Linnaeus's original taxonomy divisions were based on reproductive structures. Although he did classify plants, animals and minerals, his main work was with plants. Most of his original classification systems were based on that work. Although he later became a physician, so I'm sure he became quite a bit more familiar with the animal world :). He made several revisions to his system of classification in his life time and in fact we don't use all the divisions he created today. When Darwin came onto the scene with his evolutionary theory, taxonomy was changed from being structured around reproductive relationships to being structured phylogenetically (genetic relationships). Taxonomy now days is based on genetic relationships/similarities that we can see through DNA analysis. It's genetic fact, doesn't change, so it does not require a discussion on evolution in relation to origin of species, but you should touch on natural selection, as it can be seen in our daily life.. These days we use DNA analysis and morphological (form & structure) characteristics to prove a new species exists and to determine where it falls in the classification system. We do still use Linnaeus system of binomial nomenclature (every species has two names, both in latin, one for genus and one for species) and his idea that classification was hierarchical, which is why he is credited as the Father of the classification system. Hope that helps!

Good to know, I haven't looked at year 5 yet either, thanks for sharing!

We actually don't use this right now, to make a long story short, we needed to go back and start from the very beginning. So I started with WRTR, but when I went back to look at the book a few weeks ago, I really regret not sticking it out. Dd would be in such a better place with spelling and dictation had we stuck to it, but between pregnancy and baby, I just lost momentum. As for any offensive passages, I would skip them or change the wording to make it acceptable. I haven't read through every passage in the book, so I can't speak to specifics, but I love the approach and am currently trying to figure out how to incorporate it, but not switch spelling again, gotta learn to stick with something :D.

Wonderful, wonderful book! We used it for a bit and till I switched to SWO to save time, big mistake and now we are correcting that :).

Don't worry, I came to same realization when I reread the WTM several months ago. My dd was way behind the third grade suggestions for writing, but we've made up quite a bit of ground using WWE. We used WWE2 for 2nd grade and CW Aesop for the first half of 3rd, until I realized that her skills had just stalled. My plan was to apply WWE principles to her history and science narrations, but I found that it was not happening. My thinking is that just using history, science and reading narration is that it's a great idea for someone who is strong in the LA department, but not so much for those of use who are not. So, we still do written history & science narrations, but she dictates these to me and then copies them into her notebook. I don't worry too much about what she tells me as I don't use that time for writing instruction. We also do most of the dictations assignments in FLL3, which she finds relatively easy, but that's a good thing for now. As for writing instruction, we are working through WWE3. When we do WWE3 it's a challenge for her, she has to work at it and I'm tough on correcting any mistakes. I believe that the hard work has paid off as I've seen transference of the skills into her history & science narrations. We do all her reading narrations orally at this point, next year we'll start working on the reading notebook, but we just haven't gotten to it yet :). Hope that helps!

Just checking back to see if there was a name chosen and all I see is BROWNIES, you guys are killing me!! I haven't had brownies in months:glare:. Who wants to fly me back? I'll make the brownies for you, with or without Bill's recipe, you choose :D. ETA: I'll leave my shoes at the door, as it's the polite thing to do here :)

Yup, that's it!

:iagree: So wish I was in the US to take advantage of it!

Sent you a PM :)

The second edition of FLL 1 & 2 were done after WWE. If memory serves correctly, they divided one book into two and removed some of the extra narration and copywork assignments so that there wasn't as much overlap with WWE. I wouldn't worry about getting FLL4 now.

:grouphug: I so get the whole hair pulling thing, my ds does the same thing. No advice, just commiseration and hope that one day our guys will sleep the whole night through, every night. FWIW, I did the exact same thing with both my kids to put them to sleep, one slept through the night from 2mo on, one only sleeps through the entire night once every three days. I can't figure it out. I'm just guessing that some kids have a harder time with sleep than others.

I think this is where we are headed :glare:. I was doing dishes, 2 feet away from ds and he climbed up the pantry shelf and was just dangling there looking at me, like, what's the big deal! Dd never would have done that. Love all the ideas on this thread, I need them as we head into the wonderful world of toddlerhood :001_huh:.

Totally agree with the bolded statement. We have used up to FLL3 and have dabbled in several other options, Rod & Staff & KISS. I always come back to FLL because it's simple and effective. FWIW, FLL1 is my least favorite of the series because it feels like you'll never finish talking about nouns.

