Just wanted to pop in and thank you for starting this thread! I have thoughts to share, but will have to wait until I have time to sit down and write them out. I’ll be listening in in the meantime🙂

Yes!!!! The because/but/so exercise (or the “Because, Buttso”, as it shall forever be named in my mind- thanks for that) is the exercise I’m most excited to implement once we resume our studies after Christmas break. I love that I can just start that one small thing now, without having to wait until I’ve read and mastered the entire book. In the meantime, I find myself mentally constructing my own sentences from random sentence stems throughout the day. ”She loves chocolate cake because....” That’s normal, right?😂

I totally will! I was already thinking about starting a thread once I’m finished to see if anyone else has read it and wants to talk about ideas gleaned from it. I hope you find it helpful! Yay! I love it when my library has a book I want to peruse, especially if it’s an unknown commodity. I will warn you, I originally picked up TWR from the library, and within a few days it was in my Amazon cart😂

I’ve been on the hunt for the same type of thing, and recently saw The Writing Revolution by Judith Hochman recommended here. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but I am so excited about it. I love the author’s emphasis on writing across subjects, sentence-level writing exercises, and grammar instruction within the context of composition. And it is full of ideas to scaffold instruction for grades 1-8 (maybe higher). I’ve been itching to move away from a dedicated writing curriculum and into a writing-across-the-curriculum approach, but my own ability and confidence (or lack thereof) to assign and assess appropriate tasks has been the limiting factor. This book provides a framework I’m excited to implement. Its ideas are concrete enough to give me true guidance, yet flexible enough to adapt to my student and what we’re doing in other subjects. Again, I’m only a few chapters in so can’t give a full review, but what I’ve learned so far has already been worth it🙂

I own both. I haven’t implemented all of it, but both the wisdom and inspiration I gleaned from her writings have made me a better teacher. Money well spent.

Thank you everyone, for your insight and suggestions. I had him pick a book off of our shelves to read in lieu of MS, and he happily chose a book about how to survive if lost at sea. While at first glance it doesn’t scream “SCIENCE!”, I do believe it catalyzed at least as many questions about the world around him as a morning making a roller coaster out of pennies would have. In the end, he asked if he could extend his reading time. Thank you for the push to follow his lead in this. I think we’re on the right path.

You might be right. This kid asks a LOT of questions. You know, I think I have a few of her units buried in Google Drive somewhere. I’ll have ds take a look!

I actually just finished reading Homeschooling at the Helm, and it’s part of what got my wheels turning. Thank you for the permission to skip the dreaded demonstrations😂 I think the more time and freedom he has to just explore through books, the greater chance he’ll have of unearthing something intriguing that he can run with. Thank you for the link! That is a helpful start. He will love this. Thank you😁

I need help figuring out what science should look like for my 5th grade DS who has consistently (like from 1st grade on) resisted "doing science". He says he finds it boring and time-consuming. Generally speaking he's a pretty interested kid and works on academic things for about 5 hours a day without much complaining, but he just cannot seem to get into science. Up until this point, I've been pretty laid back about formal science in order to afford him more space to explore areas he loves and is passionate about, like history. But now I'm staring down the barrel of middle school, and wondering when I need to Get Serious About Science in order for him to be well-prepared for high school. Right now I'm having him complete one mystery a week from Mystery Science, just to ensure he has at least some exposure to different scientific topics. He claims it's a waste of time, and that he doesn't learn much new from it. (This may or may not be true. His formal science background is scant, but he does read a ton in general). Part of me wants to just hand him a stack of books and have him read them throughout the year instead. He would probably love that, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I guess my question is three-fold: 1) For how long can a kid do truly interest-led science and still be well prepared for high school? My little self-professed science-hater could definitely find science-y books he'd be willing to read, but the topics covered would likely be scattershot. In the past I've used biographies or the history of scientific discoveries to sneak some science in via his passion for history, but I'm not sure if that alone would provide enough scientific meat. 2) How important are experiments/demonstrations at this point? 3) This might be my most burning question. Any recommendations for high-interest science books written in a narrative style that might inspire (or at the very least, prepare) my 10 year old? Thanks in advance for your insight! I love these boards: -)

Just wanted to chime in to say that I believe the Novare biology book will in fact cover evolution. They explain the handling of evolution in their biology texts in the FAQ section of their website, which can be found here (scroll down to #8): https://www.novarescienceandmath.com/extras/faq/#eight It’s my understanding that the author(s) of the Novare series are neither YEC nor skittish about evolution, but I have read that the Memoria Press guides (and MPOA classes) skip the chapters covering this topic, ostensibly to avoid controversy. Could that be where you heard about these topics being skipped? I really hope that’s all it is, as I had been hoping to use Novare in the future!

David Adler has A Picture Book of Lewis and Clark that should be pretty easy to find at the library.

Currclick used to have this type of thing. You might take a look at TeachersPayTeachers to see if something catches your eye? ETA: This seller has a lot of different non-fiction copywork to choose from, available in both cursive and printing. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sallie-Borrink/Category/Subject-Copywork-223625/Order:Alphabetical#seller_details_tabs

This is great food for thought. Thank you!

I'm trying to nail down writing for my rising 5th grader and need some advice. Long term I think I want to use WWS, but feel like I want to give him an extra year before starting WWS1 since I've heard many students do better starting the progression in 6th grade. For those who are familiar with WWS, what would you recommend for the year leading up to it? I was all set to use IEW this year but am now second-guessing myself. Is a year of IEW (sans the stylistic techniques) a good prep for WWS, or would the difference in outlining approaches (keyword vs. full sentence) confuse him? Thoughts? My other idea was to use something like Jump In, but I'm open to other things too.

