Norah, actually it was not a written review. I was at a meeting of local homeschoolers to discuss curriculum and another mom had brought it because she and her family love it so much. She mentioned the kids love the videos and the placemats. I know she has a 2nd and 4th grader. She works for the homeschool buyer's co-op so I am guessing she bought it through there. I'm sorry I can't be of more help.

Have you used one of these? I was at a curriculum review today and someone was using the lessons from the Etiquette Factory. It had never occurred to me this was something you buy a curriculum for or even a book. Have you used something kid friendly? Was it worth it? I have two boys who could use some help with some of these things (like looking people in the eye when you talk to them, etc.) but the Etiquette Factory stuff is expensive. Are there some books I can get from the library?? TIA.

Agree with the prior posters. To me there was a jump in the content and expectation but it was not so much so that my son was overwhelmed.

I almost wonder if they are putting out a new edition. They revised and put out a new edition of Fix-It. If you are on the yahoo IEW families board you can ask there, or I can for you.

A single ebony pencil for drawing is $0.60.

only on year two but my favorites so far are: Math in Focus AAS SOTW CC History Sentences and Timeline FLL

SarahW--I am glad my kids aren't the only ones. I remember asking some other friends how they would pronounce it so it didn't sound like there was a "g" and they had no idea. My oldest did go to PS for K so maybe that was part of it, but the youngest didn't so I'm not sure what happened with him!

Unrelated sort of but we also use AAS and it took quite awhile for my boys to grasp that the "nk" sound was not "ngk". I really found it almost impossible to pronounce it without it sounding like there was a g in there. I just had to tell them there was no g, and when they heard "nk" to just use "nk."

I am late to the party but I have used MIF 1A, 1B, 2A and now 2B and like the program very much. I intend to continue through the higher levels but am wondering if anyone has experience with the next level up (is it course 1)?

My son (age 8) is doing the Minecraft Mod course through Youth Digital. It was on the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op at a discount a few weeks ago. Overall I like it. The lessons are interesting and easy to follow. It is definitely kid friendly. Unfortunately my 8 year old is struggling at times to follow all the instructions properly. I think he is so excited to get done he is skipping steps or making simple mistakes (all caps when it is supposed to be mixed, etc.). So to save myself from frustration I am probably going to have to sit with him through the lessons.

We read the one with illustrations from Michael Hague and I loved the illustrations.

mhaddon, that co-op does sound terrible. For what it is worth, the co-op I am a part of is not like that. The teachers do prepare, write lessons, and actually teach subjects. I do a Jr. First Lego League team plus a simple machines Lego class. My boys are also taking an Animals and their Habitats lapbooking class. Our co-op has academics as well as a paid skilled art teacher, a paid guitar/voice/musical theatre teacher, and fun extracurriculars. We have great classes, committed parents, and no "play" periods. We each get a minimum of $5 for supplies, but I get $50/year for Jr. FLL for supplies/fees. I am so sorry you had that experience. They do play dodge ball and kickball in gym but they have 18 kids and I only have two. So I don't mind. =)

accidental duplicate

So after reading the comments, my two cents. My PS teacher friend told me to use the lexile and then I told her I was confused about the lexile because some things seemed much harder than others when there was only a 20 point difference in Lexile (or the Lexile of the book was lower, but the vocabulary was harder). Essentially she said that they do some type of testing to determine Lexile level and use that but you still need to use your own judgement. What i find frustrating is that we have not hit on a favorite series yet so I am constantly requesting different books from the library to try and then there is really no guarantee that my child will be able to read it properly even if it is in his "lexile" range. Case in point, he is reading Half Magic right now that I think is too hard for him but Ralph S. Mouse which is similar in Lexile, is much easier. The GLE account for this, but the Lexiles do not.

Oh my goodness, daisychains this has been my question all year too!!! I am soo confused. Thank you for posting this. I am so lost. I have found the same thing--some things that have a higher lexile have a lower grade level equivalent and vice versa. I am finding i need to look at all three--grade level equivalent, lexile and the F&P level. I'm off to read all the comments here. Thanks so much for asking this!

I just wanted to say that this has not been my experience with the co-op I am in for the most part. However, I do consider our co-op to be an enrichment day. As sdunckel said, I would not allow it to replace academics. That is not for us the purpose of being in a co-op. Even though both of my boys are taking science at co-op, we still do science at home. I find the diversity of the co-op to be a good thing. I hear different points of view, not all classical, and sometimes that has been a blessing. There is definitely more structure with CC. The first week I did both it was so obvious to me there was a real difference in the feel of the "campus" during the day at CC versus co-op. Co-op is a lot more free and loose. CC felt strict and structured. Part of that is the intent of the day. CC's intent is learning and memorization--the curriculum. The co-op's focus is the families and the kids. You just really need to pray and ask God where YOUR family's needs are right now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spending a day out of the house on academics at CC. And, I would argue, there is also nothing wrong with spending a day outside the house with friends doing fun things and connecting. It's all about what you need most.

I am in my second year homeschooling. Last year we did a co-op plus CC. I saw the co-op as enrichment/extracurriculars and CC as academic. We dropped CC for this year. I knew I could not continue to do both while covering 1st and 2nd grade at home. Being out two days a week was too much. The reason I chose the co-op over CC is that I looked at our family's needs and I felt that they were better met by the co-op. Our CC campus was not small but not terribly big, however, I never really connected there. As a new homeschooling mom what I needed most was input and encouragement. Unfortunately I was not getting this at CC. A lot of the moms were tied up because they were tutoring. It's just the way it went. Also, my boys did not like CC. My youngest had friends and sort of liked it. My oldest did not like it at all and did not make friends. Like you I thought about using CC for my core and hated it. I really only tried it for science. I started off looking at doing it for history and hated the jumping around in SOTW, so we decided to just do the history sentences and timeline and be happy when they matched up. With the science, I ended up just pulling library books and doing work around the different subjects for CC each week and again, didn't like the jumping around. For me the co-op is much better at allowing opportunities for connecting. My kids are in Jr. FLL and gym and a science class. I have a free period where I can talk to moms. Everyone comes to lunch (not just the people who don't have an afternoon class to teach). It just fits better with our family. Academically, it is not classical and it may not be as strong as CC in terms of book learning. But i don't participate in co-op for book learning. It is social and extracurricular. I hope this helps. By the way, this year we are doing CC history sentences, timeline, Latin songs, and math songs at home. It is going well.

We're using Trail Guide to World Geography about 15-25 minutes a week doing map markups, etc. I am also having them do Scholastic Success with Maps Grade 2. It covers cardinal directions, grids and coordinates, etc in an easy to use format. Probably a couple pages a week could get you done in less than a year. I think it runs through 5th grade. It was $1 for awhile but now it might be $3 at the Scholastic Teacher Resources site. Other things that you may not think of, but count: Battleship (game) teaches coordinates and grids Games: 10 Days in the U.S.A., 10 Days in Europe, 10 Days in Asia teach country locations, etc. Some others mentioned USA/world puzzles and online games. We like the Stack the Countries and Stack the States apps.

happyWImom, what is the age range for Song School? I couldn't find anything on their website.

Our local one used to be in early June but this year they moved it to early April, I think so it would be before the HS Conference.

I don't have a good answer for you as I have not used anything, but I am also looking for something for this age. I have Latin for Children Primer A and when I looked at it recently I was fairly certain it was going to be too much for my DS next year (also 3rd grade next year). Plus I really wanted to cover it with both my sons (2nd and 3rd grade next year). So I am looking at doing Song School Latin. I have heard it works well to transition into the other programs. Like you my kids just finished FLL2 and I don't plan on starting FLL3 until next fall. There are some excerpt pages from the kids' workbook and teacher's book here. I like that it comes with videos too. To date we have not done any video curriculum but as I have no background in Latin, I will take all the help I can get! http://classicalacademicpress.com/song-school-latin-book-1-program/

Dolphin, I have Phonetic Zoo A that I got for my 8 year old to start when he finished AAS3. We finished AAS3 around Christmas and popped in Phonetic Zoo after that and did one lesson. I had AAS4 already on hand also. So we tried one lesson and he kind of gave me this look like "please don't make me do this." Normally spelling is "easy" for him. So we are doing AAS 4. Do you think I could try it after AAS4? He would probably be 9 by then. TIA!

Duplicate! Gaa!

I am not the OP on this thread but I just wanted to thank everyone who posted. Some days I really struggle with DS6 and his attention span. Hearing all your stories has encouraged me during a difficult week. Thank you.

My youngest got stuck at the same spot. We took a break from the book/workbook and just did work with the regrouping using an abacus and other manipulatives like the base 10 blocks and unifix cubes. We did that for maybe a week or so until I felt like it was getting old, skipped to a geometry section (shapes) and then went back to it, and he was fine. We also were working with subtraction flashcards, albeit slowly. I am no expert, but it seems this may be something that just has to click and then the rest will come easier. I do think the abacus helped, but my son is very tactile. Also, I got it for $2 used so I didn't waste a lot of cash to get it. You could use m&ms, beads, etc. for the same purpose. All that to say, I am no expert, but don't feel bad about "parking" in this part for awhile and trying a lot of different methods to get the concept across.