I used Galloping the globe for one country. It is not open and go. It requires many books from the library and it took a good deal of planning on my part. Also a lot of the worksheets included in the book were too advanced for my kids who were 4 and 5 at the time. I've never seen the BF study so I can't comment on that. I'm not sure if there's an easy open and go option for this age. Here's a few more options you could look at. This one is free and similar to Galloping the Globe. There's also this one, I don't know anything about it. I know you said open and go but.... Here's what I would do... I'd buy this book from Amazon, and maybe this one. Use these sheets from Homeschool Creations to go along with the book Children Just like me that I linked. Scroll down to see those specific sheets. There's other printables there for geography but they might be too much for a young child. Then I'd purchase and print some of the Geography materials from either Montessori Print Shop or Montessori for Everyone and make continent Bags/boxes. If you want ideas for Continent bags then look here. You can also find some Geography puzzles from Timberdoodle. I wouldn't go in depth too much. That's why I like the Montessori printables because you could introduce people, places, foods, animals for each culture easily. This will take a little work on your part to prepare but it could be open and go once you gather everything. I hope I didn't overwhelm you with options and by the way I'm a Pentecostal mom as well...United Pentecostal to be exact. :)

Sorry Dian. Didn't mean to make you question. Maybe you will love EK. I think even the Complete Plans are a nice jumping off point. I think they could work great for a year. I just don't see how I would be able to stretch them out for longer than that (well the Middle School plans look easier to stretch into a few years). With the Complete plans you'll have the framework and a lot of flexibility, so if you like scheduling and choosing your own books it should be great. :) I have AWOA too. I like it, but we're not currently using it. We might pick it back up in the future.

Drexel...haha.. you sound like me. :) I can't wait to see what you come up with. Faithe... WELCOME TO THE PARTY!! :party:I'm keeping EK in mind for the following year as well.

Oh well, I see why you were disappointed and completely understand why you felt it wasn't enough information to use for 3 years. I kept thinking there was going to be more to it in person. The overview is just information for the parent about the time period, like a summary of events, right?

Cheryl, I know you no longer have the program, but in looking at the sample for K-2nd for Colonial Life is that the complete "unit booklet" for Colonial Life or was there more pages than what is shown? Do you remember how many pages each unit booklet was? Thanks!

The only one of my kids who's been through Algebra already was in Public School and she took Algebra 1 in 9th grade.

I wish I would have researched the different homeschool philosophies and found which one I wanted to follow. I only knew one person who homeschooled when I started and they used Abeka. We started out with Bob Jones. I didn't find this board until years later and was introduced to many different philosophies such as classical, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, etc... I'm still not sure where I stand. I like things from all of them. Sometimes I wish I would have just chosen one and went with it. I'm often left feeling like we don't have clear goals and it's lead to a lot of curriculum hopping for me.

I'm sure you'll have a good year. TGTL is a well thought out program. The way all the elements are tied together is amazing. We used most of POE this past year. We skipped two units and will be adding them in where they fit in chronological order to POS this fall. We won't do POS as scheduled because we found the pace too slow for us. I will be speeding up the reading and that means I'll have to cut some things. We also supplement the science and language arts so I'll probably pick and choose on that too. It's a great program. Enjoy!

YAY! Welcome to the Party!! :party: I know... just too many good things out there and not enough years to do them all. :lol: Curriculum Addicts UNITE!

Make it easy on yourself and fold them into ECC. You could pick up Galloping the Globe for some fun activities and books to add if you want. I think you could easily just use ECC though.

Oh man, I love it when I find stuff around the house to re-purpose. Have FUN! :D

:iagree: Sounds like a great idea. :)

Gosh, seems like forever ago when I made these. I can't remember what glue I used. However, I did a google search and came up with this: http://www.notmartha.org/tomake/marblemagnets/ That's pretty much how I made them, except I stamped the image. Hope that helps.

My oldest is 18, my youngest is 2 1/2 years old and now I have a grandson who's 2 months old.

Cool Drexel! Definitely keep us posted when you receive it. :) mama25angels/Des- I know exactly how you feel! I have 6 years between my oldest whom I homeschool and the younger group. I go back and forth trying to decide whether I should keep them on the same history topic or not. I'd love to see them working together for some things. The problem is it's such a big age gap that it's hard to do so. I still haven't decided whether I'm going to separate them or not, but I'm leaning towards separating them. I've said before that EK reminded me of TOG. The Daily Lesson Plans are also very similar to how Trail Guide to Learning is set up.

