OP, My son did IEW's SWI-B starting right after he turned 10, and it went well even though he was writing-averse going into it. I think IEW's suggested ages for the various levels are a bit off. I would expect an average 7th or 8th grader to be doing level C work, rather than level B as they suggest, for example. When it comes to certain subjects (like writing), if I'm waffling between levels, I'll usually go for the higher level because it is easier for me to reduce the output expectations if something turns out to be too difficult, than it is for me to add more to something that is too easy. And IEW is very flexible and easy to adjust down to the appropriate challenge level. And I'm not referring to simply adjusting the number of paragraphs required. Rather, I'm referring to decreasing or removing certain requirements on each assignment's specific grading rubric. Just take a good long look at the generous samples on their website and that should help you decide. There is overlap between SWI-A and B in terms of concepts taught at the beginning. You can see them on the IEW website. I felt that SWI-B was better prep for WWS for my DS than SWI-A in terms of output, while also allowing me the freedom to dial down the expectations when I felt it was necessary. Anyway, DS worked through WWE4, and I had already purchased WWS1, but we took most of 5th grade to do IEW SWI-B. I think he could have done WWS1 in 5th but he would have shed many tears, I'm afraid. IEW's procedural and incremental approach worked well for him, and now he has confidence in his ability to write well. He has been applying his new writing skills in his content subjects (history, science, lit) easily. WWS has always been our goal, but side-stepping to IEW for a year was exactly what he needed. I've read here that outlining and paragraphing skills (topic sentence, supporting details, concluding sentence) need to be solid before WWS1, as well as being just comfortable with the writing process (draft, re-write, edit, polish) and having good narration skills. IEW and WWS are quite different but complement each other well. Considering the release schedule of the WWS series (WWS2 isn't even out yet), I haven't felt the need to rush him from WWE4 to WWS1, and I don't regret the path we've taken so far. If you want to do WWS eventually anyway, why not buy a copy, dig into it yourself & evaluate if you think your DD is ready, or just jump in and have her start it, and set it aside temporarily if now isn't the right time?

I used to have the same fears. As DS got a bit older, skills like dictionary use were naturally included in his grammar curriculum (Hake), and you will gradually replace spelling curriculum with vocabulary, so word definitions will be taken care of. Your first graders are very young still. Worry not!

Yep, I second Notability. It's very versatile and intuitive to use. Most people who use Notability seem to use it in combo with either Dropbox or Google Drive for file sharing or printing. That allows me to open up work that DS completed on the iPad and view it and/or print it using my laptop. We do this a lot with Math Mammoth.

My local public library has several of them. DS enjoyed them when he watched at age 8 - 9, and I think kids even younger and perhaps older would also like them. If you have specific questions, I'll do my best to answer.

I'm not the OP, but wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone for chiming in with your experiences and advice on this topic. I think this thread is important for many of us. Lori D. - Thank you! I always appreciate your positive, can-do, encouraging posts. I didn't quote your entire post, but you went to a lot of trouble to find and link all those sources!

We used the white Kingfisher and K12's Human Odyssey 1 in 5th grade, in a coordinated WTM-ish style, where DS read first from Kingfisher and took notes (he also learned to take notes in 5th grade), then read later the same week from Human Odyssey and either narrated his reading or verbally answered discussion and connection questions that I found worthwhile in the K12 TM. This saved me from having to find coordinated library books every week (as prescribed in WTM) on each Kingfisher topic; we just used Human Odyssey as a single outside source instead. Personally, I liked having the art and literature selections that are offered in the pages of Human Odyssey, although I can see why they bothered you if that's not your thing. DS is not a history or art lover, so he got exposure to those things alongside his history lesson that he might not receive otherwise, and the exposure was in the context of history instead of random. We spend more time on science and math, so if we can streamline history and add in a little art appreciation, all the better for us. Sometimes we simply skipped the longer lit selections if I felt he wouldn't enjoy them, no big deal. At this point, because DS does not love history as a subject, I'm using the content of history to help him learn and apply his writing and studying skills, as recommended in WTM. Any appreciation for history or art that is gained at this stage is gravy. We tried one volume from the World in Ancient Times series (Egypt) and he didn't care for it, but that's mostly because it was too long and detailed for his taste. I also thought it seemed a little disconnected in some chapters, as if different authors had written different sections. However, lots of people here seem to really like the World in Ancient Times series, so get a volume from the library and give it a go. You won't know unless you try it. Anyway, I see Kingfisher at one end of the spectrum (summarized, efficient), World in Ancient Times at the other end (detailed, flowing) and K12 Human Odyssey somewhere in the middle. We'll be using Kingfisher again and Human Odyssey 2 for 6th grade. I agree with a PP that Human Odyssey's reading level increases as you go along.

