I really like both of these for the right "season" in your life. When we were logging hundreds of hours in the car for the military we loved Lyrical. The songs are really well done and the kids learned so much about the human body (we did the biology one). We went through a cut and paste phase when everyone really liked CGC. I am going to go back and finish this one next year with my kids. They really liked it, but I found it awkward to travel with--hence the move to Lyrical. Either choice is really fun. Lyrical is very easy to implement. :001_smile:

I am the queen of combining! Here is what I did this year to make my life easier: Sonlight 3+4 for everyone. I have some picture books for the younger ones taken from Five in a Row books I have. We read at night since we canned the TV and we are actually 4 weeks ahead of schedule. The kids read their readers at their own pace. I use Sonlight's Language Arts because I can pretty much get them all on the same thing at once. I add in ETC and the Sandi Queen workbooks to round out the younger children's LA. Biology 101 DVD program. Everyone watches and the older ones re-watch until they have the info pretty much memorized and can orally fly through the quiz. Even my four year old likes this course. Great for the car. Latin is Latina Christiana with DVD lessons on Monday, follow up work the rest of the week. My older kids help my 7 year old with his Prima Latina, but he also watches DVD lessons. Monday is Math u see DVD day (along with the Latin mentioned above). They watch and build problems and continue to work pages for the rest of the week. Monday is the longest because we watch a lot of videos, but it is pretty relaxing. Just so you know, we are pretty much done with school by noon, besides the reading we do at night.

I loved it, my kids hated it. I thought it was wonderful because it teaches phonics, spelling and practice for typing all in one. They were a bit bored, however, I do bring it out occasionally and have them work through 20 lesson or so for review. I think it is a wonderful program and my kids' reaction should not be a true judge of its worth. It teaches phonics very well and it will not tolerate errors. :001_smile: My kids would get frustrated because they would spell something wrong and the lesson would keep bringing it back, but that is a good thing IMHO.

ooops, sorry... I'd like to amend the above statement.:blushing: At 9 I don't think your son would have any problem with LC 1. My 9 year old is doing it for the first time this year. We use the DVD's. They copy the lesson for two days and study their cards, do the workbook pages, the quiz, and then move on. They are on lesson 14 without any trouble at all.

I am having my seven year old do both SSL and Prima. He likes SSL fine, but he also has memorized the first two declensions just by listening to his brother's lessons. I knew he could not handle LC 1 with them, so I added Prima. I think that Prima would be perfect after SSL.

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree:

This is not an ad for these people, but it is applicable to this thread. I have bought things for school over the years from them and it is just one more example of where this is all heading. Dear Customers, This is a very important email, please read: On February 10, 2009, a new law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) goes into effect that threatens to put A Toy Garden, many other specialty toy stores, and thousands of handmade crafters (think of sellers on etsy.com, ebay.com, etc.) in the US & around the world out of business. Here’s my non-legal interpretation of the law: The law's beginnings had honorable intentions - keeping children safe from lead and phthalates - however, the way the law was written would require such extensive testing that most small and many medium-size vendors would have to go out of business, and we would only be able to sell toys from very large manufacturers who did the testing. If I could not sell the extensive selection of handmade toys I currently offer, I would choose to go out of business as I am unwilling to only sell mass manufactured toys. There are already some European companies (like Selecta) who have reviewed the law, seen how impossible it would be to follow, and have chosen to pull out of the US market. How can this be, you might ask? The law requires each batch of any product that children under 12 might use to be tested for lead and phthalates. Everything, whether it contains plastic or anything that might contain lead, must be tested for phthalate and lead content. Even unfinished wooden toys! For example, many of you love our Herbal Play Bean Bags. Based on internet research and prices quoted to other craftspeople for similar approved independent product testing (as required by CPSIA), I estimate it would cost about $2100 to get a set of bean bags tested (8 colors of batik 100% cotton fabric, 16 different spools of thread, kidney beans, organic dried lavender, chamomile, and peppermint: 28 tests x $75 per test). Since I buy new fabric several times per year, and the fabric patterns are usually a little different each time, I’d need to retest the whole bean bag set several times per year. I would also have to “batch label†each batch of bean bags I made and provide official certification that they meet all the regulations. These testing costs would become the largest cost of making bean bags (more than any of the materials or labor) and make their cost so ridiculously high that we'd probably never sell any. OK, you may be willing to make your own bean bags, but the same holds true for handmade dolls, gnomes, fairies, felted items, dress-up garments, wooden vehicles, puzzles, baskets (there are no two alike so we’d have to test each one!), etc. All of our prices would go through the roof, because we'd have to pass all these costs along to our customers in order to stay in business. The good news is that the CPSC is considering some exemptions for natural materials such as cotton, wool, silk, and wood, however none of the exemptions can be finalized until the Act becomes law on February 10th. We joined the recently formed Handmade Toy Alliance – a group of hundreds of small U.S. toy manufacturers/retailers to help lobby and spread the word through the government, media, and to the public about the potentially devestating effects of the law on conscientious small businesses. The economy has caused many of us to suffer but this law threatens to force us to break the law or simply close our businesses. What you can do: Go to handmadetoyalliance.org to read up on the law and many current news articles and press coverage about the law as well as signing the HTA petition. If you are a toy maker/seller, please join the HTA. Go to change.org to vote for this issue to be one of the top 10 issues the Obama administration will look into. It will just take a couple minutes, you’ll need to register with your name and email address, then click on the email from them to confirm your registration, then go back to the website to place your vote. A couple steps but it is worth it and every vote is vital. This issue is currently #4 on the list. Follow the links and print out the forms at the Handmade Toy Alliance’s website to write, email and call your congresspeople. This is important and is having an affect. All but 1 member of Congress voted for this law but most hadn't read and didn't understand it when they voted for it! Thank you for your business past & present. We hope to be here to serve you in the future. Sincerely, Sonya Please visit our online store at: www.aToyGarden.com & forward this email to your friends!

