Abeka science books cover a range of subjects like you mentioned. I would recommend going with a higher grade level though as the younger books are very young/basic. See if you can ind samples maybe for the 4th or 5th grade book :)

Haha - ok I'll take other lit program recommendations too? ;)

My order for AL history just arrived today and I think it's possibly the cutest social studies supplement I've ever seen! My rising 4th grader will love it - and my poor 5th gr dd saw it and looked sad because her 4th gr state history was sooo boring! lol She is definitely going to be sneaking these off to read them once her brother is finished with them!

I grew up in Australia (a commonwealth country) and never heard more than a brief mention of the Revolutionary War in our coverage of world history in my K - 11 years (moved to the US in 12th).

I posted this question over on the Logic Board: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/464550-too-much-to-do-lightning-lit-iew/ Some great information! :) I was wondering if anyone else would share their experiences with LL and maybe some pros and cons? It looks great but I want to know the good/bad/ugly before I jump into it since this year our reading program has been a bit of an uphill climb. ;)

We were spending around 2 hours+ including discussion, correction and tears on Saxon 8/7! Awful!! :( So we switched math curriculum to CLE. :) Right now we're working through the early books (which are mostly revision for her) so it varies greatly depending on if we have to stop to relearn a concept or just complete a couple of the review tests. We average around 45 m - 60 m per day.

I prefer the Teacher CDROM because I like having the exact problems worked - that way we have a visual solution to watch if anyone ever gets stumped on a question. The girls both giggle at the very drawly accent - they say she makes them want to go to sleep ;)

I believe the major difference is in the practice problems used to illustrate the concept. We use the teacher CDs and they work the exact problems from the Saxon math text. I believe on the DIVE they work similar problems but not identical. Then there are the Art Reed DVDs which offer more of a 'classroom feel' to them.

Excellent! Thank you so much - this information is perfect. I'd wondered about the IEW lit program for HS. :)

I'm contemplating LL8 for my 8th grader next year. We've done a mix of BF and Classical House of Learning this year and it's been pretty stressful for both of us. She loves to read and has actually read (but not "studied") The Hobbit, which is on the LL8 list, so reading isn't the issue. I just need a gentle "hand-holding" approach for her to delve a little deeper. I need something student-led/focused. I am happy to help her and review the books with her, but I think she would do better with a program that leads her through the questions on her own, rather than another 'mom-led' subject. Would LL fit this bill? Now add into the mix that her years of private school left her with an epic void in how to construct essays and even paragraphs, also no clue on outlining etc. We've been working on summarizing this year and also exposing her to several different forms of writing through Jump In! I still think she needs more concrete, foundational methods, so I've purchased IEW SWI-B for next year and I'll be trying to get through that and hopefully SICC-B in preparation for HS. Do you think doing all of this is too much? I know that technically LL8 is literature and IEW is composition, but I don't want to overload her - does it sound like a good marriage of concepts? Any other suggestions to accomplish these goals? :)

If you don't want to continue with CLE you could have them take the placement test for Saxon. My guess would be 7/6.

Ok I guess I'm going to check out that book too. I have one that has been like this since 1st grade. I always assumed they would grow out of it but no amount of consequences or rewards seem to make a long term difference. Many days I'm at the end of myself by 7pm grading work that could easily have been completed by 3pm. I know that it's not the workload because the work is sometimes (but not consistently) completed in a timely manner.

This is exactly why I'm transitioning my 3rd gr DS to SM next year rather than Saxon. He's been doing Abeka but the plan was always to switch to Saxon 5/4 next year - until I discovered (and made my peace with teaching) SM ;) Both my girls do Saxon and the repetition is great - if you need it. I'm concerned it would bore my son to tears! Once he's mastered something, he's done with it and wants to move on. He's never yet forgotten a concept - not that it couldn't happen at a higher level, but for now, this repetitious method is unnecessary for him. I think whether switching to Saxon is the right move depends on the student - although I totally hear you on the needing independent math! ;)

We won a year subscription to Brittanica online. I love it!!!!! I love being able to have the kids do their own online research. We use library books for pretty much all research papers etc but having a safe site for them to peruse according to interest is wonderful. We just don't have space for a multi-volume set of books or I would buy World Book (we had that as kids).

Hahaha - this is my DS too! He sometimes does it on purpose JUST so that he can fake cry and mourn the sentence with the broken heart! LOL My girls who didn't read SI with us think he is crackers ;) We actually mash up GWG and MCT - love love this combo. We'll be mashing it up again next year and we'll throw in some Daily Grams (from EG) just for "drill" in the mornings.

