Hi Rachel, It's a busy time of year, so while you wait to see if any parents of 9yos have a chance to chime in, I thought I'd share a few ideas. (1) Have you checked the two appendices in your Teacher's Manual for good literature ideas? The Book Basket list and the General Reading list? (2) Have you...

Hi Jaime, Yes, your pre-K student can join in anything that looks fun in Adventures (and later ECC). Everyone can enjoy songs, games, stories, experiments, and recipes together. Then you will teach any 2-8th grade students individually in math and language arts, and you can use Voyage of Discovery f...

Hi Dani, Welcome to homeschooling! We do have families homeschooling in all 50 states, and there have been Message Board regulars from Colorado in the past. Also, in case you haven't looked ahead yet, some of the topics you mentioned will be taught in Exploration to 1850 , including 4-6 weeks set as...

Oh, what a fun update! Daily rhythms do change over the year, don't they?! I surely hope your missions travel will open up by January. What a fun way to reinforce ECC, with a connection to real people across the globe. You have probably seen this already, but it's Marie Hazell's favorite schedule: h...

Hello and welcome back! Sounds like a busy, exciting household! Rest assured that Marie Hazell, author of My Father's World, had six children and created curriculum that works in real families. It's possible to do all (or almost all) of both programs this year, since kindergarten takes about 90 minu...

Hi Anna, Each set of paints includes four 2-ounce bottles. Typically one set of paints is enough for up to three students, so an extra set might come in handy if all four might be painting -- especially when some are young. The art program is typically for ages 6+, so you might want to look through ...

Hello and welcome! While waiting for busy families to chime in, I thought I'd keep you company :) Preschool works especially well when you want to spread activities out, if that is what you're looking to do. Many little ones do have a short attention span :) All Aboard the Animal Train has an easy s...

Another thing I’ve encountered this year that was surprising is all the summaries. I’m used to the TM kinda walking me through what to do, but there wasn’t much explanation for how to do those, or why so many. We’ve found ways to work through them together, but it was very stressful for the first h...

Sarah, Hopefully you'll get some conversation from families with 2nd graders, but I'll join in first! My youngest son had siblings who were 8-11 years older than him, and he was more mature in many ways than typical kids his age. I suspect your 2nd grader is similar, and perhaps SOTW readings will b...

Hi Beth, Your post looks lonely, so I thought I'd chat even though I didn't use an alternative history spine. I do think that, as we get closer to modern history, there are many more details that we are aware of, so it can seem like a lot. Hopefully you have at least one child in 6th grade or older,...

Hi Lourdes, Fun to "see" you this weekend. Well, I'll start the conversation, and then hopefully other families will have time to chime in with their experiences soon! Since your daughter is in 2nd grade and Adventures works for grades 2 or 3, one option would be to stop at the end of this year and ...

Ah, I should have noticed your signature -- 4 boys, what fun!

I will have to promote diagramming as a puzzle from now on
Julie

Yes, your daughter will be happy to learn that there is a unit on sentence diagramming included in Applications of Grammar. The author of Applications calls it "Sentence Design" and includes five types of sentence design, plus compounds of those designs. Diagramming continues a bit into the next uni...

Hi Beth, Nice to "see" you on the Message Board this morning! You are correct, the website is being reorganized. The hope is that it will become more intuitive, but to those of us who knew where everything was, it's an adjustment. We appreciate your feedback about an area that might be hard to find....

Hello and welcome! If your student will be 7 at the start of the school year, then Adventures in U.S. History may be perfectly appropriate. Since he is a boy with a late summer birthday, some families do wait a year to begin kindergarten (as I did with my oldest son), but others feel the child has t...

Kimberly, BJU no longer includes those Federalist Papers in their Appendix, and when we first updated the assignments to match the 5th edition of the BJU textbook, we accidentally omitted that particular change. This assignment has now been removed from the MFW Lesson Plans, but you may have a copy ...

Hi Cathy, The included timeline pieces are scheduled in the Teacher's Manual in general chronological order. They are cut out of the Student Sheets pretty much in the order they are assigned. There isn't attempt in the elementary years to space them perfectly -- you can just add the next piece when ...

Glad to hear you have a plan! The "Beyond 100" activities were new additions in 2019, and we hope families find them valuable for their students. Because they are new, your feedback is helpful and I will pass along your and your student's comments to see if we can clarify this for families. Have fun...

Hello and welcome! You should have instructions for Beyond 100 in your Student Sheets, including the bean cup activity. You are correct that a third cup would be great -- you have the 1s cup with unglued beans and the 10s cup with glued beans, and you can continue to put new 10-bean-sticks into the ...

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson referred to God and the Exodus In his second inaugural address?

Watch this 1.5 minute video from Museum of the Bible:
https://www.museumofthebible.org/book/minutes/756

“That's a Fact - Chinese Pictographs”

In this 1.5 minute video, learn how Chinese symbols for words combine several ideas that reflect Bible concepts perhaps known to the original creators of those symbols.

From Institute for Creation Research on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/129143160

Learn about the Bibles and Bible verses used by President Eisenhower when taking his Oath of Office in this 1-minute video from the Bible Museum.
https://www.museumofthebible.org/book/minutes/753

In this 1-minute video by the Museum of the Bible, you can view brief reenactments and illustrations of the battle of Gettysburg. Then learn that there are biblical themes in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, with a quote from Lincoln on the importance of the Bible. There is also a transcript underneath...

Hi Moira! A separate book, the Answer Key for U.S. History to 1877 and 1877 to the Present (BJU 5th edition) includes answers for United States History text as well as Never Before in History, Under God, and Assumptions that Affect Our Lives. This is one of the BJU materials included with the U.S. H...

I'm glad you got some real-life, experienced ideas from Dawn. Another idea for an 8th grader who is a pretty good speller is to let go of spelling and just use the vocab in science and in Progeny Press Guides for building on those skills. Most students need to work on spelling up through 6th grade, ...