I was one of those people who asked this on the boards a while back, thinking how on earth people actually pulled it off, well here I am just a few years later and I'm sort of using two. I use Moving With Math as my main program, and I supplement with worksheets from Mastering Mathematics. For us, one program would be ideal, but right now the needs of my son dictate two programs as he is about a year to two behind grade level. Maybe eventually we will mesh it out to only one, but for now, two is fitting the bill and it isn't any more work than I thought it would be. :lol: Dee :tongue_smilie:

If you have used this, I would love to hear how you liked it and how your children did with it? Did they like it? Did the writing skills improve? We are using and liking WWE 2, but was already thinking about next year. I have level 2 (of Writing Tales) in my hands that my friend graciously lent me and I am just wondering since I haven't read about many people using it? Thank you for any help, Dee

Yes, we call it our memory work time. I like to call them vocabulary cards. I tell my son that each subject has its own vocabulary and it would be wise to learn it. For math we have flashcards that say addend plus addend, and then another one that says sum, and so on. One day he matches the right cards together, and on another day I may just have him tell me what addend plus addend equals, or what minuend minus subtrahend equals. On another day we may play Memory with our cards. As we move along in our subjects, the amount of cards continues to grow. We also have these cards for English, and we now have them for science and social studies. They are basic facts like, "What is an archipelago?" Or "What is an island?" Again, we may do them one way on one day, and a totally different way on another. We use plain index cards for this. It has totally helped my son so much and it also helps build up his memory skills and he thinks it's fun, more like a game. It only takes mere minutes before we start up each new subject. HTH, Dee :) ps We do this for Bible, Math, English, Science, and Social Studies.

If I could only buy one level, I would buy level 2 workbook. No, you do not need the Instructional Guide. Everything you need is in the workbooks, including instruction on what to say. I would only do the questions for the younger one, and shorten the copywork, and also only make her give me the two sentence summary and write it down without making her write it down. There is no dictation for level 1 work and that was the book I started my second grade son in. For the older one, I'd do everything else as is. HTH, Dee ps I tried to do it on my own as well this year...didn't work, I ended up buying the workbook and it was the BEST decision! :)

I am working level 2 with my fourth grader and we also do day one and two on one day, day 3 on another, and day four on another, and then we move on and start it that way all over again. So we don't really go the Mon., Tues., Wed. route. Each lesson, or day takes us about 10 minutes. (So on Monday that's about 20 minutes) The day we do the dictation may take a bit longer as if the dictation is long, I prefer to do a studied dictation. But it's one of those things that we do and move right along. It really doesn't take that much time at all. :) Dee ps We did start this (WWE) a few weeks ago and we are on week 12 chronologically, but on week 7 of our WWE. Since I am trying to complete our curriculum in a 36 week time slot, we initially started this schedule so that we could catch up, but I may just keep it this way and either speed up or slow down as we see fit. :lol:

I have to admit after putting two daughters through Powerglide Spanish, that Rosetta Stone is lacking in the syntax and grammar. I am finding myself pulling out my Powerglide Spanish to explain when to use certain words to explain the masculine and feminine. It is a bit frustrating at times. It's almost like they skip point A in Rosetta Stone and go straight to points B,C, and D. We'll see as the program progresses. I was expecting more in the way of grammar.

You know, most times I correct the spelling as he's writing the dictation, but lately I'm more interested in that he keep the thought in his head since that is the basic premise of the program. I always tell my son beforehand to look at any words that may be difficult for him and if he misspells them that that's okay, we can correct them and move on. I give lots more praise for remembering the sentence/phrase than I do for the spelling. I try not to make it so much about spelling since we do a dictation program for spelling already. I have noticed that when I'm relaxed about the spelling, he relaxes as well, and I make comments like "That is okay, that's a difficult word to remember." Or I'll say something like "It's okay baby, it's not really about the spelling, it's more about remembering the sentence." I noticed little things like these can set the tone for the rest of the lesson and lessons to come. And always, I'll say, "Great job on remembering the sentence....or a specific spelling, or a punctuation." Always start off the lesson really positive and end it with praise. Some boys need this more than others. HTH, Dee ps An example. Today my son spelled "ponies" as "pones." I decided not to stop the rest of the dictation since they were two pretty long sentences. He went on to spell everything else correctly and there were words in there that we haven't even touched upon in our spelling. At the end of the dictation, I realized he actually remembered both sentences and only misspelled "ponies" so I took his paper and said, "Wow, you did a great job remembering those two full sentences and you only have one little error." I had him look at the word he misspelled and he instantly said, "Oh, I know, an i goes in there...I was planning to go back, but I didn't want to forget the rest of the sentence." I told him that that was fine, he made the correction, and I told him how pleased I was. We put away the book for the day and he had a smile on his face.

