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Hi,
We are doing Bigger with my 7ds and 10ds. The 10yr old is doing the history/bible/poetry/art portion and his own things for the other subjects. I'm now looking for suggestions on a writing curriculum for the 10yr. old. We started Writing Strands awhile ago, but it's not going very well. Does anyone have something they love for writing? Carrie, what do you use with your older child?

Thanks,
Katie

I was kind of curious about what Carrie is using for all of the subjects for her older child(ren) as well. I think I remember her saying that she's using Teaching Textbooks for Math (don't quote me on that ), but I don't know about the writing part. Carrie...

I like the looks of the Jump In program put out by Apologia. It's meant for the middle school age group (6th-8th).

Nancy

Katie,

It is so hard to find a writing program that we love for the age you listed! We did the writing lessons out of Intermediate Language Lessons for grade 3 and 4, which we actually did like fairly well, yet there wasn't much guidance in the lessons. We did not use the grammar portion of ILL, as it required much discussion with me.

If you are using Rod and Staff English on grade level, or one grade below then there is more than enough writing in there. However, since we switched my oldest to Rod and Staff after going through several other programs that didn't stick, we are "behind" in Rod and Staff (meaning the writing lessons were not quite enough).

Then in grade 5, we did Institute for Excellence in Writing Level A, doing it only twice weekly. We liked it fairly well, as Andrew Pudewa is quite entertaining. But, this year in grade 6, as we moved on to Student Writing Intensive Continuation B, we hit a wall in January. It was just way too formulistic for my very creative first-born and seemed to be sucking the life out of writing for him. So, we paused. Not to mention it was incredibly expensive - $200, which I cannot justify spending on writing.

We had been wanting to use "Igniting Your Writing" which we really love (and carry), but we were waiting until my son could do it independently, as teacher time is at a premium here, so that's why we did IEW SWI- A and now IEW- Continuation B (on DVD).

All of that to say, we will be writing our own writing lessons into "Preparing..." twice weekly since we are unable to find exactly what we want for the age 8-10 range. We do like Igniting Your Writing the best still for grades 5 or 6 on up, yet you need a child old enough to work through the lessons independently (or you need the teacher time to work with them).

Susan Wise Bauer's new book "Writing With Ease" (which will be out the end of May) does use an approach that appears to be closer to a Charlotte Mason approach to writing than most, yet it looks as if we have already covered the writing skills she will be using in her Year 1 and 2 in "Beyond..." and "Bigger..." through oral narration, questioning, copywork, and studied dictation. It sounds like we also will be covering the skills in her years 3 and 4 with "Preparing..." through oral narration moving to written narration, dictation, questioning and continued copywork. We will take another look at Susan Wise Bauer's next level of Writing with Ease for grades 5-8 when it comes out, however, it appears that will be quite some time in coming.

I'm sure this was not helpful, but writing is one area where there is precious little that is good for the younger years. So much is twaddle, and we have looked at, or own, just about every option out there!

If your kiddo is not quite up to "Igniting Your Writing" and you don't have writing covered with Rod and Staff, you could do Just Write Level 3. It does a pretty good job in applying the different forms of writing in a worbook form. It does have a couple of semi-controversial topics close to the end of the book. But, it is worth a look.

Blessings,
Carrie

Nancy,

We have taken a good look at Jump In and have a tough time with quite a few of their topics that seem very worldly and better left to be discussed with a high schooler. The examples given have some very grown-up themes that make the book hard to use with the target-age kiddos (as most homeschoolers are trying to keep their children from those very topics until we choose to introduce them at a later age).

As far as what we use with our oldest son (grade 6 this year), I am so eclectic that I put his school together bit by bit in most subject areas. We have followed Ambleside online's year 3, 4, and 5 for the history and literature study suggestions quite closely the last 3 years. It works well for my first-born but certainly isn't for everyone. It does require more tweaking as we go up through the years, due to content in the books. Prior to that we used Sonlight's Core 1, 2, 3, and part of 4, but I ended up tweaking it so much in the end that you could hardly call it Sonlight anymore.

We have run the gamut in math and have him in Teaching Textbooks 6 this year for math. He is actually enjoying math this year, which is a relief. His strengths are definitley literature of all types and creative writing so it's nice to see his enjoyment of math come along too.

He's just begun Rod and Staff English 5, after going through 4 slowly to get all that we missed in our previous grammar tries which just didn't stick.

He's also doing a living book science study with books I put together along with experiments, etc.

I love to put things together for my oldest son and see them fall into place (or fall apart) . But, I must say I am relieved to have our guides written that I can pick up and use with my other kiddos as they come up. I can honestly say their education is more stable, thorough, Biblical, and enjoyable than my oldest son's has been.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks Carrie! I'm looking into Igniting Your Writing. I'm sure I'll love your writing instructions for my younger son when we get to Preparing.

I'll be honest and say we don't really do any writing in our house.
*ducking under the chair*
I did buy the Igniting your writing for something to try, but mostly I've let them get by with the comics they draw, the letters to grandma and to pen pals, the copywork, the handwriting. I do have a little book from CLE about writing, but my boys are allergic to pencils and writing.
I'm actually hoping that the writing program will be easier to incorporate "real" writing into our school day. I generally say when it comes to composition class, we are unschoolers.