Beth, Thank you very much for this link. I tried an hour in the morning to search on the UPS site for estimated cost calculator but couldn't find media rate. I am so glad to find out it is about $20 rather than $120 that I saw in the morning. You have been very helpful. This is the first time I am going to sell my curriculum. J

I am trying to figure out how much postage I need to pay for shipping my SL P4/5 complete set to any potential buyer. It is about 30#. I have no idea about this. Can you who are experienced buyers or sellers of used curricula tell me an estimated amount? Thank you. How about for a couple books that is about 2 pounds? Thanks for your help. J

Now that you have us all so envious, why don't you share what you are using to produce two such wonderful writers? I understand that if it is one that is so advanced, it might be her inborn gift. But if both your girls turn out so many grades ahead of our average kids, then you have to share what you do with language arts. I hope this sounds like a compliment to you for a job well done:001_smile:

This writing is fantastic. My son 7.75 is nowhere near what this is. He can write two sentences full of spelling errors and punctuation errors. I am envious. :lol:

We didn't do anything when we finished Egypt. There used to be an Egyptian restaurant a few blocks from us and another one called Blue Nile not far away. However, they were both out of business and had to close. If you want to celebrate, there are ideas from TOG Year 1. TOG plans for students and families to celebrated every nine weeks after they finish each unit. That gave me ideas too. J

I am from Beijing, but I don't live there now. I am in MN, US. You bet we will have Italian food when we are done with Roman studies. We actually went to the art museum to see Egyptian art, Greek art, Chinese art and Roman sculpture first and then had lunch. One cool thing to share is that my two ds are doing VBS with Joseph in Ancient Egypt. They are decorating mummies/small size, making necklaces, writing hierglyphics, making spices, making ropes, baskets, and coolest of all making bricks with mud and straw outdoors in a huge basin/tub and bare feet. They have brick mold to put the bricks in. That church had Twelve Tribes two years ago and Paul and ancient Rome last year. We didn't go last year because it was expensive. This year they cut the price to half (30$/child). We love to go there in the summer for the cool history and Bible VBS. J

Thanks for sharing your sequence. So you already finished SSL and Minimus and GSWL. I like all three. If I had to choose one, GSWL would be my choice. Since Dh got SSL and minimus, we will just do both of those first and then GSWL. I am thinking about Lively Latin after all those are done. So you don't like it. I know some people like it such as Heather/Siloam. isn't it quite done independently by the students? That is what I like about it. But Latin for Children is a good choice too. J

Dh got Getting Started with Latin from the library and taught 4 lessons in 6 minutes to my two ds at dinner time. They now can spell nauta and nauta sum. I love this book for its straightforwardness. I did 20 lessons myself at a sitting. Dh will do Minimus with the two boys this evening as part of bedtime reading. He is so passionate about teaching it that I will let him do it as long as he wants. So long to my French for a while.

I am not good at following recipes. so we went out to a Greek restaurant for lunch and had chicken kabeb, grape leaves with ground beef and rice wrapped inside, Aegean Dip (pita bread with lamb in it and a bowl of dip) as well as Greek salad, to finish we had Greek dessert, two types of pastry that were so fluffy and yummy. We will go to another Greek restaurant in a couple of weeks. We will start Ancient Romans soon. I think SOTW 1 paces it better than TOG 1 because TOG 1 has 9 weeks while SOTW 1 has 11 weeks. SOTW is much easier to use for the lower grammar ages, I have to say, especially when I cannot use library books easily with TOG 1. Jade from Beijing

:iagree:I photocopied the Egyptian one and never got to it. The book is gathering dust on my shelf. Complete waste of money!

On the other hand, I checked my library (and tried interlibrary loans, too) for books used in Unit 4 but hardly found any, actually, only one for 4 weeks. I am not happy about this. That would mean that I would have to buy the books somewhere. Dh gives me permission to buy all the books if we use TOG. But it is a lot of money. I hate it if we don't have the right books to use and end up not using TOG the way it is designed. What is the point of using the plan if you cannot use the books scheduled in it? So for me, if I do go TOG full scale, I will BUY the books so that the headache of tracking books will be eliminated and we can enjoy the program to the fullest we can. Also the copying of the student pages will have to be done ahead of time so that it is easier when we actually start it. Is this the way you would do you copying? Where do you do your copies? At home, or in a store?

I have been using a combo of SOTW 1 and Sonlight core 1. We are almost done with the Read Alouds and Readers from SL 1 and we have Ancient Rome left to cover. A woman (I barely even know her name, just met her once) loaned me her beautiful TOG 1. I poured hours over it last night and to my surprise it is quite easy to understand. I think we will try Year 1 Unit 4, even though I do miss all the Bible that is tied in in the first three units. We are ready to move on. It is amazing to see God's redemption so clearly presented. One friend who used it one year, but switched to MFW for her high schooler said that TOG 1 brings spiritual revival and after viewing it I understand what she means. I am not excited about all the books I have to check out of the library, or all the pages that need copying. But I do understand how it is used. So I am glad it is less hard that I was led to believe. I am still wanting to do Sonlight until Core 4 is done, though. So now I am just trying out Y1U4. I think TOG is great resource for mom. I have been reading the Oxford Univ. Press ancient world volumes to educate myself. I think reading the TOG teacher's notes prepares me well to teach. J

Dh went ahead and ordered both Song School Latin and Minimus and Minimus CDs. So we are starting Latin this fall with dc 7.8 and 5.6. Do you do both the same time or do you finish SSL first and then do Minimus? I can tell that SSL is quite easy for ds 7.8 to finish one lesson a week. I don't really expect ds 5.6 to do all the worksheets in the book. We will all learn the songs with vocab together. How do you do SSL at your house? Do you add Minimus somehow or do you wait till SSL is done? Also, what do you use after SSL is completed? I am thinking of Latin for Children or Lively Latin. I understand that LFC has better chanting while LL has more variety in its worksheets and students can do it more independently. Am I right? Thanks, J

Jess, I cannot open this booklist link. It only says "Not Found". How can I find it? Thank you. J

Do you think you can share some of your dd's completed notebooking journal pages with me, please? J

I am planning Astronomy for my two boys, 7.8 and 5.7. I bought the book and notebooking journal. It looks like there is a lot to do. How have you done it with your young kids? Of course I will read aloud to both of them and ask the older to do the notebooking journal. But some of the journal looks repetitive. For example, there is Fascinating Facts about the Earth, then another page with "Earth" and a box and some lines under it, and right next to it a bland page, plus the last page with "Earth" on the very top and blank page under the word. I feel that we can just use at most 1/3 of what is there, not even close to 1/2. Is this your experience? Also, how long does it take you to finish the whole course? I would like to add some earth science right after we finish astronomy. Have you tried this? What would you have your younger one do? Maybe I can let him use a few of those redundant pages to fill in rather than print other things for him. Do you have a reading list for each lesson? I would like to add ONE library book for each lesson. Or is there a good resource book that can be used along with the whole course? TIA for your advice. J ETA: Can you share some of your dc's completed (Fulbright's) notebooking journal pages with me please? I would like to see some tangible examples how it is done. Thanks.

because too many pages are used to describe how men came from .......all the evolution stuff. I checked it out of the library and returned without using it. It would be a waste of my money if I bought it. However, I am happily using a borrowed copy of Usborne, which is very nice for especially lower grammar kids, and has only a couple pages about the start of life. Just my two cents. J

I'm using Sonligh core 1. But I added SOTW 1 and love history much more. My kids are enjoying it a lot. I am considering switching to TOG at some point. So what is a good time to switch. I originally planned to finish Core 4 (American history) and then switch. But now I feel I don't want to wait so long. i really want history to be more interwoven with church history. My kids are 7 and 5. So what do you think when it is good to switch from Sonlight? J

Thanks a lot for all the wonderful suggestions. I am in love or audio books because it saves me from reading all the long chapters/books as well as gives me a chance to enjoy them as a listener. J

Dh is reading the Lord of the Ring to my boys. I would also checked out the audio CDs you mentioned. We are really enjoying all the audio CDs that we can find. I tried The Railway Children on CD. It was NOT good and I returned it after listening for 5 minutes. I will purchase ESV Bible on audio CDs soon from CBD. I think we can get more Bible time with audio in the car or during breakfast, lunch time. Please, more recommendations for audio books? Thank you so much! J

We loved listening to the 8 hour CDs when we traveled to the Itasca Lake. I love the narrator's voice. Do you know if he has other kids' books on CD? I checked the libraries, but they don't have any other. By the way we also enjoyed Wheel on the School tapes, also by a British narrator. Unfortunately, the other books she narrates are all adult fictions. Indian in the Cupboard is a good listen, too. My kids are in love with books on CD ever since we started SOTW1 CDs. I saw the thread of Jim Weiss CDs. He is our favorite narrator.

Thanks for this link. I tried Lesson 9 vocab and got 81% right. I am really excited. Dh wants us to do Latin even though I want to do French. So we will start with Song School Latin and I am really excited. Do you use it along with Minimus?

I have posted quite a bit lately about choosing Latin or French and I was almost set to go for French when dh and I talked today and he strongly suggested Latin because French spelling is hard, which I agree, with all the unpronounced consenants, for example, suis, est, maintenant. He wants the kids to do Song School Latin AND Song School Greek. We will buy both and play with them first. J

We did A and C the same time to start. We only did a little of the B because at that time my ds didn't like coloring. Both my dss went through these books and enjoyed doing them. J

Have you used these programs? Can you compare the two? I read reviews of Le Francais Facile and saw some sample lessons and feel that it is mainly conversational while L'Art series seem to focus on reading more. Am I correct? Or are there some other programs that you have used successfully that you recommend? Please share your experience. Thanks, J