Thanks for the info, everyone. It gives me other perspectives to think from!

I don't find it to be too much because we don't do 1st exactly as written. The only thing we do follow is the Bible lessons, copywork, timeline, Bible Reader and Notebook. That we do like it says. Everything else, I do on my own schedule. Her reading level was above MFW 1st, so I am just using the student workbook as a review lesson in one of her workboxes. I don't have her do the pages where you mark the sounds with the red pencil because we do a seperate spelling program (unless she asks to do them, which she has:001_huh:), but all the other ones she has done so far. This week's schedule looks something like this: Mon: Bible with MFW1, science TWTM way, AAS, FFL, WWE, math Tue: Bible, history TWTM way, AAS, FFL, WWE, math Wed: mid-year meeting (mine), Artistic Pursuits Lesson 6 (oops, don't have that one in the sig!) Thur: Bible, science, AAS, FFL, WWE, math Fri: Bible, history, AAs, WWE, math (because of Wed, we will do more today. usually Fri is our light day.) History moves around a little depending on where the Bible notebook work comes in. I have found that trying to do both of those in the same day was too much for her. This may be way more than you were looking for, but I hope it helps!:lol: If you have any other questions, let me know! ETA: I don't use the math that comes with the program, either. I use Saxon, and we love it. Math four days a week, one lesson a day. That's all there is to it. I didn't look to closely at the math schedule in the MFW TM, because I didn't like how they did it in K, but from what I did see it was just way to unstructured for me. I need a little more structure. That's why we started Saxon in K. I just wasn't comfortable with the "informal" aproach. HTH!

I looked at your blog post, and noticed you talked about a loop schedule. What is that? Would love to know more...

If you started at the beginning with Kers, and have gone up from there, how have you used MFW with TWTM? I love MFW, but I love the way TWTM has history and science set up. Obviously, MFW does not begin the history cycle until CTG, and that would put my dc at only doing the cycle twice. Plus, US history is "out of place" according to TWTM (MFW does US history in 2nd with Adv). Any thoughts? Did anyone care? Do I need to put my TWTM down and stick with MFW as is? I had this same struggle last year when I began planning for the next school year budget... As you can see in my sig, I combined the two. I don't know that it would be a good idea to do US history AND SOTW 2 at the same time next time around. I do think that would be a bit much! LOL TIA!

This is just what I needed! I can't tell you how helpful this information is. I knew that I must be trying to fit way too much in, and my poor baby was ending up on overload. I was thinking this was possible. She tells me she doesn't like spelling, and when I ask her what she doesn't like about it, her answer is WRITING. I just didn't know how to pare it down. She really is very smart, and I forget that she is only 6! I didn't know that. Oh, that makes me feel so much better! I thought they went with grade level, sort of. When she went through Level 1 so fast, I wasn't really sure what "grade" level each one was supposed to match with. I will get the timer out and set it to 10 to 15 minutes and leave it at that. I hope that will help her learn to love spelling again. She does like using the whiteboard, so we will use that a lot more. Merry, thank you again for all this info. I cannot tell you how much this means to me. You are truely an answer to prayer!:D

We didn't use ETC, but did OPGTR. My dd6 zipped through that quickly, too. We are using All About Spelling, and I am loving it. It teaches the why of spelling as well as reinforces the phonics that was learned in our phonics lessons. I don't feel like I need to have two different programs now that we have finished OPGTR. She is learning to spell what she all ready knows how to read, and continues to practice reading. HTH!

:lurk5:

You posted this on another thread, and I read it with great interest. We are in Level 2, and I feel like I am still feeling my way in how to best use the program. I love it (she hates it), and my dd is learning how to spell well, albeit, she is having some isues. I was hoping to "pick your brain", if I may. Formost, how many lessons a week do you do? Sometimes we do one lesson a week and sometimes we do two. Dd is spelling the words fine most of the time, but the review of the words I don't understand. We do go over the key cards, but not the phonograms or sound cards. Do you have them write the words every day? Do you have them write the dictated phrases every day? Usually, I have my dd write the words every day and then write two phrases and two sentences. The spelling problems she has are compound words, (even though I think I am pronouncing the word such that you would know it was one word), and confusing "e" and "i", (even though I over pronounce their short sounds, and she repeats them back to me correctly). I have gone back and reviewed all the phonogram cards, and she says them back to me with all the sounds correctly, so I am thinking this is a dialect issue? (Alabama. We so love to make every letter in the word its own syllable.:lol:) Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hope that it is just operator error and this can be fixed. Thank you so much for any thoughts or advice! quote: "Are you trying to review cards that are *mastered* every day, or only the cards that are in the review tab? If you have a ton of cards in the review tab, you may be moving too quickly & may need to just take a couple of days to clear out your review tabs. Here's what we do: After a lesson, the word cards go into the review tab (there's 10 of them). I review 3-5 per day, just to break those up so they aren't just memorizing a pattern. So we take 2-3 or so days to get through those. But otherwise, anything that is behind a review tab longer-term, trying to be learned--usually there's only a couple of those type of cards. We only spend 2-5 minutes on review cards, and then 10-15 doing part of the lesson. I actually keep all of my review cards behind one tab. I do separate them out once they are mastered, but I find it's easier for me to just grab the group of cards behind one review tab, go through them, and then go to the lesson. Usually once a week I choose some mastered cards to review from one of the sections--I just rotate through them so I hit all of the mastered cards once a month or so. I do that because my kids need ongoing mastered review. However, if I think something was mastered & then it's not, I just pull it back into review for the next day, and try to keep it there a bit longer. Again, if we get a lot of cards there, we just take a few days off lessons to clear out the review tab. I do a shorter day then--usually 10 minutes, so it seems like a "break" to them too. You're right that there's more dictation as you go on. Level 2 has 6 phrases, 6 sentences each lesson, and Level 3 has 12 sentences each lesson--so they get progressively longer. Merry :-)"