There’s also the Eyewitness series by DK. For a lower reading level, my ds loved the 100 Facts series. He started with Arms and Armor and branched out from there (they have both history and science titles). It looks like only used copies are available on Amazon, but I know there are a bunch on Thriftbook and I’ve seen them at our library too.

I put my 4th grader in AAS in the middle of last school year when our other program just wasn't working. We started at level 1 and just completed one step (lesson) per day, taking a couple of extra days on steps that he needed more time to sink in. We were able to complete Levels 1-3 in about half of a school year in this fashion, so I agree that your student could be up to speed pretty quickly. Now paying for all four levels up front for one school year is not quite so painless😂 But if you already have levels 1 and 2 on hand that helps a lot 🙂

This is a good point. I tried a level of SSS with one of my older boys a couple of years ago, and while he did turn out to need more intensive spelling instruction, dd may not. Because my older two kids are already going through AAS I’ll already have the materials on hand, but it’s a big time investment for sure.

Thank you, that’s exactly what I was hoping🙂 Yeah I’m not sure why I referred to it as a “slump” as that probably implies a regression in skills, but what you described is what I was talking about🙂 I hadn’t made the connection with sight words specifically though. I never really taught her many sight words, so perhaps she is still technically decoding words phonetically as she’s intuited the rules. I don’t hear a whole lot of sounding out, but I guess she had to learn the word somehow😂

My now 5yo dd begged for me to teach her how to read last year. I had a new baby and lacked the bandwidth to run her through a formal phonics program, but since she already knew her letter sounds I let her practice blending with some AAR readers, and she was off to the races. She ended up reading through all of the level 1 and 2 readers to me while I nursed the baby; I taught her “th” “sh” “ch” and silent e as those came up, but that has been about the extent of any *phonics instruction” she has received. Fast forward to now, and she’s reading chapter books with ease. There is still the occasional word she trips over, but for the most part she can easily read any of the books on our shelves. Can I just have her keep reading aloud to me while we start a phonics-based spelling program like AAS in the fall (technically her kindergarten year) and call it good for phonics? I’ve heard tales of a 4th grade reading slump afflicting kids without a strong phonics background and I’d like to avoid that, but the idea of making her start a reading program from the beginning at this point sounds like a drag if we don’t have to😜 I appreciate your thoughts!

Thank you so much for posting this! I so appreciate seeing the learning-to-write process broken down in this way; it is the exact kind of scaffolding my brain has been craving. I love the idea of the student creating a "chapter book" consisting of several subtopics. What a great way to practice organization, research, and note-taking without throwing intros, conclusions, and transitions into the heap as well. This is the exact "step" my ds is ready for, and I may press *pause* on our regularly scheduled program a few times next year so we can work on this in his other subjects. Thanks for this. I've always found the concept of "written narrations" a bit nebulous (Are they summaries? paragraphs? streams of consciousness?) , so hearing how you break it down is helpful. This is me!! In my heart I really *want* to be a write-across-the-curriculum homeschooler, but I feel like I need more hand-holding as a teacher before I'll be able to pull that off in any kind of organized way. Something I can work toward, though🙂

My oldest is entering 5th grade and I'm starting to feel a little lost when it comes to what my expectations for writing "across the curriculum" should be. What kind of writing assignments (if any) do you give your 5th grader in addition to his/her dedicated writing program? DS isn't writing-adverse and is comfortable composing a paragraph from a self-written outline, but we haven't really done any formal essays or reports. Now I'm wondering if we need to up our game. What kind of writing assignments would you expect from a 5th grader in the content areas, and how frequently would you assign them? This would be above and beyond his regular writing curriculum, which I think will be IEW for this year and WWS in 6th. Thanks in advance. While it will be my sixth year homeschooling, this is my first logic stage kid and I suddenly feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I really appreciate any thoughts you may have!

Thanks for the feedback! I think I'm going to go ahead and take the gamble on the streaming option and just make sure I take copious notes. I'm afraid having to view them through my DVD player in the recesses of my basement would result in me not getting all the way through them even one time, much less additional times😂

Thanks for all of the helpful feedback. I think it's the kick in the pants I needed to suck it up and just commit to doing the program as intended. A question for those of you who have already gone through the TWSS training: have you gone back to view the sessions again after your initial viewing? I'm tempted by the one-year streaming option (much more convenient for me to be able to watch from my laptop), but that would mean I wouldn't be able to go back and re-watch years down the road. Will I regret not having a hard copy, or would it likely just collect dust on the shelf?

We're new to IEW, and I'm looking at the American History based lessons for my 5th grader next year. I understand that these lessons are designed to be taught by a teacher who has already gone through the TWSS DVDs, but alas, I'm looking for an easy way out😜 When I was searching through old threads, I saw someone mention that they used the physical TWSS syllabus in lieu of watching the actual DVDs. In your experience, would the syllabus alone be enough to prepare me to teach the theme-based lessons well? $189 and 14 hours of seminar watching feels like quite the hurdle to clear when I'm not 100% sure we'll be using IEW for years to come, but I do want to give this a fair shake and not set us up for failure. Thoughts?

My kids use a Kindle Fire. We really only use it for audiobooks and a timer so I can’t speak to its other capabilities, but it’s been a great, affordable solution for us.