I'd appreciate the email as well. My email is angiekirsch@comcast.net. Thank you for taking the time to email this out. I've been looking for something like this for Spanish. Angie

We supplement with the Life of Fred books. My kids love them.

When I got the Math Mammoth deal from HSBC in March it was at the 20% off mark for a LONG time. I think it was within the last few days of the month before it reached the 50% off (the max discount).

I recommend getting the downloads as well. HomeSchoolBuyersCoop has a group buy going on for MathMammoth right now. I bought the complete set from HSBC in March (or whenever they offered it last) and am psyched. It's not bad to print the pages out. I don't have a good printer at all and I printed part A for both my 4th grader and my 2nd grader without problem. I hole-punched all the pages, and then put them in three-ring binders. With two in first grade, I think it would be easier to buy the downloads. Either way, I hope you like MM! I know we do. ;) Edited to add the link to HSBC's Math Mammoth group buy: https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/math-mammoth/?c=1 When I did the group buy in March, it didn't get to 50% until the end of the month. I think a lot of people wait until the end. LOL I think it will get there again. It's a great curriculum.

Thank you so much! You've given me hope, and I feel so much better now. I did have in my mind to include my older children, I just don't know how it's going to work. Will the older kids get bored going at the slower pace for my kinder? The older kids each have their own LA curriculum they'll be using and when they do that work my kinder will be using an online phonics game (I have enough points to get the lifetime click-n-read from HSBC) or doing learning games (I have a eight zipper pouches that I'm going to fill with games or fun learning things for him to do that he can choose from). I guess I'm just not good at figuring things out on my own. I don't like scripted too much (why I'm not doing A Beka with him), but I like some sort of outline besides being told to do a letter a day. It was just too vague for me. LOL I appreciate you posting your plan on your blog! I'm downloading it right now!!!!

Hi, I purchased LOE before I realized it was really for those that already knew their basic phonograms. I've been debating on selling it (can't return it as I bought it well more than 30 days ago -- got it at a conference. The lady made it sound like it was for beginning readers. I should've taken more time to read through the book before purchasing). Anyway, LOE states that for Kindergarteners, to teach them the sounds of the 26 letters first, and to do one letter a day and then pick up with lesson 1, but working slower paced (2 weeks per lesson). I plan to do this, but I worry about going too fast. My other two learned to read via A Beka, and I know they spent more than one day on a letter/sound before moving to the next. I am going to be using McGuffey's speller and reader to teach to read too, but I want LOE to be the main focus with McGuffey as an add-on. Is anyone else in my shoes? Anyone else trying to teach a Kindergartener how to read with LOE? What are your plans? Are you doing the one letter a day for the first few weeks before moving on to lesson 1? Should I supplement with something else besides McGuffey? Or, should I scrap LOE until next year and use something entirely different?

I think it looks fine. I have kids in the same grades as you and I'm doing around the same amount. What are you doing for the state study? The state study we're doing is in my sig. We're going to do it in two years instead of one so that we can take our time. ;)

I'm doing both MOH 1 and SOTW 1 this year. I couldn't decide between the two. I felt that MOH didn't have enough other history and that SOTW didn't have enough Biblical history. I'm going to use MOH as my spine and then add in the SOTW chapters where they fit. ;)

I was confused too and purchased both. You only really need the workbook unless you want to use your own texts and stuff, and then you'd only need the teachers text. The teachers text gives you a few lessons per grade and then an outline of how to put together groups of lessons. For instance, it will give you lesson 1 and then have a section that outlines lessons 2 through 10 (not specific, just throwing numbers in there. I can't remember how they're broken out), and then give you a lesson for lesson 11 and another outline for lessons 12 through 20, and on, and on, and on. The workbook is all the lessons for a year with the workbook pages as well. Good question!

I saw them in the Lakeshore Learning store yesterday. I can't remember how much they were, and they were sold in a pack--more than my family would've needed...

I think my 7yo still needs calendar time and my 5yo definitely needs it. My 9yo doesn't need it, but what we're going to do this year, I think she'll have fun. I haven't figured it all out, but I was a Lakeshore today and found empty caldendars (no year -- the kids put in the dates on the squares) and no pictures -- the kids draw the picture for each month. We don't have a lot of space to hang a huge calendar up. I had considered it and looked for one I liked, but it just wouldn't work for us, so when I saw these empty calendars, I envisioned the kids coloring the picture for each month. Maybe it will take more than one day, maybe just one, not sure, but then we'd do the days together for the month and talk about special days and let them draw pictures in those days to represent the holiday/special occasion. Then I was thinking instead that I could use the days as a weather chart and let them color in each day with what the weather was. I'm not exactly sure how I'll use the days, but it's what I'm working on right now. I think my 9yo would like this because it involves drawing and coloring. She likes to do that sort of thing still.

