Ambleside Online is a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason's classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world. Our detailed schedules,

Publishers of History Through Literature Study Guides and classic children's literature, including Newbery and Caldecott award-winners. Emphasize use of

Five floors of literature, science, media and art exhibits, and programs, in New York City.

Parents can teach their younger students through the delightful avenue of quality children's literature.

An on-line cooperative effort of several homeschooling moms to provide free but quality literature-based unit studies and resources.

Letters About Literature, the Library of Congress reading-and-writing contest now in its 26th year, is accepting applications beginning Nov. 1 for the 2018-19 cycle. For the first time, letters will be submitted electronically. Letters About Literature asks students in grades 4-12 to read a book, poem, speech or essay by an author, living or dead, to think about how that work affected them and to write to the author on the work’s impact.Click here for more information.

Kundiman fellows R.O. Kwon and Hieu Minh Nguyen will read excerpts of their work followed by a moderated discussion with poet Gowri K.Click here to watch the video.

This new research guide highlights books published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as current journals and organizational resources for researching the history of the domestication of cats and other pets.  Click here for more information.

The CLEP US History 1 exam is a 3 credit Social Sciences and History exam that covers the early colonial period of North America though Reconstruction. This was our second CLEP test and overlaps material from CLEP American Government, especially the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Supreme Court cases. Students interested in history should be able to enjoy this exam and do well. Here are the materials we used, our study method and what you must know to pass.Available materials for this exam abound and many are good but our favorites were:InstantCert (invaluable for this exam, especially the feedback section of the forum) The CLEP History of the United States I w/CD (REA) - The Best Test Prep for the CLEP Official Study Guide 2010 (makes a great final exam) Peterson's online practice exams (harder than the actual exam but excellent for study)The History Channel Presents The Presidents For this exam we used a combination of texts, videos, flashcards and a few movies from the period. Making flashcards or a power point presentation of the presidents, the highlights of each administration, and the major supreme court cases were helpful to solidify the timeline and flow of the study. Reading through the text of the REA book, while taking notes was important for the first phase of study. Next we began practice testing, starting with REA's CD-ROM tests and moving to Peterson's online tests and finally ending with the CLEP Official exam. The practice testing phase showed us what we needed to study more and Wikipedia is a good source for this because it was so easy to search for the term or person we were unfamiliar with.The major "must knows" for this exam are:Women's issues of the period Reform Movements (both religious and political) Literature of the period Differences betwen the different British colonies Presidents, their administations (along with their scandals) The Constitution, Bill of Rights, Articles of Confederation Slavery and Indentured Servitude A more detailed exam description can be found here.A suprising component about this exam was the time spent on more minor players and issues and less on major figures like Washington. If you need any more Social Science credits and don't mind a challenge think about following this exam with DSST Civil War and Reconstruction. More on that one later...