Excalibur 9 sheet. Definitely. I make flax seed crackers and beef jerky a lot. It is amazing for fruits and veggies. It is well worth the money.:)

We love it. It may be more expensive, but I do not have to find everything and put it all together. It is just what I would do if I had the time.:)

:lurk5: I am looking at these as I know HOD uses the Ancients one, but I would like to get all of them for spines too.

I grew up on A beka and that is why I don't use it for my kids.:tongue_smilie: It was overkill to my child's mind at the time. I remember associating God with A LOT of work. That is just me, so please do not think I dislike what A Beka provides, it just was not right for me personally. I would vote for R&S but I would advise to go easy on the workbooks. There are a lot of them and they can get tedious too. I ditched the teacher books and used the readers and took copywork from them. Well, I referenced the readers a little to get the general flow of things. As long as most lessons were oral or on a marker board everyone was happy.:)

I looked at it a bit more now and I see that it is CM friendly. It seems to get kids thinking like a writer thinks. Kind of like copywork for your brain. I will save it for next year. Preparing is going very well, but we are only three weeks in. So far my kids don't think of the HOD time as school...until they sit down to do math lessons.:)

I want to emphasize that while IEW didn't work for my kids, it is a really great program. We did SWI B last year and my kids didn't mind it and they loved Mr. Pudewa. I just found that they did infinitely better with written narrations from memory instead of KWO and style prompts. That is just my kids based on our CM history. So, please do not second guess yourself.:) Your kids will learn a lot and may take to the style very well. It just was too different for my kiddos and confused them.

Yep, we already started Preparing and since we school year round I think we will be in CTC next spring or so. That is why I snapped up Write with the Best when I saw it. I did not know that Carrie used everything before hand, so that is really good to know. :) I have Rod and Staff 2, 3 and 5 on my shelf. We do about three lessons a week orally unless it is a writing exercise. I love Queen's, but I am very surprised how much I like R&S. We burned out on 2 and 3 in the beginning of hs 6 years ago. I didn't realize I could do it orally and had no idea that I could modify things.:tongue_smilie: I cringed about it, but my kids don't mind it at all.

I am looking for honest opinions about this. I do not like IEW and have tried to use it, but it is just too analytical of a writing program for me. My kids are pretty good at written narrations and have no writing fear, but IEW just confused them and made everyone crabby, so.... I have Write with the Best that I purchased very inexpensively. I was looking for input as to outcomes of the program and feedback. I don't want to commit to a program without a little more info.

The way he has the courses laid out, at least according to the mathy author :), some of the books will not take an entire school year. I can't remember how long he said an able student would get through everything, but it was far shorter than a 7th - 12th span. Now my kids will probably take longer, but I would imagine that any student who understands all of Singapore Primary would be absolutely fine with LOF and would make good time through the books. :)

Yes, if you want to. LOF is very complete, although you may need more material before moving on to algebra in 7th, if the child is not mentally ready for algebra. He is working on a book to bridge the first two and algebra. I only mention this because my son finished the first two books but needed to grow up a bit more before tackling algebra. On your second point LOF is VERY much a thinking curriculum. It really requires thought and and understanding of "why" to be able to complete it successfully. The first two books are mostly word problems with some computation exercises to keep skills sharp. My son whined a little about all the multistep word problems, but I appreciated them.:)

That is good to know. I was going to order the Middle Ages and Reformation books to use for oral narration. They sound perfect for this if they have short chapters---written narrations too.:)

Does WVWW have any kind of answer key in the newer editions? :bigear: I am now researching for high school and the fact there was no answer key was a problem for some parents.

HOD dictation is by far the better choice, for us anyway. :)

I highly recommend this method from Simply Charlotte Mason! quote: Geography Just as history is the study of people in time, geography is the study of people in places. Charlotte advocated learning about people in their surroundings, not just dry facts about locations, exports, and weather descriptions. Many living books teach geography. You can also simply locate on a map or globe the geographical setting of any of the living books you read together in any subject. In addition, Charlotte planned for a ten-minute map drill session once per week. We do map drill like this: Give each child a blank map of the region you are studying and provide a detailed and labeled map of the same region. Instruct the child to label a few areas of the region, being careful to copy the names correctly from the detailed map. The next week, give the child another blank map of the same region and instruct her to label as many areas as she can remember. Once she has labeled all that she knows, display the detailed map and check for accuracy, then have her label a few more areas carefully. Continue this routine each week, and over the course of the year she will become quite familiar with the regions studied using this gentle method.

I would recommend Spelling Wisdom by Simply Charlotte Mason. We used this last year and LOVE it. It has multi-level books or ebooks. For about $50 you can get all levels in ebook form for grades 3-12. They also cover all 6000 commonly used words, but also thousands of more obscure words. It covers speeches, Shakespeare, famous quotes, historical documents...etc. My kids also use a higher level for copywork. That way they are challenged to observe difficult language. Later they will use them for dictation.

We switched because my kids just did not retain it. We went to prepared dictation and it works, and my kids retain it, a lot better. I love the concept and I think it is great for phonics review. We may be a fluke though, so that is my 2 cents.:)

How old is your daughter? I am a bit of a CM purist so I can relate.:) If I were you I would up the copywork and choose selections that include the mechanics you are looking for. I have R &S and I pick copywork from the lessons sometimes which assures me I am covering usage and mechanics without doing more than I have to. I also use a timer for copywork. I just give my kids a starting point and say "go" when I start the timer. They are to copy perfectly and when the bell dings they're done.:) I then go over what the copywork selection was trying to teach. Usually my timer is set to around 5 minutes for kids starting out. I would then add the same concept with a new selection as dictation on another day to solidify it. I would go down one or two levels from her age if you used R&S. The 3rd grade book covers a lot of basics without being overwhelming.

Amen.

:iagree: We went through nightmares with vaccine reactions. I thought all was hunky-dorey until my child was hospitalized...twice.

We have been using S-U with MUS the past week or so and I am really liking it. We can skip quite a bit, like multiplication drills, but we are doing all the word problems. I REALLY like how gentle this program is. It really sets kids up for success without dumbing it down. I wish I had learned this way. I like how it complements the "why" that MUS puts forth.

Isn't it great when a MATH book can have you in stitches.:) We love Fred too. I plan on using all his books at some point. My kids did the first two and loved, loved them.

Have you tried Shurley? I have found that once my kids could do the question and answer flows they could apply it to any curriculum and retain it. I don't use it anymore, but we still do those jingles and review with the cd once in a while. It has been the best tool for retention for us.

Are these materials Christian or secular? Is her English roots program considered English or history? If you have used here programs, what do you think? How is retention with her materials? I am very intrigued and would like to learn more.:)

How would you classify this class? :) Is it English, history, or both? It looks like a lot of really great info, but I'm not sure where it would fit in the whole scheme of things. I really like the Mapping the World by Art. My kids are a little young, but it really looks fun and would go with any living history books. I guess I would use this for both geography and art.

I love this and am equally intrigued by the "Mapping the World by Art". That looks really fun.:)