Ok, so it looks like the following screen from B&N is messed up, which may have contributed to my confusion: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/writing-with-ease-susan-wise-bauer/1100881262?ean=9781933339252 Looks like the title and picture are for the textbook, while the description may be for the level 4 workbook. I wonder what shows up on your doorstep? LOL Guess I'll just order from another seller, if I do get it. Still haven't 100% decided though...stay tuned for another question about ELTL.

I'm still confused about the options for WWE. Looking at the workbook description and reviews on Amazon, I wonder...why would a person buy the textbook? What about it is different from the workbook? Thanks...

I was just wondering, would you recommend the Apologia series to anyone who *hasn't* done it yet? I mean to say, if you were going to do it all over again, would you go straight to Apologia, or start with something else? My boys are 9, 7 and 3. Apologia will obviously be mostly over the 3yo's head...maybe I'll think of something additional that would appeal to him more. I was also wondering if you used the workbooks that are offered along with the Apologia series.

This. LOL!

I'm sure this has already been discussed, a lot. But I'm new here and a search turned up too many unrelated results, lol! Of course, there are millions of ideas on Pinterest and the Internet, but many of them seem so...I don't know..."why didn't I just put him in preschool"-y, if you know what I mean. Ridiculously time consuming and expensive to prep, and I imagine my 3yo dumping it all out, enjoying it for 3 minutes, and then looking for other things to fill the other 4 hours and 57 minutes of our school day. I know he can join us for some of our school activities, especially when we do memory work. And, I know that sometimes, one of my 2 older boys (9 and 7) can play with him while I work with the other. But sometimes they refuse, and sometimes they don't know what to do with him, and sometimes he just wants me. I'm aware of the advice to spend focused time with him first before getting into the nitty gritty with the others. So I will attempt to do that. What else?

For those of you who've used WWE...I'm looking at it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and at BN, the same book, same ISBN, is described as "A student-friendly supplement to Writing with Ease. This companion text to Writing with Ease..." So I'm confused as to what exactly I should buy. If we do WWE, is there more than one book to get? And...is there some homeschool-insider place where most of y'all get your books for less? Is shopping at Amazon/BN a newbie mistake? What are the tricks to know when it comes to buying curriculum?

One thing I should mention is that I already have, in my possession, the textbooks and teacher guides for the (probably) appropriate levels of Singapore. All I would have to do is buy the workbooks. Based on that, do y'all think I should just go with Singapore?

Ages 9 and 7, completed 2nd and 1st grade. I don't know what I prefer...maybe black and white but I'm not sure? I don't know if I prefer manipulatives. I really don't know what any of our preferences are. :/ But I don't think any of us are afraid of math. :) They used some Common Core mumbo jumbo. It provided lots of different ways to understand concepts, which is fine with me, but there comes a time when you just want to be able to do the problem and get it over with. I don't know the name of the specific curriculum, if there even was one. They never had a math book---just worksheets. We didn't like it.

I'm sorry...this has probably been discussed soooo many times, but can you experts please humor a newbie who is down to the wire on selecting a Math curriculum? Saxon...Abeka...MUS...Right Start...Horizons...Singapore...all of these have been highly recommended by different people, both known and unknown to me. I just pulled my boys out of PS and I really don't know their learning style when it comes to math. I will say that I think they are both pretty handy with numbers, but that's about as far as it goes. I feel like I'm running out of time for research, and I can't afford to buy one of everything! Should I just guess, pick one, and hope for the best? :confused:

I'm working on putting together a Language Arts package for my 7yo who will also join Classical Conversations this year after two years in Public School. Based on suggestions from other parents, I've been looking at the four programs in the title of this post. I think I need to cover spelling, writing and grammar. The first three (AAS, FLL and WWE) obviously cover all of those, but I'm wondering which category English Lessons through Literature would fall into, and whether it would be a substitute for any of those three. In other words: of those four, which three would you recommend? Also, if I have three different books, should we do a little of each every day, or devote one day's LA time to each of them? I'm such a newbie. :blush: Oh---I should also mention, his handwriting is pretty bad. Will one or more of the above resources help with that?

Hi, I'm brand new here and also trying to sort through LA options for my ds, age 7. FLL sounds great, but it sounds like folks are recommending adding spelling AND writing on top of this. I was just wondering, how do you schedule all these? Do you do a little of each of them every day, or do 1-2 days per week on each of them or...?

