I'm just starting this program with my middle son so that he can take a break from CW. Here is the recent post: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1099587#poststop So far, I think it's a good overview for writing, but I wouldn't use it as our only writing course. I definitely wouldn't use it in high school. It's a good fit for us because I just want to keep my son writing this year. HTH!

For the grammar stage, I use Story of the World, and for the logic stage, I use Streams of Civilization.

Our second language is Greek.

We started back today as well. I have an 8th grader, a 7th grader, and a 2nd grader. It was very successful. Just 179 more days to go!

No, the TM does not have a copy of the student workbook. In order to make the CW program work in our homeschool, I needed the core book, the IG, and the student workbook. I know it's pricey, but Rainbow Resource sells CW too with better shipping prices IMO. On second thought, I did the grammar in CW in addition to the R&S English. The parsing and diagramming in Homer is intimidating if you don't have a strong foundation in grammar. I certainly didn't, so the IG was critical for me. If you're not going to do the grammar exercises, then you probably don't need the IG. Quite honestly, I think CW is a much better program when you do all of the workbook exercises. It reinforces the grammar that they are learning, and it helps to build the steps necessary for the imitation work and 6-sentence shuffle. Just my $0.02 though... Take care, ~Beth

I'm using Write With the Best Vol 1 & 2 this year with my middle son. He has done CW Aesop B, Homer A & B, and Poetry for Beg A & B so far. I'm not giving up on CW, but I'm stretching out his 7th grade over 2 years so that he can be on track with his public school peers. I think he needs that extra year to mature physically and socially. I wanted to let you know that I'm not leaving CW, but just taking a needed break for this son... The only way that Write With the Best (WWB) is similar to CW is that both programs use classical literature as models to imitate. However, CW goes much deeper and is organized around the Greek progymnasmata (preliminatry rhetorical exercises). WWB is focused on teaching students to write descriptively. Therefore, I like the vision of CW, but it's a long-term program that's very teacher intensive. WWB is written to the student and covers a variety of writing skills in just 36-weeks; it obviously doesn't have the depth of CW, but it does have the breadth of all forms of writing: descriptive paragraph, dialogue, short story, fable, friendly letter, rhyimg verse, ballad (this is just for volume 1). I use R&S as well for our English studies. We review the writing lessons, but depending on the writing assignments that week, they don't always write out the assignment; sometimes I have them give an oral report instead. HTH!

Since I have complained when I don't get the customer service I expect, I decide to also post on the excellent customer service I just received from Rod & Staff Publishers in Crockett, KY. We start school next Monday (July 27th), but last Thursday I decided to make a few changes in our school year; I usually do this. Based on the new changes, I needed a few items from R&S so I looked at the on-line sellers. The on-line seller uses the USPS for basic shipping. If I upgraded the shipping to UPS ground, the charge was $17 and UPS 2-day delivery was $35. I've always had good customer service with R&S, so I decided to call them directly and take my chances without paying extra for shipping. They use Fedex or UPS ground for their basic shipping. I called before 11:30 A.M. last Friday (the 17th) and paid an extra $3 to rush my order (which meant they mailed it that day). My package arrived at my door via Fedex yesterday (the 21st) around 4:30 P.M., and I only paid $5.05 for shipping. I'm beyond thrilled because now I will be able to incorporate the lessons into my schedule before school starts. On top of that, I didn't have to pay an exorbitant amount for this to happen. Rod & Staff's customer service, quality products, and great prices have made me a very loyal customer. I'm ready for school with a few days to spare!

