Just a quick update for anyone who's interested and chomping at the bit for SSL2 - they have released a "preview" - prepublication proof - of the first 2 chapters... http://www.classicalacademicpress.com/backend/20121220_SSL2_p9-16.pdf (still working as of today, but no guarantees of how long the link will be up)

Just a quick update - they have released a "preview" - prepublication proof - of the first 2 chapters of SSL2... http://www.classicalacademicpress.com/backend/20121220_SSL2_p9-16.pdf (still working as of today, but no guarantees)

We love all the Jeanne Bendick books! She has one for Galen, Herodotus and... well, I forget; I think there's one more. They hold the younger kids' attention, but just barely. If they were a bit older, they'd go over better, I'm sure, especially if they were used to dry history; I think they almost have TOO high standards... :-) I also bought Augustus Caesar's World, more out of interest. I like it, but it's way beyond my younger kids and I think a bit too eclectic for the older ones. I may try it again; they're not homeschooled but read whatever I leave in the bathroom. It's my way of sneakily exposing them to great knowledge and ideas. ;-)

I saw it a couple of years ago but decided it looked too complicated. Too much reading ahead, clicking links, printing stuff and pulling it all together for my taste. I'm happy this is out there, and it seems sound and thorough, but it's definitely not for us. :-) You might want to look at MEP math instead to save yourself some of the "pulling-together" steps, simply because it's also free and many people here love it. But I do like the "living math" approach, esp in the early years.

We recently jumped ship on a math program I love, so I will share my recent insight, which is that the math program you choose (any program, to some extent, but I think more so for math) not only has to fit you and your personality and the way you teach, but also, and even more so, must fit your child's personality. Math programs that worked well for dd are not a good fit at all for ds, and vice versa. Of course, I knew this already from my older two - except that they were in school, so there was often no flexibility and a TON of frustration. I have no idea how they do it in schools, except to observe that it often doesn't work and the demand for tutoring has grown to the extent that one could probably say the system, as it is, of having everybody learn with the same methods and materials, simply does not work. :-o Which is why actually using the samples, not just reading through them, is so very, very important.

Sale starts Jan 21st at Homeschool Buyers Co-op. Here's a helpful link! You can actually sign up for a reminder right away so you'll get an email when it opens. As with most HSBC offers, the more people buy, the better the deal - it says up to 50% off, which would be a fantastic savings. Just wanted to pass along a heads up. We don't use MM, but it's a terrific program. Not sure exactly which materials will be included, but if you're thinking of buying, it's probably worth waiting a couple of weeks to find out...

My kids love Starfall, though we haven't used it in a while. Maybe a bit young for your ds, but you could look and see. The basic site is free, though they have more paid services now. We also pay for Reading Eggs, which is on sale now at HSBC. Our subscription expired recently and I debated it for a bit before finally caving and renewing it. I feel like you have to use it a lot to get your $'s worth. Some folks also enjoy The Happy Scientist,which isn't online curriculum as such, but provides helpful videos and experiments to go along with your science. No sale at the moment - I'm waiting because ours expires soon. ;-) Of course, if you're going to do something like that, there's always BrainPop, (also on sale at HSBC until the 21st, I believe) which lots of people here have and love, offering videos to supplement almost any subject... ETA: There are also things like Explode the Code online, online math programs, etc., but the truth is, I have suggested mainly supplements because at that age they should be mostly interacting and doing things either on paper or orally. SWB backs me up - I just listened to her Joy of Classical Education and she suggests that up until Grade 4 (?) they should be mostly off the computer for school work. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong!)

Harsh??!? Oh, gosh... where to begin? Start by really READING the Hebrew Bible. Hopefully, you'll have a chance to encounter in it the God of love who makes promises and keeps them. Who knows his nation is going down into slavery and promises ahead of time that a redeemer will come. This is the God who says, "build me a sanctuary; I'm gonna move in next door." This is the God who says, "climb the steps every day and light the lamp and even when it is extinguished, keep it burning in your hearts forever." This is the God who says the few will triumph over the many, the weak over the mighty, with God on their side. This is the God that knocked down the walls of Jericho, rescued Daniel from the lions' den, saved Nineveh from its sin through His prophet Jonah (who by the way, decided the people there were unworthy sinners, beyond redemption, and God taught him a lesson about that, too). This is the God who said, "love your neighbour as yourself," and "don't stand idly by the blood of your neighbour." Almost everything the Greek Bible says about love is in the Hebrew Bible somewhere, including the bit about turning the other cheek. Of course, the Hebrew Bible doesn't skimp on stories of people doing the wrong thing; being giving good life and wasting it, making the wrong choices, being punished for it. We believe that, like a parent, God holds his children to high standards. Like the spies, suffering from a weakened faith after generations of slavery, who present a negative report about the Land of Israel - God realizes the generation isn't ready; like an infant whose mother knows when it's time to wean, He knows they need a little longer (40 years is nothing to God!) living entirely dependent on Him, while He feeds and clothes and protects them for 40 years. Harsh? Not exactly. Other "harsh" stories: Miriam is punished with leprosy for a relatively minor infraction because He knows she could have done better. And from this story, we learn from Moses' model of how to pray - "please God, heal her now." Short. Sweet. Personal. Moses doesn't get the see the Land to which he's led his people - again, that's very harsh. There are lessons upon lessons in it, and I don't want to dissect every single incident. Yeah, there are brutal incidents - flooding the world, the destruction of Sdom and Amora, but each time we see the harsh, judgmental side of God it is tempered by His mercy. (though I admit, some of those prophets could get a bit grumpy... :-))

Hmm... I wasn't going to comment on this except another person did and I couldn't let it just sit there. In my opinion, this comment does violence to the actual meaning of the festival. Perhaps you could call your commemoration something else? ;-) Because Passover already has several meanings and observances that this definition completely overlooks: The Hebrew Bible offers no concept of the "ultimate Paschal Lamb." Indeed, it never says that the lamb should be anything other than a literal lamb or goat. True, the literal lamb/goat is a reminder that we were passed over and spared in Egypt (and perhaps metaphorically since), but because the concept of Original Sin is a Christian innovation, there was never any requirement for an "ultimate" sacrifice of any kind. Now, you could say that you are ADDING a layer of meaning, but to do so while completely overlooking the other layers (presuming you are not interested in becoming Jewish - because that's who was spared in Egypt - or in following the laws set out in the same Hebrew verses) seems a little odd. To have an interest in Passover as something Jesus observed, as the season in which he possibly died - those things are interesting and perhaps valuable to your Christian walk. But don't be surprised, if you metamorphose it by stripping its observances and adding a totally new meaning, that you may offend those who have never stopped observing the original festival in (as much as possible) the original way.

At the risk of offending even more people than I already have - yes! :thumbup: As a very widely-read & experienced Jew, the place I feel most comfortable within Christianity is Roman Catholicism. I doubt I will ever leave Judaism, but, although it feels utterly foreign to me, of all the Christian denominations I have experienced, it also feels the most familiar in that it's built on a wealth of traditions and a solid, ancient foundation. Certainly, I know about its fractured past and the legitimate reasons for the Reformation and its troubles pre- and post-Post-Vatican II... but I still believe that if Christians knew and celebrated the sacramentality of their own faith, they'd be too busy to envy others' path.

