Yes... this is not what I wanted to hear either. I will keep hoping that SWB gets time to finish it a bit early and we are surprised this fall.

I just learned that my local high school uses this as their writing curriculum and was wondering the same thing! I will bump it up for you.

I would have to agree with the Paleo/Primal approach as well. I am a celiac so I have been gluten free for years, but only after cutting all the grains and going Primal did I have really good results.

I know you mentioned that you had counted calories in the past, but honestly you should consider it again. Signing up for a FREE service like MFP (http://www.myfitnesspal.com) can help keep you accountable. Plus they allow you to customize your C/P/F ratios along with your daily calories, or they will help you set it up with their calculations. It really does help to SEE what you are eating every day. Next I would say staying accountable to a group. I have a FB group online of ladies and they generally log daily what their workouts were, some of their recipes, as well as log at MFP. It really does help to surround yourself with people who you would like to imitate! Good luck!

We are on Week 31, and I plan to work on all the skills we have learned over the summer, but I am getting anxious for SOME word about WWS2. I would love to know when it might become available, and if we will be offered samples to get us started like last year. Words cannot express how much I appreciated having those weeks to get started! I just seriously can't figure this out on my own! I want my WWS2!!! ;-) ;-) Pretty Please!

And yes .. perhaps Rigorous is not the right word.. but what I am looking for is a solid science sequence to prepare them for a rigorous high school science sequence. I am not adept enough in science or math to do this on my own (oh how I wish I was! But I need to be guided through it .. ala WWS style)

I was going to say that we did The Elements and the kids LOVED IT! They still sleep on their Periodic Table Pillowcases. I am all for turning the Periodic Table into a Magic Kingdom! lol. It reminded me of The Sentence Family back when we first learned grammar. The kids can still picture all the family members!

Thanks to you both.. yes .. bleh came to mind for me too. Although if I lived near the ocean it might be different!! I am loving Lewelman's Science Inquiry Thread! Redsquirrel, I can't find an actual sample, but I think that Prentice Hall Concepts in Action combines Chemistry & Physics as well. I just can't say about the actual content, and I am with you and wanting to do EE and Conceptual.. and more chemistry! ;-)

Hi everyone. I am trying to get all my ducks in a row. Dd10 is in 5th right now and we have enjoyed BFSU I, parts of II, The Elements by McHenry, and are now doing a combo of ES Logic Biology & CPO Life this year. I am trying to figure out a solid science sequence for 6th - 8th grade. Would you mind sharing what you have planned? So far this is what I have - 5th, Summer, fall of 6th - finish CPO Life & Biology... I would also like to do McHenry's Cells maybe & The Brain. (too many options!!) 6th - CPO Earth mixed with BFSU II & III (maybe) .. not sure WHAT I think of a whole year of Earth Science as it's not a topic I know much about. 7th & 8th I just don't know. I would like to try Exploration Education with them. I am thinking I would like to get Conceptual Physics in for 8th or at the very least 9th grade. But I can't really figure out what to put where. Other than what I am currently doing in 5th grade I am not set for 6th - 8th and I would love suggestions. I realize that high school is a long ways off, but I would like to plan on them being able to take a few AP courses in science around 11th - 12th grade and I want to make sure that I am giving them a solid foundation for their upcoming high school years. Thanks!

I think I did provide links somewhere on the WWS posting or possibly on my personal WTM message section .. you are welcome to dig around and see what you can find! I will say that being in WWS Wk 31 now, it is definitely all coming together, so tell him to keep his chin up!

I think I did provide links somewhere on the WWS posting or possibly on my personal WTM message section .. you are welcome to dig around and see what you can find! I will say that being in WWS Wk 31 now, it is definitely all coming together, so tell him to keep his chin up!

I believe there are several samples of the Johannes Kepler assignment also on the 'Post WWS assignments Here' section if you want to dig through them. I did want to say that these first few assignments like this are just plain hard and messy and HARD to get into if you are just starting this style of writing. It really does get easier. It's hard for them to write about a topic they don't know much about also, so google / youtube / etc. and try to find more info in order to get his interest piqued. We definitely had to do that early on, especially on the assignments where the notetaking and outlining had already been given and you were just supposed to take it and write.

We are doing HO Level 2 Middle Ages as well as WWS (We are currently on Wk 31). I did not do assign the writing assignments in HO, just the short summaries and occasionally the outlining. I kept dd10 (5th grade) plenty busy with the WWS writing assignments as well as CC Fable/Narrative.

Rose, I hear you about the exercise thing! ;-) It did feel like as WWS progressed for us it took the solid hour. At the beginning of the year I could do 30 min of WW and 30 min of CC Fable and now the writing is taking all 5 days and sometimes 1 week of work takes a lot longer than 1 week. Then again, I have a 10 yr old and 9 yr old doing it, so I understand it probably will. We are still learning a ton with it though, so I am fine with using that time to do it .. but things like exercise end up being put by the wayside. Mon - Fri it feels like we FINALLY get out of the house about 4pm ish.. thank goodness it's light for longer!

I wanted to say that for the better part of the year I was doing science 3 x per week and history 2 x per week, but with spring here we wanted to use the time to really dig into Biology. I will continue with science through the summer. I also plan to school them 4 x per week for 2 hours in the AM during the summer. (We will see how that goes!) Obviously we have horse riding, swim lessons, beach, etc. to work around. My main focus this summer is going to be science, math, and continue practicing the writing skills we have learned with WWS. We are on week 31 of it now, and I would like to solidify the writing styles that we have learned by having them pick topics and go through the steps.

