Brainstorm Homeschool Planning for 2024-2025 II HELP ME pick Homeschool Curriculum II

Keep in mind that Good and Beautiful levels are not equivalent to grade levels. Level 4 is a huge jump in terms of the amount of work. My daughter is an advanced reader and loves writing, but even still doing it for 5th grade we had to spread the lessons out over 2 days a lot of the time. The good thing is that there are only 7 levels. It gives you plenty of wiggle room to slow down when needed.

Writing has been a tough subject for my 5th grader. He too is very logical and needs structure. I had similar hesitations on IEW, but we jumped in to test it out and he LOVES it! He took the program by the reigns and loves being able to get the guidance that the videos provide. If I did not do the videos, I think that the "dress ups" might also throw me off. But, just know, the way that the videos teach it, they are so seamless. I asked my son how he enjoyed it, and lets just say, he begged to keep going. This is from my reluctant writer, so I have to consider it an absolute win for us. Wish you the best with whatever you land on. Just had to share our love for IEW, even with going in scared haha!

Memoria Press has a states and capitals workbook set. We're using Our 50 States by Notgrass - but that is more in depth with some history and facts on each state. I am looking at Writing & Rhetoric for my middle schooler, it seems very open & go - but the program takes the kids through many different types of writing through middle & high school. IEW has never really appealed to me, but I am sure it works well for some students.

My 5th graders did not like IEW at all. It was too structured and although the dress up words helped. Their writing didn’t sound like them.

Have you considered the Progymnasmata for Composition? Memoria Press has an excellent program for writing. But they use All Things Fun and Fascinating by IEW first so the kids learn Outlining… but they only schedule 7 lessons for a whole school year… then they start the Progymnasmata with Fable, then Narrative and so on.

We did Draw the USA as part of our Geography studies last year and watched videos off YouTube from the US Embassy. It gave a quick (touristy) overview. So our travel bucket list grew a ton!

HBL D is where we split up. The beginning of the year was cake and we all loved it etc but then the spine for the second half increased in difficulty exponentially and the readers content increased in difficulty and became dryer. It was like you could literally see Sonlight transitioning the child from lower level to upper over the course of the year. My older student embraced it joyfully my younger student who was in fourth grade began to get overwhelmed and not be able to keep up with the content. Also my next set down of children were totally lost second half so they split off as well. We did have a health issue and had to stop for a few months and when we came back closer to fifth grade the younger child was able to handle it better and we finished.

We chose to do IEW after using many other writing programs. We chose a theme unit and I am watching the teacher training videos. Andrew Pudewas videos were so helpful to explain the “why” behind his program. He gives so much helpful information about why he encourages dress ups etc. It’s been a game changer for my reluctant writer. Writeshop was too much prep/fluff for us.

Highly recommend Essentials in Writing with Mr. Stephen's. :)

IEW is fabulous! My kids wanted structure and their writing improved leaps and bounds. Like you, I held out for years for the same reasons you mentioned, and I wish I hadn’t. It has been absolutely amazing and we tried pretty much every other writing program out there. Another positive is SSS is completely hands off for me. They pop in the video and are independent. That frees me up for the other child if they need me during that time. We tried write shop and it was too much prep and too loosey goosey for me. I also have writing with skill, though never used it. It is pretty rigorous and reading heavy. Not all 5th graders will be able to use it independently. It seems geared more towards middle schoolers. I had planned to use it but then I realized how well IEW was working and just never made the switch.

writing with skill, is intense! I am using it with my 5 grader, writing is her passion she spend most of her free time writing. Its a challenging program. Outing and reading level is quite high. outlining details about challenging literature and science.

IEW is amazing! It really helped my kids level up from elementary thinking to middle schooling thinking. I was also interested in EIW Essentials in Writing but never gave it a try. I also love phonetic zoo btw for spelling.

We have liked iew for the push for adding those extra words but I sometimes don't require as many as the book does because it starts to feel a little forced. For memorizing the states, there are fun songs. The good and beautiful has some great geography cards to practice states and capitals too ( part of the 4th grade and up curriculum). Thanks for sharing your thought process. I am getting ready to start thinking through our kids curriculum for next year too and I'm the same way on needing to think through what I need to investigate and what I know we will move on to.

I have had some of the same thoughts of IEW. We haven’t used them either. We used Writeshop jr, but it was a lot of prep. It is very creative!

My son is very logical too and he doesn’t like writing at all. We’ve tried a couple and IEW has worked very well for him.he doesn’t like to write about what he “feels” about a picture, or something he did in the summer, or a letter to a friend, (those kinds of writing) he wants straight to the point teaching what he needs and move on. Iew does that for him. I do spread it (one lesson in two weeks) not because he “needs” more time but because he doesn’t complain as much and I get a better result. His complaint is that the videos are long and he prefers to get straight to the point, so that’s why I spread it, instead of 2 videos of 30-45 mins average- we do 3 sessions and cut it to 20 mins each. Then a couple days for the writing part. Another program we really like is writing and rhetoric (we’ll probably go back to, I just really wanted a year of IEW). W&R has reading, narration, a bit of grammar, literary terms, and the writing portion. I really liked it. It also has the audio for the reading part. Open and go. Which is a plus for us. I don’t like doing prep work if I don’t have to. I’ve heard about the writing revolution but haven’t used it but in my understanding is learning to write but using other subjects that the student is currently learning and writing from that. More of a connected learning than separating every subject. I hope you find what works best for your kids and you.

My young 6th grader is doing IEW SSS 1A. He started it midyear in 5th grade. He is an advanced reader and likes to write for fun. The videos are very long, so it was hard to keep up the pace. Now he takes 2 weeks for each lesson, so I let him break the videos up into 2-3 days, them he had the rest of the time to finish rough draft and final copies of his writing. We may do a theme-based book next year, just to avoid the long videos. I think he would still do well. (He should finish this curriculum by May, so a total of 3 semesters.)

We seem a lot alike and my son has similarities to your older two. I’m strongly looking at Writing with Skill for next year. We have used Writing and Rhetoric this year, which may work for you. It has worked okay, but we have a few problems with it. I finally broke down and tried IEW, but I just don’t see why everyone loves that program so much. For your daughter, I recommend trying to stick with TGTB but don’t make it completely independent. We are using pieces of level 4 this year.

I also hesitated with IEW but after looking at it for 3 years and not trying it, I finally caved and got it for my oldest son. I wish I’d done it sooner, he thrives with the structure and checklists! I think I’ll have my second son use it next year as well, he’ll be in 5th grade then.

We just started winning with writing by JacKris Publishing with my 3rd grader. It could be something to check out!

My kid wanted more structure too and is thriving with IEW. He loves being able to tick off his checklist and know what is expected of him. With the dress ups I had a similar reaction to you. But after listening to the reason for the way they do them that way is like practicing scales in music. It is a tool to get them comfortable with it and then they move on to using them in a more natural way in the future.