Could anyone tell me what LCC is? I couldn't find it in the abbreviations.

I am sorry for such a rough day! Hopefully today will be better! You know what is best for your daughter...

There is Yahoo group for SWR that is soooo helpful! There is a ton of helpful advice too on doing things with preschool/young readers. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpellToWriteAndRead/

I am fairly new to homeschooling as well so please take my advice with that in mind. I have a young beginning reader who can read some CVC words. We are working through Adventures in Phonics Level A from Christian Liberty Press. (I am just using the workbook). I also have the Kindergarten phonics readers that go with that. I like them very much so far but we just started. They are easy and my son likes doing them. They don't specifically mention God in the first one but show pictures of the famly going to church with Bibles, a story about helping, being helpful, etc. The Noah Plan recommends using "A Writing Road to Reading" which is a very good resource. There is a ton of information on these boards to do this program. I am planning on using a program based off of it called "Spell to Write and Read" as this is what I have. But, it is a little too much for right now so I plan on using it in the future. There is a beginning reader set by Apologetics Press that I like quite well and discusses how God made everything. I have Level 1 and it contains easy words. It does have some odd pictures (like big pictures of animals mixed with a cartoon picture of an animal) but my two oldest sons really like them. I wish that they could make an easy reader with lovely illustrations and that is honoring to God. Sigh...If you find something like this let me know!!! I too desire for my sons to be able to read a Bible or verses. What I do is read a verse or section from a Bible story book to him and have him read the words that he can. He gets the practice and learns to "hide God's Word in his heart"! For memory verses work, right now we are using the ABC Memory Book by Scripture Memory Fellowship. I also tape memory verses up in their room and we go over them every night. This has worked very well in our family. I really like it a lot and my two year old son has even memorized some from the ABC book. We also use My First Book of Questions and Answers by Carine Mackenzie. I don't know if this helps but we are liking using these programs now.

:confused: I feel quite dumb...Could anyone enlighten me about this second story? We have a two maybe three of the Jan Brett books and my two older sons love them. But I have never noticed a second story!

Thank you so much for this! I am so grateful!

I just found about the Twins Series! Do you have any favorites of the series? I also had not heard about Miss Suzy or Miss Twiggly's Treehouse. Are these books that would be good for boys too?

How special! I don't know anything either but this was wonderful!

:iagree::iagree::iagree: I just purchased these not too long ago on eBay for a great price and I love them so much already! My son loves the first one! We have read 1/2 of it already! How special to buy a set for each of them! I am sure that they will treasure them for a long time. Do you have any other favorites? I have three boys so we have a set of readers called "Cowboy Sam" and another one "Dan Frontier". My boys just love those!

Hi KinderSafari, I am not an expert at all in anything vintage! Personally, I am just interested in vintage books for my children and what lovely books we can read together. I started this thread to talk about what other vintage books people like for that purpose. When I look at vintage books, I am not really interested in the monetary value of the books but I am really interested in the actual story/pictures/etc. I purchase a vintage book if it looks interesting or I think that my family would enjoy it. This week I found three vintage books at the thrift store on Heat Engines, Principle of Thermodynamics, and Machine Design for my husband. (He is a mechanical engineer and was so excited by the way!) We also love older books as they seem to have a lot more beauty and good information in them even thought they are dated. So, I am no help at all!:D However, having said that, I think that eBay or Amazon might be a good place to look and see what things are worth. (That is where I always look!) There is also another website called Bookfinder that will tell you how much the book is selling for on a whole bunch of different websites. They might give you a better feel for if something is valuable or not. Oh, and Etsy has a vintage section of books that might be good too! Finally, there is AbeBooks.com too! There might be better websites out there but I don't know about them. I would think that if a book is in good condition you might be able to sell it somewhere, especially if you got it for free. Do you have any vintage books that your family enjoys?

Sorry, I was editing my post when you posted! I have questions now! But I would be pretty much happy to discuss anything!:001_smile: I also wanted to ask about free downloads as well. Someone on the Anthology thread provided a link to a download of "The Golden Book of Chemistry". My son and I looked at that yesterday and enjoyed it so much! Does anyone have any free download favorites to share?

Does anyone want to discuss vintage children's books with me? I love the thread of the vintage Anthologies! :D I just recently found some Marguerite de Angeli books that are out of print as well as a copy of "Grandfather's Chair" by Nathanial Hawthorne (no copyright date but 1899 written on inside inscription). Both of these were very inexpensive so I am excited! Have you found any lovely vintage books lately? Are there any favorites that you have (for me to be on the look out for)?

There is a lovely discussion where Andrew Kern discusses his view of the trivium/quadrivium here (post #31 on): http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257193&page=4 Incidentally, this is the same link that KFamily posted on #3 of this thread.