I agree... I would reduce the Latin a bit and keep the KISS Grammar going .. even if you only get a page done a day of KISS it would be nice to understand the grammar component. For dd10 this year I have noticed that we take A LOT more time with grammar, writing & math these days. Also I have upped science to 5 days a week now and relegated history to reading time. I just don't seem to be able to do each indiv. subject at the level I want, so this is how our schedule has progressed for our 5th grader this year. 8:00-8:30 - Sadlier Oxford Vocab, Typing, Spelling (2 x per week) 8:00-8:30 - Latin (3 x per week) 8:30-9:15 - Grammar & more vocab (MCT CE, PT, Sentence Composing, KISS, (we finished ALL) 9:15-9:30 - break 9:30-10:45 - writing (WWS right now is taking the full amount on most days). On the days that we get done by 10:30 I read aloud to them for 15 min, or we work on history during this time. 10:45-11:45 - Science 5x per week. We are doing a mixture of BFSU II, CPO Life, Elemental Logic Biology, and loads of documentaries. The docs go in at the end while I put lunch together. 11:45-12:15 - Lunch 12:15 − 1:30 or later - Math after that I have them either do reading in History or they read & work on study guide from The Good Books Program (Angelicum Academy). They are usually done with school by 2:30 every day. Then we have chores .. about 15-20 worth M-F, and piano practice for 15 min each day or so. Then the rest of the day is theirs after that. ;-)

I love those Halcyon!! This is dd10s recent WWS Wk 30 (she is nothing if not dramatic with her similes.. lol) Digestive Science Report - The Digestive System By dd10 The food that you eat makes several changes before it is finally used as energy for your body. If you were a piece of food making your way through the digestive system you would make numerous alterations. First you would be gnashed and crushed by the teeth like a car in a junkyard, flying around the mouth. Then you would be swallowed and move down the gullet like you were on a perilously slow slide. There you would enter the stomach. The stomach is a hollow bag that can hold about three pints of fluid. Once food enters it is dissolved by gastric juices which turns it into a grayish color. The food is then made into a soft mass “like very thick soup.â€1 This “cream- like substanceâ€2 is called chyme. The chyme passes into the small intestine. This chyme is mixed with bile from the liver, and is now a substance called chyle. The chyle passes into the small intestine and is used as food for the cells. The good chyle is released into the blood stream, while the bad chyle is carried along further into the intestines, and is eventually ejected out of the body. The small intestine is like a big bowl of noodles in its appearance. At the entrance to the intestine is hair- like things called villi, which absorb the tiny particles of food and release them into the blood stream. It is called the small intestine because it is a little smaller around, but it is really almost twenty feet long in length which makes it longer than the large intestine. This entire process is usually completed in three or four hours, then it is time for your next meal. 1 Edward, S. Holden, Real Things in Nature (The Macmillan Company, 1910), pg.318. 2 John Frost, The Class Book of Nature (Belknap and Hammersley ,1839), pg.220. Works Cited Holden, Edward S. Real Things in Nature. New York: The Macmillan Company,1910. Frost, J. Class Book of Nature. Hartford: Belknap and Hamersley, 1839.

Doesn't Exploring Education have a physical science for older students? I am thinking off the cuff here and can't readily remember. I think Nebel's BFSU .. (I have all three books) is outstanding and we use it alongside whatever else we are doing. This year we did all of BFSU I, then Part of BFSU II, The Elements from McHenry, then picked back up with BFSUII and CPO Life which I will continue through the summer. I will definitely finish out the BFSU series with III maybe next year alongside CPO Earth Science. I am in the process of putting together CPO Earth now and looking for resources, blog posts, etc. etc. etc. ;-) Redsquirrel, while I have you here, did you use the Focus on series or the OTHER text from CPO? ha ha .. sorry for the derail!

I also ran across this - http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/SPage2/earth.cfm AND... with the blog above (nowisthebesttimeofourlives) - I just clicked on the CPO Earth Science link at the bottom of one of the blog posts and it took me to everything she did for the year. Very helpful!

In case I am not the only one that could benefit from this, I wanted to give you a link to Luckymama's blog posts about CPO Earth Science labs. http://nowisthebesttimeofourlives.blogspot.com/2010/09/adapting-stream-table-lab-investigation.html

Luckymama, I know this is an old thread, but THANK YOU for sharing how you adapted CPO Earth Science. I am in the planning stages for next year and I just know this will be very helpful! If you have any other advice or direction to point me in I would love to hear it!

Would something like THIS work for Earth Science for those who have used CPO Earth? http://www.qualitysciencelabs.com/earth-science-labs/qsl-earth-science-lab-kit/

I am an enthusiastic reader and fan of yours Ruth! Yes, this entire experience could be in a handbook of some kind. Immensely helpful & interesting!

We just got done with that week and are nearing the end of Week 30. That was the first big notetaking, works cited, footnoting paper. It was a huge project. I think it took us at least 10 working day .. maybe a bit less to get through it. We opted to do note cards, and separated them into outline form by interjecting additional Roman Numeral notecards into the mix after they had laid them all out on the floor and sorted them by subject, etc. I tried to treat it a bit like a puzzle.. lol. There was a LOT of organization to deal with on it though, but I am hoping as we progress through it will get a lot quicker. We are on the digestion notetaking and writing the description & sequence today for Week 30 and it is already going faster than last time.

We just got done with that week and are nearing the end of Week 30. That was the first big notetaking, works cited, footnoting paper. It was a huge project. I think it took us at least 10 working day .. maybe a bit less to get through it. We opted to do note cards, and separated them into outline form by interjecting additional Roman Numeral notecards into the mix after they had laid them all out on the floor and sorted them by subject, etc. I tried to treat it a bit like a puzzle.. lol. There was a LOT of organization to deal with on it though, but I am hoping as we progress through it will get a lot quicker. We are on the digestion notetaking and writing the description & sequence today for Week 30 and it is already going faster than last time.