i was just coming over to post this very question, OP. thanks so much for beating me to the punch! the responses are really helpful!

RS E covers decimals and percents pretty thoroughly. (and DS's brain just naturally works that way! :) ) *but* having said that, it's great to hear specfically the type of topics he needs to be completely familiar with before diving into AoPS :) so it sounds like LoF decimals and percents will be a great way to brush up right before we do AoPS. :) any others with thoughts, i'm just going to record all these thoughts into my notes. :hurray:

i'm interested in hearing experience from anyone who has used SCM's Stories of the Nations (without buying their package/guide) to supplement SOTW 3 and 4 ..... would it be a nice way of filling out/adding perspective/supplementing independent reading for the olders? SOTW 3 and 4 are almost not enough info for my older DS because he's a history buff, and they are just at my DD's capability if not a stretch because she's not a huge history lover. any experience using Stories of the Nations?

is that because the content of the pre-alg AoPS is virtually the same as the LoF pre-alg? would it do just as well to do the AoPS without any continued study of Fred? so based on what you're saying, RS-E & LoF Dec/Per *need* to be finished before AoPS, or just it's a nice flow and a break? (our books won't all arrive until the late part of this week)

i posted this in the middle grade board first, but then thought i might need to post it here. we've studied Elementary Greek this year, and DS10 has previously completed Prima Latina and Latina Christiana. We have also begun working through EFTRU, though are only about 10 roots in. we LOVE languages in our house, so it's been a natural thing for us .... and delightful. i'm looking at using MCT's CE1 this year with both DS10 and DD8 (who has only had one year of latin and isn't as linguistically driven as older bro but still holds her own). we did Building Language this past year all together after dabbling in the EFTRU. we like it all. but i'm wondering if CE1 is just going to be a lot of repeat or if we're really going to grow from using it. the samples are ..... :( i don't want to waste money or time doing something that is going to feel like a repeat since he's had so much latin, but i want him to GROW in his understanding of vocabulary, since he'll be in 5th grade ..... i know everyone raves about CE1 (if they are MCT fans as we are), but i am interested in hearing whether that's coming from families who've done independent latin studies prior to that or whether that's due to the fact that CE is their first taste of the deep root connections of latin to our language.

we've studied Elementary Greek this year, and DS10 has previously completed Prima Latina and Latina Christiana. We have also begun working through EFTRU, though are only about 10 roots in. we LOVE languages in our house, so it's been a natural thing for us .... and delightful. i'm looking at using MCT's CE1 this year with both DS10 and DD8 (who has only had one year of latin and isn't as linguistically driven as older bro but still holds her own). we did Building Language this past year all together after dabbling in the EFTRU. we like it all. but i'm wondering if CE1 is just going to be a lot of repeat or if we're really going to grow from using it. the samples are ..... :( i don't want to waste money or time doing something that is going to feel like a repeat since he's had so much latin, but i want him to GROW in his understanding of vocabulary, since he'll be in 5th grade ..... i know everyone raves about CE1 (if they are MCT fans as we are), but i am interested in hearing whether that's coming from families who've done independent latin studies prior to that or whether that's due to the fact that CE is their first taste of the deep root connections of latin to our language.

does anyone have an opinion/any idea about whether the SM and TM are both needed for MCT's new Classical Ed edition of CE1? i'd love to save the money and just buy the TM ...... but not to the detriment of having what we need on hand to succeed

if you matched a level of GWG with Town Level MCT, which would you choose for reinforcement and just a bit of independent work scattered throughout the year for weeks that mom's attention needs to be elsewhere? GWG 5? GWG 6? i've looked through the scope and sequence .... just having a hard time figuring out what the best fit would be, since our kids are linguistically-bent kiddos, have complete comfortability with grammar, love to write, enjoy word play, etc etc etc. they are a delight to teach language arts. background info: my DD8 went through island level this year while also working through R&Sgrade3; DS10 did island plus a smattering of killgallon, dailygrams4, and WWE4. she will work through Town with us and do WWE alternating with IEW-AFF; DS10 will be simultaneously working through Town and alternating between WWS1 and IEW's Geo-based. in the end, i may not add any GWG to our year. i like to have a variety of things we can do, switching up the pace and giving us a break from one thing, even if it means we either don't finish all the GWG or that we take a little longer to "finish" a grade because we're enjoying learning so much. i think i'd have to buy a GWG level for each of them, since it would be independent-oriented work. (right?)

