Thank you SO much! I will look into all of these! :-)

Any ideas for a fun geography and science curriculum for a hands-on co-op? It would be for elementary age children? I am looking at curriculum and have been searching on here for some ideas but have yet to find much. Thank you!

I have my son vacuum three times a week! :) I sweep the kitchen every day and the hall and foyer about twice a week.

I will be changing to Rod & Staff this year after having many friends sing their praises! I also noticed it is a top pick from the The Well-Trained Mind.

Level 2 starts slower but builds up in dictation by the end. We started in level two and worked through it quickly to get him ready for Level 3. I think it would be okay to start with Level 3 though.

:lurk5:

:lurk5:

I am interested in knowing about ECC too since I plan on doing it in a year or two. It looks really good!

Classical Conversations has them up to 15's on their audio cd's set to songs. The only problem for you is that you would be buying a cd with all other kinds of memory work on it as well. Check it out. http://www.classicalconversationsbooks.com/cycle1audiocd.html

Thanks Dawn, I didn't realize it was set up on a four day schedule. I was so busy checking everything out at the convention, that I thought I saw a five day set up. Good! One less thing to do!

Okay, thanks to all of you, I have a plan to do MFW and make it even more classical than it already is. Tell me what you think.... I just purchased Year Four-Exploration to 1850 for my son with the 2nd & 3rd Supplement for my daughter. I will definately be adding books from the book basket (which there are MANY to select from) from my library. On top of everything that MFW will give them (and I have been really impressed with their book selections, activities, and especially their notebooks) I will be adding, for my son, Prima Latina, Classical Writing, Logic workbooks like Mind Benders, etc, Wordly Wise, Shurley Grammar, and Classical Conversations awesome memory work plan. Of course Math and spelling too!) I will also re-arrange the schedule to fit our needs. We do a four day a week schedule to fit in our Co-op. Let me know what you think!!

AH! Thank you Donna! I found the supplement in the catalog and see what you mean. I am more excited now to add her in! I did see in the catalog about the content being too difficult for 2nd & 3rd graders for 1850 to Modern but I am glad I can still have them join you in Bible, Science, Presidents and States studies, etc. Texas T, thanks for your encouragment of how easy MFW helps us to homeschool classically. I I am off to order!!!! :auto:

Surfside Academy....while I was at the convention, I was hearing of some people who use MFW with a 4 year cycle from Year 2 to Year 5 and skipping ECC. Of course I am new to this curriculum and someone here may confirm or deny this. I really like the look of ECC though so I will probably try it within the cycle.

Thank you Donna! Your advice has been VERY helpful. My son will be in third grade in the fall but his birthday is Sept. 7th, therefore he only missed the cut-off for 4th grade by seven days. He is doing 4th grade work at home already in some subjects. However, I want to be careful of the content because of his maturity level. I really like the fact that Marie has read every book and notifies us of any concern we might have about a particular book's content. Thanks for your help with some of the books so that I can be mindful of them. You bring me to another question when you mentioned your younger one joining in. I will also have a first grader in the fall, do you suggest purchasing the 2nd/3rd grade supplement or just letting her make a notebook with some color pages, etc..?? Thanks again!

Thank you so much for all of your help. I am feeling more and more confident that MFW is the curriculum for us and that I can do it classically as well. I am looking at "Exploration to 1850." How much time a day does it take to do everything?? Including a few books from the book basket?? Thanks again!

Thank you! I have already decided to add Latin and we already do grammar and all our other subjects classically. We also have a strong memory work program. It seems like I wouldn't need to "change" anything within MFW then right?? Doesn't the book basket give us more opportunities to beef it up??

I understand that MFW uses both Classical and Charlotte Mason in their curriculum. I have heard that Cadam uses MFW and tweeks it to make it more classical than it already is. I really like what I see about the program but would like to add in more classical. Can you tell me how you make it more classical??? I have tried making searches for this and can't seem to find anything.... I have always known about MFW for many years now but it wasn't until Saturday at our State Convention that it caught my notice. It seems to have everything that I have been wanting for my family. I would like to make this work and would appreciate your advice. Thank you!

Yes, they match up great...no problem. I used the original workbooks with the kit for my first child and when the time came to teach my second child, I bought another set of workbooks and was surprised to see they had changed. They are the same essentially, just look better.

We LOVE Sing, Spell, Read and Write here. I have gone through two kids with success beyond my expectations. No doubt that I will continue to use it again for my other two!

Yes, WWE 2 does have dictation with meaning. Yesterday, my son had to locate the nouns and adjectives, with my leading, and we talked about them. At the beginning of the book, we learned our punctuation through our copywork and dictation. It is very thorough! :)

Do any of you know if there is an active NCFCA (National Christian Forensics & Communications Assocatian) in Oklahoma?? www.ncfca.org. I have emailed them for more information and haven't heard anything yet. If not NCFCA, are you aware of any other Speech and Debate teams for homeschoolers in the Tulsa area?? We will be starting up Classical Conversations in Bartlesville which will have Speech and Debate but there are some students transferring from our local Classical Christian school to Classical Conversations that were used to Speech and Debate being a very competitive full year curriculum that they traveled to tournaments, etc.... NCFCA is like that for homeschoolers. Just curious.

Oh, and they have DVD's available for K-12th.

I do Math-u-see for that very reason!! Not only does he teach me how to teach my children, he is also very entertaining. :)

We use it four times a week and it only takes about 15 minutes a day with the corresponding workbook. It is an open and go curriculum. We love it!

Thank you Angelina! I have been scouring this board looking for more CW information. I have really enjoyed your posts along with Heather's and other CW lovers. I hadn't found the one about your blog so I am going there to check it out right now! Thank you so much for the help!