Tea for Ruby by Sarah Ferguson is a great little picture book about a little girl who has been invited to have tea with the queen. Throughout the book, she is reminded to use her manners when having tea with the queen. My kids really enjoyed the pictures (it is illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, who does the Fancy Nancy series) and didn't realize they were learning basic etiquette. The book is recommended for ages 4-8.

I adore afternoon tea. One of my favorite books written on the subject is The Afternoon Tea Book by Michael Smith. It was written in the 80s, but it is a great resource. The first half of the book is a history of all things tea and the second half is filled with recipes. It really is an amazing book and worth tracking down. For menu planning help, check the afternoon tea menus at hotels & tea houses. Here are a few to get you started: The Ritz London The Plaza, NYC Alice's Tea Cup The Grand Floridian, Disney World American Girl Afternoon Tea With the ages of your children, however, the key is to keep it simple but cute. You can put together a beautiful tea with simple tea sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ham and cheese/turkey and cheese, cucumber sandwiches...), scones and cream, and sweets. The sandwiches can be made special by just using cookie cutters to cut them out. For sweets, you could make mini cupcakes, shortbread cookies, chocolate covered strawberries or chocolate covered marshmallows dipped is sparkly sugars, fruit cabobs, fairy bread....I could go on and on (can you tell I love afternoon tea!) I guess it is really all about presentation...make it small and cute :) For the tea itself, you could do a traditional black (Twining's Afternoon Tea is a favorite of mine) or an herbal tea (my 4 year old love's Stash's Wild Raspberry Hibiscus). Pink lemonade, hot chocolate, or apple cider also work really well. I've went on too long...I hope this helps out a bit. Have fun with your tea parties!

I know this is an older post, but maybe this can help someone else. We sang this little chant when I was in 7th grade, but the order was a bit different (and a bit easier to say): have, has, had do, does, did may, might, must can, could shall, should will, would...uh! :) I hope this helps.

I'm going to use MIF for my little kindergartener and have have just purchased the student books, but I'm wondering, do I need the Big Books? I can't find anything out about them and they are pretty expensive (even used). Does anyone here know more about them? Thanks so much!

That's a great find! Those will also come in handy when making buttercream transfers for the kids' birthday cakes.

Thanks so much for your input! I really like the idea of just working with the SOTW book and then supplementing with stories from the reading list. That sounds like it would appeal much more to my 7 year old. You guys on this board are so great...so helpful. I haven't posted much, but I have used this forum as a major source of information for starting this hs journey. Really, you all have been an immense help. THANK YOU!

This fall will be my first year homeschooling my son (who will be in 2nd grade). We will be using SOTW 1 for History. For those of you who have used this program, I was wondering about which encyclopedias to use with the program (Usborne World History, Usborne Internet-linked, Kingfisher Illustrated History, Kingfisher History...). Me being new to this, I feel like I should buy all of them so that I don't miss anything and screw him up! :001_smile: But in reality, do I need them all? Which ones seemed to provide adequate coverage? Also, I noticed that Usborne has encyclopedias for JUST the Ancient World. Has anyone ever substituted these for the full World History versions successfully? Thanks in advance for your help! I really do appreciate it.

Thanks so much! This will be my first year hs, so it is especially helpful to see real life examples of how others plan. Thanks again!

I've decided to use HO Ancients 1 for my son next year. I understand that Story of the World is one of the books that is used with the program. That being said, do I also need to purchase the SOTW activity guide as well? What has worked well for those of you who have used HO? Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for your input! I really appreciate it.

Our family has decided that this year will be our son's final year of "regular school" and will begin homeschooling for 2nd grade. I'm just not sure where to begin for history and science. It is my understanding that one studies The Ancients alongside Life Sciences in the first year and then studies The Middle Ages alongside Earth science. Is this correct? My son studied Egypt in school and a lot of life science (although I'm not sure how well), so I'm not sure if I should start him from the beginning, or if I should begin with The Middle Ages/Earth science (he was pretty excited about the Earth science). Or does it matter if I study The Ancients & Earth Science together? I don't want him to be bored.... I just want this homeschooling to be successful, but I am completely overwhelmed with choices right now (how did people homeschool before internet?! :001_smile:) Thanks in advance for all of your advice!