We are using Level D this year with my oldest, but I am excited to see how the condensed versions work. I am thinking doing B/C Condensed next year for my middle daughter.
My son hated those landmark books so much. We stopped using them after awhile. If you are able to, I highly recommend The Great Horn Spoon on audiobook. 😊
Thank you for the recommendation! There are definitely some books that are better on audiobook! I liked the Washington one, but the other one... not as much. But my kids haven't gotten there yet.
Thank you for your question. I do talk a bit about that in my upcoming video on how I'm combining Bookshark with Beautiful Feet Books this year, but, essentially... I read all of our "history text" read alouds during our school day, along with one other read aloud (could be the read aloud from Bookshark, or could be a read aloud from another curriculum like My Father's World). Then, I will often have a read aloud going in our car (any books that I have heard might be better as a read aloud or ones that we are supposed to do, but maybe I've read to them before and I don't want to read again :). Then, I choose a read aloud that might be a bit lighter or more "fun" to do as a read aloud in the evening before bed (we get to this about 3-4 times a week). Finally, I also often have one that I might play during lunch time (this one has usually been just a fun story that might not be a part of our curriculum, but I wanted to check out). My kids do not have long attention spans and, yet, I LOVE the literature based approach. So, even though I might not actually be able to get through a whole chapter with their attention spans, this method of having multiple read alouds going throughout the day helps us get all the books in that I want :) Next year, I will have even more subjects that are literature based and I'm hoping that with these strategies, we will be able to keep up! But, if we have to, we can skip some books or move some books into the summer.
Bookshark has a lot of levels starting at Pre-K. However, I would say that you can easily use it to span 3 grade levels (and in my case, I'm using it for 4). This particular level is recommended for kids ages 9-12 (and my kids are 9-13 currently).
So, to add to that, you usually want to gear the level you pick for your youngest child (not so much the oldest) due to possible mature content. I would not do this level with a preschool child.
