Just in case you're joining us for Marvelous Mondays for the first time, you can see our previous posts here: Math- Cheryl's Review Math- Kendra's Review History- Cheryl's Review History- Kendra's Review Literature- Cheryl's Review Literature- Kendra's Review English and Grammar- Cheryl's Review English and Grammar- Kendra's Review ♥ One of the best pieces of advice I received early on was to teach my kiddos to write their names with a capital letter first, followed by lower-case letters.  Most of us teach our little ones to write their names in all caps, only to have to re-teach them the correct way later.  Good idea, isn't it? We begin with Ready Writer, which has been around since before we were homeschooling. Fun little exercises like "cutting brownies" (making horizontal and vertical lines through rectangular "pans") and "cutting" zig zags with "saws".  Four to five-year-olds will get basic handwriting stroke practice, which is essential for legible handwriting. The workbook pages can be photocopied; we've had the same copy since 1995. Ready Writer isn't a complete program, but it's a fun way to develop fine motor skills. After Ready Writer we move to Handwriting Without Tears.  It is what it says- we've never had tears over handwriting practice.  Plus, we all now sing the little ditty, "Where do you start your letters?  At the top!"  Handwriting Without Tears is straight-forward and laid out in a manner that is extremely homeschool-mom-friendly.  The consumable workbooks can be handed right to the child and with a sentence or two of instruction, they are on their way. The Draw Write Now series is a classic on homeschool shelves.  These fun books which teach children to draw so many different subjects (people, animals, vehicles, etc.) are also teaching them basic handwriting strokes and then giving them sentences to copy which tell something about the drawing itself.  Children don't even know they're doing schoolwork.  Pretty tricky! I have been reading about "cursive first", the philosophy that says children who learn cursive before manuscript have an easier time altogether learning to write.  I have a friend whose four children seem to prove this philosophy, as all of them have beautiful handwriting, even at young ages. Last September I decided to try cursive first as taught by Memoria Press's New American Cursive with my second grader, hoping that she would develop beautiful cursive.  Perhaps we started too late because we haven't seen a huge difference between her handwriting and the handwriting of her siblings who learned manuscript first. Is it just us?  I'd love to have testimonials from others who subscribe to the cursive first philosophy because I'm not sure which direction to go with my up-and-coming kindergartner/first grader.  The New American Cursive book retails for 22.95, which I find pricey for a consumable workbook at this grade level. With my others who've done manuscript first, we used Classically Cursive.  If we're going to have them writing and copying as part of their education, should they not be writing and copying text with some worth to their souls and minds?  The texts used for teaching cursive in Classically Cursive are Scripture (including the Ten Commandments), the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the Attributes of God. Along similar lines are copywork books which provide useful sentences or paragraphs to copy.  We adore the Happy Scribe books, and each year I pair up the historical copywork with our history studies for our youngest students.  Happy Scribe covers a whole lot of subjects- really, there seems to be a Happy Scribe copybook for ever interest- and because you have the ability to download and save the books to your computer, the pages are a snap to print out. Similarly, we have loved the Wisdom Kids ebooks, particularly the Thanksgiving copywork book.  It is a perfect example of giving kids good things to copy, which helps to shape their worldview and thinking early on.  Who of us doesn't want to raise thankful children? Last fall our eighth-grader came to me and said, "My handwriting is terrible.  Can you get me a handwriting book?"  And I ask you, who of us is going to turn down that request from a teenage son?  I did a little investigating, thinking that simpler would be better, particularly since we knew for certain that we didn't want something overtly childish.  We landed on Getty Dubay Italic, and I've been very happy with the improvement in his handwriting, as has he. We'll leave the world of handwriting now and move on to spelling, which brings to the surface yet another philosophy I hold to.  Ready?  Spelling tests are dumb. Do we really think that memorizing a list of twenty words for a test at the end of the week is going to assure that our child will remember that "weird" is spelled with an e before an i?  I mean, really. I firmly believe that good spelling comes from word usage.  Over and over and over again, until the common words become familiar.  One of the best ways to insure familiarity?  Copywork. And then there was my fourth child, whom we call a "math-head", but who cannot spell to save her life, despite the copious amount of copywork she's done over the past five years.  Knowing I did not want to go the memorize-then-forget route, I took the plunge into Sequential Spelling and found something that made sense. With Sequential Spelling, the child studies nothing. Instead, she remembers patterns used to spell words- even after the test.  I read the word, the child writes it down and then self-corrects it immediately.  The word lists are sequential and emphasize the patterns of spelling.  I see our daughter stopping to think through words that stump her; even if she must do so as an adult, she'll have the advantage of remembering patterns taught through all seven levels of Sequential Spelling. It's been a winner of a curriculum in our home. Don't forget to stop by and see Cheryl's Marvelous Monday list here!