for various reasons, my husband and i have decided we want to use the following books to begin and then fill out our sons 5th grade year; i just need help with advice on which order might work ..... Life of Fred: kidneys, liver, mineshaft, fractions, decimals & percents. AoPS Pre Alg RS E (second half). i was originally thinking we will do LoF Kidneys then, for a month we will split our math time between Rightstart E and LoF Liver, continuing with that pattern until we complete Mineshaft. then, take time to nearly finish RS E but before we end completely, start into AoPS and split our math time again each week between the two. then, take a break to dabble in LoF Fractions. return to AoPS solely, supplementing with LoF Decimals and Percents as we feel the need to split our time between those two. does that sound like a good sequence. by the end of all that, we will enter RS level G, and he will be 11. He loves math. he is mathy and creative. he loves RS, he loves LoF, and he loves the AoPS vids we have watched. he's really quite agreeable and aggressive when it comes to math, so we want to feed that. (he's already also completed nearly all of HandsOn Equations level 3, having worked through level 1 and 2 with EASE during 4th grade this year, along side RS E (first half). so i'm really just wanting thoughts on the sequencing of the books i listed -- does anyone have familiarity with these enough to give advice? {yes, i've called RS, asked Horrible Ray .... based on what they've said, this is what i ascertained would work .... i just want some "advice from the field" if anyone has some! }

just interested to read any responses you get :)

i'm confused. i thought that many people who finish Island say to do Kilgallon before Paragraph Town. which kilgallon? i dunno. sentence composing for elementary? that's the one i think others have said works as a good bridge between island and town. i am similar to OP .... my children are just older. but i'm confused about the diff between story grammar kilgallon and sentence composing, so i may be adding confusion to your deliberation. i hope not, though.

i'm interested in ideas on several things: 1) if anyone meshes elements of IEW, MCT, WWE/WWS together to create a personalized mosaic of Language Arts for their kiddos in elementary and heading into middle school. {{fyi background: our DS10 is finishing off 4th grade; DD8, 2nd. we combined LA this year (for the first time) with our DD in 2nd grade to do MCT Island+IEW SWI-A and it was a phenomenal success. i still had them working in their respective WWE levels peppered throughout, and i will probably continue that same approach because DS10 is generally stronger in linguistics than DD8. to follow up on IEW for 3rd and 5th grads, i'm thinking of AFF for IEW for DD8 to follow up/reinforce SWI-A and possibly the geo-based for my DS10. we also loved MCT Island that we did altogether this year. we love it all. i want to continue on with Town after we wrap up our schoolyear (we're just reviewing/reinforcing all the great stuff we've learned this year so far until then), and i'm trying to discern how to mesh that with IEW follow up (we're not going on to SWI-b just yet and are transitioning into WWS for the older one ..... without doing too much. i don't mind dabbling in all of it, alternating weeks here and there, to maintain a balanced mosaic approach. in fact, i find the changes of pace refreshing throughout the schoolyear. but i don't want to confuse the kids as they are acquiring skills. they love it and i want to just feed their love of language/writing as best i can.}} 2) we are winding down our need for WWE4 (DS has done the entire series)..... i don't want to start WWS just yet, and i want to make use of the kilgallon story grammar or sentence composing (that i have on our shelf but have never used ) before we try WWS or Town level just for a change of pace as well as a different perspective. what kilgallon is best to prep DS10 for WWS and / or Town? 3) i was also wondering if there's anybody out there who could comment on the various components of MCT Town and whether one needs to do all of it in order to benefit, if one is using something alongside such as WWS or IEW. stated differently, if one takes an a la carte approach to MCT Town, what components would be an overlap with WWS/IEW and therefore redundant or nonessential? thanks in advance -- i love all the different experiences and perspectives one can garner on the forums!!!! :)

this is such a helpful thread! i'm going to start another thread addressing a specific problem i am trying to resolve in keeping with this 4thgrade/5thgrade transition, etc, so as to not hijack.... but i have one question for here, though: which kilgallon would be the right fit for your situation? i'm in almost the identical boat, which is the reason i ask. i have on my shelf the yellow kilgallon sentence composing (elementary) and the aqua story grammar. would either of those fit the bill? or would i need the middle school level? we've never actually done any kilgallon.

