The first one that comes to mind is If All the Swords in England, about twin brothers who are in the service of rivals: Thomas Becket, and King Henry II. Another one, which is out of print, is Black Fox of Lorne, also about twin brothers in 9th century Scotland.

Your dc's narrations are not supposed to be used for dictation later on, because they won't necessarily be models of good language use/writing. You definitely want the copywork and dictation to come from you and from literature. As far as whether or not the notebooks contain their words or yours -- that's totally up to you. If you are having your dc narrate, whether or not they are writing it down, you are fine.

i.e., "You don't want me to send you to public school, do you?" :) Just realized -- this should be on the general board.

We only did science 2X/week, but would often do several experiments in one day.

I've had mixed results from VF, and rarely order because their stuff is so expensive, but I don't want to support AG. Now - over to ebay!

Thanks, Janna.

Good advice. I wanted to check ebay, but wasn't sure what to specify. "Gotz doll" sounds like a good bet.

Here's the link: Dictation Selections from Literature HTH,

Thanks. I'll check our the LoF dolls.

I have a $25 coupon to use, and was wondering if it would be worth it to buy on of their dolls for my soon-to-be 7yo dd. They are a bit cheaper than the American Girl dolls, I've noticed. Can anyone comment on quality, etc? Or, can I buy another 18" doll cheaper and be just as happy? Thanks,

and most CW users use either Rod & Staff or Harvey's Elem. Grammar. CW sells a Harveys workbook, and the lessons are scheduled out for you in their Instructor's Guides. If you use R&S, which is what I do, you can just work through the book, skipping all writing lessons/chapters, or you can work on the skills suggested in the CW manual. For example, the Grammar assignment in the I.G. may be a chapter on "Sentence Making" in Harvey's. You could work instead on the Rod & Staff chapter on "Sentence Construction." You'll be able to skip some exercises in R&S. I only schedule grammar one time per week, for 20-30 minutes when I'm doing a CW lesson. If we take a week off of CW, then we do more grammar. This has worked very well for us. HTH,

If you go to the Veritas website, to the Scholars Online link and click on Omnibus I, you will see specific info about credits given (this is for the online course, but can be a guideline for you). I know that for Omnibus 3 you get only 1 credit for the Primary Readings, but 3 credits if you do both Prim. & Secondary!

n

I do love diagramming, and had to stretch to think of a "con." :)

n

What is your dd doing this year? That will help us with suggestions.

Agreeing with Jackie.

n

His drawing stuff might be good, but I have never liked his paintings, especially his use of color, so I've stayed away from anything with his name on it. Can you look at a sample? How are his people drawings?

One of the Veggie Tales DVDs, (Sumo of the Opera), has a great "Silly Song" medley entitiled "Schoolhouse Polka." It has a song about homophones, followed by others, including a preposition song. Lots of fun, and very catchy!

This list is from the Classical Christian Education Support Loop. Here's the link: 1000 Good Books List This same site also has a "100 Great Books List."

I have some Zaner-Bloser copybooks on lulu. They're history-related, so I don't know if that's what you want. There's an "Ancient History Copybook" and a "Medieval History Copybook." You can download them for just a few dollars.

the only one I can think of is the rather subjective nature of diagramming. Some say that diagramming is an art, not a science, because as sentences become more complex, they can be diagrammed, sometimes, in more than one way. This isn't really a "con," but can explain why some people get frustrated with diagramming. As others have mentioned, I also like R&S English and Mary Daly's book, but the curriculum that brought diagramming to life for me was Classical Writing. Love it!

Maybe it worked for us because of the grammar in CW. My ds in in R&S 8 now, and doing beautifully.

Here's a quote from Wheelocks which may be helpful: An adjective indicating attitude, relation, or quality may take a noun or pronoun in the dative case to indicate, literally or figuratively, the direction in which the adjective applies; such adjectives in English are usually followed by the words to, toward, or for. "Pleasing to God" fits this description exactly.