I agree with this completely. It sounds as if your daughter feels she is the queen of the castle and she can do anything or have anything she wants. She needs to go back to a regular room and you need to take back the master bedroom and put a lock on your door, if there is not one there already. I also agree with pp about taking everything away from her and having her earn it back a bit at a time. You are clearly going to have to get tough here to make her understand what she is doing is very unacceptable.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. We'll give it a try then and see how it goes. I think I would feel more confident if I had watched the instructor's DVD first. Other than WWE1 and 2, which they mostly enjoy, this is their first class that will really have them doing some writing and I'm worried that I'll do something that will make them hate it.

I was planning to start SWI-A with my two sons on Monday but have yet to receive TWSS. It may not arrive until around the 15th (ordered used on Amazon). I already have the instructor's notes, student notes and SWI-A DVDs. For those who use this, would you recommend I wait until I have TWSS and have a chance to watch the first part before beginning SCI-A or go ahead and start with what I have?

I'm still trying to work it out. We are getting ready to start 3rd grade work on Monday so I don't have much time left. AAAHHH!

Thanks so much Amy! This is so helpful. I will definitely check out these links. I appreciate your help.

Thanks Amy, that is very helpful. I don't have the teacher's manual nor do I have the student materials. I only have the student DVDs. Maybe I should order these first. That would likely shed some light on the situation before I spend the big money on the instructor's DVDs.

I have not yet gotten the instructors DVD set but I am thinking I will. Before I do though, I have a question. I purchased the SWI-A DVD's on sale at a resale shop. I sat down to listen to the first lesson yesterday and I though it would never end! I couldn't believe that this group of kids were doing all of this in one sitting. I read in a different thread that some of the lessons were 40 minutes long. I didn't time this one but I really thought it was longer than an hour. Maybe I was wrong. I kept watching because I wanted to see what work he would assign them but it took so long that I finally gave up and turned it off. If you have used SWI-A, could you tell me what the first assignment is? He kept talking about them meeting again "tomorrow" so it seemed this was one day of teaching and they were meeting again the next day. Could someone describe the first lesson? This seems like it is something that would fit us very well but I would like to understand it a bit better before I spend that kind of money. My two sons are 8YOs (as of end of 9/30 and 11/11) and are getting ready to start 3rd grade in January. They have completed WWE1 and WWE2 but have yet to really do any of their own writing, other than one or two letters and thank you notes.

Have you been using this approach for very long? Long enough to see results? How are you scheduling them together?

Thanks for explaining how you schedule it. I will definitely have to take it slow with them and I am perfectly fine with that. It is very helpful to hear how someone else has handled it. I think we will take breaks between W&R lessons to do Killgallon sentences and WWE3.

Thanks for the response soror. We have done lots of reading aloud and the boys read a lot also so hopefully that will help. I think I may just go ahead with the 3 week sample and see how it goes.

I really like the looks of this and want to use it with my two sons (recently turned 8YOs - end of Sept and early Nov). They have finished WW1 and WW2 and also FLL1 and FLL2 however, from reading multiple threads about W&R, I don't think they would be quite ready to do Fable yet. They did the dictation in WWE2 fine, although one of them had trouble with remembering many of the passages, especially the longer ones. They are pretty good with narration also. They are not solid on doing their own writing. I have been following WWE2's instructions and writing it for them and then dictating a sentence or two back to them. I have written their history narrations for them also. (I'm not quite sure how to transition to having them write their own. Suggestions are welcome.) One son has had trouble with writing, is in OT for it and is improving but the other is quite capable, I just have not been sure how to go about transitioning. As for grammar, when we were going over the end-of-book review lessons in FLL2, they were not able to easily pick out some parts of speech, although they knew the definitions and had memorized the lists. FLL has not covered subject and predicate yet nor the various sentence phrases. So, my question is what do I need to do to get them ready to do CAP's W&R? I just purchased Killgallon's two books for elementary (sentences and story grammar). I was in the process of considering a purchase of IEW's DVD course for teachers and also the A level course for students. Now I'm not so sure about this direction. Any advice on what I should use to get my two sons ramped up and ready for W&R?

