Your #1 - that's exactly why I tried HO! Now I feel much more confident that I could actually do it, and do it well (or at least well enough!:tongue_smilie:) Your #2 - Wow, that would really help me! I would probably buy it for next year if they had a decent teacher's manual. This year I've felt like if I'm going to keep referring back to WTM for instructions on outlining and literature suggestions/questions and such, why bother buying a program? Although, HO has helped to actually get.it.done. by having something already laid out for me. Your #4 - I think I sometimes enjoy the planning more than the doing;). I'm hoping if I get all the planning done over the summer then next year I can sit back and enjoy history with my kids. We all love reading aloud and discussing. Plus, if I made it, instead of paying good money for it, then I feel better about skipping or hurrying through or slowing down as family needs and dc interest-level dictates. Another thing I realized this year about me and my teaching style: I just like workbooks for certain things. I just don't care enough about vocab or spelling to spend a ton of time planning it. So, we'll be switching to more workbooky "do-the-next-thing" stuff for LA and math (which I hate teaching!) so I can concentrate my effort on the things I enjoy and things where the kids are really struggling instead of planning out every subject for every kid. It's all well and good to find just the right program to fit each dc's learning style, but realistically, I'll be schooling 4 next year and if it doesn't work for mom's teaching style, it just isn't going to work for our family.:rolleyes: Okay, enough random thoughts.:D HTH

I'm not sure exactly what you want to hear:confused:. I was so surprised this morning to see my name on a thread;). Anyway, I'm happy to tell you what we've done this year. I also have a schedule on my computer that I'd be happy to send you if you pm me your email address (I don't know how to do attachments through the pm system). So, at the beginning of the year I bought HO level 1 & 2 planning to use those then discovered that they didn't line up chronologically. So, I spent some time lining the lessons up. I matched the level 1 lessons to the level 2 lessons, following the chronology of level 2. It didn't take me long to decide I didn't like level 1 and I basically dropped it. I used the books I had purchased for it (like Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors, etc). I found it was easier to just look through the SOTW chapters and AG (which I already owned) and line it up to go with HO Level 2. Since this is my olders first exposure to Ancients (they both started in ps) I decided to have them sit in on SOTW with ds7. Dd4 sits in just because she wants to.:) Lining up SOTW with HO Level 2 has worked for the most part. What I have done is to begin our history lessons with all 4 dc and first we read the SOTW chapter (or chapter portion) then do the narration questions orally. I give dd4 the first chance to answer then ds7 (SOTW is really for him). Then, I send the olders off to do their HO lesson while ds7 gives me a narration for the SOTW section which I write down for him (he writes in other subjects...). (This applies to me and my situation only, I'm not trying to bash any curriculum or tell anyone what to do! You asked what I do and why so......use what you like and discard the rest). I learned a couple of things this year: 1) I'm just not that impressed with History Odyssey. It seems like I spent money to have someone write out the recommendations from WTM and apply them to individual page spreads in KFH and align them by geographic area rather than chronologically. I can do that myself. 2) HO give the kids assignments ("include this in your timeline section, write a 1 level outline on these pages and file in your summaries section, take a trip to the library and research Alexander the Great and write a report about him for your men & women section," etc. etc.) But, there's no real instruction on HOW to do the assignments.:001_huh: There's no answer key for the teacher and no examples of what an outline should look like or what a biographical report should look like. This has been hard to teach from. 3) The lessons on the literature selections say something like this: "Begin reading Greek Myths today. Try and read 2 chapters a day until you're done. Be sure to put your summaries in the religion/mythology section of your binder." :eek: There's no reading comprehension questions, no discussion questions, nothing. What, exactly, are they supposed to be learning by this assignment?? And, do they wait until they have finished this book before moving on to the next assignment?:confused1: 4) I really do enjoy planning history. I've tweaked all year and added in a lot (the literature suggestions in HO were good but there weren't nearly enough, imho). But, I think regardless of what I buy (I used SL core 3 and then core 4 the first two year I hsed and I added in literature to that!) I will still tweak and add to, that's just the kind of teacher I am and I can't help myself:tongue_smilie:. 5) The kids seem to do okay understanding going from region to region rather than chronologically, but I think I would prefer a chronological approach. So, I think I'm going to spend the summer lining up K12's Human Odyssey (which I really like) with SOTW Middle Ages using WTM recommendations for literature. Next year we'll do that with IEW Medieval Based writing lessons (we've been doing SWI B this year) and writing assignments based on SWB's writing lectures. (Man I wish she'd just come out with the logic stage writing program already!) I think I'm going to try to mesh literature/writing/history all together next year and see if I can't get the kids doing more writing that relates to their literature and history and take less time overall because writing is a "seperate" subject, kwim? Let me know if I can answer any more questions or if you want my schedule line-up of SOTW chapters and KFH pages with the HO level 2 Ancients lessons (no use reinventing the wheel, it took a long time!). Okay, I really hope these ramblings were in some way useful to you!! Ancients has been a lot of fun this year, we are going to spend this week doing a couple projects on Greece and finishing up reading about it in the K12 book and then it's off to Rome!:D

