This past year our family was introduced to a study from Bright Ideas Press called A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers. You might already be familiar with Bright Ideas Press if you use their history curriculum, The Mystery of History. A Young Scholars Guide to Composers is a One-Year Curriculum for Grades 4-8. It is Christian based and Chronological. It…
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Primary Arts of Language: Reading
Wow. What a curriculum! Primary Arts of Language: Reading by Jill Pike of Excellence in Writing has put together a fantastic set of materials for teaching reading to your little one. Using the “blended sound-sight” method of phonics skills and sight words-based education with a playful, game-like approach, children are intended to have fun and progress rapidly at the same…
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Grapevine Bible Studies
We’ve been using the Grapevine Bible Curriculum, New Testament, & loving it! The idea is that your children draws the stories & lessons from the Bible as they learn the lessons. The drawings are simple little stick figures, but if your children are like mine they’ll enjoy embellishing them with a few extra details! They will also write and memorize…
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History Through the Ages Timeline CDs
Timelines appeal to me. They aid visual, kinesthetic, spatial, and logical thinkers. What’s not to love? Well, the work of putting together a visually appealing, cohesive, historically-accurate timeline, for one. How about the time it takes to find all of those little pictures? What about deciding which dates to include? What about figuring out how to put the thing together?…
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Loving Living Math
“From the time my children were in kindergarten, I have followed the same basic weekly schedule for math. We typically complete three textbook lessons per week and two living math lessons per week.” ~ Cindy West Cindy West’s Loving Living Math has given my family permission. Permission to learn and enjoy the real life stuff of math. See, I admit…
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Wonders of Old: Medieval Timeline App
I’ll admit that I’m very new to the world of apps. My son saved up his own money this past winter to purchase an iPod Touch. I had no idea how incredibly cool that little palm-sized piece of technology could be. When Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest and App-School asked if I’d like to review her newest educational app, I…
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Life Of Fred Books
This year my fourth grader and I are having some fun living math lessons a few days a week using the Life Of Fred Fractions book. The Life Of Fred books are quite catchy and well written for children, and they cover so much more then math! Fred happens to be a 5.5 year old little boy who’s all ready…
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Poetry for Young People
“I dwell in Possibility/A fairer house than Prose,/More numerous of windows,/Superior of doors.” Emily Dickinson, “I dwell in Possibility” Poetry is a flexible area of study. It can be studied on its own, and for its own merit. On the other hand, born of cultural, historical, and personal experience, poetry can enhance the study of any subject. For me, the trouble…
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The Ordinary Parent’s Guide To Teaching Reading
This school year I am teaching my 5 year old, Evan, to read. In my short two years as a homeschooler, I had somehow collected about 8 books to teach reading, as well as a huge boxed reading curriculum. We went through the most widely recommended curriculum with Emma, now 7, and she hated them all. Since we had such…
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Art of the Argument
By now, y’all know I love logic. Whether the more mathematical side of logic puzzlers or the more formal side of logical thinking, I’m on board (and so are my kids!) And I’m on a mission to get your family excited about this important subject. This time around, I’m reviewing Art of the Argument: An Introduction to the Informal Fallacies…
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