Sum Dog is competitive (in each game you can compete against 1 to 3 other players), but I don't think it keeps an overall rank. Many of the games are free, but there is a subscription version available. Here is a link: http://www.sumdog.com/user/sign_up

Is he drawing the bar diagrams? My daughter resisted that for a long time, but it definitely makes it easier. In your example, he could draw a bar with five equal segments. The first three represents what the baker started with. (One whole segment would represent 1 kilo of flour, but the baker only has 3/5 of a kilo). Then divide each of the five segments into 4 smaller segments (because he uses just 1/4 of his flour). Now he can see that he is going to end up with twentieths. Out of each the three original segments representing the starting amount, the baker uses just one of the quarter, but since a quarter of a fifth is a twentieth, the baker uses 3/20.

Here's a way to make the diagram a little more intuitive: At the beginning both Abby and Anthony have the same amount, which we can show as one bar divided into two segments: [some unknown amount] plus [30], thus Ab: [--??--][30] An: [--??--][30] Abby gives Anthony 30 paperclips, so now the bars look like this: Ab: [--??--] An: [--??--][30][30] But we are also told that Anthony now has twice as many paper clips as Abby, so 30 + 30 must equal the bar that represents the unknown number of paper clips, so you fill in the missing numbers: Ab: [--60--] An: [--60--]{30][30] For a total of 180 paperclips.

This reminds me of my experience with OPGTR. When we got to the list of short e words, I was reading off the list of words like bet, set, let, met, etc. Then I got to get, and pronounced it git. :lol: There were a number of other words in OPGTR, however, that seemed shaped by a southern accent. I modified those sounds. My wife also pointed out many long-u words that her English grandmother pronounced with a distinct y-sound at the beginning, which has been lost in most Americans' pronunciation, e.g., student, tube, and tune.

We liked Soy una pizza and Todo el mundo come banana! by Charlotte Diamond. These CDs are available from Amazon. Individual songs can also be downloaded on iTunes.

I do use KISS Grammar with my daughter. It has definitely expanded my grammatical understanding. Before KISS Grammar I don't think I would have recognized the infinitive phrase "the door shut" as a direct object. That being said, KISS Grammar does not go in depth with infinitive phrases until quite late (Level 4.2, I think). What I like about KISS Grammar is that it does not require the memorization of definitions, but rather recognizing how words are actually being used in context. Virtually all of its sample sentences and sentences for analysis come from literary sources--they are not easy, made up sentences to illustrate grammatical points. I have never done sentence diagramming, and KISS persuaded me that I don't need to. It argues that real sentences are typically way too complicated to diagram. I don't think I was previously aware of the term "bare infinitive," but I recognized that sometimes in English the infinitive has "to" and sometimes it does not. Since someone else in this discussion used that term, I went with it. The study of foreign language has also helped. Curiously, my daughter and I had just covered verbs of perception + direct object + infinitive in Latin. Otherwise I probably could not have explained what was going on in the OP. (We have not yet gotten to KISS Level 4.2, where infinitive phrases are explicitly covered, and it doesn't seem to specifically mention verbs of perception even there).

I suppose this depends on how you define "infinitive" and "infinitive phrase." The word "to" is often included as part of the infinitive: to sell, to eat, to run, etc. But the verb without the "to" is just a special form of the infinitive, the "bare infinitive." In my mind the infinitive phrase may include other things than the infinitive itself. Why else would you call it a phrase? English uses "bare infinitives" after the modal verbs: I may eat the apple. I can speak German. I must go to the store. Contrast the modal + infinitive with this pattern: I want to eat the apple I want to learn German. I want to go to the store. (Off topic: contemporary English seems to be creating two new modals, gonna and wanna, which uses a bare infinitive: I wanna eat the cake and I'm gonna eat the cake. ) Without researching it, I would agree that when the infinitive phrase uses "to," the infinitive must come first before other elements in the infinitive phrase. But with verbs of perception (see, hear, feel, etc.) the subject of the infinitive proceeds the bare infinitive, and subject + bare infinitive serve as the direct object of the verb of perception. You seem stuck on the problem of the door shutting itself. Of course, unless it is an automatic door, doors need an agent to open or close them. But even before the era of automatic doors, English used "open" and "shut" as intransitive verbs--sometimes the agent moving the door is irrelevant to the sentence. So there is nothing wrong with these sentences (which include no agents controlling the door): When the door opens, please come in. When the door shut, I realized I was trapped. The door shut when the wind blew hard. The door shut with a bang.

