Just a really quick quesion: When using a purchased curriculum guide, do you prefer for all pages to be contained in one book, with all the pages needed for each week together in that week's section? Or do you prefer for directions for activities, instructions for labs, printable pages, etc. to be included in the back of this book or in its own file? For example, I currently working on a science and nature study guide for Year One. This guide includes lessons, object lessons, activity instructions, some printable pages (for labeling insects, etc.). I can't decide if it would be more convenient for the teacher to have everything needed for that week in one section of the book (so the lessons and the extras for week 26 all together in the section for week 26) or if it would be better to keep the lessons in one part and the extras either in the back or in a separate file. I would really love your thoughts! :)

I agree with 8FilltheHeart. I wouldn't use if for those ages either. My rising 9th grader is a little ways into it and is doing well, but I don't find the series full enough to use alone. Also, she had a background in French already, having used the entire 6 book series from Nallenart, which I find better suited for younger students. Currently, she is using the 9th grade book from Nallenart, Breaking the Barrier and other resources. I also plan to add more books and poetry in French, watch familar movies in French, etc.

Here are some of my favorites: Tasha Tudor Joyce Sidman Cynthia Rylant Robert McCloskey Paul Galdone

Younger daughter loves astronomy and physics, so this year we'll be starting this book: Exploring the Sky: Projects for Beginning Astronomers

The Lost Tools of Writing I took Andrew Kern's workshop of it through the WTM Summer Workshop series last summer and I came away from it thiinking that this program might be the one that would allow me to incorporate CM with the tools it provided for a more structured, upper level approach to essays, etc. I still need to look through it, watch the dvds and decide how to carve out our writing instruction for the year. I'm hoping this will work. :)

I'm excited to be starting a new year with new books and new topics and the first year of high school with my last and younger daughter. Last year was so overscheduled in so many ways and I'm looking forward to a "slightly" more relaxed schedule and a stronger inclination to work harder and accomplish more academically. I finally have my daughter's basic scope for the year in mind, but I still need to work out the exact sequence and more details. I'm also excited to try a new writing program with her. It seems that finding an approach for writing that fits our ideas has been very difficult, but I'm hoping this one will work. Hope everyone has a great year! :)

I really like the guides from Penguin: Teacher's Guides. I think they have a large selection, are free and include deeper questions (see the questions at the end; after the reading of the book is complete). There are creative end-of-the-book projects and multiple critical writing prompts from which to choose as well.

My older daughter used in 8th grade and liked it. I think if you keep the focus on just this book with only a minimum of supplemental readings (including primary source additions), then it should be just fine, especially since you are devoting the whole year to just this time period.

It's hard to get a sense of this book, because it is harder to find. Here are a few links that might help with that: The Book of the Ancient Romans (This book is part of the series and is free at Archive. This would give you a sense of the author's writing style and approach to the book series.) Renaissance and Reformation Times (The actual book can be borrowed from Archive. It's also possible that a library near you might have it too.) Renaissance and Reformation Times (This is the table of contents.)

sorry....I was going to share another book but it was not what I thought it was.

The Wonders of the Ancient World series by Elizabeth Mann are picture books, but they are longer and nicely written. There are a number in the series which fit the time period nicely. The Great Pyramid The Roman Colosseum Taj Mahal The Great Wall Parthenon ​Maybe... A Triumph for Flavius or Theras and His Town by Caroline Dale Snedeker ​Cleopatra by Diane Stanley

How often should I have them do this? daily but vary the subject, several times a week? ​​I think this depends on their age and skill level. Also, this is very similar to CM style narration prompts. Do you have your children do oral narrations too? If so, then this also would play a role in how many times per week. In general for my family, younger children orally narrate very often and would only use some of the simpler cards (such as draw a picture or draw a diagram and label it), mid-elementary children would orally narrate often and use a card such as this maybe 2x per week and upper elementary/lower middle school might use these 2-3 times per week along with oral narrations. Of course, the latter age group should be doing other things to promote writing skills too. I would vary the subjects too. How much time should I take out of reading content to have them do one? ​​I think that how much time they will need will depend on which one they choose, since some prompts will require more time than others. Also, I would value quality over quantity, so giving them more time but less of them would be my focus. This is why keeping up with oral narrations and other lessons which support writing would be important to me. Do you have other ideas for cards or improvements on how I worded things? I think they look good. I like the variations, but I would be careful with some of the creative prompts attached to history and science. I think the cards for writing songs, poems, play scenes (in the category for all 3 subjects) might be part of the rotation only very occasionally as these prompts will be harder than with fiction/literature. I do agree with Farrar that the interplay between creativity and expository writing works on many skills at once and is valuable for that reason. I also agree that you might want to add a few more options (slightly less creative focused) to give more options when reading nonfiction (history and science). The prompts you have so far are a good start though. Writing a newspaper article about a history event or a science concept or invention still covers the who, what, where, when, how and why in writing just as a summary would do. I also agree with Zookeeper that you may need to sit down and write out more specific steps for some of these prompts to give your students more guidance, especially at the beginning. For a few extra ideas, you might consider adding writing a letter and creating charts/tables (these both can be used with nonfiction and the latter works on writing skills too). One of the main points of emphasis for using narration (or open prompts such as these) is to allow the student to take from what he/she has read or learned and communicate through writing (or picture) how this new knowledge was internalized by him/her. I think that often open prompts are mistaken for expecting creativity (and some of them really do) when actually they are just expecting the student to communicate their own personal knowledge. This is not to say that I don't think there is a need or time for more specific expectations with regard to writing. And some children do need more explicit instruction when writing is involved. I hope this helps a little. :)

We really like Renaissance and Reformation Times by Dorothy Mills. If you want to see samples, then I can share some links with you.

