They didn't use spoons during the middle ages. How about serving a soup . . . with no spoon? My kids enjoyed "drinking" their soup from the bowl.

Julie, Thanks so much for taking time to answer my questions! I like some of your suggestions. It's funny . . . A few years ago when I discovered MFW, I was not interested in ECC because I wanted to stay on the 4 year history cycle. Now we're nearly finished with a full cycle of history and I find m...

I am getting ready to start planning this year and am looking for readers for my 5th grader to read for individual reading time. I would love some recommendations for books related to the time period RTR covers. I have ideas for other books, but if we could find some age appropriate related books, ...

As I read through these posts, I feel that I must share this: God did not create schools or little individual pockets for children to be raised in. He created FAMILIES! When we school our children together, they get the benefit of learning from one another. The oldest can practice what he's learned ...

How about holding a 10 minute morning meeting together? This could be the time when you kook at the TM and have your daughter make her own notes on what you want her to do that day. These middle school years are a great time to get kids used to taking notes or following a simple schedule/list. You c...

Does anyone NOT add the Jacobs Geometry and just use the Saxon? If so, did you find that the PSAT turned out okay? We really don't want to take a seperate year for Geometry. My son wants to do Alg II for 10th, with CLEP PROFESSOR and the Clep in the summer, Adv Math over 3 semesters then on to comm...

We do devote about 15 minutes per day to memory work. Our Latin program has a really cool activity book that has lots of critical thinking-type activities. My boys both enjoy doing that.

We do Math drill work, but I don't consider Math Drills an extra. I count that as part of our math time.

I have an 8 yr. old and a 10 yr. old. My boys are in 3rd and 5th grade. We're on week 5 of Exp. to 1850, so I'm certainly no expert, but I'll walk you through my day a little. We usually begin by 8:30 AM and finish by 3:00 PM with 45 minutes for lunch. We also take a morning break and an afternoon b...

The only books that come to my mind that would tie into your RtoR studies are the Hudson Talbott books: Here is his website. Click on a book to see inside: http://www.hudsontalbott.com/pages/kingarthur.html The Sword and the Stone Tales of King Arthur: The Knights of the Round Table Tales of King Ar...

If your not an artistic person, I think "Drawing with Children" would be difficult to implement. It sounds like your attracted to "I Can Do All Things" because it is more laid out for you--open and go! We don't have the videos, but my children very much enjoy the "I Can Do All Things" art lessons. "...

Here are some links: Free Lapbooks Homeschool Share: Knights - http://www.homeschoolshare.com/knights_lapbook.php & http://www.homeschoolshare.com/MTH_k...es_lapbook.php Lapbooks for Sale Live & Learn Press - http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/vie...hp?category=19 Knowledge Box Central (not TOG) - htt...

Okay, I've been diving through everything and I have a couple of questions now. The more I delve, the more I really like this program. Anyway, I have two student sheets packages; one for each girl. What do you do with them? How do you keep them from just being loose paper? Do you use a binder, or b...

We recently completed Rome to the Reformation! After we read the very last paragraph of our history assignmment, we browsed through our history notebooks (as a review of sorts) and reminisced about the hard work and fun that we had on our Rome to the Reformation journey. What a terrific year! I hope...

I found some wonderful children's videos at my library about the Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations. The videos are entitled, "Ancient Civilizations for Children: Ancient Aztec Empire", "Ancient Civilizaitons for Children: Ancient Mayan Empire", and "Ancient Civilizations for Children: Ancient Inca ...

It would be hard to pick a level to skip . . . But, if you're trying to cover your bases, then you could possibly skip CTG. Read Genesis & Exodus during the summer (maybe from a Children's Bible so you get the main stories). Take the summer to work your way through the major parts of "The Usborne bo...

A couple of pretty easy things you could do: When you add pieces to your timeline, work WITH your children to summarize/review the person or event that you're addingto the timeline. For example, if you're adding "Christopher Columbus" ask, "Who WAS Christopher Columbus?" I let my kids answer and som...

Last year I did RTR with my 2nd grader and 4th grader. Our studies started well, but around week 5 I began to feel that many of the readings were above their level of interest. I searched for alternative history lesson plans/ideas and even tried pulling my own things together. After a few weeks of "...

The Dive CD's teach the lesson on a "white board" and equip the student to do the practice problem set in the book. I think they're easy to listen to and follow. Each lesson last approx. 15 minutes. The exact lesson as presented in the "Lesson" section in the math text is not presented, but very sim...

AWESOME! Your arch looks great! Last school year we did our Roman Arch. I didn't want to buy 15 puddings, so we did the same type of activity, but we used stones and clay. Here is a link to my blog detailing what we did if anyone is interesed in an alternate activity: http://myclassicalhomeschool.bl...

My boys love to lay on the floor and just wiggle around while I read. My wiggliest (is that a word?!!) boy has certainly been known to lay over the exercise ball or bounce on the bouncey ball while I read. I often serve a snack and sit between them (if there are pictures to look at) while I read. Co...

Each of my boys have a box with one divider tab in it. Blank 3x5 cards go in the back behind the tab and the cards they've completed go in alphabetical order in front of the tab. Each day that we do a card, my boys write the Latin root on the front and then on the back they write how to pronounce it...

The longer I homeschool, the more I strive to make learning something that is just natural in our home. We certainly sit down to "do school", but I like for our homeschool to feel like home learning, not "school". We do meet once a week with other homeschoolers, where we recite the Pledge to the Bib...

We took our boys to homeschool week at Wiliamsburg last year. The weather was milds, there were lots of "special" educational activities planned, and I honestly do not ever remember thinking that it was too crowded. You can get tickets as low as $5!! You can't beat the price. We had lots of fun and ...

I started MFW last year and did RtoR with my 4th & 2nd grade kids. We already owned ICDAT, but I also purchased God & the History of Art with our RtoR package. Both books are great, but no quesiton, ICDAT is geared for younger kids. My 2nd grader is a pretty good artist and loves anything creative. ...

I wanted to do ECC for my 4th grade son and 7th grade dd this year. I was planning on doing the 7-8th supplement for dd, but I just have this feeling that since my dd has not had much world history apart from the little bit in her Abeka 5th and 6th grade books, that she should be studying history t...