Is your older child really poor at spelling? If not, I would expect her to fly through the first few levels of AAS. I don't think I would put her in Level 1 unless she's really behind in spelling. You could for sure put her in 2 and I would expect that to go fast! You might just want to review the rules in Level 1 to make sure she knows them. I don't know much else about your other choices, but the spelling stood out to me. :001_smile:

It depends a little on what you're selling. If you're selling things of the WTM nature here is the best place. I've usually sold things within a day or so here if they are something people want. Otherwise, the next best place I've found is homeschoolclassifieds.com. There is a more general homeschooling audience there... not just classically orientated.

We watched them this past spring with a 10, 8, 7 and 5 y/o. Everyone loved them! Of course, I'm sure my 10 y/o got different things out of it than my 5 y/o, but they all begged to watch them! My 7 y/o even picked George Washington as his "hero" when asked by someone who his "hero" is!

Honestly, were it not for WTM I would be hopping all over the place. The first couple years we hs'd I did hop a bit. This is the first year I feel solid in my decisions and know we won't change. This is our 4th year homeschooling so that might have something to do with it too! I have found when I follow the WTM recommendations closely I am much less likely to hop or wander. Simple and solid works well for our family. It gets done. It's not always the most glitzy or glamorous, but it does the job and my kids are learning and thriving. I'm happy because I can teach 4 kids and still be sane. No curriculum is perfect and I find that I modify most curriculum I use. Not re-write it, just modify it for each particular child if necessary according to their strengths/weaknesses. I now also know my teaching style so I can look at something and know pretty well if it's going to work or not. I look for things that complement the WTM method as I'm totally sold. For instance... I struggled through Logic history for a bit, but settled on History Odyssey because it so closely follows WTM recommendations. I know it will work because it will follow a path we've already started out on. It's not drastically different from what we have already done that works. I think part of this issue is time you've been hsing and part is age of your kids. When they are young you are still getting to know them as students. You may pick things at first that don't work well for them or for you as the teacher. Then you modify or change. I don't know if everyone is the same, but as much as I like change... it's even better to find something that works for my children and see them thrive in it as they continue on. The pieces start coming together and they know they are doing well and learning. That's better to me than trying the next "best" thing. ;)

This was our schedule too. I started using the DVD with my first child, but quickly found I could teach it in a shorter amount of time. We didn't like the DVD so just used the CD. Really, Prima is mostly just vocab, it's not difficult to teach at all... I had no previous Latin experience. That being said, I'm trying the DVD for the first time for Latina Christiana I (I taught it without for my oldest) and First Form... hope they are a bit better... I need to lower my teaching load! :D

If you're looking for something to help you implement WTM science it's perfect! We've done all the grammar programs (except Physics which one of mine will do this coming year) and I have the new Logic Bio ready to go for my oldest this coming year. We tried a few sciences and this is the one we're sticking with... it gets done and done well! :D

I consider my kids "reading" when they are somewhat fluent, not having to sound out every word. Before that I just say they are beginning readers. This happened for all of my children around 5 years of age (probably a 1st grade reading level or so). My current 5 (almost 6) year old I would consider "reading". He reads most beginner chapter books fluently. We aren't up to Charlotte's Web quite yet, but I imagine sometime in the next 6 mos. he will be. I'd say he's at a lower 2nd grade level right now.

Outlining is a logic stage skill and is covered in Writing with Skill (which looks great!)

Over the past few years I've done many versions of filing. The most successful was last year when I printed off 6 weeks at a time (looking back I would have printed the whole year at once). I stored all by subject in file folders. Then each Sunday night I would file each child's work for that week in daily folders with color coded folders for each child. If we got behind it wasn't as big a deal because I could just move it to the next week and I didn't have to reorganize 6 weeks worth of filing. This year, however, I'm ditching the filing. It really took a lot of needless time. So, I have printed out binders (most of my curriculum I buy PDF) for the whole year for each child for each subject. We use a few workbooks and those are staying put together and the children will work out of them. I've entered in all lessons for next year into HST+ so my plans are ready to go too. All I'll have to do on the weekend is submit the plans for the week in HST, order any library books we'll need and gather any history project supplies for that week. (I'm gather science supplies this summer and having those ready to go). I'm starting a .3 position with our church so I need to streamline. The filing really took more time than I thought.

We only tried out JAG, so I haven't seen AG, but I would liken it to grammar on steroids. We finally settled on R&S because I like the "being pecked to death" way of doing grammar. A little at a time over a long period. JAG to me seemed very intense for a shorter amount of time. It also had A LOT of parsing which my big picture ds HATED! He loves to diagram though so that part went well. Once we switched to R&S he never complained about grammar at all and has done very well with it. I think it's a very solid program, just not the format or style that works for us. If your ds is a very detail orientated child and can work at a good pace (which if you've done R&S that long he may be able to) you may want to give it a shot!