I would start a 7 yr. old in level 1.

I think you can start level 3 with no problem. My son passed the level 3 test, but his spelling needed lots of work and it had been a while since we had done this type of narration/dictation work, so I decided to put him in 2 and it was the best decision I made. But my son just turned 10 in the fourth grade. I think that you are safe to go with 3 and you can always slow down a bit if he's having difficulty as opposed to it being too easy and dull for him. Just my humble opinion... Dee

I didn't read the rest of the posts, so sorry if this is repeated. I wanted to share with you that my son used to read very well, but spell horribly. He is definitely mildly dyslexic. A trait that has been passed down to a few of my kids from their father's side. This child NEVER got or understood phonics, and still doesn't. He successfully completed 3 Sequential Spelling books and still spells "beginning" incorrectly. He also successfully finished all 8 level of Megawords and that combined with Sequential Spelling really did help. Some children just never grasp phonics, so I had to show my son mneumonics (spell? sorry) and little tricks. He still struggles with i before e after c, no matter how many times I've told him the rule. Luckily, your daughter is still young. There is time to remediate, and improve her spelling. My son is now in highschool and has improved a lot, but he will never be a great speller and that is okay. He still reads classic literature, loves books and can articulate many things very well. I have found many men in my adult life that are not great spellers, yet they are still the main breadwinners of the family and support their families just fine. Your daughter will have specific bents and gifts that will surpass her spelling abilities. I once read that Dr. Robinson of the Robinson curriculum wrote that his children were all pretty bad spellers, yet these kids are considered geniuses with almost perfect ACT and SAT scores. Many of them are scientists. I would work on the most commonly used words by a third and fourth grader and just start holding her accountable for learning how to spell those words in her writing. (start with about 5 a week and build them up to a comfortable pace) Also, start praising her for the words that she does spell properly--even if they are only a few. I used to get hung up on all the misspelled words, until someone on this board pointed out that I should start praising him for the rest of the composition words that were properly spelled. That was huge! He started to like the rewards for the properly spelled words and tried really hard to start to spell well. I hope this helps a little! :) Dee ps Please forgive all of my errors as I am typing this at lightning speed while my son is working on his Easy Grammar (right next to me, of course :))

We used the multiplication memorizer kit. You can see it at CBD. It teaches mneumonics, but the numbers are always the same character in each set, so it's not that difficult to remember. We really liked it and used them for such a short time because my son memorized the stories quickly and he did retain the time tables. (also, extremely visually appealing as they only use two colors, blue and red, and there isn't a lot of graphic on the page) That being said, I did also use games and flashcards from Mastering Mathematics. We really loved those. But yes, normal flashcards and skip count memorization works just fine. ;) Dee

I think having your daughter write it out as copywork first is a great idea...one that I may apply myself. My son is a fourth grader and we are on lesson 4 of WWE 2, but are doing two to three lessons a day when they are easy for him, in order to catch up to our chronological week. (week 11) I may use the more difficult dictation passages in a more CM style by having him do a "studied" dictation instead. Make the program work for you. In the end you will get to the same place and your daughter will mature in the process. Blessings!! Dee

I dictate 4 sentences daily from Spelling Plus Dictation. He works one to two lessons a day in WWE level 2, and he does 1-2 written narrations (a week) either from history, science, bible, or whatever literature he's presently reading. I do plan to add letter writing, but not until our second semester. :) Dee ps I sort of do a mix of SWB and CM at the same time. While I love the short and more concise summaries of SWB, I also like when he writes richly detailed written narrations. I see skill in both and don't want him to lose the ability to do either.

Agreeing with the other poster that "They killed the goose" is a perfectly good sentence. My problem is that my son won't use pronouns, so he is constantly saying, "Patchwork girl jumped over the water" or Pathwork girl did that (just an example). I tell him it's okay to say, "She jumped over the water," but he refuses to use pronouns. Go figure...:lol:

We started using NIRV, and now we are using KJV. You can use any version that you would like. We only use the worksheets, not the T.M. It works fine for us. :)

I hope I didn't scare you off. We have a little rhythm going and our lesson takes 10-15 minutes each day. We only do a page a day so far. I understand what you are saying, though. My son has independent history and science subjects. (the dreaded paces :)) He does very well with those. The rest we do together, but those two subjects make my life so much easier. I remember Ellie saying that WRTR included everything, even grammar and writing. Can you just do the grammar lessons from there for a year or so to sort of streamline?

