Many maths curricula are written to follow the standard school year in the US. As our family doesn't have to follow this standard, I was wondering if this subject can actually be covered in a more succinct way and how that looks like. An advantage of this for us would be that we can easily fit it in our own national curriculum.

Hi, do you know of any maths curricula that cover algebra 1 and 2 in one year? Thank you!

With regards to writing across the curriculum, I find it helpful to read a few books that explain the process to me, the parent. One book I enjoyed reading for this purpose is The Lively Art of Writing. It is concise, clear, and very helpful. Good luck!

We are doing FFL over 2 years, and plan to follow up with Analytical Grammar once dd is in 6th grade. The idea is to pace AG over a 3-year period and have her do grammar for 10 weeks each year. I will be giving her a reinforcement worksheet every now and then.

The Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan The Vision of Islam, Sachiko Murata Muhammad, Karen Armstrong

Good to know. I have read quite a few reviews that level 4 is not the best and that students struggle with it. I will definitely consider skipping that one. Thank you!

Thank you for the advice!

I would like to ask advice on the following. My daughter recently turned 10. I thought to try out W&R with her and we covered book 1. She is enjoying the approach so I am now looking to continue with the programme. Considering her age I am wondering whether to continue with book 2, or skip this book and move on to book 3. She finds writing rather easy and fun. Book 1 was definitely below her level. Any advice, please? Thank you!

Thank you for all the advice. I thought to share what I have now decided on doing, in case that is of benefit to others. We plan to transition from Math Mammoth 7, which we have been extremely pleased with, to MEP maths so as to start using UK curricula in preparation for GCSEs. I made a list of MEP Year 9 topics that needed to be covered before my ds can start the GCSE curriculum. I also asked the advice of a maths educator who is familiar with both Math Mammoth and MEP maths. She helped me create the below list. After completing MM7, I am planning to have my son work through the following MEP Year 9 units (or parts of units): 1; 3; 5; 7; 10; 11; 12.2; 13; 15; 16.2; 16.3; 17. After this we plan to start the GCSE (Year 10 and 11) curriculum. If we like MEP we will probably use their programme for that. Thanks again for advising everyone. I hope this will be useful to others.

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Math Mammoth - we are using 4 and 7, and enjoying them very much. Mcguffey Readers - we love using them for many LA activities: elocution, reading, narration, dictation, and grammar.

You mention having looked at WWE and finding it overwhelming. I wonder whether you have had a look at the WWE 4-year guide that you can use with your own selection of texts? I explains the whole method. I found this useful for my youngest who is very clear about the books she likes, and I also wanted to be able to adjust the levels. One of our favourite resources for text selections are the Mcguffey readers, but we also use passages from whatever she is reading.

Thank you for reminding me of Windows to the World. Maybe a good one to use towards the end of the year for six weeks or so, so as to zoom in on literary analysis. I like that it uses short stories. Any recommendations for good essay collections? For essays I have Breakfast on Mars in my cart. Under consideration is also, but need to look into it more: Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 3rd Edition

Thank you to everyone for the very helpful advice. I'm sorry for taking so much of your time! This is what I consider doing: - Have certain resources at hand and study them over the coming few months. - Some materials focus on teaching the teacher, such as SWB's talks about teaching writing, Comprehensive Composition (Stout), and IEW. We have been using IEW SSSB1 this year so parts of the method should hopefully be easy to start using across the curriculum. - If more practice in specific areas, such as outlining, sentences and paragraphs, is needed I will look into Killgallon. - I also have Lively Art of Writing which I will read in more detail for inspiration. - We also plan to spend time studying logic. The Argument Builder seems to be good and suitable for ds's age. - Lastly, I hope to be able to study Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student to get a better understanding of where we are heading. I'm sure we will be adjusting as we go... Very grateful to you all!

Seems like The Argument Builder might work for us. If anyone knows where to find the talk by Andrea Lipinski, that would be great. It didn't come up in my search.

These ideas are great, and sound like the sort of efficient activity ds needs. Educators, including SWB, stress that we shouldn't teach two difficult skills at the same time. My impression is that for my ds writing more quickly is difficult, so when we are writing he is working on thinking skills and the physical handwriting at the same time. These activities you are describing seem to separate these two skills. I look forward to the game you describe 🙂 I think I will have to work on his handwriting speed in other ways.

Thank you all very much for your valuable advice. I'm taking notes. A few questions that come up reading everyone's suggestions: Regarding writing across the curriculum, just to clarify: I didn't mean that my son was really fluent at outlining, summarizing, and paragraphs. He does all this, but is not proficient yet. With writing across the curriculum I actually meant using this method as a means to improve those skills. From your feedback though I am now feeling inclined to go ahead with the writing across the curriculum approach, and use bits and pieces of curricula I have at home to help him with issues as they come up. I guess now I will need to identify which curricula I should have on my shelf and 'study' over the coming few months. - @Ruth in NZ: I came across the writing plan you made years ago based on your evaluation of numerous 🙂 writing curricula. I wonder whether you ended up implementing it in that way, and if you have any reflections on how it panned out. Maybe you have already shared this... Specifically, you also mentioned planning to use Lost Tools of Writing in that plan. Do you feel it was a valuable addition for you? Should it be on my go-to resources shelf? Improving speed: those suggestions are super super helpful. Thank you. Ds's speed is the thing I'm struggling to improve most, I think. Oral composition: I'm not sure if I know what that means. Presentations? Or discussions with me that help structure ds's thoughts? I'm asking you so many questions because I get the impression that my ds in some ways has a profile similar to your younger dc. Grammar: this is our sit-and-relax activity. We do it for fun, and also because we are a multi-lingual family comparative grammar interests us. But yes, I agree with your integrative approach. @Momto6inIN Very clear and helpful advice. Thank you! I like your suggestion to have literature discussions in the style of LToW. Any suggestions how to do this without using the curriculum? Perhaps you mean that I could study the curriculum myself, learn the approach, and then proceed to use parts of it in a natural way without actually having my son go through it? As for Argument Builder, we do plan to study logic next year. Hence my idea to use it for writing as well, but I understand now that the writing instruction in it is not sufficient. Did you like The Argument Builder? Easy to use? Interesting conversations? Hones thinking skills? Would you say it would also be helpful with invention?

Hello I'm hoping some of you will be able to advise with regards to my son's writing plan for next academic year. I am looking at a few options and keep changing my mind as to what might be most beneficial to him. A few words about him: almost 13, very interested and enjoys reading. He loves grammar, likes logic. When he works independently, his output is slow. He actually does many things very slowly: eating, putting on his shoes, writing. I eventually decided that if we want to get more work done, working orally is best. Maths, grammar and exchange of arguments flow better when we do them orally. This slowness is one of our main challenges. Next year we are looking to do grade 8 (UK year 9) work, before starting to work through the GCSE specifications. These tend to be rather limiting, so for GCSE preparation I might opt to use one of the exam board syllabi. This means that coming year might be the last year that I have so much wriggle room regarding curriculum, so I really want to make the best of it. As for his level: he is not pen-phobic but takes his sweet time to write. Ds summarizes well, outlines, writes basic paragraphs, letters, and has done a bit of essay writing. We have written across the curriculum, completed WWE (love it!), half of WWS level 1 (he didn't like it, which surprised me as he rarely complains about curriculum), and this year we are going through IEW to learn some of their techniques. I would like him to start using 3-level outlining to use across the curriculum. Very important for this child: efficient use of time, because of his pace. I am considering these options: - write across the curriculum using the approach for middle school laid out by SWB : outlining early in the week and write pieces based on the outline later in the same week. The great advantage I see here is that it teaches an important academic skill and, considering his working pace, it will give him more time with the content area of our studies, such as history and science. An advantage also is that I am familiar with this approach and find it easy to implement. Worry: would this give him enough writing experience to embark on the GCSE curriculum? - Lost Tools of Writing: this curriculum sounds interesting because it combines some of our interest areas such as logic and literature. So it seems partly writing across the curriculum. An advantage is that it would give ds more essay writing practice in a gentle way. Concern here is that most reviews I've read refer to outsourced classes and not to use at home by the parent. I wonder whether this curriculum can easily be used by an inexperienced teacher, and one on one. Another issue is that I will need to read the literature as well. I am worried that time constraints might be an issue here and that I won't be able to read all the books myself. Can short stories be used instead, or would they not be meaty enough for the required in-depth discussions? We do enjoy discussions 🙂 On the other hand, if LToW is really worthwhile for this age group (13), then coming year is the only possibility I see for us to use it. - Another very different option that seems interesting is to tap into my son's interest in logic and use that for writing. He has studied some basic logic, and I am looking at The Argument Builder for next year. From what I read it seems that the Argument Builder may be used for writing. Advantage: it seems open and go. Concern: no writing across the curriculum, so use of time would be less efficient. Also, would it be a suitable medium to improve writing skills. I really hope some of you experienced educators can help point me in the right direction. I apologize for the long post. Warmest regards

Stripe, thank you for sharing your experience about MEP. May I ask you more about this? You mentioned that you covered the GCSE material in one year, and then started pre-calc. Would you say that the GCSE material covers most of algebra 1&2 and geometry? Or did you supplement to cover some of that? Do you feel it is doable for most people to cover the GCSE materials in one year, or did pace have more to do with your student's abilities? Also, how did you feel about the number of exercises included? Would you say it was a lot? Busywork? Just about right? If you could compare it to another programme you are familiar with that would be great - maybe Foerster or Saxon. I'm trying to get a feel for this programme 🙂 Thanks for all the tips

Focusing on a few core subjects at the beginning helps. Curricula that my children and I are enjoying: - Maths: Math Mammoth: clear explanations; if we need another point of view, we use Khan Academy. - English: Rod and Staff: very clear. We do about a third of the exercises and cover many orally. - History: Story of the World: we read and discuss this together. When we reach events or periods that we want to read more about, we take a break from SotW and focus on other resources. We use history for writing summaries and narrations. We also keep a book of centuries (timeline). Moving abroad does open great opportunities to focus on the history/geography of a different part of the world. - Literature: Lots and lots of books. I think it is important to consider what might be the best way to source good books while abroad.

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Reading this thread I think it would be really good if this programme would also be offered in a condensed one-year version. Children who have gained basic writing skills elsewhere, but might still want to benefit from this programme could use it in 7th-8th grade. I would definitely be interested in that 🙂

Good to hear your ds is enjoying and benefitting from his course. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us. I think it would be a good fit for my son to start next year after completing his current IEW course. What seems very good to me is its focus on content. IEW is structure focused, and reading other reviews I started thinking this might be a good complement considering that it is said to improve the thinking process. And it would be a bonus if we could use it to improve and deepen our literature reading. Love that it seems easy to integrate 'other subjects'. Thank you!

May I ask if your dc has completed Lost Tools of Writing 1? We are considering using LToW 1 for 8th grade, and I am interested to hear about experiences others had using this curriculum with middle schoolers. It would be much appreciated if you could share your experience using it. Questions that come up: Did you find it effective in helping improve your child's writing? How did your child like the curriculum?How did it take to complete it? Did you find it easy to use? Thank you 🙂

This is an amazing overview. Thank you very much for sharing