Oooh. Sheppard Software was our BFF for this. My kids had to learn the states & capitals back when we were doing Classical Conversations, and this was SO painless. SBP

We started this week and haven't hit a dud so far, but the thing I'm currently in raptures about is Rainbow Science. It's exactly what I was looking for, and the kids seem to like it, too. They did their first experiment today, and they set it up by themselves, did it by themselves, and then cleaned it up by themselves. Oh, and I'm pretty sure they learned something. Pardon me while I swoon. And the best part... when you fork over all that money for the experiment kit and they tell you it comes with everything you need for experiments, it really, truly does. No more running to Wal-Mart looking for three pipe cleaners, twelve buttons, two shoestrings, eleven nails and all that other stuff that people supposedly have around their houses, but I never seem to. (Have you ever tried to buy three pipe cleaners? Can't be done. You can only buy about 200 at a time, and then you use three for the experiment and spend the next four years finding the other 197 in random places around the house. Except when you need one for an experiment, at which point they've all disappeared completely, and you go back to Wal-Mart and start the cycle all over again.) So, yeah. Rainbow Science is what I'm most excited about. :D SBP

To me, the beauty of HST is in being able to enter everything for the year into the Lesson Plans, and then transfer individual lessons over to the assignment grid week by week as you need them. Admittedly, it makes for some hours of mind-numbing data entry in the summer, but once it's done, it makes the weekly planning SO easy - about 30 minutes, usually, with little or no gathering of books. I just move the next three lessons, or five, or two - however many we do in a week - over to the assignments. If I'm reading your post right, you're entering lessons weekly directly into the assignment grid, and I agree that there's really not much advantage, doing it that way, to just writing it out by hand. Only you know what will work best for you, but if you're not already using the Lesson Planner, I would encourage you to try it with at least a couple of subjects, just so you can better take advantage of the features HST offers before you make a final decision. Best of luck to you :) SBP

Personally, I wouldn't have wanted to grade the student pages without the teacher's guide. It would have defeated a lot of my purpose in using them, which was to make my life easier. I used the teacher's guide as an answer key. SBP

Well, I'm not sure since I've never had one of the expensive ones! I can tell you that I'm on my second Home Depot white board. I tossed out the other one when we moved our school room from one part of the house to the other and I needed a slightly smaller board, but at that point we'd been using it for about five years. I certainly felt I'd gotten my $10 worth out of it :). It might not have been as shiny and white when I threw it out as it was when it was new, but it was definitely still functional. For cleaning, I use either the Expo cleaner or a paper towel dampened with alcohol, and that seems to get any stubborn marks off. HTH! SBP

:iagree: This describes us exactly. The idea of filling all those workboxes every day makes me want to curl up and die. Seriously, I'd last a week, tops. And even if I attempted it, I can't figure out what I'd do about the fact that my children are in the same grade in most subjects and share the same books. No WAY am I buying two of everything just so they can each have books in their workboxes rather than having to go to the shelf and get them and then return them to the shelf when they're done. And I haven't read much of the filing thread, but I gather that it involves planning and filing every single thing your kids are going to do all year long? Yeah, I'm not doing that either, even though I can appreciate that it would be convenient sometime in February when I really, really, really don't want to sit down and plan the next week. (Actually, I'll probably hit that point in September. This is my eighth year homeschooling and the planning bloom is pretty much off the rose for me.) But HST+ is perfect for us. I have everything entered in the database, and I can plan each week in about 30 minutes if I need to. The kids get a daily printout of what they need to do, and they know how to use it. It calculates grades for me, which is something we're doing more of lately, and it keeps my records for me with minimal effort on my part. The data entry each summer is a grind, but it's SO worth it on that dreary, aforementioned weekend in February when I just want to get the next week planned without much fuss and bother. It's what works for us :). SBP

Mine is on the wall rather than a stand, but I just had Home Depot cut a piece of shower board for me, and then I framed it out myself so that it would look a bit more attractive. I think it all came to about $25 and I have enough shower board left over that I can make another one if I ever need it. You can see it in the school room pictures at my profile if you're interested :). SBP

Here's ours: Math - Saxon 8/7 Language Arts - MCT Voyage Level Literature - Lightning Lit w/historical fiction added from WTM lists, Sonlight, etc. History - K12 History Odyssey Science - Rainbow Logic - Critical Thinking (finish Book 1 & begin Book 2) Latin - Latin Prep Bible - Christian Studies, Book 3 And that's all I can think of right now... SBP

Great way to put it! We spent a year "messing around" after RS, too. We did some BJU (hated it), some of the "Keys to" books, some LoF, etc. Mostly I was biding my time until he was ready for ChalkDust Basic Math, which we tried for half of this year (6th). I loved CD and don't consider it time wasted, but my son just wasn't retaining with it at all. He was holding his own on the chapter tests, but each successive cumulative review was a bigger and bigger disaster. Finally, I switched him to Saxon, and I think we're settled there for a while. My kids just need the continual review that Saxon provides, and the way the lessons are set up - beginning each day with a mental math warm up - actually brings back fond memories of my beloved RightStart TM ;). So if I had it to do over, I'd have just gone straight from RS to Saxon, but if you have a child who does well with a mastery approach, I think ChalkDust is a great option, too. It just didn't work for my particular child at this point. Best of luck to you in your search. RightStart is a tough act to follow! SBP

