I've created these activity sheets for LR file. We laminated ours and then use them as a cookie sheet activity we can take in the car, church, Dr. Office and something to work on while mommy cleans the toilet. We use magnets, pom poms, mini checkers and dry erase crayons (do not take dry erase crayons to church - they will write on the church pew fabric. FYI) to cover the dots, smileys, and fingers.

The first file is a an image of the number 5 sheet. The second file below is a zip file of all the sheets. I couldn't get the "add a download" to work, but will try to add them later.

Our local school district is rated one of the best in the state. Well, they give the kids the questions to the tests so that they remain one of the best on test scores. It's depressing.

I wouldn't want to be a teacher in this climate where children do not have to take responsibility for their actions and parents will usually defend their children when their children are rotten little buggers. However, there are some very rotten teachers out there as well.

The thing that is going to make this all blow up is homeschooling. Eventually there will be enough homeschooling & private education families that are getting hammered with property taxes they will eventually demand a change to the whole system. The public system is going to have a hard time justifying it's existence when the cost is as much as a year at college and they can't turn out literate adults after 13 years.

Now for Little Musician. It is not going to hurt at all. Soft Mozart - we started at 18 months. But Little Musician was not out yet. If I were to do it now I'd say wait on Soft Mozart till around 2. But that depends on your child.  I have a little girl who just started in my daycare - she is using the program well enough at 18 months. She needs lots of help - but is doing fine. We already have it, so she might as well use it. I might wait a couple more months if I were purchasing it. My son is almost 2 1/2 and he can use it but has a hard time not just banging on the keys. And he loves music. And he can play if he feels like it. It will depend on your child. You might want to pick up a cheap keyboard ( thrift store or dollar store) and put the SM sticker icons ( you can find a file in the file sharing section of the SM forum with both the colors of Little Musician and SM) icons and just say the notes do, re , mi, etc. Once your child can consistently press the keys then get the program.

We love both programs. They go very well together.

I found this on YouTube. This young man, with Down Syndrome, is very talented. I think, we should be expecting way more from both our special needs and "normal" needs kids. I'm not sure I know what either of those terms really mean, I know what they have come to mean, but I'm not buying into the distinctions much anymore.

This video is from when this young man was still a boy. His later video's are very impressive. Please watch them and like them as well. There aren't many comments left for him, I think we should be encouraging things like this.

  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/H7SPEXwuHrE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/H7SPEXwuHrE&rel=1</a>

Very interesting article. My state gets an F:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/education/studentsfirst-issues-low-ratings-on-school-policies.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

I paid the $150 price. It's been 49.95 for several months now. Maybe 6 or longer.

Mela Bala,

The free MP3's end, but the set is always $49.95.  And if anyone is thinking about doing it, we've discussed these guys on other threads - you can get the books free off the net, but Yesterday's Classics and the Baldwin Project have reformatted the texts. They are beautiful copies and you can download a free book to see for yourself. I paid over a $100 for this set with fewer books in it. It's a great deal and we use the books all the time.

Found on Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l2736&_nkw=TWO-BOOK+COURSE+IN+ENGLISH+

both volumes in different publication dates, multiple copies.

I couldn't find it anywhere else.

However, www.forgottenbooks.org has a copy of both volumes you can download 5 books free as a PDF. They didn't retypset them,, but the copies they used seem pretty clear. I printed out the first couple pages and it seemed ok. But you should check it out yourself.

Let me see if we have it, and then I'll run a couple checks on the usual suspect websites and get back to you.

Nee1,

Sorry I misunderstood. I don't know of any that have that one. I looked on Gutenberg and it wasn't there. Sometimes it is worth it to print it out and then have it bound at Staples/Kinkos or something like that. I will keep an eye out for it. What about a used copy or the original. I have had great luck with a wonderful text we used in 7-9th grades called Sentences and Thinking. The copies were pretty good and usable. That is the only option. I looked on amazon and there weren't any reformatted texts available.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

All of these are free. Check on the right sidebar and click categories. You will find a Children's bookshelf and an education bookshelf.

Also: http://www.dollarhomeschool.com/  is another one. The books come on CD, there might be a download not sure. I've not used them, but have considered purchasing it.

Nee1,

I think you've done a great job of distinguishing between CM and most of what I'll call the Neo-Classical movement. However - let me say that if you follow the WTM your child is going to get an excellent education. There is nothing wrong with that method of educating - it far surpasses most of what is out there. I have hesitated giving too much detail about Charlotte's philosophies as they can easily be misunderstood and presented wrong - especially by me. It is important that parents read her original works.

I've mentioned before that I don't buy Dorothy Sayers version of the trivium. Most children are not memorizing machines as long as she thinks they are. My first would only tolerate the brute memorization as a general mode of learning till he was 6. Right now my toddler loves it. And I find I can input lots and lots of stuff now and he loves to regurgitate it all day long. We'll do this as long as he will let me in the form of songs and games, but then we will use it as a method only as needed in connection with real learning.  ,

As far as the graduation of knowledge - you'll have to explain that better so we are on the same page. When it comes to history there are a couple of cycles of history so she is building on former knowledge and we do it all the time. However, she doesn't advocate shoving in disconnected facts to use as pegs later on. She would be mortified at the thought of teaching toddlers the periodic table of elements so that when they come across it later they can build on it. (This does not mean I think you should or shouldn't teach your toddler the periodic table). You will not find first year students memorizing the preamble to the Constitution either. Those are ideas that should be taught in context. The graduation of knowledge as I understand it is the heart of education. You give as much information as a child can understand at this age and then introduce more the next time - not just repeating but repeating and building.

