How important is it to finish R & S English 5 before moving on to 6. It seems in years past that we could easily skip the end of a R & S book if we didn't finish since we did most of it again the next year. Provided that we actually finish the next book after the skipped book. Should I start book 6 to keep everything 6th grade level? Or should I finish book 5 and only start 6 for the 6th grade year?

I think I saw that they will be free of charge sometime in September. But don't quote me on that.

Just wondering how this worked out since we are considering ATB for the same reasons.

Just giving you a friendly bump since it seems like some good questions here.

Thanks so much for the help. I love the book reports idea since we haven't done anything like that before. I think I'm just about set to start another year!

Thanks. I think I will stick with spelling since that's a weak area for her. Thanks for the tip about the lit guides idea.

We have used HOD with our DD from the beginning of her schooling through the CTC guide. She will be entering the 6th grade in the fall and this will be my first year not using HOD so I'm feeling uncertain. She has already chosen to do a science course from Sonlight. And I will use SOTW as a spine for her (and her younger brother). With SOTW, we'll be pulling books from Sonlight, WP, and HOD to read as well as use the activity guide and written narrations. Math is using the net level of MUS. Where I get stuck is LA. In HOD LA seems to be sprinkled throughout the day, so I'm not sure exactly what is needed for a 6th grader. She has completed Rod and Staff through half of the 5th grade book. So I guess I should finish that book and start the next. What else do I need? A writing program? A spelling program? A lit. program? Please help me understand what a proper 6th grade LA schedule looks like.

We too live in a state that requires portfolios or testing. The state we lived in before required both. Given the choice, I choose testing since it's simple to do at home on our time schedule instead of involving outsiders which can show their possible disapproval to the kids. After having to do both, my daughter was quite happy to choose the test and drop the porfolio with an evaluator. She's always done as I've expected on the test. I know her weak areas and strong areas and am generally not surprised by the results. As long as she gets above a certain percentage (which is quite low), the state doesn't even care.

WinterPromise is usually very open and go. They normally give you a list of materials needed in the beggining of the year so you can have those ready when you need them (at least in the programs I've used). But I'm not sure Sea and Sky is where you want to place your children if the ages listed in your signature are correct. Hopefully someone who has used S&S can help you out more.

Sorry to hear you are having to add cancer treatments into your daily mix. The year I had to do that, the kids did the basics only each day and then we had a history book and science book we worked from when I felt up to it (or Dad had extra time). I know it's tough to think about only doing the basics when there are so many great things to do or you see others doing so much. But honestly, cancer stuff takes up a lot of time and energy for the whole family. It also seems like your oldest is old enough to be working alone on some things, so that may be an option in order to still do some of those things you hope to do. I can tell you from personal experience that my kids are glad they had time to be just be kids instead of having too much schooling because more was expected from them in their daily lives. In fact, my DH often left my daughter "in charge" of tending to her her brother for the day while he worked and she was only 8-9 at the time.

I would agree that you may want to give Little Hearts a second look. I too thought I could move my DD up into Beyond earlier. But then when we hit Bigger I had to modify it for her to use it. By Preparing, we had some really problems and had to put it aside and fill in until she caught up to it in her skills. Of course you know your child best, but I'd recommend a second look at the placement chart.

If you are putting her back in school next year, I too would just use the materials that should have been taught this year. The school should be able to loan you the math and LA materials.

I've heard that people love that they have kids spaced perfectly for the 4 year cycles. Is it really possible that your 5th grader and 1st grader can work together in history and science? How is this done? Or are they merely happy the kids are on the same topics? So far my little guy just listens in whenever he feels like it. And that's been ok so far since we added a new baby this year. But now that he's getting older, we need to be more intentional with him. So can my 2 really do some things together, or are they always going to be separate due to the age gap? Thanks from a clueless mom of a soon-to-be 5th grader.

Hideaways in History used to use SOTW as it's spine so it's probably possible with the new program to still match things up. If you could find an older version of HIH you would already have all the work done for you. But if I remember correctly, there were some days that you read more than one chapter of SOTW per day. At the time, a lot of moms were spreading this out over 2 or more years since there was so much reading.

Glad to see I wasn't totally crazy to consider this. What if I added in the Mystery of History using one of those coordinating schedules along with the appropriate Bible selections for the time period? Would that bring it up to par more? Of course we need to start the outlining and timeline work this year. But by using SOTW as the spine, I could include my younger son for part of it.

Is Story of the World with guide and the Usborne Encyclopedia (possibly Map Trek) enough for grades 5-8? We feel that Math and LA are the most important parts of the day and that Science and History should have an equal balance after the 3 R's are complete. So with that in mind, is SOTW enough or is this really an elementary program?

Mine too.

I would continue calling and emailing daily until things are resolved. Start the day with the phone call then document a summary of what was said in an email you send to remind them of their claims. How did I get around this? I ordered a program that was not revised, was in print already and I ordered in May. Though I know this is not always an option.

You are not the only one that starts late. My son does better if he can get some energy out before starting school. We also have a new baby in our house, so we have to work during her longest nap which usually starts around 10:30 or 11.

Winterpromise has American history set up for that age group. Also HOD has American history programs that would be good for that age group.

I'm not sure I'd spend the money to go to convention just for this. For Bigger, the 2 main history books can be found free on Google books I believe, if you are wanting a look at them. As for the photobooks, you can view them online from the main page or go to the week in review section of the message boards and get a bigger sampling of projects. We did enjoy our year with Bigger. Even my 5 year old DS learned a lot that year just by playing nearby!

You can always order just that workshop once the convention is over. Or if you know anyone going, they can pick up the CD there for you. This would certainly be cheaper than all the other fees involved in attending if you are only interested in a few workshops.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not sure Beyond would work since she'll be 9 and in 4th grade. I think I may take a look at some other options for a filler year.

Yes, we did shelve Preparing for awhile and use SOTW2. It was an ok fit, but we weren't sure we wanted to continue on to 3 and 4 since we've heard from many people they aren't as good.

To answer why she is in Preparing: She had completed Bigger and was finishing up the Emerging readers at the time. She had done pretty well with Bigger, so Preparing was the next step. We ordered it and started slowly over the summer. Then I had major cancer surgery in the fall that left us taking 6 weeks off with Grandma or Daddy trying to do some teaching when possible. We also found out about our surprise baby and have required extra screenings due to the complex surgery and medications I was on. I assumed that she would grow into the guide, but I guess life situations were too much for her to continue progressing. She's one of those kids who will do the minimum to get by unless pushed. Also she normally has leaps instead of a slow progression. Why didn't we do Bigger? We had done Bigger last year and she was doing well with it. Preparing was the obvious next step. But the extra writing is killing her so we have to scale it back for her. I know that CTC will only be worse in writing. But the reading content for history, science, storytime and projects are perfect as long as I help with the reading. Why consider Bigger with extensions? Since she has already done Bigger, I thought that reading the extensions with her would give her more in-depth material since she has heard the basic information before. Though most kids only remember about half of what they did last year, so we could still do the basic readings as review. Maybe HOD is not a good fit for her since it requires so much writing. Are there any programs you can recommend that are easy for me to implement since our life situation is pretty complex yet we live in a red state where we have to do the full range of subjects, not just the basics?