This happened with my son when he was 10. It made a world of difference to have him type his writing assignments rather than write them with a pencil. Until he typed, he too was just trying to get them over with.

Another thing that's different in level 3 is that the student reads passages alone to narrate from, instead of you reading the passage to them. If your son can already summarize pretty well, he probably won't miss much.

After having done chemistry once with elementary kids, I would definitely just pick an experiment book or kit (like Adventures with Atoms and Molecules, or Chemistry for Every Kid) and just have fun doing the experiments. Maybe occasionally write about them or draw pictures of them. That's my plan for next time around.

Are you using the workbook? The length of dictation passages in the workbooks is far longer than what the instructor text recommends. The longest they are supposed to get by the end of level 4 is 25-30 words. So if he can do that, or he's close to it, then you're good. I personally don't require longer than 25 words for my sons.

I am following SWB's plan from her writing audio lectures instead of using a writing curriculum. For 7th grade, she says the student should do 3-level outlines, write a composition from that outline, and write literary essays. Is that it? I was thinking about having my son also do some reports in history and science. How often should I have him do them and are they basically like a narration? He'll also do lab reports of science experiments. Am I missing anything else that's important?

Another series to look at would be the Wells of Knowledge books by Robert E. Wells. My boys really like them (K and 2nd). There aren't that many but How Do You Lift a Lion? is a good one for physics and What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew is good for chemistry. There are a few other titles that would fit those categories as well.

I switched to the new version, and happily. If by "best" people mean hardest/most advanced, ok, then the old version is that. But if I had tried to stick with that, my son would have become frustrated and I consider him to be bright and good at math. We would have had to switch to something else with a more typical scope and sequences for 5th and 6th. I was only too happy that Maria revised it and I also trust her judgement. There's no way she would dumb anything down after writing such a fabulous math program in the first place.

Yes, both responses were very helpful. It's helped me see that in reality, lit. analysis papers are not so much a requirement of quantity, but a natural process of reading and then having something to say about it, whether that takes a week or longer. Thanks a lot!

Thanks Joan! I'll look around a little under that tag.

Right, that's why I do want to continue grammar through 8th grade but I'm thinking maybe a change would be good for us. I just ordered Our Mother Tongue and the first book of Stewart English to look at. I like the looks of OMT because it looks very much to the point, but we'll see when I get them.

We started R&S English in 3rd (book 3) and have been doing it every year. We do the oral reviews and all the class practice but not the worksheets. It's just getting to the point where if I summarize the lesson in two sentences for him at the end, it makes sense and he can do the exercises. But following along and making sense of the actual lesson, he gets kind of lost. It's like it's too wordy for him or something. So I am wary of what will happen if the 7th book is much harder than 6th. I think I am going to look at a few other options and see if there is something that is a bit more "to the point."

Anybody?

I am currently doing R&S English 6 with my son and it's getting pretty complicated. I'm not sure how much further I want to go with R&S and I don't know how much more my son can handle. I thought about repeating 6 next year. I thought about doing the 7th book over two years, finishing in 8th and then calling grammar basically done. I thought of switching to something else for 7th and 8th but I don't know what. Is the R&S 7 book much harder than 6th? My son is so far getting all the concepts in 6. It's not like he isn't learning it so then maybe he'd be ok with the 7th book. I don't know. If someone could help me sort through this, I would really appreciate it.

I have a couple of questions about doing lit analysis the way SWB outlines in her audio lecture. If anyone knows the answers, I would appreciate it! Firstly, for high school writing, she recommends students write two one-page persuasive papers per week. In the lit. analysis lecture, she says they should write one lit. paper per week. So does that mean they are to write 3 papers a week? Or two with one being a lit. paper? Secondly, for studying lit. terms, students are to get the recommended book and keep a notebook of terms that they work on once per week. I am assuming students would begin doing this in 9th grade, but how long does this take? Will the terms last all four years of high school or do they just study them until they're finished and then use them in their lit. papers? Thanks for any help!

I'm looking for some fun ideas for learning logic for a 7th grader. He's completed Logic Countdown and is doing Logic Lift-off but I was thinking I would like something less formal and more fun for next year. I plan on using Fallacy Detective in 8th. He likes Perplexors. What other puzzles or mystery books have your kids really enjoyed? Thanks.

Ah, ok. I get it. :) I completely agree with you that WWS seems to be more advanced than her audio lectures. That's partially why I'm not using WWS. It is all about finding what works for your own kids. My oldest has followed the WWE progression and middle school rec's to a tee, my second oldest is more advanced. And I have 3 more students to come. At least it's easy to tweak!

Chrysalis, I am late to this discussion but I am closely following SWB's recommendations for writing with my kids, using her audio lectures as my base. Commenting on the S&S you posted in your original post, it looks to me like what you are thinking of doing through 6th grade should actually be stretched through 8th grade, and your ideas for 7th and 8th would then be bumped to high school level writing. I could be wrong, but that's what I thought SWB recommended (outlines and re-writes through middle school and then thesis/essays/original writing beginning in 9th). So, personally, I would say your S&S is advanced, at least if you are trying to follow Susan's methods. Just thought I would bring that up and find out if maybe I'm the one who's off!

This is a very un-classy question but I can't help myself. :) Is telling someone to "jog on" considered very vulgar or is it sort of the equivalent to "take a hike"? And what about showing someone the index and middle fingers in the shape of a V? Is that considered vulgar and very insulting, sort of like giving someone the middle finger in North America? :lol:

In SWB's literary analysis lecture, she says one page or less. I would use that as a ballpark, but it probably does depend on the assignment.

If you skip all the composition lessons, it works very well to do 3 lessons per week and get through the book in a school year. This is what I do.

Hope you can make sense of this... Ch. 1 - "It was a wild March day and the sky was full of tattered clouds..." Ch. 2 - "The days following the lambing season were busy ones, for, as everyone knew, extra care taken then meant a fine flock later..." Ch. 3 - "A few days later the flock set off for their first grazing, Peter walking beside old Benj with the cosset gamboling at their heels..." Ch. 4 - "Now the sun shone for days on end. Blossoms rode on the fruit trees or lay scattered around the trunks..." Ch. 5 - "Peter lay on his back in the short, dry grass. The air was still with the stillness of late summer..." Ch. 6 - "When the mountains wore caps of snow, Benj and Peter gathered the flock together to lead them down..." Ch. 7 - "That was the spring that Biddy dropped a ewe lamb..." Ch. 8 - "Soon after the shearing came the dipping, and soon after that the flock went off to pasture..."

Your plan sounds perfectly fine. There is nothing magical about WWE; it just gives more specific instructions. You could easily do without it, especially for the youngest grades.

^^ I agree. That's another reason I'm waiting for the WWS "guide", similar to the instructor text for WWE. Poor SWB! We put so much pressure on her to keep churning out products for us!! :)

Is that from the workbook? In the Instructor Text, it says that by the end of year 4, students should be able to take a dictation of 25-30 words. That's as long as they ever get. The one you quoted is 43 words long! It seems there is a big difference between the Instructor Text and the workbook assignments, which is another reason why I use the text and pick my own sentences. I would definitely cut that down or pick something else.

Thanks for mentioning this! This was my theoretical plan for future use and it's nice to see that others think it should work.