I am sooooo guilty of this!:lol: When we move for the military I must leave some of my books or we will go over our weight limit... I visit the homeschool consignment shop to de-compress at least twice a week. Finding a great bargin is almost addicting for me. I finally realized that I love Sonlight because I can pick up a new book each week. I learned finally that I will not continue with any one particular book for an entire school year. I can own a million texts for references, but they always fall by the wayside after a month. I got rid of Amazon Prime because they ship faster by the $25 free shipping through USPS. I buy a new bookshelf at least 5 times a year... and on, and on, and on......

I was at my favorite local homeschool consignment shop today owned by a wonderful homeschooling mom with 12 children--Creative Learning Connection for anyone in the Huntsville, AL area. Anyway, she was fit to be tied because of all this. She is a well educated woman, one of her son's is a lawyer and she is VERY concerned about all of this. Apparently, you can sell used goods, however, if it turns out there is some lead ( or whatever evil they peg it with) she can be fined starting at $100,000 and five years + in jail. Kind of a sell-at-your-own-risk proposition. So...she is closing her store on the 10th to organize and whatever she cannot sell is going directly to the local office of our congressmen. They can deal with all of the goods she cannot sell. It is really a tragedy since the stuff will have to be thrown away. You can't even give things away. Not only that but she would have to pay to have it hauled to a landfill. What a mess!! She was joking that maybe we should loan each other books and just forget to return them. She also has suggested we flood our local congressman with FAXES as they are harder to ignore.

I have a story time for my 4 and 7 before I read to the older kids. I usually can find a FIAR book that goes with whatever topic we are studying in history. Oh, and I cannot help but put another plug in or Aaron's Thinking Putty. My little ones can sit forever with this stuff on hand.

My kids are definitely behind yours as we are only in LC 1, but they really like Cambridge for "fun latin". They like the unit one book and decifer it as a game. I bought the volume on amazon for 49 cents I think. :001_smile: Have you ever read the book Carry On, Mr. Bowditch ? My kids were giggling today as they heard about him teaching himself eight years worth of latin in a short time with just with a latin bible and Newton's Principio. He definitely learned by whole to parts. Anyway, if you want something fun and cheap Cambridge would be my suggestion.

The first two books of LOF are short and sweet, covering the basics for pre-algebra. I think LOF really shines as a stand-alone program in the higher levels--algebra through calculus. In the upper levels I believe that more is covered than traditional texts, but the first two books are really prep work to get ready for higher math. I have used the first two books alone and also along side MUS. I think that once a child can deal in the abstract well, then LOF would be a fine stand alone. My kids got bogged down a bit because they were not quite ready for abstractness of algebra. If you have the chance to ever see the upper level books you will see how tremendously thorough they are! Fractions and Decimals/percents is about getting the child up to speed and ready for algebra and therefore they do work well with other curriculums. I plan on continuing with LOF through the end but because my children, like me, are not so good dealing with the abstract, we may continue to add MUS for at least the concrete presentation aspect.

This still all had me worried because no one can seem to pin down the true ramifications of this law. I keep reading words like: may, possibly, shouldn't have, vague, not clear how this will affect.... This law sounds so unclear I'm afraid that whoever enforces it will have a large sweep of liberties to decide what individual businesses will do. What if someone has it out for a small shop or small publisher? What if LARGE curriculum providers want to take out their smaller competition? I hope Congress amends this or at least clarifies. What happens if our 5.99 paperback from amazon costs $20 now after all this takes effect?

