What are the main recommendations for a Spanish curriculum for elem. kiddos? This would be for two 2nd graders and a 5th grader (hopefully together - is this doable?). I'm looking for something that's not super expensive. It would not necessarily need a DVD or CD as I lived in a Spanish speaking country as a child long enough to have somewhat of an "okay" accent. Probably a bit "American" but not bad enough to necessitate a DVD or CD program. :) My experience is that I took up to Spanish 4 in the U.S. (finished in 10th grade), but feel I've forgotten so much of it. Any suggestions and sharing of experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Just came back to this. Thanks for all the great thoughts! And, no, I don't think you'd really want to hear my song. :)

Okay, so ALL of the pages that have writing/drawing areas are available for printing out? Is this enough to use for science for a while, if we added some library books? Or is it really not very "meaty?"

If anyone has used this book, I'd love to hear what you've thought! Also, is it best to get each child their own book? The Nature Connection

Okay, I see what you guys are saying. :) Thanks!

DD9 hasn't learned a list of prepositions yet, but she's starting to learn about them in grammar. We're currently using R&S4. My question is - Is it really all that important WHICH list she memorizes? When I was in 5th grade I remember memorizing a list of prepositions. And I made up my own song to memorize them. THAT list is still in my head, so I think it would be easiest to teach her those prepositions. Here they are: aboard about above across after against along among around at before behind below beneath beside between beyond by down during except for from in into like of off on over past since through throughout to toward under underneath until up upon with within without So is this sufficient? ...or would it be better for her to learn a more comprehensive list? Probably a silly question, I know. :) But I'd love to hear what others have done.

TarynB, how much writing instruction is there in Hake Grammar?

Anyone?

DD9 will be finishing up Rod & Staff 4 this year. While we've liked it okay, I've wanted to have a bit more time to focus on writing with her. Lately she has done R&S mostly independently, but needs some help on some completely new topics. I'm considering using Easy Grammar next year. Would I jump into Easy Grammar 5 from R&S 4? And, if I do go this route, would I be able to jump back into R&S 6, after completing Easy Grammar 5? Or would we need to do R&S5 following EG5? I'd love to hear any thoughts on this, especially if you've had a similar experience. Any comparisons between these two programs would be greatly appreciated. I'd also love to hear opinions about the importance (or non-importance) of learning sentence diagramming. The only other Grammar I've considered is Abeka. My DD likes the colorful layout and look of it, but I'm wondering if there's not enough instruction? Thanks!

Good thoughts! I think I'm also getting bored of the girls reading aloud using "readers" (Abeka). I think we're ready to move on to reading aloud "whatever" ...at least some of the time. :)

Good point! :) My girls are in love with the Magic Tree House books! ;)

Thanks! This is helpful! :)

My six year olds are doing pretty well with their reading...probably at about a 3rd grade level? How long do you have your child read aloud to you? Or at at what point can this be tapered off a bit? My six year olds probably read to me for about 10 to 15 minutes per day each (plus they read on their own). I guess I'm just wondering what this "looks" like for others, at this age/reading level? Hope that makes sense. :)

Hmm...seems to be mixed answers. I wish there was a sample of what the Answer Key pages look like.

My daughter will be finishing up the 300 level soon, so I'm going to order the 400s. Though I have the Teacher's Guide for 300, it seems like I don't really end up using it much, except to check my daughter's work. I was considering just getting the answer keys for the 400 level as that is obviously cheaper. Does anyone else do this? Or does the Teacher's Guide contain enough "good stuff" to make it worth getting?

Does SOTW not cover American History very well??? We're in vol. 2, so I don't know how the next two volumes are.

Yes, I have the Activity Guide. :) Both Activity guides (vol. 1 & 2) say somewhere in the beginning "Write down the child's narration if the child is not writing independently. Good writers can be asked to write the narration down themselves." I did most of vol. 1 last year with 3rd grade DD (twins were in school). Even at that point, since we were just starting out, I wrote her narrations for her, then we progressed to copywork, and she maybe did a couple written narrations by herself towards the end. Now she does her own writing. But I never "started from the beginning" with her. We didn't start with SOTW in 1st grade, ya know? So I wasn't sure how it was "supposed" to be. So all of your responses have been helpful! It's funny, though, because sometimes my 1st graders DO seem to want to "do it themselves." :) Today in WWE, I was supposed to write down their one sentence narration and they were supposed to copy it. Instead, they just wanted to write out their sentence themselves. So I let them, while I watched and corrected. We've only done spelling a few weeks so far, and now I'm wondering if I should just work with them on spelling as they write....hmmm....

Okay, I may try cutting out the specific handwriting practice...at least on some days. :) It's not so easy to watch BOTH girls at the same time to catch errors, but I try. :) In your SWB quote, it says "help him do it." Unfortunately, I can't always stop what I'm doing to "help" my daughter (with spelling, etc.) write a page long story, ya know? So far, I've just gone back over it with her and pointed out a few errors. I think to point out ALL the errors would make her NOT want to write.

Thanks everyone for the input. Sometimes I think my expectations are just a bit too high. But often my girls (especially one of my twins) just LIKE to write. I think it has to be spaced out, though. For example, today they each wrote a bit for history. When it came time for WWE, we did two days in one, so they did the "easy" copywork. Then, when it was time for their "one thing" narration, I said I would write it for them, but they WANTED to write it. Not every day is like this, though. But this just brings up more questions in my mind - one in regards to penmanship. If they're writing quite a bit outside of specific penmanship time, I often wonder if they don't need to work specifically in a handwriting book each day. They still have some letter formation issues, as there was not much focus on that last year in PS. And then...with the one DD who sometimes LOVES to write a story...can't I just let her do that, even if her punctuation and spelling is terrible? Sometimes she'll ask how to spell a word, but many words are still misspelled. Is this really such a horrible thing? Or is it okay as long as I'm working on capitalization, spelling, etc. when we do WWE?

My used-to-be writing-phobic daughter seems to really be enjoying CAP Writing and Rhetoric. It's for 3rd/4th grade. Have you tried anything for him yet besides the TOG assignments? WWE? As you look at samples of writing programs, I think it helps if you think it's something YOU will enjoy too...and be able to get excited about, along with your son. CAP W&R has done that for my DD9 and me. It's fun. :) My DD9 seriously seems to be having quite a turn-around in her writing, as we've BOTH gotten excited about it and made it fun. Today we read two sections out of SOTW, and I told her she could just narrate one. She WANTED to do them both...and did. :)

I don't know what the progression is for Dancing Bears A, but we're using Abeka Phonics. Instead of teaching the "silent e," they basically teach that in a short word, when there are two vowels, usually the first vowel says its name and the 2nd vowel is silent. This is so helpful, because it covers words like cute, tame, like but also words like boat, teach, rain, etc. Hope that helps! :)

Yes, I would just explain that sometimes "long u" says its name and sometimes it says "oo." In words like 'music' and 'mule,' even though it's not the first letter, the u does sound like its name. As your daughter is exposed more to reading and phonics, she'll figure it out. :)

We've done a bit of WWE1 and we're currently using vol. 2 of SOTW. I have a few questions: In WWE1, it just has me ask the girls "one thing" that they remember. In SOTW, I think I'm supposed to be trying to get summaries from them? Is this how I'm supposed to be doing this? Up until now, I haven't been asking them to give me a summary in SOTW, but I tried it today, although it really didn't go very well. Also, if they're writing for SOTW, do I still do WWE? Right now, their writing for SOTW isn't completely monitored by me, so there are of course lots of mistakes (spelling, etc.). I usually point out a few things after they write, and then they fix it. But the focus isn't so much on the writing as it is on what they remembered. I usually write down main words on our white board for all three girls when we do history narration. So I'm guessing...if I wanted to skip WWE sometimes, then I would just want to focus more on the writing for history? How do some of you all approach this if you do narrations for history and also use WWE? Especially in 1st grade. :)

Thanks so much, everyone! We'll try out some new things/routines this next week! :)

As I've been thinking and scheming today, I've got to thinking that maybe it would be helpful for me to try to "assign" a time frame for the different subjects for DD9. Let her know about how long it should take her and try to stick to that time? How does this look? 15 min. Pentime (M,W,F) 45 min. Math (M-F) 20 min. Spelling (M-F) 25 min. Grammar (Mon. Wed. Th.) 10 min. Poetry memoriz. (Tues.) 20- 30 Writing (M-F) 60 min. Reading (M-F) (30 min. of this before bed) 60 min. History/Science (M-Th.) 60 min. Art (Fri) 25 min. Read Aloud (M-F) 15 min. Typing (Tues, Fri) Bible would be in the evening for about 15 - 20 min. So the daytime hours for DD9 would average around 4 hours, including the Read Aloud...a little less on Friday since Art is not really a "Core subject." 30 minutes of independent reading would be outside of this time. In January maybe we'll start a bit of Latin and re-work the schedule. Can anyone compare what the "times" look like for your kiddos at this age? And, yes, I know what the WTM recommended times are. :) I think they would recommend more independent reading, history, science, and latin. Thanks!