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.

Audio Memory Work Links

I love audio. The Colm Cille Club cd is clearly the best. My kids can't get enough of the song about the American Presidents. Slick Slack reciting the poetry in a Mrs. C accent, well, it's just brilliant.

At a book club this afternoon where the kids are presenting about St. Dominic, I learned about another great audio source: Audio Memory. Am I a new homeschooler eager yet judicious, wise and frugal, or did I just buy it?

https://www.audiomemory.com/geography.php

Added to cart. Yes, I did.

My husband will be so happy. Another ~few~ songs for the car.

Mrs. K

Setting up memory work at home

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with how to cover all of the wonderful material we're trying to do in Colm Cille Club. I happened upon this blog post with some ideas from someone who attends a Classical Conversations program. (This is one in a series of 5 posts she did on organizing memory work, so you might check out some of the other posts as well.)

Organizing Classical Conversations at Home

Using some of these ideas, I set up this on a wall in our basement.

Memory Work wall

My hope is that we will all be able to review a little bit each time we walk by. I have noticed Pasquale periodically stopping and reading what's posted. Hopefully it's sticking! I don't have Latin up there, but may add it. I also have the timeline on another wall.

That's all for now!

Labels

Here are some ideas for labels, so that future generations of CCC moms (or, us... when we have memorized so much information we can no longer remember anything else) can look for helpful tips.  If your post doesn't fit into any of these, no label is fine, too.  Comment below with further suggestions if there is something we might post about regularly I missed.

Homemaking
Pre-school
History
Geography
Poetry
Grammar
Music
Science
Math
Timeline (for the videos of the signs)
Scripture
Catechesis
Teaching Memory Work
Other Homeschooling (in case someone wants to post about their phonics or math ideas, etc.)
Year One
Year Two
Year Three

So, as an example, if I found a great history resource for Ancient History, I might write a post up about it and label it History, Year One.  Down the road another mom could click on the label "Year One" and get all our notes and ideas.