I have a dd12 who is a very advanced reader in that she reads a lot, reads it fast, and has very high comprehension. I want her to take this gift to the next level and start some literary analysis this next year and would love to hear your opinions on whether I should go with my original plan of using Lightning Lit. 7 or if choosing some of Progeny Press' study guides is a better choice. Anyone used or have experience with both? Which is better? I have a few PP guides(below her level) so I have and idea of what PP entails but I am not in a position to get my eyes on LL7 without ordering, so I can't make an educated decision. Help please.

During the fall and spring it's the worst. Three of my four play soccer so there is rarely a night off from taking someone to practice. Dd12 and ds10 have been taking violin and piano respectively for many years and this year the dd/ds7 twins will get their start. Co-op is Monday, and if I'm lucky I will be able to schedule music lessons just after co-op so it's all done in one day. We also have youth group for dd12, our own church community group one night a week and they all love to do a class or two(art, photography, forestry, etc.) through 4H, so there is also that. I have come to a place of peace that this is the nature of the beast if you have a handful of kids. It wears me thin, but they love it and if things seem to get too much, we just skip something and rest. Just because you sign up for something doesn't mean you have to be at EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE or MEETING. Missing a few will not hurt anyone. I just try to keep my perspective by remembering that the days are long, but the years are short. This stage of our lives will be gone before you know it.

I just bought Getty Dubay for my 4 kiddos, dd12, ds10, dd/ds 7 twins. They are going to flip when I show it to them. I actually got to meet Barbara Getty at a HS Conference in Portland last month. She will show you a side by side sample of traditional cursive next to the GD and it's a no brainer, you can read the GD SO much easier. My oldest also has scandalously bad handwriting, and I think this will please her and I both. The boys hate all the curly que's anyhow. She recommended I get Book C (which transitions from print to cursive) for my dd/ds 7's, Book F for my ds10, and book G for my dd12. The instruction manual is for all the levels so you only need the one book. It's very exciting, i feel like a rebel. :lol:

Your input and experience does help me a ton. I will be getting the downloads this weekend so I can get that boost of confidence before I spend any more money. I am wondering if I would be able to get by with just the WWE text for levels 1-4 or do I need the workbooks? Or both? Hmmm. Yes the Abeka spelling books are more exciting to look at, but all my kids have done Abeka for all the subjects since k4 in private school, and they are looking forward to less workbooks. Thanks for sharing your valuable experiences. Can anyone else comment on what I have planned for dd12...this is what I am most concerned with. Thanks.

:bigear:

My husband and I went to Kauai'i last February and had a great time. We flew into Lihue, went to Costco for food(same prices as here) and Walmart for anything else and it really wasn't bad at all. Eating out is what is the most expensive. If you stay on the south side near Poipu, you can snorkel to your hearts content, right off the beach, and be near any grocery stores that will keep costs down. I was shocked to go to Costco, have a $1.50 hot dog(same prices!) in their open air food court, great scenery, i had to laugh. Not what you want to do everyday, but it helps. The infamous $5 Subway footlong is $6 there, still not a big deal. Your biggest expenses will be flight and hotel, everything else can be done cheap. The north side of the island has a great bay that bigger kids can safely learn how to surf. The island is small so to go from one side to the other to see everything is no biggie. We loved it. Kauai'i is also the least comercial of the bigger islands, so laid back. It was like going to a different planet. A lovely, lovely, planet!:001_smile:

We are switching dd12 from Abeka to R&S for English and Spelling. I am drawn to MCT for it's writing reviews and think she would enjoy the poetry as well, and I am also looking forward to the grammar from a different angle. For Literature I was going to have her do Lightning Lit 7. We have not done R&S before so I am wondering if I am going to kill her with too much writing. I am also wondering if my ds10 does R&S English 5, is it a good idea for him to do a bit of WWE 4? He is a very bright but reluctant writer. I am determined to not let it keep him from writing. Then lastly, does R&S Enlish 2 have enough writing to not have to do WWE with my dd/ds 7 twins. I plan on downloading SWB's lectures on writing too, so I will also have that resource, yet I find myself wanting to 'lean' on a curric. so I don't have to come up with so much on my own. Please lend me your thoughts.:)

We have no personal experience with it, but several kids in our co-op use it and it sounds like the parents and kids really like it. I look forward to others input on it since I was on the fence about it myself.:bigear:

That was exactly the info I was looking for...and it also means I got a really good deal and I didn't screw it up! LOL. Yeah! I saved this website to my favorites. I'm sure it will come in handy in the future. Thanks again.

We made the choice to switch to Saxon for next year. I went to a used sale last night and was able to gobble up a bunch of Saxon for a great deal, however, there are clearly older versions(with #'s all over the cover) and newer(vertical stripe up the side). Is there really a difference in content or is it just an aesthetics upgrade? I really need to know because I bought some of both and need to know if I created a train wreck of our math. Thanks for all your input. I didn't spend much, so if I have to buy different books I will only be out a few bucks.

Please help...I have a lot of curric. to resell and am not sure how to price it all. I have lot of 'like new' and so I am not sure how much I can get for them. Any advise is helpful.

Do you decide on a flat percentage of new, say 30 or 40%. Or is that too high. I would of course mark things down further if very tattered, but I have a lot that is 'like new' so I want to get some money back, but I don't want to price it too high and have it not sell. Any help is appreciated.

I had a long reply earlier...and I lost it. Ugh. I will add Kinetic's to my list of possiblities. Cost is a factor and a reason for choosing Saxon to begin with. If I come across CD used, I might snag it, otherwise 'new' bursts the budget. We are coming from A Beka which has about equal new practice and review, and we have had to add in a little more review on occasion, maybe that makes her a good candidate for Saxon, but I would prefer more practice of new concepts than you describe. I also like the DVD option for Saxon and CD, so I might choose those over one that doesn't, which I have not idea about Lial's or Kinetics. Thanks for all the great insight.

I am sorry your having a rough time of it. I am sure your children are learning more right now about how to adjust to adversity than you think and that is worth a lot. Here are a few 'freebies' that we have enjoyed. Spellcity.com for spelling games, you put in the list, or they can make one for you based on age/grade. Hangman, crossword puzzles, wordfinds, vocabulary. My kids love it. Donnayoung.org-she is a former homeschool mom that has put all kinds of freebies on her site for all to use. She is more a Charlotte Mason kinda gal, but that might be more up your alley for the time being. It is really mind boggling the amount of stuff she has, for all different subjects. I am sorry I don't have more to offer, hopefully more people will chime in. :001_smile::001_smile:

Okay, I am starting to lean the CD way now, maybe, I wish I could look at them both. What is the most common resource for CD, and does it let you look through the materials(online of course) thoroughly like some Amazon listings?

I looked at the link you provided, and it was really helpful. The private school we left last year has started using it...and the parents are going bizerk with the amount of homework...like 6 pages. I can see how it could be overwhelming to use as a homeschooler as well, and I have several other kids to teach as well. Maybe CD is not for us. Anyone else have a different perspective or experience?

I had originally chose Saxon, mostly because she is just an 'average' math kid, not mathy, so to speak. But maybe I should consider Chalkdust? Do you have to be a mathy kid to be successful or will an average kid be able to do it with extra effort? Also, for those that are doing Chalkdust, what are you supplementing with if you do at all? Your responses are so appreciated...this has been the hardest curric choice for me to make for next year. Also, does Houghton-Mifflin have a reputable line for grammar stage? I was going to switch them all over to Saxon, but maybe not.:tongue_smilie:

As almost strictly A beka users until we discovered TWTM, we also went looking for something like what you're looking for. We landed on Mystery of History and look forward to doing that next year, though because of the kids' ages, we are going straight to vol.2, and hit vol.1 in the next rotation. That being said, I do like a good year of US History in there somewhere. My older 2 dc did A beka for 4th grade(which is US History), and I feel it is really well done for that age group. So, we are keeping it to do again for the twins, and the older 2 will do an upper level US History somewhere in the rhetoric stage(high school). It looks to me like MOH has something for all the ages I need, and I love it when we can do SOMETHING together.

I can tell what we have experienced...all four dc's have used A Beka, oldest now in 6th. I have to say it is a really great program with lots of review, but is a little lacking in 'practical' math aka story problems. So we supplemented with LOF and that seemed to fill the gap. Other issues I see are that in 5th, they use a method of checking their work called casting out nines. This is not something my husband or I learned so it was new to us. After going through several grades of that, I am convinced that just reworking the problem is much faster, and more accurate. I have also thought some of the few story problems to be pointless(having no meaningful application) and not very specific in what they are wanting for an answer. So we have chosen to jump ship to Saxon for next year. I would be fine keeping the younger kids in A Beka, but since we would eventually make the switch anyway...we are just switching everyone. So I guess what I'm saying is that it's good in the younger grades, but at some point, you may feel the need to jump ship. Also, using the workbook has led to some 'tidyness' issues. There isn't enough room to work the problem in the book, and they want to do it in the book, so they try to make it fit, and it is really hard to read the problem below...when you've written all over it working the problem above. Can you tell we are ready to move on? LOL. Hope you find what you are looking for.

I think one book a month is about what we've been doing, with a rough summary type book report at the end, so it may take more time to get through a lit guide too. We have 30 min. of "required" reading, that I select the book (usually a WTM suggestion), then any other reading during the day, they can choose the book. Sometimes they finish very quickly if they like the book well enough to read in the car, evenings, etc. sometimes they don't like it and it takes a while to chip away at 30 min. at a time. If I have enough lit guides to do one every 6 weeksish, then that should do. He's an above average reader, with below average ambition to read for fun. If I push him too hard, it will only be agony for us both. Would love more book suggestions though. Anyone?

I have both catalogs here so I will surely use both...thanks for the book selections...it is not easy to find good "boy" books with substance that he will read, so we will try those. He did very much enjoy Adventures of Huck Finn this last year, and I was shocked.

Planning for next year...my ds will be in 5th next year and I would love any suggestions for a reading program. This year we just went with WTM suggestions, and that worked fine. My dd12 will do LL7 next year, and I am wondering if there isn't something like it for his level. I may pick some Progeny Press lit guides...but how many would you do in a year? Any thoughts or suggestions would be great. We will be using R&S English, and doing Middle Ages in history if that helps with suggestions. Thanks.

I agree with previous posters about if you do more than one chapter a day it doesn't seem to sink in as well, and we are far more likely to have to do a second bridge test. I have found that it is easier for us to keep track of where we are if we do a chapter a day for each of the five days, then a bridge also on friday(which doesn't ever take very long), then move on. :001_smile: We have been moving through both fractions for ds9 and decimals/percents for dd12. They love it.

Every month I print out a copy of our family calendar that is kept on MS Outlook. Dd12 then writes in her due dates for projects, papers, or test dates on the calendar. The fact that it has sports/music/vacation/other commitments on the calendar helps her to know how to manage her time better by knowing when we will or will not have time to work on something. I think it helps her learn to manage her time and at the same time be part of the "team"(family). Though we didn't start this until this year because we didn't start hsing until this year, I don't think I could have expected her to do this as a 5th grader last year. Good luck finding what works for you.

...but a creative one, so I don't complain. Their fav's are any that have to do with Star Wars and some that my husband kept from his childhood that aren't around anymore. The cheapest places we've found is Wal-Mart...but Lego.com has some pretty cool stuff. They were always fighting over the people or the wheels so we went to lego.com and bought a box of 30 people and a couple of boxes of wheels. Way cool. And the large flat boards are great for building cities, castles, houses, etc. We have tried to keep the sets together but it only lasts so long, so they just have a couple big bins and thats where the loose pieces live. Have fun!