This is neat! Back in my rubber stamping days, we used to make magnets just like that. We'd stamp an image onto cardstock and then glue it to the back of a flat-backed glass stone and then to a magnet. They are really easy to make, but time consuming. What she has put together looks really great! I love the wooden box too. I can see my kids loving something like that.

Well I can't say for sure since I change my mind often. Something out there always looks so good and the grass is greener syndrome takes over. :lol: However, with that approach, I'm finding that most curricula is all pretty much the same. When you've seen one, you've seen them all. ;) Since I'm so picky and tweak most everything I use, I figure the "Complete Plans" would be good for me. It has the flexibility for us to go as deep as we like/or as little and the ability to substitute books. I had considered using it for my 12 year old in the fall. In the end I went back with what we were using before...Trail Guide to Learning. It was because EK covers all of World History within the year and we're all over the map with that. We've covered Early American a few times, Ancient History, some Modern history, etc. So it just seemed like EK would repeat too much for us. However, in hindsight I could have just bought the Complete Plans and used only the history we wanted stretching it out all year. I just wasn't sure the "complete plans" would have enough books/activities for us to do that. In looking over the samples I think I could have made it work. Since I already have Trail Guide we are going to be using it instead. I'm not sure what I'll do for her next year. One thing I'm considering for my younger girls is studying American history over a few years using the "Complete Plans" and pairing it with a spine like "A Living History of Our World". I might even consider the Daily Lesson plans just for the American portion over two grades. For example: purchasing "Set 2" Daily Lesson plans in both 1st and 2nd grade and spreading it out over a year for my 1st and 2nd grader. This fall they will be k and 1st, so that plan would be for the following year. Then after that purchase Set 3 for 2nd/3rd. That way we'd take two years to cover American History. Does that make sense?

You're welcome. I know I really like them too. I think the Complete Plans are a lot more flexible, and I agree they look like they get better in the older grades. Drexel- It took me a while to figure out the site. I've spent so much time on it, I know where most everything is now. The site is complicated to navigate. Try these links for the Daily Lesson Plan Samples: First Grade Daily Lesson Plans Second Grade Daily Lesson Plans Third Grade Daily Lesson Plans Fourth Grade Daily Lesson Plans They are currently working on 5th grade- no samples yet Middle School Daily Lesson Plans-Level 1 I guess they are going to have more levels eventually for the Middle School plans. Hope that helps.

To see the Daily Lesson Plans samples follow this link: http://www.epikardia.com/daily_lesson_plans.html Scroll down to see samples for each grade. To see samples of what they call "Complete Plans" follow these links:. http://www.epikardia.com/k-2_%20colonial_sample.pdf- K-2nd Colonial Sample http://www.epikardia.com/Westward_Expansion_3-5.pdf 3rd-5th Westward Expansion Sample http://www.epikardia.com/Civil_War_6-8.pdf 6th- 8th Civil War Sample http://www.epikardia.com/Secondary%20Sample%20-Westward%20Expansion.pdf Highschool Westward Expansion Sample

I always drool over Epi Kardia. I love the looks of it. It is in my future, I'm pretty sure, but I haven't used it yet. I really wish I would have went with it this coming fall for my youngers. I ended up buying something else but I bought quite a few of the books that Epi Kardia uses and we love them all. They have the BEST book list!! Are you thinking of purchasing the Complete Plans? I know they suggest buying the Ancient plans for $25 in whatever grade you want to teach and you can use it to get a feel for the scheduling and see how they took the complete program and made it into a daily schedule. Hopefully someone else can chime in. I'm not sure if anyone here has used it though. :bigear:

Also Totally Tots has a fun ABC craft with books and ideas to go along with it. Just click on each letter for more information.

MFW's K program is like that. There's also this one.

There's the new A Living History of Our World. 3 Volumes make up American History and they have a notebook to go with it. I've heard other living books are suggested. I'm not sure if they have activities or not, but I don't think it would be hard to pick up some Activity books like these to add some fun projects. It's not an all-in-one easy package, but you may be interested.

I'm strongly considering it. I don't have Science planned yet and my 12 year old has requested that we study the Middle Ages which is not part of where we are history wise. However, I'm pretty sure I'll oblige.

Today we acted out several of our past history lessons. All the kids participated and we had tons of laughs. This is something that we NEVER do. I don't know how we even got started but once we did the first play we were on a roll..lol.