Capt_Uhra, Happy Easter! I'd be glad to respond to this but we are out the door right now.....just wanted to let you know I finally saw it and I'll write back later today!:D

I've been doing this with HO Level 2 Ancients this year. I plan on just doing history a la WTM next year but just in case that doesn't work I'd love to see what others are doing with Middle Ages!:D

:iagree: This is also what I do. We've done History Odyssey Ancients this year (trying to mesh level 1 and 2. Finally chucked level 1 and I just matched up the SOTW chapters with the HO lessons so youngers and olders could be on the same time period). It works. Although, next year I'm going to wing it and try to use SOTW and k-12's the Human Odyssey as my spines and follow the WTM recs for history. We'll see how that goes....

I wouldn't differentiate between full and half days.... If we do math and at least one other subject I call it a day. Or if we go on a field trip, that's a school day, too. (We spent a week in DC going to museums and I counted it as 5 days of school).

I absolutely *loved* not being involved in the day to day teaching of math. That really solved a lot of problems in our homeschool. But, I would caution you to set aside a time at least once a week to go over the lessons with your ds and make sure he gets it. I found that taking mom out allowed problems to go unnoticed for too long. That's easily solvable if mom stays on top of things (I didn't). Overall, TT7 and TT6 did the job for my two. But, we've switched to CLE this year and I *love* it so far. They are still mostly independent (I have to correct) but they read and learn themselves. And, I know if there's an issue and I can immediately assist. Just my experience for whatever that's worth!:D

excellenceinwriting.com They have a great themed book on Fables and another called "All Things Fun and Fascinating" that look like a lot of fun, stories and such, more creative than Jump In.

(I actually have both I need to sell, pm me if you're interested:D). Have you had your dc take the pre-algebra placement exam? If so and they don't pass it then I would recommend TT7. Last year ds in 4th grade did TT6 and dd in 6th grade did TT7. They covered most of the same topics but TT7 went into more detail and depth. HTH!

It would be fun to see pictures when she's done:D.

You're welcome! Tell her to have fun with it.:D

How about a report (visual or paper or oral) on something she's interested in? Something related (or not) to what else you guys are doing? Something she can research and do mostly on her own? Is there something you just never have time for that she's always wanted to do? As I look at your siggy it looks like you're covering everything important so why not let her "play" for awhile? Just a thought!:001_smile:

After reading this, my gut reaction is to say "Whatever!" to the teacher just like my kids sometimes say it to me.:tongue_smilie: I agree with Colleen, discussion at this age is critical, workbooks can be irrelevant busywork. I recommend the questions Colleen referred to in the WTM. Also, I would highly recommend letting her read some of her books next year just for fun! Talk about them (what she's liking best, or least) but that's it, no worksheets, no reports, no analysis. It sounds like ps has taken all the joy out of reading for her. I wouldn't require every book she reads to become a chore. If I had to do worksheets after each chapter I'd quit reading, too. And I'd do the absolute minimum to get by. It sounds like your dd has just learned coping skills to get by. My opinion (YMMV) is to just let her love books again. Just my 2 cents for whatever it's worth!:D

