Just suppose I know nothing …..

Hi, Brooke! You know more than you think you do and you can do this! The Lord of Heaven and Earth chose you to be the mother of your children and He doesn’t mess up!

OK, for starters, I really can’t tell you which module to begin with. I don’t know what your children need. If you don’t know yet, go to your dh and your Father and ask for their help and input. One, or both, 🙂 of them might have guidance for you.

As for module 1–which module 1 are you looking at? The original one, or the revised? Do you already have the wonderfully helpful “Genesis Through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt”? I think this would be a TERRIFIC help for you if you begin here. You can find this great resource here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/genesis-deuteronomy-ancient-egypt/

Whichever book you choose, you put it in the Organizer and it just pops up the next thing. Have you read Sonya’s helps on scheduling? I found her discussion of how to know how many times a week you want to schedule a resource to be very helpful. For example, if you want to read your history spine 3 days a week, then you decide which days–say, M, W, F. On Monday Chapter 1 pops up. You read that chapter, and check it off. Wednesday, Chapter 2 pops up. ORR if you are only reading part of the chapter at a sitting, on Monday Chapter 1 pops up. You read six pages and put in a bookmark. You check “working on” on the Organizer. Then on Wednesday, chapter 1 pops up again and you read another six pages.

Tell us which module you are most interested in, and whether or not you have “Genesis Through Deuteronomy”, check out Sonya’s planning material (You may find it very helpful to invest in the complete book) and we can help you do this! Here is the link to the SCM blog, which contains Sonya’s entries on scheduling and planning: http://simplycharlottemason.com/home/blog/

Well, you aren’t going to have too much trouble with the ones on Module 1, there aren’t too many. LOL Just for “what if’s” let’s say if you are in Revised Module 1, and you want to know if “Growing Up in Ancient Egypt” will work for your family. First off, click on it in the Curriculum Guide: You see that it is 32 pages, in print, and recommended for 2nd-4th grades. That looks good to you; you have children in that age bracket and you wanted another book. You can immediately from the page in the Bookfinder check to see if it is at your library–if so and you want to know more about it, by all means, go look at it. If not, or if you want to stay home, look it up on Amazon.com From there, you can read customer reviews, and even search inside many books! This one you can, so you can look it up and see the table of contents and sample pages from inside. Then you can make your decision. Another good place to go is http://books.google.com Some books you can look inside there; this particular example does not have a preview there.

Another thing to do is ask other homeschool moms! Ones you know, or moms on an email list here here. You might ask what a favorite book for elementary children on Egypt is and get lots of responses! I would tell you, for example, if you were asking about Egypt, to absolutely NOT miss “Boy of the Pyramids” and that I really liked for spines “The Story of the Ancient World” from Nothing New Press and that I have a pretty good substitute available on Google Books for if those chapters are too long for the attention span of your younger children. 🙂 Other moms can chime in with their favorites and you can do the same process above for books that really interest you.

Hope this helps! Keep asking questions until we hit on something helpful! LOL

Michelle D