I was thinking that myself, but wasn't sure if copying would even be needed if I got the cards. KWIM? I guess I could buy one, and if I found I needed another, just go ahead and get one. I'm just trying to keep that oh-so-pesky budget under control!:tongue_smilie: Thank you!

interested in anyting! I was rereading some of WTM about science, and so far in our studies my dd6 hasn't seemed interested in anything enough to want to spend weeks on it. We are studying animals right now, and we looked together at the contents to pick what she would like to learn about. So far, there has been no sudden devouring interest in anything, although she does say that science is her favorite subject. I'm not sure if that is because she enjoys what we are learning, or because it doesn't seem to take as long as the others!:001_huh: We are covering the bare basics as described in WTM, but I just wonder if there will ever be that "Oh, Mom, we HAVE to find out more about THIS!" moment. Do I need encouragement or do I just need to :chillpill:? (That has been known to be the case more often than not!:tongue_smilie:) Thanks!

I have two children, and was wondering if I needed to buy two books or one book and a second set of paint and marker cards. Thanks so much!

Thank you! I will give the review a try.

I am using All About Spelling, and we are on Level 2 step 6. My dd6 has been doing great with it, but we have come up on a little snaffoo. She is consistantly getting "e" and "i" mixed up. I'll give her the word "item" and she will spell it "itim". I am stressing the vowel sounds so much at this point that you just about can't tell what the word is! I have her pronounce the word for spelling, and she says the vowel sounds correctly. Still, she spells it wrong. Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions would be great! Thanks!

Thank you, everyone. I guess I am confusing phonics and spelling!:lol:

We have so much copywork and the like that I am wondering why we have a "handwriting" book at all.:001_huh: We use Z-B, and I usually end up skipping it most days because of all of the other writing we do. It just seems like way too much.:confused:

:grouphug::grouphug: I am having the "guess the word/add words that aren't there" problem with my dd6. She is a great reader, but she does try to go too fast. When I make her slow down and read it again, she gets so frustrated. Most of the time, I think she is just reading from memory, like sight words, and is not decoding at all. :glare: I struggle with teaching without getting frustrated myself, especially when she can read things like "procedure", but gets hung up on "salad"! My dd4 is just starting to blend, which is very exciting, but she is still sounding out every word even after she just read it. This makes Bob books take forever!:tongue_smilie: Also, she sounds out cvc words, but when she goes to blend them she moves the last c sound to the front, so we get ccv words. Too funny. I know this is part of the learning process, and she will get it soon. Not too much practical help here, but I hope knowing you aren't the only one helps with the feelings!

We are almost finished with OPGTR, and am lost as to where to go next with phonics. I noticed that there is only one lesson addressing homonyms, homophones and homographs, and wondered if this was something that would be covered more in a grammar program. What have you done for phonics after OPGTR (or other initial reading program)? We will be doing FLL 1 starting next month, but wasn't sure how to keep up with the phonics other that read read read! Thanks!

This is such a great idea. I love it! :D

Thank you, ChantyD3! This helps out a lot!

Ooh, that's a great idea. Where did you get the supplemental workbook?

I keep forgetting to make biography pages for the people we "meet" like suggested in TWTM. Does anyone else do these, and if so, how do you do them? This is for a dd6 doing SOTW 1. Thanks!

I totally understand! When we first started this year's work (we go all year, so this was back in June), I felt the same way as you. I can't tell you how many times I read the book, then looked at the TM, then read the book again... I finally just put it up and gave up on "teaching" art for the summer. As I was working on the fall schedule, I decided to give it another go. I made all of the copies from DWC that the TM said to. I sat down with some copy paper and made "master" copies of the grids they talk about for each of the warm-up lessons and then used my copier to make blanks for the girls. Now, I just follow the written schedule in the TM, and forget about the rest of the stuff in DWC. We just finished up the lesson about drawing the bird today, and the girls did great! I think I do need to start each lesson with one of the warm-ups, though. I think it would help my dd4 to be able to form the shapes that the directions are calling for better. This is our experience thus far, but if it continues to frustrate you, change it!:lol: I saw someone else suggest Artistic Pursuits, and we have that one also. We started our first lesson in it this week. I like it because it offers the study and appreciation of art masters, that a once a week drawing lesson doesn't. I didn't get the art appreciation materials from MFW this year. OK, will stop the rambling now!:D

Thanks again for everyones input! We will be starting WWE in a few weeks, so I guess I should have waited to see the process. It is so good to be able to get different views, even when we are using the same stuff!:lol:

Do you need to teacher manual and all those manipulatives? How do you make it work for you? Thanks!

Thanks for the replies! They have made me look at the situation a little differently, and I love all the funny replies!:lol: