That's a great idea. I am the same way. I noticed the collecting assignments and knew I wouldn't want to kill the insects. Just doesn't feel right.

Either Sonlight or Heart of Dakota. I like both very much. Overall, I prefer HOD because of the language arts (more traditional than SL, more of a systematic approach, less jumping around from topic to topic) , because it has more of a variety of ways for the children to learn (good for all learning styles), it's very skill focused, the reading schedule and the type of books they use allow you to dwell on the books and topics being taught, and it includes narration and drawing exercises that are integrated into the rest of the curriculum. Well, those are some of the reasons I would prefer HOD... I do like SL's science more, especially the DVDs and Science kits. And, their book selections are really good.

Yes, that's what I'll do, go through each lab and read everything. I just need to set the time aside and DO IT!! He has done alot of dissecting in the past. He loves it. I think we have a worm and frog already. This is so exciting!! My little Scientist is growing up. I think I just might cry.

Me too!! Hannah is a beautiful name and she is a beautiful little girl. I always wanted a daughter and her name was going to be Hannah! :grouphug:

I don't know. They are listed under the Science 7 materials on the BJU site. I knew they were probably optional but thought my son would enjoy them. Glad to hear they are included in the course DVD.

Thank you so much for sharing. I have been going through the supply list. I am a little aggravated with it. It would be so much better if they listed the supplies in the order that they would be needed rather than in alphabetical order. Atleast that is the way they are listed in the book. I haven't had a chance to look at the CD-roms yet. How can I know which labs are the more important ones before we get started with it? And all that equipment :eek:.

Chloe, you may want to take a look at Biblioplan. Their Yr. 3 would pick up where you are in your history studies. It uses SOTW 3 plus alot of other titles. Biblioplan now has several different products that they have created and published for themselves. They have a Parents' Companion and something they call Cool History sheets that help to reinforce the history readings. It would be alot of reading like SL but doesn't depend on just oral or written narration. Their sheets have more specific discussion questions and comprehension questions. You don't have to use all the books that BP schedules, it is alot. Here is the page for Year 3: http://www.biblioplan.net/2011/04/introduction-to-year-three_09.html And the Cool History pages: http://www.biblioplan.net/2011/04/introduction-to-biblioplan-cool.html

:D

Oh goodness, thank you!! I hope I order the right thing!! I am planning to order the Life Science Investigations 3 DVD set. They sell for $109.00. But, I saw that there are also Biology Dissection Labs that sell for $49.95. So, the dissection labs will be on the Investigations DVDs?? Thanks again!

We are Independent Fundamental Baptists. :D

Ok, that's fine. I personally can't stomach Rushdooney and North. Their teachings make me very, very ill. That is my experience and that is just the truth. Regardless, I love SL and have been happy with the four cores that we have used.

