Thank you for your replies. She has decided to take Spanish and not work quite so hard!

I remember seeing that TarynB, but wasn't sure how to find it. Thank you!! It figures that my husband is from Oklahoma (we now live in Tennessee), but is a University of Oklahoma fan and does not care for O State. I can hear it now if she takes this course!!! :lol:

My dd is starting 11th grade in the fall and wants to learn German as her 2 credits for foreign language. We did the Latin First Form series in elementary and middle school (all four of them), so I was hoping she would choose a Romantic Language. I don't know anything about German, so we need to do something without me. Are my options only Rosetta Stone or an online course? She prefers to do something more self-paced as she will have 2 demanding co-op courses this year, but I know she should get used to juggling her subjects before college. Any thoughts?

We did General Science this year and never got a kit. Everything was normal household stuff. Sheri

My dd did O1 primaries this year. There is a benefit of having a teacher who really knows the subject matter and seeing historical places where they are filming on location. That last part is probably not so much a factor with O III secondaries. I did the course mostly side-by-side with my dd to get a feel for if I could teach next year myself. (Omnibus has been intimidating to me.) The games for reinforced learning got on my nerves a little. There were also lots of computer glitches. Maybe it was because we were using Safari, and they recommended using Firefox. There are no required writing assignments unless you require them and grade them yourself. There is also no discussion, but you can pay for a separate discussion class if you don't want to do it yourself. All grading was done with multiple choice quizzes, and multiple choice mid-term and final. No books or any part of the lessons can be skipped. You are locked out until you complete each and every portion. Overall I would recommend the class. They should have a few lessons online for you to see for free. Sheri

I was ready to drop Latin after this year as well (7th grade). We use the First Form series. My daughter has gotten through Third Form, but it hasn't really been that bad. Two days of the week we watch the lesson and take quiz or unit test. For the other three days, we set a timer and work no more than 40 minutes together, then she does her worksheets and any studying. My husband encouraged me to finish with Fourth Form and be done. We will do our best this year keeping the same time constraints. If we don't finish the book, so be it! No one in my home is interested in reading the Classics in Latin. We will get the benefit of grammar, logic and vocab. and move on. My dd wants to do Spanish in high school, so that is what we will do. It should be pretty easy.

I did not do any outlining outside of WWS1 and first half of WWS2 (I wound up splitting WWS2 because we had so much other coursework to do), but I think it would be better to do some. SWB's outlining lessons are not always cut and dry to someone who has not been exposed to it before. For my next dd I am going to do outlining in history and science before starting WWS1 so she has some background in it. Sheri

I just checked Amazon and they are saying WWS3 will be available this November. Most of the time PHP puts the first 10 weeks online close to release date. Sheri

I don't think so.

She has Kilgallon, Sentence Composing for Middle School noted to do in fourth grade if you have completed WWE3.

I love SWB's approach to history and the Great Books in the WTM, but I want a distinctively Christian perspective, and I want it to be easy to follow (minimal prep time). Of course I would not mind figuring out which books to use from a list, etc. as I get started each year. I also am only homeschooling 2 children in two different phases in the history cycle, so I am not concerned about using it for multiple children. Does such a curriculum exist? Sheri

I love R&S for grammar. For writing I think I would go back to WWE4 and make sure narration and dictation were under control. Your 7th grader will probably go through it pretty fast unless they need work here. WWS1 assumes you have this down. Sheri

I have only done the Omnibus I Primaries self-paced online course with my dd this past school year. I did not have the time to read all of those ancient, long books, but wanted my dd to learn from the course, so I bought the online course. They offer early discounts each year. I think it was well worth it. I sat through nearly every class with her and read as much of the books as I could. We still had good conversations together, but the teacher had the background expertise that I did not. However, if YOU are doing this for self-learning, your goal would be to do all the reading yourself and go through the discussion questions. You could write them out, I suppose or sort of talk to yourself about it. :001_smile: I do think if money is an issue that you could really benefit doing it yourself. Be sure to get the CD ROM that has the teacher edition for the answers! Most of the time there is not a huge issue with having a different publisher, but page numbers will be different. I think this is more important with the live online classes so that the class will be on the same page (so to speak). I applaud your desire to be self-educated. Omnibus is a large time commitment since it is three one credit courses if you do both Primary and Secondary Books. I decided to just do primaries for my dd in 7th grade because with her other courses, I did not want to overwhelm her. It worked out well! Blessings, Sheri

Susan, I am curious as to why you didn't recommend any of the Classical Composition books after WWS3. Sheri

