I am so sorry for your loss. I'm not sure how old your kids are, but I lost my dad when my kids were 5 1/2, almost 4, 2 1/2, and 9 months. It was a heartbreaking loss, and it took us by surprise. They were very close with their Grandpa - especially the two oldest. After my own initial shock (I didn't even realize I was in shock), I just sat down and told them what had happened (he died a natural death, but it was unexpected). They asked questions, and I tried to answer the best and most straightforward that I could. And I kept the conversation open. I did not try to hide my own grief - it was challenging to get through some days. Thankfully my oldest was only in kindergarten, and so I just gave myself freedom to drop a day of school here and there as we needed it. I talked with the kids about the grief - I let them know that it would hurt a lot at first, but that it would ease over time. (I didn't say we would get over it - but that with time, we would be able to carry it more easily). The most poignant moment was after about six months, my oldest was sitting at the table and remembered something my dad had said to my second son (the last words he spoke to him in person), "Next time I see you, you'll be four!" He passed about 5 weeks later-just a couple weeks after my son's birthday, so we didn't see him again. It made my eyes well up and my son apologized for making me sad. I told him to please not be sorry, that I would MUCH rather remember my dad and talk about him and miss him (and deal with the sadness), than to avoid talking about him. I'm so grateful for the shared memories. It has been almost 9 years now. I think we have done well, and we still talk about him often and remember him, and every now and again our eyes well up. I think the thing I was least prepared for was some of the straight forward questions and statements my toddlers would make at somewhat unexpected times. They would periodically just matter-of-fact-like say, "Grandpa died" (to me or to my mom) - and it felt awkward, but I think it is just how they processed it - a way to get the feelings that were on the inside to the outside. I would just affirm it and say, "yes, he did honey." I didn't totally fall apart, but I did have a hard time at times. I didn't try to hide it - I just kind of let them know that I was feeling sad, and missing my dad, or thinking of him, or something like that. They did the same. I also checked in with them at times when they seemed a little off - just to see if they needed to talk something out. I don't know if any of that helps, but that was our experience, and I feel like we made it through the loss and upheaval in a healthy way. My youngest has actually asked the most questions over the years - probably because she can't remember him - but it gives the boys an opportunity to talk about him with her. So in short, yes, many hugs - and keep going, and then pause for more hugs. Repeat :) My heart goes out to you all. May you encourage one another with your favorite memories of him.

We had the same issue. We opted for Rod & Staff (the first year transition was horrible). My 9th grader is now in R&S 9/10 and I have two middle schoolers in R&S 6 & 7, plus a grammar kiddo in FLL4. I'm curious scope and sequence-wise, what will be the best transition back. R&S has been very thorough, but oh goodness...I would love to be back with a SWB product.

My son is taking Biology with Mrs. Upperman this year. He is enjoying the class, and has learned a LOT. He's in the delayed section (recorded), but she has been very accessible and helpful, and it has been a great experience. I highly recommend it, and hope my younger kiddos will have the same opportunity when they get to high school.

WMA- You are right. My son just clarified that they are not optional, but that they account for a higher percentage of the participation grade for the delayed course than for the live course. Thanks for pointing that out.

I went back and forth about doing that too. We start school at 8 am, so it wouldn't be a huge stretch, but at the time he had Rhetoric at 8, followed by precalculus, and he really prefers to work on math lessons in the morning. The delayed course has taken a bit of the time pressure off of him, which I appreciate, though I'm sure he would enjoy actually being in the live class (the early start, not so much). :)

Teachermom, hopefully someone with all their classes at WTMA will respond, but since no one has so far, I thought our experience might be helpful. My 9th grade son does not have all his online classes with WTMA but he is in the Biology class and has a somewhat similar load. He is taking Biology at WTMA, and through Veritas Press he is taking Omnibus IV Primary and Secondary (Ancient History, Ancient Lit and Theology), and Precalculus. He is doing Latin and Grammar at home. When he started the year he was also in Rhetoric I at WTMA - and that proved to be too much. So we dropped it and he has managed well without it. However it is a full load. If you are concerned about the Biology load, consider having him take the delayed course. My son had to do that because the time was too early in the day for us (we are on the west coast), but it has been a huge help having a couple extra days to complete the homework, discussion board posts, and labs. Your son would have the advantage that he is already familiar with the online format. My son had only taken one class online previously, so there was a definite learning curve for him.