I thought I'd just cut and paste the following that I received today through the MUS email list. Behind the Booth While working at the Math-U-See booth and answering questions, I have been asked if Math-U-See is rigorous enough for the upper levels (Algebra 1 through Calculus). Thank you for asking. We seem to have acquired a reputation for making math too easy, which I like. I want math to be doable and understandable. I believe that in teaching concepts- and teaching them concretely- we are providing students with an incredible foundation which will prepare them for further upper level classes. You may not know that my first two teaching positions were at the high school level, teaching geometry, algebra, and trigonometry. What I observed in the classroom shaped a lot of my thinking. I found that these subjects were not difficult, IF YOU HAD A STRONG FOUNDATION IN THE BASICS. Sorry for the CAPS, but I need to make this point. So when I began writing books, the first book was entitled Foundations. (It was later revised and expanded into Alpha, Beta, and part of Gamma). If you continue in Math-U-See through high school, I believe you will be very satisfied. I will let some of our happy customers share their stories with you. Have a Super Summer, Steve From Happy Customers in our Upper Levels I just wanted to pass along a conversation I overheard at our local used book sale. A mom of a graduating senior was lamenting high school math with her son. She said they had used MUS through 8th grade but switched in HS because she heard MUS was too easy. Her son confessed more than half way through the first year that he was just memorizing things and not understanding with his new curriculum. They switched again but still struggled. The other mom concurred that HS math was hard. I decided after hearing this conversation, that we will never switch from MUS. Why make it hard? If it is working (and it is) why change? - Dana D. I am a homeschooled senior and have used Math-U-See my entire scholastic career. I love math and science and I believe that Math-U-See has helped to foster that love and enabled me to excel in these subjects as well. Next week I will be completing Pre-Calculus which marks my completion of every Math-U-See book you have authored. To prove that this course has been successful, I would point to my acceptance to Purdue University’s School of Engineering after just three years of high school. Purdue requires excellence in every subject, but it requires its students to go above and beyond any state requirements for math during high school. Not only was I admitted to Purdue, but they have awarded me with substantial merit based scholarships, and I know that, at least in part, I owe thanks to you for that. So, thank you Mr. Demme. You’ve never met me, but you have been a significant influence in my life. - Luke M. We've used MUS exclusively with our 4 children, now ages 6 thru 16. My oldest one scored in the 99th percentile on the PSAT in all areas and wants to pursue Theoretical Physics. Thank you for making math understandable and majestic all at the same time. - Farryl M. Dear Steve, one of your students - Matthew N. - won the 2009 Google SketchUp Kid's Digital Design Contest and was honored by the Howe brothers - Popular Science's 2009 Inventors/Invention of the year. Your Math program contributed to his success. In 7th grade he got so bogged down by ______ Math's overkill review and drill he spent over 2 hours a day per lesson and slid farther and farther behind. We finally listened to some friends and ordered your intro DVD. Math U See's program fit our family perfectly. We happily "re-taught" Fractions and PreAlgebra. Because your program teaches math skills in a logical, natural progression without the fluff and overkill drill - he finished Algebra Honors in one semester freeing up valuable time. With that time he toured Howe and Howe Technologies, interviewed with the Howe brothers, spent 160 hours using a CAD program - building the skills needed to win the Google SketchUp competition. Math U See is directly assisting Matthew in pursuing his dream of becoming a mechanical engineer. - Debbie N. One of the reasons that we choose MUS was because it was recommended in The Well-Trained Mind. We did alot of research and talked to alot of families in our homeschooling group and also visited some MUS reps. at a convention. We heard many glowing recommendations, so we decided to try it. It was an immediate hit and we have been very happy with it. My oldest son has used Alpha through Epsilon. My youngest has used Primer through Beta. Both of my sons are very bright and are doing great with MUS. I frequently read on this board that it's not enough and then I go moaning to my husband who keeps telling me that it is enough. He really likes MUS and he loves math. Both of his brothers are engineers and both have looked at MUS and like it. But, I do think that "where there is smoke, there is fire", I'm sure those who believe it isn't enough have some basis to their thinking. We plan to stay with MUS through HS and supplement if we need to. My husband really believes in making Math real and a part of their daily lives. I trust him and as long as he is happy with MUS, we will continue to use it. I just keep wondering why Susan and others would recommend MUS at all if it's not going to prepare our children for college level math. I have read all of her reviews in her books and she has not indicated that it is not a sufficient program. She does mention that it has a different scope & sequence and how that plays out in HS but she didn't neglect to continue to recommend it. I don't know... I'm probably ruining the kids :001_smile:. My 3rd grader did pick up Life of Fred fractions and begin using it recently. He has only worked through Beta but is able to do the beginning lessons in LOF.

Very good job, great explanation. The Reformed turn the "gospel" (the "GOOD NEWS") into very bad news for alot of people. We are non-Reformed Baptists, we believe that those who are saved can not become unsaved because when one trusts/believes on Christ, he is born again, given a new spiritual life, and his new life/nature is everlasting, it can't then turn around and die or else it wasn't truly everlasting and then the Lord would be a liar. But, we are not Reformed because we believe God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to the knowledge of His Glory, just as the Bible says but I'm too tired to look up Scripture references to prove it. The only Christian curriculum provider that I know of who explicitly state they are not Calvinists are WinterPromise, BJU, & Abeka. As for Sonlight, they would have to be Reformed, in my opinion. No one who isn't Reformed could stomach the teaching of Rushdooney and North whom SL apparantly have endorsed by including their works in their curriculum.

I am so sorry that this has happened to your sweet baby girl. I am and will be praying for her, for you & everyone else who loves her. I will be praying for complete healing and for you to know the Peace of God in the midst of this trial. :grouphug:

That is great! I remember my children's first Bob Book! :hurray:

I like SCM too! I have always liked her materials but now it all looks so much easier to implement with the guides and all the new articles that she has added over the last couple of years. We started IEW last spring and it was a big hit with both of my boys. They love Mr. Pudewa. I have Write With the Best and it looks great but I am going to stick with IEW and just use it on the days when WWTB is scheduled. We may try WWTB at some time in the future but not right away. We are using the Student Writing Intensive DVDs. I am just going to let him use the IEW models since they are all prepared and ready to go, and then if he needs extra practice in a unit, he can pull material from CTC for that. Then, when we get to the next HOD guide, he will know IEW pretty well and I think he'll do great with the IEW theme book as scheduled in HOD. For Science, he will be subbing in BJU but he will do the plans for the History of Medicine book and the biography on Galen. I do like the Science in CTC but this is my Science nut and he thinks he wants to be a dentist. He reads alot of natural history on his own and just doesn't need to cover some of the content in CTC. He liked the books in Preparing (they are the kinds of books that he reads on his own anyways) but he doesn't love notebooking with his Science. I want him to be really challenged in this area. I am ready to get him with a solid Science curriculum that will take him through high school. I hope BJU is a good fit. My other son will get to CTC a year earlier and he may not have the passion for Science that my oldest does, so he may end up using it as it is. I think BJU will be manageable for him to do mostly on his own and that's how he likes/wants it!! We will be using the DVDs, so that should help.