I am not a morning person, either, so that's okay! :) Thankfully, my children are, and I have trained them to get up, get dressed, make an easy breakfast and start their school. It takes time, but it can be done! :) I am not human until way after 9:00. :lol: My suggestion is Easy Grammar. I used it with my older ones and didn't have such a great view of it because they forgot everything very quickly, so I thought it was the curriculum. After a few years under my belt, I've realized that the problem was me! (I was simply handing them the book on their own) This time, I'm doing Easy Grammar with my fourth grader and our results are going to be very different--already are. I'll tell you why...I sit down with him and our white board. I explain the lesson. We do sample sentences on the white board before the actual lesson. We do the first sentence of the assignment together, and then and only then, do I let my son go off on his own. I also check immediately after to make sure he really got it. I also made a copy of the prepositions to have beside him in each lesson. A few times of this and he has already memorized them or can find the prepositions very easily. I also made little flashcards that he puts together at the beginning of each lesson. An example of our flashcard is: Subject and on another flashcard it will say, The Who or What the sentence is about. He has several and puts them together in the beginning of our lesson. He thinks this is fun and it has kept everything he's learned, thus far, fresh. I have learned that there are things that I have to teach and grammar is one of them. Simply handing him the book will produce exactly the same results it did with my older daughters. Of course, I have also learned that a little review every day goes a long way. Dee ps I'm not saying you simply handed your children the book:). I'm saying that this was one of the reasons I had previously posted that I wasn't crazy about EG and its results with my older children:tongue_smilie:, and now I'm posting that I think it's a good choice for you and your children. :D

I just discovered this for the first time the other day. I'm interested in using it eventually with my highschooler. Has anyone used this and would you please share your likes and dislikes about it? Thank you and Blessings!! Dee

We tried it in the 8th grade and loved it!!! I have saved all of my Winston materials for my next son! We went on to do Winston Word Works and Winston Grammar Advanced. We didn't enjoy WGA as much as Winston Basic as there we felt that we needed more direction than what was offered, but we still got through it, but Winston Basic, we just LOVE!!!! :) I don't know why, but I think Winston appeals more to boys than to girls. :tongue_smilie:

THIS from the woman who just about has me forking out $100 for WriteShop?! ........................................................................................................ Me too! :lol:

Put all your math curriculum away and purchase this book at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00305GV1E/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0471042420&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1FQ0WZWR2EZ4H3DBS1Y8 I had to put all my programs away and use this book for my son in the first and part of the second grade because he was so frustrated no matter what I purchased or how I presented the math. I tried this book and it changed my math hating little boy to one that could not tolerate and look forward to these easy lessons with uncluttered pages. I spent no money on manipulatives, but made flash cards with index cards, and used dry beans for counters. This is a full 2 years of math for about 8 dollars and he addresses anything that will show up on tests. It really teaches the parent not to move on until the child has mastery of what was taught previously. The truth is that most math books have way more than children are developmentally ready for. Just in case the link doesn't come out right, it's called, Math for Your First and Second Grader, by Steve Slavin. HTH, Dee

Thank you to everyone who responded. I realized there are reasons for doing it both ways. I'm going to take some of the advice posted here and actually try to take an hour or two and see if I can work out a plan where I can integrate it into what we are already doing. I'm going to give that a few weeks to see how that goes before actually shelling out the big bucks for the workbook. I really appreciated all of these responses! Blessings!! Dee :lol:

What does a week of writing look like in your house? Does it take too much time to pick out what your child will narrate and dictate from-the right literature? Please share how you do it? I'm sort of in between wanting to buy the workbook, or just working from the textbook and choosing my own topics of narration and dictation??? Thanks for any help, Dee

just posted mine... http://www.chosenthatgoodpart.blogspot.com Have a blessed weekend!

Well, if you asked me, I would say the schedule. This year we have a great schedule and we stick to it very closely and finish school very early, or close to the same time every day. When I asked my little one, he said that he was loving his Easy Grammar. We are using an old teacher's manual for the older edition 3/4. I think he likes the challenge and loves to tell me what he knows as far as sentence construction. This has been a surprise since he didn't actually start out loving this, and I was even thinking about omitting it. Goes to show, everything needs to stay for at least a quarter before you make any decisions about changing...but yeah, I'm loving the schedule. It's made homeschooling seem almost too easy at times. :lol: When I asked my eldest 10th grader, he says his Algebra 2, and Fallacy Detective. He loves that little logic book! :auto: