We read Tales of Ancient Egypt when my son was 8 - he seemed to like it at the time and I just asked him about it and he remembered it and remembers liking it but it did kind of drag the 2nd half of the book. I don't think we finished it and the other books mentioned by other posters are as good or better and more at comprehension level.

We had been trying to implement a classical/trivium method since we started homeschooling in 1991. The Well Trained Mind pulled together all of the straggling pieces and made it work - not to mention pointing to some great curriculum resources that we have been using since. My oldest daughter will graduate from college in the spring and has mentioned several times how much more prepared for college she was than most of her peers. She is an average hard working child but has maintained mostly A's because she was already familiar and trained in most of what they were teaching as far as core courses. She is going to a state, not private, university, so most of their first year is remedial and not a good indicator, but she managed to keep up the A level throughout college. There was some controversy over the high school proficiency exam when she was "graduating" from high school - that is was to hard and unfair but when she took it she said it was a joke and she aced the whole thing. Like I said, she is not a genius child, just an average hard worker but I think because we stuck with a classical education from the start she was well prepared and educated. It was definately not me! Just a good curriculum, time tested ideas and steadily plugging away at it. The rest of my kids are having the same experience. I don't think besting the public schools is necessarily our goal, we want to be as educated as we can be, but a basic classical education will beat the public schools in our state any time. :rolleyes: I often complain to my kids that many colleges have just become job/citizen training centers (my son complains regularly about all of the group projects they have to do and says he came to learn from the teacher about the subject, not from his less educated peers about how to work in a group and grade each others assignments :banghead:). I think many people do well with a classical education because it actually educates you and teaches you to think, wrather than just filling your head with tools for a career. Hmmm, need a $.02 smiley...

The newer version of Spelling Workout is not significantly different than the older version. It is a little more modern looking and has a different theme. The review at the end of every five units has a long list of correctly spelled/misspelled words and the child is supposed to find the misspelled word in the lists - some people don't like that. You can switch between them without any trouble but the older ones are still available if you want to stick with those.

$75 per person per month!? Wow, you guys are good. Food and homeschool are where we spend our money on whatever we think is best (and leave our furnace around 60 most of the time, off at night) - we buy a lot of organic and things along those lines that cost more but grow our own produce in the summer. I also include all the paper products and cleaning supplies in my grocery money. For 6 people - 5 basically adults (one a teenage boy!) and a 10 year old we spend...$200 per person per month. Reading through this I am thinking there is a huge difference depending on where you live. Someone on the s/o under $75 post itemized her grocery bill and was talking about $1 something a gallon milk. Even at Costco milk where I live is over $2...and everything else is comparable.

My big kids are 21 months between the first two and then 16 months between 2nd and 3rd. And right now I have an 11, 2 9's and a 6, only one of which is mine. We always did/do science, language arts and history/geography together. Math they did at their own level although those levels would overlap or go back and forth at various times. Go over the lesson with one and start them on the problems and move to the next ones lesson. It depends on how much time you want to spend on school. There's no reason one can't be taking a break or reading a book while you work with the other one unless you want everyone done together and in the same place. Mine would study a spelling list or finish an art project or writing assignment and we would kind of work round robin around the table. It helps to have a list or chart of some kind and have the subjects arranged so not everyone is doing something that requires your help at the same time. We also have maze books, logic puzzles, hidden picture searches and such to keep them busy when you have to focus on the other one. Just go ahead and start, keep asking questions and tweeking it as you go - you will be fine and no one will laugh, we have all been there.

About half way through the article is a long list of things that they can be learning.

No-bite, rewards for not doing it, charts, distraction and total undivided attention to the problem from you and whoever else until it stops. I've had a couple kids with various thumb sucking, nail biting etc. habits and that is really what it is, a habit. Totally mindless response. Until that automatic response chain is broken he will keep going back to it. And honestly, he will probably find some other activity to replace it - all of my fidgeters have - they just need one less damaging and more socially acceptable.

Yes, you are correct. There is a place in the textbook that looks like they should write in it, but I don't (unless you don't mind buying new textbooks). The textbook isn't really laid out like a lesson, just sort of a more colorful version of the workbook. They write in the workbook and as long as they can read and understand basic instructions, they can do it on their own. The Home Instructors Guide has the answers. There are tests at the end of units but they are called reviews. And at the end there is a cumulative review. You can buy separate test books for each grade. The lessons aren't laid out in any kind of time frame (5 lessons and a review for example). It is just how ever many exercises it takes to cover the topic so you can do it on any kind of schedule you like.

To finish it in one year you have to do about a chapter every week - that means two topics. That leaves about 10 weeks off for holidays, vacations, sickness, procrastination, homeschool burnout, mental vacations to Hawaii... Oh, oops, sorry - it takes us about 1/2 an hour but we don't do everything - just a crossword or wordsearch or something that I make because no one I teach is really into or good out outlining at the moment, and we fill in the map as we go through the reading, stopping as places and events come up. Then some review/narration at the end that is more like a dialogue than narration and glueing the timeline picture in. If we do the project it takes another 1/2 hour. We don't do the extra history or literature reading the first time through the book and the second time through we don't do the SOTW textbook reading, just the extra reading, so it probably takes us less time.

I keep looking at Math-U-See because so many people love it, and have to admit it confuses me every time - but I can see how it would be good for language oriented kids. I think MUS makes my head spin because I already understand the concepts so don't need "onety" and 9's hoovering up ones to become 10's to understand what is going on...? I think Singapore is much more straightforward and explains things in a simpler mathematical way, if you are already mathy. The Home Instructors Guides and Elementary Mathematics/Elementary Geometry for Teachers are also good tools to understand what you are trying to explain.

Emma Persuasion Sabrina (Harrison Ford version) Casablanca Charade I Was a Male War Bride Singing In the Rain Sense and Sensibility Return to Me While you Were Sleeping

We have had DirecTv for over a year. We get snow and wind and rain. It resets occaisionaly but only went out once. I love DVR. We watch what we want when we want, pause it when we want to have a conversation, skip the garbage - watching without it seems annoying now.

Nope, thought I would/should like them but I don't. Can't put my finger on why exactly but I have a pile of them that I pulled off the shelf to make room for things we like better. Just didn't connect for us. $adly...

Real Science 4 Kids

Real Science 4 Kids REAL Science Evan-Moor Singapore Kingfisher First...Encyclopedia DK Eyewitness & Workbooks Adventures with Atoms and Molecules Just some of the stuff we have used successfully over the years. I had the Apologia books and didn't really like them.

I like the wording of Singapore's method. Using the numbers that showed on the cards in the link, 3, 5, & 8, the amount 8 would be the whole (total, whatever word they understand best) and the 3 and 5 would be the parts. It is easy to demonstrate with objects. Put out 8 things, take away one part, the 5, it leaves the other part, 3. It is easy to demonstrate that 3+5 is the same as 5+3 and that if you know two of the numbers you can find the other number (hey, pre-algebra in 1st grade) and that subtraction and addition are opposites. After they understand the concept with objects you can work on the symbolic/written part (+, -, = signs) and then memorizing the facts. And at some point learn the names for these math properties (commutative etc). The concepts translate to learning multiplication and division fact families pretty well, except you are working with groups instead of individual amounts.

Real Science 4 Kids is a complete curriculum, doesn't require additonal books, but it does not take up an entire school year. Each level covers the same information but just more in depth and a little broader, so for a 3rd grader you could start with Level 1 on not miss anything. My kids like experiments. It does include experiments but not nearly as many as we would have liked so we added the Atoms and Molecules books.

I like Draw Squad, as did my kids. Drawing with Children drove me nuts. It was to theoretical and not enough, here, this is how it is done. It is a lot about how you feel about the art and letting your creativity flow. We did enjoy the chapter about the five elements of contour shape but that is about all we got out of it. I am not artisitic at all, so that might be part of the problem.

I use Right Track Reading (with a very remedial 4th grader). It works just fine and is basically the inverse, from what I have seen and read, of AAS, and uses many of the same methods (tiles, etc). We actually use Spelling Workout for spelling, though, so I may be mistaken about AAS. I have also used Alphaphonics and generally use Jolly Phonics with my regular, no problems readers. All of this to say I would just follow the reading book, whichever one you choose (and of the three you have I prefer Right Track Reading) for a little while until she understands the concept of sounds being represented by letters and is able to blend those sounds when she sees them written down, and then start spelling with AAS. Most phonics programs are pretty well layed out and you will drive yourself crazy trying to do it yourself from a bunch of different sources. Just keep it simple at first - one sound, one letter and then later on introduce alternate sounds. The idea at first is just to make basic sounds and learn how to blend them. It is to confusing when you are trying to learn to blend to have to be trying 3 different sounds for each letter.

The Second Mrs. Giaconda (DaVinci) Adam of the Road The Door in the Wall Otto of the Silver Hand The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day (Tyndale) The Scottish Chiefs In Freedom's Cause The Apple and the Arrow (William Tell) The Trumpeter of Krakow Find Print (Gutenberg) Martin Luther (by May McNeer and Lynd Ward) Joan of Arc (by Mark Twain) I have never been able to come up with a book I like about Michaelangelo. The Diane Stanley one is all I have ever seen so I will be watching this thread to see what others read and liked.

So what kinds of things do your kids enjoy? What is memorable for them? Is it the text of SOTW or reading out loud in general? Do they like pictures, words, workbooks, hearing it, seeing it? What gets them totally jazzed (or as jazzed as kids get about school sometimes)? Maybe telling us what they would love and working backwards might bring up some ideas of curriculum or methods we have used that they might like?

We love Spelling Workout. If they can read basic instructions they can pretty much do it on their own. My 9 year old is on level F and does it on his own and I review it with him and quiz him on the bonus words to make sure he understands the spelling rule. Takes him 5-15 minutes a day. (But we don't do a whole lesson every day because he is a couple grade levels ahead. We just do one page per day.)

We use flashcards and timed worksheets and all the rest but I recently pulled out the Quartermile Math CD and I was surprised how quickly it helped. I have been drilling one girl I am tutoring on 5's for a month and she still had to count on her fingers every time. After playing the game for a week she is seriously motivated and knows some of them by heart. If you are not familiar with it, it is pure math, no video game type stuff.

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/freefonts/tp/Free_Handwriting_School_Fonts.htm Typical public school fonts to learn handwriting - regular 'a' and open 4 on some of them.

We have heard and read over the years a thousand reasons to avoid HFCS - diabetes, immune problems, and on and on. I don't know about the labeling laws in Canada but I buy (much more expensive) organic ketchup (Heinz) and it is made with sugar not HFCS. It is extremely frustrating trying to find it in things and you can't even assume about brands - I was buying cereal and one flavor was made with sugar and the other with HFCS. It is almost impossible to find bread without it. Here in the US the corn syrup people were actually running commercials on TV telling everyone how normal and healthy it is.