since there are no notebooking pages set up for a MOH 3 user, and since there are ABUNDANCE of SOTW3 notebooking pages both from the publisher as well as kind moms worldwide, i'm wondering if anyone has anything to say about taking a notebooking approach to MOH3.... i like the notebooking approach of SOTW etc and i have used both SOTW1 and 2 for the last 3 years. we're reading aloud MOH 3 now {into week 11} but i'm finding that it helps to supplement with audios in the car from SOTW chapters that apply and to utilize the free notebooking pages from the SOTW 2 and SOTW 3 i have found online. but i'd love to have insight from someone who just used a notebooking approach to MOH 3 alone without the supplementation of SOTW 3 chapters. since the narration prompts offered on the companion cd and the yahoo user group are not nearly as well developed as those listed in the SOTW AG, i struggle to come up with pertinent ways to get my children to reflect. they are still young {2nd and 4th}, and only the 4th grader is really an avid history buff. we expand the subject matters with literature and other corresponding lit suggestions, and we do mapping etc etc etc. i just struggle to get a good flow/ mojo with the MOH style of pretest, quiz, random activity, awkward mapping assignments and no narration prompts provided directly on a ntoebooking page. i'm not the type to design my own notebooking pages and as such have just adapted the beautiful pages of SOTW from other moms to the MOH so far. is there anyone out there who can offer a little perspective or advice? i switched to MOH partially for a change of pace, and partially so that there was more content to read aloud without *having* to get books from the library each week. but now i found myself so accustomed to the flow and format of the SOTW that i don't feel like i am fully benefiting from using the MOH. :confused::confused: also, has anyone done an approach to history plans like carmen did with ancient explorations? has she continued making history plans for the subsequent SOTW volumes?? yes, that's a slew of questions. i just can't seem to get my brain wrapped around it. thanks for advice! :bigear:

we're going to use Galore Park So you Really Want to Learn French. I seriously considered the alex et zoe. you may find it more appealing to you.

does anyone have a recommendation for a place to purchase alex et zoe stateside?

:bigear:

:bigear:

well, here's how it's played itself out. DS (9) has worked through level 1 and part of level 2 of the iPad app for HoE. he LOVES IT. i have on order the manipulatives and the verbal word problem book. because i found a few errors in the level 2 app {while working through it alone} and emailed them, they are sending me a free code for level 3 when they put it out {in a month or so}. we will continue working through the levels with that and then when he's completed it, he will work on a verbal word problem one/day or three / week or something like that. we will continue working through level E of RS, though the first 1/3 of the book will be done independently as review because of his solidarity in those concepts. after that, we will resume our normal tutor-time in math and will spice up level E with a smattering of MEP yr 7. i want him to be working through some crewton ramone vids as well. haven't completely worked out in my head how i will utilize that resource during our math instruction time. after we complete RS - E/MEP yr 7/HoE, we will re-evaluate, but i'm pretty sure i will use RS G in conjunction with the Video Text. perhaps i'll let him dabble in AoPS before that, but the video text is really geared well with RS-G from everything i've read. hth. i'm working on building in a bit more algebraic thinking into my daughter's RS year in C utilizing MEP yr 3. i'm concerned about trying to double up, so i may abandon all of that and just use things like balance benders. she'll begin working through the BTS from critical thinking as well. i'm not certain whether i'm going to like MEP yr 3 much. we'll see :) i also don't know whether it will work to do RS C parallel with MEP yr 3 or if i'll need to spend a chunk of time in one followed by a chunk of time in another. since i've already taught RS C to my son, i feel more comfortable fiddling with it and adding in supplemental diversions along the way. :)

:bigear:

thanks for doing this style curriculum review on here. i'm happy to benefit from your experience :tongue_smilie: we're in AAS 5 with older DS and AAS 3 with DD. i have settled in my mind what we're doing for 2012-13 year but like to always have an ear to the future plans i will enact, because sometimes DS races ahead {accelerated learner} and i need to have my ducks in a row. PZ is definitely what i would go to if AAS stopped working for us with him ..... so, i'll be tracking along :)

well, i've posted similar questions on the RS yahoo group, the living math yahoo group, and the MEP yahoo group since my OP. i've received a lot of great tips and help. one question remains unanswered .... how might one integrate crewton ramone with a math diet of HoE/RS(E)? and also, does anyone have any comparison of using BA v. MEP {besides cost, obviously} for a 7.5 yr old who just needs some variation in her math diet?

:bigear:

she's completed the fourth volume but it's in revision/production process (which i would imagine includes the formatting/layout of both the student reader and the supplement material). if you subscribe to the MOH yahoo group, you can find out all the details. but i know for certain that the writing portion of her work is complete for level 4. we're currently using MOH III and i haven't bothered to get any of the mp3s yet since they aren't complete with music. it's my understanding that MOH I and II mp3s must have music or something? we haven't ever used those .... that's just my impression. hth

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