My daughter is using Where the Brook and River Meet from Cadron Creek as part of her grade 9 year starting in the fall. I was wondering if anyone here has used it? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the program. Are there any of the suggested books that you loved or didn't like at all? Did you find any great go along books? I'm in planning mode! Thanks!

If you are looking for an online planner Homeschool Planet and Homeschool Tracker are both good.

I've used both MEP (free) and Math Mammoth but not Singapore. I've seen both referred to as being similar to Singapore though. MEP has a kindergarten level called Reception or you can start with Year 1 and take it slow. Math Mammoth I think starts at grade 1 level.

I know what you mean. I'm in Canada and the exchange, shipping and duty taxes really hurts! I try to find things used up here but it's not always easy. Sent from my 6045I using Tapatalk

I'm in Ontario and we still have a lot of geese here. They have been flocking and teaching the younger ones how to fly. I find the often stay until the pond's start freezing over in late October. Sent from my 6045I using Tapatalk

I don't know if you would like a Christion book, but Mystery of History might work for you. There are schedules online that match it up with SOTW. Another idea that I use is to pick selections from Ambleside Online. Their Year 2 covers the middle ages. The stories are longer than SOTW. AO Year 7 also covers middle ages if you wanted harder material.

I've been looking at the sample pages for MFW. The notebook pages seem really dry compared to WP pages. Unless the sample doesn't really give a good idea of the program? I've read the sample WP story and it would be ok for our children although I wouldn't want anything more detailed than that for the younger ones. We've read similar stories before, I can edit as I read out loud if need be. I'm leaning towards using GTG as a spine for the littles and WP CAW for the older ones. I just can't make up my mind yet. lol There are too many good choices out there! I do know we want lots of great books, crafts, art and cooking ideas. I do like that MFW has the animals/nature built in, but I could add that on my own if need be. (sigh) :willy_nilly: :D

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, the Top Secret Adventures doesn't ship outside the USA and I'm in Canada. The other options are doable though and I do have a children's world cookbook already.

I posted about this last night, but the post seems to have disappeared. My kids are asking for a world geography and cultures study for next year. They would like to cover how people in other countries live customs, food etc. We would like lots of craft and recipe options and they would also like to learn about the native animals in some of the areas. The age range for next year will be 6 to 13 grades 2 to 8. At first I thought about using Galloping the Globe for the younger kids and finding something to add to it for the older ones. I still might, but I found Winters Promise Children Around the World program and it looks really good! I'd love to hear from anyone who's used it. What did you like or not like about the program? Did you add anything extra to it? What is WP LA program that goes along with it like? It's hard to tell from the samples. What is Travel-With-Me World Map & Figures like? There is no sample of this on their website. It's consumable and $$ I would need up to 5 copies so I'd want to make sure it's something the kids would really like/need before ordering that. Any suggestions for similar culture programs?

My kids are asking to do a geography & cultures program next year. This would be for grades 2 to 8 then. They would really like to do something covering how people around the world live, what their countries are like and learn about animals and nature in each area. It looks like CATW does all this except the nature part? I have an older version of Galloping the Globe that I used with my older ones when they were younger. At first I thought of using that again and then finding something to add to it for the older kids, but then I found Winters Promise Children Around the World program. It looks good! I would love to hear pros/cons from anyone who has used CATW. Did you use their LA that goes with the program as well or do your own thing? Is there anything similar that is less $ but also includes craft and notebook ideas?

I've been trying out a unit of TOG that I was able to get on their changing horses sale in Jan. I've looked at TOG soooo many times in the past few years so I figured this would be a great chance to have a really good look at it. I follow more with a CM style but love the hands on unit studies as it really fits my children's learning styles. Barb at Harmony Art Mom has a page for her TOG posts. This one is on making TOG CM. http://harmonyfinearts.org/2008/08/adjusting-tapestry-of-grace-to-be-more-charlotte-mason-friendly/ The main things that I take away from it is already what I try to do with any curriculum. Reduce the number of books so you have a more peaceful pace. Barb also used mainly the core books and not the extras suggested then dropped a lot of the Lit. to free reads. I think she also used narration and notebooking instead of the worksheets in TOG. There are a lot of helpful posts to read over on her site. :001_smile:

Yes you can combine all of your children into one AO year. I have all of mine doing AO Year 2 together, although my oldest is 12 and is working on some of Year 5 on her own as well. I personally add in SOTW as well mainly because our kids LOVE the activities. I know there are others that combine in AO and another person I talked with a few years ago had a great idea that I use. All the children who can't read AO mostly on their own are kept in a group together. They just keep cycling through AO Years 1 to 3 until they are ready to move onto reading on their own. I've found this really lightens the work load for me! We love working together I just expect different work levels in narration based on each child's ability.

I use Homeschool Tracker +, at least I try to. lol I've been bad about keeping up with things this year (morning sickies) so I have a back log to enter. I'm a Linux user, but I run a VirtualBox with Win XP for the few programs I need Windows for. This should work well on a MAC to. I did have HST+ working in WINE/Crossover but I found it ran better using a virtual box instead.

I'm planning to start back up next Monday. This week we are still working on finishing up some renovations and I need to sort and prep the kids work.

We bought a new all in one a few years ago. It's a Brother MFC 295cn, we love it! It's wireless, does fax, scanning and printing of course. It takes 4 ink cartages so you only need to replace what color is low. It seems to be much better on ink then any of the HP or Cannons we've had before. The only thing I don't like about it, is that it doesn't do duplex printing like my old Canon did.