Skimomma-One thing you could consider if you are concerned about your child's ability to keep up is signing up for the delayed section. We had to do that because of the time the class is offered (we're in California), however it turned out to be a blessing (especially the first few weeks) because there is a slight extension on due dates for the delayed section. One caveat is that the participation grade is largely dependent on the discussion board posts. I believe they are extra credit for the live classes - so they would be optional if you took that route. On another note, one big plus about WTMA is their generous first month guarantee. You can sign up for the class, and if it turns out to be too much, you can drop the class without a financial penalty. My son has given rave reviews about the class, and on more than one occasion has told me HOW MUCH he is learning. I have been especially pleased with the detail going into the labs, and the understanding my son has taken away from them afterward. On top of everything, Mrs. Upperman has been very accessible and responsive to my son via e-mail when he has had questions, which has been especially helpful since he is in the live sections. Overall I couldn't be happier with the experience my son is having in class.

Hi RootAnn. I am signed up too, and have also started reading. I know I'll feel squeezed during the school year. I WISH I could attend the live class, but it falls at the same time that I'll be driving three of my kiddos to youth group. I've now read and annotated the first three books. I'm not fast either. Thankfully for me, only three of the assigned books will be first time reads for me. I was disappointed that I did not enjoy reading Gilgamesh :huh: - I kept thinking a very unsophisticated "ewww," especially reading some of the end notes. I found it easy enough to understand, but I did not really empathize with anyone - though I felt sorry for Enkidu. I hope that there will be something in the questions or discussion that will make me want to return to it again and dig for something deeper. (I have the same hope for The Inferno). On the other hand, I fell in love with Fagles' version of The Odyssey. The class will have been worth it to me, just for that new introduction to The Odyssey. I read Lattimore's version for the first time a couple years ago, but I felt more like I was observing the story than caught up in it. As I read Fagles' version, instead of thinking "oh, THAT's an epic similie" - I kept getting caught up in the description and afterward could appreciate the resonance created by an effective epic simile. Happy reading! Wish I could say, "See ya in class!" :) Jenny

I have the same understanding as Linda. I also have both curricula on hand (8/7 homeschool Third edition and Algebra 1/2 Third edition). 8/7 continues to drill basic math facts and has daily mental math, whereas those are dropped from Algebra 1/2. My oldest son is in 6th grade and went from 7/6 last year to Algebra 1/2 this year - he is very math-minded. My second son, who is not as math-minded will probably do 8/7 instead of Algebra 1/2, because I imagine he will need the continued practice with drills and mental math that my oldest does not require. The 8/7 book has the same layout and feel as the 5/4- 7/6 texts but it is huge- probably 1/3 bulkier. It is also labeled as "8/7 with Prealgebra." Algebra 1/2 is more like the texts I remember from high school algebra. The text font is much smaller in 1/2 and the instructions seem to be written to a more mature student. The book is hardcover and about 1/3 the size of the 8/7 softcover.

I have used Saxon for all four of my kids. I have started each in Saxon 1 in Kindergarten. My oldest is now in Algebra 1/2 in 6th grade.

My sixth grader has been using Mavis Beacon Deluxe. I've been very pleased at how he's progressed this summer, just doing it 15 minutes a day, most weekdays. I tried introducing a game-like typing program last year (something like Typing Island or something like that) but I found it very ineffective. I like how easy it is for him to use Mavis Beacon, and I like how easy it is to gauge skill improvement. I would call it at no-frills program, but haven't had any negative feedback from my son about using it (even though he's having to do it through summer). He's typing a pretty accurate 30 wpm after eight weeks.

I printed my son's pages a week at a time (there are many exercises they work right on the pages), and I worked from the teacher's guide on the ipad. It worked well for us, and I plan to do the same for WWS2.

Yes, I have the one that Dialectica linked to also. I believe I ordered mine through CBD. The price was the same.

Our 6th grade plans are mostly complete. I just need to finish my tentative corresponding history reading. I won't know how Spanish/Latin will shake down until we give it a go. We have about 2/3 of the BBLL to finish. Math - Saxon Algebra 1/2 Writing - WWS2 Grammar- R&S 6 Spelling- SWO H Literature- (see History) Science- Earth Science/Astronomy - Tarbucks' Earth Science 13th Ed. plus Applications and Investigations in Earth Science. History - OUP Middle Ages - Still tinkering with the corresponding reading list. I'll update with it later. Foreign Language- So You Really Want to Learn Spanish 1; The Big Book of Lively Latin 1 (finish). Not sure how this will shake down yet in the schedule. Logic - Critical Thinking Books 1 & 2 Typing - Mavis Beacon (he's doing 20 min/day all summer, so this should be pretty light by the time school starts) Music - Piano PE - Homeschool PE and hiking

How it looks right now: Math - Saxon Algebra 1/2 L/A

AK-Mom4 - Thanks for your response. :)

If you've used Saxon Algebra 1/2, when did you schedule the Topics A-J in the appendix? Did you wait and complete them after doing all the lessons and tests? Or, if you scheduled them during the year, after which lessons did you schedule them? It seems to me that in previous years, the topics were introduced during certain lessons, but I don't see any references like that in the Algebra 1/2 student book. Thanks for any suggestions!

They do get longer at that point. However for the most part, what we did was just stretch the week from four days to five days at that point. I don't know that you'll be able to "plan ahead" for exactly how long it will take- but do plan to be flexible. If it helps, the "thinking exercises" are really the prep-work for writing. In many cases, they are thinking through (and jotting down in an organized fashion) what they will write in the paper. When you get to the writing part, it's just a matter of physically typing out what you've already thought about and taken notes on...ordering the paragraphs, then coming up with a few transition sentences. I found the "thinking" part more labor intensive than the writing part. In most cases I needed to be with him for the thinking part, but he did most of the writing part without me. The first couple times we encountered the process were the most difficult, but it really does play out nicely. I worked through WWS1 with a 5th grader last year. There was one week that we stretched beyond a week (seems to me it took us 6 days), and I gave my son an extra week for the final project - but we also had an unplanned vacation in the middle of the year that threw off some of our timing. Sometimes on those longer lessons, the first day is just reading. I had my son start step one or two of the following day if he was able to complete the day's lesson in less than 20 minutes. That way it all evened out (for the most part) by the end of the week. Hope that helps.

I think the very best place to start is to get familiar with the seasonal constellations - and the best book I've enjoyed for that is Stargazer's Guide to the Universe by QL Pearce. In order to look at anything deep-sky you'll need to know where to look for it, and the way you learn where to look is via the constellations. I would do that before buying any telescope, especially if you're not looking to invest much. Telescopes are fantastic and really interesting, but can be extremely frustrating to try to locate what you're looking for until you are familiar with some of the anchors in the night sky. One investment that has made this whole process much easier with the kids is a green laser pointer to help guide them to what you are showing them - (try to "point" at a star in a constellation with your finger, and you'll see how ridiculous an effort it can be). If you have smartphone, get an app like Starwalk or PUniverse. They can help you navigate the sky and find what is up and at what time - soon, you'll know what to look for at different times of the year. If you can find an amateur astronomy club in your area, they often have monthly events called Star Parties where a number of amateur astronomers will bring their telescopes and let you come and look through them. Sometimes they coincide with the different meteor showers. (We set up our equipment in our driveway last year and had a little block party event for both the solar eclipse and the transit of Venus). Don't be discouraged if you don't live in a particularly dark-sky area. The limiting effects of the light pollution can actually be helpful in the beginning. Even under a lot of light pollution you can usually see a few more prominent constellations and asterisms. The Big Dipper (an asterism) is a great pointer to a number of other constellations. If you know the Big Dipper, then later under dark skies it's easy to make out the rest of Ursa Major and Ursa minor. The Pleiades (seven sisters) are usually visible even under light polllution, and so is Orion (fall/winter). In the summer if you learn to recognize the "summer triangle" (which are usually the first objects to appear in the evening sky), and if you learn the three stars that make up the summer triangle, you can find the three constellations that those stars are a part of. The nice thing about astronomy is that kids find it fun to "spy" the objects in the sky...they can do it easily when they are outside in the evening...and they quickly start to notice how things change in the sky over time as they get accustomed to "seeing what's up." And even if you only add a few new objects a year it has a cumulative effect. As Myra mentioned above, if you are learning mythology, knowing the stories is helpful for navigating across the constellations - because the story can help lead you from one constellation to another (i.e. Casseopia -> Perseus -> Andromeda -> Pegasus). Most of all ENJOY it! If you have a decent pair of binoculars, you can invest in a tripod and solar filters, and then you can watch for sunspots as well as learning the different features of the moon. Just a few thoughts :)

