my head is still spinning

My husband and I raced to Oshkosh for the WPA curriculum fair last night.  We only had an hour to browse and find everything we needed and barely made it!  If you have ever thought about homeschooling, I highly recommend this fair!  The fair is going on all weekend, but now there is an admission fee.  Last night was the only free night.
Wow.  We checked out Sonlight curriculum, which I have heard amazing things about.  It looked pretty cool and is all planned out for you, but you pay a pretty penny for it!  It would have cost us over $1000 for next year for Char.  Not gonna happen.Sonlight Curriculum: Introduction to American History: Part 1 Core 3 Instructor's Guide
Then we looked at some other complete sets, not even worth mentioning.  We finally stopped at Cornerstone's booth.  Wow.  They have an impressive knowledge of homeschooling.  For those of you who may not know, Cornerstone is located in Madison on the East side (in an office building behind the new HyVee).  They are family owned and operated.  They are a great source of knowledge and willing to give genuine opinions (not just out to make a buck!)
Here's the info I loved from them...
For foreign language, they prefer TellMeMore over Rosetta Stone, but not until age 11 or so.  Unfortunately, TellMeMore does not make a Mac version... :(

For Science, I adored Real Science 4 Kids.  Wow.  They have a great series.  Each book is meant to cover 4 years and you can buy a lab manual with worksheets to go along with it.  The author was a chemistry instructor and gets kids learning about molecules right away.  She also has a set for Biology and Physics as well as books to relate these subjects to critical thinking, the arts, philosophy, etc.  Very, very cool.  My husband majored in Chemistry and Math and has a PhD in nutritional sciences and he loved this series.

For History, I liked The Story of the World.  This comes with a text book, an optional testing guide (this would work well as a workbook too) and a teachers guide with reproducible coloring sheets, worksheets and activities.  This seemed to be a well rounded set that again covers roughly 4 years worth of material.






The other cool booth we saw was teaching textbooks.  They have a math program that teaches a lecture on the computer and then has problems for the child to complete.  This seemed like a pretty cool idea, especially as your child gets into higher math and you skill might not quite be up to snuff.  Right now it's a bit extravagant for us, but would be great for anyone looking for a quality math program with great resale value.

The final info we found was for some free websites.  I have not had a chance to peruse them yet, but here they are:
www.livemocha.com - great for keeping up your foreign language skills
www.freerice.com - for vocabulary building
timez attack - for multiplication drills  (we just tried it today.  awesome!  everyone was gathered around the computer cheering Char on.  The drills are very repetitive, but time sensitive, so the pressure is on.  i loved it!)

I can't wait to start using this stuff!