe? Like you were this light in the community, and then when you need help, everyone comes around to be that light for you because of how you helped them. I could see how some people in this day and age might call the Glad Game an unhealthy coping mechanism. There are times when we need to grieve. But I think the spirit of this book is beautiful. My one gripe - her constantly calling her freckles ugly. I have freckles, my children probably will too. I know this is just a time and place idea of beauty that was in the past, but I still don’t even want it in my children’s minds that their freckles are ugly 😕 Ok, Understood Betsy is next for real this time.

This zombie thread has left me in terror tonight. No one has ever told me any of this, and I’ve always gotten in my car when freezing cold winds blow. I’m going to be thinking about this for the rest of my life when I pump gas now 🤦🏻‍♀️

I really need to read this one. I think I’m bumping it to the next children’s book on my list.

I wonder if it has to be one or the other. I don’t care much for the movie (at least, I always dislikes the cartoon-world scenes as a kid) but really enjoyed the book! However, having watched “Saving Mr Banks,” I really don’t see what the author’s point was about saving the father. The father is hardly mentioned in the book at all! I rather like that theme in the movie. I wonder if that comes into play in other books in the series?

Just finished up the first “Boxcar Children” book in the series. As far as books with the theme of “poor siblings who love each other, have jolly spirits, and survive grim circumstances but magically end up adopted by an estranged wealthy relative” go (how’s that for a run on sentence?) I preferred this one to “Five Little Peppers.” It didn’t drag, it was succinct, it maintained the love of the siblings and still felt believable without getting too overly-sweet. The boxcar was so charming. I think I would have loved this book if I had read it as a child. I haven’t thrown Peppers in the compost just yet; I will continue reading more of those books. I’m gonna drop Boxcar, though, as I read they become mystery novels after the first one. I will definitely have my children read this book at some point. Even if that opening is so randomly horrific! I also read “The Hundred Dresses.” I noticed it was featured in a lot of homeschool reading lists and it was so quick I blew through it while watching my toddler play in the sandbox today. Wow. What can I even say? What a powerful little story. The ending is particularly wrenching and I wouldn’t change it even though I longed for a more satisfying conclusion. This one is going to stick with me for a while. What a great story for character-building. Ugh. The way the character Maddie was imagining saving the polish girl in various ways to make herself feel better…it felt so real. That’s so how my brain is, and feels like one of those little shower thoughts…those details in our lives no one talks much about but we all share.

Thank you for finding this!! Wow, I must say I prefer many older choices when it comes to literature. Maybe I’m just being a fuddy duddy though. I’m unfamiliar with a lot of their newer titles these days so I should probably give them a chance before I judge. The hopeful part of me wonders if they are trying to keep up with the very best lit that the current times have to offer. The cynical part of me wonders if they are changing out the books and guides so people can’t reuse cores and must continuously buy new from them for their children.

I know this thread is 1000 years old but it made me wish I could go back and look at all the old Sonlight book selections over the years. I’d love to see their original selections and how they’ve changed.

I’ve loved Memoria Press’s choices for preschool and pre-k read alouds. They’ve got the list right there on the website. Check out the Mensa list too.

Oh I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle as a child! I wonder how she holds up; I’ll have to reread. Can you believe I still haven’t read Little Women?? It’s so hyped up now I’m almost afraid to read it! I like the term mental Fritos. Though one can argue a bag of Fritos every now and again isn’t a bad thing 😉 I always say Captain Underpants inspired child-me to make little comics!

A couple years ago on her Facebook page she had a thread about how she was not properly paid by them too, I believe. That’s sort of what started the whole thing. I didn’t know about this link situation though until you posted this.