Hey thanks! I just saved a few things. --Dawn

Thanks for all of the great ideas! I'm going to sit dowm with my bible tonight and make a decision! Thanks, --Dawn

I'm feeling like our memory work should include more from the bible. A friend's child that attends a classical christian school said that her children memorized Isaiah 40. Any other reccommendations? Thanks, --Dawn

Very cool! Thanks! We are going camping in Normandy in April and will only be a few miles from Bayeux so we are going to go and see the tapestry. I was trying to figure out what I was going to teach my children before we went. This will definitely help! Thanks again! --Dawn

There are a lot of great art history books for for younger children on amazon. Here are a few: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Story-Teaching-Elementary-Children/dp/1591583594/ref=pd_sim_b_title_17 http://www.amazon.com/Childs-Book-Art-Lucy-Micklethwait/dp/1564582035/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201526599&sr=1-7 http://www.amazon.com/Usborne-Childrens-Book-Art-Internet/dp/0794512232/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201526647&sr=1-12 Art is Story is probably your best bet. It's written as a story that you can read aloud to your children. It's also chronological. We've enjoyed it a lot. This is a great webste for studying individual paintings: http://www.gardenofpraise.com/art.htm Hope that helps, --Dawn

Thanks for the link. My children are just finishing Latin Primer 3. We are going to go through the Latin Grammar series next year. I've been looking at high school level texts to try to decide where to go from there. I've never heard of Latin for Americans. I wonder if anyone has an opinion of it or any information about it. --Dawn

I like Latin Primer. My children are finishing the third book this year. The best thing about it is, I think, that there's no busy work. No crossword puzzles to learn the vocabulary, just translations and declentions and explanations. My type of program. When we are trying to fit so many things in, I need what I choose to be efficient. Latin is our favorite subject, though, so we are enjoying it as well. --Dawn

I struggle the most with writing as well. Why is that? My dd is a natural writer-- she's always written beautifully. She wants to be a writer. My husband was a Lit major, and he writes beautifully as well. He does help my daughter to refine her wording, but for the most part it comes naturally to her. Then there's my son.... He turned 10 last week and we are still working on paragraphs. His printing is a mess. His cursive is better, but it's huge. I have so many writing curriculums, but none seem to help him much. At Christmas I decided that I was just going to have him work diligently through Aesop A, and write a lot. He writes very slowly, so a paragrpah summary could easily take him two hours. I think that we are just going to stick with it, even if I have to drop other things so that we can make this a priority-- time wise. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, I'd love to hear them. --Dawn

We memorized the Emperors from Augustus to Diocletion, but they are only in 5th grade this year so I'm not sure how useful it will be later on. They memorized them two year ago, and they still review it when we review memory work on Fridays. The Pharoah's, though, seemed too hard. The names are hard to say, and I didn't feel like it was as important to a classical education. --Dawn

Hey thanks, it looks great. I'm going to print it out later this weekend. I'll let you know if I notice any typos. --Dawn

There is a castle in England called Warwick. It's amazing. They have it set up so that you get the full medieval experience. During the summer there are jousting tournaments, falconry, and they have the largest trebuchet in the world! It's fabulous when you are studying that time period. Scotland is also great, though. As you drive, there are just ruins of castles along the road by the sea. It's also great when you are studying the ancients. There are so many bronze age sites in Scotland. --Dawn

I really like Winter Promise's preschool curriculum. There are four theme's for the year: the farm, the pond, the zoo, and the garden. Most of the crafts and projects revolve around them. It's not too academic, which is what I was looking for. They do cover letters and numbers. I like it because it has interesting projects that I don't have to come up with on the fly when we have time together. Schooling two older children and having a younger guy too, I want to spend my time with him, with him and not running around looking for supplies and ideas. Does that make sense? We do things like sorting socks to find the matches. Putting the spice jars in order from biggest to smallest. Best of all, it only cost $99. That includes the 6 books that it schedules projects from. I think that it may have gone up a bit, though. --Dawn

