K12's Human Odyssey series does that. It is comprised of 3 volumes that covers ancients to modern, geared to middle schoolers. We're using one volume per year (independent of K12's services, purchased used) to do a 3-year world history cycle, and we really like it. The books are textbooks but not at all like typical textbooks. They are narrative but not annoyingly wordy, with beautiful art reproductions and some excerpts of primary sources, and are visually uncluttered. There are no end of chapter questions within the texts as in typical textbooks. Hard copy student guides and teacher guides are currently available on the used market for the first two volumes, but not for the third volume since they are available online only via K12. (I heard K12 has recently stopped publishing the student and teacher guide hard copies altogether, so they may become harder to find.) I use the teacher guides for some discussion questions and mapwork but otherwise use the texts WTM-style (list of facts, outlining, etc.)

Try these links. On the left side under Quick Links, click on "download sample pages". So You Really Want to Learn Science book 1 ISBN 9781902984216 So You Really Want to Learn Science book 2 ISBN 9781902984377 There are also answer keys, etc. I bought mine used on Amazon. ETA - also added the student book ISBNs in case the above links don't work for you. HTH!

This is what I recommend too. There are two volumes. FWIW, volume 2 is quite a step up from 1. You can usually find them used inexpensively.

Thanks for taking the time to share these!

Thank you both! The details you've shared are very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to describe the program and give your feedback.

Are you talking about a "blended model school" for homeschoolers, where kids attend, say, one day per week and are taught by paid, professional teachers, and then do the rest of their learning at home with their parent(s)? Or a full-time private school? Or something else?

Are you using Beyond the Book Report? How does it work - are specific books assigned as reading, or do you choose your own? It is a new program, right? Are all the levels out yet? You're the second person I've seen mention it in a post in the last day or so, so I'm curious. Like I need more curricula, right? LOL.

Look at IEW's SWI-B. My DS was the same as yours. He's also a logical/analytical student who prefers efficient, no-nonsense, no-fluff materials. The parts-to-whole checklist style of SWI-B worked well for him. It gave him the tools and confidence to overcome the problems bolded above and progress way beyond them. (He's now successfully working through the challenge of WWS1.) He used the program mostly independently but I did watch the instructional videos with him so I could assist as needed. IEW will give your DS a framework, a place to start, with specific, step by step instructions. He won't have to think of "what" to write - it will give him the guidelines and get his thoughts clearly organized so he can get them on paper. It teaches how to add strong verbs, descriptive words, etc. It also has a good rep for use with reluctant writers, especially boys, and the instructor on the videos injects a bit of quirky humor that lightens the mood a bit. (Look up the instructor, Andrew Pudewa, on YouTube to see if your kids like his presentation style.) Don't let your son struggle for an hour over something when he just feels stuck. IEW should get him un-stuck. Also, teach him to type if he doesn't know already so that handwriting isn't a battle. It might be slow going at first but it will make him much more efficient in the long run. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and tell him that if he works diligently, when the timer goes off he's done with writing for the day. Sometimes just knowing there's a defined endpoint will help a lot. FWIW, we also tried Jump In for a while. I believe it is solid, but it wasn't a good fit for my DS just because it was too gentle and the author's style was too chatty. Its hard for me to articulate exactly why it didn't work but I think it was just too basic for DS and he didn't feel challenged by it. He didn't see the point of most of the parts we tried. Perhaps your DS feels the same and that's why he's having issues with it? If you don't want to ditch it yet, maybe he could skip the easy intro lessons and move ahead to the harder lessons? Instead of something gentle, maybe he needs something more challenging to feel motivated? You say your DD is very bright, and if she's also a good reader, she can probably do SWI-B alongside your DS. (I think the grade 6-8 recommendation by IEW is a bit off.) Perhaps just require less of her and/or make her assignments shorter. Or, I'm not familiar with McRuffy, but can you just cross out things in her daily work that are too much busywork? MCT LA materials, recommended above, are wonderful too. We've used their grammar and vocab. However, they aren't meant to be used independently, they work best with interaction and discussion, and they aren't at all like traditional LA materials. So I wouldn't use MCT with a 12 year old boy who wants to work on his own and get through things quickly. What don't you like about it? I'd hate to drop something after only a week, so maybe we can advise you on how to make it work for both of you. Or knowing specifically what you don't like might help with other suggestions. Or if you're just really ready to toss Hake, look at Easy Grammar. It can be done mostly independently and is efficient, worksheet-style, so he might like it. It has much less review than Hake so maybe you'll like it better too. As a good reader, your DS probably intuitively has a decent grasp on grammar. He just may not know the technical terms for everything. Most grammar programs repeat heavily every year, and include a review of the basics at the beginning, so you probably don't need to back up. Just place him at grade level in a good program that you feel comfortable with. Hake is not a spelling curriculum. You're right, if he needs work on spelling, he needs a spelling program. I can't really recommend anything for that age but just wanted to clarify that Hake isn't meant to teach spelling. For now, just let them both continue to read good books. Continue readalouds if you all enjoy that. Worry about a lit program later. You just started homeschooling. Consider de-schooling for a short while or relax in some subjects if you can't completely de-school. De-stressing now will allow you to move forward more quickly later. Give everyone time to adjust, and enjoy your kids. :grouphug:

The Elements by Ellen McHenry.

My DS is doing earth science this year (6th grade). I looked at Mr. Q earth science for him and decided it was too young and too basic for middle school. DS really likes the CPO Earth Science textbook he's using and I think its better than most other standard textbooks I've seen for middle school. There's a link somewhere on the forum for a website where you can access the whole book online if you do a search. Not visually cluttered, thought-provoking material for making connections, more than just regurgitation of facts. The CPO website has quality supplemental materials available for free too and I've found things I like there for every chapter. I think CPO would be easy to correlate to the topics covered in Mr. Q with your youngers, so your DD can do her own reading at her level, and then have all your kids do their hands-on together if they like doing that.

I wouldn't label Hake as all-inclusive LA. It is a very thorough and complete grammar program, including more built-in review than most students will ever need, with a small amount of vocabulary (usually two words) included in each lesson, plus a separate writing workbook tacked on. We use Hake and really like it for *grammar*. The vocabulary in it isn't nearly enough for my word-loving DS so we use other programs specifically for vocabulary. We ignore the separate Hake writing "workbook" (which only costs a few bucks if someone wanted to try it) as the assignments are very simplistic, basic, and dry. There are much better writing programs out there. The main student textbook contains the grammar and vocab, but no writing lessons. The supplemental workbook is where the writing lessons are located. If you only used the grammar textbook you'd never know there was a writing workbook - it is never mentioned or referred to in the textbook. A strong student who successfully completed FLL4 could probably be appropriately placed into level 6 of Hake grammar. Levels 5 and 6 cover nearly identical topics, similar to most other grammar programs, which repeat a lot from one year to the next. The grammar exercises in level 6 use more advanced and complex sentences than level 5 though. We're using 2 of the upper 4 levels of Hake, each spread over more than a year, and then will be done with grammar. SWB recommends R&S for grammar, so that's the gold standard IMHO. Hake is often mentioned as a strong alternative if one doesn't mind/needs/prefers a secular program.

The author of GSWS recommends Practice Makes Perfect Spanish workbooks. We used this one, and there are several other workbooks in the series.

The code (good until Jan. 19) was posted in the first post of this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/496758-mrqs-50-off-sale-is-jan-12-19-yay/?do=findComment&comment=5390205

Recently I saw this free Coursera class mentioned here on the boards. It looks really good and accessible, so I signed up. The instructor has also written related books (one goes with this class) that get positive reviews. If you enroll you can download the videos for viewing later. How Things Work There's also Derek Owens Physical Science. I have no personal experience, but DO gets good reviews here.