Saxon is a very thorough, solid program that works for a lot of people. Constant review and the spiral approach are what a lot of kids need. But, other programs have this, too. However, if you see signs that your dc is hating math, you may consider switching. Saxon is just drudgery (in my oh so humble opinion;)) with all that black and white and the millions upon millions of problems....... If it's working for you, don't worry what other people think of it, it's a solid program! But, don't be afraid to change if it begins to bore or overwhelm your dc. Every kid is different. HTH

Dropping Saxon saved our homeschool! Literally, it was tears and frustration and conflict for all concerned! (7/6 and 6/5 and Saxon 1 for 6th, 4th and 1st grades). When we moved and had to give the Saxon back to the charter school we had been using the kids had a party and I promised to find something new. We used Teaching Textbooks for the olders last year and MUS for the younger. Wow, peaceful homeschooling, who knew that could happen??:tongue_smilie: Of course, it turns out that TT was easy for the olders but they didn't learn a whole lot from it. So, this year, after a very brief stint of Lial's BCM (which they detested even *more* than Saxon, I didn't think that was possible!), they are now loving CLE math!! I love it too. It's self-teaching (at their ages) and easy to grade and in short enough bites that they don't get bogged down. Love it!:D:D The youngest is thriving with the mastery method in MUS so he'll stay with that until a change is needed.....Why mess with a good thing?

so I'll explain myself;). I just finished reading "Deconstructing Penguins" and was really, really impressed with how simple it can be at this age. Reading real books and narrating back and making it a fun "mystery" (discussed in Deconstructing Penguins) is more than enough. Making it a mystery meaning discovering who is the protagonist/antagonist and if the author "cheated" in making us (the reader) feel a certain way by writing with a slant, etc. etc. I can't really explain it well, it's too far past my bedtime:tongue_smilie:. But, I highly recommend getting Penguins from the library and seeing what you think before purchasing a reading program. Just my 2 cents!

Ds7 has just a few pages left of book 4. This is the first time I feel like we need a 1/2 book. I'm going to do a little phonics review from Phonics Pathways with him and then see if he still needs more on syllables (the focus of book 4). If so, we'll do 4 1/2 before moving on to 5. I would not buy any 1/2's unless or until you need them. I get the feeling most people don't need them. HTH

Can't really help with the spelling, we have tons of struggles with that here. But, my ds7 has worked through WWE 1 and is now in week 15 of WWE 2. We are doing them at double speed since we started WWE 1 in April of 1st grade. So, we do Week 1 Days 1 & 2 one day and Week 1 Days 3 & 4 the next day then Week 2 Days 1 & 2 so by the end of a calendar week we have covered 2 1/2 weeks. In WWE 2 the weeks are set up a little differently so we are covering Days 1 & 2 on the same day then Day 3 by itself and Day 4 by itself. Hope that makes sense. Ds does *not* like to write things down himself. WWE is working great for us, I have seen a huge improvement in: 1) his willingness to write things down (still doesn't like it, but will do it) 2) his summarization/narration skills 3) his reading comprehension and recall of what we've read 4) his spelling -- he still can't spell it himself but he can tell when it's wrong -- this is a huge improvement from our pre WWE days. Whether that improvement would have happened on its own just from growing up or not?? I don't know. But, it has happened and I'm grateful for it!:001_smile: Hope this is at least a little helpful. I highly recommend WWE. It has really helped my son recognize properly written sentences and his comprehension skills. I have every confidence that as we go through the program he will get to the point SWB talks about. Basically, I see it working in the direction it was advertised...so I recommend it.:D

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:bigear: Not to hijack;). But I'm looking specifically for literary analysis terms and such, more than comprehension questions.

:iagree:We have never done state history as a subject. We're a military family, we've lived in 8 different states since my oldest was born and we still have 9+ years to go in the military. So, probably 3 or 4 more moves.:001_smile: The great thing about hsing is that everywhere we move we take advantage of the museums, outdoor stuff, local culture, etc. Tons of field trips. So, I feel no need for state history. Currently the state we live in requires 1 year of state history between 6-12 grades. We won't be here long enough to hit 12th grade so I figure if the school district were to ask I could honestly say that we're not covering it now but we have 5 more years to get to it;).

Thank you. You are, as always, very knowledgable and generous with your skills, I really appreciate that!