Yes, I may print a few of the free ones as well...

I think it's going back. I think we are going to notebook our way, in a very simplified manner...just a small narration, and a picture if my son wants to draw. I got the experiments and I think that will be plenty, but I just wanted to know if anyone else felt the same way. I mean, they are pretty, and surely if you are going to notebook, they seem economical, but we could do without the crossword puzzles, and some of it just seems like we would never get to. Dee

:iagree: Ingenious!!!! Nope nothing bad to say about it, I love, love, love it!!!

My 11 year old could not have been able to tell me what that meant, either. LOL! I'm not sure that it wouldn't have taken a minute or two for my highschooler to come up with an answer. What I do when things are worded that way, is change the wording for my son. Instead of asking, What does that mean? I will say something like, "Now you see baby, this is just a fancy way of saying that a person needs to know how to write a good essay so that he's successful in writing in the future." I think your son is fine. Sometimes it's hard gauging what our children should be doing, but I bet he's progressing just fine. You are doing a great job! Don't get discouraged. Remember to teach to them. Reach them...change, rewrite, omit, add, do whatever you must do to reach him at his level right now. And of course, remember the basics are the only thing to really stress about at this level. It's better that he master the 3rd grade math and move forward, than be at his actual grade level and be struggling. My 11 year old just started producing some writing this year and I have had to model a lot of it for him. One of the things I have loved about IEW (but this works for every type of curriculum) is that Andrew Pudewa says you can never help a child too much, especially in writing. If you have to write the paragraph for him and have him model it by copying it for a while, that will be fine. Trust me, he will learn how to write a paragraph before he leaves your home. There is no better place for him than right there where he is, with a momma that loves him so much that she would do anything for him! (((((Hugs))))) Dee ps I have a son who is mildly dyslexic and I thought this child would never take off with writing. Well, he did! He also took off with math and my then math hater (hated math until about the 5th grade) is now a math lover doing Pre-Calculus. I would never have thought it possible, but God is good and faithful!

You couldn't even swap if you tried. The company has strict rules where only the actual purchaser has a user's license to borrow the product for his/her family. You have to call, give them the actual codes, the information from where you purchased, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. I didn't know this when I purchased mine from CBD. If at least you purchased from Rosetta Stone, you have 6 months to return it if you are not satisfied with the product. Sorry...I was disappointed because I was expecting to use it and then sell it when we were done for the year. This was to help me purchase my next year's program. It was a disappointment for us, but the program is good, so that helped. I just wish that I had known before hand and I didn't. This has been my biggest purchase to date, a little over 300 because we got two levels. Dee ps on the good side, my computer did crash this year and their technical team was able to get into my system, from all the way over there (freaky how they can do that) and fix the problem. We lost all our grades, but at least they reinstalled it. I had to provide them with codes, and the place where I purchased it. They had it on record where I got it from already. (again, freaky) I'm not a techy or computer savvy at all.

I don't think I would have been able to pull off All Things Fun and Fascninating if I had not watched the SWI with my son. It made everything so much clearer. There are units, like unit 4 where you are writing from a source/sources and fusing an outline...I know I wouldn't have even understood this lesson without the SWI, so yes, either one will do, an SWI, or a TWSS.

I wish I could get my highschooler to write that well! :) Great Job, Satori!!!

Thank you so much!!! This was exactly what I wanted to know. While I definitely am planning on purchasing the MPE book--for all of us to read and learn, I think I'm going to save that for his own personal reading and not as a course. He will probably read it before entering college. I think I'll still use the workbook from Larry Burkett, and the Charting Your Course for the actual teaching on personal finances. He is going to have some other heavy courses, and I want him to have a few lighter ones to balance everything out. Blessings!!!:lol: Dee ps no final decisions yet, but this is where it looks like it's going. It may change once I order the books and have a look at them here in my hands. ;)

Would you please share with me a little how the lessons are laid out--with the lesson plans that come with the program. Is it set up to be read daily, weekly??? Is is separated into an 18 week course? Are their directions on how to go about presenting the program and when to use each book? And overall, what did you think of the course? Of Money, Possesions and Eternity??? I just realized that this is a 500 page book and is quite meaty. Any opinions, experiences, or advice is welcome. I'm looking at this and Charting a Course in Youth from rodandstaffbooks.com I'm thinking that Charting a Course may be better directed towards youth, and that MPE may be better directed towards an adult??? I could be wrong... Blessings, Dee :)

April/May Not too late, my son added your votes in his poll! It was good to have another Wonder Woman;) Thanks so much!

