Hits: Ellen McHenry science I had never heard of this before, but it looks great!

I've seen other posts about this question, but I still can't figure it out. I'm still showing up as "Just Visiting." I realize that I have fewer than 50 posts, but there is a thread that indicates you are eligible to go "up" in status once you hit 11 posts. That same thread gives instructions for changing that Member Title yourself, but I can't get that to work no matter how much I poke around. Someone else suggested that it will change automatically, and I'm happy to wait if that's the case. But I thought I saw someone else with fewer posts than I have with a different member title than "Just Visiting." Maybe I'm just imagining it. Do I need to just wait, or is there something I do to make it happen? Thanks for your help!

Also interested in this question. My daughter did SM 6 last year and the review was more necessary than I anticipated. Yes, it did go deeper even though it didn't seem to. I'm concerned that AOPS might be too intense. She is relatively good at math, but I still hesitate. My other concern is that with four children (3rd - 7th), I am wanting something that would allow more independence than we have experienced so far in math. I was a math major in college, and I love it. I loved going to math competitions when I was younger. I'm considering AOPS and MUS, and I'm open to other options as well.

What a blessing to find what works! Definitely stick with it.

For anyone who's done the notebook style timeline, how do you get a sense of the time between events? Or is that secondary to gaining a feel for the order of events?

Grateful for these thoughts. We did Wordly Wise two years ago, and my kids DESPISED section E. We ended up not using it at all last year. I find that although I feel very free to choose whatever curriculum I want, I often don't give myself the freedom to skip things in the curriculum I choose. We do lots of reading in other places and don't necessarily need this particular assignment in Wordly Wise. I had been wanting to go back to it and unsure how to pull it off with other priorities.

I love Singapore, but I love Math; I'm not sure that a parent who is not overly fond of math would like it (I'm not implying that you are not; it's just a theory I have). I love that SM teaches the kids the underlying concepts and not just the steps it takes to solve problems. I love that it introduces complicated topics gently and gradually at younger ages than we are used to so that the students have a chance to become familiar with these challenging topics in manageable bites. I love how they use a very simple problem to introduce a principle and then make the same problem slightly more and more complex (e.g., 12-4, then 52-4, then 52-14, then 652-14, then 652-314) . I love SM, but I am a Math Geek. All my praises for SM aside, though, if you already have a curriculum in hand, it might be worth it to use it. I don't know anything about the curriculum you have. Your son did well with it last year if he is ready for SM 2a/2b. Sometimes I think we make ourselves crazy by trying to find what might by 1% better than what we have. Or not. Sell your curriculum and invest in SM. :)

I think All About Spelling is amazing. I highly recommend it. It's worth the money. Try buying it used if it's too much. It doesn't take a lot of prep. If you want completely independent, I would do lists on Spelling City.

All About Spelling. And I never thought I would want to spend money on a spelling curriculum. But it is amazing.

The Storybook Bible is great for teaching the unified story of redemption throughout Scripture. I have read the stories to my children, and although I know there is a curriculum available with it, I have not used it. It's especially good for the age you are looking at. My very favorite materials that go book by book through Scripture have to be the What's In the Bible DVD series by Phil Vischer. I know in the classical community we tend to avoid video as a lesser medium, but this series is amazing. It addresses everything from how the canon was formed to the meaning of redemption to how the Roman Empire prepared the way for the spread of Christianity. It discusses every section of Scripture and every book. When I first saw it, I thought it would be too intense for my kids and that they wouldn't like it (ages 7, 6, 4, and 3, when we first got them). I was wrong. They love it! More importantly, they have learned a lot. The series is not quite finished (DVD #11 about the book of Acts is the most recent one out at this time). They have also published a curriculum to accompany the video series, but I have not used it. Neither one of those incorporate Scripture memory. I am planning to use AWANA homeschool materials this year. I grew up in AWANA and loved it. It's all about Scripture memory. We haven't been able to find a church nearby that offers it, so I was glad to see that AWANA has made this homeschool kit available.

I'm very interested in what everyone has to say here. I have been thinking about doing IEW even though it's pricy because I have heard nothing but good things about it. I appreciated your comments about having to come up with the ideas myself. That's not what I'm looking for. This year our spine curriculum included suggested a suggested writing program but didn't come with writing lessons. We skipped a lot of writing. The lessons we did I found on the NCTE website after a google search. I can't keep doing that. (Although the lessons I found there were really good.)

We use Tapestry of Grace. It's nice because it has material for all ages (1st to 12th grades).

For grammar, we're using Easy Grammar by Wanda Philips. She uses a prepositional approach, where the kids learn the prepositions first. They identify prepositional phrases to identify the subject and predicate more readily in a sentence. This will be my first year using it, but it came highly recommended by a friend, and I am looking forward to it. I will be using it with my 10 and 8 year olds.

New York has so many great places to go with the kids. I would structure the math and language arts like others have suggested, but then talk to them about their interests and buy a membership or two to an appropriate museum and schedule frequent visits there according to their interests. You could do Botanical Gardens, Zoo, Natural History, Hall of Science, Met, Children's Museum, Intrepid...there's a lot out there. You talked about trips to the store with your entire entourage. I would schedule times for that when it works for you. Following their interests doesn't mean that you have to cater to an interest that is there this afternoon that wasn't there over the weekend when you were ready to go shopping with only one or two with you.

Let us know when it's ready. I can't wait.