Susan, My dd is 13 and has written several (over 100 written pg.) books on her own. (Creative Writing) I have read very little of these, because she will not let me. (I think she is afraid I will correct everything!) I did read a page that was left up on the computer one day. It was pretty good. She hated WWS1 and now hates WWS2, but I feel like she needs to learn how to write these kinds of papers with documentation, etc. Am I doing her a disservice by keeping her in this program? Your WWS books seem so logical and perfect for me, but I am not the student of course. I don't care for IEW. Any suggestions? Thanks, Sheri

I imagine it can be tricky homeschooling twins since they may not always have the same skill level. Slow down is the best advice I can give. You could even do WWE4 for a while with the twin who is not ready. I did this with my daughter. She did WWE 2-4. I skipped level 1 because we had been doing these skills in other subjects. She was 11 when she started WWS1 and she struggled with some of it. I kept reading the forums where those "in the know" told me how great it was, so we persevered by slowing down. Some days we did half of the steps for the day. Sometimes I talked her through the whole lesson until it stuck. It paid off. By the end of WWS1 she independently did her 1000 word research paper. I did check her notes and outline, but made small adjustments. This really is a great curriculum, but I disagree with the expected grade levels it teaches to. There may be some 5th graders who could tackle WWS1 almost independently, but not across the board for all. In the introduction, SWB says to feel free to adjust this course to your student. I took that advice to heart and continue to do that as we tackle WWS2. Blessings, Sheri

Susan, So glad for you. I have one in Saxon and one in MUS. They are both doing great! Sheri

I have used MUS and Saxon with my daughters. After getting through Zeta my older dd needed more review of fractions/decimals and percents, so we did a year of Saxon. It paid off, but now my older dd likes Saxon better. She is in pre-algebra and it is going fine. I have no idea what we will do for Algebra and beyond, but I appreciate the posts made on this thread. I am so glad there are all kinds of curricula for all kinds of students, so we can all pick something that works for each of our children. Sheri

Writing with Skill was originally written to be used with a student as early as 5th grade. An advanced 5th grader may be able to do this, however my dd was not ready. We started with WWS level 1 in 6th grade. It was still a challenge, but we slowed down in some places until we completed it. I actually chimed in on some threads about how this course was impossible! That has all changed. By the time she got to the 1,000 word research assignment she sailed through it with almost no help (I had not read the teacher manual where it said I was to check each step of the way, but she did great with some minor revisions). I believe older students are doing these books at double time. They are so valuable!! If you go to some of the older postings on WWS you will get a lot more information. Susan Wise Bauer (SWB) has a thread that is a must-read. Although she will have several more books in this series that will go through high school, they are not written yet. Sheri

There are 175 sessions total. They are not sure yet about writing, but there are assignments in the book and they require them with the Scholars course. You still need a book and the reading books. This is Primary books only. To do the full Omnibus, you would do Secondary books as well, but these are more manageable... Narnia books.

We used First Form and are now on Second Form. I personally like it. They offer dvd's which I use. You do need to plan what you will drill. They offer suggestions, but if your dd needs more help in a certain area, you can structure your drill to fit that. I have the flash cards as well, which are great. They can do those on their own as well. There is a quiz for each lesson (weekly) and a unit test. It is very thorough yet moves slowly enough to get the grammar in deeply. My ds goes to school in 10th grade and is taking Latin I. My 6th grade dd blows him away! He may move faster, but she really knows her skills and he is, well, sort of winging it at times. She rattles off her declension forms and verb conjugations in no time flat! That could also be because I am a drill sergeant! Just kidding. The only other Latin we have done are Prima Latina and Latina Christiana also by Memoria Press Although I liked those for when my dd was younger, FF and SF are better structured in my opinion due to the student workbook pages. Sheri

If you want to be a part of a group forming for Omnibus I Self-paced online to get a discount, I am forming one. PM me and I will get back to you. Sheri

Geesh, I can't figure out how to pm, but I have a group that you can join. We have 7 so far and several more are deciding. I think we will make it. Sheri

Lori D. Well, i guess I meant formal Rhetoric classes like persuasive writing and speaking. This is one thing (of many) I missed in school. I was taught to do a research paper, but not a persuasive essay or paper. The same with speech. I need to learn this along side my dd. With these skills then I see her using it with her more advanced learning the last year or two of high school and so on. With that said, it is true that you can't force logical thinking too early if the aptitude is not yet there. I appreciate your thorough post. It gives me much to consider. Sheri

I think having the self-paced course at a lower price point will take a load off my mind. I have not studied the classic books, especially the ancient ones, so having someone to help explain them is worth the price. i am organizing a group of at least 10 to receive a $100 discount on the regular price of $295 (see the sample email for details). That does not include the text and required reading books. Compared to $500 for the online course, that is a steal! Plus, you get to see places in Greece and Italy where some of the events were taking place. I think it will be great! Sheri