This is how we have been handling literature, but next year I need a bit more help. I'm too busy chasing after ds and writing that I'm afraid that I would let it slip through the cracks, especially since we live overseas and don't have access to library. So, we are going to use CHOLL Modern. It's free, but very thorough and will save me countless hours of planning.

What timeline figures are you referring to? We are planning on doing SOTW4 next year and I thinking over my timeline options as well. We've always done a wall timeline for the year that we are studying, not the 10 foot monster. This year we did our timeline from ceiling to floor because our space was a a premium. Next year we will do the same of I'm thinking about doing a lapbook with a timeline that runs down the center and a booklet for each chapter, but that's a pie in the sky plan :).

I did make the switch, we moved from WWE2 into CW Aesop. I love the idea of CW, but I regret switching as I saw her progress begin to stall. So, we switched back to WWE. My dd really needs to work on those foundational writing skills of narration & dictation and WWE just makes it so easy. So, even though we have a few tears now and then, I know that we are going to stick it out because I see the purpose of it all. I see where we are going with all this and I'm so grateful to SWB for writing WWE so that science geeks like me can actually teach writing :).

I think it's worth trying to work on auditory narration skills, as it will help with note taking in the future. We still do narrations like this after I read to her for history and science to keep up with the skill. One thing I did at the beginning was to give dd the questions, so that she would know what I was looking for. Another thing I have done is to read it to her first, then let her look at the passage while answering the questions. She's made tremendous progress through level 2 and 3. It's a great program! Hope that helps!

We've tried... All About Spelling (easy to use, but expensive if you only have one dc and your moving overseas :)) Word Attack (really liked this, but sadly Hannah wasn't writing anymore levels) Dictation Day by Day (free on Google books, loved this!!, but then ds came along and I didn't have the time to prep it the way it needed to be) Spelling Workout (workbooky, very workbooky and dd didn't remember any of the words by the time the review lesson came around) Writing Road to Reading (ahhh, finally found a match!!!, once I wrapped my head around the program it's not that hard to teach, similar approach as AAS, but much more affordable) Hope all my craziness with spelling helps you a bit. Welcome to the wonderful world of homeschooling!

I also would suggest getting the text. There are several weeks for each level, so if you wanted to move through level 2 quickly, it would be easy to do so. Level 3 has dictation passages that get fairly long and would be hard for someone with no dictation experience, even if you want slowly. I think that you'll find that level 2 will be a better fit. WWE will definitely help you dd focus her narrations, I've seen a huge improvement in my own dd. Hope that helps!

You don't know how glad I am to see that someone else has a 3rd grader with this disease. My dd will ask why I didn't get her some milk, when it sitting on the table right in front of her!!! Dd does her math workbook exercise, spelling sentences, grammar diagramming and Latin workbook exercises on her own, but that's after I've taught the lesson, gone over what she is expected to do, had her repeat the directions and then I check on her every 5 minutes of so to make sure she's on track. That's not really independence, is it? Oh well, it's better than last year and I figure we will get there eventually :). Best of luck and hope that helps!

Here's one I ran across in my research... http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog2/

Mmmm, crepes with butter, sugar and Nutella, it's bliss... Too bad I don't have any Nutella in the cabinet right now :glare:.

IMHO, the authors of CW advocate a more gentle approach to grammar than is laid out in WTM. I personally would and did add grammar when we used CW Aesop. But to answer you question, do you need grammar with CW? It really depends on whether you feel a short grammar lesson once a week is enough for your goals. Hope that helps!

FWIW, the teacher's manual for FLL3 is hefty, I think around 300 pages. I'd check for sure but ds is sleeping in that room right now :). We've had good retention with FLL3 (we are about halfway through), she remembers the definitions of the parts of speech and she's gotten very good at diagramming. In fact, I'm surprised at how much I've learned :D. I don't really ask her to identify specific parts of speech outside of FLL. I have noticed that when I ask her to give me a complete sentence for a narration, she'll realize that she's either forgotten the subject or the verb and correct the problem. So that's progress enough for me! My only complaint is that it's kinda boring, but then again it is grammar. Dd gets bored sometimes with the scripted lessons, but I just tell her that this is something she needs to know. I also tell her that if she can tell me the definition perfectly, I won't make her repeat it 3 times :). I'm very pleased with the results from FLL3 and we will be continuing with FLL 4 when we are done, plus I plan on using the FLL series with ds when he's old enough. Hope that helps you make your decision!

We do the same as others (use the CWP about half a level behind where we are in the textbook). We start our math time with one word problem every day, which means we don't get through the whole book in a year So we also do 3-4 problems per day over breaks.