...but if you do it absolutely silently, it's ok. :lol: I don't have time to read all the comments right now, but thanks so much for posting these. Nice to have a chuckle in the middle of the morning! SBP

Reading/phonics instruction is one of the things I wouldn't change at all if I had it to do over again. 100 Easy Lessons when they're 3/4 years old, followed by Spell to Write and Read (or similar) once they're reading pretty well and can write a bit. SBP

We started this years ago, when my dc were maybe 5 and 6 years old, and we got into the second level of poems (along with a couple of fun ones from the third level that we just wanted to do) and then got so swamped trying to keep up with Classical Conversations memory work that I let it fall to the wayside. We never bought the CD. I made my own CD's for awhile, and sometimes I'd let them record themselves saying the poems, which was always fun. Anyway, I didn't regret paying the $25 or so for the book, and like Abbey, I found it a much better fit for our family than the Harp and Laurel Wreath. I now have preteens and we're no longer doing Classical Conversations. The Pudewa poetry anthology has been on my shelf for several years. But after seeing all the glowing reviews here, I recently broke down and bought several of the MCT language arts materials, including "Building Poems." And yesterday, when we were discussing meter, I asked the kids if there were any poems they remembered that they wanted to try to scan, and they immediately started calling out the poems they'd learned when they were 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. "Let's do 'The Tyger'"... "No, let's do 'Stopping by Woods...'" And the cool thing is that they remembered every word of these poems. And while we were scanning "The Tyger," my DD10 said, "Hey, what does this poem really mean, anyway?" So we talked about that, and I actually got to pat myself on the back a little for doing something right all those years ago when we memorized those poems. Because now the kids view them as old friends. They're not intimidated by them, any more than they would be by "Humpty Dumpty". This is exactly what Pudewa says will happen, and it's exactly what TWTM says will happen, but it's still somehow sparkly and special to see it happening with my own kids. Especially right now, because frankly, homeschooling "tweens" gives me a whole lot more bang-my-head-against-a-brick-wall moments than it does pat-myself-on-the-back moments. So that's my overlong .02, and having written all that, I think we'll go back to memorizing poetry :). Best, SBP

:iagree: We lasted about six months with it back in the second grade. I felt like we were about to slip into grammar-induced comas every time I brought it out. But I passed it on to my sister, and she loved it and has continued to use R&S very successfully for years now. I think it's a solid program, but it definitely wasn't for us. SBP

We've had several duds over the years. A few that stand out: Explode the Code workbooks - too busywork-ish. I couldn't tell my ds was learning anything at all from it. We switched to SWR and were much happier. Rod & Staff English - we tried this in second grade and all nearly died of boredom. The switch to Shurley was a good one. Latin for Children - hated this. Not nearly enough practice for my kids, and we tried it in the early days when there were a considerable number of errors and discrepancies between the TM and the student books. Since I never had Latin, this made grading a chore. I assume they've resolved most of the errors in subsequent editions, but it made for a poor first impression.

Just to muddy the water... have you considered Shurley? Because I wanted a program with diagramming, I switched to GWG after doing Shurley for three years. GWG is ok and is teaching the diagramming I wanted, but we still use the methods we learned in Shurley every single day. For some reason, it just seemed to "stick" better with my kids than GWG does. And I believe that AG uses parsing along with diagramming, so the parsing you'd learn in Shurley would be a good foundation if that's the direction you ultimately see yourself heading. And - to answer your actual question ;) - I don't have experience with R&S or FLL, but GWG is very, very easy to teach and use. A little busy-workish, sometimes, I think, but I do think the Student Manual is clearly written, and I really like having the workbook. I'm not jumping up and down about it, but it gets the job done. Hope something here helps :) SBP

This might not be what you were asking for, but last year, I was doing just what you are doing and I finally came to the conclusion that the only way history would get done TWTM way around here was if I had some help. The second level of History Odyssey was the closest thing I could find, it was affordable, and honestly, it's done everything I hoped it would except get my kids excited about history. (To be fair, though, I doubt they'd have been any more excited if I'd done the planning myself. After four years of snuggling up together with SOTW, outlining from Kingfisher just seems awfully dry.) BUT, they've learned to outline. They're keeping a timeline. They're writing about important people and inventions and places and organizing their own notebooks. They're doing map work. And even though I don't think we'll stay with HO next year, I don't regret doing it this year because I can see that they've become so much more comfortable with those skills, and having it all planned out for me was just bliss. Good luck with your planning! SBP