Yes, in your sentence, the door shuts itself. If this were a passive construction and the door was shut by an unnamed agent (e.g., the wind or by an intruder), the sentence would have to read: Boysie heard the door be shut (by the wind). Notice the presence of the infinitive "be" in this sentence. And just to clarify, in the original sentence, shut by itself is not the direct object. Rather the direct object is the entire infinitive phrase: the door shut.

Swarmie, I am glad my comments helpful. Regarding whether there is an actor who shuts the door: the Merriam Webster's dictionary notes that shut can be used both transitively (The boy shut the door--subject/verb/direct object) and intransitively (The door shut--subject/verb.) The definition of the intransitive meaning is "to close itself or to become closed." The dictionary gives the example "Flowers that shut at night." So I would disagree that shut is an adjective. Just as I can hear the bird sing, I can hear the door shut. Or to use the example from the dictionary: I saw the flower shut. After I wrote my comments last night, I thought of another way to illustrate that the subject of the infinitive is in the accusative case. Look at this sentence: I saw the boy run away. Now substitute a pronoun for "boy": I saw him run away. Run clearly is a verb and it is clearly in the infinitive form (otherwise it would have to be "runs" or "ran"). The direct object of saw is him run away, an infinitive phrase in which the subject of the infinitive is in the accusative case. Because we do not decline our nouns to show cases, we do not readily see that the boy is in the accusative case. But as soon as we substitute a pronoun that does decline, it becomes obvious. I want to emphasize that the whole infinitive phrase is the direct object, not just the noun: I did not just see the boy, I saw him do something, run away. Like shut, run can be used intransitively, i.e., without a direct object. I think you are being confused by shut in part because it is irregular and its infinitive is the same as its past tense and its past participle. Because English uses past participles as adjectives, the adjective form of shut is the same as the infinitive. This is not true of most verbs. Consider these sentences: We shut the door. (past tense and present tense) The boy shut the door. (past tense) The door is shut by the boy. (past participle used in a passive construction) The door is shut. (adjective or verb, depending on context) This overlapping of forms is not true of other verbs. We make the bed. We made the bed. The boy makes the bed. The boy made the bed. The bed is made by the boy. The bed is made. If you substitute a different verb into your sentence you can see that the construction must be an infinitive: Boysie heard the door fall off its hinges. Boysie heard the door bang. Boysie heard the door flap in the wind. Boysie heard the door creak. In all of these sentences the verb of perception takes a infinitive phrase as its direct object. The subject of the infinitive is in the accusative case. Note that Boysie did not just hear the door, but he heard the door do something. The whole infinitive phrase, not just the noun, is the direct object of the verb. All of these sentences follow the same pattern as your original sentence. But in all of these sentences, we are clearly dealing with infinitives since none of these infinitives can also double as adjectives. Just because shut can be used as an adjective, does not mean it is an adjective in your original sentence. Another way to see that shut must be a verb infinitive is that you could add an adverb to your sentence to indicate how the door shuts: Boysie heard the door shut loudly. An adjective could not take an adverb in this manner. If you say "The door is shut loudly" you are using shut as a verb in a passive construction with an unstated agent. The door could be in a state of "shutness," but not a state of loudly "shutness." As a last brain teaser, you could try analyzing this sentence: Boysie heard the shut door open. :lol:

Here is my explanation of the sentence. I hope it helps. First, the verb shut can be used intransitively to mean that the door was shut (by the wind or a person) or that it shut itself automatically. Consider these sentences: The door shut, and I realized I was trapped in the room. When the door shuts, please do not panic. Second, shut is an irregular verb: The present tense (except third person singular, which is shuts), the past tense, and the infinitive are all identical. That makes it a little harder to recognize what is happening in the sentence that swarmie asked about. Third, it is a completely normal construction in English with verbs of perception to use a noun + infinitive as a direct object. For example: I saw the boy run away. I heard the bird sing. I watched the car crash. You can tell these are infinitives because if they were present tense, they would each have the -s ending of the third person singular, or the -ed ending or irregular form of the past tense. (Note that Latin has an identical construction that uses a noun in the accusative case (the direct-object case) as the subject of an infinitive, with the entire infinitive phrase being the direct object of a verb of perception.) The absence of to does not mean that the verbs in these examples are not infinitives. As has already been pointed out by others, infinitives in English do not always use to. Consider these sentences: I may eat the cake. I want to eat the cake. In the first sentence, the infinitive eat (without to) is used with the modal verb may and is part of the verb phrase. In the second sentence, the infinitive eat (with to) is the direct object of the finite verb want. Fourth, note that an infinitive phrase being used as a direct object is different in structure from a subordinate clause that is used as a direct object. Consider these sentences: I dreamed [that] the boy ran away. I thought [that] the bird sang. I regretted [that] the car crashed. These sentences all use a subordinate clause (with a finite verb) as the direct object of the verb in the main clause (dreamed, thought, and regretted). Now regarding the original sentence, we can shorten it to its key elements: Boysie heard the door shut. The subject is Boysie and the verb is heard. We can find the complement by asking the question "Boysie heard what?" The answer to that question, which is the direct object, is the entire infinitive phrase "the door shut." It is hard to recognize this as an infinitive phrase because shut is irregular. If you substitute the verb open, it becomes clear that the verb is an infinitive because you can more readily see that it is missing any personal or tense endings: Boysie heard the door open. The door open is not a grammatical sentence by itself because the verb is not inflected--it carries no personal or tense markers, it is an infinitive.

What is he not retaining, vocabulary or grammar, or both? If he is not retaining vocabulary, I suggest you try a time-memory recall program like Anki to create on-line flash cards. Anki is amazing. My daughter is studying 3 languages and with Anki she very efficiently (and quickly) reviews vocabulary every day. It has made a huge difference in the amount of vocabulary she retains. Here is a link: http://ankisrs.net . Most versions of the program are free, but the iPad version costs $25. I have also been very happy with Familia Romana by Hans Orberg. See here for a full listing of the key books; https://www.logos.com/product/36369/lingua-latina-familia-romana-collection#003 Just start over with lesson 1, and move along at an appropriate pace to review. Apparently 9 chapters is typical for first year high school Latin using this text. It will be a very different approach than what he has been using, so he may find it more interesting. If you use this series, you will probably want more than the basic text. Many are available on Amazon, so check around for pricing. I would definitely buy the books with additional exercises.

The real answer to your question is that English borrowed words from lots of other languages and mostly took spellings from the other languages. Plus, sometimes, scribes and scholars in past ages just adopted weird spellings that they thought were practical (e.g., replacing u with o after m to more clearly distinguish the letters). See this article for a discussion of these weird spellings: http://blog.oup.com/2015/01/etymology-spelling-suds-house-antiquus-dwell/ Be sure to read the comments, too, as one of the best explanations of the weird spellings is found there. I liked OPGTR because they had explicit lessons on many of these weird spelling patterns. So I could remind my daughter: Oh, this is a Greek ch, so it says "k" or "This is a French double s, so it says "sh". You could make a game out of it by laughing at the wield patterns, for example, the word "move": Oh, this is one of those words where the monks who used to copy books by hands couldn't tell where the humps and dips of m, n, and u started and began, so that changed the u to o." This is not a perfect solution, but it might help. Looking at it from a pedological viewpoint, I came to the conclusion that ultimately you just have to tell the child that English letters and sounds don't match exactly because English borrowed words from so many languages. So the best thing to do is sound out the word using the rules we learn, and if you don't recognize the word, think about other ways that some of the letters in the word can be pronounced.

