My 5.5 year old is flying through LLATL Blue (which is supposedly for 1st grade) while my 9 year old is working just fine through Orange which is right on level for him (4th grade). I actually used LLATL and WT II at the same time. They are very different programs and teach very different things. In regards to grammar, neither is particularly strong, but WTII is definitely stronger than LLATL. I don't feel like LLATL stands alone very well. However, I also didn't find anything to really "compliment" it the way I wanted so we are switching to CLE Language Arts (and reading)...but that is a whole 'nother post. LOL Spelling is weak in both. LLATL has more "variety" - my son found WT II very monotonous.

We school year around, though we use summer to "catch up" or "finish up" as needed.

I typically don't let someone send the money until we have agreed that they are the buyer. That stops the problem of having money in hand and not knowing what to do. As for selling...if I have a buyer that is interested and I don't hear back in 24 hours (but have others waiting), then yes, I will give them 24 hours and sell to the first person who pays me. Now, if I have no one waiting, I just wait for the original buyer to get back to me. On "hot ticket" type items, though, it is very "first pay, get item." LOL

Honestly, I just wish that ALL curricula that had multiple "parts" to it would market it "in a box." 99% of the time, I buy something only to realize I have half of what I need and that I now need to buy something else. Blah! LOL It could easily apply to SOTW and other curricula used by TWTM...

My son transitioned to 1st in December. We are currently doing what is in my siggy. :) We are going to be adding Spelling Workout A, Map Skills Geography, and SOTW I in a few weeks. We are also finishing Child's Play Science and doing the Singapore Start-up series before going on to NOEO Biology for 2nd grade.

Wow...my cat is bigger than 10 pounds fully grown. EEK. That is going to be one tiny little doggie. But Congrats on the ability to get one! I love my dog (30 pound cocker spaniel...very fluffy. LOL)

We count our 180 days for the state and school with all the subjects until those days are finished. At that time, we drop back and do light school throughout the summer taking lots of breaks and working in the am so we can play in the evenings. :) For us, 180 days will officially end on May 8 for ds5 and May 22 for ds9.

*head shaking moment*

That is a wonderful report. Praise God! And I will continue prayers for your healing.

Oh how frightening for you both! :( I am glad she is okay now. Poor gal!

The "All Things Fun and Fascinating" looks awesome! Thanks!

I was able to sign up just fine using my home address and school name. ??

We usually finish everything...but on the rare occasion that we don't, I throw in the towel when we are all frustrated beyond the point of finishing. I hate to say that, but there are just THOSE DAYS. Today was one of those days. :(

Looking at the S&S, I almost think I should start in the middle of 4th grade. The only problem is that I just can't be scrapping curriculum for this year at this late date. :( I am going to try to trudge forth and finish the year with what I have. But I have decided to go with the CLE for English next year. I really like what I see. I wish I could see a sample of the student books though. I will check out IEW. I want him to do some writing...but I also agree with you that typing is very important too. Is there any writing instruction in the CLE LA?

Would you drop CW all together with this plan?

Okay, I am starting to admit defeat on my "plan" for English. This year, I was picking and pulling from LLATL Orange, WT II, and doing GWG 5. It is honestly, exhausting. And now I am getting the feeling I am confusing my child rather than helping him. I have heard LOTS of good things about CLE Language Arts. Here is my qustion. If I were to drop my current plan (not for this year, but next year), what would you suggest removing and what would you suggest adding? Here is what I already have (5th grade): CW Homer/CW Poetry for Beginners Growing with Grammar 5 LLATL Purple Here is what I am thinking: Drop all except CW and use CLE LA along with CW. In this case, would I need CLE Reading? Or is all this still overkill?

Thank you ALL so much! I have found so many things helpful in this thread. I love the laminated chart. I made a large one for our school room, but i think he gets tired of getting up and looking, so he guesses. :( I think the little laminated one will be perfect. :) I actually was SKIPPING the games, so we will now drop back and do those before moving on. Thanks so much for that suggestion as well.

It can be done... but I can't imagine it would be FUN. LOL I have two boys who are 4 years apart and I will be doing this in another year. NOT looking forward to it. Even though my 9 y/o is independant with most of it, I require him to do the summaries and fill out the experiment pages and he does not do a great job unless I am overseeing. KWIM? Working with my little guy would be terribly teacher intensive right now since he isn't reading well enough to read and do for himself yet.

I give it a good week. If not, I may try e-bay if I think the fees are worth it. Otherwise, I will wait until the annual used curriculum sale in my area and take the books there.

He can identify the 4 parts of speech - one at a time. However, they are having him find and differentiate between infinitive verbs, state of being verbs, action verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns all at the same time. One of the sentences is "Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers and have some fun at their expense." And he has to find and name each and every one of the above in the sentence. It was definitely hard for him and he missed quite a bit trying to do them all at once. We even did one thing at a time and he was getting confused. I don't remember learning that kind of grammar (i.e. putting it all together and labeling sentences) until highschool. Maybe it is just hard because he is not terribly great at grammar to begin with. :(

My 9 year old had this and it was due to dry scalp. We switched him to head and sholders shampoo and now he smells lovely. :)

Okay, we were bopping along enjoying Writing Tales II when all of a sudden, we came to lesson 14. Holy cow! They have him picking out every single adjective, verb, adv, and noun in the sentences. He is supposed to circle the adv and adj and draw arrows to what they modify. Okay, he is 9. This is not exactly his strong point..and I have a degree in English and this is even a bit much for me. Not that I can't do it, but it is not exactly "easy" either. Is it me, or is this a bit over the top for grammar at the age of 9? We are doing GWG 4 as well and have not gotten nearly this in depth with grammar to where he has to label every word of a sentence with what it represents grammatically.:001_huh: Edited to add post below to this one: He can identify the 4 parts of speech - one at a time. However, they are having him find and differentiate between infinitive verbs, state of being verbs, action verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns all at the same time. One of the sentences is "Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers and have some fun at their expense." And he has to find and name each and every one of the above in the sentence. It was definitely hard for him and he missed quite a bit trying to do them all at once. We even did one thing at a time and he was getting confused. I don't remember learning that kind of grammar (i.e. putting it all together and labeling sentences) until highschool. Maybe it is just hard because he is not terribly great at grammar to begin with. :(

Yes, melanoma is very serious and very scary. Even when it is removed, it can come back in other places. There is someone on this board who spoke of a friend who passed due to a melanoma that had spread silently to lymph nodes AFTER it had been removed. It was a tragic story. Please do ask your SIL to be checked. And, no, not every brain tumor is cancerous. I have a good friend who found his brain tumor when he was 29. They couldn't biopsy or operate due to location, so he spent a few years waiting to die, basically. When he didn't die and it didn't grow or spread, they declared it was just a tumor. However, even though it is not cancerous, if it were to grow larger, it could affect parts of his brain and cause any number of symptoms. It is something they always have to watch.

Most do that are not otherwise permitted from doing so. We do not allow any violent video games in our home because the one time we made the mistake of doing so (it was a Star Wars Playstation 2 game), my kids started telling each other, "I am going to kill you." That was more than enough for me to sell the game and ban violent games in our home.

I do one in excel too.