CLE does not re-teach concepts taught in previous years. So if things weren't covered in FLL, you will have to teach them. I tried CLE this year with 6th grade daughter just for a change (have always used R&S, plus she went to public school for 5th grade and didn't remember much from 4th), but she didn't know many of the things that were review in CLE, even in the first light unit. There was no teaching of the review topics in the book for someone switching into CLE. It just assumes you remember it from the previous year. I could have taught her, but R&S just does it so well. We pulled out the R&S and plugged right along. She is the one that wanted to try something new, and I was fine with that, but she even thought we should go back to R&S. I have used it with all three of my daughters and think it's great. There is an oral review that is in the teacher manual that we start with each day. It covers topics from the previous day and from several lessons back. We do most of it orally, except diagramming. This way I can immediately know if she understands it, and I don't have to grade/correct papers later. It is so much quicker for us both, because she can really drag her feet doing her work sometimes. Also, I believe speaking it correctly will carry over into writing, more so than the opposite, at least for us. My daughter needs plenty of review to keep it in there, too! I will say that I think CLE would be equally as wonderful if used from the beginning. Maybe the review is re-taught in 5th grade level or below, but it wasn't in 6th. I do like the spelling being included. Hope this helps.

Sorry, I'm a little late on this post. Here is a neat, vintage book you can download. It is called Everyday Number Stories by George Longan, Emma Serl, and Florence Elledge. It is very charming. Katie http://books.google.com/books?id=NAcAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=everyday+number+stories&hl=en&src=bmrr&sa=X&ei=aJfqT772A-nC2wXbh7WuAQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=everyday%20number%20stories&f=false

I know that this is an old thread, but I thought I would mention this for anyone that is searching low carb and comes across this. I have to watch my carb intake or I feel lousy. About a year and a half ago I found The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. It is basically two low carb meals each day and one reward (eat whatever you want, but they tell you to still eat healthy) meal per day. I have really enjoyed it and it is much easier to follow than atkins. No counting carbs. There are plenty of veggies listed to eat. One other rule is that you have to eat your reward meal in one hour, because you start to release more insulin one hour after you begin eating. Knowing I can eat what I want at dinner keeps me motivated. Eating this way, you will lose 1-2 lbs per week. I don't weigh myself, too many fluctuations with hormones. I prefer to measure and not very often. I judge it more by how my clothes fit. The books are very easy reads. The books are available used on Amazon usually for $4 including shipping. Hope this helps, Katie

Have you looked at Ann Voskamp's geography books? I have purchased one of them but haven't had a chance to use it yet. Maybe someone else can chime in on them. Just a quick glance through the one I bought.... it looks neat. Here's the link: http://www.achildsgeography.com/ Katie

I know this post is old, but I thought I would mention that I have been laminating pretty scrapbook paper for a cover. Then I used black cardstock for the back (unlaminated). I have one that I have used/handled a lot and it has held up really well. The laminated covers are really sturdy. I don't know how much it would cost to get some 8.5x11's laminated. You might check into it... I wouldn't do duct tape either. Hope this helps, Katie

Thank you all! This is so much to chew on. Katie

Thanks regentrude! Are these individual classes like you have them listed? It is not a complete set right? I saw that it said they run every title on sale at least once a year. Maybe I should be buying & watching the sales throughout the year to prepare for 9th. $19.95 is pretty doable for us, 2 or 3 that you listed are on sale now. There is no way I could swing the $90 reg price. Did you find what you listed above just right to cover in a year of study? One more question, you listed Greek Mythology, I only see Classical Mythology, I don't mean to sound like I am picking, just want to make sure I am looking at the right thing? Thanks, Katie

This sounds logical to me. I love that they will understand the references in their readings in later years. Thank you for listing the books that your family read and liked. I also like throwing some in during the jr/sr years, especially if they were something we wanted to cover in 9th and didn't get to. The whole "great books" thing is new to me. I didn't have this type of education. I wish I had. I plan to read as many as I can with my daughter. But, I still have two younger dds to teach, too. So, I'll do what I can. I am really looking forward to reading some of these great works. I just wish I had the prior experience with the books to know how to connect them to works she will read later. I will just learn along with her. Thanks again Lori! Katie I agree that chronological makes sense. AO goes chronologically but at a slower pace. But, they wait to do the ancients during the senior year. I kept going back and forth on which to do. My daughter is looking forward to the ancients, so that helps with the idea of doing it in 9th. I think my plan is for her to do year 4 (plus some things from yr 3 that she didn't finish this year) for 8th grade this fall. Then head into the ancients for 9th. Thank you Julie for your input! Katie This gives me confidence to go ahead and do them in 9th. Did you feel that the TC lectures really helped? Thanks so much for your help!