Kate, For a lot of kids diet is a huge aspect. There is an amazing yahoo group that had 800 parents 7 years ago when I needed them, and now there are over 12,000! A lot of kids benefit. Not only do they discuss diet, but the whole host of other biomedical issues that autistic kids are prone to. It's http://groups.yahoo.com/ and the name of the group is gfcfkids. For us it was a life saver. I wouldn't have gotten to meet my son if it weren't for them. --Dawn

Ohhhhh....Those look cool. Just when I told my husband that I wouldn't order so much online. There is so little available over here, so we have most things shipped over. Those look great, though, for learning the perodic table. I think that I'll have to make an exception! Thanks, --Dawn

When we did Building Thinking Skills, we never used the attribute blocks. I think that it might be helpful if the child isn't able to visualize the pattern, but my children never needed them. We bought them and used them maybe once, until it became wasted time. Now they are just another thing that I have to store somewhere. --Dawn

I like the Oxford Pocket Dictionary. It's not small, as the name suggests. The entry words are nice and large. My older two are 10 & 11, and it's perfect for them. I have two copies, so that they can each have their own when we are translating. --Dawn

I was just looking over our plan yesterday. This is what I've decided so far. I think that we are also going to do Sonlight Core 6--loosely and fit in where it's not overwhelming. GREEK—ELEMENTARY GREEK 1 LATIN--LATIN GRAMMAR 1 GRAMMAR—GROWING WITH GRAMMAR 6 WRITING---CLASSICAL WRITING-POETRY SPELLING---CALVERT 7 CD SCIENCE----REAL SCIENCE 4 KIDS—PHYSICS ---STORY OF SCIENCE MATH---CHALKDUST PRE-ALGEBRA VOCABULARY--- VOCABULARY FROM THE CLASSICAL ROOTS 6 MEMORY WORK—CLASSICAL CONVERSATIONS CYCLE 2 GEOGRAPHY----MAPS FOR MEMORIZATION FAMOUS MEN OF GREECE I always helps to see what everyone else is doing. Thanks for starting this thread. --Dawn

I haven't used anything formal. We usually just talk about places that we are visiting, and look at them on the map. I'm sorry not to be more helpful. --Dawn

We live in the UK, but we are American and plan to move back in a few years so we are teaching US spelling. I did find a free online British spelling Tutor and game. Here's the link: http://www.ukspeller.com/ Hope that helps, --Dawn

We are using Winter Promise's pre-k curriculum, and it's just perfect for us. It's not high academic pressure. It's just a lot of fun theme's and crafts and fun activities that I don't have to come up with on a moments notice. Some time during the weekend before, I gather all of the supplies and read over the activities that are planned. Last week we hole punched black paper and cut and glued trees onto it, then covered the back of the hole with yellow tissue paper so that they look like fire flies. We got out some spice jars and smelled them, then tried to decide which ones smelled best. Then we put them in order from largest to smallest. There are 4-5 things planned everyday, and I only do the ones that we can easily fit in or he's interested in. While I definitely agree that 3 is young for a curriculum, it's hard to be spontaneous and then track down all of the supplies when you are also teaching two older children and a two year old is racing through the house! --Dawn

I kept getting that too. Hopefully, living in England, I'll be online when most others are offline. --Dawn

We are also using Oak Meadow's 5th grade Environmental Science. --Dawn

We also use GWG. My older children are using the 4th grade book, and it's starting to get more in depth. I'm enjoying it. We also do Latin-- that helps as well. --Dawn

It's funny, right? I wonder if we have to be pupae next!?! --Dawn

I second the Real Science 4 Kids. My children have learned so much this year using it. Because they have enjoyed it, they are remembering things more without me having to remind them. I have stretched the program over a full year, though, since we are also doing Oak Meadow's Environmental Science. --Dawn