For 2nd grade language arts: WWE & FLL combo will not include literature studies or spelling. You could still do your own lit using the library, though. I don't know which color LLATL you're considering, but you may want to add some spelling instruction. I used the Orange Book with both kids and for us, the spelling instruction was really not enough. The Orange Book grammar was light, but I was okay with that for one year at that level. You'll already be using FLL for 1st grade, so you could go ahead and use it for your 2nd grade grammar/mechanics/usage (via narration, copywork, dictation, memorywork) with a little poetry included, too. You'd probably want to add something for spelling. You could use LLATL for the literature/reading/book study component. The WWE textbook (1st-5th grade) is non-consumable but does not include every single lesson you'll need. It provides a start-up quantity of lessons, and then shows you how to come up with your own custom assignments using whatever y'all are reading, either in literature or history. Have you seen the sample pages? That would be an inexpensive way to go, if you didn't mind making some of your own lessons. You could start off with the lessons in the textbook, and for 1st & 2nd graders, FLL contains some of the same (copywork, etc.). HTH!

I was wondering...is she understanding most of the math concepts? Can she work some/many of the problems, or are they mostly confusing to her? Does she mostly hate working on the problems by herself? Is she willing to do a few problems together with you? My daughter's least favorite subject is math, yet she understands the material well. She just doesn't like the work required; it can be looooong and tedious, in her opinion. Sometimes, I change the pace by spending more time working through problems together with her, side-by-side. Compared to a year ago, she's able to do longer assignments independently, but I can tell that every now and then, she still needs me to spend additional one-on-one time doing her homework (this is in addition to the lesson itself). Kind of like a little extra hand-holding to get her to the next level. Math-related games are a great way to mix things up a bit, too. RightStart sells inexpensive card games...we've used the fraction set. Another thing I was thinking....Some people don't do as well with spiral math programs where there is daily review on several different topics. My ds and I are both that way; we would not have been able to do either A Beka or Saxon, though both are great programs. SM has review, but not daily; and this works for us. So maybe you could skip some of the daily review in A Beka for a week or so, and see how that goes? That might be a way to try a few things before spending more money on an entirely new math program that you'd have to figure out, too. Also, you're getting into challenging topics...long division, etc. Students have to memorize a lot of steps for these. If there are too many other math topics going on (like with the daily review), it may make it harder for her to memorize the steps. Hopefully, this is just a phase! HTH!

Ds (7th grade) is reading Hakim's History of US series this year. A chapter can easily be used to write a list of facts, make an outline, or write a summary. HTH!

This is more for high school level, but might be fine for 9th grade: The Bible and Its Influence. It includes a few quotes by Leland Ryken, too.

Y'all are welcome! :)

So you can download books from your Kindle to the iPod Touch? That would be awesome!

This may not be the best way to do it, but I set up a before & after diagram (like Kate's), one directly above the other with their left sides aligned: Before Laura gave clips to Holly: Laura |--------------|--------------24---------------| Holly |--------------| After Laura gave clips to Holly: Laura |--------------|------------19-------------| Holly |--------------|-5-| Next, we can make a little "cut" in the after-version of Laura's bar: After Laura gave clips to Holly: Laura |--------------|-5-|--------14-------------| Holly |--------------|-5-| Since we know that Laura's after amount is double that of Holly's after amount, we know that the 14 extra that Laura has is the same amount that Holly has in all: After Laura gave clips to Holly: Laura |--------------|-5-|--------14-------------| Holly |--------14--------| And so that same length of bar diagram for Laura is also 14: After Laura gave clips to Holly: Laura |--------14--------|--------14-------------| Holly |--------14--------| So, after giving 5 clips to Holly, Laura has 14+14=28 clips. HTH!

It's hard to know if a student will be able to continue on his own or will need more help. For us, it depends on the topic...with some topics, they can figure it out from the Textbook explanations; with others, they need me to explain it a little further; and sometimes, they need a hands-on activity or game to go with it. Some parents can figure this part out without assistance and can do without the HIG. Though I don't use 100% of the content in the TG's, it's great to have them when I need them, especially for the activities designed to help a student understand a new concept. I have the Solutions Manuals for PM-5 and PM-6 and TG's for PM-1 through PM-6. But the HIG's are more convenient because they contain both solutions and the relevant activities for each topic; TG's don't have solutions. Since you haven't needed the HIG's so far, you might try continuing without them. If it turns out that you really need it later, buy it then. HTH!

I have Happy Phonics, Phonics Pathways, and Ruth Beechick's 3 R series. Happy Phonics requires the most prep time...lots of cutting and sorting. If you're short on time, you may prefer Phonics Pathways. With PP, we read a few lines a day, spending about 5-10 min. per day. HTH!