Personally, I would put your younger one in either 1 or 2 (if she does well with copywork I'd just put her in 2). Your older one I'd start in 2. If she's never done dictation I think Level 3 will get difficult for her. My dd has done WWE2 and WWE3. She's had plenty of experience and Level 3 was still a challenge for dictation. If you go back to 2, you can always speed up if she's doing well. I ended up doing every other lesson 1/2 way through with my oldest when he was in it and he did just fine. If you start out too hard you may both hate it just because she's not quite ready yet.;)

We're just starting Spanish in the fall for my upcoming 5th grader. Since no program I've seen "does it all" I've come up with a conglomeration of my own choosing: 1. Getting Started with Spanish along with the videos here. There are three levels of videos so we'll go through all of them. 2. When he finishes GSWS, we'll go onto Spanish for Children (with DVD's). These programs both address grammar. 3. Interspersed with all of this we'll add in children's videos (cartoons/movies using the spanish track) in spanish as well as I've been collecting children's books in spanish. I noticed some cd's at the library with songs for vocab we'll probably try out too. I don't speak a lick of spanish so I'll be learning along with my kiddo. Eventually I'd like to have "spanish times" during the day/week when we only speak spanish. The new homeschool spanish curriculum at HSBC looks good too, but I think we have enough to keep us busy for awhile. I probably would have looked into that more if I didn't already have a plan. With Latin, I found a strong grammar approach is helpful for me as well as my ds.... adding the "immersion" on top of that seems to be a better fit than complete immersion. If I knew the language I'd probably go that route.

From another poster... here's the link to a generous sample. I was really trying hard to ignore this... but after looking at it, I think I'm going to have to get it for my upcoming 5th grader... it just looks too good and WWE has done wonders here. I'm just really hoping SWB will be able to crank out the levels for us! That's my one hesitation...

The first time we did ancients I had two preschoolers. The younger one didn't get a lot out of it, but my 4 year old LOVED it! We've now studied through SOTW3 and I would have to say they enjoyed the ancients the most and middle ages the next best. I've actually found as history goes on my younger ones lose their ability to catch it. I'm not sure if that's what others discover.... we actually dropped SOTW3 for my younger two this past year and we watched Liberty's Kids instead. Just early American history, but they loved it! It was perfect for them. I'm taking my younger two back to SOTW1 again this year. The stories I believe make it all. Our kids love stories and that's what SOTW is built on. There are also lots of super fun projects in the Activity Guide. I wouldn't miss that. I scheduled out both SOTW1 and SOTW4 this year and by far SOTW1 has many more fun activities (and I'm not a huge activity lover). Oh... and I have no expectations other than exposure at this age. I know they won't remember a lot, but hopefully when we come around to it again they'll have a few connections they can make, some names may sound familiar.... I'll see if this works as my 5th grader goes back to Ancients with History Odyssey this year! ;) I think you'll find lots of people who have a blast studying ancients with their first graders! :001_smile:

20 mos! :w00t:

I just bit the bullet too! I did a month trial (for the $5) to try it out and I just ended up purchasing it. I do agree it is a steep learning curve up front, but I'm starting to figure things out. The online help videos are very helpful. Also, any time I've asked a question here I've gotten great responses. I've also perused HST help boards and gotten some answers there. Right now I'm just entering in all the assignments in the lesson plan. Then I figure all I need to do each week during the year is schedule them. My plan is to have a check list for each child. When you get to the point of entering in lesson plans you might want to check the HST Yahoo group. I found a few things we use already planned out there that saved me some entering time. I'm starting to get the hang of it and I've been working with it a little over a month... I'm happy to answer any questions I can, although I'm still learning it myself! GL!:001_smile:

Well, we were behind in the cycle for my oldest because we didn't start hsing until 2nd grade. We're finishing up SOTW3 this year (he's finishing 4th grade). I've decided his main history work will be ancients next year so I can start him on cycle in logic stage. But, he will listen to a chapter a week on audio of SOTW4 just to expose him to modern history. He won't do any written work at all with it... just listen to it for exposure. I'm okay with him not doing "official" work in moderns. If he weren't such a history nut I wouldn't even have him listen to SOTW4... but he really loves history so he will.

I strayed from WWE to explore Classical Writing. That was a huge mistake. My ds started to hate writing and so did I. We did Aesop and I had gotten Homer to look through. It just seemed way too complicated and took up too much of my time to figure things out and his time to write. We went back to WWE and never looked back! He's now completed the entire WWE series and I have seen so much improvement in his writing! And the best part is... it got done! ;)

My ds is 10.5. He's taken 2 years of Latin. We're adding in Spanish this year. His Latin work will be heavier than his Spanish work. We'll just ease into Spanish... I think kids can adjust pretty easily and since Spanish is Latin based I'm really not concerned about confusion. I am actually anticipating Spanish being easier for him to learn because of prior experience with learning another language. I personally waited until he'd had 2 years under his belt first though.

We have a book that I'm going to use next year with my oldest ds. A book moves as fast or slow as you want! ;) It looks like a great program and he has a good sense of humor which really shows through on the pages.

Another vote for Writing With Ease! We use all 4 levels. :001_smile:

After a month of no updates I've finally got one. Kind of a run down of our life the past month... we're on break right now until week after next.

Thanks for your input, Yvonne! We've been using R&S since 3rd grade, but not the composition assignments because we also do WWE. My oldest ds finished WWE4 this year though so I thought I'd just move him onto the composition exercises in R&S5. Seems like I should know how to schedule, but adding in the composition component is a change for us. ;)

Thanks Colleen! This really helps a lot! Thank you for taking the time to type out what you do... it's a place to start, then tweak as we go... that's what I needed! :001_smile:

Thanks Colleen... wow, quite a thread! I think we're not quite there yet! We are just starting outlining coming up in the later summer... good to see what's coming down the road though! I hope you work through your situation. Looks like you have lots of good advice! :001_smile: