To the OP: I really like your list. As my ds is approaching 12, that gives me a lot to think about. One thing that I can think of, and will be sitting down with ds to do, is to list some good habits that will benefit him (healthy food choice, managing personal space, daily Bible reading, etc.) that he can work on this year. He is also to list some bad habits that he needs to work on this year (for example, eating too quickly, not brushing his teeth thoroughly). I want him to know what he chooses to do will affect him in the future because little things do turn into habits.

These are my favorite, in no particular order: By the Great Horn Spoon The Great Turkey Walk Cricket in Time Square Carry On, Mr. Bowditch Just So Stories The Trumpet of the Swan Homer Price My Side of the Mountain From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Johnny Tremain

I think it really depend on the student you have. As mentioned before, AoPS uses the discovery approach, and some students just don't do well in this approach. However, it can be compensated by going over the lessons with your students daily, and by reviewing the key concepts each day before they start their section exercises. So to answer your question, it can be done without doing another program first, you just need to be prepared to put in time.

I don't remember which chapters they use as samples, but I can tell you I thought of the same thing when ds was working through chapters 1-4. Since he has done another algebra program prior to this, he flew through the first 4 chapters including the challenging problems. But starting from about chapter 5, the exercises get longer, the challenging problems get harder, and the content is meaty enough even for a student who does algebra the second time around. When he got to chapter 6, I decided to stay with him when he does his lesson problems just to be sure he gets all that's being presented. He just finished chapter 8 today and it took him 90 minutes to do 21 review problems. All this to say, this is definitely a solid program.

I couldn't agree more. Ds is working through chapter 8 of Intro to Algebra after finishing Foerster's algebra in 6 months. He is learning algebra in a much deeper way with AoPS text. A word of caution for those of you who plan to use this for the first round of pre-algebra or algebra, you will need to work with your students to get the most benefit out of the book. Although the text is written directly to students, they might not get the whole concept if they work through the text on their own. This is especially true if your students are younger.

Either Singapore's NEM or Discovering Mathematics will be great to work through as pre-algebra before you dive into Foerster's algebra. While I can see some kids move from Singapore's Primary Math to Foerster without a problem, working through NEM or DM will definitely develop their thinking skill and make learning algebra a lot easier. Even if you don't want to spend a whole year doing that, you can at least pick out some pre-algebra topics from the book and do those chapters.

This is what I have planned so far: Bible-BSF History-Middle Ages study with lots of fiction and non-fiction books LA-LL7, MCT's ML1 and WWW1 Writing-LToW Math-Jacobs Geometry Science-CA textbook by Pearson with CPO Life Science Mandarin-betterchinese.com books PE-PE co-op Music-Piano

This is exactly where we are right now. I am seriously considering using LToW next year, and your post has encouraged me. I'd also like to hear more answers from others.

Thank you for willing to share!

It covers the same types of phrases, it just gives more details. Personally, I don't think Grammar Town is necessary especially if you start with an older child. Ds and I enjoyed Grammar Town, it was fun to read through and the concept stuck easily, but if money or time is a concern, it can be skipped. czny-- You can use Grammar Voyage with other Town level books, technically speaking. To answer some of one_I_michele's questions, I haven't gone pass level 3 (Voyage), but I plan to use MCT's grammar until we are through with his upper levels books. I believe in levels 4-6, you still get separate grammar and writing books. And lastly, we did Island in 4th, Town in 5th, Voyage in 6th, and will do Magic Lens I next year. This progression has fit ds very well. In general, we read through a chunk of book very day(I don't do a fixed number of pages, we stop where we think there's a natural pause) until we are through with it, then we do 4 practice sentences every week until we are done with the practice book. Magic Lens is set up in a different way than the lower level grammar books, so I am sure I'll have to see what to do with it.

I haven't been to any homeschool convention/conference, religious or not.

Are you and your son happy with Singapore Math? If so, don't change course. Finish the Primary Math series first, and then you have two options for algebra1, 2 and geometry. One is to use a traditional textbook and supplement with Singapore's NEM or DM. The other is to use AoPS books. Either way will serve him really well.

Why is it that I often find you saying exactly how I feel about a specific curriculum? ;) Except that we don't do Killgallon, the above quote is exactly what I think about Essay Voyage, and I give out assignments exactly the way you do. I see great improvement in ds's writing after using IEW for three years (3rd to 5th), but I felt that he had absorbed all he could handle and needed to change course so I use nothing but Essay Voyage this year (6th). To be honest, I don't see him transferring what he learns from Essay Voyage to his writing at all. Now he goes to a writing tutor for 1 hour per week for the rest of the school year while I figure out what to do next year. I might try LToW with him next year. IEW has taught him to write summery and report type of essays well, but he has problem when it comes to expressing his opinions or ideas. LToW might help him in that aspect and prepare him to write persuasive essays later on.

We use Foerster as our main text and supplement with Singapore Discovering Mathematics level 2 this year. I chose Foerster because I wanted to follow a more traditional math sequence, algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2,...etc. While I think Foerster does a thorough job introducing algebra 1 topics, I find its depth lacking. I have been picking out some challenging problems from Discovering Mathematics for ds to work on. Those problems force a person to really think and apply what he learns, not just use formulas or pluck in numbers. We are going to finish Foerster in a week, and I plan on using AoPS Intro to Algebra chapter 1-13 after that before we do Geometry. If I could do it over, I'd go with either Discovering Mathematics or AoPS. If you have a strong math student, be sure to check them out.

Grammar Voyage is kind of a review for Grammar Town except the "phrases" section where it goes into a bit more details on different kinds of phrases. That's all.

This sounds good. I reserved a copy from my library. Thanks.

The price!!:eek: I'll have to see if our library carries the set.

This one looks good, thanks. I've added it to my Amazon cart.

The only complaint I have on SWB's The History of the Medieval World is that it does not have beautiful pictures like the Usborne books do. I might end up combining it with Usborne Medieval World so I can balance the text and pictures. Thank you for mentioning Famous Men of the Middle Ages, I forgot to put that one on my list.

The Human Odyssey looks really good, I'll have to see if I can get a copy. But from Amazon's page, middle ages is covered in volume one instead of volume 2 as you mentioned? Am I wrong?

I saw this in my search, but noticed it only has 91 pages. Is it enough for the whole year's spine?

We are going to study middle ages next year (7th grade). I got a list going for all the historical fictions and biographies we can use, but I couldn't find a spine. This year we use Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World as our spine and that has worked well. But I can't find a similar book for the middle ages. Anyone has any suggestions? BTW, we already own STOW and Kingfisher History Encyclopedia.

We know that the best one[curriculum/program] is the one that YOU have the potential, the time, the understanding, and the ability to WORK WITH at your house. Everything else will just end up being a black hole for your resources (time, money, enthusiasm, and talent). Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey This is what I got out of Janice's post. In general I strive to do that every year, but it's good to be reminded again and again especially during the planning stage when we all mull over what to include and what to let go.

Thank you for linking it here. I am currently planning for next year (7th grade), the timing couldn't be better. Off to read the thread.

I'd like to hear more about it too as I am contemplating on leaving MCT vocab program for 1-2 years before coming back to use WWW vol.1. WWW just looks very daunting to me compared to Caesar's English which we enjoyed. Any tips on how to make it go smoothly is appreciated!