My 8 yr old loved the Bruce Coville book we just read. She begged for more each day!

I'm trying something different in my homeschool this year that has been working out well. We do Classical Conversations, so I already have history memory work sentences and a timeline. I bought a couple sketch pads from Hobby Lobby, and once a week we read a couple of books (just picture books really) relevant to our history sentence from the library, and I give them coloring pages or pictures I print off for them to decorate their "history notebooks" with. We add a timeline to the notebook pages, my daughter will do some copy work in her notebook and that's it. I love it because I'm not left with a bunch of random coloring pages, they love it because it's craftsy. The only other history thing we are doing is listening to MOH audiobooks to correlate with our timeline. I plan on doing this every year until the Logic stage. The notebooks can be increased in difficulty and what they don't hear the first time around with MOH, they will at some point.

When my kids get stuck on a phonogram for a word, I flip through the whole set with them until they find it. It's always seemed to help.

I've read some of those articles too! And I learned two spaces on a keyboard, so I think it's relatively new. I think I'll teach my kids to use two spaces for formal/educational typing. But informal, I don't think it matters. Some of the comments on one of the articles I read were from lawyers, engineers, and others that said in their fields two spaces were still being required. So that's why I chose two spaces for formal.

I'm combining the Classical Conversations timeline with MOH audiobooks. We haven't started MOH yet, but from what I've let the kids listen to, I was excited that they recognized names/events from their timeline. (The kids already have most of the timeline memorized.)

I love the new CC timeline because it includes world history. But we don't build around it. It's a separate history from our history cycle.

I'm not at that age yet, but if I were tutoring someone for better retention, I would give easy books, way below reading ability, to read and write a report on. And the first report might just be question and answer, in order to give hints, clues etc. And help form thoughts. That way the reader isn't having to concentrate on the act of reading, but can practice retention. Each book would get a little harder/longer and the questions fewer, until the question was only "what was this book about?" and the book was on grade level. If you start with simple enough books, he could do one per day. Once you get to longer books, that take longer than a day or two to read, you could give him questions each day so that he doesn't forget the beginning. Just a thought!

Thank you Ruth! I love those goals, I'm going to print them out and add them to my binder. We aren't leaving CC, I just felt like I was supposed to supplement extra science at home, but I didn't want to waste our time at home with something that would not be retained. I can do library books though! And I can rest a bit easier now. Thank you for your help!

Sorry! CC is Classical Conversations. (I said it in the first post.) Classical Conversations is a home school group that we go to once a week. We learn our memory work, do science experiments and art projects, and have presentations. I love it because the work of the science experiment is already done for me, the kids really seem to learn something, and the scientific method is being taught and exemplified. For experiments at home, I never have all of the "normal household items" in my house for science experiments, so it usually takes buying something that I don't want in my house. (Example, one of the projects I've come across was to use a magnet to pull the iron from an iron-fortified cereal to the bottom of the bag. We don't eat cereal.) Ok, I'm going to be more specific...We do have a tutor in Classical Conversations who is over the class and brings the materials and presents it. It is not primarily on science, and we do not have a text. But we do have a science time for experiments. These experiments have taught my kids lots of things. My son is easily discouraged and feels like he can't do the experiment. We've had to work on breathing, being ok with failure and messing up, and always trying again without giving up. I'm able to concentrate on those lessons with him while the science experiment is still going on. My daughter is able to keep going and has gained a bit of independence. These are important lessons for him; he needs them for life in general too. I like the content of the experiments too. One of our projects last year was to build an egg protector. The first day, my son was horrified. We hardly got it started, but through the next week he and I talked about all of our memory work from earlier in the year. Things like force equals mass times acceleration. We talked about how the force of the egg hitting the ground could be changed if we could either change the mass or the acceleration. We put another earlier experiment in there that dealt with mass and how when mass is stretched out, as in a roll of tape, it moves slower than mass that is concentrated, as in a marble. So we talked about ways we could build the egg protector that would spread the mass out and slow down the acceleration. And he rocked it. It was amazing. His egg did not break. He needed help, but it was an amazing experience for him, a very good confidence builder. Another project was to build a bridge. My daughter built a huge bridge that I was sure would not hold up anything, but she built it so long that it held up books! She was so proud. And I was too! I did get to post #62 last night, so I did read the goals. And those seem simple enough to accomplish. It doesn't really seem like a formal science curriculum is necessary to complete those goals, in fact. This year in CC we will be learning anatomy, for the first half. We'll have memory work each week that identifies parts of the body, whether it's different types of muscle or different systems, organs, etc. Part of our experiments, or projects, will be to build a body, coloring and labeling the different parts. The other projects (I'm not sure I should call them experiments after reading the above!) are about using the body (examples, to demonstrate the persistence of vision, fingerprints, lung capacity, etc.). We always talk about the scientific method with each experiment/project, although the questions obviously don't come from the kids. They are given the opportunity to come up with a hypothesis, after being presented with the question, the materials, the controls, and the method. They find it fun that sometime they are right and sometimes they are wrong. Our experiments come from the Van Cleave's 201...Experiments. I just finished reading the goals discussions. The depth you think about science education is the depth I think about history and language education! And I have read the post you linked to above and the one in that thread as well. But now it's midnight, and I'm supposed to be getting up earlier to prepare for school. I'll be thinking about those goals, and what mine should be. Thank you for all this direction and inspiration! This is really taking some soul searching for me.

