Is she interested in any of the those subjects? If she's already a prolific writer, then I probably wouldn't sign her up for the writing class since she's at the upper end of the age range (and because it sounds like your main objective is the social interaction.) It sounds like you are not very impressed with any of the options. In that case, I wouldn't spend an entire paycheck on them.

Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little- both by E.B. White Cricket in Times Square - blanking on the author right now Ribsy- Beverly Cleary (this is in the Henry Huggins series) These are still favorites in our house.

Me too! Fascinating conversation!

In K we had a "reading practice" box that I would stock with material. She could choose anything from the box to read aloud to me. I usually let her choose, but sometimes I chose. I wouldn't call it (or think of it as) required reading in K. Even with an advanced reader I would still consider it reading practice at that age. But... For your DD, I wouldn't do any of that, at least for the first half of the school year. She's going to be hearing a foreign language all day. Her little brain is going to be TIRED by the end of the day. I would let her read whatever she wants (within reason of course), and not push it. I think my goal for those first few months, or even the first year, would be to maintain the current English reading level and not worry about advancing it. An immersion school experience is completely different than a single language experience. The families over on the Bilingual Education board could probably give you some helpful advice and wisdom.

You can definitely start FLL first. All the lessons are oral, so no spelling skills are necessary. The first MANY lessons are on really simple stuff like the days of the week, months, family members (are there really school aged kids who need to be taught what an aunt is?), etc. I don't have any experience with R&S, but I know their products are usually pretty solid and get the job done. 😊

I agree with all the others that homeschooling is my job and that cleaning, running errands, etc are very low on the list of priorities during our school days. But people are different, and different families have different values and different reasons for homeschooling. I am pretty anti-busy work. A lot of the suggestions for what your DC could do independently strike me as being busy work. I personally wouldn't assign something for my child to do just so that I could clean or do chores. I feel like it would be more worthwhile to simply let them play. One thing you could do is to adopt a year round school year but to not schedule your breaks in advance. Instead if you get in the mood to start a project or do a deep cleaning of your house, you could call a two week break from school. After the break, just pick up where you left off. Maybe that approach would fit your lifestyle better and give you the flexibility you're wanting.

Two classics that come to mind as being readable at that level while being interesting enough for an older reader are: The Trumpet of the Swan - E.B. White The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe- C.S. Lewis (or any of the Narnia books) You might also post this question on the learning challenges board. I'm sure they would have good suggestions too.

She sounds like my DD6. I would choose option 1 because she is currently on a big Magic Tree House kick. Although they are not high level literature by any means, they do cover a lot of history and science topics. For my inquisitive kid who makes connections easily, the MTH books have led to a lot of conversations and further reading about topics.

I just learned this a couple of weeks ago. I think I read it in H.A. Rey's constellations book. I recently started studying Arabic (and I use the term 'studying ' very generously in this case), so I thought it was very interesting! I had no idea.

As a PP mentioned, Arabian Nights is a classic that you could check out. And there are fairy tales and folktales from MANY cultures around the world. Those might be a good place to start for a young reader.

Check out this thread for some long lists of books. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/581874-diversity-in-childrens-books/ My oldest is 6 as well, and an advanced reader. I really don't worry about this issue at all with her. If we come across words or attitudes while we are reading that are inappropriate or inaccurate then I talk about it in a matter of fact way. I'll say something like "People used to use that word for (fill in the blank ethnicity), but it's not nice to use that word anymore." I don't make a big deal about it. I honestly don't think my 6 year old is going to pick up on any racism in literature or in real life at this age. Or at least she's not going to recognize it as racism. She's going to see it as "being mean" or "that person wasn't very nice to that person". She's going to see it that way regardless of the race of either person, and that's what I prefer she recognize at this age.

Andrew Pudewa's session on competent communicators was a favorite here, and it inspired DH to start family read aloud time. Teaching the Classics was another favorite of mine. All MCT's sessions I attended were helpful and inspiring, but I'd had my eye on his curriculum for awhile so was very curious to hear him speak.

I use both. We've used CC since the beginning of this school year and just added Claritas a few weeks ago. There are things I like better about each one. Things I like better about CC materials: - Timeline Song - DD loves this! She'll listen to it just for fun (so will DH). I think it's worth buying one of the audio CDs just for this. Claritas doesn't have the timeline put to music. - CC puts some things to music, but also has each item recorded simply spoken, whereas Claritas only has the memory work put to song. Things I like better about Claritas: - 4 cycles instead of 3. The cycles match up very easily with SOTW (in my very limited experience). And with 4 cycles they cover so much more history than CC's 3 cycles (especially considering Cycle 3 for CC is primarily US history) - Each week's memory work includes Bible passages and a hymn. CC technically has Bible as part of the memory work, but it's not on the audio CDs or included in the weekly work. - The Bible passages use ESV, whereas CC used KJV. Those are the key things I like. I do very little at home with them other than have DD listen to the audio CDs. She likes both. The science, English grammar, and math components of each one are very similar. Another resource I like for memory work is the book Living Memory by Andrew Campbell. Claritas actually used that book for a lot of their material.

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