D'Aulaires' Greek Myths The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum Black Ships Before Troy by Sutcliff The Wanderings of Odysseus by Sutcliff Our library carries a number of books by Geraldine McCaughrean that I haven't read myself but ds did (here' one)...Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Another author I've seen recommended is Olivia Coolidge. HTH!

Fiction: Wheel on the School Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat I see that Rainbow Resource sells a guide for Owls in the Family, but haven't used it. We sometimes submit bird observations to eBird. You set up an account, so later you can see what you've submitted altogether. When the kids were younger, we maintained a bird log...just a simple table set up to record date, location, and type of bird we saw. HTH!

For curriculum (workbooks, textbooks, teacher's manuals, science kits, etc.) and excluding outside classes, it might be around $600 per year for both kids. Since I re-use a lot of materials for the 2nd child, this breaks out to about $400 on the older and $200 on the younger. The thing that gets expensive quickly for us: books for our family library. Though I could get most at the library, I like having a bunch at home...things like the color fairy books, Bethlehem books, DK books, history resources, a lot of the classics that are on the WTM lit lists. So this part could be anywhere from $400 per year to over $600, depending on the year. HTH!

Ds used SM from PM-1 through PM-5B. He did fine with SM, but he needed improvement in showing his work on problems and in getting the procedures more solidified and routine in his mind. After PM-5B, he did Chalkdust Basic Math 6. Switching to a more traditional US program at this point was helpful for us. The math concepts in Chalkdust were pretty easy for him, mostly review; so it was good to be able to focus more on the way he showed his work, etc. Having a bunch of the same type of problems to do also increased his skill and confidence. Some of the Singapore problems, esp. the word problems, are quite difficult, and so it was a nice change of pace to do a greater quantity of problems with greater ease. PM-6A starts out harder conceptually, IMO, because the first unit is pre-algebra. I think something like Saxon or Horizons or Chalkdust Basic Math are all great options. Saxon has a more spiral approach than Chalkdust, which is set up in units/topics like SM. I'm not sure about Horizons. And all three have built-in review (though Chalkdust's review is only after each unit, not daily like Saxon and maybe Horizons). After ds finished CD Basic Math 6, he did PM-6A & 6B pretty quickly. Now he's in NEM-1 and it's going fine so far. HTH

...I had saved awhile back because I have the HTTS books, too. (I used them for a short while but didn't do well with implementing it consistently.) The post is by Julieofsardis. Posted by Julieofsardis on 19:04 Jul 11 2007 In Reply to: RE: All About Spelling post down the board...questions and comments posted by Magic Wand Here's how I'm doing HTTS this year....I already responded to your e-mail, but I thought the info might be helpful to others. I purchased AAS for my ds who's going into 2nd grade and we'll use it as written. But my dd who's going into 7th and still working on the spelling thing, I'm going to do it like this: Set up an index card box to review the material. Here's how (this is the part I got from AAS): Make 3 tabs - rules, sounds, and phonograms. Put all the phonograms that your dc hasn't mastered behind the phonograms tab. Then, use the page toward the beginning of the TM to make a card for each sound and its spellings and put those behind the sounds tab. You'll add to the rules section as you move through the program. I would then use the workbook your child is in as a guide for what to do in what order. Here's how I would proceed each day. Quick review of the phonogram cards, dictate a couple of the sounds, review any rules you have added to the rules tab. Then go to the workbook and do the next page(s). If there is a rule to learn, have dc copy it onto an index card and file in the rules section of the box. Discuss the rule and then do the workbook page. As you're going through the workbook, you will see notes on the bottom of the pages that tell you when and what to dictate. I'd spend several days on this, but each day I'd still do the review of rules, sounds, and phonograms. As you move through the workbook, the dictations will automatically review previous words. The index box will keep you reviewing everything else. As you get a lot of rules behind that tab, you may need to rotate them and only review a couple per day. When you get to a page of sight words, just spend however much time is needed to learn these before moving on. I'd first let dc study them and discuss what's weird about them. Then just dictate the words. Then the next day only the ones missed. You could add any that were troublesome to a master problem list and dictate from those each Friday. Maybe you could put stars by it when it was correct and when you get 5 tars it comes off the list. If your child still needed the hands-on thing, you could always use the letter tiles for the word dictation. I have been using HTTS for 4 years now and I so wish I had come up with this simple review system earlier. It would have boosted the effectiveness of this program tremendously. Julie HTH!

7th grade this year: PM-6A & 6B, NEM-1 (first half) R&S-6 SWO-H (last half), VfCR-A WW-4 (the old series) LL7 Hakim's History of US, Critical Thinking’s Colonies to Constitution BJU Earth & Space Science FSF-1

My 4th grader is using FLL-4 for grammar & punctuation....we both like it. :) For copywork/dictation/narration: We get dictation in FLL-4. We do narrations using SOTW-3 & its AG. Copywork is from various sources (lit, history, bible). And I hope to be able to purchase WWE-4 soon for additional instruction in composition and convenience.

