Has your 3rd grader learned much ancient and middle ages history? I think one of the strong points of the chronological approach is that you can see how events build on other events, but without that background some of that would be missing, especially in the beginning of your study. For us, we're in logic and starting with 6th (instead of 5th) but we're beginning with ancients because she's had lots of chunks of early- and late-modern (I think most ps and non-chronological kids probably do) but very little ancient or medieval.

I may just not know what I was missing ;), but I never used a handwriting curriculum with my dd. I just bought a pad of midline paper, wrote something at the top (usually something that would make her smile), showed her how to do the letters that were new or forgotten and had her copy it a few times. She's well past those days now (going into 6th) and her penmanship is lovely. Especially since he already has the basics, could you just do that with the D'nealian (maybe print out a sheet for your own reference!) and have him practice that way (and at the same time, save yourself some hassle in trying to find the "right" program)?

isbn 978-0-7566-6596-8

You know, I'm not really sure why it had to be approved--I'm guessing that was it but I'm not positive. Dd and I have both been browsing through the book--it is a terrific resource!

Bumping---by the time the post was approved by moderator it was 10 pages back. Note to self: no more dollar signs or pictures :D We love this book, hope someone else can be blessed by the price.

I was at Borders yesterday and saw on the bargain shelves the DK History: The Definitive Visual Guide for $14.99 It's the 2007 edition and it's printed under DK's Covant Garden imprint with a different blue cover like this: but I currently have the normal orange cover edition out from the library and I'm sure it's exactly the same book inside. Hope this can help somebody.

Not a curriculum, but I happened to be in Borders yesterday looking at this: http://www.amazon.com/Childs-Introduction-World-Geography-Cultures/dp/1579128327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278861237&sr=8-1 I found it very engaging and though it would be a fun way to give an overview of geography or use as a go along.

Wow has this been interesting! I'm going to need to re-read the whole thing a few times to take it all in. This are has been particularly fascinating to me--I was recently mulling over some of the responses to recent threads about what is and isn't suitable for which stage/age kids. Especially the ones with some people feeling very strongly that SOTW does not belong in a logic stage history lesson (for the record: I'm planing on using it as part of ours :blushing: ), but ones about other story-related things along those lines (FIAR, etc.), too. My dd learns (and retains) best when topics are tied to lives and personalities--just raw facts don't really stick but if there's a narrative involved, the facts will stay pretty much forever. This thread has really thrown a lot of light on what I've been finding hard to understand. I'm thinking now it's really a lot more about learning styles and it's much less befuddling when I look at it that way. Nice to homeschool and have the luxury to choose what works for the individual person I'm teaching.

I'm planning on using SOTW 1 with my 6th grader next year. My idea is to start with a chapter in SOTW to introduce and bring the culture to life and then research the culture or theme from the SOTW chapter using our history encyclopedia (we have the Parragon Encyclopedia of World History), our National Geographic Concise History of the World, and primary sources from http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com. We also have the DK Atlas of World History which is wonderful for my visual-spacial dd to tie things together. I have some Nova and BBC DVDs from the library planned and some related literature (e.g. Olivia Coolidge's Trojan War, Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean, Children of the Fox by Jill Paton Walsh, and I'm going to try a side-by-side notes and text of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar). Hopefully there will be some library research on topics of interest to her and we'll definitely be doing a timeline (book form), some maps, and a some assigned essays and notes/outlines. We didn't use SOTW when dd was younger, so that's part of it but mostly I find that dd really needs to look at things from the eyes of people and make it personal to her to really engage and I think SOTW is great for sparking this. We're both pretty excited--hopefully this will be a really fun history year!

