Since we began homeschooling, we've really been enjoying the Primary Analogies series from EPS Publishing. It's an optional part of the K12 Language Arts curriculum, but it is not optional in our house! My 7yo really loves it and wouldn't have school without it. Last year we used Book One in 1st grade and this year we're using Book Two for second grade. This is a really fun way for kids to learn analogical thinking. The first book focuses primarily on picture analogies in which two pictures are connected and the student has to identify their relationship and then find two more pictures which are related in the same way. Book Two uses both picture-word analogies and some word-word analogies. My 7yo really thinks this is like a fun puzzle. Book One was quite easy, but he still really enjoyed it and it helped him develop the thought process for thinking analogically. I believe that most children (and adults) naturally think in this way, but it's good to capture that kind of thinking and help them develop it. (Trust me, I really wish some of my university students had some practice in analogical thinking, because sometimes it doesn't seem to be there.) Book Two has gotten a little more challenging and sometimes it requires him to think creatively to determine the relationships, but that's just more fun for him. This is one book I never have to encourage him to use.
We spread the book out and do just a little bit at a time so that it lasts the whole year. Usually, we just do it as suggested by K12, which ends up being a page about every other week. BUT - often 7yo will beg to do another page (or two more) after he has completed the page for that day, so we often get ahead of ourselves. A page only takes him about 2-5 minutes, so the time committment is very low. But I think it's well worth it. EPS provides a teacher's manual, but I haven't ever had it, and I'm not sure it's necessary. They indicate that it does include suggestions for teaching your child to think analogically, so that might be one advantage. The student book itself doesn't include much explanation for parents/teachers. K12 includes these kind of suggestions in their online materials, to only the main book has ever been necessary for us.
This year we're also using Wordly Wise and Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter from EPS. We haven't used the latter enough yet for me to comment much. I know that Wordly Wise comes with high praise from many sources and is a time-proven resource. So far, we're pretty happy with it. It's not really exciting, but it sorted into reasonable chunks and seems to be a good tool for adding vocabulary. After we've used it for a year, maybe I can comment more.
