I've had a book blog for a long time, putting up great books for kids....I'm now undertaking listing all the books from the big homeschool curriculums (SL, WP, HOD, VP, MFW, etc.) with a brief blurb about it, and I want to identify them by time period, so that if you're doing a 4-year chronological history cycle in any curriculum, you can immediately grab ALL the books from all the curriculums that fit your time period. I'm toying with just using the periods as defined in the book TWTM, which are..... Ancients (5000 BC-400 AD) Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600) Late Renaissance-Early Modern (1600-1850) Modern (1850-present) And then I would add tags to identify specifics (WW II, Civil War, pioneers, etc.) I'd love feedback to hear if that system would be user-friendly for you or if you have other ideas. Thank you so much!

So, we're not loving our school year so far.... :( It just feels really dry, and it seems we never get to the fun stuff like music and art. We're doing Mystery of History, which I was so excited about....but it's like it just goes in one ear and out the other, and I see my DD just trying to remember answers to do the fill-in-the-blanks, which is too much like public school for my taste. I want her to truly learn! I'm debating if I should go back to My Father's World....we did it the last 2 years, and it had the art and music all scheduled out. The main reason I left MFW was I hated reading bits and pieces of a zillion different books. I'm so torn about what to do! I'm beating myself up because she's in 3rd grade and I still can't seem to stay put on a curriculum. Do I slog through the rest of the year with what we have? Or do I try to spring for MFW Creation to the Greeks and start that now? I had also looked at Living Books Curriculum, but don't have much feedback on that. All help welcome!! :confused:

Is anyone using this currently, or have you looked into it? Thoughts?

Has anybody used these books? Here's a link so you can see what I'm talking about. http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Curriculum-Basic-Skills-Grade/dp/1561893714/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319582710&sr=1-4

I'm coming out of the closet to confess....I don't want to do experiments. I find them incredibly stressful. I hate having to gather all the random supplies and find time to do them. I might force myself if I felt they were beneficial to the kids, but I honestly don't. The thing I think they've honestly learned the most from, science-wise, is those Nature Readers from Christian Liberty Press. Those were nothing more than just reading to the kids, and they learned about different aspects of nature/animals. We're doing God's Design for Life for science this year...I do really like the curriculum, it's well put together, etc., but again, the experiments....they just don't happen here. Does anyone have suggestions for science that is experiment-light? Don't hate me- I promise we do other fun hands-on things. :tongue_smilie:

I'm planning to use History Through The Ages from Homeschool In The Woods. The drawings are gorgeous.

I think this is a fascinating thread! I've wondered many of the same things! I'm interested to hear what people have to say.

I just found out they do! :) I was wondering that myself.

We loved the Brainquest ones you can get at most bookstores.

OH MEGAN--- I think our mothers are related! :) My mom is exactly like that. It's sad, yet funny.....she insists she's NOT anti-homeschooling, but every time there's an issue the answer ends up being "send them to public school", which she insists is purely a coincidence. Oh, I love knowing someone else can relate!

Check out Easy Classical... http://www.easyclassical.com

I just downloaded The Joy of Handwriting from CurrClick and I am really pleased with how she explains to the kids how to form letters. Nice and simple. I got both cursive and manuscript, and cursive is finally clicking for my DD with these easy instructions.

CurrClick was a great idea! I bought The Joy of Handwriting- Cursive and The Joy of Handwriting- Manuscript and they are GREAT! So simple. Love that they were $6.50 each and I can print multiple copies.

Okay, what's WRTR? :) And what's GDI? We homeschoolers and our acronyms! :)

I ordered Italic handwriting A for my K'er boys, and Italic D for my 3rd grader. I got the books today and am just not feeling it. I'm shocked that the A book only covers single letters, and doesn't get them writing words at all. The D book just seems to have small lines and lots of instruction cramped in on each page. I'm leaning towards getting Handwriting Without Tears K book for my boys (that's what I used with DD in K, and it was fine- the only reason I was going to do Italic with them is because I was switching her to Italic.) As far as learning cursive- I love HWT in earlier years, but I'm not a fan of their straight-up-and-down cursive. Any ideas?

In Mystery of History, she outlines how to use a foldable cardboard pattern board from Walmart or the craft store as a timeline.....seems like a good compromise, because it's big like a wall version, but foldable and can be put away so it's not taking up wall space.

We liked BJU K math for DD. This year I'm planning to do Horizons math for K, because I think it looks great as well.

Thanks for all the feedback. I certainly didn't mean to get anyone on the defensive about Spelling Workout- I don't have any kind of personal vendetta against it. :) It's just something that for whatever reason I have personally heard predominantly negative reviews on. Sorry if my tone in the original post seemed to be attacking Spelling Workout, I just didn't plan to consider one I had not heard any positive feedback on. Here's a big warm fuzzy hug for Spelling Workout! :grouphug: :)

Ours is sort of an oval shape....it's just an old dining room table. I would check Craigslist, local furniture consignment stores, garage sales, for a round or oval table. The only other place I've seen them are the "official" round tables they use in schools/daycares in official teacher supply catalogs/websites for a zillion dollars....I don't think I've ever seen one under $200+.

I know SWB does recommend Spelling Workout, but I haven't heard good things about it from actual users. If we all just went out and bought exactly what SWB recommended, there wouldn't be much purpose in a forum like this, right? :) In the current thread on here about curriculum people disliked, it's mentioned a BUNCH of times. I'm certainly willing to reconsider it if someone articulates some interesting reasons why they really liked it.

We've been doing Spelling Power and it's just too much. DD is a pretty good speller, and I'd really like to move to something more workbook/less teacher intensive. I've heard terrible things about Spelling Workout, so that's out....I've been looking at Building Spelling Skills. Any other ideas for spelling? (As an aside, she does BJU English for LA, but I honestly have hardly ever looked at their spelling.)

Thanks for posting! Had no idea those existed! We all love that show.

That's so exciting! Hooray for you guys! :)

Bumping this, I would LOVE to know the answer to this!

Bumping this! Would love to know how it's going for those using Easy Classical.