I love the SL forums for the friends I have made over the years. I've just started visiting here and I like it because the conversations revolve around more than just SL. Since we don't use SL anymore (haven't for 3 years), I find this place great to get info on other curriculum. But I love SL for the chit chat, and homemaking section.

We used and older IG this year and off the top of my head there is one book that I remember was hard(er) to find (I actually found someone selling it used). It's called Smart About Money. There were a few link broken, not many though and SnowWhite is right about being able to usually find them. I'm not huge into the MOH pages, we just read them and file them. The American Achievements Activity Pack had some fun things to do in it (but I also bought these used as the seller had bought them years ago). If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. We really enjoyed this year and I don't feel getting the older version was a bad idea (the IG I have has the DK book and 100 True Tales scheduled, which I loved).

For us it's math (because dd struggles with math and wouldn't remember anything at the start of the new year if we didn't) and reading (that's natural for her though, no having to ask).

Which programs within SL and WP are you looking at as there are a few programs you could use with 4th grade. Not sure if I've used one you're interested in.

Thank you. I'll check that out. I've looked into IEW but haven't made the commitment on that yet, so I'm excited to investigate something else. :)

We are on Grade 6 now and made the switch to R&S at Grade 2. We came from SL LA (if I'm remembering correctly, it seems like ages ago!). Anyway, my dd didn't have any problems with making the transition into Grade 2.

Can I jump in here and ask what WWE stands for?

If you ask around, you may be able to find a used Middler Pack WP used to sell for using AS 2 with older students. I almost did that last year but didn't have the extra money for it. I also know at least one person who did a combo of AS2 and Core 4. You might want to poke around the WP forums to get more info on that. I only have an older IG to sell at someone point this summer. It doesn't have the books they changed when they revamped the program last year.

I'm finishing up the year doing AS 2 with a 10 year old (who is in 5th grade). I was worried at first using this program with her because of the recommended age range but I've never felt through the year that it wasn't enough for her. Sure, some of the books are a little on the easy side and while we chose to read them together still, I think I could have just given her those books and all would have been fine. But I like that we read even the easy books together so we could discuss things. I'm a firm believer that using programs on the higher recommended age range works better (for us). Oh and we did add in their old resource, the DK Children's Encyclopedia for American History along with The American Story (which is schedule). I think that helped beef it up a bit. I can't give any advice on the notebooking pages with Core 4 as we left Core 1 half way through it 3 years ago, so never got to Core 4.

If you have used and don't like WP, what curriculum have you used in the past? Even if you have used WP and like it, I'd be interested to know what curriculum you used before. I'm just curious to see if there is some type of pattern. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We came from SL after using 2 1/2 programs. It was way too much for dd but I still loved the idea behind it. That brought me to WP since it was similar yet different from SL. We've used WP for 3 programs and still going strong. I love the gentler approach and the optional resources to do if I so chose.

I haven't used the programs your talking about yet but plan on it after this year. We've used AS1 and 2, CAW, and SSBB. I love all of their programs and have been fortunate enough not to have any issues with their shipping. And anytime I've spoken to Don he has been amazing at solving any problems (like one book I was missing but didn't notice until late in the year). We'll be doing S&S with RAE and can't wait. katiejane, good to know you didn't have a problems shipping to Australia. I was a bit worried about getting our stuff sent here to Spain as I've never had to do that in the past. But besides the shipping costs, hopefully there won't be any other issues.