Thank you both! Yes, he's definitely doing grammar this year, I just am not sure what exactly (I know they start diagramming in 5th grade). Very good info that R&S does much of the same concepts year-year, just goes deeper/gets harder. I think I will start with 5 and see how it goes, and be open to moving to 4 if we need to. And P.S. - I am so clueless when it comes to grammar it's embarrassing! I never learned diagramming myself, so am anxious to learn alongside my son. I think he'll like it that mom is learning, too.

Moira - thanks so much for your post. First - can you please tell me what bumping is or how it works??? I keep seeing it and searched for a post that might explain it but I don't have a clue. So I don't know what you mean about bumping this post. Is it bad or good?! Yikes, sounds like LOTS of problems with Powerspeak Spanish, but the worst part is that they didn't fix them! And how the heck did it get through QA without all those errors being caught. We did the 14-day trial and it too nowhere near the suggested 30+ minutes. It took maybe 10-15. Which was fine with me because I don't want to spend a lot of time with Spanish and it will be secondary (to Latin). But I think it's misleading for them to tell people 30+ minutes/day. Were they difficult when it came to getting your refund and how is their Customer Service? What do you use now? I really want a Spanish program that he thinks is fun and uses audio files, preferably a computer program which is why I was drawn to Powerspeak. I thought it would be something he could do late in the day when the other kids are coming home from school and he doesn't need my help, and he gets time on the computer. Heidi

Thank you so much for your input. Yikes, now I am not sure how to know which R&S English to use for him! He is in a private Catholic school that is considered very good, he is a fast learner and gets straight A's. And reads at a high level (last year in 3rd grade he tested at 11th grade reading level). He has not learned diagramming yet, but I think he'll pick it up quickly. I guess I'm not completely sure what all he has covered (which sounds like a bad, inattentive mother!). I know he's done most of what I see in R&S 4, but not sure about all of it. I guess I can show him the TOC and ask him what sounds unfamiliar. Or wait - I am SO smart... I should just have him bring his current LA book home so I can check it out. He never has homework since he gets it done at school and has only brought the book home once all year so I could look at it once. But I guess I'm thinking that even if there are a few things that his book doesn't cover that R&S 4 covers... we should be ok because of the review in level 5? I don't want him to struggle with something that is above him, but on the other hand a big part of why I'm homeschooling him is that he is not being challenged at all in school! Thank you! Heidi

I plan to homeschool (first time!) my son next fall when he'll be in 5th grade. I have gone back and forth on what I'm going to do for Language Arts (especially since I noticed that TWTM recommendations have changed since I read the book last summer!). This is what I'm currently planning and am wondering if I've got my bases covered: Spelling Workout F (and maybe G) Rod & Staff English 5 Wordsmith Apprentice (we'll probably only do this once/week - Fridays) We will also be doing Latin for Children A I bought R&S and it looks pretty dry, but other than it maybe being boring - people seem to agree that it is a good, solid, complete program - RIGHT???! The boring part is mainly why I am also going with Wordsmith Apprentice - it looks like something my son would really love. LA is the one area in particular that I don't feel terribly confident, especially writing. I had originally planned on Writing Strands and A Beka Grammar, and at this point I can't even remember why I changed my mind! So really, I guess I'm not looking for recommendations, but just an assurance that my program looks ok as far as covering all the LA bases and that it will be pretty straight-forward as far as me trying to teach it. Thank you so much for any input! Heidi

Yeah - I saw the Lurk5, too, and wondered what THAT meant. Anyone? Anyway, I guess I kind of get the popcorn thing now and it's pretty funny!

I was planning on having my son use Powerspeak Spanish next year - he'll be in 5th grade, so we'll use the Intermediate Level or whatever they call the one for Middle School. We downloaded a "2-week" trial (14 lessons, I think it was) and it seemed pretty good and was also fun. I like that he gets to listen to the language as well and it's something different - visual/computer "game". We're going to do Latin for Children, so I don't want to overwhelm him with another language where he has to do "work" and I think using it online won't seem as much like "work" to him and a bit more fun. Anyway, I was all set on this and then I saw another poster who listed it when someone asked for curriculum people hated. She said it was horrible! So I'm hoping I'll get some other positive reviews and maybe it just wasn't right for her child. Reviews I've read online seem pretty good. I know a lot of people have use PowerGlide, which was the previous version and was only CDs you'd listen to, right? If that's the case, I'm not so interested in reviews of that. A big reason I'm interested in PowerSpeak is that it seems like a "computer game". Thanks for any input!