I am a grammar fanatic. The truth is, I just love language, whether it's English, Spanish, French... I love the feel of words as they roll around my mouth and I have favorite words that sound like musical phrases to me. Conversely, incorrect grammar grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. "I seen" instead of "I saw" is currently at the top of my grammar hit list. I am not, however, so blinded by my own love of language that I mistakenly believe that my children will embrace a grammar text with the same enjoyment I do. That's right-- I enjoy grammar texts. We began with Rod and Staff, going from Phonics to their English texts, but somewhere around second grade I decided to go with English for the Thoughtful Child instead. I can't really remember now why, but I know I learned of EFTTC from The Well-Trained Mind. I like both Rod and Staff and EFTTC, but each are quite different. EFTTC is gentle, slow, and not text-like while Rod and Staff English is gentle, rigorous, and definitely a text book format. Now, here's where personal philosophy comes into play. While I love grammar and all things word-related, I do still feel strongly that later is better for the majority of children. Certainly children need to have a basic understanding of punctuation, capitilization, and sentence structure. Those things can be introduced naturally through copywork and reading. English for the Thoughtful Child does this nicely as well, as do the Pathway Reader workbooks if you're inclined to use them with your early readers. My children have loved the Pathway series and I see good fruit in the simple, straight-forward daily exercises which cover vocabulary, word usage, spelling, phonics, and reading comprehension. We have used the wonderful series of Ruth Heller books in our Circle Time. I read a page or two depending on the flow of the text and everyone thinks of a sentence using the words we are studying (ie verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) You can see a sample of one of our son's funny drawings here. Eventually, a thorough and comprehensive study of grammar is necessary, and for that we have used Rod and Staff English, Grade 8, Preparing for Usefulness. If your student has never studied grammar formally, Rod and Staff English 8 will cover everything: parts of speech, punctuation, capitilization, sentence diagramming, note taking, outlining, paragraph construction, letter writing, proofreading, outlines, story writing, and poetry. There are copious exercises for practice and reviews every chapter. Our current 8th grader isn't a natural writer so I've had him using Rod and Staff English 8 this year. His compositions have improved in such a way that I am once again affirmed by our choice to use this text. As with my previous Marvelous Monday review on Math, I feel that Rod and Staff puts out timeless, thorough, and proven texts. We did use Daily Grams for several years, but I did not see that my children retained the information over the long haul. Again, this is where the idea that later is better plays a part; because an 8th grader in our home is writing so much for the Veritas Press Omnibus, they need to put all of this grammar study to good use. Daily Grams seemed to teach snippets out of context; there was simply a disconnect between the short daily exercises and the writing they were instructed to do for Omnibus. If you want to improve your own grammar and have a good laugh at the same time, try Spogg. And, of course, don't forget to visit Cheryl's blog to see her Marvelous Monday post, too!

Everybody Loves a Great Book

I know I just talked your ears off last Marvelous Monday when we covered history, so I promise I won't be quite so chatty this time. It sounds so nice and thoughtful of me, but really the truth is that I don't have terribly a lot to write about literature curricula because I'm one of those odd types who believes you should just READ. Forget the snippets chosen by some so-called expert and regurgitated with insipid questions in a literature text. Pick up a good book and read to your kids. Then make lists of books you want them to read by the time they leave your home and have them READ. The list I've used most over the years when deciding on good literature for our home is The 1,000 Good Books List. I also scan the Veritas catalog and the Sonlight catalog: Veritas for its solid classic picks and Sonlight for its unique Christian content, such as missionary biographies and the like. Our junior highers and high schoolers utilize the Veritas Press Omnibus curriculum, and through that they get a deep and wide discussion of literature. But before then, we simply read. Don't forget to hop on over to Cheryl's blog to see what she has to say about literature, too!