We've used a combo of GWG and MCT this year - hands down fabulous combo for my 9yo 3rd grade DS. We started with GWG and added in Sentence Island after a few months of school. He loved it so much he begged me to buy him more 'Mud books' so now we're 2/3 way through the literature trilogy. Last quarter we introduced Building Language and whenever we finish that, I've got Music of the Hemispheres on the shelf. We typically do GWG 4 x a week and read our MCT book once a week. The literature books are in addition because they're not really 'grammar' so we read aloud (or he often reads ahead!) whenever we have time. We also do Daily Grams - he asked to do it because his sisters do it. It takes all of 5 minutes but I've liked the no fuss drill-style for him.

So here with you!!!! Oh Elizabeth gave me the same advice a few weeks ago. More naps and more sandwiches! I agree! I am feeding her constantly. Still there are tears and drama whenever a task takes longer than she anticipated (or wanted it to take). Did I mention tears and drama? Yes. We have that. Often. I'm holding Elizabeth and the others that say it will pass to their word. Please, please let them be right! In the meantime, know you're not alone! And restock the fridge! ;)

Yes, the lack of a logical transition point was holding back my decision too. I think you're right - my panic button was that we didn't see any signs of the epic gaps in my older DD until she reached 8/7. She worked hard but made As mostly in 7/6. I'm actually relieved to see a unanimous vote for not fixing the not broken! Lol ;) She is doing well. We go over her work daily so we will see if she isn't doing well. My mantra really needs to be 'they are different people!' I don't want to back her up to 4a but I had already figured out she wouldn't be able to transition as smoothly to Singapore as my younger one. Her scope and sequence would indicate probably 5b but I think I'll just leave well enough alone and have her complete 7/6. Then we'll determine whether to move on with Saxon or go a different route for prealgebra in 7th.

I agree fully. We've spent hours each day teaching the lessons and concepts over. She says she understands it when we say it but is continually confused by the problems and explanations in the text. It just wasn't a good fit for her.

We taught it last year using this set: http://www.statehist...history.net I wasn't crazy about it. I did feel that it covered everything but we used it with the Abeka state notebook and it bothered both of us how much it jumped around. It also felt very "dry" and while she did the work, it wasn't as much "fun" as I'd hoped it could be. Someone here recently posted this link: http://www.studieswe...tate=AL&grade=4 I'll definitely be using this for my DS in the fall! It looks much more his speed and seems to cover all the relevant information. My oldest did AL History in school before we were homeschooling and they used a state book I've not been able to find on any website. I'm guessing it had been around at the school for a while.

So I just switched our 7th gr DD to CLE after a semester of math (Saxon 8/7) that left her questioning her intelligence (so sad because she is very bright!!) and me questioning my homeschooling skills (sigh). The plan is to fill in the trouble areas with the 700s for the rest of the year (and probably over the summer) and then move through the 800s next year. My youngest was going to transition from Abeka 3 (he's finishing up) to Saxon 5/4, but we've decided instead to have him use Singapore math because he's more 'mathy', and we also feel he will love the way the concepts are taught. I might also throw some BA in there. But now I'm questioning whether my middle DD who is running through her Saxon 6/5 book with no trouble at all (and will finish in a few weeks) should move onto Saxon 7/6, and ultimately the scary 8/7 book, or if that will do her a disservice in the long run?? One of my issues with my 7th grader ended up being that Saxon didn't offer enough revision I concepts taught before moving on. This is not a factor for my 5th grader who retains all information upon hearing it once. They are different students, but now that I've seen HOW Singapore teaches the WHY behind the math far more than Saxon does, I wonder if it's not going to provide her with a better foundation? I don't want to be one of those 'curriculum hoppers' or a 'grass is greener' person either - I guess I'm just wondering if I should leave her be or if she will benefit from switching over sooner rather than later to a strong, conceptual math program? I honestly wonder some days if I just read way too much and it makes me unsure of my curriculum choices! (I'm sure no one else ever feels this way lol ;) )

Do I want the Math Sprints or should I just use the resource pages in the HIG? Or something else? When we did Saxon and Abeka they had drills daily. I'd really like to keep that going when we transition to SM. I'm currently planning on using the textbook, workbook, CWP and tests. And yes, for anyone who was part of my initial SM meltdown we've decided I can in fact teach this math. I just had to breathe deeply and really review the materials - when I wasn't sick lol ;)

I'm listening to this too - our kids are 12, 11, 9 - I've looked at this program several times but wasn't sure which pages we needed. Also, can anyone tell me how long it takes to complete a lesson (daily)?

I have 3 lefties - two learned Abeka while still in school and I taught our youngest with A Reason For. Of the three, his penmanship is the prettiest ;) I'm fairly certain it's because he had more one-on-one teaching time and he's also a perfectionist! That said, it never occurred to me until after the fact that one curriculum might be better than another for 'lefties!' ;)

I'm actually not surprised by this - I know lots of people must feel this way because Singapore is so well-loved! Even taking away my own reticence, I'm not sure my son would enjoy this format. I'm going to have to mull it over a little more and perhaps show him the differences between a few programs. Going into 4th grade, I'm pretty sure he'd like having an opinion stake in our decision! ;)