I modify the Omnibus series and use it as a literature program for our homeschool. I've copied a previous post which includes info about the books I use, the writing I assign, and the history books I use. HTH! Here are the books that my son has read from Omnibus I this year: Genesis 5 Exodus 5 Samuel I & II 5 Kings I & II 5 The Last Days of Socrates 10 Luke & Acts 5 Julius Caesar 10 Revelation 5 The Magician's Nephew 6 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 6 The Horse and His Boy 6 Prince Caspian 6 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 5 Isaiah 3 Jeremiah 3 Minor Prophets 3 The Silver Chair 6 The Last Battle 6 Galatians 3 Romans 3 James 3 The Eagle of the Ninth 6 The Screwtape Letters 6 Total Lessons 121 The numbers to the right are the number of sessions assigned to each book. With 121 lessons, it took us just over 30 weeks to finish; I would schedule 1 week for the books with 3 or 5 sessions and 2 weeks for the books that had 6 or 10 sessions. This gave us a little wiggle room for those assignments that took a little longer, or when I saw that a break was needed. I scheduled an hour for each session; sometimes it took longer. My son would read the assignment, we would discuss the questions, and then he would work on essay or paragraph (if assigned). Generally, he would write at least one essay or one paragraph per book. For some of the later books, he wrote an essay and a paragraph. In my weekly preview, I would reduce an essay to a paragraph depending on the question. Our daily discussions can last anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. As the year progressed and my son became more analytical in his reading, the discussions did get longer. Some of the session topics lend themselves to deeper discussion too while some are not as open-ended. All in all, I'm very happy with the Omnibus work we've accomplished this year. At first, I wanted to tie it in with his history work, but he since he was working on the Renaissance/Reformation time period this year, it didn't work out. This wasn't a huge problem since I skipped a majority of the ancient books in Omnibus I due to mature themes; we'll pick those up in high school. In addition to Omnibus I, we used Streams of Civilization for history and Classical Writing Homer B & Poetry for Beg B. There's not much writing instruction in Omnibus, so I plan to continue with the CW series as we move through the Omnibus books. Next year my son will be in 8th grade, and he will do Omnibus II, CW Diogenes & Intermediate Poetry, as well as finish up Streams of Civilization Vol II. Here are the books I plan to use next year for Omnibus II: Beowulf The Song of Roland Macbeth Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Hobbit The Fellowship of the Ring The Gospel of John Winning His Spurs The Two Towers Henry V Ephesians The Return of the King These books have 114 sessions planned in the Omnibus book. Basically, we will do Omnibus 3 days a week with 2 "floating" days to finish up any reading or writing assignments. Each session usually lasts 1 to 1.5 hours. It depends on how much reading is assigned and how long we take during our Socratic discussion. The writing assigments can be challenging, so I usually allow an extra day or two depending on the assignment. Please let me know if you have any more questions. I use this program differently from others because I don't use all of the primary books (in Omnibus I we mostly focused on the secondary books), but I'm happy to help if I can.

The Annals of the World by Ussher looks like a dictionary and reads like an encyclopedia. I don't use it as a spine, but I do use it for reference. The Story of the Ancient World by Christine Miller would be a good ancient history spine that has a Biblical worldview. I struggled with the same dilemma and decided to use Streams of Civilization Vol. 1 & 2 for our logic stage history. It's not colorful and reads like a textbook (some call it dry), but it includes the Biblical worldview that I'm looking for. ETA: There are not many options for a history spine that includes a Biblical worldview. We're getting ready to start high school soon, and I don't have a good option for the rhetoric stage either. HTH!

Personally, I think a mentor is good to have in any aspect of your life where you've set a goal to achieve or where you need the accountability (or both). I meet with another homeschool mom once a month for fellowship and homeschool encouragement. My husband and I have mapped out self-education goals, and we try to keep each other on track at home.

We start on July 27th--just over a week away!

Hi Lana, This looks very similar to my 8th grader's schedule. He starts at 8:30 A.M. and ends at 3:30 P.M. This is our schedule M-Th. Friday is a little lighter. We also have an hour scheduled for lunch. He will study 2 languages (Latin & Greek) as well. He doesn't have a separate geography course (I include that in our history work), and he doesn't have a half hour of drill each day. It looks like that's the only difference. HTH! ~Beth