(Advance apologies for a very long post) So I’ve spent every spare minute of the last 24 hours reading this thread, and I’m proud to say I’ve read the whole thing. I realize the thread is a little old and has taken some twists and turns, but I’m here to ask for some reassurance (if there is any to be had). This is my first post on this forum, and no I am NOT some sort of troll or mole or double agent or whatever. I didn’t join here to try to promote any point of view; just to get some advice. Back story: I’m a new homeschooling mom. NHSM? I pulled my two boys, ages 9 and 7 (also have a 3yo boy) out of public school after several years of angst: have always admired homeschoolers, have been increasingly concerned about the direction public schools are heading and the absence of time in the day to make up for things that were lacking, have long wanted my boys to be homeschooled, just didn’t think I could do it. I would pretty much break out in a cold sweat every time I thought about it. It’s not that I lack intelligence, though I would say I lag behind many of you…but for some reason I just couldn’t get my arms around what exactly we would do. The myriad of approaches, curricula, schedules, learning styles…way too overwhelming for me, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t figure out how I would be able to keep up with all the other junk I do (what exactly do I do? I really don’t know but somehow it seems to fill most of my days). By this past spring, this had become a crisis for me. I have dreams for my boys. I know that they don’t have to comply to my dreams, and God might have different plans—but I would like to give them the competence that they would need to one day champion truth in our culture, in a way that would be winsome (I know, CC buzzword) instead of repulsive like much of what I see in the news and social media. Over the weeks and months, it was becoming more and more clear to me that public school wasn’t going to give them this type of competence, and with them gone 6 1/2 hours out of each day and the rest of the day filled with homework, extracurricular activities (which we limited but still), chores, dinner, play, bath, etc., I wasn’t going to be able to do it either. This consumed my thoughts and I got to the point that I was bursting into tears anytime I was asked how I was doing. Enter CC. I happened upon it somewhat by chance (though judging from some of what’s been said on this thread, maybe it was all by meticulous design as part of an evil conspiracy). A homeschooling friend of mine was going to attend an informational meeting. She didn’t even invite me at first, but the minute she mentioned it, I brightened up for some reason. So, she asked me if I wanted to go. Long story short…she didn’t even go to the meeting (she had already decided to join CC and other things came up that day), but I did. It was just the director (new community), one other mom, and me. In the space of an hour, I went from “I can’t do it†to “I think I CAN do this—and not only that, but I think I want to!†I’m not even sure what I heard about CC that day, but since then I’ve called it my “come to Jesus meeting.†All of a sudden, here was a community of people, backed up by an organization that provided accountability and stability, that could tell me what to do. I don’t mean that in a “you say jump and I’ll jump†way, but in the sense of “this is working for these people that seem reasonably competent, so it’s a good place to start. Surely doing what they are doing couldn’t be too disastrous.†At that time, even after the info meeting I didn’t really know that much about classical education, but the idea of memorizing facts that would later become pegs on which to hang knowledge and understanding really appealed to me. I contrasted it with my own education, where my reading comprehension and understanding of modern events as an adult has been limited by my lack of (what do you call it?) assumed cultural knowledge to help me understand what I’m reading or hearing. The other thing that appealed to me was that somehow, it seemed like CC would give me rails to run on. I knew I needed to provide math and language arts curricula (with the exception of LA for my 9yo who will start Essentials this year), but for the other stuff, it looked like the grammar of the subjects being memorized could provide starting points for me to build around. So I figured I was all set. Enter this thread. I found it by googling something like “memory work without context,†after a skeptical pro-public-school friend had questioned me about CC’s methodology. Until this, I had been under the impression that the memorization of facts without context was ok in the grammar stage; not that it would be *wrong* to add in some context, but that if we didn’t get it all down on the first pass, it would be ok because this wouldn’t be our first trip through all these facts, and context would come in as they got older and had more opportunities to delve into the details. Now, I’m all befuddled. I refuse to call it the disaster that some have made it out to be. It sounds like there are enough people who have benefitted greatly from CC (including some friends of mine that have been in it for years) that I can be confident that this year is not a total loss. And—if it weren’t for CC and the catalytic moment that I had this past spring, my kids would probably be gearing up for another year in PS even as I write. I think we can at least do better than that. However: moving forward (and this question is for those of you who DON’T think CC is giving us a “real†classical education), I have two questions: 1. What would you suggest that a NHSCCM could do, given the koolaid is already down the hatch, to fill in the gaps during this year of CC that we’re already committed to? I understand that you don’t feel there’s enough time to cover all the context that you think is necessary…but what would be something reasonable that I could do? I do own SOTW volume 3, Early Modern Times, which includes material that should correspond to CC Cycle 3. Would that be a good thing to incorporate, and if so, how? Please don’t give me an all-or-nothing proposition. What about Science? What else? 2. If CC doesn’t end up working out for us (and I haven’t given up hope that it will), how would I go about transitioning to a more “real†classical homeschool education, starting at age 10, 8 and 4 by next fall? What should be the elements of our days? I don’t know where to start. Thanks, to whoever has stuck with me to the end of this loooooooong post. I look forward to reading your insight.