I have heard SWB and some others mention the thought that the ancients year of great books/history is more difficult in reading level and that the modern (year 4 of rotation) contains more disturbing ideas. I would love to hear from anyone who has been through this and what your experiences or thoughts are. Do you prefer doing them in order or do you think a student would benefit more from saving the ancients until 12th grade? I have an upcoming 8th grader and am trying to figure out what our plan will be for high school history/great books. I am considering combining both AO and WTM. I very much like aspects of both. If I use the AO history timing, ancients are studied in year 12. I have to figure out what we are going to cover this year to be prepared for 9-12th. Thanks, Katie

I think R&S would be a good choice. It goes over everything year after year, getting more in depth. So, it would cover anything he hasn't done yet. It is written to the student. We do the lessons orally, except the diagramming. There is plenty of review built in as well. I think you could probably go straight into grade 5, but you may look at grade 4 just to be sure. SWB's audios are great for teaching writing. Katie

The link above looks like a great deal. I just ordered one about a month ago. I ordered from Office Depot and found a $15 off a $75 order coupon (they also have $20 off a $100 order). I searched Amazon several times and never found that offer. I live in a very rural area, nowhere near a OD. I ordered the Proclick, the 85 sheet spines, and the 50 sheet spines. After tax and my $15 off coupon, my total was $73 which also included free next day shipping. I know the product was higher online than what other people have said they got one for in the store. I believe they offer the next day shipping to counter their inflated online prices. I really like mine! I have used pretty scrapbook paper that I laminated for the covers. Katie

Thank you all for sharing these! I am very much enjoying this thread. Here are a couple that I don't recall seeing listed, sorry if they are duplicates: Language Lessons by Gordy - this looks very FLL, CW it has lots of picture study, narration, dictation, and parts of speech in part II - maybe 2-4 grades, guessing Introductory Language Lessons by Evans - lots of picture study, poetry study, grammar usage, oral and written narration, memory work -guessing 2-4 grade work Evans has another higher level grammar book called Elements of English Grammar. I know this is a grammar thread, but wanted to throw this one in here: The Study of History in ElementarySchools by Gordy -grade level breakdown and refers (gives pages and titles) to other books in which to read the stories Wilbur Gordy has lots of other great looking US history books. Katie

Okay, this makes sense. I don't know.... it is scary how much I can't remember these days. :lol: Thanks!

Would you do this if you are accelerating? We do a 4 day/wk, so I wouldn't be able to do all of the words from 4 weeks of words. Or, do you just choose the ones you want to test them on? Thanks, Katie

No, I have read so many threads about PR and can't keep all of these things straight. I don't know anything about the Spalding method either. I have not read WRTR, but recently picked up an old copy of it. It all makes my head spin right now. I don't have time to research extensively the details. I just need something to get my younger children spelling and reading better (as in being able to decode larger words they have never encountered). In the introduction section of my PR it says that Dr. Orton developed remedial teaching methods working with Gillingham and Spalding. He also, "challenged Spalding to apply his method for all normal primary school children." It then says that Spalding went on to write WRTR in 1957 to train classroom teachers in Orton's method. She (B. Beers) says that PR builds upon these methods. I'm just curious why you think I wouldn't have been taught via Spalding method? Katie

Okay, that is what I was thinking I was supposed to do. You do this all through dictation of the words, right? Thank you for your help. Katie

This makes complete sense. Thank you Ellie, for taking the time to explain those things. I don't remember much of Kind. or 1st grade, but I don't believe I was taught to read phonetically. I don't know if I was one of those experimental groups that were taught more the sight reading way, or maybe I just didn't pay much attention. :lol:I just don't remember learning the phonograms. I hope phonics road will teach me along with my girls. I used phonics pathways to teach my girls to read and it doesn't really do things this way either. I wish I would have learned the Spalding method when they were younger. Thankfully we can use something like Phonics Road to catch us all up. My 5th grader is not good at sounding out new words and trying to decode them. I really pray that this will help her in that area, plus spelling. Ellie is my youngest dd's name too! Thanks so much! I was watching week 5 video yesterday (we are still on weeks 1-4), and I thought that she said I would test them on that list the following day. But, I may have completely misunderstood what she meant. Do you mind if I ask you, when you were accelerating did you just drill the sounds with flashcards (and dictation maybe) until they have them all down, then move on to the word lists? They already seem to be remembering the sounds faster than I am. :lol: Thanks for your help, Katie

I don't know if I will be much help, but I'll try... We have always used MUS from primer to pre-algebra. My 7th grader is finishing pre-algebra, my 5th grader is finishing epsilon, and my 2nd grader just finished beta. I have always liked MUS, but this year my oldest really developed a bad attitude about math. She started calling it Math-U-Stink.:glare: So, of course that attutude spread to my middle dd too. So, I started to look into different math programs, reading thread after thread. I bought MM - light blue- while on sale on homeschool buyers coop. My plan was to switch the younger two to MM, doing it over the summer. They are so excited about that!:lol: My oldest will be doing Life of Fred pre-algebra 1&2 quickly over the summer, then doing Lial's Algebra for 8th grade. I went ahead and had my 5th grader switch to MM level 5 a week ago. She was so excited that I was letting her drop MUS. The first chapter is review and mental math at that. Then she was not so happy with me. MUS had never stretched her to do the math in her head, not to say that I couldn't have made her. I just didn't do it. So, I love that mental math is scheduled in for us in MM. Now, she is begging to go back to MUS. The grass is always greener, right. I am sticking with MM. I have had to work with her everyday, just so she understands what she is supposed to do. This is really going to be great for her. This is what I really wanted. I think it is so important for them to be able to do it in their heads. She is good at math, but thinks she isn't especially when she struggles with something new. I don't care for the layout of MM. I like the clean, neat pages of MUS better, but I can deal with that. I want to say that I really like the mastery approach of MUS but also see the benefit of a spiral approach too. I love that in MUS they work on an area, like fractions, for a whole year and really master them. He does have review built in (3 out of 6 sheets/lesson), but sometimes it seems that topics are not reviewed often enough, say from previous years. I don't have time to do any more scheduling to add in review. I want to use something that has done that for me. That is what I am paying for when I buy a curriculum. I am paying for someone else to have done that work for me. I am so thankful we have so many choices for homeschooling. Now, I am thinking that a spiral approach, depending on the curriculum maybe a better fit for us, as far as reviewing things more often. More frequent exposure. I still think MUS is great. It has taught them some neat tips and given them a good foundation. But so far (in the one week we have used it:D) I am really liking MM for it's stretching them to "think" about math a little deeper. Keep in mind though that I am just starting MM. I am also going to buy Singapore's Challenging Word Problems. Now, after buying MM, I finally looked at MEP. I really like it too. My youngest is going to use it. I think it would have been too hard to use it starting in the middle with my 5th grader, and MM will be a good fit for her. It looks to me that MM and MEP are very similar in style and scope and sequence. But, I could be wrong there. Both are going to be more teacher intensive than I am used to, but we're going to give it a go. I will miss Mr. Demme doing the teaching for me. I did look at TT briefly. I liked the samples. I had my 7th grader look at samples. She really enjoyed that it included some history in the lesson. But I read some reviews that TT was not as challenging. Since I don't know if my girls will go into a field that requires a heavy math foundation, I want to make sure that they do something that will prepare them for that. Sorry this is so long... I may not have helped at all, if anything it gave you a bump:D. Katie

I am so excited to start my Phonics Road 1 with 2 of my daughters. Some background.... the dds that I am using this with are 2nd and 5th grades. So, we are going to accelerate through this. I have read all the PR posts that I can find, but I have some questions. 1) When teaching the card marked "ear", why does does it only teach it as the /er/ sound as in early, not the sound /ear/ too? I am new to the WRTR methods, so I am just curious. 2) In the video, on some of the cards she says the sentence on them too. Are we supposed to teach them that part as well? For instance, on the "oa" card, she says "O, the two letter coat" Is that what my girls are to memorize? "EE, the double e"? 3) Since we are accelerating and once we get to week 5, do we work the words one day and test on them the next, plus work on a new list that same day? Ex.- On Monday, test on list 9 and work on List 10; on Tuesday, test on list 10 and work on list 11. Only do this as long as they are understanding and keeping up? I'm tired and I hope my questions make sense. Thanks, Katie

Have you looked at First Form Latin from Memoria Press? It is for 5th grade and up. I have not used it yet, so I can't help much there. I just bought it though. Here's the link http://www.memoriapress.com/descriptions/index_latin.htm

We love many of the AO literature suggestions. I thought about going strictly AO a couple of years ago, but there were too many things of which I couldn't let go. (WTM recs) I love being able to use both. I don't worry about which years we read ______ books. I do try to match up some of them with the time period we are studying in our 4 year WTM history cycle. We use SOTW, because my dds liked the activities that go along with them. I didn't have time to schedule something on my own to match AO's history. Plus, I like a 4 yr cycle better than 6 yr. I schedule my girls' literature readings for them. My older two dds have a chart with 2-3 books per day (2-3 different books per day, 4 days/wk, so it's 1-2 chapters of a book per week). Most books I schedule out over 12 weeks. I love stretching them out. CM's idea of spending more time thinking of the characters and their morals, is wonderful; it keeps them looking forward to hearing more of the story. When I am reading a book that I love, I don't want it to end. So spending more time on it is great. I also love how they can keep up with 8 or more stories at once. If they are books that go along with our history, I may schedule them in every day. Katie

:lurk5: bump for you

I would hate to burn them out on it. You really don't want them to start to hate history. They may love it at first, but once you have crossed that line, you may never get back to having them love it again. Take your time and enjoy, if you are speeding through, they may not retain as much. I agree with the other poster that said you could pick and choose. You could choose 34-40 chapters that you want to do, from both books and condense them that way. I just wouldn't do it everyday. Two to three days a week keeps them looking forward to more. Just my thoughts, Katie

We started Ambleside's book lists last year. My dds were 1st, 4th, and 6th grades. I know AO organizes by year, but since we were late getting in on it, I just used them as lists of books I wanted them to cover at some point in their schooling. They can easily be moved around to follow your history or interests. I am sorry, I started typing the list before I realized that you were asking for K-1 level. Some of these are not from yrs 1-2, but I just wanted to mention them as our favorites. We have read the following(from Ambleside's lists) as read-alouds and LOVED: Understood Betsy King Arthur - Howard Pyle (can't remember the exact title) The Princess and the Goblin As for their independent reading: My middle dd, the one that claims she doesn't like reading, really loved Pinocchio. - really liked Pollyanna, Dr. Doolittle too My older dd's favorites are: King of the Wind Five Children and It Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Catherine Called Birdie Reb and the Redcoats Johnny Tremain Mary Poppins Perrault's Fairy Tales Grimm's Fairy Tales Witch of Blackbird Pond The Borrowers My Side of the Mountain Justin Morgan had a Horse We are reading aloud Gulliver's Travels and The Little White Horse right now and really enjoying so far. Ambleside's lists are wonderful. I try to line many, not all, of them up with our 4 yr history rotation. I love spreading them out over 12 weeks or so as they suggest. They really get to enjoy a story longer and get fully involved with the characters. I make 4 day reading charts for my girls. They do 2-3 books per day, 1-2 chapters of each book, and usually they are reading 8+ books at a time. It is so neat that they don't have any trouble keeping up with the stories. Katie

Thanks HiddenJewel, Do you think that is what makes it so hard, the teacher not getting it? Or is it the amount of work? I am one that has to see the big picture to understand things. I hope I can handle it. Thanks, Katie