With a few false starts in other programs, we now use R&S Math from 1st to 8th grade in our homeschool. First, I had to determine our long-term math goals for each boy. My oldest and youngest are very math-oriented and will probably go through Calculus at home before heading off to college. Therefore, they needed to have Algebra I in 8th grade. My middle son is very language arts oriented, so he will only go through Trig at home which means he will start Algebra I in 9th grade. Instead of skipping levels in R&S Math, I decided to have my math-oriented boys work 1 year ahead. My middle son works on grade level. I have been very pleased with the firm math foundation built by R&S Math (and English too for that matter). We do standardized testing every year and math is generally the highest scores for my oldest, but my middle son also scores well (just not as high as reading). My oldest qualified for the ACT last year as a 7th grader. He held his own on the math portion considering he hasn't had Algebra I yet. After R&S math, we will use the 1965 Dolciani series: Modern Algebra I, Modern Geometry, Modern Algebra & Trig Book 2, Modern Introductory Analysis (followed by Calculus of a Singel Variable by Larson--depending on the son). So, before you decide on whether or not to do another year of R&S, I would first decide where you want to end up when he graduates. If you decide to hold off on Algebra, then I would encourage you to stick to the R&S program that you are using. If you decide to move on to Algebra, that will present another program in itself. There are so many good programs out there. I requested as many Algebra books via ILL & then bought cheap, used copies of the others I was considering. My DH (a mechanical engineer) sat down with me to look at all of the books. We choose 2 or 3 topics (like slope, factoring, etc.) and read the lessons that explained this concept. It was easy to weed out the ones we definitely did not like, but we ended up with 2 or 3 that had both pros & cons. Eventually, we decided on the Dolciani series. I finally found all of the books for the series, and my oldest will start Modern Algebra Book 1 next school year. I can't wait! We are both excited. HTH!

We started Prima Latina and Greek Alphabetarion when my older sons were in the 2nd & 3rd grades, and we moved into LCI and EGI in 3rd & 4th grade. My boys did well with all 3 EG volumes. We moved to NT Greek for Beginners by Machen last year when they were in 6th & 7th grades. This has been a great book, but it's rigorous (I believe it's a high school text), so we plan to work through it over 3 years (approx 11 lessons per year). For my 3rd son, he will start Greek Alphabetarion (as well as Matin Latin) in 3rd grade and continue the same sequence as his brothers. HTH!

I've posted my Omnibus I & II schedules before: Here are the books that my son has read from Omnibus I this year: Genesis 5 Exodus 5 Samuel I & II 5 Kings I & II 5 The Last Days of Socrates 10 Luke & Acts 5 Julius Caesar 10 Revelation 5 The Magician's Nephew 6 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 6 The Horse and His Boy 6 Prince Caspian 6 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 5 Isaiah 3 Jeremiah 3 Minor Prophets 3 The Silver Chair 6 The Last Battle 6 Galatians 3 Romans 3 James 3 The Eagle of the Ninth 6 The Screwtape Letters 6 Total Lessons 121 The numbers to the right are the number of sessions assigned to each book. With 121 lessons, it took us just over 30 weeks to finish; I would schedule 1 week for the books with 3 or 5 sessions and 2 weeks for the books that had 6 or 10 sessions. This gave us a little wiggle room for those assignments that took a little longer, or when I saw that a break was needed. I scheduled an hour for each session; sometimes it took longer. My son would read the assignment, we would discuss the questions, and then he would work on essay or paragraph (if assigned). Generally, he would write at least one essay or one paragraph per book. For some of the later books, he wrote an essay and a paragraph. In my weekly preview, I would reduce an essay to a paragraph depending on the question. Our daily discussions can last anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. As the year progressed and my son became more analytical in his reading, the discussions did get longer. Some of the session topics lend themselves to deeper discussion too while some are not as open-ended. All in all, I'm very happy with the Omnibus work we've accomplished this year. At first, I wanted to tie it in with his history work, but he since he was working on the Renaissance/Reformation time period this year, it didn't work out. This wasn't a huge problem since I skipped a majority of the ancient books in Omnibus I due to mature themes; we'll pick those up in high school. In addition to Omnibus I, we used Streams of Civilization for history and Classical Writing Homer B & Poetry for Beg B. There's not much writing instruction in Omnibus, so I plan to continue with the CW series as we move through the Omnibus books. Next year my son will be in 8th grade, and he will do Omnibus II, CW Diogenes & Intermediate Poetry, as well as finish up Streams of Civilization Vol II. Here are the books I plan to use next year for Omnibus II: Beowulf The Song of Roland Macbeth Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Hobbit The Fellowship of the Ring The Gospel of John Winning His Spurs The Two Towers Henry V Ephesians The Return of the King These books have 114 sessions planned in the Omnibus book. Basically, we will do Omnibus 3 days a week with 2 "floating" days to finish up any reading or writing assignments. Each session usually lasts 1 to 1.5 hours. It depends on how much reading is assigned and how long we take during our Socratic discussion. The writing assigments can be challenging, so I usually allow an extra day or two depending on the assignment. Please let me know if you have any more questions. I use this program differently from others because I don't use all of the primary books (in Omnibus I we mostly focused on the secondary books), but I'm happy to help if I can.