Just to clarify, there are several different levels to the FIAR manuals and not all are advertised as complete for use through 5th grade: Before Five in a Row is for ages 2-4 Five in a Row Volumes 1-3 are for ages 4-8 Five in a Row Volume 4 is similar but more advanced topics for ages 7-8 Beyond Five in a Row Volumes 1-3 are for ages 8-12 Above and Beyond Five in a Row is more advanced than Beyond FIAR and for up to age 12 (this from the FIAR website here http://fiarhq.com/fiveinarow.info/index.html) Hope that clears things up! edited to add--not that I'm trying to say anything at all about Jenny's decision to move on or anything like that, just wanted to clarify the different parts of the FIAR universe :)

Another thing to consider, I'm finding that, with my dd anyway, depth doesn't always have to equal me stuffing knowledge into her. Really. And what a relief that is! Lately she's been researching historical fashions and drawing a Hitty-like doll through the years. She's reading Roman Mysteries (the series) and plotting out times and places in our DK Historical Atlas. She's writing and illustrating multi-chapter stories for fun. She's a bright little thing but she's not crazy smart, she's just interested in things. I couldn't say for sure, but I strongly suspect if I had spent so much time having her tool away at this kind of thing, she would be far less interested in spending her summer vacation playing with it. And I also strongly suspect the knowledge will stay with her much better when it's tied to her heart this way. I absolutely make sure we spend our school year covering a good knowledge of grammar, math, some science, art, history, soon a foreign language (we are not unschoolers around here), but a good amount of free time to develop interests and follow them isn't a bad idea, at least to my way of thinking. I'm sure your and everyone else's mileage will vary, but at least for my dd and her own personality, sometimes less isn't really less, if you know what I mean.

It is a lot to sort through, isn't it? When dd was in 1st we did math, reading practice, and FIAR, and based on our experience I'd say it probably doesn't matter that much how you organize it, just pick something (themes, subjects or chapters) to get your own mind around it and go from there. But...despite what your teacher friend implies, 1st is still very young and I would try to give yourself a lot of flexibility and space to explore things around you without feeling too pressured by a heavy schedule looming over you. If possible, I'd recommend planning to take things very slowly--you can always move faster if you find you want to, but it will help to get a feel for it first.

We've done some beginning Latin, but in 6th grade we're starting Spanish because: a) Lots of Spanish speakers in the area and country b) Spanish TV stations that we get without cable, choices of Spanish books in the library and bookstores, Spanish option on most DVDs c) I took Spanish in school--I'm no longer fluent but I remember enough to work with dd on it and converse some d) We have family members who are fluent (2 native speakers married into my family and all their kids are bilingual) e) She wants to learn it :001_smile:

Thanks for all the input--this has been really fascinating to me! Good question! I'm using the book as a spine but not the activity guide, so for me I'd say no, but I guess I could see looking at it that way. I don't consider myself super organized in most areas, but I do love to make a good spreadsheet :001_smile:! Actually, my dh and dd are even worse than I am about loving a good organizing system (hopefully with color coding and some nice cross referenced cells)--we're pretty pathetic that way ;) Stupidly, the "not an organizer" thing didn't really occur to me, but now that you mention it, I can see that would make a difference. As for other curricula, I've always bought a math curriculum (and this year we're using MEP which is free but still a curriculum). Last year I bought R&S English for the first time. I started phonics with the Starfall workbook before moving on to books and I mentioned the FIAR--that's all we've had. This year, I'm also adding a Science textbook (Glencoe Physical Science) and we'll be using literature guides to get a bit deeper into lit. And we're doing logic puzzles online or from the grocery books. Partly it's money, partly it's because it's never occurred to me to do it another way--also I'm sure it helps a lot that I only have one to teach! We use a lot of library things and online resources, and I guess part of it is that I really enjoy putting together chapters from different books, DVD's, art projects and that kind of thing around themes--I guess I'd never really thought that that might not be the same for everyone. Boy do I hear you!

Thanks for the responses so far--that all makes a lot of sense. I'm always aware of the time vs. money issue and figured that was a part, but it definitely got my curiousity up.

Thanks for clarifying, Cheri! In that case, if at all possible I would try to find something else that would excite her and help her really get into the subjects. Or, if you can't really get something different, maybe at least remove some of the reading and substitute projects she would enjoy. I'm not against forcing something I know is important (fractions come to mind!), but this sounds like SL would be torture for her without a whole lot of benefit for the trouble. Good luck as you decide

Do you think this is a learning style issue or do you think it's more about not wanting to do the work required to read and evaluate info? In my home, a lot of the decision would rest on the answer to that.

Did you know Amazon.com has a UK site at http://www.amazon.co.uk ? You can search for "history" in the kids books and see all kinds of options, some might be fun for you and your dd.

I'm just wondering. I've spent many years doing FIAR and loving it, but I've never used a planned out curricula like SL, TOH, etc. So I'm wondering, what do you get for the money? Is it the time savings since you don't have to plan it yourself or maybe the accountability of having set things to do (I could see the advantage for myself of not being so able to blow things off, which is sometimes very tempting)? Do you find it's more complete (or maybe feels less risky since they determine the topics?) or that having it come from a source other than you helps your kids balk less? We don't really have the money for this kind of thing, so it's just an idle curiosity, but if you'd be willing to share your thoughts on it, I'd love to know! Thanks! __________________ and, FWIW: I'm planning our history for the year using SOTW with some reference books we own and a few projects pre-planned and some related literature (Gilgamesh and Iliad adaptations, some fiction) and DVDs here and there. We're basically following the WTM idea for logic stage of reading from a spine, getting some library books and doing interest-led research.

If you get them from ILL, it might help to let your ds take a look and see what suits him. I find my dd really prefers some formats over others (organized, not too cluttered, lots of graphs, photos, maps). I think they each would be fine, but maybe one or the other would be a better fit.

Thanks, everyone! I had resigned myself to this post being dead and buried when--surprise!--it came back up :) I've transcribed lessons 1-6 now--my 10yo dd will be able to order red or white wine when she gets that far :ohmy:--but at least it's a good way to reinforce adjectives matching the nouns. And I trust her not to misuse the knowledge at her age :D Also, took a peek at Gail V's blog--seems like the Mango went pretty well in her household, but she does mention the French having a program glitch--I wonder if it's the same thing you ran into, Jen? If the vocab and notes I'm putting together work out ok when dd actually gets going with it in the fall, I'll try and figure out how to put them online so other people can use them (I'm assuming the transcription itself is copyrighted stuff but my notes and vocab aren't...). But, I don't blog so it may take some doing, not sure what it would require.

Thank you, Moira--I know I'd seen that sometime when I was trying to figure this out but I'd forgotten it. Do you thing the time allotted in the Scheme of Work is pretty accurate outside of a classroom, too, then?

I know it looks really stupid to read it like that :001_smile:, but I'm planning on starting Y7 (from MUS Zeta last year) and I'm just trying to get a feel for what we're looking at. In the homeschool setting, in your experience, does an MEP "year" take a full year? If you happen to have done MUS and MEP, does one year of MEP take more or less to finish than a level in MUS? Thanks for any input you can give me!

Nobody uses it? From the library search by zip, it looks like it's available to a lot of people, I had hoped not to be the guinea pig, but it looks like I'm it!

We get free use of http://www.mangolanguage.com/ through our library and I'm tentatively planning on using this to teach dd Spanish next year. Have any of you used this? If so, what do you think? I think it must be similar to Rosetta Stone and that kind of thing, right? I took Spanish in middle school and high school (roughly 100 years ago :D ) so I know the basics with a little bit of looking things up to remind myself. But, I am certainly not fluent in it. Dd tends to be a visual-spacial learner, so I've been going through Mango and transcribing the lessons and creating vocab lists, adding some explanations, conjugating the verbs used so she can see it laid out that way. If there was a written go-along, that would be much easier for me, but I haven't found anything. If you have any tips or tricks, I'd love to hear them!