Ah, history.  I can't get enough of it, but I wouldn't necessarily have said so when I was in school.  Instead, my parents educated me far better by exposing me to historical places (we were the people who read the historical markers :) ) and great literature. In our homeschool, history is what we consider to be our "spine", meaning that we plan the year around what it is we are covering in history.  Copywork, read-alouds, dictation, movies, individual reading, and field trips are all chosen with history in mind. We began implementing the classical approach from the beginning, when at the time all we had to draw from was Douglas Wilson's series of books: Classical Education and the Homeschool, Repairing the Ruins, and Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning.  Soon, however, we were given great tools from bushwhacking classical home educators Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn.  And following in their footsteps were Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise's quintessential The Well-Trained Mind, and then the publication of the Bluedorn's Teaching the Trivium.  There are of course now many more classical education providers on the market, and for that we are so grateful. I'm getting to history, I promise!  I relay our personal educational history because at the influence of Bauer and Wise, as well as William Bennett, we have always studied history on a four-year rotation: Year One- Ancients Year Two- Middle Ages Year Three- Renaissance and Reformation Year Four- Modern Age The four-year cycle makes it possible for me to teach various levels of students at the same time.  When a first-grader joins our history study, they jump right in wherever we are that particular year.  I don't teach different historical time periods to different kids.  No way.  I expect more from the 8th grader than the 1st grader, for certain, but we all are on the same historical page, so to speak.

Walking Like Egyptians at the Rosicrucian Museum

We began with VERITAS PRESS.  Although I love their history cards, there is definitely work involved in putting the pieces together and I found it cumbersome as I was learning the ropes my first four years of homeschooling.  The curriculum was designed for the classical classroom, and it isn't particularly homeschool mom-friendly.  I still use the cards and love to display them because the artwork is lovely.  Veritas Press is like that- they produce lovely things. The real reason I decided to look for a different history curriculum my second go-around of the four-year-cycle was that I was terribly disappointed by the shift in focus Veritas Press makes in the last year from world history to American history.  I kept thinking, "So, what happened to the rest of the world???"  I just wanted something that kept our eyes on world history that fourth year. I'm not exactly sure how I found Linda Hobar's THE MYSTERY OF HISTORY, but there it was in my hands as we began our second four-year cycle.  At that time I had a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, and a 1st grader.  Immediately I was captivated by Linda's lyrical story-telling that wove Biblical and secular world history together in one long, rich, tapestry of a thread.  I found myself gasping aloud that first year of The Mystery of History; Linda would point out things I'd never known before.  She explains cultural and historical backgrounds of the people and events in the Bible, and my love of God's Word was deepened immensely that year. And the coloring pages!  Beautiful.  The artist drew several lessons all on one page and then highlighted the individual lesson- difficult to explain but really quite captivating.  You can download a sample if you scroll down on the resources page. Linda's second volume covering the early church and the Middle Ages fascinated me even more as I learned of early church history I'd never been introduced to in my 38 years of a Christian life.  Do you know who Columba was?  How about Methodius and Cyril?  Do you know why King Wenceslas was good?  These were early heroes of the faith who lived during one of the darkest times in history. Each lesson is typically two to three pages to read aloud, followed by optional activities grouped by age.  Map work, reviews, and quizzes are included, as are terrific directions each week for creating a timeline and/or memory cards.  There are three lessons per week, so there's no pressure if a day is skipped.  In fact, we only do history on Mondays and Tuesdays, and we have no trouble fitting all three lessons in each week. What I'm really loving are Linda's recordings of the lessons.  I push "play", then knit while we're listening :) And yes, only three of the four volumes are available.  Pray for Linda as she completes volume 4.