Thanks everyone! That's enough for what we need. I wasn't sure how to do the poll and then I didn't want to write down the choice of only a few superheroes and have everyone pick from those, I preferred to have people give me their own as there are too many to list on a poll. Blessings to all! Dee :)

My son needs this for an assignment. My favorite superhero is Spider-Man! Thank you for your help! Dee :)

This is our tentative plan for the 6th grade... Math-Ace School of Tomorrow Spelling-Either continue with Spelling Plus or switch to Spelling Workout Science-Zoology 3 from Apologia History-Up in the air...either Mystery of History, 6th grade Ancient History paces, or a Civil War Unit Study??? Just not sure... Writing-I think we will continue with IEW because my son has done so well with AFF and everything else in comparison seems like going back, not forward. (probably the ancient themed based writing) Literature-reading list and several read alouds by mom :) Grammar-Easy Grammar 5/6 (the older books because I like them better and I found them dirt cheap on Amazon) Bible-Christian Liberty Press study-- Book E and our own studies (maybe the GOAL book from Simply Charlotte Mason) Logic-Building Thinking Skills Book 2 (almost done with book 1) Art-Artistic Pursuits and several online resources As you can see there are several decisions that are still up in the air, but sometimes it really just helps to write it all out.

He followed all the rules! Excellent work! :)

Thank you so much for these great samples, Boscopup! This looks great! Another one to consider, most definitely! :) Dee :)

Thanks, Catherine. I am interested in SWO as well. I will probably have to have it in my hands before making a final decision. :)

I actually think this was pretty good for a fourth grader who wrote this all on her own. One thing I have learned using IEW is that you can never help too much. Andrew Pudewa actually challenges parents to help as much as possible. Here are a few suggestions and mind you, I'm no writing expert, but basic suggestions may help. This is the completed paragraph: Insects are bugs with six legs. They eat plants or other insects. Most insects live for only one year. Their bodies are divided into three segments. Their segments are the head, thorax and abdomen. conversation with you and daughter... What are you talking about here? Insects So how do you feel about them? That they are interesting, or fascinating. Great, that would make a good topic sentence. This sentence will tell the person reading your paper what your paper is all about. So how about, Insects are fascinating creatures. They are bugs with six legs. They eat plants or other insects. Most insects live for only one year. Their bodies are divided into three segments. Their segments are the head, thorax, and abdomen. Now anyone reading your paragraph knows from the very first sentence what your paragraph is going to be about and how you feel about your topic. How about we add a closing sentence. This sentence will sort of clean the paragraph up, or neaten it up, and let the reader know that your paragraph is done? This closing/clincher sentence should sort of restate or talk about (reflect) your topic (your first) sentence. How about... An insect's abdomen is located at the back of his body making him/it a most unusual creature. (unusual can be fascinating or amazing--repeating fascinating from the topic) Here's the final paragraph, let's read it together and see how that sounds. Insects are fascinating creatures. Insects are bugs with six legs. They eat plants or other insects. Most insects live for only one year. Their bodies are divided into three segments. Their segments are the head, thorax and abdomen. An insect's abdomen is located at the back of his body making him/it a most unusual creature. Wala. You have a nice paragraph now with a topic sentence, a few sentences to support your topic and a closing/clincher sentence that restates or reflects your topic. Work on only one thing at a time. Later on when she's written many of these, you can add interesting adjectives, adverbs, or sentence openers, but let her get comfortable doing a few of these types of exercises first. You can also work on having the sentences in her paragraph be a bit more specific in reference to her topic, but this will come the more she writes. Hope this helps, Dee (who only made these suggestions humbly as I am learning to teach my son the IEW way)

Thanks Blackmadori and Angie, I will consider all that you've written. :) Angie, I love the name of your son, Zane! Z names are so kewl! My son's middle name is Zaire...:) My son is a good speller who usually just takes a pic of a word in his mind and remembers it, but I know that spelling lists increase in difficulty in the 5th and 6th grades so I was sort of wanting him to have a stronger base when he gets there. I'll be taking all of what you gals have written into consideration... Dee :)

Thanks everyone! It would definitely be too expensive at this point to start from number 1 and work our way up to 5 because of certain rules. I guess I'll be looking into something else or staying with our current method. 40x5= too much right now. Yikes! Dee :)

How long does this take you? or How long is a day's lesson? Does one level last all year or have you gone through two levels in one year? Is this working any better than any other program you've tried? And anything else you would like to add??? :) Thank you so much, Dee :)

The only thing I remember copying were full questions and answers in our English program.

This is terrible! I feel so bad for you. I'm so sorry that this has happened. Is there any way to dispute it through paypal or something else. How did you pay? Can you inform the bank? I don't understand why a company would have such terrible practices as these...

Which did you choose and why? I'm undecided whether or not to get the Zoology 3 journaling pages or use the free ones from Apologia??? Please help me decide... Dee :)

I plan to get the TM because it has dictation sentences that we plan on using for dictation.

I know Timberdoodle sells their products now. It could be that they are out of town right now during the holiday season, but still, I understand your frustration. I hope you get it worked out really soon!