Ugh, to teach science.. the leverage point for me was when I realized that *I*, the teacher, have to be interested in the ASPECT of the science that I want my kids to learn. When I realized that, I scanned for things I always wished to know but haven't learned, like parts and functions of the human body, it's bones, it's glands, it's lymph system, it's brain.. and started our journey from there. Being interested in it myself enabled me to connect with the books, dvds, you tubes, activities, textbooks and anything else that could support my *interesting* subject. Following my own interests have given me the necessary *pegs* on which then I was able to hang new knowledge and more importantly, it allowed me to foresee what pegs my students needed, plus have given me the insight into how to *install* these pegs in them. So based on this line of thought I would say: first DEFINE the parts of science that YOU want to learn, those subjects you are eager to catch up on, from the whole sea of science. And from there it's a little easier to navigate. If you'd steer to this place, then from this place you will experience a spell of materials in your direction.. sometimes it will feel like stuff just falls into your lap. The right stuff. Your *alignment* will kind of create a vacuum that keeps filling. Your choice is supported by *nature* and what is needed is provided. (However, some of the time you/I/someone will still have to dig; to be actively seeking for the materials.. while also keeping strong intention on finding them..) I discovered that when I go by my heart, first I figure out what aspect of science I want to know, I then evoke some interest in my boys, and science becomes a *private-self-directed* journey. Untangled and un-confused by the sea of available curricula. Sounds enjoyable.

bbcooker, thanks! (I enjoyed writing the above post while my dear students worked on their Writing With Skill *marathon*. Someone in these threads wrote that, "your children will respect you better if you'd announce that you are working on your medieval poetry book." I tried this line because I needed them to concentrate, and.. it worked. BUT, I have obligated myself into writing *poetry*.. it was then that I took up your post, and started typing.. just to look busy.. then they read it, wanted it published and now they are waiting for the medieval poems..) This is an anecdote to explain how unimposing my answer to your question is going to be, and to give you idea where my *advice* as a home educator is coming from. I've found your question a bit hard to answer and it definitely forced me to think (and took me a long time).. so how am I doing the corrections? The answer is, I try to stay true to myself (when checking and correcting) while also training TO the *level* of the student. I can't ask of the child things he didn't learn yet. So, based on that I'll say that it depends on what your kids, each one, already have learned about writing, grammar and spelling, and that's the level you should *demand* and the level you shall correct to. Another aspect of *my* correction procedure is that I have the child read his work to me (because I can't decipher it :ack2:), then he stands by me while I correct spelling and gross grammar mistakes (with a red pen, and basically, just capitalization, punctuation and complete sentences at this point). Then he goes back to his seat with his paper, erases (he writes in pencil) and rewrites correctly. If the handwriting is really, really horrible and the paper looks very sloppy he ends up copying his corrected work! But all I insist on at this point, are spelling, gross grammar mistakes and handwriting. (We have not learned yet how to format the text.) I see myself, the home educator, as an acrobat doing my own balancing act.. I have to figure out my *equilibrium point*. On one hand, I have to demand the maximum from the student. On the other hand, this maximum has to be the maximum that *this* student CAN deliver. So, the demands have to be *within* reason. Student should apply as much of what he has already learned, but, at the same time, it is wise, not to expect that he'll submit absolute *perfection*. After all, learning (anything, writing included) is about the process, the addition of a *sliver* of newness, a *slice* at a time, not so much about producing perfect products. There is a trap here. It is a sort of "to be or not to be" situation, it IS and it IS NOT a compromise, on the part of the educator. There is sort of a compromise hidden in the "what to require, what to accept, what to reject from a student". But it is a necessary compromise for keeping the balancing act. Every mom has to find HER *equilibrium point* where she feels good about how she *occupies* her stand as an educator or she'll loose the act (she'll go crazy, or have to *outsource* the teaching). That's more or less how I do it, and I am a barefoot cobbler some of the time..