We'll continue to use it during the summer and try to finish around Sept./Oct. I liked FLL-3, and so did dd10. If it had been available, I would've used it with ds13, too. He did FLL-1+2 (a little more than half the book), then hardly any grammar, then Winston Grammar, and then R&S-5 starting in 5th grade. It worked out okay, but I really prefer FLL-3 and FLL-4. Things I like about FLL-3: Ease of use compared to a textbook: Student doesn't have to look back and forth from textbook to her paper to write. The entire lesson is on her FLL student pages, including the lines for sentence diagramming; FLL-4 gradually transitions to having the student draw the lines. Scripted lessons: This has been especially helpful in teaching dd which questions to ask, and in which order, to find the verb/predicate and subject of the sentence, etc.; and I skip parts that dd already knows. Includes memory work: grammar definitions, long list of prepositions, poetry Challenging, useful content: Some of the content is more than what I had learned by 6th grade. If your student doesn't remember everything 100% perfectly, it's fine because it's reviewed again in FLL-4. Though it may get repetitive, I found that spending the time memorizing the grammar definitions is useful when diagramming sentences. Built-in review With FLL-3, we skipped all the poetry memorization and narrations, since those were covered with other materials. But in FLL-4, we'll probably do most of them. I would like to get WWE-4; once we start that, we'll skip most of the optional dictation in FLL-4. After FLL-4, dd10 will start R&S-5. HTH!

There was a similar thread recently about the difference between the editions.... http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158662 HTH!

...from another thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1465103#poststop HTH!

oops...didn't mean to double-post!

The Ancient Celts: Used this last year as part of TOG-2. In TOG-2, they recommend that parents preview this book. It contains descriptions of celtic pagan practices, perhaps too detailed for some and okay for others. But the book (and series) is by Scholastic and designed for the juvenile section of the library. Germania by Tacitus: I read this just out of curiosity last summer and found it pretty easy to read and brief. It's a description of various groups of Germanic peoples from the perspective of a Roman, covering cultural aspects...maybe like a long National Geographic article? You may want to preview it before handing it over to your younger students, or else select passages for them to read. It's probably available to read for free online somewhere; I read the Oxford edition, which has a lot of helpful background information and notes. HTH!

The Ancient Celts: Used this last year as part of TOG-2. In TOG-2, they did recommend that parents preview this book. It has some descriptions of celtic pagan practices, perhaps more detailed than some would like. But the book (and series) is by Scholastic and designed for the juvenile section of the library. Germania by Tacitus: I read this just out of curiosity last summer; it was quite interesting and pretty brief. It's a description of various groups of Germanic peoples from the perspective of a Roman, covering cultural aspects...maybe like a long National Geographic article? You probably should preview it before handing it over to your younger students, or else select passages for them to read. It's probably available to read for free online somewhere; the Oxford edition has a lot of helpful background information and notes. HTH!

For the grammar stage, 1st edition (before SOTW series came out): spine: Usborne Book of World History 3rd edition: spine: SOTW series supplemental reference book: Usborne I-L Encyclopedia of World History I've found the reading selections in SOTW much easier to do narrations with, primarily because I use the SOTW-AGs to teach me how to teach my child to do a narration. It provides questions to help guide the student without giving them the answer. Without that, I'd have no idea how to do a narration myself or teach it. Not everyone needs this, of course. For 1st grade history, the list of books (in addition to the spines) contains... 1st edition: 17 books 3rd edition: 34 books, many of the same ones plus a bunch more In general, there is a larger number of grammar-level history resources and books listed in the 3rd edition because a whole lot more were published since the 1st edition. I remember when I first started homeschooling nearly 10 years ago, there were a lot less books on ancient history for younger students. If you have the SOTW-AG, then you'd have an additional several hundred books (a guesstimate) listed for each grade level. HTH!

Literature? When my kids were around those ages we did a combination of things for lit: - some read-aloud time with both dc, including stories & poetry - 5th grader: books to read independently with assigned work (reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, etc.) and books to ready independently with no assigned work - 2nd grader: some literature units; books to read independently with no extra work HTH!

I have all three editions and like the 3rd best. This will have the most updated resource lists. Plus, the notebooking methods seemed less cumbersome in the 2nd & 3rd editions compared to the 1st (mostly pertains to grammar stage). All three editions have lists of suggested curricula for each subject at every level. For example, for writing, there are at least 3 or 4 suggested curricula, one of which is WWE. In addition to that, there are extensive book lists for literature and history for each grade level. Another book I have is Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura Berquist. There are book lists for each grade level in here, too. However, the suggested curricula and texts are far less in quantity than those in WTM. I still like having it on the shelf...to have something from a slightly different perspective. If I could only have one, it'd be WTM, 3rd edition. HTH!