We have loved it and history is by far the girls' favorite subject. We have made heavy use of the reading recommendations in the Activity Guide, and read between 4-10 books from the library for each chapter. Whether or not the facts are all exactly right doesn't really matter if you read things from several different sources. It's more of a spine, as it's meant to be used: a way to hang everything together. Now we're looking around for where to go now that we're finishing the series.

My husband read the whole book and loved it, he was LOL all through it. I've read parts to myself and the kids and it seems like a good translation.

Looking for a birthday celebration weekend in NYC and I can't find anything less than $350/night.

I would say we spend an average of 1 1/2 hours a day. We also do both sessions in one time block, in fact, I've found that alot of the Analysis exercises serve as a great warm up for the actual writing. We usually do CW four days a week. Boy, my girls love the 6 step sentence shuffle! We're going to do CW Poetry for six weeks when we finish Homer A, which looks like great fun.

We started homeschooling when my oldest was in fourth grade. We started at the beginning with SOTW 1. One of the reasons I started homeschooling was I thought that our PS system but too much emphasis on American history, to the exclusion of everything else, and that our general population does not have an understanding of how our country fits in the context of world history. If you look at a timeline of world history, how big a chunk of the history of the US? I think that much of our education in this country is too America-centric, to make up my own word! Additionally, I have found, now that we are finishing up the last year of SOTW, that although my kids came later than many to American History, they have a much deeper understanding of what they have learned. We have read Joy Hakim's series alongside SOTW 3 and 4 to give them further depth. They remember information well because we had the time to go into each topic in more depth, read more books, etc. So there's my soapbox speech. As an aside, they have done standardized testing every year and scored very well on the social studies portion. . . none of the tests that they've taken seem to require much specific historical knowledge. I think you have to decide what your overall philosophy of history is. . . TWTM follows a four year cycle so you either buy into that or not. Don't use SOTW if it doesn't agree with your methodology.

I'm looking at Dolciani Structure and Methods . . . does anyone know what the difference between the teachers edition and the answer key is? I'm perfectly comfortable teaching the math but would like to not have to do all the problems to check dd's work, so do I just want the answer key? What's in the TE anyway? Thanks!

If you check the website mathematicallycorrect.com, you can read reviews of some pre-algebra programs. Scroll all the way down near the bottom to find the curriculum reviews. Saxon 1/2 gets a good review (Saxon 87 does not) as well as some other programs. Our experience is that Saxon covers all the basics, gives lots of practice and is incremental and very easy to follow. My kids have been able to do their math work independently by and large. HTH!

The authors are Brown, Dolciani, Sorgenfrey, et. al., published by McDougal Littel.

I had thought of checking the book lists of some prep schools (like the ones you mentioned in MA) but I haven't been able to find any information about texts used. I have found some Scope and Sequences. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places?

For those of you who use different course books from different sources, you haven't found that to be a problem through high school? I thought through elementary/middle school is was good to have some continuity to make sure everything was covered, but since the high school subjects are more discrete, it does seem to make sense to pick the best text for each year. I think I'm satisfied to go ahead with either Foerster or Dolciani for Algebra I, but then how did you determine where to go from there? I'm a math major so I'm not worried about following the material and it's important to me to make a good choice.

I'll check out Ray and book depository. . . I'm psyched to move into something a bit more exciting than LC. . .

Is the Latin Prep I the same as So You Really Want to Learn Latin I? And the standard question. . . where's the best place to buy these? Thanks!

I am planning to use Dolciani's Structure and Methods Algebra Book 1 next year for my eighth grader. First of all, I was wondering if Book 1 is intended to be a one year course. Also, what would be the sequence I would follow using this series for the rest of high school? I've just learned about this series and am impressed with the recommendations, so we're going to make a change after we complete Saxon this year, but I'm not clear on the series through high school. Any help would be appreciated.

We are finishing Latina Christiana I and I was thinking of switching to Galore Park Latin Prep. Does anyone know which Latin Prep book I would start with? Has anyone made this transition?

We've also blown them up to full sheet size and used them as coloring pages or covers on reports.

We have the SOTW activity guide but I agree the maps are over simplified. We've been blowing up a map (usually one I print from National Geographic mapsite or KQ maps or Uncle Josh) to a larger size, using it as an underlay and making a map on nice paper (we use vellum). We add geographic features, and add in the information from the history chapter (often using the SOTW as a reference) and whatever other maps we find in the course of our reading. Sometimes we add information from several chapters on one map over a period of time. Some examples of maps we've done: exploration in the age of Elizabeth, the Crusades, World War I, Battles of the Civil War, Rivers of Europe, the Scramble for Africa. We have a beautiful set of maps now, sometimes the girls add quotations or drawings they find.

We like the context of world history and then go into more detail with History of US. We also read plenty of books recommended in the AG, or others we find, so the actual SOTW text is only a small part of what we read. I think it might be a bit boring by itself.

We're in MA about 45 minutes north of Boston.

We've experienced the same problem, off and on over the years. I would say it's slowly going away except for occasional recurrences! I think all the suggestions, reminding them to do their work neatly, show their work (because then they don't have to do EVERYTHING over during correction) and the neverending reminder of the "jive test" -- does it make sense. We even have a "jive hat" that you have to wear if you've clearly not done the jive test! I've also noticed that it helps to have my dd do the corrections herself rather than working through it with me. . . a way of getting extra attention YKWIM? Anyway, it seems to be less of a problem every year and all the reminding pays off because she has some very good math habits now!

We're just past WWI and they still love SOTW and history is their favorite topic. It's mostly the biographies,the other stories, the presidents, the wars, they love it all. And they are writing great paragraphs from their outlines as well.

Just finished "Uncle Tom's Cabin" last week and started "The Call of the Wild". Thinking about "Murder on the Orient Express" next.

It happens to be the other half of our long living room. It's such a bright, pleasant place to hang out that everyone is drawn to it all the time for any sort of activity. I like having all our resources at our fingertips. It's really the hub of the house now, even more than the kitchen. It certainly doesn't have any negative connotations for anyone and it's nice that anyone who comes in sees all their maps and projects (and origami and glass birds hanging in the windows, and the hyacinths on the window sill and the model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. . . )

We added it in during Earth Science in year two. I was too overwhelmed starting our first year hsing do worry about it with SOTW1, but we covered it very thoroughly as part of science later. Models, timeline of the earth, Neanderthal skull models and tools. . . it was great. I did have to make up my own curriculum on it, though.

If you don't want R&S, SWB recommends the Voyages in English series. We used them happily for a few years. Very thorough and able to be bought inexpensively (try Follett Educational Services).

I think it's inevitable that alot of the wording will be similar to the model, given how much time they spend picking it apart with the exercises. My younger dd has a good memory and remembers poems verbatim after 1-2 times (must be why she likes acting and lines!) and her models always sound more like the model than my older daughter. On the other hand, my younger is the better writer, by far. I think you're doing fine; just take the model away!