I ordered these for third grade but shipped them all back as soon as I looked through them. They are beautifully put together, and they may be what you are looking for. However, between the time I placed my order and the time the books arrived, I re-read the WTM, and realized everything that I do WTM-style works out well for me. The lit guides from MP don't fall under that, and when I flipped through them, I realized it was a lot of what I consider busy-work. He doesn't need to know the details of Farmer Boy in the way he should learn the details of history. It is a lot of writing (though maybe you could make it work orally) and I just felt it was not the best fit for us. I should add that we are doing WWE, and in the past two years I have seen his attention to detail increase significantly, which I credit to the skills he is learning in WWE. Instead of the lit guides I intend to assign him good literature and have him make a notebook page for each assigned book, as suggested in the WTM. I do not think the teacher's guide is necessary if you are reading the book with him, but if you are not reading the book it might be helpful since some of the questions are very detailed.

I have used both, and my opinion is that AAS is far more enjoyable for my boys... though I am sure there are others with different experiences. It is easy for me, they love it, and we spend about 10-15 minutes per day on it. My oldest just started it in the spring and flew through level 1, which I expected since he had covered much of that material, but I think it is important to start at the beginning to make sure they get it. He will probably fly through level 2 and maybe even 3 when we start up again in a few weeks, but he is learning the rules and he did not know them before, so we are happy with it. Heck, I am learning the rules too, and it is great!

I called and spoke with the author of the program and I found she was very helpful in answering all my questions... and I am totally sold on the program now! However, I want year 3 in the rotation, so I have to wait until August to order, but she was very confident it will be available around August 15th as they will be using it in their own co-op this fall. I asked her about science, since it appears some of the science memory work will be new information for my children. She said that in her own family they are using the science to form their science curriculum for the year, so whatever the topics are in the program are what they will study. For other families, she said the science topics serve as review. She added that the science section has a lot of additional information as she does not assume that the teacher/parent is a science expert - which I very much am not. I am very happy with our current science curriculum and we are learning a lot. I think I will use the science memory work and try to find library books that correspond to the topics, but I don't plan to go beyond that for now. As far as the price, my (very limited) experience over these past few years of homeschooling is that you generally get what you pay for. Having younger children though means that I will get to re-use this in the future, so the cost is really not bad when I divide it up that way.

I think the reading lists are still a work in progress, but I was happy with the one for Level 1. If you go to the website and use the contact link you can email for the reading list. I hope they start printing it in the book in the future, or at least on the website if the list is constantly evolving. It just added a bit extra in, and one of my boys loves science so he chooses to read this stuff for fun. I was worried 1 would be too basic for my 8 year old, and it did start very basic, but if you stick with it (don't decide 1/4 of the way in) I think you will find in the end that they learn an amazing amount. They are also learning study skills - such as how to pick an important word out of a paragraph, etc. I did not realize this was even happening until he applied it to a history text we were reading. And I think there is a lot of wisdom in starting at the beginning with level 1.

I hope you love it! I am doing level 2 this year with my 8 and 6 year olds. We did level 1 last year and loved it! Be sure to email them and ask for their reading list - we enjoyed the library books that went along with each topic. I saw level 3 at our conference and it looks very good.

:bigear: We haven't kept track but I love the idea!

I LOVE this and am going to make something very similar right now! Thank you for sharing!

Would you do this every other week? I might be able to get at least one family to join us for that, but every week would be unlikely. I think I might need to buy this and do it at home this year, then next year try to start a coop with like-minded families... our current coop is all fun and games, which has been fine, but by the time my oldest is in 4th or 5th grade I would like for coop to actually be a time that he learns something!

We bought our CDs from amazon and it was well worth the $15! We have listened to the entire thing at least 3 times in the past year... and I see it being listened to many more times in the future.

We have it on CD and my boys love listening to it over and over. I have the book and have read it, but decided not to use it last year as I felt it was maybe a spine more appropriate for a slightly older child (maybe late elementary?). We ended up using Child's History of the World for our spine instead. However, given how much my boys love listening to the CDs, it probably would have worked out fine. I just happened to really love the "tone" of CHOW and so it worked well for me.

I do! -What history program are you using? Or does it really not matter? I would be looking at buying the 3rd year of the cycle as we just finished the Middle Ages. I am planning on my oldest doing Famous Men of Modern Times from Memoria Press, along with literature that corresponds with that time period. -Could my 1st grader truly participate? He has had no history, and I wasn't really planning on doing any formal history with him this year, although we will likely read from A Child's History of the World (because the boys love it) and they frequently listen to SOTW Ancients on CD. -I would be doing this at home. Do you think it is worth it for home use? -Would you buy two student workbooks and a teacher's book? I hate to buy things that aren't necessary, but I don't mind spending the money if they are books that will get used. -Do you recommend buying the timeline cards? -And finally, if you had it for home use, do you really truly think you would do it regularly? I love the idea of having them commit all this to memory, I just want to make sure it is a realistic program. I would say we tend to be pretty disciplined about our schoolwork here, but there have been a few programs that I've purchased and wondered later what I was thinking. I don't want this to fall in that category! Thank you for your help! I am really excited about this option!

There is a private independent Catholic school in the Pittsburgh area that uses the WTM in planning a lot of their curriculum, and there are some public classical charter schools in the St Paul/Minneapolis area that do the same, including using SOTW. Unfortunately the waiting list for the public charter schools is a few hundred students long - a lot of my homeschool friends dream of getting their kids in each year during the lottery, but thus far only two have actually gotten in.

If so, what are your thoughts on it? I would love to hear a review from someone who has used it, or at least seen it in person! http://www.ccmemory.com Thanks for any insights!

