Hi, I'm wanting to put together a reading/read-aloud list for my upcoming 6th grader. We have tons of historical fiction and a good collection of lit overall, but I am hoping to find a resource for more modern titles. Any genre would be great. My daughter especially loves animals/nature/adventure stories. Thanks!

Brambleheart by Henry Cole...here's the description from Amazon: "In the Hill, animals work as Weavers, Smelters, and Carvers—but Twig doesn’t know who he wants to be. He tries very hard in all his classes, but his imagination wanders to his favorite books or the delicious mayapples growing beyond the scavenge yard . . . and then he loses his focus. After Twig makes a big mistake in front of everyone, he sets out on a secret journey to discover himself. But as he wanders deeper into the Yard than he’s ever wandered before, Twig finds a curious colored globe. A dragon’s egg—which hatches in front of his eyes. Now protecting the baby dragon is all Twig wants to do. But when he learns that his secret might hurt others, he’s forced to make a choice between his place in the world and the feelings in his heart." Bayberry Island, the sequel, was wonderful, too : ) My daughter loved these books and others by Henry Cole.

She has used sooo many math programs....my fault! Some Saxon, BJU, TT (and more). She's now using No-Nonsense Algebra, and it's working okay. She was using TT Algebra just prior, but made the switch to No-Nonsense because she felt TT was moving way too fast for her and she was overwhelmed. She is now feeling like No-Nonsense is moving too quickly. We've come to the realization that she really needs a mastery-based program that will allow her to sit with a concept for a good while before moving on. I am also realizing that she probably needs to step back to pre-algebra before working on algebra. I've made so many mistakes along the way with math choices, and I'm sure that has contributed to her feeling less than confident and not well prepared with math overall. I really would like to have one of those reset buttons so I could do everything over! I feel like I really hijacked this thread - I'm sorry for that!

Yes, this does help! I'm thinking Jacobs would likely suit my younger daughter, but not my "just the facts", older daughter. Thank you, Lori D.!

Lori D, what type of learner/kid do you think would jive well with Jacobs style/format? I don't own a Jacobs text, but have considered it for my daughter. Thanks!

Hi, I'm interested in seeing what books others are using for 9th grade-ish reading and/or lit. study. If you have a list of what you are using/planning to use, or links to lists, that would be great : ) And if you have specific lit. study guides or methods you use I'd love to hear that as well. Thanks!

And by the way, my daughter just dropped out of a program mid-year, so something that's pick-up-and-go would be really helpful as we scramble to get the rest of her 8th grade year up and running!

My daughter (almost 14) wants to study modern history via books that are mostly non-fiction as opposed to historical fiction. I'd need a good schedule/program and would love if it included writing related to history/literature, and discussion helps. I am considering TOG, but really want to look around more. I've looked at Sonlight, but it's just too much historical fiction for my daughter's liking. What else is out there? Thanks!

Lori D. is such an encourager! Makes me feel bad for being such a downer in my post ;)

I don't think you are crazy. The workload is kind of ridiculous. We started Ch. A this year and I am so far feeling like I probably made the wrong decision. I mainly enrolled my daughter because she wanted to. She wanted the organization and the community time. I would imagine the student eventually gets into a groove and learns how to keep up with the weekly schedule, but I think the joy of learning is pretty much lost in the process. For my daughter, anyway. My daughter feels like she is just making her way through a checklist and most days she's just wiped out and unmotivated. Anyway, that's my rant. We did get the ArtK12 Canada and Greenland geography book (mentioned above) and that has been very helpful for my daughter. With Latin...I won't allow it to go past an hour and won't allow it to take over and make my daughter overwhelmed. I told her just do the assignments as written, and if they stick a little that's great. If not, then we move on and call it good. I look at it as a cursory run through Latin and that's it. I'm not concerned about mastery at all at this point. Latin just doesn't rank high enough over here for us to get overwhelmed by it. We do a different math than the scheduled Saxon. So, it seems to me you could do math on your own schedule and not worry about the pace of the class. Our tutor pulls problems from the warm-up section from Saxon and my daughter just goes along with it even though she uses a completely different math program.

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Makey Makey Kit... https://www.amazon.com/Makey-Invention-Kit-Everyone/dp/B008SFLEPE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492141994&sr=8-1&keywords=makey+makey

I've never used this, but thought of it when I read your post... https://winterpromise.com/science/human-body-forensics-for-7th-12th-grade/

Yes, my daughter uses the notebooking journal. I can't imagine not having it! It really helps keep her organized with the daily schedule and helps keep her on task through each module. It's nice to have one book for her to enter all her work neatly into the various categories....the lab/data sheets, study guides, On Your Own pages, etc. It's formatted nicely and visually appealing which I think helps it to be even more engaging.