Your daughter sounds a lot like mine. She was so resistant to the physical act of writing. We started CAP W&R in 4th grade and took from November to June to get through it. Book two went faster (first semester of 5th grade), and we are now on to book 3. Regarding methodology of W&R: I do not just turn my daughter loose on the assignments. Rather I actively brain storm with her and write down ideas on the white board. Then together we get those ideas into an outline. Then she writes her story. So, for example, in re-writing the story of the Lion and the Mouse, and asked her what animals might be afraid of a mouse? What kind of trap or predicament might a mouse need to be rescued from? What could those animals that are afraid of mice do to help a mouse in this predicament? It can take a fair amount of guidance. You might need to ask concrete questions: Would an ant be afraid of a mouse? How could an ant do to annoy a mouse at the start of the story? (Crawl on his nose by accident.) What danger could the mouse get into (Get caught by a cat.) How could the ant help the mouse? (Call other ants to swarm over the cat, maybe biting the cat, thus giving the mouse a chance to escape.) Write down all the ideas, so she can choose the ones she finds most interesting. When we did summaries of the CAP stories, I had her cross out all the unnecessary words and then just copy what was left, making very minor adjustments to keep the story flowing. Again, if she was having problems, I would ask specific questions: Do we really need to know that the lion is golden yellow or can we cut that out? I would point out to her that the more she cut out, the less she would have to write when she recopied the summary. We do Sequential Spelling, which I find easy to use, and it forces my daughter to write 25 words a day. For grammar, we use KISS Grammar, which has very little writing--mainly underlining, circling, etc. So it is perfect for the child who has problems with writing. There is no memorizing of definitions. Using KISS my daughter quickly learned to identify adjectives, nouns, verbs, subjections, direct objects, etc, by seeing and identifying them in real sentences. The exercises are meant to be done quickly (10 to 15 minutes), but it usually takes my daughter longer. So I try to keep the lessons short by spreading each exercise over 2 or even 3 days.

Muzzy is a possibility. We used Muzzy with my daughter when she was really young (18 months) when she still had the interest in watching it over and over again. But the only reason it worked for us was that we reinforced it by watching it with her and we talked about the story and characters all the time. That might be harder to do with kids that are 7 and 9. I do not believe it is enough to just sit them in front of it. Note that there is a problem with Muzzy. Muzzy was developed to teach English, and the story line illustrates English grammar. The other languages are simply dubbed in, and there is no adaptation to illustrate the grammatical features of German (or the other languages). So there is, for example, no explanation of the German gender or case system. If you buy Muzzy, buy it used. Do not pay full price. The most economical way to buy it is to find the old video tapes on e-Bay. As an alternative, you can just watch German cartoons. My daughter always liked the Tom Films (http://www.kindernetz.de/tom/-/id=40242/17kd2c2/index.html) which have a repetitive story line that makes them easy to follow. But, again, I suggest watching it with them and talking about it as you watch. If your kids have patience for it, Duolingo might work. I suggest doing it with them. If you find a decent text book, I also suggest entering the vocabulary you learn into the flashcard system called Anki. I use this with my ten-year old daughter in Spanish and Latin. It allows you to create cards with text, sound, picture, and movie files. I find funny pictures on the internet to illustrate the words. Anki is a cross-platform system, and most of the versions are free, although the iPad version costs $25. Here is the link: http://ankisrs.net Anki has made a huge difference in our ability to retain vocabulary in Spanish and Latin. At first I did it with my daughter, but now she does it independently in just a few minutes a day.