What the heck does that popcorn box mean??? I see that a lot of people used it (and nothing else!) when responding to someone that posted a question that seemed pretty meaningless (maybe they want to get 50 posts up?). Thanks!

I am new to this AWESOME forum and plan to homeschool my son next year. He'll be in 5th grade. I am planning on using Spelling Workout F, but have some questions about how it works. Even after viewing the partial sample lesson online, I'm a bit confused. 1) WTM seems to suggest trying to complete 2 books/year. Is this what most of you aim for? It looks like there are 4 pages/lesson? So do you do about 2 lessons/week? Can you give me an idea how long this takes daily, and how many pages you do? 2) I'm not quite sure how the pre-test works (or what the point is). If the child passes all the words on the pre-test, do you just move on to the next lesson or work through it anyway? What if they pass some of the words? It looks like it would be hard to do just PART of the lesson. Seems like it might be all or none. My son is a very good speller (never studies for spelling tests, never misses a word), but I see that many of the lessons focus on suffixes, prefixes, etc. and I want him to learn those so I wouldn't have him skip those lessons if he correctly spelled all the words on the pre-test. Thanks for any explanation on this, and how you spread it out over the year, what you do daily, etc.! Heidi

You mention your 6-year-old son being in the room you might child-proof (or did I read that wrong?). What about putting your little one in there with the 6-year-old? Would that work at all? Then he wouldn't feel so alone and maybe 6-year-old could model bedtime and sleeping behavior! Sounds like you are exhausted! Could your husband give you a break for a day/night or two while you figure this out and catch up on sleep, especially in case your next plan of action might require some difficult days/nights to start with. Good luck - it's hard. I think that is why God made those little ones so adorable!

Well, I'm not homeschooling yet but will next year. But I think I can respond to your concern that you might be impatient with your children and maybe a PS teacher would have more patience. No, I really don't think that's right! I love my son's kindergarten teacher - she is wonderful, a good person, a great teacher in so many ways, but as the year goes on I see her being more and more impatient with the kids in a way that is definitely not good. It makes me very sad for those kids who really love her. I don't think that school teachers automatically have more patience that the rest of us. I think it is probably just partly personality and partly effort. I also think that there would be more of a negative effect on my kids if the teacher was impatient with them than if I was, just because they are more comfortable with me than they are with their teachers. In some ways I think school teachers might be more impatient because they are having their patience tested MUCH more than moms are at home. Unruly kids, kids having difficulty grasping concepts when the teacher needs to move on, etc. I'm sure you're doing a great job!

You can download a free trial of PowerSpeak Spanish (PowerGlide) that gives you two-weeks' worth of lessons. My son tried it and liked it and I think we'll use it next year. You do the lessons on the computer, and they use DigLot technology where they weave the Spanish words into a story. And of course the student is hearing Spanish spoken by a native-speaker. The story is animated and pretty silly (which my son thought was funny) - about a girl daring a boy to stick his hand in a hole, which contains a rat! They listen to the story one day, then there might be two days of fun activities - the speaker says words, such as "oso", and several animals float down the screen and you have to click on the bear before he disappears. Then the student listens to the story again, and more of it is in Spanish. This continues for 2 weeks, I think - where it alternates fun exercises with listening to the story, each time increasing the number of Spanish words. I think it says it is supposed to take 45 minutes/day, but it took us about 10! But I suppose if you wanted to really get more out of it you'd study vocabulary, etc. It's also a bit pricey - $100/"semester", although I've seen specials for $85, and I think they try to hook you in by signing up within a certain time-period of using your trial period. I'm thinking they will give me a second chance next August! Also, it would take a semester if you did it 5 days/week and I'm only planning on 2-3 so will stretch it out over a year. I think there are 90 lessons. Anyway, check out the free download and see what you and your child think!

Have you looked at History Odyssey? I am planning on using it next year for 5th grade. It seems to be similar to what WTM suggests, except that it is all organized for you. There are 3 levels, and level 2 is about 5th-8th grade. You use a main history reference (I believe SOTW for level 1, and Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and Story of Mankind for level 2) along with other literature that they tell you when to read during the course (maybe 7-10 other sources). There is a student manual and each day (or maybe week?) I think they give you a bulleted list of what is to be read that week, including page numbers. The student checks it off when completed. The part that really looks appealing to me is that they then have the student do outlining, but give some guidelines on how to do it, so that it starts out a bit more simple and they learn how to outline as they go along. So pretty much the same books that WTM recommends, but then you have a nifty manual to spell it all out for you as far as what EXACTLY to do when, how to outline, etc. The manual is 3-hole-punched and then you put student work in a binder along with it.