Laughing Lioness.. I would have to agree with you about the WWS. We are on week 22 of it right now and the moment she asked about the historical paper I thought of all the work we did earlier on with writing a Chronological Narrative about a historical event. The information is fairly well laid out and makes sense. I often wish my dd10 (5th) was older so that all of it really stuck, but I know SWB will review and grow with it in subsequent years. We are also using CC Narrative right now and adding in CW Homer's 6 sentence shuffle for the copia work and Theon's 6 components. I would say that for where we are with it right now, it is more of a creative writing exercise, but it has helped immensely to give them practice in varying sentence openers and becoming more descriptive in their writing. Initially with WWS I wasn't seeing the work we were doing in CC bleed over at all as they were too caught up in just getting the organization down. Now that it is Week 22 I am seeing dd become more comfortable with the organization and brings in CCs figures of description more often.

Thanks Halcyon & Wapiti that answers a lot! DD10 will be done with 5B the end of May, so we will just dive into MM6 over the summer and then in the fall begin AoPS Pre-Alg and see what happens!

Yes, that is what I am also considering. I just wondered would going through the entire MM Level 6 and THEN AoPS be redundant, or do they need to be worked side by side if you are going to use them both? Do you need to use them both?

We've been using MM and dd10 is on 5B right now. Can anyone tell me if they used MM through level 6B and still felt like they needed a pre-algebra program? I may have missed this thread. I know quite a few people jumped from MM5B into AoPS Pre-Algebra and I am still trying to figure out how AoPS is similar or different to MM6A & B. Thanks!

I've seen this one before and really like it.

My dd10 uses MCT Town, ALL (first 15 weeks) - then KISS for grammar, Sentence Composing for Elem., WWS and Classical Compositon Narrative. We do about 1 1/2 hours of grammar & writing a day. Plus we worked through various stages of Vocabulary Workshop (Sadlier - Oxford), typing and cursive during the year.

I FINALLY have it loaded into both dcs laptops AND my ipad with Notability. I even have a pen .. that is super cool. Now I just need TWO ipads, lol. OR I need to figure out a way they can write on pdfs using their laptops screens. We are on our last week of ALL and are ready to dig into KISS. I have decided to go with the 6th grade Level 1 for both students, after looking over the 3rd grade one. I like the 3rd grade, but it might be easier for us to work it together if we stay on the same stories. We'll see how it goes. Halycon, how has it been going for you so far? Any hang ups, things you needed to clarify in Level 1 or has it been pretty self explanatory?

Has MCT ever responded as to why he sets up the quotes that way?

Jean, it sounds like you and your daughter have come to a good resolution. It won't take long to get things back on track, and I am glad that you both are just going to move forward now. I keep using the examples from public school, because this is truly a problem among students of all ages. If your dd was there and not at home, much of these lessons might be missed. Eventually missing assignments is going to catch up to anyone, but oftentimes because teachers are busy or whatever it is initially ignored. I think one of the things I didn't realize when I brought my dc home was how much time would be spent on character building and behavior modification. LOL It could honestly be its own subject. ;-)

I try to look at every thing like this as a learning opportunity. Now she is going to learn about personal responsibility and being accoutable for the work that she is supposed to do each day. They will step up, but at this age they also need someone making sure that they are. I find the local public school teachers often just assume that a child will do the work and rarely will make the effort to contact the parent if they don't until report card time. That leaves the parent shaking their head wondering what happened, why the teacher didn't say anything earlier, and what was their dc thinking? In this instance, I too have been guilty of assuming my dc will just 'do' it without me 'checking' it. Sometimes they do .. but a lot of times they don't. LOL What it boils down to is that personal accountability is something that has to be taught OVER and OVER again before or until they are at a place where they understand the repercussions of not getting the work done. When is that? hmmmm ... I know some adults that have never learned that lesson. ;-) Good luck Jean. You are doing fine. I didn't read through all the posts to know what you ultimately said .. my goal really was just to tell you that this is a perfectly normal lesson that will be learned over and over again until they reach an age of maturity (or they realize their life will suck .. lol) and finally they just begin to do it on their own. Here is to a better day!

