Not a curriculum or at all comprehensive, but we have loved the "small friends books". Each deals with a different symbiotic relationship between micro and macro organisms. They all start off with a story, in which the characters are micro-organisms (e.g. bacteria and fungal spores in the soil communicating via chemical signals, breaking down phosphorus in the soil, connecting to tree roots and transferring nutrients). The second part of the book delves into the "science behind the story".

You start off by saying that you do 30-60 minutes of school stuff a day. But it seems that another way of describing it is that you only do 30-60 minutes of *math and English* a day. I think the issue boils down to what counts as "school stuff". Analogy: I'm an academic. When I lived in England, we were asked to track how many hours we spent on different components of our job. Figuring out how much time you're doing research (at least as a philosopher) is an essentially impossible task. If I'm sitting at my desk, writing a paper or working out ideas, that obviously counts. If I'm having a meeting with a philosopher I don't know to discuss our work, that obviously counts. But I do a lot of my best thinking either on a walk or in the bath. If I have an hour long bath and come up with a new paper in the process, was that research time? Was that a relaxing bath? If I'm talking philosophy with my husband (also a philosophy professor), is that research time? What if we're lying in bed when we do it? If you never "turn off" thinking about philosophy, and it’s just integrated throughout your day, there simply aren't sharp boundaries between what is and isn’t doing research. Similarly, for an inquisitive homeschooled kid in a super enriching environment, I think the line between "school stuff" and not school stuff is blurry. If "school stuff" essentially excludes "fun stuff", then I’d scrap that as an idea of what’s important. Science, history, reading, museum trips, piano, STEM enrichment… definitely all educational, all valuable. If that’s what’s making up the rest of his day, it seems just right for a first grader. At the same time, I think everyone else’s suggestions of other valuable activities are great!

Thank you! Both for this and for all the comments you've made along these lines! I've been surprised by how many homeschoolers stick to pre-fab curriculum and do things like worksheets. I can understand why, in a large classroom context, things like that are necessary. But part of the value of homeschooling comes from its customizability: the ability to tailor not only to the academic abilities of each child, but to their interests, their developmental needs... their person. Big-picture educational aims are never rigid and concrete. What's important isn't being able to do a certain sort of assignment a certain way. It's being able to gather information, question, reason, and explain yourself well. And there are an almost endless variety of ways of cultivating those big-picture skills. (Note: I do not mean this to be a response to the details of this thread, or a commentary on anything about CM specifically. Just wanted to say "right on" and "thanks" to 8filltheheart. Makes me feel less alone!)

Good to know! Thanks! (This wasn't the case when my mother was in grad school, or at the PhD program she taught at, and she attributed this to the fact that it was more of a "professional" discipline. Not sure if that has to do with how competitive the schools were? Or with times changing? Either way, good to have an expert in the area to correct! )

Malam's point is true generally for PhDs in the US, provided they are not in a "professional" field (e.g. clinical psych). It is not true for MDs, JDs, MBAs, etc., and funding in other countries will vary. (E.g. in the UK funding is awarded separately from admission.) PhDs in humanities fields are typically funded. Funding will include tuition and a stipend, which will usually involve some combination of fellowship (i.e. getting paid to do research) and teaching. How much the stipends are varies enormously by school. Many pay barely enough to scrape by, living with roommates. My alma matter now pays grad students $50k a year. (Outlier!) Either way, evaluating PhDs programs is not like evaluating undergrad institutions. Anywhere worth going to will cover your expenses, and generally the deeper the school's pockets, the more comfortable the grad students. While there are schools that will admit people unfunded, no good schools do, and no student should accept such offers, unless they are independently wealthy or have an outside scholarship. (FWIW, I have a PhD in the humanities from one of the "big three" Ivies, work at a good research university in the US, previously worked in a good research university in the UK, and have parents who are professors (one in math). I've advised many undergrads heading to grad school. 🙂) Having been homeschooled won't be an issue with PhD admissions. They're not looking at anything pre-college. So the real question is just the importance of undergrad institution. One needn't go to a top undergrad institution to get into an excellent PhD program. But if you're coming out of a place no one's ever heard of, that's never sent anyone on to a PhD, it could be more difficult, as your letters of recommendation won't be as meaningful. (Saying someone's the best student you've taught in the past 20 years means something very different if you've taught 10 students who've gone to top PhD programs in the past ten years, versus none.) But doing an REU, as Malam suggests, could be both an excellent research experience and be a source of meaningful outside letters. Other things that might be worth knowing... In general, it's frowned upon to do one's PhD at their undergrad institution. (The idea is that you need to be exposed to a diversity of ways of thinking.) If he's wanting to go on to become an academic, the institution he attends for his PhD will likely matter a lot. Going to random local school for his PhD could definitely shoot him in the foot if he's eventually wanting to be a professor himself. (When the time comes, he can look at the placement records of the schools he's thinking about to get a sense.)

