I will be teaching a small co-op English class for 3rd-5th graders this coming year, and I'd love some suggestions of what curriculum might be useful in planning for it. I'm interested in using a literature-based language arts format so we can read several books throughout the year and pull some simple writing, grammar, and literature lessons from the books that we read. I know that Brave Writer's Dart and Arrow guides might be helpful. Is there anything else similar to that I should look into? Thanks so much!

For the first time ever, I'm going to be using block scheduling for some of our subjects this school year, most notably for science and history. My plan is to cover science for two quarters and history for the other two (I haven't decided yet if those quarters will be back to back or if we'll alternate--figure we'll play that by ear as we go). So my question is this--in the past we've always followed TWTM method and linked the bulk of our literature to our history studies, but since we won't be studying history throughout the entire year, what should we do for our literature during our science blocks? I've considered going ahead and having them still read through some of the history books that will go along with the time period that we'll be studying during the history block, just spreading them out throughout the year. But I've also thought of maybe using lists of great classic books that they haven't read yet and just working our way through those during our science blocks. Or maybe there's another option I haven't thought of yet? What suggestions do you have?

How can you determine if your child has issues with working memory? My fourth son is 5 and since starting K work with him this year, I'm wondering if that might be what he's dealing with. He knows just a handful of letters, despite being exposed to the alphabet over and over again for years and through many different methods (his three older brothers are all avid readers, we read daily as a family, we talk/read about letters all the time, he's watched many educational videos like ABC Mouse, etc.). Despite all that exposure, he only can name maybe 10 letters. And as we've gone through lessons the last few months learning each letter one at a time, he sometimes can't even remember the letter of the day from the beginning of the lesson to the end in just a span of five minutes, no matter how frequently I say it. A few days ago, as we were starting to review the last lesson he learned (which was from the week before T'giving, so admittedly, it had been a while for him!), he could point to the letter he had learned but couldn't remember its name, and he sighed and told me "I only have long memories." Broke my heart! Is this normal and he just needs more exposure to the alphabet, more time to learn it, more ways of exploring it? Or am I right that it seems like there's something else going on? I probably would think nothing of it other than the fact that it's totally different from how my oldest three learned their letters, and (even more telling) my 3yo is right beside him naming off more letters than he's able to remember--in fact, the 3yo naming the letters is usually what prompts the 5yo. This isn't the only sign of working memory issues I see in him, either, it's just been the one that finally made me realize that something might be up. He frequently has a hard time with multiple step instructions or remembering what he was asked to do (even if he repeats the instructions back initially), will often forget what he was saying if he gets interrupted (not hard to do with five siblings), and has started stuttering within the last year (don't know if that's a sign of working memory issues or not, but it seems like it's how he stalls for time in remembering what he was saying, if that makes sense). So tell me, please--is this normal development or a working memory issue or something else? And how can I best help him, no matter what it is?

Thanks for all the help and suggestions! You've all confirmed my decision to just stick with TWTM method for the next year or two and wait to see about adding in a formal writing program later.

My oldest will be doing 5th grade work this year and is a natural writer. Over the last four years we've simply followed SWB's method of narration, dictation, and summarizing across the curriculum, and it's worked quite well. I'm intending to continue TWTM method of outlining, summarizing, etc., throughout the middle grades, but I'm wondering if I need to also add in a formal writing program a few times a week. TWTM makes a comment to that effect, that a formal writing program should be done along with the outlining and summarizing, and it seems like most people do, yet I can't help but wonder why it would be needed? TWTM method seems like it would be sufficient in getting a student where they need to be in writing ability by the end of the logic stage, and SWB's middle grade writing lecture seems to imply that nothing else is needed. So which is it? I know I'm probably overthinking this and making it harder than it needs to be, but I'd love to know what others do--add in a formal writing program or just stick with TWTM method?

My three school age kids have all learned to write with the Zaner Bloser books, and I've never had a teacher's guide to go along with it. The student workbooks themselves are self-explanatory, so much so that I've always been able to have handwriting be basically a completely independent subject. I just periodically flip through their workbooks to see how they're doing, but otherwise, it's all on them. All three of them have excellent handwriting, all because of this program. I love it!

Thanks, ladies! Gail, I actually discovered that St. Louis Homeschoolers website a few days ago as I was doing a little more researching online. I think it will be really useful in figuring out all of our options. I think my biggest struggle right now is figuring out what exactly our purpose will be for joining a group, and then finding a group to match that purpose. Our oldest is 6 and we know no one in our everyday circle of friends who homeschools, so a big reason for us wanting to join a group is so our kids know they're not the only ones! But we also don't want to find something that's just a glorified playgroup, if that makes sense. Right now I'm really leaning towards CHEF, though I have some reservations about that too. (But I just happened to start buying from a produce co-op run by the directors' daughter, and they're fabulous people, so that alone might persuade me to join it!) Any suggestions on how to go about choosing a group?

We're entering into our first "official" year of homeschooling, and we're hoping to find some like-minded families to associate with this year. Being new to this, and not knowing but a few other homeschool families (who aren't anywhere close to us in the area) we're not really sure where to look! We contemplated joining a CC group, but decided against it for now, for a few reasons. Other than that, what groups are out there for us? The closer to North County, the better.