CM will provide you with depth and rigor. The fact that she eases a child into the curriculum path doesn't mean that it lacks depth. The progressive nature of narration for many children is enough to make them excellent writers. I'm not sure I like spending 6 years on nature study. That is why we are combining Nebel with our studies. This will cover all the sciences. Also, as far as living books for science that is all in one I don't have one. Our library is great and my house has so many that I haven't needed to worry but I am sure someone knows of something. However - www.yesterdaysclassics.com is one of my go to resources for older living books. The science books are wonderful and while it isn't just one book, the are all delightful. You can get most of these free of the internet. However, YC and the Baldwin project haven't just scanned these from the originals, they have been re-typeset and the formatting is terrific on a e-reader. Plus there aren't all those strange characters that show up on the scanned versions. Plus they are cheap, super cheap when you purchase the entire collection. Like $50 or something for over 200 books. I paid over $100 for them and there weren't as many books in the collection. I haven't been sorry. I enjoy reading them.

One last note, just so nobody is confused, when we are talking about abridged versions of works, we are talking about an abridged "Alice in Wonderland" or a Charles Dickens novel or you'll often see Children's Illustrated Classics. That is not the same as Lamb's or Nesbitt's Retelling of Shakespeare, or Sutcliff's "Black Ships Before Troy", or Alfred Church's "A Children's Homer".

Not commenting on the spanking part as Tamsym did a fine job already.   

Nee1,

I am going to paint with broad brush strokes here so please don't take any of this as a concrete statement. Charlotte would not approve of Early Learning. However, I suspect with some of the new science she might change her mind as she agrees that learning in the early years should be in the form of games and play. What most of us are doing is in the form of play and games - no pressure and hopefully with lots of cuddle time and laughter. Most of us are not doing EL at the expense of sending our children out to play in the dirt.

Someone pointed out that the school day is short in a consistently CM environment. That does leave the afternoons for the development of other interests. From experience - if you are homeschooling and develop the habit of attention early (preventing the dwaddles) - school isn't going to take all that long even with acceleration in certain subjects. Especially if you plan to go year round. You are going to have many unfilled hours in the day for specialization.

My 2 year old has developed an obsession with music and conducting. Right now he spends 3-5 hours a day practicing the violin, piano, listening to music, pretend conducting and studying and copying the movements of conductors we watch on YouTube. He sleeps about 13, so that leaves another 6-8 hours in his day. We spend another 1-2 hours, depending, on reading, math and Latin. Most days it is closer to 1 hour than it is to 2 hours.  We also read a lot - maybe one to two hours. That leaves 4-6 hours a day in play and free time to explore. Most children can finish their schooling in 3-5 hours. This includes HS, provided you get rid of all the busywork. If your child is sleeping 9 hours, does chores for an hour, and school for 5 and is outside/nature study for 3, and 2 is spent eating that leaves you with five hours left in the day. K-6 you will be spending about 4 on school most days. We have never spent an hour a day on chores - more like 20 minutes during the week and and hour or two on Saturday.

Early specialization can be a problem if you don't expose your children to other things. But if you round out their education with other subjects, I think that is fine. Part of the joy of starting so early is that your are getting so much of the difficult learning out of the way before your children even realize that there might be something to "fuss" about. There needn't be any tears over learning to read as there was never a time when they weren't reading. When your child is five they will think they were born reading. They won't remember learning. That saves several years which your child can then take that time and do other things - like what they are passionate about. Or reading more books. or jumping ahead in math, you get the point. I mentioned somewhere else that EL throws the whole timeline off. Partly because you are saving time upfront to be spent later but for those who are homeschooling, your child will have always spent a large part of the day learning. There will be little to fuss over - if it was done with happiness and good cheer all along. This will save hours and hours of wasted time later. Plus they learn faster. My toddler starting spewing out math facts this week and showed me that he knows quite well how to add and subtract numbers. All this time I thought it was going nowhere, he is filing it all away in his little brain to be pulled out later. We spend no more than 15 minutes a day directly on math. All this to say that I don't think this has to be an either/or but a both/and.

Charlotte used Da Vinci as a great illustration, however, there are very few Da Vincis in the world. The likelihood that I will have one by broadening my child's horizons in quite small. But, I can make sure my music obsessed child gets a full education in addition to being music obsessed. I think he will be a better musician if he gets a full classical education.

Please don't take that the wrong way. I mean the method of BK/Early Learning gets us the label of being pushy and I'm not sure a mainstream organization is prepared to hook up with something like this yet as they would get a lot of flack for pushing the children too hard. That is all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html?ref=opinion&_r=2&

This is a very sad article about illiteracy here in the US and the system that promotes dependency. EEECF and Save the Children might want to consider joining hands. Though I fear that BK might be too "pushy" to be accepted yet.