At his age, I would say that explicit grammar instruction is not so vital. I raised my daughter bilingual English and German, and she has since added Spanish, Latin, and Korean. I don't believe that doing more than one foreign language is confusing, but it is a lot of work. Even though we only do 15 to 20 minutes a day in Spanish and Latin (the Korean she does once a week with some friends from the neighborhood), it adds up. German and Latin have several grammatical features in common that would allow him to draw parallels between the two languages--three genders, the use of clearly marked cases (although Latin has an extra one--two if you count vocative--compared to German). I would start supplementing his German with lots of German language CDs, especially children songs. It is fairly easy to order from Amazon.de, the German branch of Amazon. You can also have him watch German children's programing on the Internet. Our house loves this series: http://www.kindernetz.de/tom/-/id=40242/17kd2c2/index.html The story line is very simple: in every story Tom is trying to get a honey strawberry marmalade sandwich. Regarding an English grammar program, I have used KISS grammar with my daughter. The author has revised the program since we started it, and he has a recommended course progression now that I think makes it easier to use. I teach German to adults, and I recommend it to my students who have a poor grasp of grammatical concepts. I think it very effectively teaches students to recognize subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, prepositional phrases, and verbs. More than enough grammar for grasping the basic concepts in English and Latin.

As others have noted, words can have different functions depending on context. That is why memorizing a list of prepositions is not as useful as one might think. First of all, as you noted, prepositional phrases often show where something is happening, but also when or how: He sat on the chair. (Where did he sit?} He comes on Tuesdays. (When does he come?) He answered the question with accuracy. (How did he answer the question?) Thus, as you can see, prepositional phrases function as adverbs of place, time, and manner. Regarding below: In your example, I would view below as an adverb of place. It answers the questions "Where is the garden? Below." (On the other hand, the sentence implies that the garden was "below the chestnut-trees." Had the sentence included what is merely implied, then it would clearly be a prepositional phrase, but it would still function as an adverb of place.) Regarding on: English grammar books rarely adequately treat this issue. For those of us who also speak German, this issue is much clearer. Many German verbs have a separable prefix that is an exact parallel of English phrases like: pick up, drop off, knock over, etc. Unlike English grammar, German grammar explicitly treats these phrases (typically composed of a verb + preposition) as a single verb. I find it is best to follow the German example and treat certain verb + preposition combinations as a team. After all, to pick up and to pick at all have different meanings than to pick. Note that some verb + preposition teams do not differ significantly from the verb by itself, e.g. to pick out. In sentences like: I pick up the kids at 5:00. The child picks at the scab. The man picks out a book from the shelf. the kids, a book, and the scab are direct objects of the verbs pick up, pick at, and pick out, rather than objects of prepositions. Up the kids, at the scab, and out the book are not prepositional phrases and do not function as adverbs of time, place, or manner. Thus in the sentence A great chirping and twittering went on among the birds. the verb is went on, not went. Among the birds is a prepositional phrase that functions as an adverb of place telling us where the chirping went on. There is no direct object to the verb. The concept of a verb + preposition really being a single verb is discussed in KISS Grammar. I don't know how other grammars treat it. I would explain to your child that in English sometimes verbs have a prepositions as a teammate. As a team they make a new verb, the meaning of which is often (although not always) different than the verb used without its teammate. Also, note that the placement of the preposition teammate is a flexible: I pick the kids up at 5:00 vs. I pick up the kids at 5:00.

But why should it be up to a user of this forum to edit her remarks here to explain the origin of questionable material on another website, when the owners of that website: 1) were aware that a user was posting material that violated their policies, 2) apparently banned him for that, but 3) didn't bother to edit out his inappropriate additions? Since AoPS has a policy of banning users who edit their Wiki in violation if its policies, when a user is banned, perhaps AoPS ought to review all the past edits that person had made. If AoPS is embarrassed by the silly paragraph claiming some links between Pythagoras and Satan, AoPS has only itself to blame. I really fail to see how the paragraph in question relates to the stated purposes of the AoSP Wiki, especially since it seems to be based more on fantasy than any historical evidence. So I am surprised (especially after the controversy here) that no AoSP Wiki editor has ever seen fit to delete it.

