My son is finishing up his 3rd grade and we have used WWE 2//3 this past year. I listened and watched Susan Wise Bauer discussing teaching writing to grammar-age children and liked everything she had to say. But trying to teach classical-style writing skills (narration, dictation) to my son, who is a natural writer already, has been challenging! I still think those are valuable skills to learn, but I am curious as to why WTM also recommends Writing Strands, which is a completely different approach to teaching writing. Would WS be a better fit for my natural-writer son? But would something be lost if he no longer did narration/dictation? I am wary to do both as I fear we will be overloaded but do some of you do both? Would love your responses!

Halcyon, I had 3 of those exact kinds of rolling carts! The bottoms have all broken and fallen apart due to the weight of our books. =) I have back issues and that is why I'm trying to avoid the tote bag approach... The rolling suitcase is a good idea, though! I may look into that idea! Thanks everyone, for the input!

So I have destroyed 3 rolling carts now from lugging my books back and forth to the library every week and wanted to know if anyone has any suggestions for something more durable that has worked for them! I really need it to be on wheels but want it to last! Anyone have suggestions? Thanks much!

We're almost all the way through OPGTR; we did adapt it to work for us and I didn't always use the book's scripts or poems. I'm glad in hindsight for the systematic way the program proceeded; it also ends up covering all sorts of variations to the phonetic rules that I was never even aware of myself! (such as the way "r" changes the sounds of vowels so that the -ar in "car" is neither a short, long, or 'ah' vowel!) It's a great way to start the process of learning to read, but I will say that by the end of the book I am realizing how many variations there in English words due to it being so influenced by other languages, and it's impossible to always remember all the rules! But it definitely helps get the kids to start the reading process.

I've totally slowed down with my blog posts and this one is barely up in time! One more month for us, hoping to survive through to the end! Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Thanks for the responses, everyone! Good to know that my son seems to be in the normal spectrum for boys. =)

I have an 8 year old son who is a rabid creative writer. He has always loved to read, but this year his interest in writing stories has taken off. He has tens of thousands of words already written and more on the way. I am a writer, but primarily non-fiction. I don't exactly know how to encourage him in this area. I don't want to kill his joy in writing, but certainly he could improve in some areas. Should I just let him enjoy the writing and not try to instruct him in this area? Also, his writing contains so much...action/adventure/fights/blood/even death. Nothing is overly gory, but I wonder if I should be asking him to temper all those battles and such??? Or is this all just normal fare for boys?? Would love any input and advice on how to help and encourage him! Thanks in advance!

Saw this in the NYTimes today and thought it interesting as I had no idea how much cursive usage has declined among youth! I for one am committed to my kids learning how to write cursive and am happy to encourage them to do so. (My kindergartener was so motivated to try it this year after seeing his brother write in cursive, and he has progressed well overall, which has been fun to see.) Anyway, I thought the hive would find it of interest! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28cursive.html?_r=1&hp

So appreciating that others are saying this is a difficult skill to master, especially that Week 35, Day 3 assignment in WWE2! I'm scared that they get harder in WWE3! But we will continue trying to persevere. I am going to go look for that YouTube video now! Thanks everyone, and would be happy to see more thoughts!

No, I haven't seen that YouTube video, I just saw the one where she describes the overall writing process for the grammar stage. I will go look for that! Thanks, everyone...it is reassuring to hear other people's experiences!

My son who is 8 has such a hard time with dictations. He is an excellent reader and loves to write creatively, but trying to do some elements of the WWE process is sometimes maddening. We started homeschooling when he was in 2nd grade and used CW Primer last year, so we have backtracked with WWE so he is actually finishing up WWE 2 right now. Sometimes I have to recite the sentence to him way way more than 3 times for him to remember it. We were trying to do the "challenge" sentence today and it nearly killed us both. Any suggestions on how important it is that they remember the whole sentence by memory? Does he have to do it all from an aural listening of the sentence, or can I have him look at the passage first (he is a visual learner so I think this is particularly difficult for him.) He gets all frustrated that he is "bad at dictation" because it takes so many times to be able to repeat the passage. And I have no idea if he is supposed to be able to memorize it all by this point. He can memorize other things fine, such as Bible verses for AWANA, but these dictations are another story. I believe in SWB's overall process in teaching children to write, but these dictations are so hard for us. I don't know where I can be flexible...Help!!!

Is there already a thread started? I didn't see one after going back a number of pages. It's so rare that I start this thread I'm surprised! Apologies if another one is wandering around! Here is ours, after an unusual week with a birthday and a couple of Chicago trips to stir things up! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Week 25 for us. Can't believe we're nearing the home stretch! Where has this year gone???

We are up! It's all about the 100 Day Celebration this week! =) And Spring Break next week, woo-hoo! Hope everyone had a great week!

Could this be possible? I don't think I've EVER started a weekly report thread! If another one is out there, I apologize...but if not, then I'm excited to finally be the first! =) Our report is up, although it's less a report of what we did this week and more a report of some of my current questions. I wonder if there are fewer questions the longer you homeschool??? Look forward to seeing other people's reports this week!

It has been way too long! Our report is up, link in signature. Lots of paint! Look forward to reading everyone's posts to be inspired and amazed as usual!

bumping! =)

So, after using Classical Writing Primer last year, I decided to switch to Writing With Ease for my 3rd grader this year after hearing a talk Susan Wise Bauer gave about the writing process, which seemed to make sense to me. I went back and started using Writing With Ease 2 since my son hadn't had tons of experience with narration and at times this year we have struggled with it. But at the same time, he is a strong reader, an avid creative writer, and so sometimes I've wondered if I am doing the right thing with either using WWE or with keeping him in WWE2. Today, I decided to let him just write out his narration instead of verbally expressing it and having me write it out, etc. He seemed to do much better writing it out himself than having to verbalize it first like usual. So my questions are: 1) should I just have him write out his narrations instead of verbally expressing them first? Is there value in having him orally summarize if he can do it in written form? 2) Should I just skip WWE2 and jump into WWE3, or are there other skills that perhaps we should master from WWE2 and thus keep going through it? (We are in week 23 right now.) I looked at IEW, but I just didn't click with it. I may still use Classical Writing. Just can't decide what will be best for him! Any advice from the Hive??? Thanks so much.

We have been busy, but not entirely with school! Our report is up, although we haven't quite gotten into the full swing of things. Well, there is always next week, isn't there??? =)

I just found this infographic about homeschooling online. Thought you all would enjoy taking a look at it. Enjoy! http://dailyinfographic.com/homeschooling-by-the-numbers-infographic Advent blessings!

We're back up with a post after being waylaid post-Thanksgiving with illnesses (me, mostly!). We have THREE MORE DAYS before we are finally done for 2010! This week's report features a good amount of paint. =)

I have an 8 year old son who recently has become motivated to do his own creative writing, separate from school. (As we use Writing With Ease, I haven't intentionally encouraged any creative writing for him this year, so this has been on his own initiative.) My issue is that I don't know how to evaluate the writing he's done. Ironically, I myself am a writer so that is what is making it even more challenging to evaluate (although I am a non-fiction writer up to this point, not a fiction writer.) His writing is very boy-ish: lots of action, battles, sword fighting, etc. Not much character development! He's just making the plot up as he goes along, but he already has written about 7,000 words so far. I should have signed him up for NaNoWriMo this year but didn't realize he was going to get so excited about writing! Anyway, I have no idea what is appropriate to "teach" at this age, and what I should be expecting him to be able to do. I want to keep encouraging him and not be a downer, but I also want him to improve in this area if he has some aptitude in it. Any suggestions from the Hive? I'd love some pointers or suggestions! Thanks much!

Ours features strong eggshells! Off next week for the holidays, catch you all in a couple of weeks! (Link in signature). Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Let's see if my blog link actually works this time! S. America was the focus of our week and I can't believe we are through ten weeks now! The year is flying by. Prayers for you and your daughter, Daisy...keep us posted!

I have an 8 year old boy who has been evaluated as being gifted in language arts and math. We are using Singapore 2A right now, and I feel like we are going slower than we should because I am insisting on seeing him reach at least 90% on his tests to be able to go to the next level. He knows and understands the concepts, BUT he keeps making careless errors. I have tried all manner of incentives and encouragements to help him try to be more careful, to no avail. Are my standards too high? Is it natural for an 8 year old to make these kinds of errors and should I just keep going if it's clear he understands the concepts? I'd love some insights on how to address this issue!!! Thanks much, Hive!