The excerpts! The great literature choices, starting in level 1 and for us all the way through level 3! This to me was THE number one, utmost important aspect of WWE and I developed a strong liking to the book and trust toward Mrs. Bauer because of how her choices hit my heart. I gleaned MOST of our readings from these writing lessons. Her carefully chosen literature pieces aimed a direct cupid arrow at my students' hearts and I am grateful for that. I decided to home school having, really, no qualification to do it, at a great disadvantage not being born nor raised in the U.S., having absolutely no formal English language *arsenal*, no deep knowledge of this culture, no familiarity with school system requirements, and these lessons allowed me to start as IF I have a grip and a well established foot in the language. Through it I have succeeded to position myself in the heart of the *able* who can teach their kids! This program, which appears simple, has put fortified foundation at our feet. HOWEVER, if your child can narrate well verbally and in writing, and YOU are.. familiar and comfortable with the English language to such a degree that you can pull out great dictation pieces to demonstrate grammar points out of magnificent books on your own, let's also say that you are already very educated yourself and have enough familiarity with the classics to choose your students readings and if you are also resourceful regarding teaching methods, organized enough to put together your own lessons then hey, you will do great without this seemingly *monotonous*, simple curriculum.. I say seemingly because it can feel and look this way until you do the whole journey, collect your pearls along the way and look at the results on your kids standardized tests. And in the end all I really want is to ENCOURAGE you to do what's RIGHT for YOU. Omit, replace, skip and change things around and make everything well tailored to fit your EXACT needs. You are the best and ONLY judge of whether or not your child needs it. Be brave and take your home school expedition to a happy place where your world of words has been built to your liking. My best.

We are using WWS 1 with our two 10 yo boys after they had completed WWE 3. We love the content and promise of the curriculum. The excerpts in level 1 are extremely interesting and serving us also as windows into other worlds and readings, so educationally - it's superbly worth one's time. From this viewpoint, we are never bored and never want to quit the program. On the other hand, we feel that the lessons are very challenging at times and I can see how some families might think that they don't have the endurance to go through it. On average I feel that the program can accommodate anyone who needs the skills, up to 9th-10th grade and even beyond, and still be appropriate and challenging. For us, it feels like we are on the younger side of users, but we decided to stick with it because of the projected benefits and acquisition of skills. So to start this we decided to do only half of the book per grade and found that the author, Mrs. Bauer actually endorses this pace in a published paper attached here: http://downloads.peacehillpress.com/samples/pdf/WWEandWWSexplanation.pdf?utm_source=Catalog&utm_medium=Print&utm_content=Page%2B9&utm_campaign=2014%2BCatalog&page=10 What lured us in are the skills promised. In the first level of WWS among some are the ability to outline (different kinds of texts like chronological narrative, description of a place, a person and scientific discovery.) Another is the skill of writing topoi (composition), also the method helps child develop skill of copia, skill of taking notes, literary criticism of prose and poetry and later on, research and documentation. How fascinating and full of potential for us! But definitely, MY kids needed help. And I helped. Openly. I help by simplifying the instructions and by clearing words (and there are a lot of new, fascinating, big and small unfamiliar vocabulary words in the texts) and also many times have to help them with conceptual understanding of the texts. I can tell you that they do go through *panic* symptoms with the reading and writing assignments, which tell me that the program is a step above and stretching for them. But so what.. it only means that I then have to *interfere* and help them work out through the tangled spots. These *panic* attacks are normally the product of misunderstood words, some concepts that they couldn't "materialize" into meanings in their heads so we break it down and sometimes sketch it, and most times the solution is to just go backward in the text to where they were doing well and continue forward unraveling and untangling, words, concepts and instructions. Yes, for sure I have to simplify things for them. But my judgement call is that it is worth the trouble, it doesn't take away from how effective the program is and in the process there is extra growth for them (from this interaction) besides the fact that they acquire good footing in writing. Regarding the physical materials: we are using the hard-copies of student workbooks (workbooks have soft covers) and one instructor text. I am not 100% happy with the instructor text because it does not include the reading excerpts that the students have in front of them. It is a big miss for me as I need to be able to follow with them and spot where they stumble. These stumbling spots are where we find the misunderstood words and are the places to search backward from, to an earlier *tangled* spot. So I feel a bit "unprepared" when a *panic* happens and I don't have the text in front of me to spot where it is. My handle is to borrow one of their books and let them share the other, but it is not optimal. I would have preferred to have the text in the teacher book. Spiral binding - it is a great idea! (Thanks.) My kids write directly in the student books. It is indeed hard to write in the book in the beginning (when the book had no support.) My improvised solution is to put some soft booklet underneath as support.. however I prefer standard solutions. One best standard solution would be if the publisher will start spiral binding the workbooks. In the meantime, although I don't like the added cost I am considering to do the spiral thing for the next level. About speed: in the first 1/2 of the book, the first three lessons of every week are the lighter lessons. Relatively speaking, these 3 lessons of every week used to go faster. Narration was a familiar subject after working with WWE, the struggle with it was that the instructions ask student to narrate in two stages. My boys are good narrators (relatively) and sometimes they were bumped by the extra step. But you can leave the extra step out. Outlining was new to them, after the initial struggle they got a real good hang of it and now they do it faster than I do. I am glad to have the manual by my side to compare their answers and let them move on. The third lesson of every week (in the first half of the book) is about examining topos.. lots (and lots) of reading but just light writing work is involved. The 4th lesson every week (till mid of book) is practicing topos which is the big writing assignment of the week. At first it was a daunting ride for us, a chore that never ended. To make it real and doable for them I had to simplify the big chore, I had to, and I found myself saying to them, "Look guys, it's an easy task in fact, it is almost just to "copy" from text that's been given to you, just choose points that make you happy and kind of re-arrange it in your own words".. since I said that, it released the pressure valve.. and they go through it with more ease. But still, it takes a l-o-n-g time. They also have this fear of 150 words.. so, I've let them know that 150 is great but we are flexible, if their writing is good but shorter, it is acceptable and gets a smiley. Something else I want to mention is that I also like that Mrs. Bauer ties together, from time to time, an excerpt from an older lesson into a new, to introduce some new aspect of writing. Nice feeling to work again with something familiar with just enough of newly shaded light. And last, I admit that we had days when Writing With Skill was the dreaded subject of the day. Unfolding it now we're realizing that it was probably because writing was the last lesson in our HS day while also a NEW program for our students, who also came to tackle it after *double* math and *double* grammar in programs they were very familiar with. This created an exaggerated atmosphere of desperation. Not a good idea to bring them to *hack* a new program like this in a state of mental exhaustion! We are somewhat repairing this situation now. We are testing to see if it feels differently to do this program on an *empty stomach*, I mean as a LONE subject. We have chosen to do it marathon style, for few days to see if it is possible to complete a WHOLE WEEK in ONE day.. and the result of our experiment (3 days in a row so far) is YES, it is possible to do a whole week in one day. I would go ahead to say then that once a student (average) has conquered the learning curve of this program, he can increase his pace and (probably) finish all three levels in three and a half school years. I am absolutely positive that there are families out there that can do it (and did it) without much or any struggle and did not experience a tough learning curve. If you are one of them, could you please inspire us with your story? If you struggled and adjusted, please open up and tell us too.

I would suggest writing the "revised edition(s)" as a separate book/notebook/title and stop revising the same book - to keep the integrity of the original. I don't know how you would do it; you may just separate the curriculum recommendation and revise just this part. To keep this separate part an integral part of The Well Trained Mind, use the title, name it TWTM Curriculum Evolution or something similar. If you want to include your followers' recommended curricula - do it using the same concept, print a separate but integral part that is connected by TWTM title, like TWTM Followers Curricula Choice etc. This way the HS world will end up with an encyclopedic series with few volumes of different TWTM instead of one volume which is constantly edited and revised, and which makes all previous editions obsolete. Just another viewpoint here. Disclosure: I have not read the above thread yet.

I did get curious about the program from reading this thread. However we need real stats to evaluate how good the program is. There are some nice testimonials from the parents but we have to know how well users do on standard tests. Any statistics to back up parents' claims? Is there a way to gather this information, here? Again, the thread got me very curious and interested, but to be convinced I'll have to buy and try it or find statistics.. how well your kids scored with it?

DC finished FLL 1 2 3 & 4. Also finished WWE 1 2 & 3. We picked WWS level 1 (finished half) for our writing, it's challenging in a good way and we will continue, hopefully picking up the speed. Our next math level is Saxon Algebra 1/2. Boys are advanced musicians and are 10 years old. They enjoy/ed the above curriculum choices. I am a bit lost now and wondered where to continue on grammar. If you recommend to use Rod & Staff (which I researched here and am leaning towards) please indicate what level do you recommend to plug into and why? What other great choices for grammar can you recommend, in order of good, better, best, and the level to plug into. We also loved the memorization of poems in FLL, so any suggestion on that? Just as a side note, English is not my native language and recently I can't keep up with their speed of learning and duplicating the materials in any subject. Also, as I mentioned above, I am already leaning toward Rod & Staff and would like more input about the relative religiousness.. as I am not a christian and I wonder if it posed a barrier, if anyone overcame it as a barrier etc? I have not yet communicated on forums before so I might stay silent after posting this question. Please accept my gratitude and thanks in advance. Any and all input will be appreciated. Thank you.