:grouphug:

I have a few ideas for a summer writing project, but I'd like to get some feedback first. 1. How many of you purchase packaged curriculum for the ease of having lessons planned out? 2. If there were lesson plans available, for purchase in either excel format, pdf format, or for HST, for each subject (you didn't have to purchase an entire curriculum) where you pick and choose what you want, would this be appealing to you? 3. What subjects would you LOVE to find books/workbooks for? 4. Do you find the style of First Language Lessons/Writing with Ease beneficial? I hope you don't mind answering these questions for me. I want to see if my ideas are viable before I invest time. I often plan out my homeschooling year over the summer, and I'm very detailed with it. Thanks!

We've been doing Latin now for 2 1/2 years, Hebrew for 1 year, and we're adding Spanish this year. Our son also wants to learn French and German (I'm fluent in both) so we'll add those into the mix as time goes on.

Here's what we're planning to do: Latin: Continue Latin Prep 1 Math: Primary Math 5A/5B and probably 6A/Family Math/Real LIfe Math/Challenging problems on Friday Reading: following the WTM suggestions History: following WTM suggestions (Kingfisher Encyclopedia) Science: Putting together my own (secular) curriculum for life science Logic: Will do Logic Blast-off series Grammar: Finish FLL 4 and Start Hake Grammar 5 Writing: Continue working through Writing Strands 3; Spectrum Writing 5; Zaner-Bloser penmanship Spelling: Continue with Spelling Connections by Zaner-Bloser (finish 3, 4, hopefully get to 5...we're a slower speller) Hebrew: Finishing Alef-Bet Spanish: Still deciding Art: Art lessons with Dad/historical survey through WTM suggestions Music: Music history through WTM suggestions practicing recorder... I think that about covers it. We also do lots of life-skills type stuff.

Two suggestions come to my mind: Spectrum Reading and Narrations a la WTM suggestions. The combination of the two has helped my child to better comprehend what he reads.

Tonight my son was working on the map page for chapter 14 and discovered that the directions say to color Spain yellow. But when he went to the page, he noticed that Spain is not on the map. I told him to draw a line pointing to where Spain would be on the map and color it. Did anyone else notice this?

It took a little bit, but our report is up! http://platos-academy.blogspot.com/

I was thinking of using Hake Grammar. It looks rigorous, and has dictation, vocabulary and review throughout. (And it appears to be secular which is a plus for us...we tried R&S but it didn't work out) Has anyone out there used this program?

Ours is up over at Plato's Academy!

Patience. My son also had expressive language issues, and it would be very very difficult for him to get things out, even though he knew them. After using FLL 1,2 and now 3 and WWE for two years, he has become quite adept at the narration. I remember it taking a very long time for it to click with him, and we had to do it in all subjects - history, science, reading as well. It was like pulling teeth at first and to this date, details are hard for him, but they do improve with time. (Someone who's been there.)

We color them in and tape them to index cards. At the end of each week, I have my ds read through them, from the beginning of the book (we're on book 3). Once a month, he reads through the stack from the beginning of the series. I was thinking that a card game could be made out of them... You can also manipulate them so you can track history in different areas of the world. We've done that a few times with the atlas.

Formal Logic is valuable for evaluating arguments. It's also valuable for the LSAT, GRE and other standardized tests. Most importantly, a strong foundation in both informal and formal logic is necessary in order to write persuasive arguments during the rhetoric stage. It might be fun to have your child go through the opinions column of the newspaper and pick out the fallacies and the invalid arguments during logic time.

Here, we do Latin and Hebrew (4th Grade). My son's had exposure to Spanish and took 2 years of Spanish during K-1. We're picking up with a more formal Spanish curriculum for fifth, and I plan on adding German or French later. I think it's good for them to be world citizens. European kids generally graduate being able to speak at least 3 or 4 modern languages plus Latin.

Here's an article I wrote on teaching Latin at home and resources that can be used to do so easily: http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/27112.aspx. Like many of the other members of this forum, I was inspired by what I had read in WTM and on my knowledge of what is taught at private schools. I hope that helps :D.

What I do with my son is have him read SOTW. When he finishes a chapter, he puts a check mark next to any of the books on the list that he's interested in reading. Then, I get them from the library or request them through interlibrary loan. Library day is like a birthday party around here. Because he chose the books from the list, he gets VERY excited, and wants to read them the second we get home with them...our library lets us have 100 books out at a time, and 10 out from interlibrary loan. Let's just say the librarian has dropped his mouth a few times when he's overridden the book limits. We picked up 48 SOTW books from the library Tuesday (we are heavy readers around here) and 24 of them are ready to go back to the library two days later. We do weekly library trips. We have a very very tight budget - so buying the books aren't an option for us. Books he's particularly liked get put on a "Wishlist" for birthdays...