Last month, a new math program debuted called Beast Academy. It is published by one of my favorite math companies, Art of Problem Solving. I've been eyeing their PreAlgebra and Algebra courses just waiting for D-Man to be ready for them. Beast Academy is their elementary program. After looking at the scope and sequence and studying the samples, I decided that D-Man is beyond the material. Would he like it? Would he learn something from it? I think so. However, I just can't justify the expense for another review program. Now, if they'd published level 4 instead of level 3 first, I'd be on board. I may revisit it when Sweet-C gets around to that level, but not now.
This month, I've been researching writing. We are currently using Writing With Ease (WWE) by Susan Wise Bauer.
I really like the program. D-Man did level 1 and is now working on level 2. I've just started seeing the fruit of the method. In fact, I'm impressed by the progress D-Man is making. Recently, Mrs. Bauer has published Writing with Skill 1 (WWS) as a follow-on to WWE 1-4 and already has publishing dates for subsequent levels. I knew it was coming but it throws a loop in my plans. I had been planning to use another program called Writing Tales (WT). I like the look of WT. I want to use WT.
I should interject here that I have a fear of teaching writing. I realize that it is an important skill to succeed in college and life; I don't want to let my boys down. Therefore, I want (need?) a program to hold my hand and walk me through the whole process. At this point, I'm trusting in Mrs. Bauer's method. Do I think it will work? I think so. I trust her. My only hangup is that I'd planned on following the Writing Tales method which is slightly different. Unfortunately, the author of Writing Tales hasn't been able to finish the rest of the program. She only has 2 levels out and I would need all 4 that were planned. I've been secretly hoping that she would come out with the other levels before we need them (there's still time!!) but that doesn't look likely.
So where does that leave me? I need to listen to the sage advice, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That leaves me abandoning my original plan and sticking with WWE. I should be fine with that. I am fine with that but I'm still sad that I won't be using WT. I'm working through that but in the meantime, I'm still searching. Searching for what you ask? I'm searching for the perfect writing curriculum. For some reason, I think I'm missing something and the perfect answer will jump out at me. That's what we curriculum junkies do.One thing I've learned over the past 3 years is that there are a lot of good programs out there, a few great programs, and no perfect programs. A perfect program isn't possible or even necessary. SO...I am going to stop looking!
Now to contemplate supplementing with Winning with Writing next year...