Ruth of NZ, yes I need lots of help and am very grateful for yours! I'm still reading the above link. I keep having to stop to process, so I'm only up to post #23. But to clarify the points I was not clear on: I like doing the experiments at CC, I do not like doing experiments at home. They stress me out at home. I'm not sure I do like Apologia. I just have it because we used it last time we went through Cycle 3 in Classical Conversations, so it's an easy choice. I am trying to figure out my goals with science. I don't really have any at this point. Language, history, and grammar are easy for me, and I have goals for those. I've struggled with math, but I think I've come to conclusion on my goals there. Lastly, I have science. And it's my hardest yet. I've never been very interested in science, or felt like it was a necessary part of my education. I did what I had to do, and I made good grades, but it wasn't important to me. So now, I'm trying to understand what science does for an education and how I can use it in my kids' education. But since I don't feel like science did anything for mine, this is very difficult for me. This is taking a lot of inner speculation! More than I thought it would. Is this making any more sense to you? I'm off to keep reading and digesting!

Thank you for the replies! It's been a busy week, but I've been thinking on this in my spare time. What is the I wonder, Idea, Ninanoo? I've not heard of it! And Ruth in NZ, I've been reading your posts and those are what have me thinking! I love CC science because it gives the kids experiments, makes them think. We built egg protectors this past year, and in helping my son we were able to put together most of the memory work into making a really good egg protector. It was awesome! He loved, and I did too. So I really loved that. I loved having the memory work make sense and be used. I know at this age I can't except that to happen many times, but I had a glimpse of what is to come. As far as Apologia, and really any science text or book I come across, I don't like the evolutionary theory. I read your post explaining evolution, and it makes perfect sense to me. Does that mean I believe it to be true? No, not really. (I'm not starting an argument, I promise!) But in all science texts, at least the ones I've read, they all come down to evolution. Either, it's "45 billion years ago," or it's "Some people believe we came from monkeys!" I get that evolution vs. creation is a part of science, but is it really the center and definition of science? I'm starting to think no. But how can you get away from it? Especially since it is such a big, or little, decision, I just don't get why we are shoving it in the faces of kids. They don't have to decide what they believe when they are young. They can't understand the two different views, they are young and can really only take in facts. So the fact that both sides are out to win the young minds over to their own side rubs me wrong, I guess. So, I think that's what I'm looking for. Books for the kids that don't contain negative comments about people who do believe in evolution or factual statements about evolution. We're studying anatomy, chemistry, and origins (ha!). (But CC only offers definitions of the different ideas of origins, and does not influence a "correct" choice.) I'm not very good at doing experiments at home, and we have experiments in CC every week (isn't that enough?) plus I'm about to have a baby and I have a toddler. Experiments are out. At the ages of my kids, there is some understanding, but not much. Memory work, to me, is the best learning tool they have right now. It can be used later to gain understanding, but having facts, real Truth facts, memorized is giving them knowledge. Again, they are getting this from CC in their memory work. So I either need to know that we're doing enough science with CC (formal science anyway, not including things like baking, animal care, home stuff, etc.) or I need some suggestions on how to fulfill the science we are getting through CC. Sorry this is so long! I'm still sorting it out, but this is certainly helping!

It may be because I'm over thinking this. But here it goes... I've been reading some of the science topics on this forum and they have me second-guessing. We do Classical Conversations, and love it, and my plan for this year was to Apologia Anatomy at home. I already have it, so it's the easy way out. But I haven't felt completely at ease with that decision. With CC we have science experiments, which I don't like doing at home anyway, and memory work. I'm wondering if this is enough. Or how I can fulfill this without a textbook. I see very little retention with textbooks, and I like the idea of interest led investigations, but I am not good with experiments at home. All that to say, I'm trying to decide what I want science to do for the kids. So my question to you is: What do you want to accomplish with science? And how do you want science to shape your kids' worldview? And then, how do you make that happen in your homeschool? Sorry if this doesn't make sense! I'm still trying to understand what my thoughts are.

I'm doing something different for Latin. I'm using Henle to learn Latin myself, and giving them memory work based on Henle (which is the program I'll have them do in high school.) So the Latin alphabet, noun declension endings, verb conjugation endings, and vocab. This way, I'm getting a head start on what their Latin will be, and they are memorizing exactly what they will need. Some of this is our CC memory work, but I'm adding to it. I haven't studied Latin, but I have done Greek, and I'm doing Greek with them the same way. When they get to middle school, I'll teach how to use their memory work most likely without a curriculum. That's the hardest part of learning a language anyway: memorizing all of the vocabulary and endings. This way is cheap, and teaching them will help my study.

We read or listen to books. My daughter has started naturally asking questions like "what does that word mean?" etc. As far as our book lists, I've picked out books for our year, and we all read/listen to them together. I'll pick out the books each year. When my son gets to the age of my daughter, we'll read different books. There are so many options, I don't feel like I have to read certain books in certain years. The kids can read (almost) any other books they want to. I don't assign books, but rather hand them books and say "you'll love this."

I wish I'd found this thread, and all the other threads a few weeks ago! I've been planning on using Apologia, because we have it, we're doing CC, blah, blah; but I haven't been happy or even felt good about this plan. I'm just a history student who doesn't love science. But I want to do better, to be more classically educated myself. So now I have two weeks to get science re-planned. What I'm understanding so far is that science in the early grades (my oldest is 8) should be more about cultivating observation and research to understand the observations? That really, the goal of science is to have a scientific outlook (ie see, study, question, research)? My kids are already a lot more observant than I am. As in, I stepped over a snake the other day walking into the house, but behind me they saw it and stopped. (I can't believe I missed that one!) And I did use that, we looked it up and tried to figure out what kind of snake it was, but we didn't go deeper than that. I guess I should have. Would you have run to the library, gotten a bunch of books on snakes (eating habits, habitats, anatomy)? This feels so beyond me. I'm off to read the other threads.