My Homeschool Top Ten

I absolutely love the Story of the World series. It is available in 4 volumes and activities books. It reads more like a book than a textbook, but it is very thorough for the younger grade school age child. I think it keeps their interest much better than a textbook does. Volume 1 - Ancient Times / Volume 2 - Medieval Times / Volume 3 - Early Modern Times / Volume 4 - Modern times

The artist, Amy Pak, has created a gorgeous time line collection. This product can be used for so many things. The pictures come with and without a description, so you can choose which format is best suited for your needs. They are also resizable so the pictures can be used for small timeline books or for full sheet coloring pages. We use them in our "Book of Centuries" or "Record of Time" notebooks.

The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia is huge!! It is almost 500 pages long. It has a lot of great pictures and is easy for an older elementary student to read. It gives the information in bite size chunks. It provides a lot of information about the time period and the pictures help it to stick in the students mind. This book is used in a lot of history programs because of its so thorough.

Singapore Math was originally developed in the country of Singapore.

It has a strong mental math component (unlike many U.S. programs) that is one of its primary strengths. Logical, unique strategies are taught that help students truly understand mathematical concepts. Students are then able to solve problems mentally without always relying on paper and pencil. Singapore's Primary Mathematics U.S. Edition includes additional information to teach math relative to American culture (U.S. currency, pounds, ounces, etc.).

The core curriculum for grades 1-6 is called Primary Mathematics. There are two books that are used together, a textbook and a workbook. The year is divided up into two parts, so there is a textbook and workbook A and a textbook and workbook B for each year. The B books are not different versions or harder than the A books; they simply follow the A books. There are also a variety of optional supplementary books which are not a formal part of the core curriculum which provide additional practice (we don't use these components, however).

With Themes to Remember, your child will learn about the orchestra, opera, history of the composers, their individual styles and influences, musical terms and really come to understand the music. On each CD that accompanies the book, there is the composition and a track that plays the composition with the lyrics. It is pleasant and fun.

It sounds simple but you'd be amazed at how much your child will learn effortlessly with this program by just reading the biography, learning the music terms and singing the lyrics which is just the beginning!