Bump!! This would be great!

I am a tutor for CC and have both the timeline and the science cards. I personally prefer to 2 hole punch the bottoms of the cards and then I use flexible plastic aviation rings from www.flyboys.com to secure them because they don't harm the cards at all even with much use. I like the timeline cards on rings because speed is of the essence and so that they can be taken out, displayed, played with and rearranged etc. However, for the Science cards, I will put them in a binder because I will use them more like a book and want access to the backs for more information. That's just my 2 cents.

I am having a hard time finding reference books or read alouds for my dd7 that correspond to Classical Converations cycle 1 science. It covers the classification of living things, animal and plant cells, groups of vertebrates, parts and systems of plants, as well as basic earth science ie parts of the earth, weather, volcanoes etc. What are your favorite books on these topics? Can anyone help?

This is another vote for Math U See! the way the DVD teaches makes so much sense and is extremely easy to understand. I hear people say that there isn't enough review but I just don't find that to be true. There is review of all previous concepts all through the book, but it does focus on one skill at a time and urge you to practice to mastery. There is a drill page online if you need more as well as free printable sheets for each lesson. It has been wonderfully effective, and it does go all the way through calculus. Also, the lessons have been updated over the last couple years and are even more user friendly.

I cannot recommend Telling God's Story highly enough! Year one says "1st Grade" but the lessons aren't childish and could easily be used by a family. The activity guide had fun projects from simple to more elaborate as well as beautiful realistic coloring pages. We absolutely love it!!

I am expecting in november and will also have a 2nd grader. I don't really know how it will go yet, so I will just share what my plan is and pray that I can see it through! We school year around with breaks and that usually ends up being about 42 weeks. As I look at next year I know I will likely need more off time with baby coming so I am planning for a 36 or 38 week year. I know that will give me 14 weeks out of the year to be off regular schedule. Let me just say I am not a "planning person" I don't function well with inflexible schedules and I have never done a detailed plan for a whole year in advance before so this is a major deal for me. The way I have done it is to make weekly sheets with all our subjects as rows (I don't do a lot of extras) and I put "weekly goals", "days 1-4", "met?", and "notes" across the top in columns. I dont put dates on these forms because I'm not sure which weeks I will need off, this gives me the flexibility to choose what week we are on but still get all of it done. The form is such that my dd can check to see what still needs to be done and it will be much easier for me to know where we are and specifically what needs to be done so I can better ask dh for help with certain things on our list. I have highlighted our core things so we know at a glance which are the most important things to get done. As for curriculum, we will be doing: Classical Conversations FLL OPGTR MUS Beta Telling God's Story Spelling Power w/ dictation SOTW ancients Daily copy work from Literature or her Bible and read alouds that compliment our CC history and Science (planning and ordering these now bc I just wont actually make it to the library once a week) as well as working through some quality literature read alouds. Dad helps with this in the evenings. My dd isn't yet an independent learner, she needs me to work with her on most things--math, and language arts especially. So I am really hoping having a reasnable plan will help us not fall behind this year even with me needing to spend so much one on one time with her and have a new baby. Hope this helps someone! Congrats on all the babies!!

thank you ladies, this gives me several things to look at. I like spelling power a lot and appreciate the dictation resource too. If yoou have something else to recommend, keep em coming!

Can anyone recommend a spelling program or method for me? I want something that teaches the basic rules of spelling (which I never learned and still don't know so I need help) but doesn't have a bunch of bells and whistles. I don't want magnets and tiles and all of that, which is why I have been resisting AAS. I don't want workbooks with long lists to memorize etc. I don't want to spend 45 minutes on spelling which is what will happen for my DD if I get into a program like those. We are currently doing copywork in our language arts as well as FLL and I want something that will compliment those. I need help transitioning her to dictation with spelling. It could be a book that teaches me how to teach rules based spelling within what we are already doing, or a simple rules based curriculum for her. Suggestions?

I am no expert but I am a MUS user who intends to use it through high school with my dd. Their program goes all the way through calculus and that's all the way through. As long as it keeps working, I will keep using it. I am buying a couple very inexpensive MM topical workbooks to suppliment a couple of topics that MUS doesn't cover in early grades (measurement, money) and I feel great about it. This program makes sense to us and the time we've taken for mastery is already showing results. Not everything is for everyone, but we love MUS. Have you watched the videos on MUS web site that review the upper levels of math? They were very encouraging to me. Good luch to you on finding something with longevity for your family!

Telling God's Story Classical Conversations SOTW LOF History Through the Ages Timeline MUS FLL WWE I just love all of these!!!

A table of contents is great just to increase exposure and to show to other interested parents, but I don't need see one in order to buy year two, my husband and I are all in as far as Telling God's Story is concerned. i couldn't be more positive about it! I love the whole thing--the parent guide, the activity guide, the philosophy--the whole deal. I know not everyone is a fan, but seriously i'd wait in a line to shake Peter Enn's hand (and the rest of you who worked on this project) and so sincerely thank him (and you all) for putting this wonderful, simple, brilliant God-honoring resource out there. If I could explain how big of a deal it is for me to know that this resource is out there as apposed to the way I was taught, I think everyone would use it!! Thank you thank you!!!!

Hi there, my dd6 is doing very well with MUS also. The mastery of the facts to the point of automaticity is important to me too bc it will help everything later be easier. There are a couple of things we do to practice that have helped. First, I cant speak highly enough for learning to skip count! We are part of a Classical Conversations community so we have learned to skip count 2's through 15's along with the squares and cubes and this has been awesome for her understanding of math facts. I know MUS has a skip counting CD and I'd spend time mastering those songs first. Past that, we played some dice games that were fun and easy. The best one we did for the math facts was to take a piece of paper and put one column for her and one for me and then put 12 boxes vertically on each side numbered 1-12 and then maybe put them in a sheet protector. The game was called "race to 12". Each person takes turns rolling 2 dice, then they add the 2 numbers and mark off the answer on their sheet with a dry erase marker. Whoever can mark off all their squares first wins. The beauty of this is that each person will roll the same numbers, say a 4 and a 6, multiple times although they may have already marked off the 10, so it reinforces the fact over and over while also revealing that 6+4 and 4+6 equals the same thing. If the kiddo feels unsure, there are the dots to count for help. Also, it's free and takes about no effort! woohoo!

thank you! This makes me very happy!

Hi there, I just wanted to reply to your concern really quick. It's hard when I don't know you or your child, but I just wanted to offer some encouragement. From what I understand, your son is in PS now and you'll begin HS in the summer. All of us are eager for our children to do well and love learning, and from what you say, your son really is doing great and even though he is schooling as much as a full time job, he is still willing to do homework and extra school with you. I'd say that you already have an eager learner and can just relax. I don't have a ton of experience, but from where I'm sitting, the less pressure there is around reading, the more likely your child will be to do it for fun. For example, if you had a swing in your back yard and decided to make swining a daily assignment and had to tell your son to make sure and go outside and swing for his 20 minutes every day, and were always checking and making sure he was growing in his swinging skills etc, he may not enjoy it as much as if he got to go on the swing when the mood struck and then you caught him doing it and acted really impressed with him for his accomplished swinging. Does that make sense? If he's already reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level, then just rejoice and concentrate on being super proud of your amazing smart boy. Once you are doing school at home and his brain isn't mush from his long day, his desires may shift, as they will when he stumbles upon very high interest books. As for the practical side, one thing we did worked great for incentivising reading. For my dd6, I made a reading jar. it was just a mason jar with measurments on the side. I have a bunch of those flattened glass marbles like you use for decorating or fish tanks, and when she would read a new book, I gave her 5 marbles (for her age at the time they were small books, I'd do ten for a chapter book), and when she re-read a book I gave her 3. When she got to the 1 cup point on her Jar she earned a new book of her choice from the store. You could certainly do a different reward, but I liked the idea of reading rewards being more reading. Although she really likes books, she doesn't always have a lot of confidence in her ability to do new tasks so this plan really helped her. The beauty of it is that when she came to me with her stack of books, I was able to see and celebrate what she'd done and then she could reward herself with the marbles. I hope this helps, it sounds like your son is already on the way, he just needs to discover the fun in it, and you can help him do that. I hope this helps.

Hi out there! I have been searching the internet to find a set of non-fiction for my dd6 who is an early fluent reader (just starting chapter books). I am wanting science and history readers that are advanced enough to keep her growing but not so long that she gets overwhelmed by all the pages. Unfortunately, I have found some but to get them in a set you have to buy a classroom pack with many of each book. In a perfect world I could get a set of readers at the 1-3 grade level that would have a handful of readers per category in Science: animals, weather, simple chemistry concepts, influential scientists and important discoveries, the human body, geology, plants, and space. And for History: biographies of important historical figures, and what it was like to live in different time periods and or places. All with lovely art work and photos of course! This may not exsist......I think it should though! Any ideas? What science and history does your early fluent reader struggle to put down? I would like them in a set/sets because I order through a distance learning program and it is so so much easier when I can get things in one order and one shipment.