I received my copy mid last week and I immediately read through it. It was like picking up a great romance novel and not being able to put it down. So much good information. I've decided to have our writing workshop in the morning, right after Bible/scripture time. We'll do the mini-lesson, quiet ten, and then ten minutes where they can continue to write (draw for the youngest) or come up to me for a conference. I went out and bought writing folders today. I was just going to make them, but then remembered that Lakeshore learning had writing folders that had information on them that could be useful. The one thing they're missing? The alphabet. I'll probably laminate the alphabet and put it in one of the pockets. Oh, and they have four pockets. I can't remember what they're all for, but one is for editing, one is for in-progress, and I'm thinking one of the other two is for pre-writing stuff like the graphic organizers and stuff. I think they'll work perefect. I also picked up a date stamp. I wasn't going to at first, but I know my kids wil LOVE being able to stamp their papers. The process of not erasing and just to write and not worry about grammar and spelling mistakes as you go has me thinking about how I write (I write romance novels for a hobby in my spare time. I also do NaNoWriMo every November). I tend to not worry about that stuff when I first write. It's all about getting the ideas down. Later, after it's all down, then I go back and work on different areas. Each time I read through my work, I focus on different aspects, and in a way, that's what NMID seems to be teaching. I'm going to do our writing workshop every day. I think there will come a time when I'll be able to notice common mistakes in my kids and I'll just gear the mini-lessons toward those issues, so I won't necessarily be doing them all in the order the book has them in. Also, my oldest uses ViE and they recommend books that illustrate the different writing styles for the writing portion of ViE, so I'll probably pull some of those books in to use in the mini lessons as well. I agree about not being able to come up with ideas for books that can illustrate the concept for the mini lessons. I'm so glad the author of NMID included what she uses. I haven't heard of any of the books she's mentioned. I'm actually excited to read some of them because they sound great! Oh, and one rule we're going to have for my kids is NO pictures or stories of killing, shooting, or video games. I totally agree with that. I can see my middle child drawing nothing but Halo battle scenes. Ugh! And he doesn't play that game very often at all, but it's all he talks about. Maybe because I won't let him play it so much is why he talks about it a lot. Not sure. I still need to try and correlate some of the lessons in the book with the ViE lessons.

Hey! I'm an Mpact leader. LOL I do see what you're saying, but the Royal Rangers do have a badge for cleanliness, and I do laugh. LOL Depending on the club, not all badges will or need to be done. I don't remember that one being taught to my dd, who is in her secong year of Stars. I've taught Rainbows, Daisies, and Stars, but never Friends, Prims, or Girls Clubs. I know that I don't teach from the manual. I look at the actual scripture verse that they have to memorize for the badge, go over the lessons to see what exactly the purpose of the lesson is. What are the girls supposed to learn from the unit? Then I teach that topic to the girls various ways. Sometimes I use the information in the leader's manual, but not usually. Now that I think about it, there is a badge in Daisies for healthcare, I think. Maybe that's the grooming thing. I've never taught that one because they should be learning good grooming at home. I try to pick badges that aren't something that all the girls will get at home. badges pertaining to God and our beliefs and spirituality. I remember when I was a brownie and learned to sew and stuff. We do that in Mpact too. All the girls in the Friends club last year learned how to knit and/or crochet (their choice of which they wanted to learn) and then they made hats for babies in another country. I can't remember which country unfortunately. I think a lot of the Mpact and Royal Rangers program depends on the leaders. I know that our Royal Rangers program lacks big time! The content is good, but they don't do anything at the meetings. Everything has to be done at home. It's okay for us because we homeschool, but think of the kids that come home from school and then have to do all their Royal Rangers work on their own at home, after they do their homework! Yikes! I wish our church would get it together and actually help the boys work on their badges. It's not just about camping trips and making bow and arrows, which is all they tend to do. I know that our Mpact group isn't the norm, but the girls really do learn a lot. It's amazing to watch a young rainbow grow up and be crowned an Honor Star and listen to the essay they've written about what they've learned over the years. I cry every time. Sorry your experience isn't the same. I think that it totally depends on the leaders to get in there and pick the right badges. More badges than are required for the clubs are given to choose from. There are over 27 in Rainbows and only 18 are needed to finish the program. In Daisies, there are 15 and only 9 are needed. I'm not sure about Prims, and I just started teaching Stars, so I don't remember how many there are, but nine per year are needed (total of three years) with nine honor steps (three per year). We pick and choose. We don't do everything... Edited to add: I do remember a couple years back that the Friends club did do something with grooming, but it wasn't fluff at all. It did contain information on good grooming, but it also dealt with self image, which to me is very important stuff for a girl. I'll have to take a peek at the book tonight when I'm at church to see if it talked about whipped cream on a garbage can. That just is so loopy. But if that's the badge, I remember the leader at our church said it was an amazing unit, and had a huge impact on many of the girls. Sorry, jumping out of here. I am going to find out which club that is and look over the information tonight. We have an Mpact meeting and we're going over stuff for the start of the next year, so I'll be searching and asking around. ;)

I don't have a list off-hand, but I know that last year, when I did American History, I went through the chapter titles and just searched in Netflix's play it now section and found numerous videos for every topic. We had too many videos lined up and never got to them all.

Gotta love HSBC. I purchased MM from HSBC in March and am so glad that I did! I remember that it took a while for the March sale to reach the 50% off mark, but it did, so don't get discouraged, I'm assuming it will reach that mark again.

Thank you for these!

I wanted to use SOTW 1 with a Christian perspective, and then I found Mystery of History and decided to combine the two. I've been trying to figure out a schedule and then I found this: http://guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/ancient/ancienthistoryschedulepdf.pdf This is a blogger who provides her schedules for free. She combined MOH and SOTW with other Christian resources for a one year schedule to teach the ancients. I hope this helps. It has helped me. I'm not going to follow this schedule exactly but am going to take parts of it and add in others, leaving out some...kwim? ;)

I am in a similar situation as you. It's hard to know what to do. My DS(7) is very awkward and can be quite annoying. He really can be. But he's like every other kid in the way that he wants friendships, love, acceptance, and to have fun with other kids. It breaks my heart to see his awkward behavior and I just want to shield him from the nastiness of other kids. It doesn't help that my dd(9) is very even-keeled and is liked by everyone that gets to know her. She's not outgoing, but she can make friends easily. And then there's my ds(5) who is a magnet to people. Everyone is drawn to my ds(5). Adults, other kids, strangers, even. If we go somewhere, my ds(5) gets all the attention. He doesn't even need to instigate it. He's one of those charismatic people who others love to be around. My kids used to be in a private Christian school. My ds(5) was three at the time and in pre-K and didn't take a separate art class. His art was with his regular pre-K teacher. My other two kids had art with the art teacher. One day I had all three of my kids and I was walking down the hall and past the art class room and the art teacher called out to my youngest ds and started a conversation with him, giggling and if he'd been an adult, I'd say she'd have been outrageously flirting with him. She never once said anything to or acknowledged my other two kids, both of whom she had in her classes, and she didn't have my youngest in her class. Anyway, I'm getting off the poing...My ds(7) is right between my other two, who are socially acceptable. It's so hard to help him. I want to give him advice. I have given him advice, but he doesn't even realize how others view him. My dh also believes that he just needs a harsh taste of reality. Well, at our homeschool swim class we go to, one of my good friends' son, who is a good friend of my kids and my ds(7) would consider him one of his BEST friends (even though he really has no real friends from what I've seen), told my dd(9) that my ds(7) was gay. Now, I don't know how she responded. This only came up in conversation because my dd(9) wanted to know what "gay" meant. I explained it to her (explained homosexuality and all that business) and then she said, "Then why would N say that B is gay?" She told me that she didn't respond to him at all, and I explained to her that if anyone ever says anything about either of her brothers that she is to reply by telling them that their comments are rude, disrespectful, and uncalled for, and that if they continue to say these things, then she is to tell me so that I can step in. Should I be stepping in at any given time? I have no idea. I know that my ds(7) can be extremely annoying. I try to tone him down whenever I see him getting to that point. Normally, he's shy and quiet, but when around people he feels comfortable around, he just gets awkward and annoying. As if he doesn't know how to act around other people. For the record, he is "socialized", as non-homeschoolers will make sure to tell me to do with my kids. He's around other people all the time, with kids his age as well as others not his age. I do believe homeschooling is best for him. He used to cry every day in Kindergarten when he went to a private school and the best I could summise is that other kids were making fun of him. Okay. I get it. He's not like all the other kids. He's a bit different. Why can't teachers notice that a kid is being picked on? Ugh. Anyway, I'm getting off subject again... I just wanted to tell you that I feel your pain and I just am saddened that your son is going through this too. Best of luck to you and your son. If I find any way to help my son, I'll let you know. Right now I'm just waiting for him to mature...

I haven't done this yet, but it's what we're planning to do for this year. I've scanned through the book, and there is an Ocean Box, which is a project that is done throughout the course. My friend has done this already and I've looked at her box. Her kids still love looking at it and playing with it. They made their ocean box three years ago and has lasted.

Hi! I started Homeschooling last year, so I'm heading into my second year. Best choice we ever made! My kids had used A Beka in their Christian school and I, too, started using it at home. I think A Beka provides a very solid education, but at home, it just wasn't for us. I felt like I was giving my kids stuff to do, just to have them do it. I eventually cut down on worksheets as well as the number of problems they had to do on the worksheets they did do. Over the course of the year, I switched my daughter over to other curricula that just felt better for us. I want to chime in on Science. We use Apologia's Elementary science courses. We did Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day last year and will do Zoology 2: Swimming Creatuers of the Fifth Day this year. My kids are picking the order, so I find it funny that they are actually going in order. LOL What I love about Apologia is that it is all through the eyes of a young earth and a creation view point. It openly talks about God being the creator of all things, and I love that. I have learned a lot from the first book and expect to learn even more this year. ;) As for the 3 R's, I think A Beka is great for learning to read and for early math, but even the Christian school my kids had gone to started to supplement A Beka with other things starting in 3rd grade, and then by 5th grade, there was very little A Beka left in the curriculum they used. Many people I know that use A Beka in the home, switch to a different math at around 3rd or 4th grade and supplement with writing starting around the same time. Global lesson planners...I don't use one yet. I'm trying one out right now, which is free (homeschoolskedtrack.com), but I'm not sure if I will use it because I'm not the most organized person (which is why I probably should use one) and will most likely not follow through with using it all year. I'll probably do well the first week, but that's it. LOL I wish you the best of luck. There is so much out there!

Thank you so much for this! My 4th grader is doing ViE this year again (she did 3rd grade ViE last year and I love it), and my 2nd grader, well, I couldn't figure out what to do with him. I bought him LLATL, but wasn't sure, so then I bought WWE2 for him and am so excited to use it for him, that I figured I'd get it for my 4th grader too, but when I read this post, I just had to go and buy this book too. Now my 4th grader is going to do ViE, WWE 4, and now NMID. My 2nd grader will be doing LLATL, WWE 2, and NMID I can't stop buying LA stuff! I also bought the McGuffey Readers for my youngest (K), and plan to use them for my 2nd and 4th grader as well where spelling is concerned. If you figure out how to correlate the NMID chapters with the ViE genres, I'd love to see what you're doing. I'll be trying to do the same once my book comes in!

I got free shipping from an online event for Abeka last year. I received an add in the mail with a list of local meetings and online meetings this year, and it said that by attending either the live or online meetings, we would receive free shipping. We aren't using Abeka anymore though...

I just started using this today and I started with the school year, edited it and changed it to the current year and then I went into the students. I edited the default student and kept it with that school year, because now the school year was the correct one, and then I added my other students. I didn't have many problems, but it took me about an hour to figure out how to add activities to courses. LOL I hope you figured this out. If not, message me and I'll try to help. It seemed pretty straight-forward to me (adding activities was after I figured out I had to look at the left-hand menu when in the activities tab instead of the top menu), so I can try and help you figure it out if you need to. I was also able to import pre-existing lesson plans. There aren't too many available, but out of the ones that existed, there were a few that I needed. Now, adding in the lessons to the courses is tedious, but I keep telling myself that if I don't do it on the computer, I'll be doing it every evening or morning (depending on my energy level the night before) during the school year. I'd rather do it now. ;) Good luck!

Hi! Does anyone have any of the following courses already entered in Skedtrack that they can export either to me or the World? Voyages in English 4 (2011) Math Mammoth 2A/2B Early Bird Math B (only the B. We did A last year) Mystery of History Vol. 1 (Ancients) LLATL Red Book Apologia's Who is God? Thanks! I'd appreciate it!

We're doing Apologia's Zoology 1 this year too. This is our first year homeschooling, so I'm not exactly sure of what else is out there, but I'd heard great things about Apologia and so decided to try and give it a try. We LOVE it! My kids are 4,6, and 8 and all three of them get something out of it. I know that my younger two will more than likely (and maybe even my oldest) redo this when they are older, but even at young ages they understand what is being discussed and are so excited about anything that flies now. We went on a nature hike the first week (the first chapter is a bit boring, just beware) and it was like we were walking in a new world. My 6-year-old, who hates bugs, was getting close to dragon flies and butterflies not to mention bees! He hates anything that flies, will usually scream, but now that he's learning about flying things, he's interested in getting a closer look! We're doing it in the order it's written. I don't have time to go through it all and skip around as I work full time. One thing we do is try to do all the reading for a chapter in no more than two sittings. We do a chapter a day instead of a chapter every two weeks. I just didn't think we covered much of the text when we tried to do it as it's supposed to be done the first week. We just finished Chapter 3 and we are on our last day of our third week of school. We do the projects on weekends as it's easier for us (we like to be done with our school day right after lunch). Oh, and I think you said you were Jewish. Well, I don't think you'll have a problem with this book. I'm only in the third chapter, but everything about Christianity that they discuss relates to creation, which is found in the book of Genesis and was written by Moses, so you should be good. I love the little creation tid-bits. It ties our bible lessons in with science and even history, since we're using a Christian history curriculum too. I love how everything is tying in together. :) I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Give the first chapter a break. It gets interesting after. LOL Angie