I just wanted to offer my deepest sympathies. I agree with previous posters...minimal school is all that is needed for now.

I was curious if these are the ones that you mean: The Great Ideas Program? I have 3 of the books that are on the left in the photo of this link. I've looked at them but have not made use of them yet. 🙂 HathiTrust has a full view file of one of these: The Development of Political Theory and Government, in case anyone else wants to see it.

I'm hoping to finish at least one complete guide per year. I may be able to increase that in the next year or two, since my older daughter is in college now and my younger daughter will be in a couple of years. I will sadly be finished with homeschooling then and will have more time to commit to writing them.

Here is the Facebook Page. There is also a private group with the Facebook Page, which is easy to join if you want additional conversations. 🙂 And here is the Instagram Page. I'll check my email and get back to you soon to answer any questions you might have.

I'd be happy to link you to the Facebook and Instagram pages. It may help give you a better sense of how well the curriculum is liked or not. 🙂 I'm not sure if anyone here uses it. It is still a work in progress, so only Year One is complete. Although, there are separate guides for other subjects and years and there is a great deal of flexibility with the guides as well.

We love it-meaning me, the teacher, loves teaching this way and both of my daughters loved learning this way. It truly is a mutual love! For me, the CM approach to writing/language arts teaches children to first value their own voice (original, non-influenced thoughts), which I think plays a huge role in how well they write later. This is why the oral narration method used in the early years is so important. It not only allows them to find that voice, but allows them to work on how to organize that voice into a way which best communicates their knowledge and perspective with others. Oral narrations allow children to immediately (while the knowledge is at its height in memory) transfer what they've learned into an organized communication of it (with their own unique inner perspectives) attached. My daughters (one in high school and one in college) write well now not only because the technical/structural aspects to writing are in place, but because they are confident that they can find something of value to say about any topic. And, agreeing with previous posters, it is so important to not be hung up on the idea that oral narrations are simply about repeating in some loose fashion what they've just heard read to them (or later read themselves). A stream-of-consciousness type approach to oral narration is not ideal and should not be encouraged (with the exception of very young children, children very new to oral narration or children with specific issues with oral narration -and even then this would only be temporarily allowed). While oral narration is open in the sense that children are allowed to share the base of what was learned and then hone in on particular points of interest, it is not informal in the sense that there are not specific structural requirements to meet. This is, of course, referring to children who have had a couple years of practice. If started with a 5 year old, then some of this structure would be in place by 7 or 8. They are structured in the sense that a general base of what was learned is to be shared (so a child can't get away with a narration which shares the idea that there was some mean king doing bad things to the common people-more details would be needed), but the emphasis might be different for one child vs. another. One child might focus more on why the king did these things while another might focus on what effect these things had on the people. A good teacher can follow up narrations with pointed questions, allowing the child a moment to reflect on their particular emphasis and consider another angle. Narration prompts really begin to reflect this stretch in thinking as the child matures. Like all the various aspects to a complete CM language arts approach (copywork, commonplace books, dictation), narration is meant to adapt and change as the child matures. And do we have to adapt these methods to fit our modern times? Absolutely. As my children mature, I incorporate modern methods to their written work. They must learn how to write a formal paper and this requires work on the thesis, formatting, citations, etc. But, once I begin to add these aspects, I already have an accomplished writer on my hands-one who knows how to learn and how to think. Writing is an extension of what we know and how we think, so they are necessary components. My older daughter is an English/Communications major in college, so it has served her very well. She is an honors student and writes beautifully. My younger daughter, a more technical and science-oriented girl, also writes very well and writes creatively almost daily.

I thought I'd share back what I've learned. If you already own and have used either of these books, then I'm sure you already know whether you had to "edit on the fly" or not, but for those of you who did not own either book or have not seen these books I've included what I've learned below. Memoria Press replied that their edition of Edward Eggleston's Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans had been edited and that "offensive language was removed". Beautiful Feet Books also replied that they "did update and edit the language" in their edition of A Child's First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers.

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Thanks Chelli, I'll probably just do that. 🙂

I could really use some help with this question. I have already looked everywhere I knew possible to find out more information about these books. I only need to know if they have been edited. I would like to avoid purchasing a book just on the hope that it has been edited. I can already find these books in the public domain as an unedited version, so I don't really want to buy them just to discover they were not edited. Does that make sense? I've also looked at the actual websites (Memoria Press and Beautiful Feet Books) and neither one states explicitly that they were edited. I would really appreciate any help! Thank you! 🙂

Trying this once more...:)

Definitely miss your presence here! I'm so glad that Shannon is feeling a little better and that she's finding her way into the writing world. Wishing you and your family the very best in all. 🙂

All of the above suggestions are great ideas! We use narration prompts, but I thought some of those might work for you as well. Most of them require some writing, but not nearly as much as writing out paragraphs and essays. If he doesn't enjoy using a pencil at all (even for drawing and diagrams), then most of these can be adapted into oral discussions. Also, I would not expect him to use the more involved prompts after every reading. These could be used weekly or even bi-weekly. Have your student respond to an event by drawing/painting a picture of it, giving it a caption and then sharing it with you (or another family member or friend). He can describe the event being illustrated and what he hopes others might learn by studying it. Have your student respond to an event by comparing it to another event in history. He can create tables with one table showing the similarities and one showing the differences. Have him clearly label the tables and give this work a title. Have your student respond to an event by drawing a series of small pictures (cartoon style), representing each major turn of the event and in chronological order. Have him orally share it with someone else when complete. Have your student respond to a significant person from the chapter or reading selection by dictating/typing a letter to him/her or as if him/her, responding to whatever might have been happening to him/her in the chapter or reading selection. Have your student respond to a significant person from the chapter or reading selection by answering this question: "If you had been __, then what would you have done differently from him/her with ___ event? Why?" Creating pictures with captions, charts and tables with titles, writing lists and including titles, drawing diagrams and maps and giving them labels are all examples of low-writing type prompts which shift the focus from writing and over to what the student thinks about what was just read-how he connected to it. But, they also are building writing skills at the same time, since they also require the student to organize their thoughts and begin to define what they want to say and how to say it. If your student enjoys dramatizing, he can act out short scenes sometimes. He can do this with himself and props or small toys/Legos. If you really need to keep his response short and low-fuss, then he can also start his work the day of the reading and then finish it the next day (since some prompts are more involved than others). For example, he might start his drawing after the reading and then finish it and describe it another day that same week. I hope this helps a little. 🙂 Best Wishes!

I was wondering if anyone here could tell me if Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans had been edited and updated in the Memoria Press edition? Has any other company edited and updated his A First Book in American History? I'm specifically looking for editions that have been edited and modernized. ETA: Also, does anyone know if A Child's First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers, recently republished by Beautiful Feet Books, has been edited and updated?

Happy Birthday Emily! Hope your day is fantastic!