I read ahead of my daughters...well, mostly my younger daughter now. I also read with my student. My older daughter and I are reading the Greek Tragedies together (after reading The Iliad and The Odyssey) and then watching Elizabeth Vandiver's lectures together. Sometimes I take online classses or attend one-time workshops. For example, last summer I took 3 or classes from the WTM summer workshop. We watch documentaries together as a family.

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I just wanted to share that I added a forum at the website. :)

Well, I can say that what we did complete of it went very well. My older daughter is a huge humanites lover and art history was no exception. :) We did start the book and I did coordinate the Khan Academy lectures/video clips (which she did like). I even wrote questions/narration suggestions for about the first 2-3 chapters, which she also used. All of this was going well and was our plan, but...lol... We really felt she needed to dual-enroll during her senior year. We agreed that her first semester should not be too overwhelming for her and so taking Introduction to Humanities seemed to be a good choice for her. This class contained a great deal of art history, and since she was carrying a number of classes and we still had to concentrate on math and science at home with her, I let her drop it. She still loves art history, so I guess it all worked out in the end. Oh the changes we make as they get older. LOL! Creating the schedule which coordinates the book and the lectures/video clips was a bit time intensive, but it did work. I also had her choose (1) of her lectures/video clips (she usually watched several of them at once) and take notes on it. She read the section from the book assigned to her and answered the question/narration prompts in a composition book. She proved to not like "taking notes" and instead preferred to choose (1) lecture/video clip and write a narration on it along with the questions. In the end, not "taking notes" was not a problem in the long run. She certainly has managed to take notes when needed in all of her college classes so far. I'm just adding this note here to encourage anyone reading it that unconventional methods, as long as they work with your particular student, can work too. :) I do have some very rough copies of some of this work on my older computer. Since I've just reminded myself that I want my younger daughter to start this in the fall, I should probably dig those out and freshen them up. If you'd like a copy of any of this, feel fee to message me and I'll send it to you. I'm not sure when I'll have it cleaned up, but it should be ready in couple of months (so I can actually use it with younger daughter). :)

Thank you so much for your encouraging words! I was thinking maybe it just wasn't a good plan. I can defnitely continue to work on the next section. My overall plan was to do 4 main time periods with 4 levels in each, I think. I'll look at the Medieval and Renaissance time period next. Then I'll do Early Modern and then Modern. Thank you! :)

It can be found on the main front page under Notes and Updates. Sorry about that....I took it down from my original post, but left it up at the website. :) Thank you for asking about it.

I've just created a combined years syllabi, based off of my curriculum A Mind in the Light, so that families might find it easier to use. Syllabi A-B: The Ancient World begins the history cycle. I would love your thoughts and feedback about it. Thank you for looking at it!

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Thanks so much for your kind words! They mean so much to me! :) bwdiaz, I do still have the narration guide to which Whippoorwill refers at my website. Just scroll to Resources and then down to Skill Subjects and Foreign Languages and the guide can be found here. :) Let me know if I can help in any other way.

Would everyone be happy with an all-in-one guide? This guide would have the teaching notes at the beginning and would be followed with the reformatted public domain books at the end. I could make them all spiral bound 8.5 x 11? Are there any disadvantages to this set-up that I'm not considering?

Perfect! This is so helpful! Thank you! :) I can also put it all together in one guide. I'll make that option d and move d to e.

Because it is so difficult to write guides for a selection of books which must be purchased to coordinate with that guide, I've found it necessary to reformat books in the public domain to make it more certain that the books on which the guides are based are actually available. (A number of books over the past couple of years went from being easily available to OOP, hard to find used or expensive to purchase.) ETA: This specific question is for science guides and the books coordinated with them. If you were going to purchase a teaching guide which coordinated with a selection of living books and a companion album, what style of books would you find easiest and most user-friendly: a) 8.5 X 11 spiral bound Teaching Guide with a 6 x 9 perfect bound companion album (collection of public domain books needed for that particular guide-reformatted and only slightly edited) b) 8.5 x 11 spiral bound Teaching Guide with an 8.5 x 11 perfect bound companion album c) 8.5 x 11 spiral bound Teaching Guide with an 8.5 x 11 spiral bound companion album d) all together in one guide...one size 8.5 x 11...spiral bound e) other ??? I will be looking into someday creating eBooks and maybe even PDF files that can be purchased, but for now I simply cannot fit that in yet. :) I would love your opinion!! I could, in theory, create multiple versions, but for now I just want to choose one approach that most will families will like and can add new formats later. For example, for the Marine Biology guide that I'm currently working on the current list of books needed will be: Pagoo ​(Hollings), Oceans (S. Simon), Who Eats What (Lauber) and the companion album with contain Understanding the Sea (Sanderson) and On the Seashore (R. C. Smith). This guide is designed for part of Year Three's Science and Nature Study section, but will include an upper level extension by adding The Sea Around Us (Carson) and possibly another book. The teaching guide will include a reading schedule, narration suggestions, supplemental reading list and demonstrations/lab activities. The companion album will be for reading only.