After about 5-6 weeks I've finally made a blog post! It's a long one... no picts up yet from our FL trip... I'm having trouble uploading them to PB... watch the blog for an update when I get those up! :D We had a grand trip!

My suggestion would be to set a timer. Maybe 15 min. per child. In my opinion it really makes a difference to do it one-on-one. I think the most progress can be made. However, since time is of essence that means you'd have to be pretty diligent with the timer or you could easily spend 2 hours on spelling! Another idea would be to do longer sessions, but only 2 kids per day. That would work too.

I think in Level 1 that would work. It's Level 2 that gets tricky... you end up having to simplify too much for the younger set. I noticed the writing demanded in Level 2 Early Modern is quite advanced for what I'd expect from my soon to be 5th grader.

Thank you so much! This helps a lot! I'm not sure at what level you exactly started R&S with, but my older 2 are in 3rd and 4th right now and I felt comfortable enough to skip the writing and do WWE instead. I think starting in 5th is a good place... I don't have "natural writers" so we needed to take it slow. Now my older two can easily give me a page narration (not that I ask for that much) in history and they have a hard time stopping! I don't think it will take my upcoming 5th grader long to learn topic sentence and paragraph... then starting to outline. Which is where 5th grade R&S starts... Thanks for the input on TOG... I think starting HO Level 2 in 5th is the route I'm going to take. Your input helps a lot! I can see the supplementing being hard! I tend to do those things as well (books/movies). However, if it's between difficult supplementing and history not getting done (or done well) I'll take the former! I'm not finding many threads on History Odyssey... maybe I'm not typing in the right thing? I'm surprised... it looks great to me! Thanks again for all your help! I appreciate your time!

Coffeegal... Can I ask you a couple questions? You mentioned you use R&S with your kids... I've been using R&S just for grammar and my 4th grader does WWE4 for writing. This combo has worked well for us. I'm planning on continuing with R&S English in 5th grade and I'd like to use it as my sole writing program (doing both the grammar and writing lessons) with additional writing across the curriculum in science and history (a la WTM). Do you find R&S to be sufficient for writing instruction? I'd love to keep things simple and not have to find another writing curriculum. So... for writing do you use R&S and then the writing projects in HO? Are you finding that sufficient? Anything you would change or do different? Thanks for the heads up on the different levels. Right now everyone does their own history lessons here, but we're in the same time period. Are you finding that tricky to be in different periods? I'm a little skittish about kids in different time periods, but on the other hand it's a lot of work to pull together different levels. I've considered TOG, but it's just a lot of money. I know you get a lot, but I'm trying to get as much out of my dollar as possible. I can see where in HO it would be important to be in the correct "level" because of the writing. I took a look at Early Modern Level 2 (since we're in SOTW3) to see if I could use it with my 10 y/o, but it's too much in the writing/synthesizing department. That's why I'm thinking to start him in ancients next year in 5th and just skip Modern for now. Then he'll be on track... my 3rd grader is right on track and my younger boys pretty much just read literature with me right now since we're doing American history and it's easy to find books to read to them. Anyway... this got long... thanks for your response and I'm interested to hear more from you!

I'm looking at the Level 1 samples (Early Modern) and it doesn't look a lot different than what we're doing with SOTW3 and the AG right now. Am I correct in that assessment? (Read in SOTW, read in Usborne, summary, timeline...) I'm thinking of Level 2 Ancients for my Logic stage child next year... for those who use this do you like it? Pros and cons? I'm looking for something that would lay out pretty much the WTM way of doing things for history/lit. in Logic stage. Thinking this would help? I noticed in Level 2 the writing gets a bit more complicated. Does this actually teach the writing component through history (outlining, etc.) or does this curriculum assume you teach it outside of itself?

The schools in my area rank 7-10 with most being 8-9. One of the high schools is a 10. Not sure what the green shields are, but some have those... The school my kids did attend for a couple years is a 10. I used to teach in that school and I'm guessing the ratings are based on test scores as I know the school they attended had the highest test scores in the district. It is a highly sought after school as you can only get in by lottery. The parents are highly involved both inside and out of the classroom ...and to think we pulled our kids out! :D (Really, it is a great school!)

:iagree:I was going to recommend this. When we redo our kids' rooms most likely our oldest (at least) will do this as he does most of his school work at night up in his room! He's excited about a loft someday!

We used MUS before I read and now Math Mammoth after reading. Reading the book didn't instigate my change though, however I feel better about MM for many reasons, some of which were confirmed by reading the book. MUS is a conceptual curriculum though and got us part way there.... there were just some additional things I started looking for in MUS that I didn't find... thus the switch. MM has been excellent for all my kids!