We use lots of the resources that Answers in Genesis puts out. They have myriads of books and information sources to tackle these questions. I have been to their Creation Museum twice now and they really show how the dating process is flawed. Did you know that a water wheel and a man's hat were both petrified---just like the rocks--and they were only from a hundred years ago? My favorite for kids is their "Dinosaurs and the Gospel" two DVD set. It is only $15, but it is so good at explaining these things. It is geared for children, but I learned a lot.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift9-2009jan09,0,7588285.story I guess things aren't as bad as I thought. This article is from today so I guess the people's voice was heard!!!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85542 If this is true it looks like we should all be getting any used hs books we need right now. I buy almost everything second hand, so I'm wondering if this is really as horrible as it sounds. Ideas?? Can anyone refute this so I can not panic? My dh just read me the article as I was cleaning up dinner. He said I'd better get what I need for next year right now. What do you think?:bigear::bigear::bigear:

I wouldn't be able to do latin with the kids without the DVD's! I have the kids watch the whole lesson and take notes. She has memorization helps that she does with them and the grammar explanations are very clear. We watch the lesson on Monday and then work through the cards, cd and lessons during the week. I also like the recitation time they have at the beginning of each lesson. All in all it has made my life much easier and has been well worth the money.

:iagree: FIAR is my top pick for the kids, even if I didn't use the manuals all the time. We just read the books and pretty much all of them remember the books most of all. We played with cuisenaire rods or MUS for math and did elementary science from Apologia.

Miquon (cheap) and Math u see (not so cheap) are two things I have used. My kids like the blocks. You can get the older versions of MUS very inexpensively.:001_smile:

I just ordered these and got them a couple of days ago. I have kids that are doing both. I have my kids working behind a grade level because they are doing all the memorizing and things and need more time for writing. I had shelved these and actually tried to consign them before I found the teacher's manuals. The teacher's manuals actually have been really helpful. Today my son was supposed to summerize Indian life (ILL lesson 20 something) and the teacher's manual had a lot of information, enough so that my son just read and narrated from that in preparation for his writing a summary in the next lesson. I think they are valuable also because they give more background information into the paintings for picture study. The PLL teacher book also adds some fun activities and coloring sheets not present in the student book. Do you absolutely need them? No, but they have made the books much easier to manage without having to find things on the internet all the time.

I am a Montessori teacher although I do not use it exclusively. They use shapes to teach the parts of speech and everything is hands-on. The manipulatives cost a lot though.

http://www.the101series.com/index.html We LOVE this course. It is high school, but our whole family loves it. It is not too heavy, but you can beef it up if you want. We do the tests and re-watch the DVD's often just for fun.

I have to say this is most comforting. I have been quite block headed about seeing my children as individuals and I have the abhorent habit of putting them all in one basket. I believe I may have an auditory learner who is on the artistic side--he can copy a picture far better than he can copy words. He would rather have his teeth drilled than drill phonics. Latin is fine for him outiside of copying the lesson and he does have difficulty with both English and Latin, not just Latin. I have to not be so hard on him as he may have something wrong, if not dyslexia strait out. The idea that he may not be processing things correctly did not come to mind until this week. I assumed it was just laziness. I have been a horrible teacher!:sad: However, I can change that. He is a bright boy and this is is why I thought constant copywork would just make it get better. At least "tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it."

I am about ready to pull my hair out and I am starting to think that I am failing as a teacher with this child. He is nine years old and his spelling is horrible. He cannot even copy words correctly. He is doing Latina Christana 1 this year and I have him copy each lesson three times during the week. He misses at least 4-5 words each time even when copying directly out of the text! In addition to this he kills the paper with how hard he writes. We have been doing copy work and dictation for years with not a whole lot of marked improvement. I am starting to wonder if there is some learning impairment. What could the problem be if he cannot copy well? He knows all the Shurley English jingles and can parse a sentence quite well, so I know he has digested grammar. I did an oral quiz today for latin and he didn't know hardly anything and yet he had copied the lesson 4 times, worked on his cards, and did the DVD lesson with me. Please, I need ideas or I am going to go crazy. Language arts is just plain hard and I don't know how to help him progress.

My 9 year old is still struggling to read fluently and it has taught me that I can't do anything accept work at his level. I think it was from years of pushing when he was not ready and now I've gone and made him think he can't do it well. I agree with the above posters that say to put the phonics away for a bit. Frustration in me is like poison to my homeschooilng efforts! If I get frustrated they learn NOTHING except that mom is frustrated. Six is still pretty young and most waldorf schools don't even start letter learning until 7. If I have learned anything in the last six years it is that when a child is ready to learn something it is a breeze. Try too early and it is like eating soup with chopsticks.:willy_nilly: