It looks great, and I'm excited about using it next year, but... I'm a grammar / spelling nerd and these are self-published books. They may drive you crazy with typos and do not QUITE have a professional feel. That's not stopping me from starting Grade 1 with them, because I think the benefits and uniqueness outweigh other factors. I decided against Apologia in part bc I want a general "survey of biology" course in one year, and this does provide that. Another one, which we are using this year, is Living Learning Books biology. It's VERY simple and straightforward; some parents may object that it's basically just a list of reading suggestions. There is a bit more to it than that, but for me, just the lists are priceless as a jumping-off point. I definitely plan to hang onto it when we do Elemental, which doesn't provide reading lists beyond spine books.

Drat - didn't read to the end of the post before replying... glad someone else found the book for you!

Free pre-Miquon Cuisenaire ideas book: http://nurturedbylove.blogspot.com/2008/12/cuisenaire-discovery-book.html And I didn't see if anyone's mentioned it yet on this thread, but the Idea Book for Cuisenaire Rods was very helpful to us at the PreK and early K stage. It looks like there's also an Intermediate one that I may invest in. (Sorry if this post comes out all bold. I tried to turn it off!)

I love Cuisenaire Rods and they work well for my dd (almost 6; Grade K/1ish), so we started on Miquon at the beginning of the year, but I found myself desperately craving a program with more structure and less prep. We're now on a workbook that we both enjoy (JUMP Math, a local Canadian curriculum that is FABULOUS!), but I am finding myself wanting to jump in and supplement with the rods because they are SO concrete and logical. How better to illustrate the distributive property - of COURSE 3 plus 2 equals 2 plus 3. And I'd love to keep using them for multiplication, fractions, etc. but don't want to go back to Miquon. Any suggestions for a curriculum supplement that uses rods?

Actually, I'm Jewish, but we can't get PJ Library in most parts of Canada, so I'm jealous, too! I think the perception behind the program is that there are SO MANY Christian children's books that it's hard for families, especially those in out-of-the-way places, to obtain high-quality (ie not forty years out of date) Jewish books for their kids. It's a way of helping kids stay Jewish even when they're living in areas where there are very few Jews, and perhaps NO Jewish content in schools, libraries, etc. So - free books are nice, but I'm not so sure that assimilation is such a huge pressing issue for Christians, esp members of a mainstream denomination. Just my .02...

Jewish here, too, so we're guaranteed "special family time" on Friday nights! Growing up, though my family wasn't religious, Friday night supper was sacred. We could do whatever we want later on, but supper was always together first. We were allowed to bring friends; it was very nice... the one time nobody was screaming, basically. :-)

Sure, I'll add you to my blogroll! If you have any posts you feel are of Jewish or secular interest (I'm pretty traditional, but we're a very diverse group - I promise!), PLEASE submit it via BlogCarnival. Submit as many as you want; I'll probably use them as long as it's not a ridiculous number. Not sure what you mean by this: Which link??? The main one is best: it explains a bit about the philosophy (pretty open) and also provides links to the three past carnivals (October, November and December). Take a look at past carnivals, too, and stop by previous contributors' blogs. :001_smile:

OMG, I never heard of this - it looks beautiful! And indeed, all free. Doesn't use narration, the end of chapter exercises look a little skimpy, but I love that it's free. :-)

I was scared to try it at first, bc it was SO different from anything I'd seen with my older dc's (conventionally schooled). I'd seen tests and quizzes and so on, but never heard of it. And I didn't know at the time that Charlotte Mason discouraged narration (as her intellectual heirs continue to do) before age 6. In any event, we jumped right in - I just acted like it was the most ordinary thing to ask a child. I do warn her first - I think that's most common, though once they're used to it, you don't have to explain every time: "I'm going to read you a short section about ___ (I think our first was about ant "jobs" in a colony); afterwards, I want you to tell me everything you remember." I don't know if that's perfect form, but it worked! I was amazed - she not only related the whole simple paragraph I'd chosen, she drew a detailed picture to go with it. (drat, I was wrong; here's our first narration, from October). She's still only 5.5, but our narration is now taking on more structure within our homeschool week: one science narration a week, one parsha (Bible portion) narration a week. She knows what's expected when she sees me coming with the "narration paper." :-) I usually don't do narrations "cold" - ie we spend at least a bit of time with a subject BEFORE I read her a section she knows she'll have to narrate. Today we did "sense of smell", but we did some readings and an experiment about it yesterday, so she could incorporate whatever she remembered from those as well. As she gets older, I'll probably start doing some cold - ie reading a passage on a NEW topic, then asking her to narrate. She's not even 6 yet. :-) At this stage, I usually write them, though if she's very inspired after a nature walk, I'll leave her with a blank narration paper and come back to find it full of pictures and her own handwritten words describing what she's seen. A few things we're working on now - full sentences, standing posture (she doesn't like this one bit, but I think behaving more formally will get better cooperation and perhaps full sentences), exploring more than one aspect of a topic, persisting even when she says she "doesn't remember anything." (usually when she's overtired and I shouldn't have attempted it in the first place!) By the way, I love having my blog as a record of our successes and failures. I've created a narration tag so you can see all narration-related posts together. Some are a bit more tangential than others. If you don't blog, find a way to keep track of what works and doesn't with your own kids! (we store all narrations together by subject in our "school" binder) Hope this is helpful.

Just readin' along through the BOB Books.... oh, and Starfall. She's now reading at what I'd consider a "happy beginner" level. Considering we're halfway through Kindergarten, I'm pleased - seriously, I thought she would never read. :-) The phonics is helping her, and like I said, she enjoys ETC. What do you think?

:confused:

If I may suggest something a little different: JUMP Math offers an introduction to fractions that: - assumes no prior skills beyond multiplying by 2s, 4s and 5s (I believe - maybe 3s?) - begins at the ground floor - quickly moves kids up, through VERY simple steps, to full fluency in fraction operations This mini-curriculum can be found with tons of other information at this site - everything is downloadable as a PDF, as far as I can tell. The author, John Mighton (who himself came to math a bit late in life), has also written a helpful book: The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child. I blogged about this when I read it - just a couple of weeks ago. Hope this is helpful... seriously, check it out. It's FREE and easy to work through.

I just bought Elemental, in part because it follows the WTM guidelines. If you don't want that, maybe check out Living Learning Books Science. We're using it this year, but I don't think it's too well-known. Its years parallel the WTM guidelines also. It is VERY light - hard for it to fall apart bc it's basically a list of good books you can reserve from your library, combined with easy activities, in a reasonably sensible order. You probably won't need the student pack for this, bc it's basically colouring pages. All the information is stuff you could PROBABLY find on the Internet and piece together yourself, but I am enjoying having it all in one place and not having to make any decisions. And we are all LOVING the books! Since there are zero "lessons", it seems like a curriculum CM would definitely approve of. Of course, with any topic your kid is especially interested in, you can easily put the lesson plans on hold and take an extra week or two to go in-depth and do more hard science if she enjoys it! BTW, if you go with this curriculum, the little ones won't KNOW they're going along with science, because they'll just be listening to books around a given theme. :-))) (and they may just find something to interest them, as well)

Wondering what experiences parents have had with combining these two curricula! Dd5 (currently K5; SK here in Canada) doesn't enjoy ETC exactly, but she does it, slogging away, and she's very proud that we're now more than halfway through. On the recommendation of WTM, I bought SW-A, but it looks too basic for Grade 1, considering she'll be finished ETC #1 by then. Since ETC is working, I figured we'd continue that with ETC #2 in Grade 1. But I also want to try a rigourous, formal, list-based approach to spelling. Here are some of the options I can see for right now: a) Continue with ETC#1, start SW-A slowly now. b) Continue with ETC#1, hold off on SW for now. and then, in May/June when we start Grade 1... a) Start with SW-A, continue with ETC#2 b) Start with SW-B, continue with ETC#2 c) Start with SW-A, drop ETC altogether d) Start with SW-B, drop ETC altogether e) Continue with ETC#2 and forget about spelling OR... f) None of the above! Hmm... any thoughts from anyone who's btdt?

Whether or not you homeschool full-time! Whether your kids are (older, younger, special-needs, whatever - fill in the blanks)! Whether you're strictly Classical or something completely else! Whether or not you incorporate specifically Jewish lessons in your schooling! Whether or not you think what you do is especially interesting or cool or fun... ...I'd love to hear from you for the fourth Jewish Homeschool Blog Carnival, (extended-Adar edition!) coming up later on this week! Heck, I'd even accept offers to guest-host a future edition!!! Even if you're not Jewish, you can still help spread the word. :001_smile: You can check out past editions here as well.

Every hs'ing book I've read says DON'T RUSH OUT & BUY TOO MUCH CURRICULUM RIGHT AWAY! I have tried to follow this and I think doing so would help many new hs'ers. This is our first year, doing a K5 curriculum(ish, bc I'm kinda with Charlotte Mason in not rushing them into lessons too young!). I invested in Miquon, but we didn't love it, so we're out a bit, but not a ton. I don't regret doing Miquon, either, and may still start that way with my younger. The rods are valuable anyway, as a supplement to any curriculum. So many "impulse" curriculum purchases end up not being necessary - you know, the stuff that looks SO must-have when you hear about it from another parent and research it, etc. And then it SITS and does nothing. So my newbie "advice" would be: don't buy too much, ease into the curriculum choices (adopting one at a time as you realize what works and what you don't NEED), think decisions through, read curriculum reviews, esp. the reviews from parents who didn't like it (maybe your kid is like THEIR kid!)... hmm... and I think that's it! Now off to read the many wonderful posts here.

Gotta say... I'm surprised nobody mentioned their COMPUTER. I could not homeschool without it. Whiteboards get a good workout, esp. the $-store stick-on one that turns any wall into a whiteboard. Enjoying (if that's the right word) ETC. Hoping to delve deeper into FLL etc. Loved the Cuisenaire rods and Funtastic frogs and tons of homemade manipulatives. But without the computer, I'd be nowhere. This is my first post to the boards... subscribing to this thread to see what other families love!