What about veritas press bible and history? They have lots of suggestions for living books and their timeline cards are fantastic. They also have a teachers manual with lots of activities... Pick the ones you like and get rid of the rest. Here we wrote about our experience with the bible and here with the history.

Another vote for the Jesus storybook bible. It's a fantastic bible!

I used it with my 8 yer old son this past year. Worked out well for us. The last couple of months were very challenging, but that's alright. I liked that we could do grammar in less than 30 minutes. We have so many subjects, it's really nice when a subject can be nice and concise.

Would e interested in hearing others opinions who have used it. I know it's quite new.

Hey, just thought id let you all know I was asked to review a new educational website called tropic mind. Our 8 year old loved it! You can see our review if you're interested. Also we were given the opportunity to do a 1 year membership giveaway. Hope you'll check it out!

Any ideas?

:lurk5:

We have really enjoyed IEW. I've found it very very easy to implement. I just wrote about our experiences with IEW on our blog yesterday!

Any good ideas on a science curriculum that can be used at a once a week co-op for 1st and 2nd graders? Looking for some good suggestions. Something that can be easily done once a week with little or no homework. Thanks for your ideas!

We have loved veritas press history! It starts with creation and intertwined major historical bible events into the history. I wrote a review on my blog.

I also use the simply Charlotte mason method, but in a recipe box. I am considering switching to a binder though. We go over lots of things at memory time : poetry, bible memory, Latin words and declensions, skip counting, division facts, address, important phone numbers, and any other random things I think of that should be memorized.

We try to focus on chapters or at least decent chunks of scripture. Psalm 1 is one I start with. Psalm 130 and 131 we've worked on. Most recently we memorized romans12

Funny, I was just looking for some early american history resources today! I found raisingrefounders.com. It has free units! We want to study some american history this summer to get ready for our Williamsburg trip at Thanksgiving. Good luck! Looking forward to hearing what everyone else has to suggest.

1. Times Tales (for learning multiplication and division) 2. Xtramath (so we don't have to use flashcards - blech!) 3. Visual Latin (way fun latin program!) 4. Veritas Press (love their bible and history. Great lit suggestions too) 5. Phonetic Zoo (it's been a life-saver as far as a spelling program goes, for us) (Links are all to my reviews of these pieces of curriculum)

We've really enjoyed long story short! We used it as a supplement to VP and during the summer on its own. I'm sure you and your kids will enjoy it!

We used VP Bible curriculum. There are a number of things I like about it including the fact that my kids will have a nice overview of the bible when done. It is a lot of writing for my writing-00phobic son, so sometimes we do questions verbally. We wrote a complete review of it on our blog....what we liked, what we didn't, the limitations of the curriculum. Check it out if you're interested. http://intoxicatedonlife.com/2012/05/26/judges-kings-homeschool-kit-from-veritas-press-review/

Yes! We aim even at this young age to speak, read, and write Latin. I have become convinced that Latin is so useful (just published a blog post on this yesterday http://intoxicatedonlife.com/2012/06/18/7-reasons-why-im-learning-latin-and-teaching-my-kids-too/ ). I'm excited to be learning Latin with my son and I'm planning on introducing another language, maybe Spanish in a couple of years when we have a more firm grasp on Latin. FYI, this past year we used visual Latin and supplemented with I speak Latin. Really enjoyed both programs.

Great ideas! Thank you thank you! You have given me a great place to start looking.

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll check it out! Any other suggestions?

I have seen them on eBay at times. I need to contact vp soon to see if I can get the whole set because I loaned them to my sis in law and my nieces left them out in in the rain. I'll be needing them soon for my next up and coming reader.

Looks fun! Thanks for the heads up.

We used the veritas press readers that come with their phonics program. I just loved their readers!

Gave up Saxon math. Love how comprehensive it is, but it was taking us way too long. We do teaching textbooks now, but I think I might start my oldest back in saxon in another year.

Yes you need the cards, but not the teachers manual. The online course is awesome! It was a very comprehensive history course that my son enjoyed immensely. If you are interested, I wrote about our experience with it this past school year, here: http://intoxicatedonlife.com/2012/06/06/comprehensive-interactive-and-fun-history-curriculum-review/

Hi, I'm part of the planning team for our local co-op. Though, it's not really a co-op, but not sure what else to call it. Only some of the parents teach. Many of our teachers are outside volunteers including retired school teachers, college profs, and we even have a doctor and an attorney. Anyhow, that's all peripheral. We have in the past had a math hour with kids divided into grades 1/2, 3/4, and 5/6 for the primary grades. The problem is there is such diversity within these grades with regard to what the students math level is. Some kids are well ahead of grade level expectations and others behind. For instance some kids in the 1/2 grade level were just learning about numbers and beginning addition while others were working on times tables, division, and even fractions. The teachers in the math classes it seems really had to teach to the lowest level students. We are trying to find a way to remedy that this yeAr. I think what we are going to do instead of have grade level math is just 3 levels where your student goes to whatever level they are ready for. I have a couple things I'm trying to figure out 1) obviously, since this is a once a week class it cannot be a complete math curriculum. I would love to have suggestions on a possible curriculum we could implement as a supplement though? Something to guide our teachers on what to cover for these classes. 2) I'd love to have suggestions on how to place the kids. Should we just give class descriptions on what will be covered in each math class after we've solved that problem and let parents place their students where they think they should be? Or should we do some sort of placement test? Other options?