Edible Topography of India

So, what then is there to do for year four until The Mystery of History Volume Four is completed?  Well, last time around I purchased Jim Weiss' recording of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World Volume IV.  We are HUGE Jim Weiss fans in our home, and I was absolutely delighted when I learned he was recording The Story of the World. I found activities and coloring pages and maps to coincide because I am personally not fond of The Story of the World activity books.  I really wish they'd have the coloring pages redrawn.  (Good grief.  I sound snotty.  I'm not trying to be- just attempting to give you my honest opinion.) Because history is my favorite, I have collected many resources to use throughout the years.  We don't use them for each and every four-year cycle, and that helps us keep things fresh: ♥ Dover Historical Coloring Books.  These are detailed enough that even some of the older ones like to color them while listening to the recordings.  They are economical enough that we could add one or two to our stash each year. ♥ Hold That Thought Notebooking Pages When I make history notebooks for each child at the beginning of the year, I print out these notebooking pages which cover both world history and church history.  They are typically a drawing of the historical figure or event and a lined area for journaling.  Some of the pages look like newspapers, adding interest to the kids' notebooks. ♥ Draw and Write Through History I was so excited to find these two books (Draw and Write Through History Greece and Rome and Draw and Write Through History Creation Through Jonah, Volume I) at a homeschooling convention a few years ago.  They fit in perfectly with our history notebooks; the kids learn step-by-step drawing renditions of people (Roman gladiators, Moses, David) and places (the Roman Colliseum, the Tower of Babel, a Viking Long House). ♥ Amy Pak's Historical Timeline Figures Don't you just love it when homeschoolers produce beautiful products?  Amy Pak saw the need for timeline materials and then used her artistic savvy to create lovely images.  The pictures can be reproduced to any size and printed with or without the accompanying text. And much to our delight, Amy has also created fabulous unit studies called Time Travelers History Study Series.  Honestly, without a unit study that is pre-done for me with all of the printables included, I just wouldn't get around to doing the hands-on stuff as much.  At the beginning of each unit I plug into our year's history schedule the activities that we are going to do.  Pages are printed out or materials collected ahead of time (as in August) so that I don't have to think on my feet. ♥ Evan-Moor History Pockets Evan-Moor is one of the few traditional school publishers that I have really come to love, and mainly because of their "pockets" series.  Again, nicely pre-printed pages that have the kids creating and studying everything from a colonial village to Chinese lanterns.

Medieval Princess

Phew!  That was a lot!  If you stuck with me, you get an extra gold star today :)  Please also realize that our collection of history materials has been amassed over 12 years.  There are numerous resources online all for free, from lapbooks to notebooking pages to coloring pages.  Utilize Google and have fun! Be sure to check out Cheryl's Marvelous Monday post all about history resources, too.

Today marks the beginning of Marvelous Mondays.  Be sure to check out Cheryl's post on math curriculum in their home, too.