I wade into this discussion a little reluctantly, and do so mainly because find the mocking tone that resonates through many of the responses objectionable. While I find the original concerns expressed about Beast Academy to be totally without merit, the posters does not deserve to be mocked. I found the initial responses to her to be well focused and appropriate and was disappointed by the tone in many of the later responses. Moreover, since the original poster specifically cited the AoSP Wiki article as confirming her concern, I think that that article needs to be more seriously addressed. Although I am not a member of the AoPS Wiki and do not know very much about how it is runi, I fail to see what relevance the following paragraph has to the wiki's avowed purpose of "supporting educational content useful to avid math student": The pentagram has many usages in the occult and in religion. For example, Satanists use an upside-down pentagram, inscribed within two circles, to symbolize the horns of a goat. The pentagram focuses and concentrates magical energy for many rituals, helping it to bind to the recipient. In one such context, the pentagram is called the Sigil of Baphomet, and it has changed little since Pythagoras used it. Some claim that the infamous story of did not in fact refer to , but to the golden ratio that the sides of Pythagoras' pentagram formed as he paid his homage to Satan. Because he was such a promethean and liberating figure, Pythagoras drew inspiration from him to continue his mathematical research. First of all, just what is the "infamous story" of the the square root of 2? I haven't been able to find anything about it. Is it suppose to be the story of the follower of Pythagoras who committed suicide because the square root of 2 is irrational? A curious story, but of no relevance to a math education today. Second, what evidence is there that Pythagoras ever paid homage to Satan, a religious concept that I doubt was knows to a Greek in 500 BC. Third, the "Sigil of Baphomet" is a theological idea from the middle ages (it relates to the heresy charges made against the Knights Templar) and is a corruption of Mohammed's name. So the Sigil of Baphomet certainly has nothing to do with Pythagoras or math. The article continues by asserting that Pythagoras found Satan "a promethean and liberating figure"and drew inspiration from Satan for his mathematical research. Really??? What evidence is there of this? Yes, Pythagoras founded a strange cult of mathematicians, but I seriously doubt that we know anything about Pythagoras' views on Satan. It appears that this paragraph has been on the AoPS Wiki since 2011 (and was posted by a now-banned person). Nonetheless, the article was edited as recently as March of 2014 without removing this paragraph. Has none of the authorized editors since 2011 found it odd? By the way, it also appears that the article at one time contained a link to the topic "Demonic Possession." At least someone had the good sense to get rid of that. Given the sloppiness of the AoSP community in allowing this silliness to remain on their website for so many years, one can hardly fault the original poster for wondering if it reflects the outlook of AoSP in some way. If any authorized editors of the AsPS Wiki are following this discussion, it would behoove him or her to delete such silliness from the wiki.

I found that once my daughter had learned to read English, learning to read Spanish progressed very rapidly, without much instruction. Spanish is so phonetic that I am not sure that for a child who already understands how to sound out words that you really need workbook to teach it. Any basic text will probably work well enough. However, if you want to try a text, you could try this book intended for teaching native speaker children to read Spanish: Silabario Hispanoamerico (available through Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Silabario-Hispanoamericano-desconocido/dp/B0076T23W6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424749489&sr=8-1&keywords=silabario To use this book, I would think that the instructor would need at least a basic competence in Spanish. Thinking it might be useful, I picked up what appears to have been an much earlier edition of this book at a used book fair when my daughter was first beginning Spanish. Instructions for using it are only in Spanish (at least in my edition). It basically tells the teacher to teach the vowel sounds by name, and then teach the syllables formed by the consonants in combination with the vowels without teaching the child the "name" of the consonants. (Isn't there some English reading method that focuses on syllables like this? Spalding, perhaps?) In the end, however, I never used it--it just didn't wasn't necessary. Before buying something, I suggest just going to your local library and picking up some Spanish-language picture books and have her sound the words out with you.

I looked over the contents of the various levels of KISS Grammar, and it does not appear that the tenses are taught.