OUP is Oxford University Press, which publishes these mentioned above: The World in Ancient Times series The Medieval and Early Modern World series

I strongly agree. FWIW, during my son's time in PS, the "different types of paragraphs" taught there were example paragraphs, process/how-to paragraphs, narrative/story-telling paragraphs, persuasion paragraphs, etc. I think that's what she was referring to, LOL.

For appreciation, there's also Smart Art: Learning to Classify and Critique Art.

Have you looked at Artistic Pursuits? It goes through high school and teaches appreciation/history combined with the art skills each studied artist employed in their work. There's a link in my sig.

There are approximately 110 to 120 lessons in each grade level textbook of Hake grammar. So if you do a lesson per day, 3 days per week, a grade level would take you about one 180-day school year (3 days per week for 36 weeks, for example) to complete. Each lesson teaches a new concept, written directly to the student, then walks through a couple or three examples and the worked-out solutions. Next, usually about 10 practice questions on the new concept. Finally, the lesson is finished with a set of 25 or 30 review questions. Each review question has a parenthetical reference to the lesson number in which the reviewed concept was taught, in case the student needs to refer back to that lesson. I let my DS do only odds or only evens on the review questions and it is still PLENTY of review. I let him write in the book instead of on a separate piece of paper. Each lesson takes my DS about 15 - 20 minutes to complete this way. You can see samples of each level at the link in my sig - it takes you directly to the publisher's page. This program is written directly to the student for independent work. The TM is a solutions manual (not a teaching guide) and also contains blank tests (one test can be used after every 5 lessons) and test answers. We don't use the writing lesson workbook; we use other curricula for writing.

For older kids (middle school and up), I really like the looks of this free Stanford resource that was linked here recently: http://forums.welltr...m/#entry4955089 Looks like it uses primary sources to analyze more than one side of the history lessons that many of us learned in school.

We like http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/. Free, daily ~10 minute videos during the traditional school year on weekdays. You can watch online or subscribe to the podcast. You can also subscribe to free emailed teacher notes if you want.

The states I've lived in are all different. My current state now offers online/virtual public school academies using three different companies as sources for their curriculum: K12, Connections Academy, and Calvert Academy. A quick google of your state + online or virtual school should give you more answers.

You're welcome. And it wasn't just automated emails. That I could have dealt with. You see, I naively signed up for a live tele-class, which required me to provide my telephone number in addition to an email address, in order to sign in at each class time. The phone calls we received afterwards were not automated robo calls; they were live, persistent sales people. I asked multiple times, over a few weeks, not to be contacted again, and my request was continually ignored. I eventually purchased a blocking service just to stop their nonsense. Lesson learned. ETA - I'm not knocking Supercharged Science as a curriculum, just sharing my experience with their business practices. The "price" of one is dealing with the other, apparently. Good luck with it!

We like Hake here too. We just use it for grammar, though, not the separate writing lessons workbook. I don't know how extensive the samples are at the various retail websites, but here is a link directly to the publisher. BTW, there is a grade 4 level available if you contact them directly, if you decide you want it.