Your history could be brought in during your read aloud time... maybe read a chapter of SOTW or CHOTW once in a while, and then read aloud from literature that more or less corresponds to the time period you are studying.

It is Memoria Press's Famous Men of Modern Times - sorry, I should have stated that in the first place! Thanks for the link, I will check that out. I had some luck matching up reading from the love2learn site today, so I am making some progress.

My son is really looking forward to reading FM of Modern Times for history this year, and I plan on it being our main spine (he will do the workbook with it). Since he loves to read so much, I would like to match up chapters from SOTW 3 to what he is doing in FM. Has anyone already done this? Better yet, does anyone have a reading list to do alongside this? I am looking for a lot of reading material, this boy loves to read and our winters are long and cold, so he has a lot of reading time during the school year.

We read some good fiction books set during that time period - I found the titles on the Bethlehem Books site and they had them listed by date.

With this, does she do the reading aloud? I don't have it yet, but that was my impression was that the child was doing the reading. I am starting to wonder why I bought the first grade lesson plans, I guess I don't really see myself using them. How long do you spend on this each day? Does she write the answers or just discuss them orally?

Wish I could take credit, but I had heard of someone else doing this and love the idea. Best wishes!

Oh, and at the conference I got to chat with Martin Cothran and his wife... they were both really wonderful people. He mentioned many books that he read aloud to his children when they were younger and suggested that I could call the Memoria Press office and request that they email me "Martin's reading list". I did and I love it, he has books on there for preschool children all the way up through adults. He has listed the earliest age he recommends reading the book aloud up to the oldest age, as well as the youngest and oldest age that he recommends it for independent reading. Meeting them really gave me hope that I won't totally mess up my kids! His wife was especially helpful - she even talked me out of buying the flashcards for Latina Christiana, telling me that my student ought to make his own flashcards to help him to learn the material. (That should have been obvious to me, but you know how it is when you get to the conference and see everything set out so attractively!)

I am still waiting for it to arrive - I didn't want the Beta version so I asked them to ship it to me later in the summer when they have the perfect binding copies available. I liked what I saw at the conference though. I figure we can do these for the 3 books they have listed on the 3rd grade level, while the rest of his reading this year will be more casual (read it and do a notebook page). I am hoping this will help to me see where he is at as far as how much attention he is paying to details and what he is retaining. Again, we will probably do most of the workbook questions orally since we have plenty of writing already in our plans.

We are in the middle of Prima Latina, and after drooling over their materials at the conference earlier this month, I purchased their 1st grade lesson plans (for the literature more than anything else - I will still do my own math, science and language arts), the lit guides for 1st and 3rd grades, Christian Studies I, the states/capitals study and Famous Men of the Modern Era. I think I might stick with their history if this goes well, I just am not into SOTW (though my boys love listening to the audio CDs for SOTW). A lot of their workbooks are too writing intensive for young boys (or at least for my young boys) so we will do some of that orally.

Why not have your 15 year old teach it to the other two? Since it is scripted I think that would be realistic, and that would fill in any gaps she might have in her science education without her feeling that she is being asked to do an elementary program.

My normally very pleasant 3rd grade son (8.5 yrs old) has suddenly (seemingly overnight) developed the worst attitude! He sighs loudly when told to do his chores before playing, stomps around if he is told no to a request (usually for a sugary snack) and even was unpleasant to a friend's mom who gave him a ride home from a day camp yesterday because he would rather have gone to her house to play with her kids for a while before coming home. This is very unlike him, he is usually very polite and even when he doesn't like having to do something or being told no, he accepts the answer and the reasons behind it. This is my oldest child. Is is a phase? Or could it be from our lack of routine during summer break? I am feeling like we need to start school soon because he is driving us all nuts! We have been off since May 14 and intend to start up in August. The weather here has been wet and not great for normal outdoor play most days. We have not been to the pool once this summer because it has been raining or too cold. He still goes to baseball twice a week if it doesn't get rained out. I wonder if it is too much time at home with mom? Then again, his behavior seems worse after he has been at a friend's house or another activity... and these are friends who have well-behaved children and similar expectations to those in our homes, so I doubt he is seeing this behavior modeled there. Any advice on how to move him out of this phase? Due to him throwing a toy across the room (very forcefully) and then slamming two doors when sent to his room this morning while my sister was here, he has lost the privilege of playing in his baseball game tonight. Currently he is in his room reading for the afternoon after calling me a liar (to his brothers, I overheard) because I told them they could not load their water guns because they had not cleaned their toys up first - he considered the room clean because the toys were not on the floor but were all thrown up on shelves or shoved behind furniture. They all knew as soon as I walked in the room that it would not meet expectations, which is why they were standing strategically to try to block me from seeing (though the mess was so large there is no way I could have not noticed it!). I guess I am venting, but I am worried about the attitude and how to correct it.

I did Science 1 with a 2nd grade science-know-it-all and a K-er who is rather spacey. I was a little worried it would be too basic for the older one and over-the-head of the younger, but it ended up working perfectly for us and they both learned (and loved) the entire thing. Having said that, it may seem too basic to your 4th grader... I don't have a child that age yet, so it is hard for me to say if that age would find it too elementary. However, because it is all scripted, you could have your 4th grader "teach" it to the younger two. That way the 4th grader would be doing the entire program and learning along with them, but feeling mature about the whole thing. (As the teacher with science 1, I was surprised at what I learned! It looks very basic but it covers a lot as you go along.) This would be my oldest child's dream come true, but I realize it might not work with every child. If you don't think that would work, I would just call Nancy Larson and talk to their customer service people about it - I have found them to be incredibly helpful. We just received our Science 2 materials the other day and my boys are so excited to start that we are diving in next month! Good luck!