OHHHH!!! I love this thread! I am so glad to know that you all love vintage books with me! I recently purchased complete sets of My Book House and the Young Folks Bookshelf books on ebay. They were such a good price ($20 for a set!) and I am so glad that I bought them. I will have to check out that other thread. I also and LOVE "The Book of Life set". We use it a lot!

I don't have this coloring book by Kate Greenway but I do have a few of the Dover Coloring books. My two oldest boys (4 and 2) just love them. I just purchase one coloring book and then copy it for my little guys. I think that the books help them learn to color better because my little ones like to have things look "real", especially animals. I personally vastly prefer these real books over other cartoon type coloring books. I like copying because my littles can color as much as they want and really like the lovely detailed pictures. Sometimes I will color one with them too and talk about the colors as well with them. I don't know if this helps. Edited: I also wanted to say that my little guys can't color in the pictures "properly" either. But, I am not really worried about it. They like to color it as properly as they can and try and match the colors of the animals in their books they are reading with me. I copy them so I don't have to purchase a book just for them to scribble in.

Thank you! This was lovely!

I haven't finished reading this thread yet but could someone tell me what STEM means? A whole bunch of you have mentioned it and I don't know what it is. I am sorry for such a dumb question!

Sheesh...I feel dumb:blushing: I have been listening to the other talks by CiRCE and hadn't seen this one. But, then I realized it has been linked to already. Thanks so much! My little guys are in bed so I am going to listen to this now. You are so kind! Thanks!

Well, I must have blown it already because I am not sure that I understand the difference between a good book and a great book. Is a great book the same thing as a living book? Perhaps could you help me with these examples. I think that I understand what a good book is. For example, in children's picture books, NOT Disney books but McCloskey or Burton. So would a great book be Lang's Fairy Books and not McCloskey or Burton? And, should you only provide great books for your children and not good books?:confused:

Simply Charlotte Mason has a nice list- their ""Early Years List". I also like the books that Five In a Row uses. You can find the lists online.

I like Books Children Love as it points out living books and gives a description of each book. This is also fantastic and is broken down by age.

I am looking to purchase a beautiful but authentic Mother Goose book. Can anyone recommend one? I am looking for the original rhymes but with beautiful illustrations. I am also looking for a hardback book with a lot of rhymes and not just a small selection. We have a book already with a small selection and the illustrations are not really nice. I would like to try and find one with real art like pictures. But, my son loves the book we already have and I would like to try and find another one for him. Thanks!:001_smile:

This is such a wonderful thread. It had caused me to think so much as we are starting our homeschool journey. Thank you so much for the wonderful ideas and thoughts! I have so much to learn! sigh... My reply below is Christian and is not meant to create an argument. Please skip if you wish: I think math put on display God's glory. Everything in creation and the universe screams of a creator simply by the incredible mathematical and scientific principles that are involved. God is orderly. Scripture is chock full of illustrations of this. Some of these include- creation, Noah's ark, design of the tabernacle, numbering our days, etc. When we learn mathematics, it is an attempt to discover more of who God is. It is an attempt to "think God's thoughts after him". We learn it not to get into college but to discover the beauty of the ordered world around us and thus discover more of who God is. It inspires us to copy this loveliness and order in our own lives. Organization, design, and neatness are some personal virtues that come to mind as a result of this. Well, I don't know how coherent this is. But, I am very grateful for this thread. Lauren

Thank you so much!

- I made a "pea board" for my sons. I took glue and wrote on a piece of cardboard the letters. I put split peas on top of the glue so that I now have split pea letters. (Similar to the sandpaper letter that SWR has). You could make your own sandpaper letters with real sand but I used split peas because it is what I had. My son writes, says, and traces the letters with his fingers all at once. - We also use a "salt box" like another person had said. I just use a large flat bottomed tuperware container. My son traces the letter/word in the salt, says it, writes it in the air, etc. - To work on blending, we play a game "Make a Word Lego". I took the single Duplo legos and masking tape and wrote a letter on each lego on the masking tape with a Sharpie. (Make sure to write them on the side of the Lego so you can read the word when you stick three or more together. It will not be an up-to-down reading but a left to right like real reading). I put all these Legos in a little basket and my son rummages around until he can make a word with them. I have just started with CVC words from his little readers- at, cat, bat, mat, etc. - We also play another game where I have written out the letters on index cards. My son makes the word and them jumps from the first letter to the end letter in the word saying the sounds as he goes. So, for example, he will pick out the cards T, C, and A. He will arrange them into C A T and then yell K- jump- A- jump- T. Then he runs from C to T and says CAT! -Can you tell I have boys?:willy_nilly::D I would check out SWR if you want a multi-sensory program. They also have a Yahoo Group that has tons of ideas on how to work with the phonograms, blending, etc. You can also check out the program sites that go along with SWR- Morning Star Learning and another I can't remember but I will try and find. They have ideas there too! Hope this helps!