Just a word of caution, based on my experience with Supercharged Science, if you sign up for anything through them, and then decide it is not a good fit, want to cancel, etc., BE PREPARED to be hounded by email, phone, whatever contact method you give them. They didn't want to hear no and persisted like no other company has ever done to me before. It took forever to get them to stop. Gotta say, they are persistent! B)

OP, While poking around the CPO science website today and planning for next year, I noticed this STEM buzzword page and thought you might find it helpful. It mentions how they see STEM, what STEM models emphasize, recent education (gov't) directives, how CPO incorporates them, etc. There are additional links on the right side of the page if you're interested. Perhaps this info, or similar info from any other science textbook publisher of your preference, will help you also.

I've learned the most about how to build a STEM focus by paying attention to and taking to heart the advice of posters here like Regentrude, Lewelma (Ruth in NZ), 8filltheheart, EKS and others. If I get a chance, I'll come back and link some of their relevant posts that have resonated with me. ETA - To get you started, here's a thread that links many more amazing science threads. And http://forums.welltr.../#entry4923600)

To me STEM means a focus on those subjects (science, technology, engineering, math) in terms of priorities and time spent. Some people are history-focused, some are STEM-focused, etc. IMHO, STEM is not a checklist of specific curricula/books/resources, it is more about how you use those items in your schooling.

We'll be using: Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia as main spine, DK Eyewitness Earth and Astronomy (higher reading level, more detailed, less blurby than Usborne's) parts of CPO Earth Science to learn how to learn from a textbook, Discover Nature in the Weather (reading and hands on), Seymour Simon's Weather (stunning photos, and he has many other related books if you're interested), Exploring the Night Sky (again, great photos and lots of info packed into a small book), and the task cards on Rocks & Minerals plus the related specimen kit from TOPS science.

If he didn't care for Sonlight science he probably won't like Elemental Science either. (I've used both and they have similar format - encyclopedia spine with coordinated worksheets, although Sonlight is generally just fill-in-the-blank, while ES is more WTM-ish notebooking at the elementary level.) I'd recommend library books and videos with a couple of TOPS science kits for hands-on. If you use TOPS, the full kits with all the supplies are WORTH IT, lol. The Radishes, Corn & Beans, and Electricity were a hit with us and fit his age. Did you use the Discover and Do DVDs with Sonlight science? My DS also enjoyed and learned a lot at that age from videos like Beakman's World, Magic School Bus science, and even Mythbusters. ETA - I see now that you mentioned using Sassafras rather than the regular (Classic) Elemental Science program. I've never used Sassafras, no advice there.

Also, just to be sure you're aware, each level of Hake has three components/books. The grammar lessons (written to the student) are completely self-contained in the student textbook. There is a teacher manual that contains the grammar lesson solutions, as well as blank tests and the test answers. Finally, there is a third book called a workbook that contains the entirety of the writing lessons portion of the program, as well as about 20 - 30 lessons worth of extra practice pages for specific grammar lessons. I bought the workbook but have never used it. We use other programs for writing, and the (grammar) textbook contains all the practice I think we'll ever need.

You certainly could use a separate notebook, of course. I only have one kid, and he's averse to any unnecessary physical handwriting, so I let him write in the book. The pages are thin newsprint, so hopefully if you plan to pass them down, your older DC will be gentle on them. :)

That's pretty much the plan for my DS (except we're using Hake 5 instead of 6 just because we already own it, but those two levels are EXTREMELY similar). Hake Grammar is so complete & self-contained with a *lot* of spiral review (we usually do only the odds or only the evens in the review sections), that the above plan makes sense for us. It still covers all the concepts, keeps everything fresh with lots of review, and (bonus) saves me money by buying only 2 levels instead of 4. Of course, if you get your hands on Hake and start your DC using it, you might see that a different plan makes sense for you. HTH!