I generally agree with tranquility7's comment that : "One thing I am convinced of, however, is the importance of learning complete dictionary forms of nouns, verbs, adjectives from the very beginning - in other words, learn "familia, familiae (f.)" for family, not just "familia". Learn "cantÅ, cantÄre, cantÄvÄ«, cantÄtus" for to sing, not just "cantat" nor just "cantÄ"." On the other hand, I am not entirely comfortable with having students memorizing things they don't understand yet. But this would not be a huge issue with ISL. Virtually all of the nouns learned in ISL are first and second declension, so if the gender has been learned, nearly all the nouns follow a regular and simple pattern when they decline. So it is not a huge disadvantage to not include the genitive form on the flash cards until genitive has been introduced. When we started ISL, I think I listed plural forms (which for feminine and masculine nouns in the the first and second declensions conveniently match the genitive form). The nouns that are not first or second declension in ISL are primarily kinship terms and body parts (and I think the body part terminology comes up after genitive has been discussed). I will admit to myself having been confused by having nouns that did not fit the established pattern. I wish the book had a note for the instructor explaining that these nouns were other declensions, e.g., why do you suddenly have words ending in -us that are not masculine.) But if you can get your child to drill these forms early without it killing the fun element of learning Latin, it would certainly be advantageous. I have not had my daughter memorize any of the past tense verb forms yet, since we have not gotten to those. But it was useful to include the plural command form on the flashcard since that helped to distinguish the -Ä“re conjugation from the -ere. By learning to pronounce the words with the proper accented syllable in the command form, one is prepared for the other differences. Certainly by the time a grammatical concept has been introduced, the appropriate forms must be included on the flash cards (if you haven't already done so). Tranquility7: You said that you are using Anki to drill grammar. I have experimented with this, but have not been completely satisfied with the cards I have made. Could you share your deck?

I went through similar issues with my daughter. (Although we had already raised her bilingual in English and German before we started Spanish). My daughter was also very slow at writing, so any written course just did not cut it. But personally I don't think that matters. Language at her age is primarily oral and auditory. She should be picking up the patterns by using them and hearing them used. At the end of third grade, we did a language course for 3 weeks in Mexico. It really helped. I would emphasize to the language school that written exercises is not going to be real helpful or appropriate. Playing, coloring, arts and crafts, picture books that require interaction with the teacher (or other native speakers, especially children) should be the main part of her instruction, in my opinion. If I had forced my daughter to write, that would have been the end of her Spanish. Due to the time of year we went to Mexico, there were no other children enrolled in the school, and unfortunately, we lived with a widow who had no children in the household (just a 20 year old niece). Finding a place and children to play with every day was critical for my daughter. We hung out at the main plaza and she played with the children of the street vendors (although I did have some concerns about contagious disease). Be prepared to buy some toys, etc. from the vendors to attract kids to play if you have to. Take along some toys (good quality jump ropes, balls, etc. that you can leave behind with new friends when you leave). I never really found a Spanish text that I liked for my daughter. I recommend lots of CDs with songs and stories. By the time you return from Guatemala, she may surprise you at the books on CDs that she can follow. Spanish language cartoons on DVDs are also a good choice. Unfortunately, I found that Mexico has a very poor selection of books and CDs for children (especially compared to what we can find for German). I expect that Guatemala will be the same. Don't expect to find many appropriate CDs or books in Guatemala.

Your husband desires sound very much like mine. I wanted to learn Latin as I taught it my daughter. We tried SSL, but quite frankly it is a waste of time--a lot of disconnected vocabulary with no grammar. We then tried Minimus, which was fun, but not very comprehensive. We finally found the right course with I Speak Latin ( http://ispeaklatin.com ) by Andrew Campbell. It teaches Latin as a living language in a very engaging manner. Your daughter is a little younger than my daughter was when we started ISL, but I don't think that matters (my daughter had already learned German and had begun Spanish by the time we started Latin). At the age of your daughter, I don't think you can teach Latin through grammatical concepts and translation, you have to use it. And that is what ISL does. I think we did ISP in second and third grade, and at the end of third grade we moved on to Famila Romana by Hans Orberg. By the end of ISP the student has learned three (out of five cases), first and second declension nouns and adjectives (which includes all three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter), and present tense verb conjugations. Here are some tips that to I have learned along the way: --ISL is more fun with several students. I only had my daughter. So we included all of my daughter's larger stuffed animals. They all got Latin names and tunics (old tee-shirts). Their arguments, competition, and silly mistakes help make Latin more fun. Sometimes I am the voice of the animals and sometimes my daughter is. We still use the animals in our Latin class--the boys are pitted against the girls on the exercises, but the poor boys are always making terrible mistakes for my daughter to find. You might want to consider joining the class as a student! --Keep the lessons short and fun, but at least a couple of times a week. --ISL recommends having the students draw pictures on note cards to create flashcards. This was too hard for my daughter at her age. So we used a digital camera and printed out the pictures cheaply at Costco. The funnier the pictures the better. My daughter was solid reader by kindergarten, so writing the word on the back was not a problem. --Even better than the flashcards, however, would be to enter the vocabulary and pictures into a computer program like Anki, which accepts text, picture, audio, and movie files (here is a link: http://ankisrs.net ). I did not know about Anki when we were doing ISP, but have been using it for about a year now to learn Latin, Spanish, and Korean vocabulary. It does not necessitate knowing how to read or write (you orally respond to the flash card, and the card could be a picture and a sound file created by your husband reading the Latin and English vocabulary). Every time you answer, you just rate yourself--repeat (you forgot it), hard, easy, very easy. And the program shuffles the card back into the deck. The default is 20 new words and day, but you could easily set it to 3 or 5 new words to make it more manageable for a young child. Anki has made a real difference in my daughter (and me) retaining the vocabulary. You will need to let your son use a computer or tablet, however. Anki is available free for most platforms, but the iPad version costs $25. We used the computer version for about 8 months until we got an iPad this Christmas. It is very easy to find funny pictures on the Internet to load into the digital flash cards to illustrate the words. Of course, you can load in your own digital pictures. --ISL largely assumes a classical pronunciation, but it is not difficult to substitute ecclesiastical. The only real problem is that with the ecclesiastical pronunciation it would be helpful to use accent marks on the words to show when the accent is not on the second to last syllable. Textbooks using classical pronunciation use a line over the long vowels (called a macron)--since the pattern of long and short vowels determines where the accent is, you don't need accent marks. I have compromised by teaching my daughter the macron system, but essentially using ecclesiastical pronunciation. --Follow on to ISL is a little tricky. We moved on to Familia Romana because it had an engaging story (but it does have it less interesting chapters). --Now that we are into Familia Romana, it definitely helps that my daughter understands grammatical concepts like nominative and accusative cases. KISS Grammar was great for this since you learn by analyzing real English sentences. Even to do just the first two levels would be sufficient to teach the key concepts that are probably explicitly taught in the other Latin courses intended for children. The developer of KISS Grammar starts his ideal sequence for his program in first grade. Here is a link: http://www.kissgrammar.org/WBooks_ToC.html#Ideal_Sequence . If you start KISS now, by the time your daughter is ready for a follow on course, she should have a pretty good grasp of the key concepts in English and she can apply them to Latin. If your husband has not learned a highly inflected foreign language like Latin before, he could also benefit from KISS Grammar, which is a free program. You or your husband will need a little bit of time to figure out the KISS Grammar approach, but once you are into it, it is very easy to use. And very effective. Good luck.

I must admit to being completely confused by the whole concept of pre-Algebra. My daughter is just starting Singapore 5A (Standards Edition). I have heard and pretty much confirmed by the Singapore Math website explaining scope and sequence that 6th grade Singapore does not cover very many new topics. But on the other hand, having looked over Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra, I don't see it introducing that many new topics either (although the approach is difference). Am I wrong in thinking that "Pre-Algebra" really just means consolidating the skills learned in grades 1 through 5? In any event, I am planning on moving my daughter to ASOP Pre-Algebra for 6th grade, and should its approach prove troublesome, to switch to Singapore 6A and 6B. My real question is not what do we need to do to prepare a student for Algebra in 7th or 8th grade, but rather, what are the public schools (which under Common Core are delaying Algebra until 9th grade) are doing in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade? Is there really any reason why a student that has mastered any rigorous 1 through 6 math program should not be ready for Algebra by 7th grade?

Be sure to order the Home Instructor's Guide. The HIG is very useful to learning how to present the material in the Singapore method.