So… when you see my very slight 6yo with delicate features, mid-back length hair, a sparkly butterfly shirt, and purple shoes … he’d look male to you? You must have some amazing superpowers going on. On the one hand, you seem to think that everyone should embrace the sex that they were assigned at birth, and give up on gender norms. On the other hand, you think that you can identify people’s sex via how they present visually. There’s a serious tension here.

Oh, I agree that drag queens aren't ideal for this role. (Though as I said earlier, one thing it has going for it is that can advertise "Storytime with a Drag Queen", since it is essentially performative, whereas you can't advertise "Storytime with a Lesbian".) What I meant was that the original question was why this was a thing, and the answer that folks had supplied was that they could be role models for LGBTQ kids and help to normalize differences in gender expression and sexuality. So I wasn't sure why the conversation became fixated on what it takes to be queer. FWIW, I personally think there's less value coming from their serving as role models -- for the reason you point out -- and more value coming from loudly proclaiming that it's okay to defy the Ron DeSantis view of gender-acceptable behavior.

This. It seems like there’s a broader and a narrower use of 'queer'. The broader use is as an umbrella term capturing everyone who falls into 'LGBTQ'; the narrower use is specifically the 'Q' – which may be characterized as Foucault et al … or as something else (language evolves). I may have lost the thread of the discussion, but I’m not sure why the focus came to be on 'queer' in particular. I thought the main idea was that drag queens in libraries could serve as role models and help to normalize differences in gender expression and sexuality. That could be for a gay kid, a gender non-conforming kid, a nonbinary kid, a trans kid, a (narrow reading) queer kid.

Someone had mentioned a couple pages back that they thought it would be more helpful for LGBTQ kids to have storytime with someone gender-nonconforming, versus a drag queen. I love this idea, and think it would be great for libraries to make an effort to find people who are diverse in a variety of ways to do storytime. (In fact, if you had a good roster of diverse people to do storytime, and let them choose the stories, you’d plausibly get a more diverse mixture of stories, too!) The thing is, you can’t advertise “Storytime With a Trans Woman”. It would be like advertising “Storytime with a Black Person”. By contrast, since drag is itself a *performance*, it’s perfectly okay to advertise “Storytime with a Drag Queen”. So insofar as you want to attract the people who will find it valuable, I can see why a library would want to do this.

We have similar taste in boardgames. Avalon is awesome and great for 6 players: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128882/resistance-avalon

The Kingdom of Wrenly is great! Prince and his best friend (Clara, the seamstress's daughter) go on all sorts of fun adventures together around the magical kingdom of Wrenly. Fairies, trolls, dragons, mermaids. I loved that unlike many similar books, the parents are present and supportive. 100% appropriate for younger kids (with some great life lessons). The writing is a small step up from Magic Treehouse -- but with a larger font and more (better) pictures.

Before DS started really writing, I used this app (with stylus) to reinforce proper letter formation. It was great, because they first see a hand write the letter correctly, then it indicates the order and start/end points to make sure they write it properly. You can also customize it a lot to gradually progress to writing letters independently. Much easier than constant reminders, and by the time we transitioned to writing on paper, the habits were ingrained.

We love History Quest. We've only gotten through Ancient History and the first part of Middle Times -- so I can't speak to what comes after -- but thus far it's been very focused on people as opposed to wars. Each chapter begins with an overview of what's happening in the time/place. The second half of the chapter is a "history hop", in which you travel back in time and meet someone from the past. (Written in second person; really well done!) The figures you meet are very well balanced, both in terms of the inclusion of women, and in giving perspectives other than those of rulers. Only down side is that the Modern Times volume isn't out yet, nor is the audio book version of the American History volume. (But the audio books are so well done!) https://www.pandiapress.com/history-quest/

Seconding both Sir Cumfrence and Anno! Our son also loves both the Multiplying Menace and Molly and the Mathematical Mysteries.

My son's enjoyed the fable cottage: https://www.thefablecottage.com/ They're stories that you can either read, listen to, or watch in video form. And they have all the same things in English, so you can watch that first if necessary. He also enjoyed watching Alma's Way in Spanish, which is on youtube (if you're in the US). I only understand basic Spanish, and still found it easy to understand.