Thanks everyone! I appreciate your input! Today we did Babcock Ranch and really enjoyed that!

We are in SW FL on vacation for the next week and I'm wondering if there is anything we should be sure to do or not miss while we're here! We are especially looking for some smaller low-cost things that we might otherwise miss... Babcock Ranch Pirate Cruise Edison House (we're planning on the parade of lights too) Imaginarium Sanible Island Manitee Park Mixon Fruit Farm beach time! Anything that is a "can't miss" this that we've missed? Thanks! We are from MN visiting my Dad and his wife. We are in HEAVEN in this weather!! We swam outside in the pool today and it was just gorgeous!! I told my dh I may not go back home! ;-)

I'm thinking about using just R&S English to cover grammar and writing next year for my 5th grader. He's doing WWE4 this year after gone through 2 as well as 3. He also follows most of the writing recommendations in WTM in science and history. Do you think we'll be happy with that? We like the grammar (have been using this year and we love it), but we haven't done any of the writing as I think WWE has been enough for us. I'm not sure what 5th grade looks like for writing instruction. Does anyone do this? The other program I am a bit interested in is Bravewriter, but I really don't want to spend extra money if I don't need to.

One thought would be to do an online drill for the first 10 min. or so of every math period. I don't know that my kids would hold up for an hour of math every day... nor would I. We use Math Mammoth Light Blue. She has a lot of practice in there. Instead of doing only some of the problems we do them all. I assign 2 pages a day (which in our house is plenty) and however long it takes them to do it that's math. My younger two I do math with and we do shorter math times, but I feel like there's a lot of practice with the math facts.

I haven't used anything other than WWE and we're in WWE4. But, my kids also do narrations in both science and history. My 4th grader does 2 history summaries a week and 2 science summaries a week. At this point I haven't structured his narration at all. I just let him write what he remembers or finds interesting. Starting this summer I will begin to work on outlining with him. I'm perfectly fine moving slower with writing when they are young. There is plenty of time for adding more... but, none of my kids (except maybe the youngest) is a natural writer. Maybe that makes a difference.... however, WWE has done wonders for them so I'm trusting SWB's other recommendations... I'm basically following her outline for teaching writing.

I'm easing my 4th grader into Logic stage history... this is what we do... He listens to the appropriate chapter in SOTW (we're in 3). Then he reads the encyclopedia, does a summary, timeline and map work from SOTW. The encyclopedia ends up being more "filling in" than a "main text". The next day he chooses from library books I have provided, does additional reading (usually just a portion of a book) and does a summary on that. The way I stay "in contact" with him is when he works with me we do the discussion questions from the SOTW AG. Then we can discuss the story he heard and clear up any misunderstandings. It serves the purpose of needing my older ones to work independently, yet still giving us time to discuss a bit. However, that does require that I either listen to the CD or read the book beforehand!

My ds is very interested in Latin, Greek and possibly Hebrew at some point. I can only speak to Latin and Greek... We started Latin in 3rd grade using Prima Latina. He's doing Latina Christiana I this year and will do First Form next year. He's thinking of Greek for next year and if he chooses that we'll start the "Hey Andrew" series. We'll just take it slow... no stress. I'm planning 2 days of Latin and 2 days of Greek a week. I'm not sure about Hebrew... we may forgo that until HS? Or not at all... we'll add a modern language in 7th or 8th if he chooses Greek right now.

My oldest is only 4th grade, but this is what we've done so far and plan to do as of now: 3rd grade: Latin 4th grade: Latin 5th grade: Latin and Greek (or if he decides against Greek Spanish) 7th or 8th grade: Latin, Spanish/Greek and third (modern) language of their choice I took 3 additional languages besides my own in HS/College and value the study of language. Sadly, I'm not fluent in any of them... so I'm not much help! My oldest seems to have a similar enjoyment of languages so I'm going to let him study what he'd like. Not sure about the rest of the kids as they are young yet. My dd started Latin this year and really likes it even though she thought she wouldn't! One thing you could say to your son who is not as excited about Latin anymore is that it is easier to learn a language people don't really speak first so that you can learn the mechanics without feeling like you need to pronounce everything exactly right. We are "using" Latin as an intro for how to learn a language as well as vocab help. I think what they learn in Latin will greatly help them learn other languages faster. I'm not as worried as some about the accent thing... you know, many people don't learn a foreign language until after the "optimal" time to learn a language. Since I'm not fluent in anything other than English I'm not so worried as to start 3 languages at age 3, or to do Latin/Greek before a modern. I figure if our kids can speak a couple other languages, even if they have an accent, they will be further ahead than many American kids who barely have a basic understanding of the language after HS. That being said, I have no idea what to use to teach modern languages! I've been stuck on that for awhile! I'm starting to think it might be worth it to find someone local who I can barter with or pay for tutoring. Really, I'm guessing that's the best way to learn a language. In that case I may push Mandarin at some point!

