You are clearly still teaching reading. I think it is difficult to do any independent work expect "busy work" before your child is reading independently. At nearly-9yrs my dd is doing about 75-80% of her work independently. Six months ago when we saw the moderator who is required to evaluate us annually here, he commented on how independently my dd was working. I guess it depends partly on the definition of "independent". I can leave her with list of instructions for the day, and she can figure out what is required and do it. That is a very different "independent" than what is meant by telling kids to do a worksheet, collecting it, telling them to do another, collecting it, etc etc

I use Amazon for most searches. I just searched in Books for Switzerland. I then narrowed it down to Literature by clicking on the link under Department (on left of page) and narrowed it again by selecting 9-12 under Age Range in same place. By this time I am seeing Heidi, but I could narrow it down further by using other categories within literature. It's not perfect by any means (why am I getting Little Women under this search?) but it's a start. For Japan, have a look at The Japanese Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins - available as e-book or printed version. It's an old book, but lovely to read.

I can second (third?) Horizons Math. The more we work with the programme, the more impressed I am. Yes, it's colourful, varied and spiral. Those are all fantastic. But more important, dd will work on seemingly unimportant aspects of Maths that in another programme might be folded into learning about one of the "biggies". Then suddenly, before we know it, we're doing multiplication or addition or equations with an unknown, and it didn't even hurt. I guess that's what makes it "spiral", but it really is amazing to watch. The only down side is that the spiral approach makes it harder to skip forward when dd needs more challenge. We are now cutting out some problem repetitions, and doing one and a half lessons per session, but it's a clumsy solution.

That you so much to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and ideas on WS, and its use and alternatives. It is reassuring to know we aren't the only ones who are not 100% sure about the programme. I really like IEW's writing programme, but the price is higher than I would like. We are going to continue with Writing Strands, spreading it through until the end of next year, with more of our own writing in between, and will see where that leaves us. I am going to keep IEW in mind for later, and see if there are any special discounts offered through the Homeschool Buyers co-op. Nikki in Australia

I made a little lidless filing box for them, low enough so the letter names and rule numbers show out the top. Phonograms are filed alphabetically and spelling rules numerically. I've developed my own ways of doing SWR, can't remember what the "proper" way is, but I run through the applicable phonogram and spelling rule cards before each word is dictated, so this system allows me to quickly pull out the cards I need. I like the idea of spiral binding!

What did you replace it with? -- As for the weather, I feel I was lured to Australia under false pretenses. Where's all that sun? :huh:

Melissa, Why didn't I think of getting her to type it? What a brilliant idea. I will do that for the next lesson. That will make an enormous difference, as she is currently quite resistent to WS. I have been writing a summary review of the first two lessons, as we have been very disjointed in our lesson scheduling so far, and yes, I too have rewritten some the example sentences. But the question remains, should I be using a writing programme where I think that some of the writing is so bad that I need to rewrite it? Hopefully the early sentences were just an anomoly. To be fair, later lessons do seem much better. Thanks again, Nikki in cold, grey, rainy Australia!

I have started dd (nearly 9) with Writing Strands 3, but I am just not sure about the programme. I appreciate the goals of the programme, but am uncomfortable about the quality. For example, in lesson 2, the goal is to learn to expand a sentence by adding information to a core sentence. This information is obtained by posing a series of questions about the core sentence, then adding the answers to the core sentence. I am very uncomfortable, though, when the sentence the author comes up with at the end of the process is The frog was sitting on a lily pad at nine o'clock that morning last spring when she thought it was yummy to eat the fly the raccoon saw her eat. This is not my idea of good writing. I understand that this is a step in the learning process, but surely the author should be modeling coherent, polished sentences for the student to aspire too, rather than the sort of clumsy sentence a child might create out of the process? Any thoughts? Nikki in Australia

For multiplication, Timez Attack from bigbrainz.com was a huge hit here. I have never tested dd on maths facts. She started by reading the facts and doing a short drill immediately. Now she just does a drill each day (50 questions, usually). I check, and we might discuss any mistakes, but there is no pressure. I think mastering the maths facts is hugely important, but I also think it takes time and repetition, and that pressure is counter-productive. Oh, I just remembered - we did a few fun things right at the beginning. I numbered balls 0-9, and would throw them at (umm, sorry, to) her and she would have to add to the assigned number. If we were doing the 3+ and she caught a 9 she would shout out 12, etc. We also bought a 10 sided dice, and did a similar thing with that - she had to add the face number to whatever number we were dealing with that day. We did the same with cards, using 1-9.

What about The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne? DD8 listened to and loved those for years, and they have a definite (fun) learning component.

Do you use manipulatives? No Do you use the Teacher's Manual, aside from making checking answers quicker? No, only to check answers, and didn't have it at all last year (Grade 2). This year, I am working quickly through the lesson with her to check she understands what is required. I didn't do that last year, and it was a silly mistake. Do you skip workbook pages or problems? Never pages, as the spiral approach adds new things regularly. We only cut addition and subtraction problems, where she has to do a miniumum of 6 of each, or as many as she can fit in spending working for 35 minutes on the whole lesson. Do you supplement with other math materials or program, if so what? No. Horizons takes us about 35 min, plus 5-10 minutes of Maths Drills. I would love to add some Singapore word problems etc, but when? How many years have you used Horizons math? This is our second. Looking back, would you have done anything differently? (with Horizons math) I would have started skipping problems sooner - she was just starting to hate maths lessons when it occurred to me to cut the number of problems...

We school 4 days per week, but work year round, 4 weeks on, 1 week off, with a couple of extra weeks off in summer. That works to get in the required number of days for any curriculum (like Maths) which is structured for a full school year.

What about Horizons Math from Alpha Omega? We LOVE it. DD is easily bored, and grasps Maths fairly intuitively, and this is working brilliantly for her, where a mastery approach like Singapore didn't work. They have sample pages on their website. I think MEP is spiral...? Horizons doesn't just review regularly, nor does it just jump around (a critisism I have heard of Saxon), it builds steadily on a topic, then takes a break, goes over it again, adds a bit more, takes a break, goes over it again etc etc.

I find the French policy fascinating (although not it a positive way). I spoke to a French colleague of my husband's some years ago when there was a first a lot of publicity about the ban on head covering in French schools. He was adamant and unrepentent - everyone who was French should be the same. Wearing a head covering made you different, and that stopped people from integrating and "being French". Yet it seems to me the result is to force women to isolate themselves if they want to be true to their own beliefs. Across the Channel, the British don't have any such laws, yet my perception is that they have a much more integrated Muslim population. Of course, I don't have first hand knowledge of these countries, so conditions "on the ground" could be very different from what I see in the media... My dd did attend an international school in the Middle East for several years, and children were free to cover or not cover. Some did, some didn't, some did during Ramadan and not at other times. Never seemed to bother any of the kids - as usual, adults have lots to learn.