It'd be great if it were Christian based. Something I could read to the kids, that maybe had questions at the ends of chapters just to see what they remembered.

umm...

either Sonlight or Story of the World. We've been using SOTW along with the activity guide (which has additional books for library, activities, comprehension questions, etc). We have really liked it.

I just got Sonlight 3 to use for our next school year (it will start in May). Weh ave used Story of the World 1 and 2 - so Sonlight 3 is right where we would be in SOTW - Early American History. If I were starting without having done SOTW before, I would do Sonlight Core 1 or 1+2. The main difference is that Sonlight lays it out for you and includes all the readings. With SOTW it doesn't have a schedule to it, and you can get the Activity Guide if you want, to give you the additional ideas to use.

There is also www.bfbooks.com This is Beautiful Feet Books... and it looks really good, too. They use SOTW in their plan. Check out their website and look at one of the sample lessons. They are not as structured/scheduled as Sonlight, but they do offer readings for different age levels, which is cool when you are teaching children of varying ages/reading abilities.

I don't think that you could be wrong if you choose one of those. Those are the 3 we were looking at (along with Veritas Press, good, too!) and I realized it didn't matter which one I chose, because the kids would be getting awesome History with any of those options... much much better than I ever got!

There are probably more out there, too, that would be just as good. It is really difficult deciding, isn't it?

We're just about to start with Story of the World and I really like it. It goes through the history chronologically and if you buy the activity guide it has review questions as well as different activities that you can do to really make it sink in. It's supposed to be used for grades 1-5 I think.

Sarah

Another rave for SOTW. We just love it. The kids listen to the cds for the fun of it. Today I randomly chose Chapter 24 and asked ds the review questions and he got like 90% of them correct. Which to me is amazing retention when you consider I don't think he had listened to any of the cds within the last 7 days much less chapter 24 itself.

We have the cds, book, and workbook. And honestly, we don't use the book at all.

We love SOTW, too. My niece is visiting, and she likes it, too - it's the only part of the "official" HS stuff we do when we have guests. The kids think the stories are actually interesting. I think the questions are thought-provoking, but on an appropriate level for their ages.

We use it too while we have guests and friends over. The other day I read a couple of chapters to Austin and his friend while they were here. He is also doing SOTW, but is on book 1, we're on book 2. He enjoyed it and actually had some more insight to offer. ;) I also realized just how antsy Austin is... this other kids was actualyl sitting and listening. Austin was up and down and running around and doing other things. But... Austin was listening, too, just a MUCH different way of listening. sigh... I could do without the active listening! lol