I wouldn't give up on R&S... it might just be that grammar doesn't come naturally to your daughter and she's going to have to work harder to understand it. The nice thing about R&S is that it repeats things from year to year. If she doesn't quite get it in 3rd... it will come back around. Especially since you say grammar isn't your strong point, you may have to put extra time into it too to make sure you understand the lesson before you teach it. I've done a lot of other grammar programs with my oldest and really, R&S is a good one! As far as the "invisible" verbs... I think those are hard for concrete children. I just explained it as something you can't actually "see" someone do. (ie. I can't "see" you "think") I think you could leave it at that and let it settle in a bit. Even bring it up to her at different times outside of "school". For example: when you tell her that you love her, you could say..."by the way... that was an invisible verb! Can you "see" me love you? No, but "to love" is a verb anyway.... you just can't see it. Maybe real life examples would help her to make the connection. The answer to your specific question on helper forms of the verbs ending in "n" or "un" can be found in lesson 62. In the student book it's about 1/2 way down the page. In the teacher's guide the lesson is found on page 157. When we do the oral review (generally we don't do oral, I just assign the writing portion) I have the answers right there in front of me. While grammar is generally pretty easy for me at this point, I'm sure there will be things in the future I will need to study ahead for. :D

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree: We LOVE MM here!

We love Math Mammoth here! It is mastery based, which I like, but much more varied both in scope and in types of problems than MUS. This is THE math curriculum for us... we switched once from MUS, but I'm planning on the kids working all the way through MM... it's THAT good! I know Maria has placement tests on the website... I had to go back in fill in some things (especially geometry). We took the summer to fill holes, then started in at the appropriate level. Nice thing is you can just print what you need!

I just moved everyone to working independently in all subjects. For the younger two we just read books in history and science and that's going really well. I base the history books off of what the older two are doing in SOTW3. So we do follow that progression. In science everyone is kind of doing something different. My oldest is doing ES Chemistry and loves it. He's independent with that. My dd is doing a lap book on Hummingbirds and she is very independent with that. The younger two I read books to. We are reading a fun chemistry book right now, but after that I'm just going to let them pick what they want to read about. I think the trick I figured out was to put more time into making sure the older two have "meaty" stuff to study and lighten up on the youngers. There is PLENTY of time for those younger guys... we focus in more on the 3R's with the younger ones. We also moved to a 2 day history/2 day science week and that's going really well. I don't feel like I have to get in both science and history every day. They do a bit more work each day, but overall that's been a big stress relief for me! I see a lot of benefit to each doing his/her own work. I can customize the work for each age level. 5 years is a big gap. There's a huge difference between a K'er and a 4th grader! I was not doing either justice! Now, I feel like everyone gets the best I can give them. It really doesn't take any more time than it did before because I made sure the older two could be independent in both history and science... just checking in with me after they've completed the work. SOTW on audio has been the key for history! I do school from 8:30-2:00/2:30 most days though... so it is a chunk of time! I figure as they get older they all get more and more independent in their work. I already see a difference in my oldest (10) this year.

I just use file folders... I stick the whole stack in a folder (or two) and just pull what I need each week... if you get all the pages in there at once you don't have to worry about losing any. I use a plastic file bin that has the "future" work at the back of the bin in color coded folders for each child. Then in the front of the bin I have one week of colored folders for each child. (each child has a Monday, Tuesday, Wed.... folder). At the beginning of the week I file just that week's worth in the daily folders. I used to do 6 weeks at a time, but this has worked much better. Especially in "sick" season when I never know when someone will get "behind" because of a sick day or two. Everything is all in one place... it's working well. :D

We school year round, but I will probably take a good 8 weeks during the summer and have some "math" down time. I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the younger kids (probably more math games), but with my older ds I will have him do Fred... I have Fractions and Decimals and percents....

My dh's job is to bring home money so I can homeschool! ;-) He really doesn't get involved with schooling directly unless I ask him. He will be a math consultant when needed. He also wants to start things like car maintenance/woodworking when the kids get older. He will also involve the kids in projects around the house when he's doing them. He reads to the kids "fun" books at bed time. Other than that, everything is up to me. That works for us. He also lets me make all the decisions concerning school. He is my sounding board though when I run into problems. He's a really good problem solver! :001_smile: I can see as the kids get older leaning on him mostly for math help! That is my weakest area! That, and I'm finding I'm not so good at Chemistry either... but he isn't either! :001_smile: