We do almost everything together! My dd is a real extrovert, so I am her team, her group of other kids, her sounding board.

We have scheduled 1 hr of history per day though it doesn't always take that long. We also do science 1 hr/day; The Story of Science for 1/2 hour and experiment based activities that correspond with SofSc for 1/2 hour. We watch a science or history related video during our 1 1/2 hour break while we eat lunch. We go from 9-4 three days a week and 10-4 2 days/week; with a 1 1/2 hour break during the day as mentioned above.

We tried both IXL and Math Whizz. The good thing about IXL is that you can work at any level; Math Whizz doesn't do that. IXL gets boring after awhile and their "prizes" are super lame! What I don't like about math WHizz is that you can only do what comes up next, and sometimes there isn't much explanation at all on what you are supposed to do. The "prizes" are way better though. :001_smile: When you come down to it, I wouldn't recommend either IXL or Math Whizz.

http://www.mathsolutions.com/index.cfm?page=wp15&crid=323&contentid=953 These three books, Lessons for Introducing Fractions, Lessons for Extending Fractions and Lessons for Mult and Div Fractions will help your daughter understand fractions at a deep level. I've used all three and they really helped my daughter.

DK's Children's Book of music is a wonderful book for an historical study of music. Here's the link on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Book-Music-DK-Publishing/dp/0756667348 It comes with a cd. We added tons of videos and other music cds from the library. We especially enjoyed the musicals and learning more about the Beatles!

We often read aloud together Reader's Theatre scripts on a variety of subjects. There are RT scripts available for math, science, history...

You can have fun with your regular curricula in a variety of ways... We sometimes take one math problem, and on a white board, see who can do it the quickest. We make funky posters with our vocab words. With the Story of Science Scientists speak, we have them say "modern" things that are totally out of sync with their time. This just cracks us up! Write up the math problems for the day and hide them around the house instead of doing them in the text, same with any workbook.

I'd say you DO need the SG. All the blank Quest sheets are in there, as well as Scientists Speak speech bubbles, etc...We use our SG like a scrap book, adding in anything else related. We have a lot of fun with those speech bubbles!

Huckleberry Finn

Canadians who have purchased DE through G3, how's it going? Thanks!

We get Brainpop through the school board we are registered with (in Canada), but I sure would love to get the Discovery Streaming. I'll be listening in to see how it works for the Canadians in this thread, so please pipe up once you get it. Thanks in advance!

Another excellent resource is What in the World? Here's what the website says, "What in the World? / Le Monde en Marche (Level 1) is a photocopiable current events resource, published in English and French, for Canadian students in grades 5 through 7. Designed to enhance students' understanding of and interest in current Canadian and international events and issues, this publication addresses numerous curriculum outcomes while saving teachers valuable time." There is a also a second level for older kids and both come out 1x/month. We use it and love it. It includes working on a map of an area that is in the news and a map of Cdn, US and world capitals.

It's enough. It's a very thorough program.

We also test until there are 5 words to work on, or until we come to the end of a list, or the end of the writing space on the page. We don't usually do more than one list per day. You can use whatever space you want to write your words. My daughter (now in grade 7) does at least 1 level per year, sometimes 2. Last year she got to skip a level as she tested out of it. Now we just do 1 level and then say, yeah! Spelling Power is over for the year.

Similar to Bill's idea; he could form the numbers with playdough or plastercine.

As I mentioned before, we started Cdn history at the end of SOTW 3, because that is where our history starts in the grand scheme of things. It will take us 4 years to do a combo of sotw 4 and Cdn history, adding a lot to both programs. Last year we covered sotw 4 chapters 1-11, up to the Riel Rebellion in Cdn History and lots of Cdn geography to go along with when provinces became part of Canada. We also looked at the Cdn govt system, particularly the election process to go along with our federal election. This year we are covering chapters 12-23 of sotw and up to WWI (from a Cdn point of view) in Cdn history. WWI is of course covered in sotw 4, and there is a lot of great stuff to be found and we are taking another month to look at it from various other viewpoints, with lots of primary sources and videos. We are covering some more Cdn government stuff (particularly the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), political science and different Humanitarian organizations as well as the geography of AB and SK, since they become provinces during the period we are studying. I know I have my plans from last year, very detailed for extras to go with sotw and Cdn. history. I'm not sure how detailed my plans from the end of sotw 3 are with respect to early Cdn history.

So why don't some of us write one together? There seem to be several of us who have already done a lot of research. Anyone game?

I have pretty well done this with Canadian History, along side SOTW 3 and 4. I've used The Story of Canada and Canada A People's History (as suggested in Modern History through Canadian Eyes), adding my own activities, reading, other videos, primary sources, etc. I can share if anyone wants it. I think I still have my early years (we are stating this year on Klondike Gold Rush.)

We like Chris. We like to see what shirt he will wear in each chapter and how much of a mess he makes of the board. Plus we LOVE the stories that come every few chapters. They are a lot of fun.

We have done Elements and the Brain and both were excellent. We are presently working of Excavating English and it is great as well. We have Carbon Chemistry to do next year. Three Cheers for Ellen McJ!

Thanks for the link and your composer study looks great too!

You could study geography using the 5 themes of geography. If you google "5 themes of geography" you will see what I mean.

I agree, the "Fox" books are hilarious. Amanda and Oliver pig are funny too. I'd suggest Mr. Putter and Tabby by Cynthia Rylant as well.

If you are into Harry Potter (new movie coming out, eh?) then you could do your chemistry camp as a Potions course from the Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School. There is a yahoo group (or rather several!) with all materials available. You'd have to see it to believe all the work that has gone into this over the years. Anyways, here is the link http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HogwartsSCS/