Yes, I did the Dowling Method back in 2003 when my boys were going through Prima Latina and learned the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions, as well as the future & imperfect for the 1st & 2nd conjugations. I practiced the chants first with the Memoria Press cds & DVDs and followed up with the Dowling Method to really solidify the information. This post was a great reminder that I need to return to the Dowling method again to learn the 4th & 5th declension endings and 3rd conjugation.

Elegantlion recommended this series, and my older boys read them last year. I didn't pre-read them, but I did look through the first one & asked my discerning oldest son what he thought; I found nothing objectionable. Both of my sons really liked the series and read every book that our library carried. HTH!

Have you tried Latin by the Dowling Method? http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wcd/Latin.htm If this doesn't work, you can always buy the 1st year CD to any Latin program which will chant the declensions, conjugations, etc. (ie. Latina Chrisitiana I or Latin for Children A). HTH!

With bad credit, you might have to ride this one out until the car is worth what you owe. Typically, you would get a loan for the difference between what the car is worth and what you owe plus a little money to buy a cheap car. For instance, you owe $20,000, but the car is worth $17,000, therefore, you take out a loan for $5,000-$6,000 ($3,000 for difference plus $2,000-$3,000 for a car that drives). Since you have credit issues, a local credit union might work with you if you go in and talk with them one-on-one.

I recently compared the last 2 editions and found that the Rhetoric Stage Science recommendations were the same, but the supplemental recommendations (on page 538) were completely updated in the 2009 edition. SWB also listed RS4K Chemistry Level II as an alternative curriculum choice.

What is your goal in studying Latin? Our homeschool goal is to read great works in Latin such as The Aenied; therefore, my boys are working through Great Latin Adventures (7th grader) or Wheelock's Latin (8th grader) next year. If your goal is to do well on the SAT or strengthen vocabulary, then a Latin roots program would be fine. If you decide to go with a full Latin program, then a supplemental Latin roots program is not necessary. I really like what I see in Great Latin Adventures, but I haven't used it yet. I've never seen Latin Prep, Minimus, or Lively Latin. My 2nd grader isn't doing a full-blown Latin program next year, but he will work alongside his older brother and memorize some of the vocabulary from Great Latin Adventures. I'll also teach him some of the grammar chants. You may just want to pick a program for your 5th grader and let your 2nd grader tag along at his own pace. HTH!

Just like Angel, we do most of R&S grammar orally or on the whiteboard. The only writing that my boys do are the corresponding lesson worksheets and tests.

I plan to take all 3 of my boys through R&S Grammar 8. I don't find any of the information in this program obscure; in fact, I wish *I* had been taught this information in elementary and junior high school. I look back on some of the high school and college papers that I wrote, and I'm appalled at my lack of grammar knowledge (now that I've gone through R&S 3 through 7 with my oldest son). With the strong foundation provided by R&S Grammar 3 through 8, my boys will be very effective writers.

Wow! I went back and found my Amazon order from May 2007. I only paid $81.29 for my dictionary, and I got free shipping. Maybe it was featured on special sale that day...

I really like my Franklin SCD-1870A. I believe it's the model that Jean in Wisc recommended, and I really, really like it! It's very useful for read alouds. I thought I paid about $100 for it, but it's much more expensive on Amazon.com now. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-SCD-1870-Speaking-Collegiate-Dictionary/dp/B0000A8VNU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246223215&sr=8-1