I am having the hardest time figuring out what path to take in teaching my almost 9 year old writing--which seems ironic because I love to write and I think I'm fairly good at it. Right now, ds is doing WWE2 and he really likes it. He is a great narrator and his dictation skills are coming along nicely. He writes stories in his free time. However, I feel like I may want to get to paragraph writing a little sooner than we would just using WWE. (His stories are all a single paragraph long--but 6 or more pages!) Also, the woman that evaluates my kids made it a point to say at the end of last year that she expects him to be able to write certain types of paragraphs at the end of this year. (She is a teacher in a charter school). I am in need of a plan, and I want to just pull my resources together, wallow in them for a bit, and then make a nice scope and sequence for ds (I just read the writing S& S thread posted awhile ago, and I'm still digesting it.) Can anyone suggest any books, etc that have helped you decide how to teach writing? I have the WWE text and plan on listening to SWB's audio over the break. I also have No More I'm Done and The Most Wonderful Writing Lesson Ever. Anything else that is a must-read?

I really love the looks of this! I have a very weak grammar background. I'm wondering if I could learn along with ds8 as we do the first section or if I should self-educate first. Any thoughts? Thanks!

The bolded is why I switched ds to McRuffy and it really has made a huge difference! We love it!

Thanks so much everyone! This sounds lovely! When we were not doing school at all during Thanksgiving week, it felt so nice to be able to pay so much attention to my little ones! I'm struggling with making sure I spend time with my younger kids, making sure my third grader is spending enough time doing school, and making sure my Ker doesn't get get lost in the mix! I've seen you post about this before, and I love this idea, but ds already stays up later at night to spend time with dh (they do science and lit readalouds and just have some bonding time), so I don't want to get him up early as well, but I may keep playing around with it...

Our daily routine will have to change after Christmas. The baby is dropping her second nap, the 3 year old has taught herself to read and now realllly wants me to read with her. All of the time. I'm happy with the time I spend with my 6 year old, but I really need to streamline the work my almost 9 year old is doing. I feel like everything is so scattered...I would love to hear how others are doing 3rd grade. I always get inspired reading about how others do things, and I'm hoping to get some new ideas. :)

I bought an old used copy. It was very disjointed, so I reworked it all and added some of my own stuff and took out some of their stuff. Ha--guess I shouldn't have bought it at all! I have no idea if the newer version is better. We love their early American history, though!

Thanks everyone for weighing in with thoughtful advice! Lots to think about...

This is what I'm thinking too. That's why I started this thread. Thanks for your thoughts on adoption!

I see what you mean. Not trying to be strange, just trying to figure things out :)

Ah, then maybe I misunderstood. Oh, and we don't have date nights OUT of the house. Just a certain night set aside where we are sure to spend time together watching a movie, just talking, etc. We already have very little alone time and have been on a date out of the house about 3 times in the past 2 years. dh is just concerned about keeping our connection strong. I'm not worried about giving up "me" time or not getting out of the house as much. I just want our marriage to stay strong. I don't think having more children will hurt our marriage, but I can see that dh is concerned, so I want to address it!

Ha! I think we're living the same life! Except I'm not pregnant, thank goodness! Congrats to you, though!!

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that if you lose your connection with your husband for 10 or more years, then when you finally get around to paying attention to your marriage, it'd be likely that you will have grown far apart. On the other hand, if you stay close and communicate and tackle your problems together, your marriage is more likely to stay strong. IMHO.

Hmmmmm, ok. Let's see. Thanks for the adoption advice. I don't mean to come off as naive. We have done and will continue to do lots of research. We belong to an adoption support group and have talked to many adoptive families. We will continue to research over the next few years as we decide if we are going to adopt. I appreciate your honesty though!

You posted while I was typing. Thanks for sharing!

In this post ( :)) I'm really just asking about how couples with a larger family make time to keep the husband-wife bond strong. Adopting or not, we have a lot of little kids, and dh and I don't want to lose each other in the craziness :) I've always felt that as long as we keep our marriage as priority #1 for our family, we'd be ok, but dh is more worried about this,,,

This is excellent advice and important for me to remember as we sort through this. Thanks. :)

Thanks guys! I'm trying to keep things in perspective and I don't want to wish my children's childhoods away at all. There just have to be a balance, I think. The kids do go to bed early, but by the end of the day, we are both very tired :) Plus, sometimes I need to just be alone for a bit...

Dh and I have 4 children. We had planned to adopt one more child to complete our family, but dh is getting cold feet. He is worried that by adding another child, we will have even less time for each other. I'm wondering how others with larger families are able to keep their marriage strong. We set aside time each week for date nights, but is is challenging with so many little kids...

Thanks for the input! I think the most I'll do is something like this. Thanks everyone!!!!

How does your 6 year old feel about this? My 6 year old was not an early reader (still working on short vowel words with blends). I am trying to be careful to not make a big deal about younger dd reading almost as well as dd6... Just wondering if you've had any problems with this???

OK. Good! Sounds like I don't really need to do anything other than what I'm already doing (and maybe make the Bob books more available to her). Thank goodness because I'm stretched too thin already. It also seems like reading at 3 may not be all that unusual. Thanks everyone!

***Cross posting this here and gen board I feel sort of ridiculous asking this question but I'll ask it anyway :) My 3 year old is reading CVC and CVCC words. I guess she picked it up from listening to her big sister's phonics lessons??? My question is, should I be doing something beyond continuing to read aloud to her a ton? I am doing OPGTR with my 6 year old dd, and ds and I did OPGTR when he was 6 too. I can't imagine doing it with a 3 year old, though! Any words of wisdom? What did you do?

I feel sort of ridiculous asking this question but I'll ask it anyway :) My 3 year old is reading CVC and CVCC words. I guess she picked it up from listening to her big sister's phonics lessons??? My question is, should I be doing something beyond continuing to read aloud to her a ton? I am doing OPGTR with my 6 year old dd, and ds and I did OPGTR when he was 6 too. I can't imagine doing it with a 3 year old, though! Any words of wisdom? What did you do?

We call ours Read on the Couch time. When my 7 month old goes down for her morning nap, I pull out a big tote bag and spread the books out on the floor. The bag contains the Jesus Storybook Bible or Leading Little Ones to God, 2 living math books, any FIAR go-alongs, a Ruth Heller or Brian Cleary grammar book, High Five magazine (for my 3 year old), a poetry book, a history picture books, a non-fiction sciency book, and random picture books. Everyone (including me) picks a book, and we read the youngests selection first, then the next youngest, etc. When that round is done, we go around again. At the 45 minute mark,I read a picture book that goes along with my 3 year old's LOTW, and then I move to spending time with her. At meal times, we do our chapter book and nature stories and Aesop's Fables. Love it!

Thanks again, everyone, for sharing. I can see which areas we need to research more before we jump into the process. We have done tons of research on special needs but not so much on other important issues. If it's ok, I may pm some of you for further advice. You all were so helpful!