Wow, this is all great information! Thanks so much. I will check in to some of these further.

Thanks so much for this. I didn't know they had this and it will be very helpful. Going to find them now.

There are just so many choices of where to go with this. And I really find it hard to tell if something would be right for us until I have it in my hands and can really look it over. I can see spending a good deal of money trying to get this right.

Thanks Boscopup. Did you like IEW and did you get the teacher's course also?

What have you used or are you using for 3rd grade composition? I have two recently turned 8 YOs (end of Sept and early Nov) and we are finishing up WW2, after also having used WW1. I already have WW3 and they enjoy the narrations so we will keep using it but I feel the need to diversity a bit. I have been reading tons of old threads about writing and have been reviewing CAP's W&R along with products from Classical Composition and IEW. I'm a bit overwhelmed. What are you doing / have you done for third grade comp?

I was hoping you would say to start in level 3:). I think I will do that. I can bring them up to speed pretty quickly if we encounter something we have not covered or that they do not remember. Thanks everyone!

I am finishing up FLL2 with my two just-turned-eight-year-old sons and we did FLL1 before 2. After reading and reading prior threads about CLE Language Arts, I am thinking of trying it, since they like and are used to CLE Math. I have looked at the placement test and, since they have not learned the diacrititcal phonics marks, I think they would probably end up placing in 100. For those of you with experience with 100-300, should I just start them from the beginning or what do you think?

Harry Potter is creepy and so are all of the Twilight type of books/movies. I can't even stand to watch the previews. Cooking is one of my least favorite things to do. I can't stand the smell/taste of yogurt. I don't care for the taste of any kind of alcohol. I don't like the taste or smell of coffee. I am not current on popular music or tv shows. I haven't watched/listened to either in the last 15 or so years. I don't know who most of the celebrities in the above threads are. Never heard of most of them. I like to listen to talk radio when I am in my car. I like my minivan and have no desire to trade it in for an SUV. I like junk food and Pepsi and have a hard time staying away from them.

If I had it to do over again, I would search on line for proper posture and positioning to make sure I knew what to look for. My son's first teacher did not stress proper positioning. I always wondered about it and worried about it and I would mention it to her and she just acted like it would come. After 2 years, we switched teachers and the new guy was very particular about posture and positioning and he had much better ways of teaching it also. It was very difficult for ds to take this step backward to work on posture and positioning so long before he could start moving forward again. The other thing is that I had to take notes and help him practice every day. He was 7.5 when he switched to piano. Although I miss the beautiful sound of the violin, the piano practice fits into our schooling day so much easier because he can do it on his own while I am working with my other ds. I also love the sound of the piano and he is picking it up very quickly so that is nice.

Sterling Illustrated Classics version of Treasure Island, illustrated by Robert Ingpen, is on it's way to my house:). I am so looking forward to reading this to my two sons. They are going to love it. These are the most beautifully illustrated classics!

My two sons are almost finished with AAS Level 2. I was planning to switch them to R&S Spelling's 3rd grade level. Has anyone transitioned from AAS to R&S spelling before and, if so, were you able to stay at the same level? I suppose I should look for a placement test:). If anyone has already btdt and could save me the trouble, that would be great. Thanks! nm...I did a google search and found my answer:)

Thanks to everyone for the reassurance. I already have FLL3 so we will definitely move on to it soon. In the meantime I may download the free version of Grammarland for fun. Good to know that they will get it soon and this is normal. thanks!

Has anyone else had this problem? We are very close to finishing FLL2. My two sons have learned the definitions of the parts of speech and also the various lists, including the list of prepositions. We just covered a lesson where they were to identify each word in a short paragraph. They were soooo bad at it. It is clear they have memorized words but not internalized meaning. They can identify nouns and action verbs much of the time but that is about it. I'm thinking they probably just need a lot of practice of picking out the various parts of speech from sentences. We may spend our time doing this for the next month or two, before starting FLL3. Does anyone know quickie worksheets I could print out for this or a workbook? Any other suggestions?

thanks for the feedback. sounds like I need to stick with MIF and see how it goes.