Okay, not a full curriculum, but I did order the Magic Schoolbus Science Kits (ordered at a discount through Homeschool Buyers' Co-op - wow, this is totally my day to plug HSBC for some reason; this is the 3rd post I've linked to one of their deals today!) and we've been enjoying them. They come with almost everything you need, delivered to your home once a month. The science is very light, so some people might not like that; you can either supplement with living books or not, as the case may be. Our main science program is Mr. Q. Earth Science, and we're not doing a ton of experiments with that, so the Magic School Bus kits give us something "extra" to give it a boost, as well as let us explore a different topic (12 altogether) so we don't feel like we're stuck with earth science all year. The same company also makes another monthly science kit - Young Scientists Club, which offers 36 topics, also on sale now from Homeschool Buyers Co-op. I don't personally mind if the science is light n' easy. I have given up trying to recreate some kind of super-duper lab environment here and content myself with having fun and learning a bit. It's enough to spark their love of the subject, so it's good enough for me... :-)

As with everything, I'm trying to be flexible. One sentence isn't usually enough; six is probably too many. ;-)

Just curious... does your dd5 have difficulties you're concerned about in specific? Because with a checklist, like the one the pp suggested, if you are sitting down with your kid to do school regularly, you will KNOW if she's slipping in any one area. I have a neighbour who keeps asking me, about homeschooling in general, how I'd know if I'm missing anything important. Makes me crazy, because she used to be a classroom teacher - and more kids in classrooms fall through the cracks than kids in homeschools; that's for sure.... :-) Anyway, so I know you have older kids, and have perhaps hs'd for a while, so I wanted to see what your specific concerns might be...

I agree. Thought it looked promising, but nope. But we are currently enjoying the Language Fundamentals books (using Grade 1 and Grade 2 at the moment), and finding it a nice complement to FLL. It offers lots of breadth but not as much depth as FLL.

I have copied and pasted this from another thread about Evan-Moor books, because we have had TFB for 2 years, and I like it a lot. ETA: Here's a link to the sale page! The sale starts at HSBC on Jan 4, but you can can browse the site ahead of time to see if they have the workbooks / pages you want. Unlike buying Evan-Moor workbooks, you will have to pay to print the pages you want, but you never pay for pages you don't need, and you can always download just a few pages (rather than just buying a whole book!) if you decide to veer from your regular curriculum. The subscription doesn't include everything they publish, but DOES include most of the "Daily" books. We use Word Problems (math), A Word a Day, Language, and a couple more. It also includes ALL the History Pockets and other "pockets" resources, which are great to have for various subjects. I have found it to be a bargain, though there is an initial investment, and you have to renew yearly if you want to keep using it. A few tips to browse the site & get the most out of your subscription: The best way I've found to use the TFB site is to search Evan-Moor's site for the book you want: http://www.evan-moor.com/ Once you're there, find the EMC # of the book you like: eg Daily Word Problems, Grade 1 is "EMC 3001" Then you go to the TeacherFileBox.com site and enter just the number (ie 3001) in the search box, and it will return a listof all the sheets (if any) in that book that are available to print (in this case, 30-some-odd weeks' worth). You can preview the pages without a membership, but you need the membership in order to activate the Print feature. You can ALSO download a free PDF printer (I use & like PDFill) to "print" the sheets to PDF and store on your hard drive. However, you are not technically allowed to do this according to the terms of your agreement with Evan-Moor. You're also not supposed to store up printed sheets to use beyond the term of your subscription. They have no way to check in either case, so it's up to you to use the service in a fair and legal way. :-) Hope this helps somebody!

Don't buy them!!! Well, you CAN buy them, but TeacherFileBox is going on sale again at HSBC in 3 days, so you should seriously think about a subscription. You can browse the site to see if they have the workbooks you need. Here's the sale link, for anyone who's interested! We have had TFB for 2 years, and I love it! True, you have to pay to print the pages you want, but you never pay for pages you don't need, and you can always download just a few pages (rather than just buying a whole book!) if you decide to veer from your regular curriculum. The subscription doesn't include everything they publish, but DOES include most of the "Daily" books. We use Word Problems (math), A Word a Day, Language, and a couple more. It also includes ALL the History Pockets and other "pockets" resources, which are great to have for various subjects. I have found it to be a bargain, though there is an initial investment, and you have to pay yearly. The best way I've found to use the TFB site is to search Evan-Moor's site for the book you want: http://www.evan-moor.com/ Once you're there, find the EMC # of the book you like: eg Daily Word Problems, Grade 1 is "EMC 3001" Then you go to the TeacherFileBox.com site and enter just the number (ie 3001) in the search box, and it will return a list of all the sheets (if any) in that book that are available to print (in this case, 30-some-odd weeks' worth). You can preview the pages without a membership, but you need the membership in order to activate the Print feature. You can ALSO download a free PDF printer (I use & like PDFill) to "print" the sheets to PDF and store on your hard drive. However, you are not technically allowed to do this according to the terms of your agreement with Evan-Moor.

We like Meet the Masters (on sale now through HSBC)! It has a wonderful balance of hands-on, theoretical and introduces kids in a solid way (at their own level, including very young kids) to some of the world's greatest artists.

You can find many past ones on my blog! http://ronypony.blog...label/narration My kids are 5 and 7 now, but these go back a couple of years, as well, so you can maybe see some kind of progress. ;-) Topics range from Bible portion-of-the-week to picture study, history, science and a few more... Wanted to add: different is okay, BUT at 8 you should try to get her to sum up the main idea of the passage you've just read. If her answer contains what you think is the main idea, even if she uses different words, I think that's okay. If it seems like she's focusing too much on one particular aspect rather than the big picture, you may want to steer her narrations. Sometimes, to help my dd, I have her tell me 4 sentences, using the mnemonic: first, next, then, end: 1. What happened FIRST? (ie the Chinese had 6 different states) 2. What happened next? (ie one leader united them) 3. Then what happened? (ie he was nervous about the Mongolians, so he built a wall) 4. How did it end? (ie nobody liked him because he was a mean leader and burnt all the books) I do STILL find I often have to pull the sequence out of her - at this age, they're not always thinking sequentially in the way we want them to. She might be more focused on some other aspect of the story, like the fact that the robes were purple, or something I might see as trivial. :-/

Adding the "Real Child" one to my wishlist in the hopes of a January sale!

This thread has actually helped me understand Orthodoxy a bit more... I do remember there was a thread a long time ago you might want to search for. I believe it was about converting to Orthodox Christianity. I will jump in one LAST time - I promise! - to say... I don't think so. (and speaking of Irish: we're part-Irish, too, on my husband's side!) It would be like deciding I am Irish and THEN wanting to explore my Celtic roots. Now, I don't mean to sound callow; I know many Christians feel very strongly about their religion and scripture's Jewish origins, but much of that "shared heritage" is lost and Christianity severed those connections (rather deliberately) long ago. We cannot reconstruct 1st-century Judaism, since Judaism itself has changed in many ways since that time (almost as much as Christianity has, I've heard). Most Jewish rituals, as practiced today, would likely seem rather strange to a Jew of Jesus' day. Not completely wrong, I hope (indeed, I have based my life around that premise), but not exactly familiar. And any Christian who decides today that he/she wants to attach herself to those "Jewish roots" is attempting a rather tricky operation since the apples (modern Judaism and Christianity) have indeed fallen rather far from the tree. There's a cartoon I want to attach here that I look at from time to time to remind myself that people on the Internet are allowed to have their views and I don't have to "fix" them all. I think we could all use a little humour to temper our own strongly-held views. Happy New Year to those who are celebrating!!! :party: (not us, but excited for those who are)

I totally support this stance - learning about Biblical traditions, festivals, etc. I don't like the "Celebrating the Messiah in the Festivals" book (I have read the preview) because it's too much like a "Celebrating Muhammed in Christmas and Easter" book for Muslims would be - essentially, a guide that tells Christians that Jewish festivals are all about Jesus. :-(

Yes - many Orthodox Christians are Russian or Armenian. Dunno if there are others. Just responding as an Orthodox... um, Jew. ;-) ETA - I believe all Orthodox (also known as Eastern) Christians do venerate icons, but I could be wrong about that. There were originally two Christian "popes" - a leader in Rome for the West and a leader in Constantinople for the East. Eastern (ie Orthodox) Christians still follow the Eastern Patriarch. Not sure who it is currently, but I do know their priests (and even the patriarch) are allowed to marry, unlike Western Catholic priests. Sorry if this is a great big fount o' ignorance!!! Hopefully somebody knowledgeable will step in here and swat me away...

:hurray: Yes, she gets it! :hurray: Though of course, many Christians feel entitled because Jesus was Jewish and his early followers brought some Jewish views into Christianity. Not many - they did away with the ritual stuff pretty quickly (not to gloss over hundreds of years of history or anything... :laugh: .

Whoah - totally lost track of this thread; I forgot to turn on notifications. Sorry this comes a month late. :-) There's a lot I agree with in the chart you've linked to, Hunter. Nevertheless, there are a few misconceptions about Judaism, especially that it is allied most closely with Evangelical Christianity in its political and theological views. For instance, "Creation Science" is listed in the Hebrew column, whereas from the very earliest days, Jews have debated exactly what could be meant by the Genesis text. Very few commentators, even quite early on, take it literally. It's true, as Donna says, that the Torah (Hebrew Bible) was transmitted orally, but along with it was transmitted the actual wording of the debates - the back-and-forth among the most learned scholars. When the Jewish community was in danger of exile around the destruction of the second Temple, this debate was finally recorded in a HUGE book called the "mishna." Together with later debates, it was re-collected into an even HUGER book called the "Talmud." These books are called the Oral Torah and to most Jews, they - the rabbinic process of debating the meaning of the literal text - is a very holy pursuit. In many cases, it's impossible to understand the literal text of the Torah without the aid of commentaries, but it's important to reiterate that the commentaries are in the form of debate. Often, there's no answer at the end; there may be a prevailing opinion in Jewish law, but even so, both views may be "right" in a sense. The Talmud itself recounts an angel, at one point, interjecting to announce, "these AND these are the words of the living God." I love that. ;-) By and large, what's listed as "Hebrew" in that chart is equivalent to a modern Christian education. There are many "Jewish" elements; these are perhaps the earliest roots of Christianity. I find amusing the phrase "Orthodox schools did not study subjects derived from Classical tradition." Every major Jewish commentator was familiar with the writings of the major Greek and Roman philosophers. Many had strong secular educations; Maimonides, for instance, one of the best-known codifiers, was also a physician, informed by Aristotle (oops - he's on the Greek side of the chart) and many others. Secular erudition has always been prized (well, up until the knee-jerk modern era, but that's another story), while at the same time, acknowledging that secular subjects have no holiness in themselves; they are tools for understanding God's world. Oh, and "Deny thyself" is for sure not a Jewish thing. There's a story that at a person's death, God will hold him accountable for every permitted and pleasurable thing in which he/she did not indulge. I love that, too. :-D Hope some of this is belatedly helpful to somebody. I think it's reasonable to seek a more authentic Christianity and to reject offensive Greek tenets. But I don't think you have to call it "Hebrew" to make it authentic or true to Jesus' message.

Old thread, but I wanted to agree with whatever it was that BillP said last... and also to point out that MANY Jews consider themselves "messianic" in that we believe very strongly in some form of redemptive messiah who will usher in an era of peace and many other changes in the world. This belief is actually mainstream, normative Judaism; we just don't believe that person is Jesus. For that reason, in the interests of accuracy, many people refer to so-called "messianic Jews" as "Hebrew Christians," perhaps also because most of them are born Christian and never actually convert to Judaism. Nitpicky points, but messianism has long been a core idea of Judaism. As for the term "Rabbi," as others have said, anyone can use it; it means nothing. Judge the person based on his/her character and level of Jewish authenticity (hint: check with Jews; they'll know for sure!).