I've enjoyed reading through this thread so much. Lately, I've been struggling with the feeling that by the time I finally get this middle school stuff figured out, my kids will be finished with it and there will be no one left to benefit from whatever I might have learned. Anyway, this is what I've done/am contemplating doing. My children are basically sixth this year. (DD would be fifth if she were in PS, but I've always combined them in everything except math. This is the first year that she's struggled and I've questioned the wisdom of that.) Sixth Grade Growing with Grammar 6 Daily Grammar Practice (just starting this b/c DD isn't retaining well with GWG) IEW methods for composition assignments Caesar's English I for vocabulary. Latin Prep I (again, DD struggling and lagging a bit behind) History Odyssey - Level II Ancients, with many WTM literature recommendations added Saxon 6/5 for DD & have just switched DS to Saxon 7/6 after doing half a year of ChalkDust Basic Math. I ADORED ChalkDust, and he seemed to be learning lots in each chapter and holding his own, but he was blowing the cumulative reviews big time, and I could no longer ignore the fact that he just wasn't retaining what he was learning. It wasn't wasted time by any means, but I'm hoping that the continual review in Saxon will work for him as it has for DD. I'll truly miss Uncle Buck, though. *sigh* Christian Studies by Memoria Press The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way by Joy Hakim, with some TOPS books and other hands-on science added in for experiments. Critical Thinking is done in an informal co-op setting using a variety of different materials. The next couple of years are still hypothetical, but I'm tentatively planning on the following for seventh and eighth grades: Continuing Growing With Grammar along with Daily Grammar Practice, and maybe for eighth grade just doing the DGP and handling grammar as it occurs in their writing. Continuing with Caesar's English II and then Word Within the Word. Continuing with the Latin Prep series Continuing with Saxon Math. Tapestry of Grace for history, lit, geography, etc. I need something with teacher helps at this level. I'd love to read every word of everything they read, but it's just not realistic right now. Rainbow Science Critical Thinking series. I haven't really looked hard at the TOG writing yet, but I suspect we'll continue to use IEW methods for composition just because we're all comfortable with it at this point. And that's all I have for now, but thanks to all who have posted their plans! SBP

Yay! Thank you so much - that's the one I was looking for. :001_smile: I'm off to give it a good look, and in the meantime, if anyone has any recent experience with Daily Grammar Practice, I'd love to hear how it's working for you. Thanks again, Kim :001_smile:. SBP

About a year ago, I remember seeing a little flurry of posts from people who were using a supplemental grammar resource that I *think* presented a single sentence per week, and the kids spent the week picking it apart, diagramming it, etc. IIRC, it seems like the publisher had one line of books with sentences taken from the Bible and another with more secular sentences. I'd love to take a look at this again but can't for the life of me remember what it was or even enough about it to do a board search on it. If someone recognizes it from my admittedly vague description and would point me in the right direction, I'd truly appreciate it! SBP

We didn't "abandon" it, exactly, but when we finished BB1, I didn't elect to go on to BB2. I felt like my kids were learning pieces but weren't learning to put them together. I wanted a program with more translation exercises (we'd done Getting Started With Latin at the same time as LL, and I really liked the translation they did there) that still addressed grammar. We went to Latin Prep this year, and it's exactly what I was looking for. We're not moving through it very quickly, and in fact, my DD10 had to stop, back up, and repeat a big chunk of it because it just wasn't clicking with her. My DS11 is holding his own, but it's a mental workout for him every lesson. SBP

I think this is great advice! My son had a similar fear the year he turned three. We made the mistake of telling him that Santa was going to peek in at him to make sure he was sleeping, and he was so appalled at that idea that he told us that he didn't want Santa to come and hadn't really been very good anyway! So we left a note on his door asking Santa NOT to peek in at him, and that relieved his mind enough that he was OK with him coming in the house. After that year, the fear subsided and we never heard about it again, though he never was one of those kids who wanted to go sit on Santa's lap. DD couldn't wait to see him, and DS thought the whole idea of sitting on some strange guy's lap was just awful. We never forced the issue, of course - just took DD and let her talk his ears off :). Best, SBP

I'm a Carmex addict and almost always have a tube somewhere on my person. I don't mind the regular stuff, but my kids prefer the flavored Carmex, so we usually have a tube or two of that around. For really bad chapped lips, I put a thick coating of Carmex on them at bedtime, and usually by the time they wake up I can see big improvement. SBP

Off the top of my head... Lizzy & Darcy Scully & Mulder Harriet & Peter

I'm an extremely happy owner of a "designer" dog (a rescue) and don't think they're the root of all evil in the dog breeding world. There are certainly unethical - even criminal - breeders of mixed breed dogs, but there are also plenty of unethical breeders of pure-bred dogs and plenty of careless, irresponsible people who simply let their animals wander around and breed at random. I find it all deplorable, frankly. I second (or third, or whatever) the suggestion of contacting a rescue organization or using Petfinder. The people who foster dogs really seem committed to making a good match between the dogs in their care and the families to whom they adopt. They will be able to give you a realistic idea of the dog's temperament, energy levels, and coat. You might not be able to get a puppy - not sure how important that is to you - but for me, knowing the temperament is the most important thing. For some people, it might be knowing that the dog isn't going to be a big shedder; with mixes, that can be really difficult to predict with a puppy. Anyway, I wish you luck in whatever you decide and hope you find a dog who fits the needs of your family :). SBP

The hubby and I looked through these together recently and laughed until we cried! :lol::lol: SBP