Michelle My Bell Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 What is your top recommendations for a literature based, not too heavy, lesson plans all laid out program for my 6 & 9 year old daughters. I am mostly looking for literature, history & some language arts for my daughters. Anything extra added would be fine, but those are my main areas I am looking for. My current 8 year old dd is still a fairly new reader so it can't be overly advanced. I am willing to go down to a 1st grade program if necessary so they can share it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Help! Thank You!!! Michelle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalynnrmc Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 We're using Illuminations and love it. This is a beta language arts program (beta year about done now) put out by Bright Ideas Press - the publishers of Mystery of History. MOH is the spine and it includes a Bible reading schedule (K-2, 3-8, or high school), a literature study *with guide*, required read-alone, optional read-alone, and schedules several language arts programs. (Foundations of Writing or Writeshop, Grammar Punk or Winston Grammar, Natural Speller with daily lesson plans and student pages, comes with its own copywork, EFRU) Also schedules in Hands-On Geography and/or The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide (TUGAT) and the Christian Kids Explore science series. (Year 1 schedules Biology.) Years 2 and 3 are both scheduled to be available for the fall. After that, they plan to release 2 years to coordinate with the volumes of All-American History, followed by a year using MOH 4 (which isn't out yet). This 6-year plan allows for students who begin in the 1st grade to complete the cycle twice. (My own son, who will be 10 tomorrow, started MOH1 as a 4th grader. He'll do the complete cycle once and then the traditional 4-year cycle for history. Since he'll be taking 2 full years to do American history in grades 7 and 8, I think this will be sufficient for him. When he covers years 3 and/or 4 of MOH as a junior and senior, we can likely insert American history as part of the overview for a refresher.) We also utilize (or plan to, anyway) themes from Winter Promise. The value in this program, to our family, is the hands-on activities. MOH has its own activities, and ILM provides activities to go along with the literature guides, but my boys can never have enough! I also really like the way the IG's are laid out, and the provision of memory card notes and games and timeline exercises to help the information "stick" better. I really like both of these, and therefore am trying to incorporate both of them. Either is fantastic IMHO and definately could be used alone. I like Illuminations' approach to the language arts and the study guides are unparallelled. For expanding the history itself and for science, I think Winter Promise does an excellent job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cajun.classical Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Michelle, Have you looked at Living Book Curriculum? I'm going to use their Foundation Year for my youngest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debbie in OR Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 We use, and love, Beautiful Feet guides. They have time periods (ancient, medieval, early American, World) and several other general guides (Geography, History of Science, History of the Horse, History of Classical Music, and Teaching Character Through Literature). They are not overwhelming and have a great selection of literature to go with them. Where applicible, there is also Bible reading (ancient). There are no language arts, per se, but there are questions included to facilitate narration and dictation; additionally, we use a WWE format so we pull all of our narration, dictation, copywork from the literature we are reading. Very easy to add into our day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmschooling Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Hands down, best I've ever seen and used IMHO;) is Heart Of Dakota. We absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE it! We use it along with the authors reading program, Drawn Into The Heart of Reading (one of Cathy Duffy's top picks). Not time intensive, very complete and easy to teach, fun to do, inexpensive... They have some of the best literature selections! Or you could use your own in some instances. It's certainly worth a closer look! I'd take a peek then head over to the HOD forums and ask some questions :001_smile: They are VERY helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybear Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Winter Promise. If it's too expensive for what you're looking for, you can buy used or just get the IG and do library books. (kind of a pain that way, but WP is so wonderful, imo, it's worth it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2boys Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I second the recommendation for Winter Promise. www.winterpromise.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaMere Academy Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Sonlight. For their ages I would do core 1, great books!! Cores 1 and 2 were my favorites and my kids favorites...well really cores 1 - 4 were...anyway. I used Core 1 when my kids were 7 and 8.5 and they got a ton out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy in TN Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 What is your top recommendations for a literature based, not too heavy, lesson plans all laid out program for my 6 & 9 year old daughters. I am mostly looking for literature, history & some language arts for my daughters. Anything extra added would be fine, but those are my main areas I am looking for. My current 8 year old dd is still a fairly new reader so it can't be overly advanced. I am willing to go down to a 1st grade program if necessary so they can share it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Based on "not too heavy, lesson plans all laid out" and your sig line- "Loves Charlotte Mason style homeschooling with a focus on simplicity," you may want to look at HOD or MFW. It sounds like SL may be to heavy, WP may be too complicated, and AO may not be laid out enough. However, they are all good programs!:D Mandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leslie in TN Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 :iagree: You're describing HOD to a 'T'! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chloe Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 It may not be planned out enough for you, but the book recommendations for history and literature are great. It looks very doable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle My Bell Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 Thank YOu all so much, I wasn't sure I would learn anything new because I have looked at so much but HOD is very new to me and I am now leaning towards Bigger Hearts for His Glory. Thank You so much!!! God Bless, Michelle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna T. Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 My new favorite is HOD. We'll be using Bigger Hearts next year. I'm not sure if any of the previous years would have worked for us. I really do love Sonlight. The books are wonderful. But, we need some variety and as much as we love to read (it's nothing for us to read for two hours a day), we are getting bored. It's a great choice though, especially for an auditory learner who doesn't want or need any hands-on activities. Ambleside Online is another favorite, for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tree House Academy Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Another vote for Heart of Dakota. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybear Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 I forgot this one http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com I think it fits your description quite well. I loosely follow this. If you go to their website, go to the grades you are interested in, then to the reading lists. Scroll down to see their older lists too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1GirlTwinBoys Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Heart of Dakota :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HollyinNNV Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 We are using Bigger right now. If you have any questions for that specific program, I'd be happy to try and answer. It has been my favorite program of the past nine years. Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChicoryChick Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Another vote here for HOD! :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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