I think this would work. I am speeding my 11yo through CC Fable and then CC Narrative this year. We'll finish the year with CW Homer Accelerated, so he'll be ready to start 7th grade in Diogenes. He started the year with 12 weeks of WWS. I agree with the other posters that skipping WWE 4 is fine, assuming your child is doing well with writing summaries and taking dictation. SWB said you could skip WWE 4 and go on to WWS, so adding any amount of CC will only help. WWE 4 is really just more of the same as what's in WWE 3. My 9yo son who is currently doing WWE 3 will probably do CC Fable and CC Narrative next year. For 5th grade, I think he'll be well-prepared to go into either WWS or CW Homer.

Thank you, Ruth. I really appreciate your comparison of Herodotus with SWB's rhetoric recommendations. Now we just need to know about Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Demosthenes! And no, I don't expect you to do that review, though you're very good at it. :) How much of Kane, Weston, and Corbett would you say remain to be covered after a student uses Herodotus? I am awaiting the arrival of those first three but won't be buying Herodotus for a while, as we're just about to start Homer. I'm curious to know what to expect from the last three CW books for this to fully replace the self-study SWB has laid out. Also, if we follow CW as I understand the schedule, we'll have 12th grade free for other writing.

Thanks for posting these, SaDonna. They are great examples. We are doing Lesson 3 this week, so I may show your first post to my son after he does his writing. I think it helps him, too, to see other ideas.

We're only 10 weeks into 6th grade, so my plans for next year will adjust according to what we get finished this year. Here's what I'm thinking he'll do for 7th: Math: MUS Pre-Algebra, LoF Decimals & Percents or Pre-Algebra w/Biology (depending on whether he does D&P this yer) Grammar: Rod and Staff 7 Writing: Probably Classical Writing Homer for Older Beginners. I plan to skip Aesop because we're about to start Classical Composition Fable and will then do Narrative this year, as well. They cover the same skills as CW Aesop, as I understand it. Alternately, there's a chance we'll do Writing With Skill. Word Study: Vocabulary from Classical Roots. He'll be finishing Book A and then do Book B Logic: I don't remember what I decided. Discovery of Deduction, I think. I'll have to go through my notes. Foreign Language: may still be finishing Lively Latin 2 and then will probably start Henle. Art: Artistic Pursuits 4-6 Bk 1 (drawing) History, Science, and Literature: This is our fourth year of homeschooling, and we've been following a 4-year-cycle history and science plan. Next year, though, I plan to step out of that cycle. I have had lots of ideas, but right now I am thinking we will do a child-led unit-study approach. I will let each of my boys choose something they want to learn about, and I will choose some topics, and we will have fun. I'll be sure that we cover some history and some science topics. We'll also read books from any time period -- whatever we couldn't fit in to the past four years. I might encourage my boys to delve more deeply into ancient Greece and Rome, but I haven't decided how we'll cover ancient times the following year, so I don't know yet. Also, we'll study biology in 8th grade, but my boys love animals, so I know we'll be studying about them some next year. I also want to do some real Nature Study, so we'll be easing into our biology/ancients year.

It took me two nights to read this whole thread, but I am glad I did. I have learned and re-learned so much and see many options for more study. Thank you to all those who have asked and answered questions, especially to Ruth. It was worth your time! You've done us a great service this week.

It doesn't have to be consumable. There are quite a few pages that ask the student to underline or circle words or write in the margins. For that, I'm kind of wishing I'd bought the PDF. Then I would have had my son read the lessons on the computer and would have printed those consumable pages. But, when I asked here, I was told there were very few pages with such instructions. I should have looked closely at the sample before buying the hardcopy. In the first 15 weeks of lessons (through page 208), I counted 33 pages the student is expect to write on, plus the appendixes, which should be pulled out and placed in the student's notebook. That's way too many pages to legally photocopy. I sometimes consider buying the PDF, too, as I intend to use this with all of my children. But so far, I have had my son do these parts orally, or he has written on other paper when possible. Either way, we are keeping the book clean for the four younger brothers. If you need just 2 copies, you might want 2 student books or one book and a PDF to print select pages. I'd go with the latter, as it's maybe a bit cheaper and seems so wasteful to write on so few pages of that wonderful book and ruin it for use by someone else!

Have you looked at Cursive First? It's available here but is separate from SWR. You can copy the loose-leaf pages over and over as much as your child(ren) needs. It has been great for my sons who have used it so far.

Thank you to everyone who gave so much time to answer my questions. I have learned a lot and am excited to apply this knowledge and get started with CC and then CW. :001_smile:

Roxy, I like this scheduling idea. I'm anxious to get started and to see what will work best for us. Thank you for starting this thread. I am glad you found your writing programs and think I have, too!

Good to know. I'll try to be ready to try a variety of schedules.

That sounds like a good idea, Heather. I haven't looked into the CW poetry books yet, but I plan to soon.

I just PM'd you before I saw this. I was wondering whether you'd skip Narrative to go on to Homer. Without Narrative, will it be difficult for a student to go beyond the very basic use of the figures of description?

Excellent. This is just what I needed to know. I was thinking Narrative and Homer were at the same level of the progym so wondered why we'd need both. I am happy to hear all 18 figures are in Fable itself. And I'll watch for that formulaic writing. One more thing... is there a lot of instruction for how to use the figures of description? There doesn't appear to be much in the sample lesson online for Fable. Is there more in other lessons? The figures of description are online with some examples of what they are, but I assume there is more in CC? Thanks!