Yes, they are gorgeous. I am really excited about using them.

We really enjoyed Preparing. There are so many good books in that program! I hope you are blessed through it, we were.

I received my box today!! Wow! I am so pleased with everything. I didn't realize how beautiful the student sheets would be and that they include maps!! I'm glad I'm doing HOD with children that are on the older side for the guides. They will get so much more out of the programs and won't have to miss out on the Extension Packages!! Those Streams of History books are treasures. I didn't know they were written from a Christian perspective! I guess I should have known that they would be. :party:

I have a Master's in Marriage & Family Counseling. What do you want to know?

We will be doing Bigger Hearts & Creation to Christ next year. My CTC manual is in the mail to me. As soon as I get that I can begin to work on some sort of schedule. I used Preparing & Little Hearts last year. I will be honest, our days were long. Our days were not difficult and we loved it, but it did take alot of time. I think every family has different dynamics so it's hard to compare but our day was long because both of my children wanted to do as much as possible of the other child's program. My youngest sat in on almost all of Preparing and my oldest wanted to listen to the stories from Little Hearts! Not sure how it will work this year. I know I will have to make our schedule so that my oldest will be listening in to the Bigger Hearts' Storytime. If he would work on his independent work during that time it would help us to reduce our total time spent. But, I doubt he will. And, my youngest isn't one to get done and then go play while I work with the older. He wants to be right in the middle of it all. He doesn't have any one else to play with so he will end up sitting in on alot of CTC. I very much enjoyed teaching the two guides. It was very easy to do. But, our days were long.

If you look at the placement chart, you will see how there are different skill levels for various components of learning. I think the thing that gives so many HOD users the "peace of mind" that is talked about is that, if you work through a guide that is targeted specifically as the level that your child is on at that time, your child will definately be ready for the next level of work as required in the next guide. Each guide builds on the last and prepares the child for the next one. That's why HOD is not written for multi-level teaching. Two children AT THE SAME LEVEL can share a program but if the children are not at the same level, then they would be missing out on focused training, not that you couldn't still do that, but you'd have to do some adapting of the program. There is nothing "hit or miss" about the teaching. There is just a steady building up... so, using narration as an example, in Little Hearts, the child is encouraged to act out the story he has just heard (which is a form of narrating), then in Beyond and Biggers he is taught to narrate the story back to you orally, while also beginning to draw his narrations (beginning level drawing, nothing complicated), and then in Preparing those skills come together and the child is taught to write out his narrations and his drawings become more complex. It's not that you can't teach these things with WP or SL but HOD, in my experience (and I tried WP LA for a few months and have used SL LA for a couple of years), makes it easier to do so because the lessons and assignments are very specific and the progression is steady and gradual. There is no assignment that the child can't actually do because he has been prepared to do it. That is different than SL, for example. We used SL LA this past year and there were MANY assignments that my children could not complete at all because they had not been taught those things. One day the children were writing words backwards and the next day or two they were instructed to write a five paragraph research paper on a historical figure of their own choosing. And, they were supposed to do that in one or two days. Nothing in the LA guide had prepared them for that assignment. I know there are supplemental things that SL offers to address a research paper but there is not the level of coordination that HOD offers. At no point had my IG's given me a heads up that my kids would need to be able to do that so when it came up it was unexpected and we were not prepared. That would not happen with HOD. Have you looked at HOD"s placement chart? That is where you will see the skills that are referred to. The steady instruction applies to all skills, not just narrating... things like drawing, manuscript to cursive writing, length of passages to be copied, length of dictation passages, complexity of poetry studied and memorized, Bible study and personal quite time, discussion of literature (not narrating, but discussing certain literary terms), painting, writing out a lab report, research related skills, etc.

I will! I'll never forget the day that I got my first HOD program in the mail. It was Bigger Hearts. I laid everything all out on the table and took about 50 pictures of it all!! That was back when I was blogging. I ended up shelving it for the year and separated the children into Little Hearts and Preparing rather than trying to combine in Bigger Hearts. So, it's just been sitting in a box all this time!! I am so, so excited to finally get to use it. And, eager to see CTC... maybe tomorrow!!

Have you looked at the placement chart? I tried to make Bigger Hearts work for my average 10 year old and it was just too light for him. I bumped him up to Preparing Hearts and we had a wonderful year. But, the placement chart is where to go to determine that. I think a 10 yo using Bigger Hearts would want more science that Bigger Hearts provides (just my opinion) and that using your SL books with Bigger Hearts would be a good idea. I would plug those into Storytime OR use them as a self-made Extension Package.

I ordered Creation to Christ and it shipped the same day!! It's on the way to me now. Yes, now I'm broke. I should have waited but once I decided we were definately doing it next year I couldn't wait. I did try, but I couldn't hold out... I can't wait to see the Student Sheets :D.