Yes, both publishers offer their own "guides." I found this thread which described the differences between the guides. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1959136#post1959136 Also, it looks like only Memoria offers the original Modern Age book. Greenleaf's Rob Shearer has, himself, authored Renaissance and Reformation and an assortment of modern centuries. Anyone know why Greenleaf didn't just republish the original Modern Age? Did they find it lacking in some way? Memoria considers the original Famous Men of the Modern Age to be, perhaps, the best of the series. Hmmm...

Thank you for taking the time to answer this yourself! After figuring out the differences between the Famous Men of...books, I had the exact same question about the guides. Your thoughts were very helpful and matched the sense that I was getting from the descriptions of the guides elsewhere. Still not sure which I will prefer, but that's a question only I can answer. ;)

Thank you! I didn't realize they were both republished versions of the same book. I will take your advice and go with Memoria. Very helpful.

I've heard the "Famous Men" series recommended, but (as far as I can tell) there are two of these. :001_huh: One is published by Greenleaf Press and another by Memoria Press. Can anyone compare/contrast these for me? Thanks in advance!

Good point! I wouldn't mind doing it over a longer period of time.

Thank you! Honestly, I am kind of intimidated by doing Latin, on top of everything else, but we're going to give it a go...

I appreciate the input. That's kind of what I figured. My kids and I are so in love with MCT materials--just discovered them last spring--and it will be hard to completely give those up. Will I need to add in grammar conventions--capitalization, punctuation, forming plurals, etc? Is that what Our Mother Tongue can be used for? I guess I thought it was a reference book, but it actually has exercises? Are they scheduled to correlate with EEL? So many questions! Thank you for your time.

For those who have participated in Essentials, how much outside work (in terms of both number of days and length of time) did you and your child need to work on the activities each week? I'm wanting to supplement but not at the expense of overwhelming my DS.

Any advice? I am hoping to do Latin for Children A three days a week for no more than 20-30 minutes a day. Is this doable? How might we organize our week? We did Song School Latin last year as an introduction but didn't really master all the vocabulary. We have also been introduced to the Latin declensions through CC. I'm not sure how to schedule our Latin each day. Help, please?

I also have a rising 4th grader who is an advanced reader studying the same time period. Here's a few more from our list: Blood on the River Calico Captive The Witch of Blackbird Pond Amos Fortune, Free Man Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold Fever 1973 Diary of an Early American Boy, 1805

This is my second year in CC Foundations and Essentials as a tutor I agree with the above opinions on the Essentials program. You CAN use R&S in addition, but it might be overkill. You may want to really scale back the R&S requirements if you do sign up for Essentials. One main benefit to Essentials is the group dynamic--your son will have an audience for his writing. This is huge for us and can't be duplicated with just a tutor. I don't presume to know what would be best in your case, but you may want to at least take that into consideration. My understanding of the math portion of Challenge is that most communities typically schedule the math portion on one end of the day so that those who prefer another curriculum can simply arrive late or leave early. I'm not sure if that is a CC policy or if that is just how it is often arranged; ask your director.

Beautiful Feet has a full curriculum scheduled around the Holling C. Holling books that I mentioned above. The maps would be especially helpful: http://www.bfbooks.com/s.nl;jsessionid=KMwmMhbZv1n0vpGyXRLh23LKsJ4CQVLMG78GwXXrCPyGsQqhWZb3ThSfTcv5gKTx4qn693jLZsMDh51hh8D2PqqXjK2zJh9hTZRpJyv5p0J5hvhcVTp2Yb9hhym84Kpk!-9411049?sc=17&category=14

Our current favorite is A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp. We also love the "living" geography books by Holling C. Holling (i.e. Paddle to the Sea, Seabird, Minn of the Mississippi, Tree in the Trail, etc.).

Here, too!

I forgot...you asked about art as well! I love the fine art primers recommended in the Veritas Press catalog. They have wonderful classical music recommendations as well and sell many of the resources that I listed for composer study in the previous post. We also have the "Come Look With Me" series, though I must admit...we've not used them yet. <blush>

I'm planning on following Ambleside Online's recommended composer study this year. We will study and, hopefully, learn to appreciate the works of Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Chopin this year. Ambleside Online offers an assortment of recommended resources and focusing on 3 composers per year seems very doable to me. http://amblesideonline.org/ComposerSch.shtml I like the Opal Wheeler biographies, the "Getting to Know..." series of books, Classical Kids CDs, and the "Story of ... in Words and Music" CDs along with recordings of the actual pieces.

I use lindafay's Daily Checklist (a blank template) along with a Weekly Term Schedule modified from CharlotteMasonHelp.com. My planning must get done in the summer or it won't get done at all. With these tools I am able to plan out the basics for each week and I can fine tune as time gets closer. http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/organization.html

Yes, that was when things really slowed down here as well.

We are going to be using Veritas' Explorers to 1815 next year and, for those of you who have used their cards and books, how do you know how much reading to assign? I should add...we already memorized the timeline in CC so we won't do the Veritas song, and I do not plan on using the worksheets and tests a whole lot either. Mainly I plan to rely on group and independent reading with (at least) weekly narrations, but I'm not sure how much is realistic to expect. I tend to set my expectations too high. My oldest DS will be 4th grade. He both loves to read and reads very quickly. Obviously I will expect much less from the second DS who is only in 2nd grade. He also reads well, but savors the experience. ;) Any help from veterans of Veritas is much appreciated!

REALLY appreciate the input! It sounds like we are all in agreement that these books *do* require teacher assistance, in certain places especially. About the bar method--I finally caught on to that in the last few weeks and it *has* made it possible to explain the problem without a whole host of "unknowns." Thanks for mentioning that. For awhile 9-yr-old DS was needing my assistance on every "Challenging" problem it seemed, but now I ask him to draw the bars and label them *before* he asks for help and that is going well. He seems to be able to tackle some on his own and is catching on more quickly to the others that I need to help him think through. I really love the mathematical thinking that Singapore encourages!

We have used Singapore Math since the beginning. My oldest DS will be in 4th grade next year and we are really noticing that the Intensive Practice books and Challenging Word Problem books are getting intense in places. It seems like more and more problems are requiring a lot of help from me. Is this normal? For instance, many of the CWP pages are relying on algebraic thinking and I don't see how he is supposed to have any kind of mastery of this yet. A few questions: How do you implement these books? Do you complete all of them? We have always done both workbooks PLUS both IP books PLUS the CWP book for each level. It's a lot of math. Overkill or not? Interested in your thoughts... Do you expect mostly independent completion of the supplemental books or do you offer lots of help and see the problems as opportunities to challenge the child's thinking vs. showing mastery? Finally, any tips for encouraging more careful work for a student that understands the material but makes LOTS of sloppy errors? Thanks in advance!

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I'd recommend it. It's not a perfect fit, but, ultimately, the accountability and community fellowship make it worthwhile for our family.

:bigear:

Oops!