So you do 4 days of Homer one week and the next week 4 days of Poetry?

This is good to know. So if I wanted to speed things up, I could just do half the lessons. In the interest of not wasting money, I think I'd want the regular IG and student book to reuse with younger siblings who won't need the older beginners route. After using WWE, does a student still need to go through Aesop? Or could they jump into Homer? How about CC -- can Fable replace Aesop? (or Fable and Narrative) Thanks.

Thank you 1Togo and Cleopatra for repeating yourselves. This is taking some time to sink in here, and I appreciate your hand-holding. We are only through 10 weeks of WWS, as we started our new year in November, so I don't feel like it's too late to make some big changes if I hurry.

Thank you so much for your insight, Cleopatra! The details you provided are very helpful for me to decide. I'm going to take a close look at WWS and CW this week. Would you agree with 1Togo that A/H for Older Beginners would be a good place for my older son to start?

I would love to do this, if I can find a way. Is this 5 days/week?

Thanks for the response, 1Togo. I was originally thinking of switching from WWS to CW and still am considering that. I am glad to hear you don't see the need to do both. But to make WWS more challenging for my son requires a lot of my time. We've also been skipping things and rearranging lessons to make them correspond with other things we're studying. I understand CW will require a lot of my time, too, but is that for me to tailor-make assignments for his level or just to teach what is already there? I need to do more research, obviously, to see what will be best for my son. Again, thank you for replying.

I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I'm hoping some are still paying attention to it, as I'm seeing great info here. I came here looking to see whether I should switch my 11yo son from WWS to CW (and if so, which level). Now I'm wanting to do both! I just don't know how we'll fit it in. Does WWS really offer skills not found in CW? My oldest son did WWE1-4 in his 4th-grade year, and last year he did just WTM-style writing and Writing Strands 3. It's all been too easy (I realize now I should have used a higher level of WS), and he is a strong writer. Now with WWS, though I love the idea and all it teaches, his writing is not as good as it was last year! Too much focus on the mechanics and organization and just getting the assignment done. He is very creative and prefers less structure in every subject, but he does well with science and history narratives. I've started having him read WWS and use those skills to write about whatever we're studying in history or science, and that's helped. In one assignment a few weeks ago, he was supposed to choose events from a list to write about someone (Alexander the Great, I believe) and then form the list into a narrative. Instead, he read about someone we'd been studying in history, he wrote a 2-level outline (I'd taught him only 1-level outlines), and then he wrote about the man from his outline. His writing in that was much better than it had been in previous assignments. If there were a second level of WWS now, that might be my answer because using a program written for 5th grade seems to be holding him back. But as there isn't, I'm looking for something else at a higher level. From what I've seen online, I think CW would be more challenging, though he could do it. I just don't know about doing both CW and WWS. If WWS is easy, could my son do Homer A and B this year, too, and then Diogenes next year? Or should I use the Older Beginners level? (I like Heather's idea of integrating WWE/WWS with CW. WWE is VERY gentle. Is CW Aesop? My second son is writing-phobic. He's doing well with WWE 3 and his history and science narrations (which I usually still write). Would CW Aesop be a big shock?) In reality, I can't fit in much more, but because WWS is so independent and my son wants something more challenging, we could switch to CW Homer and possibly keep WWS, too. I'm not concerned about my ability to teach CW now that I've looked at it a little bit. I'm just struggling with time management in general with a baby who still nurses every 2 hours night and day and won't eat solids (yes I should be asleep right now), as well as the other boys. But I owe it to my oldest to help him with his writing. He's considering writing as a career because he loves it so much, but he's not loving WWS. Sorry if this is less coherent than it ought to be. Ideas? (Oh, and my plan is to stick with Vocab. from Classical Roots, which takes very little time, no spelling program, and continue with Rod and Staff 6, which doesn't take much time.)

We use both. We just started LoF this year. My son in Zeta is doing Fractions and Decimals/Percents this year. Son in Gamma will do A-E, I think, of the elementary series. They do LoF independently 2-3 times/week. I don't line up the work. They still do MUS 5 days/week. My son in Alpha hasn't started LoF because I don't have time to do it with him. He can start in a year or two, when he's ready to do it alone.

Thanks, SaDonna. That's how we've been using the sample, and it's been OK, but not perfect for us. I should have said I'm not using it with 5 at once! I just want to be able to use it with all 5 of mine eventually so won't be writing in the book itself! And using the PDF on the laptop is fine with my son, because he likes to get more computer time, but he can't find anything in the book and really needs a hardcopy. So, I'd be printing the whole PDF and getting a comb or spiral binding (more expensive than buying the hardcopy in the first place). It would be worth it to me to print the PDf if we're going to have to write on lots of pages. If it's just a few, I can copy them from the book and not violate copyright or have too much inconvenience. Anyone else have an idea of how many pages need to be printed? Or SaDonna, how far have you gone through the book, and is it one page or less per week that you print? Thank you!

For those of you who have done lots of weeks of WWS (we've done just 6), are there a lot of pages the student is supposed to write on? For example, they underline and highlight one day in each of weeks 4-6. Is there a lot of that? I'm still waffling about PDF or workbook (I need to use it with 5 children). Thanks for any insights.

No problem. We're late starting our school year, so my son just did that lesson today. Then, because we're using a block schedule, he started the next lesson today, too, and asked for that list. He figured it must be something else because the directions referred to an appendix. Maybe your children will recognize it when they see it. :)

in the sample, it's in the student book. week 4 day 4.