We are half way through AAS level 3 and we will probably go ahead and finish it. But i happened to see something in one of my WTM forum searches about Megawords so I have been trying to find out more about it. From looking at the 4th grade book, it looks as if it is covering a lot of stuff we have covered in AAS 3 or we will be covering soon. It looks like it would be pretty simple to switch over to it but it would be nice to hear from people who are using it. Most of the threads that come up when I search are on the older side so I wanted to see if anyone is still using it. From what I have read, it can be a bit more independent than AAS? Can anyone compare the two?

I have had company and am just now getting back to my laptop. Thanks so much for the suggestions. I appreciate your help. I think we will start with the education unboxed videos and if that doesn't get us where we need to be we will MM.

I am switching my two sons to Singapore Math. We are almost half way through CLE's 3rd grade math and they have not taught division yet. I am looking through SM (U.S.) 3A and they review the division they have already taught in 2nd grade. I really want to teach my sons the Singapore Math way to divide but would rather not have to go buy the grade 2 books just for this. Any suggestions?

We went on a Carnival cruise a couple of years ago and, like you, I was kind of dreading it. Dh plans our vacations and is usually pretty frugal and he picked an interior room, so no windows!, and it was the smallest they had I think. It had a king size bed (two twins put together but it was comfortable), each had room for a small nightstand on the side. It had two of the twins that pull down from the ceiling for our sons who were 6 or just turned 7 at the time I think. I was really dreading it, and thinking I would really hate this vacation. Maybe it was because my expectations were so low (LOL) but I was very impressed with how efficient and easy the room was for us to be in. The ceiling beds were ready every evening when we returned from dinner and were put away every morning while we were at breakfast. There was plenty of room under the king bed for our suitcases and there was plenty of room in the closets and drawers for our clothes. Dh and I are both introverts and need downtime also but we never had a problem. There were plenty of quiet places on the ship to hang out with a good book, the boys loved going to the kids area to play, which gave dh and I both a break and we would sometimes take turns taking the boys out somewhere and giving the other a break. Overall, we all ended up having a fantastic time and still talk about it. We would love to go again but have had other vacations we needed to take first. It is definitely on the list to do again and I would not hesitate to get that kind of room again. And that is saying a lot from me. I used to travel a lot before dh and I got married and I traveled so often that I pretty much got to go first class everywhere and stay first class everywhere. So I was very spoiled. So, this ringing endorsement from me is really saying a lot.

Thanks for writing all of this. I had spent some time studying the steps outlined in TWTM and thought it seemed a little more straight forward and less time consuming than some of the packages I have looked at. It is nice to hear how you made it work for your family. I have been doing a lot of reading since I started this thread, looking through posts in the logic forum and also looking at various packages. I read through the Biblioplan samples thoroughly and then read through parts of my 1st year plan of TOG, comparing them to TWTM. It still seems that TWTM might be the easiest to implement with the goal (as per TWTM): "to teach the student how to study history, not to do an exhaustive survey of all possible topics". This goal is very helpful and I think I may have to print it out and hang it somewhere prominent. After all of the reading and comparing I have been doing, I will say that I have definitely decided to use TOG. I think I will probably do a combination of TWTM's method and TOG for 5th and possibly 6th but I have decided i will definitely be using TOG for D and R years. Thanks everyone for your input.

Thanks Hunter, that's good to know.

Well, I just wrote a long reply to everyone and it accidentally got erased. That's what I get for typing while sitting in a recliner. I will try to reproduce it. Wow, so many helpful responses! You have given me a lot to ponder and explore. I will definitely take a look at the K12 History book with an idea of possibly using it as a spine. I also still want to take a fresh look at TOG from the perspective of just having reviewed TWTM's take on the subject. I have taken a look at the Diane Waring history books and they made my head spin. Maybe I didn't look at it long enough but what I saw seemed a bit overwhelming (even just the amount of info on a page). I have search the forum but this topic is kind of harder to find because there are so many 'history' threads. I will look specifically in the Logic stage forum and that would narrow down the results considerably. From what I have read in TWTM (3rd edition) it seems like a simpler method than many of the packages, although I agree that the amount of required skills work could be daunting. I would definitely have to balance that carefully for my two sons in order to keep their love for history alive. Thanks everyone for all of the helpful feedback. Off to do more research.

Yes, I think you would almost have to have it planned out pretty well or you could easily become bogged down. I haven't looked at Connecting with History but we are Protestant so that might not work well for us. I hope it works for you though:).

Hmmm. I think I probably need to pull out my year of TOG and look it over again, comparing it to TWTM. That might help me see what I want a little better. I have leaned toward TOG for many years, thinking that when the right time came we would over to it. But then I read TWTM for 5th grade history and thought it sounded so good and straight forward. One of the things I didn't care for about MOH was it seemed there were too many opinions/conclusions/observations offered at times. TWTM stresses that we need something that is more factual so the students can start developing their own opinions/conclusions/observations. Did anyone else have this concern? I am wondering if TOG will have this issue.

Just what the title says. I'm doing some planning ahead and trying to figure out where we will go next when we finish SOTW4. I really like how MOH sounds, with bringing the timeline of history and the Bible together into one. But after looking at the samples and also looking at the first and second teacher's books at our local resale shop, I have found I dislike the way it is written, so I have mixed feelings about it. The description of 5th grade history in TWTM sounds very doable. It almost seems more simple than some of the packaged curriculum I have seen. I would love to hear from those who are actually doing this or have done it in the past. Also, I have the first year of TOG, so that is an option too. I'm just not sure how it would work because I really like the way TWTM sounds also. Thoughts?

We are having trouble finding sandals for our sons. We just buy the very light weight sweat pants and plain white undershirts for P.J.'s..

That's good to know, thanks. I'll have to get over there and check that out.

Those are all the same words I have trouble remembering. I think I have recently, finally gotten broccoli down because i am always writing it on our grocery list. Now I have to get the other two. I don't write those as often so they may take a while.

When mine were that age they loved to put together an alphabet puzzle we had, one of the Melissa and Doug big floor puzzles that was a long train and each letter was one car. They were also learning letter sounds from the Leap Frog magnets that say the letter sounds and also the Leap Frog DVD that teaches letter sounds. We also had some floor puzzles for numbers and we would play with counting bears. My sons also enjoyed the Kumon books that help them learn to cut and draw lines, zig zags, squiggles,etc. preparing them for writing. The thing we did the most of and which I believe made the biggest impact was reading aloud to them lots and lots. They loved it and their vocabularies grew tremendously.

Teaching my two 3rd graders here. We normally start school work around 9:00. Before that they get dressed, eat, do a couple of quick chores and play. We don't stick to timeframes but just do the next thing: Together Work: Grammar Spelling History (MW) / Science (TTH) Read Aloud (usually 2 chapters - we have been reading the Narnia series) Separate Work (work I need to help them with individually or they can do by themselves): Math Writing Read-to-Self (40 min) piano practice (only one son takes piano but he is more focused and efficient so he normally finishes before his brother anyway.) Sometimes we are finished by lunch time but often we are not. We take a lunch-play break and then finish up the remaining work after lunch. Bible reading and sometimes our read-aloud book are before bed time.

My 8YO son is required to practice piano for 18 minutes and he thinks that is too much:). That was the amount of time his piano teacher suggested for now. You might want to rethink requiring a 6YO to practice for 30 minutes.

That was so cute! Very funny!

Here is a quote from the live science web site: Natural selection can change a species in small ways, causing a population to change color or size over the course of several generations. This is called "microevolution." But natural selection is also capable of much more. Given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create entirely new species. It can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans and amphibious mammals into whales. Mutations The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible happen at the level of DNA and genes. Such changes are called "mutations." Mutations can be caused by chemical or radiation damage or errors in DNA replication. Mutations can even be deliberately induced in order to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Most times, mutations are either harmful or neutral but in rare instances, a mutation might prove beneficial to the organism. If so, it will become more prevalent in the next generation and spread throughout the population. In this way, natural selection guides the evolutionary process, preserving and adding up the beneficial mutations and rejecting the bad ones. Preserving and adding up the RARE INSTANCES of mutations. From what we see everyday, the vast majority of mutations do not cause beneficial changes.

Yes, do you?

You can keep saying that science is taught as theory but it does not change the fact that many people end up hearing the message that it is fact. When I recently went through the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. the information about evolution was everywhere and they did not spend lots of time discussing how it is a theory. Anyone here watch Friends? Remember the episode when Phoebe was arguing with Ross about evolution. He said more than once it was a fact. Where are the errors in the facts I included about the Bible? I don't understand how these facts would drive someone away from Christianity, as they are pretty straight forward. Can you explain further?

Regardless of what scientists state or know, evolution is taught as fact in schools, museums and tons of books and those who doubt it are ridiculed and compared to flat-earthers. Most people don't search out answers for themselves. They believe what others in authority tell them. The sun is something we can see and test in the here and now. The elemental composition of the sun or any star for that matter is determined from emission and absorption spectra. You can break up sunlight into it's various wavelengths and you will see gaps in that spectrum. Each element (like hydrogen, helium, etc.) causes specific gaps in the spectrum. Very different from evolution, which we do not see happening before our eyes nor has it been reproduced. The cat kind of animals have cats. The dog kind of animals have dogs and people have people. You don't see any half dog half cat animals running around. You don't see any half human half animals running around and no transitional fossils have been found. As for the Bible, if investigated, it is a very difficult book to doubt. It was written as many books over a 1500 year span by more than 40 authors (many of them eye witnesses), including a prince, a fisherman, a shepherd, an army general, a king's food taster, a prime minister, a doctor, a king, a tax collector and many more. Parts of it were written in the wilderness, in a dungeon, on a hillside, in prison, while traveling, on an island, on three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), and yet the facts of the Bible all agree and it all tells the same story. It was passed down through the generations without mistakes for over 2000 years. There are almost 25,000 ancient copies of the New Testament alone. There are far more old copies of the Bible than of any other ancient book. There are only 643 early copies of Homer's Iliad and only 10 old copies of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. And these old pieces/copies of the Bible are really old, including pieces of the book of John that are only 50 years older than John's very first copy. There are copies of the whole New Testament that are only 200 years old. The oldest copies of the Iliad are 400 years older than their first writing and the oldest copies of the Gallic Wars are more than 700 years older than their first writing.

Evolution is taught as a fact even though it is not a fact. You just said evolution is 'correct' because it is the 'best theory'. Just because one group of scientists believes it is the best theory does not make it 'correct' or a 'fact' and does not even make it the best theory.....only the best theory in their opinion. Every person looking at the same data will do so with their own bias. Everyone has a world view and they will always have some sort of bias. Seven scientists could look at the same piece of evidence and, because of their past history, their worldview, they would come away with seven different opinions of what the evidence suggests. The Big Bang and evolution are not observable, quantifiable, testable or replicable, not to the extent that it can be proven a fact. If they were, they would be facts, just like we now know for a fact that the earth is round. Since no one (other than God:) was around at the beginning of time when the earth and the universe and man were created, no one has observed this and no one knows exactly what happened. Because it cannot be recreated, it can never be proven. There are various interpretations of the evidence but everyone looking at the evidence does so through their own world view and they see it from that perspective. Faith in God is not blind faith. There is plenty of evidence for God. The Bible is full of evidence for God.

Thank you for posting this information.

They don't do that where we go. My guys would have hated that.

We recently returned from a driving trip from Oklahoma to Washington D.C. and Virginia, with stops along the way, plus one week off when we got home (so three weeks total). Our school year runs from Jan through Dec. so we were right in the middle of learning the multiplication tables. I wish I had taken some math packets to be done here and there on different days. One of my sons really struggled with getting back into math today. It might have been easier for him if I had required him to do some school work here and there. I think it really depends on where you are in your year and what your plans are for the summer but I don't think it would be a bad thing to have your 9YO do some math and other things during this kind of trip.