I think the issue is more with the lying than with the month lost in Latin. You can start where you are with that. Honestly though, I have friends in ps whose kids have chosen not to turn work in, bring home their homework and not get busted until the teacher sent home the report card. These are 5th graders and I think sometimes the adults in their lives (ie the teachers, the parents) think that they will do it just because they are supposed to. That isn't exactly the case. ;-) Just know that you will have to make her more accountable, which means you have to be more accountable about looking. Beyond that, I would give her extra chores or take away things (whatever her particular currency is) for a time until she can show you that she can get the work done and turned in. Keep your chin up though, as your dd isn't the first 10 year old to do this. ;-)

bnrmom, Sure, it is absolutely challenging her. I don't mind that though. Even if she doesn't get every thing perfectly I know SWB will continue to review and build on it as we go. Not to mention that my dd will get better as she gets older as well. I don't see any reason not to raise the expectations though in the mean time and work on things at that caliber. Within each lesson we take our time, I write out on the board what is expected in the longer writing lessons and we make certain at the end that we have met each of those requirements. The curriculum has really been about more than just the indiv. lessons. When you have a curriculum that will get your kids reading the entire book each week just from having read the excerpt she chose, then you know they are into it. dd and ds even love all of the history and science book excerpts. We are working on writing descriptions of a person and in all my days I never realized there were that many aspects to writing about a person that you could choose from. Or knowing that you could write a chronological narrative about a scientific description and mix it with a description of the scientific object. Use figurative language and a personal view point to further bring in the reader. These are not things that I learned before. I would have just looked up three things about the subject and wrote about them while including an introduction and conclusion. I have been thrilled with this curriculum.. hard or not. And even if they only get 80% of what she is teaching this year, they are still getting miles more than I personally think most other curriculums are offering.

We are currently on Week 18 of WWS and I would highly recommend it. I believe Peace Hill Press offers the first 10 weeks free and it is worth the effort.

Well, Rene take my ideas as suggestions only. I am learning too!

Loved reading your ideas Ruth! I learn something every day!

Hey there. ;-) We aren't that far into Homer yet, and I am combining it with CC Narrative. (Classical Composition). I personally like how CC uses 18 figures of description to help the student become a bit more creative in their retellings. In that respect, I think it's a step up from what is required in the rewriting in Homer. However, I like Homer for all the 6 Sentence Shuffle exercises as well as the other sentence exercises. lol I am hopeless with making a choice between them ... so I pick and choose each week and integrate parts of what I like from the other. ;-) Anyway, back to the figures of description idea. Obviously it's not necessary, but it's been a fun addition for my kids and has them THINK about the story so that they can retell it in their own way. With regards to the Jemima story, you could have her add in several figures of description. She could add Anemographia - a vivid description of wind (such as when Jemima is flying). Perhaps when Jemima is startled at how the Fox is talking to her she could use Mimesis (imitation of another's gestures, or way they speak) .. and go off mumbling under her breath about him. It's not NECESSARY, but it makes it fun. As an example, my dd10 had to retell The Rose in CC Narrative by changing the point of view to a character in the story and use geographia (vivid description of the earth). She chose to retell it from the point of view of the rose itself. The original story was about the goddess Aphrodite and how she turned the white rose to red when she was pricked by it while trying to save her love Adonis from the god Ares. DD started it by describing the rose and the garden that it lived in - "I used to live in a garden with grape vines twirled about, and flowers creeping towards the sunlight. Water gently flowed out of marble fountains, which were engraved with pictures of the gods. But nothing was more majestic and high that me, the rose. My kingdom stretched far and wide, with me, in my spotless, white coattails and trousers, ruling over it. However, trouble arose one day when I saw Aphrodite and a man named Adonis walking together in the garden...." (There are probably grammatical errors here .. we are BOTH learning about sentence fluency and grammar.. lol, but you can see that it gives her the room to bring in creativity while using the figures of description to sort of prompt her). Those can be brought into any of the stories in Homer if it is something you wish to do and think might make it fun for her. I think she did a lovely job retelling the story.. I am just always looking for some sort of way to keep my dc engaged in the story and put their own mark on it... at least at this stage. ;-)

Hi Susan, I don't know if you have more than 15 weeks complete, but I think we are all in agreement that we will take WHATEVER you have. lol... warts and all! I can understand if you don't want to compromise the integrity of the program by rushing it, but I wanted to say that we have really enjoyed the first 15 week sample. It is sticking! I like that it is integrated with WWS (which we are also using), and the way that you build onto the diagramming lessons each week has been very helpful for us. Your style and wit come through on the page, and the kids enjoy it very much. I have to say though that if finishing ALL means that you can't get WWS6 done for next year, then by all means I will deal without ALL! Some lucky folks years from now will get to do it! I have been so happy with WWS and all that they are learning. Thank you for the hard work and energy that you have put into WWS. It is an absolute masterpiece.

That's my question too. I loaded both Notability and Dropbox in my ipad and KISS workbook for 6th grade level 1 is currently in my Dropbox, but I can't seem to get it into Notability. It keeps saying it can't load the file. Not sure WHAT I am doing wrong here.

In case you might be wondering how CC Fable and CW might differ, here is a link to several CC samples that my dc have done this year. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325957

We have used Classical Composition and I have found it helpful to teach them to integrate several of the 18 figures of description that CC teaches. Specifically in your story - Anemographia (vivid descr. of wind), Dialogismus (perhaps a conversation included that she makes up between the Wind and the Sun), Effectio (vivid description of a person's body) - the man with the coat on ... she could describe him more fully. The wind whipping through his coat or hair, and the sweat beading up on his forehead. You could also include Geographia - Vivid representation fo the earth or landscape, to give us a better picture of the day and the surroundings. These are all suggestions mind you. I personally feel like the figures of description taught in CC give the student more opportunity to be creative in the story and perhaps zoom in (ala Image Grammar) style on a few areas within the story. We have completed one year of Writing Tales 1 which did not teach them, then we moved into CC Fable and now CC Narrative. I am combining aspects of CC Narrative with CW Homer this semester for my dc.

I am wanting to start KISS Grammar soon with my dc. They each have a laptop that they already use to work through WWS and MM. I would love to know if there is a way that KISS Grammar can be loaded on it, and then they can write on the pdf using their laptops? I am happy to get a stylus, or they can use their mouse. I would like to keep from having to print out all the pages where they need to underline various parts of speech. I do have an iPad and have downloaded Notability for this, but because we all do Grammar at the same time it would be easier if they could use their laptops in the way that one could use Notability on an iPad to write on pdfs. Got any suggestions? Is this even possible with a laptop?

Hey Capt.. did you figure it out yet? We bought the kids Acer Aspire laptops with an Intel Core i3 processor and they have been good computers. One of the computer's processors went kaput right off the bat, but they replaced it free of charge and the other one has been fine. We got it on sale at Staples for about $350 each.

I read them all last year one after the other. ;-) I enjoyed them all, but for different reasons. I loved the wit in Northanger Abbey. I think P&P and S&S are probably my favorites. I also liked Mansfield Park. I think Emma was my least favorite of them. I went on to read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and then Villette. Villette had a tremendous about of figures of description and I loved pointing them out to my dc as I ran across them. (We are working through CC's fig. of description in our writing). The longest classic I have read was Vanity Fair and it was quite the epic story. Then I watched the movie with Reece Witherspoon. ;-) Now I have just started North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Grammar is 30 min a day (using ALL,SC,MCT, and once done with ALL we will move over to KISS) Writing - 1 hour a day .. 30 min for CC work (moving into CC Narrative/CW Homer) and 30 min for WWS. On the longer WWS Day 4 days we take most of the time for it and skip CC) Spelling/Vocab workbooks were done for 9 weeks straight and we just finished both workbooks. Spelling Workout I think and Sadlier Oxford Vocab. We also do vocab with Caesar's English 1. They edit and revise their narrations in writing also, but we are done with formal spelling for the year. Literature - We will move into a 6 week lit. analysis study in the coming semester, but they also read in their rooms for at least 1-2 hours a day. Sometimes it's at bedtime before they go to sleep, other times it's during their daily rest time in their rooms, or in the car.

No, I am not assigning additional writing beyond what we do in CC and WWS. DD10 is in 5th grade this year, and that is keeping her busy enough. She does other writing with her Latin translations, typing, cursive work practice, and does keep a timeline and short summaries in history. I have 'occasionally' had her do additional writing in history, but maybe only twice this semester.