Books and Resources

As autumn comes to a close, I thought I'd return to this space and share a few things that have been working around here.  Last week several moms gathered and shared ideas and suggestions for working with the curriculum and homeschooling in general.  It was such a fruitful evening, and I was reminded of my hope that this space might be a place to share those ideas, albeit without the wine and chocolate!

With labels by year (this is Year One of our 3-year cycle) and subject, the resources we share now can continue to bless moms who join us down the road.  The blog is not password-protected, but it is unsearchable. 

We have enjoyed some fun supplementary reading this fall in addition to The Heroes of Israel in the Schola Rosa suite. 

My kids really loved the Gilgamesh Trilogy by Ludmila Zeman as we studied the Ancient Sumerians.  The story is well written and the artwork is beautiful.  The borders of the pages show cuneiform design and characters.

As we studied Ancient Egypt the kids really enjoyed Ancient Egypt: Tales of Gods and Pharaohs.  It is a fun book, and although its busy, cartoon-strip style isn't my favorite to read aloud, the kids loved it.  It covers all of the Pharaohs mentioned in the timeline, as well as some basic Egyptian mythology.

We also read Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean, a short novel about a young boy working for Pharaoh Akhenaten.  It provides a very good picture of Egyptian life and beliefs, and uses the tension between the traditional Egyptian polytheism and Akhenaten's monotheism as the dramatic focus of the story. 

We are also reading A Child's History of the World by V. M. Hillyer.  We are a little behind the history memory-work, and I find that his concise, simply-worded summaries are a great way to remind us of what we have been studying.

We use the timeline figures from www.homeschoolinthewoods.com to create a wall timeline, and I have been using some of them with my 4th-5th grade class at co-op as well.  They can be printed in a variety of sizes, including a full-page coloring sheet.



My girls love completing the Latin Root word searches that Sandy shared with us last week.
 
I have always used Start Write software to create handwriting worksheets for my kids.  Since I didn't love the sheets provided by Schola Rosa, I have continued making my own, and I think this has really helped our poetry memorization.  Basically, on Sunday night I print out four copies for the week, and they copy the week's poetry memorization every day.

I also like the geography quizzes at www.lizardpoint.com.  They don't include everything on the CCMemory lists (deserts, for example!) but are a great quick and independent way for the kids to review countries and hydrography.

I supplement our math with the fact drills at www.xtramath.org, and on Ursula's recommendation just ordered the first book from the Life of Fred series.


So, what's been working for you?  I have already enlisted Sandy to do a post sharing all of her great music history and listening resources.  Share in the comments or send me an email and I can add you as an author to the blog.