Making homeschool decisions easy
Our family sponsors two children with Compassion International. It isn’t exactly a curriculum, but my family is receiving an education through it. The educational benefits are numerous: 1. Geography becomes a real, living subject rather than a flat, oddly shaped spot on a globe. Someone lives there! Someone who writes you letters! You send letters back! Geography lives. 2. The study of geography extends to
At some point last year I read about Seeds CDS. Although they received glowing reviews, I thought that at $12.98 apiece they were a bit on the pricey side. I was wrong. They are worth every single penny. Seeds Family Worship CDs contain delightful, powerful songs created using the words of scripture. The songs are sung by accomplished musicians, the arrangements are pleasant and memorable,
Our journey through time with Susan Wise Bauer’s children’s history texts, The Story of the World, brought us to the Middle Ages this year. It was quite the exciting romp: We watched as Rome fell, sat entranced as the barbarians invaded, learned about the rise of Islam, discovered exciting events happening in China, Japan, and Australia, sailed the seas with the Norsemen, established the English
Wordplay Café by Michael Kline is a set of grammar and vocabulary lessons disguised as a book of games. Truth be told, there are a few lessons that cover logic and Greek and Latin in there, too. The set up of the book itself mimics a menu at a café. There are recipes for games, brain candy (interesting word and language facts), unfortunate cookies (made up
I have fairly high standards for copywork. I like for it to be easy to use and cost effective. In addition, while I certainly care about their handwriting, I want my kids’ writing practice to consist of more than drill. I want it to provide food for thought. Of course, I really like it when the copywork complements our studies. The Master Writer Quotation Copybooks by Westvon Publishing do
Copywork should be easy. It should be related to the history lesson or pulled from the read-aloud selection. It can come from art, music, or science. It can be a statement, a poem, or a definition. Copywork should be easy, but if I do not take the time to gather and organize the passages it becomes a tedious, time-consuming problem. Most of the time, I
The GreatSource Education Group, a Houghton Mifflin Company, has produced a variety of academically useful and reliable handbooks. Chief among them are the writing handbooks, including Writer’s Inc. and Write for College. Both books are intended for high school students. They present writing in an orderly manner, complete with lots of examples. These two handbooks contain enough writing information for several years’ worth of writing
Several months ago a slim little volume caught my eye on the clearance rack at Half-Price Books. Sometimes, the clearance rack leads me astray—all of those cheap books just screaming my name—but not this time! Easy Make and Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald M. Silver and Patricia J. Wynne was perfect for our study of the human body. The cover proclaims that there are