One ball

I'll let you in on a little secret:  I don't do math.  I mean, I am not in charge of the math in our home.  I help as needed and make sure the work is being done, but ultimately my husband is in charge of the math and figures out what needs to be done each year and how to go about it.  He's a maths/sciences guy (who majored in English, then became a dentist :)).  The choices we've made over the years tend to have been made with a particular child and or educational situation in mind, so realize that our list is varied because our children are varied, as well. We began with SAXON.  Straight-forward, traditional textbooks we remember having in school.  The random letters on the cover spell "Atheist" which I find odd and slightly disturbing in a brainwashing/subliminal message sort of way.  I guess the upside is that if your student gets bored, they can figure out what other words the letters spell.  ** OK, everyone, don't get all goofy on me.  I was JOKING.** Seriously, we ditched Saxon after the first two boys because it just sort of was.  Our firstborn studious-type never complained, but our kinisthetic second born needed enough hands-on help that Saxon became cumbersome. Ultimately, Saxon was designed for government school settings.  'Nuf said? We made the switch to ROD AND STAFF for the second-born when he was in 4th grade.  By that time, we had already started the third-born in the first grade series and he continued using it until this year. I really, really like Rod and Staff math in the elementary years.  For one thing, the books are rigorous and very straightforward.  I have a personal aversion to curriculum designed to look "cool", and these Mennonite published books are- how shall I put it?- decidedly not cool. Rod and Staff is also very thorough in scope.  Measurement, money, life skills, math facts, and all elementary level math skills are covered and covered and covered again. Lastly, and this may sound pathetically trite, Rod and Staff is extremely affordable.  In fact, even when the books become hard-cover texts beginning in 4th grade, we just let the kids write right in them.  The price of the hard-cover books is less than most math curricula's consumable texts. After Rod and Staff, our kids move into TEACHING TEXTBOOKS.  At this level, the student tends to need more time than I can give them, and math isn't my strongsuit.  I was one of those high schoolers who questioned the usefulness of Algebra.  To this day, I haven't used it.  Ever. So, with Dad at work all day and mom needing to focus on all the students and not just one student's tricky algebra or geometry problems, the format of Teaching Textbooks has been a perfect fit for us.  We don't have to be the teachers for upper level math, because Teaching Textbooks is a teacher and a textbook in one! The set of computer CD-ROMs contains 129 lectures, step-by-step multimedia explanations to the 650 practice problems as well as for every single one of the almost 3,500 problems in the book, plus an additional CD-ROM with complete, step-by-step solutions for every test problem. If the student gets the answer wrong, the CD acknowledges the mistake and tells the student where he was in error, then walks him through the process again.  What a relief for mom and dad! There has been copious discussion on The Well-Trained Mind Forums as to whether or not Teaching Textbooks is rigorous enough.  Seems the real math-heads don't think so.  The way we see it, if we have a child who wants to pursue something in the advanced mathematics fields, we'll turn to something college-level.  Otherwise, so far we have one interested in law, one in lifeguarding, and one in dental hygiene.  The jury is out on the rest, so we'll stick with Teaching Textbooks.

Two jammies

And then along came our sweet fifth-born.  This is the one who taught herself to read, is a natural speller, and has lovely handwriting.  Those are her strong suits.  Her weakpoints?  Math and science. Last year (her first grade year), Caroline was so frustrated with her Rod and Staff math that she cried every day.  I told my husband what was going on and he said to put the books away.  We are huge believers in "better late than early", particularly when it comes to math.  We couldn't say it any better than Harvey Bluedorn. So, away went the math books and instead, I purchased a little math game called Tip Top Tally to help her get basic concepts down.  She loved that game and begged anyone and everyone to play it with her! This year, Caroline is slowly working on a page per day of a few KUMON WORKBOOKS that were given to us as gifts. ♥

A last few things that have served us well over the years: CALCULADDER is an old stand-by worksheet drill program.  Nothing fancy about it, but easy to pull out and photocopy when a child needs extra practice in math facts.  Our copy is so old that I have all the pages in a binder, but Calculadder comes on a CD now. QUARTER MILE MATH is a great, simple, and fun math facts drill computer game that our boys just loved.  Sadly, it does not work on Macs. Finally, when Caroline was struggling with place value last month, I borrowed Auntie Lisa's MATH U SEE manipulative blocks.  She explained to me how to use them by making a "Place Value Street" and having each set live in their own little house.  An afternoon of playing this way and Caroline had place value down cold.  How's that for a stellar product review?

Three friends

Copperswife and Preschoolers and Peace are teaming up to bring you

Marvelous Mondays!

This coming Monday, March 30, Cheryl (Copperswife) and I will begin a series of reviews of  homeschool curricula.  Each Monday, until we run out of topics, we will discuss what we've used and liked, as well as what we've used and not liked, in a particular subject area.  We're not comparing notes ahead of time, and I think it will be great fun to see where we agree and where we disagree!

Every homeschool family is different.  In fact, most of us have different sorts of homeschooling needs within our own families.  Sometimes it's helpful to know what worked for another person and why, and it's just as helpful to know what didn't work and why.  What has failed miserably in my own home might work beautifully in yours!

We have no desire to sound as if we know it all, because we don't. We're hoping to encourage you and to give you a bit of help in discerning what might work for your family.

Cheryl is the homeschooling mother of 4 who began educating her daughters at home in 1989.  She is still homeschooling two sons, and just welcomed her fifth grandbaby into the family!