I work from PDFs whenever possible, so once a month I print everyone's assignments for the next month. Each of my four kiddos has two accordion files (they're each about an inch thick). Each file holds two weeks of assignments -separated by day of the week. Printing once a month seems to take 2-3 hours. I can easily make adjustments if we have to slow anything down. I have 12 x 12 cubes that I keep their core books and those accordion files in. Each kiddo also has a bin on the desk. Either the night before, or in the morning I pull the day's assignments from the accordion file, and put the pages in their bins (my oldest does this himself). They work through the pages until they're done. I also keep their spelling books, and multi-day assignments in those bins until they are completed for the week and they hand them in.

Peace Hill Press has evaluations for placement in the WWE series - http://wtm-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/wwe/wweevaluations.pdf You mention they need work on the narrations- the evaluation would give you an idea of how they're doing. As sixth graders, even if they need work on the narrations, they probably won't need an entire year to get there. We did WWE 1-4 and then started WWS in 5th grade. The first few weeks were easy (because they were a review of narrations), but after that it was definitely challenging. I would plan to work on narrations in WWE (whichever one you pick) and then transition to WWS, keeping in mind that you might need to progress at a slower speed through some of the more challenging topics. We took five days per week in stead of four on many of the lessons after the first semester. You're probably fine starting with either WWE3 or WWE4, but you may want to glance at the TOC and see which one has more narrations that coincide with your history cycle (just for reinforcement).

The first one I bought was DIVE which I thought was a waste of money. The examples were basically the same as in the book - but with no additional explanation, it was just being worked on the screen. I also have Art Reed's CDs which I bought with the intention of using like the mom above. My ds 11 works almost completely independently, so I haven't really needed them yet - though we did watch the chapter on compound interest (7/6)- which I was having difficulty explaining well. It did the trick. That said, I just recently bought Saxon Teacher for Algebra 1/2 - I like the idea that all the problems are worked out. I wouldn't buy another DIVE CD. I'm sorry we haven't used Saxon Teacher yet, to tell you how well it works, but it does fit the bill as far as working all the problems.

Been wondering the same thing :)

I would also suggest Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles (author of Percy Jackson series) - it's about Egyptian mythology. My son has loved every one of Rick Riordan's books. He also really enjoyed Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of Ancient Egypt, The Tale of Troy, Tales of the Greek Heroes (they are available on Kindle). Rick Riordan was influenced by RLG (and RLG was part of CS Lewis & JRR Tolkien's The Inklings).

I also used WWS1 for a 5th grader this year, and fully agree with Chrysalis' evaluation. Prior to WWS, my son had worked through WWE 1-4. My son did fine reading the instructions on his own (he is a very self-motivated and self-directed student), but he definitely needed extra time with me around week 12, and again at the notetaking & two-level outlining sections. He needed a full five days a week for weeks 23-26. We are in the final stretch now, and have taken 5-6 days to complete each of lessons 27-32. We didn't use any additional documentaries. MANY of the subjects dovetailed with his history and science - and I counted this assignments toward both. At the beginning of the year around week three or four he was getting overwhelmed with the workload, so I stopped having him outline his history or write history narratives until we had passed the first lessons in WWS on outlining. After that, he picked back up his weekly outlining and writing for history and it was a breeze for him. There were definitely some tears at points, but they were usually followed by big skill-level advancements shortly-thereafter. I am actually SO excited for him to have these skills going INTO 6th grade. But I don't think you'd be behind if you delayed starting until 6th. I will have to wait and see with each of my kiddos that follow, to determine their readiness for WWS1. It is rigorous.