Thinkwell was great for my ds12. It seemed to have just the right amount of teaching and practice for him to get it, then make sure he had it. Occasionally if he needed more practice, I printed out additional practice problems from other sources, but overall, he had a good year with Thinkwell. This past year we did Algebra 1 but I taught him from a text. In hindsight, I really should have had him do Thinkwell Alg 1 because he was bored silly and saw no point to anything I taught him from a boring dry text.

We did not have luck with ST math. I wish we did, because I love the idea of it, but both my ds13 and dd12 could not get into it. I might give it another go with dd12 (soon 13) this year because, well, I paid for it and no one is using it!

I agree with the person above that Arrow is very thin. It brought up a few neat points, such as the idea of a one word sentence, or repetition to add power... but boy, there really was not much to it. We bought a year subscription, used it for 2-3 books, then abandoned it.

Hi All, I recently enrolled my dd12 in a 1 week trial. Maybe I am not smart enough for this program, but nowhere do I see actual teaching. There are problems to do, and redo if she gets it wrong. There are games to play. But are there lessons to actually teach a new topic? Also, I am a bit confused about the difference between giftedandtalented, epgy, redbird...are these all different programs?

The core of Waldorf education is that the child's education should mirror the inner developmental world of the child. For example, when a child is becoming more grounded in the world, around age 9, you study measurement. When a child is around 13 and starting to spread his wings, you study the age of exploration and discovery. Main lesson blocks are to immerse the child in his own inner reality. History is usually the backbone of main lessons in Waldorf. When we refer to Grade 4 we talk about Norse Mythology. When we refer to grade 5 we are talking about immersion into ancient history. Grade 6 is Rome, Grade 7 is Middle Ages, etc. That said, Waldorf homeschooling is very, very intense, and very teacher-heavy! I would not really say that Waldorf is a unit-studies method, because again, the point is that you are helping the child discover his world. You don't focus on subjects. You focus on educating the head (academics,) the heart (spiritual development,) and the hands (handwork, using the body, etc.) Everything is based around that. But yes, you use many different ways to explore one topic in depth. If you are studying Old Testament, you are going to be building an ark and making a LOT of little creatures out of beeswax. You definitely could use the idea of main lesson blocks and immersion into one topic at a time. All of my kids LOVE main lesson time - it is their favorite part of the day. I do not find that Waldorf Main Lesson Books are anything at all like notebooking. I have done notebooking or lapbooking with my kids from time to time, thinking it would be fun, and found it tedious and disjointed. For our family, MLB's are much more meaningful and rich. Notebooks I would throw away. MLB's we treasure and keep. They are diverse, with writing, copywork, paintings, drawings, poems, charts, maps. Each book is so unique and is something the child can look back on with pride. I think it is enriching to understand the philosophy behind the educational strategies you use, especially with Waldorf because it is very complex. At the end of the day, everyone has to do what works best for each family and each child. The most important thing is to keep the joy and wonder in their learning.

Just adding my 2 cents. We used (sort of) Arrow last year, and I thought it was kind of a joke. There were pages upon pages of redundant paragraphs. There were pages of redundant exercises, so my kids would say "We already did this." If you want to read a book and have a couple of things to draw the child's attention to, it's fine, but that is about it.

I should mention that we take turns reading chapters aloud. This helps with fluency and public speaking.

I do so much history through literature. I always hated history, learning names and dates from textbooks, but my kids absolutely love the historical fiction so that's how I approach their history. They love it. I never would have dreamed that a child of mine would love history but they learn so well through novels. It's also makes it easier to teach different grade levels, because history is a part of the day we can do together.