Ex Sedda – from the chair

After Miquon and Key to…® Series of materials we have settled on Singapore Math^W books as our main math learning resource.  We’ve finished with the core fourth grade work, and are mopping up all unfinished practice work along with testing.  In a few weeks we start on the fifth grade math work.  We love Singapore Math because it keeps out informational fluff and noise so prevalent in American books. It concentrates on learning information and heavy practice. Singapore Math also offers additional more challenging math book with particular emphasis on learning to solve word problems.

http://www.singaporemath.com/

We’d used Miquon Math Materials with our older daughters, who have both excelled in math ever since.  And we’ve used Miquon for our younger son.  All three started their education at excellent Our Children’s Center in State College, PA.  We’ve used Miquon to supplement their school math learning adventure.  Using Miquon children learn in almost imperceptible increments while having fun doing challenging math work.  We highly recommend Miquon Math Materials as your child’s first math learning resource.

http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml

We have chosen The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child by Susan Wise Bauer for our primary resource for learning history.  At first I was a bit afraid our son will have trouble relating to the classical world but I was quickly proven wrong.  History has become one of his favorite subjects and to a great extent this book is responsible. We also use the The Story of the World: Activity Book to point us to other resources and activities.  This book recommends further reading of specific pages in several of popular encyclopedias for kids.  We use Useborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History. Along with history our son learns geography of the areas of the world about which he is learning.  I print out maps from Blackline Maps of World History.

After looking at several other  grammar learning tools we’ve settled on Easy Grammar system.  Our son has enjoyed working through the exercises and learning much in the process.

http://www.easygrammar.com/

We started with Prima Latina but our son wasn’t particularly excited about it.  I’ve stumbled upon Getting Started With Latin at our local library. We gave it a try and it has since become our main tool for learning Latin.  The author William E. Linney has provided free MP3 audio files at his web site.  These include both classical  and ecclesiastical pronunciation, along with commentary audio file for each lesson.

http://www.gettingstartedwithlatin.com/

I’ve written a short review of Getting Started With Latin on Amazon.

After our short time with the eDCD.org,  I needed a basic structure for homeschooling. Fortunately a friend with solid experience with homeschooling recommended The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, which she had successfully used with her children.  This book gave me a quick foundation  on which to build and it has served us well ever since.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/