Yep, exactly the same here. SWI-B gave my DS the confidence and step by step tools he needed to write and to know that he could be good at it. WWS (the whole series, eventually) was/is my goal for him and it is going really well so far, but he needed SWI-B to get to this place. He still incorporates the ideas and tools he learned from SWI-B into his current writing. We do a bit of Killgallon Sentence Composing every couple of weeks when he needs a WWS break. By the end of SWI-B, we used the checklists as a guide only, and I allowed him to decide how many dressups, etc., to use and where to place them. He seems to have internalized the "forced" dress-ups and they've been replaced with much more interesting writing that seems to flow pretty naturally. Well, at least as much as a previously writing-phobic but now more confident 6th grade boy can accomplish, anyway. :coolgleamA: I anticipate returning to IEW's products for high school when we get there. Hopefully combining that with SWB's next (Writing With Style?) writing series for high school. Both SWI-B and WWS1 break writing down into smaller, manageable chunks - parts to whole, rather than whole to parts, as I've seen it worded here on the boards. So, OP, its likely that your kids will do well with WWS1 too if they've enjoyed SWI-B. If you're worried that their writing still seems too forced, maybe its time for WWS1 or something else that isn't IEW. But I also wouldn't worry too much about the forced writing for now. After all, you said they love writing now and they are doing really well. Isn't that awesome??!! Perhaps try lessening any strict adherence to the SWI rubrics and see if you're happier with the results. FWIW, I ordered CAP's Narrative I (the highest level that's out right now) and, while I wish it had been available for my DS a year or two ago, I think he's way past that level now. Sadly, I returned it.

What was it about JAG that caused her to struggle at the end, and what features did she like about it at the beginning? That might help generate other suggestions. Sorry, I'm not familiar with Beyond the Book Report. Are you also looking for other LA in addition to grammar, perhaps some composition instruction? Have you ever looked at Walch Power Basics workbooks, especially for history and/or science? The high school level books are quite basic with short reading assignments and worksheets. I've seen the high school books described as easy/remedial so they might be a good fit for a younger (8th grade) student too. They also have middle school materials if you think the high school stuff is not what you want. I'd be inclined to go interest-led for science especially if she doesn't have an advanced STEM interest at this point and since this has been, as you say, a rough year for her. Definitely don't want her to hate science if she's interested in animals. Before high school there's a lot to be said for learning via interesting non-fiction or "coffee table" library science books and adding some documentaries. For easy lit-based history, perhaps Classical House of Learning, or Sonlight history and geography using a level at or slightly below her reading level? Just throwing out ideas. Hope you get more input.

Yep, I was going to say exactly the same thing! This was my experience too.

My kid learned about them this year also, from CPO Earth science. I just asked him if he remembered what Kepler's laws were about and he rattled off the three things Regentrude listed above. And he was excited to see Kepler mentioned in WWS1 as well. Love those connections. :)

OP, you might not be interested in this option at all, but if you have an iPad (or iPod, etc.) you can get a subscription through iTunes that gives you five BrainPop videos per day for only $1.99/month. The daily videos are all on topics that are related to each other, not just random things. My DS loves this option, learns quite a lot from it, yet it forces a limit on his "screen time" for the day. Might be a good way for you to try out Brain Pop before handing over a big chunk for a regular annual subscription. I don't know if Android devices have this option or not. If your family doesn't use a tablet or other applicable devices, just ignore me. :)

We've used all three - WWE, IEW and WWS. DS finished WWE4 but wasn't quite ready for WWS1, so we spent a year on IEW's SWI-B. It was a great path for him. Now that we're working through WWS, we still incorporate and use IEW ideas & philosophies. So, I don't think it has to be one program "versus" the other. This thread may be interesting reading for you: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/453374-if-you-use-iew-how-to-incorporate-wws/

When we used GSWS, I believe the author recommended the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish workbook series. We used this one: http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Makes-Perfect-Basic-Spanish/dp/0071458050/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389211009&sr=1-4&keywords=practice+makes+perfect+spanish We're currently using Visual Link Spanish.

Yes, all 4 operations with fractions are covered again in the "original" MM6A in chapter 5. You could also add some extra review using the Key To Fractions booklets, or just print extra practice worksheets from the MM worksheet generator.

Thanks for this and for mentioning the Biology Corner website. I'm planning bio next year and that's one I had not seen before.

I don't know about most kids, but my experience with DS is that his fine motor control and hand strength improved as he got a bit older, which improved his handwriting. In other words, his handwriting just got better as he got older. And this was after I had sort of given up on improving it, let him learn to type, and did much of his work verbally, especially narrations. And when he was younger, it seemed like he talked nonstop. And sang and related long made-up stories. And told jokes, constantly. He's not that way anymore. He's still very happy and witty, but now laid-back, quiet, and studious. Almost like a different kid. So, for him it apparently *was* an age thing. Can't wait to see what comes next. :)

I saw this NASA explanation earlier today and it seems pretty straightforward & kid-accessible. Might be more if you poke around their website. HTH. http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/polar-vortex-enters-northern-us/#.UsuArbQxjed