We've used the first two jr. History books, SYRWL Latin and French 1, and SYRWLMaths 2 & 3. I've been mostly very satisfied with them. What specific questions do you have?

My sixth grade daughter loves to tackle giant books, but younger daughter does not... here's a few thoughts on shorter books that my daughter has liked The hundred dresses Sarah plain and tall Number the stars The giver A Christmas carol The little prince Most of Ronald Dahls books are short Eva Ibbotsons kids books Also, how about buying one of those giant beautifully bound editions of Grimms fairy tales? She could get used to the bulk of the book and get over the fear but only be reading a story at a time. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grimms-complete-fairy-tales-brothers-brothers-grimm/1102502038?ean=9781435141865 She might feel really proud to finish it and no longer have the dread of a large tome. Or... You could have her read a book online or on a kindle or tablet. Then she won't know have a sense of book length.

I don't have an answer, but I have had the same pain (as your #1 symptom) lately. I was thinking it might be some lymph node or muscle thing or something? Let me know if you ever figure out what it is.

I know it's tempting to assume that the educators who create state standards and the textbook authors and the standardized test item writers have some greater knowledge about what age different topics should be taught. As parents and teachers we then end up classifying our children as advanced or remedial in relation to that grade level assigned to those topics... but the truth is that grade levels are somewhat arbitrary and as homeschoolers we don't have to follow any of that. The number on your daughter's book isn't any more important than the size of her jeans. She might be 10 years old and wear a size 10, or a size 7 or a size 16, but it doesn't really mean much since what really matters is that the jeans fit. You could sew a different tag on her jeans... And you could stick a piece of tape over the 3B math book because ultimately it only matters whether the program fits or not. So my advice is to use your daughter as your standard, not the common core or the sequence in a certain textbook. If she's thriving in MIF 3b, stick with it! If she's motivated to move into 4a, encourage her to do two lessons a day. If she clearly knows how to do a topic, skip it. If she needs to go back, then do it and spend extra time and focus on those topics without worrying about her being "behind"... Because she is the standard for her fourth grade, she can never be behind or ahead. She learns where she's at. And... If at the end of the day, she really just can't handle the number on the front of the book, I'd turn to Math Mammoth. It's solid and if you use the topic books rather than the books by grade level, she'll never need to worry about what "grade" the book is.

I am doing a 'unit study' type approach to world history this year. It hasn't been hard to plan it myself: just decide which month to study each area, find the text resources to use (I used mostly OUP The World in Ancient/Medieval series), look up a few documentaries, find some literature or folk stories that are related to the area to assign, come up with some writing topics, search the internet for recipes/art/dances/music from the area... I put it all into the homeschool helper app on my ipad and then we just do it. My girls put it all together in a 'history portfolio' with maps and pictures and it's been pretty awesome. We'll continue for US history next year.

I used to teach public middle school and we absolutely taught about Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Ancient Civilizations social studies classes. It was definitely a non-issue. The kids learned about the history and traditions of each of those religions. It was approached from an academic perspective and it really wasn't a big deal.

I can absolutely commiserate. I figure I was pretty difficult at that age too... so I probably deserve it. I aim to homeschool only as long as it's working for both of us. If she's miserable and you're miserable, it's no good. You might set a deadline (a few weeks, a month, to the end of the semester) to re-evaluate, but really... homeschooling should be a better-than-school experience and it sounds like it isn't right now.

Sure! That's how we've always done our writing. I like history better than science, so I just incorporate writing assignments into our history/literature time. We started a few years ago with History Portfolio which gives ideas for assignments, but have since just been using blank portfolios and card stock and making my own assignments. I assign pictures, times lines, lists, outlines, maps and paragraphs or essays. We're doing world history in a unit form. Most of the paragraphs are summaries of events or biographical paragraphs of famous people, but we've done an essay each month too. Right now, my 11 yr old is writing an essay on the effect of European colonization on aboriginal Australians. Other assignments this year have been: why early humans humans migrated, compare/contrast essay of the Jungle Book and the Graveyard book, Compare/contrast essay on Disney Mulan and one of the earlier Chinese legends of Mulan, and a summary of a story from 1001 Nights. I'll probably have them do an essay on how Spanish missionaries converted the Aztecs, causes for the French Revolution and what was the effect of European colonization on native Americans. The nice thing about the portfolio concept is that my daughter regularly looks through it. She doesn't just toss the finished essay out, but it gets glued in and read again with pride.

Math - Foerster Algebra 1 History -Story of US 1-5 plus portfolio, videos etc... English -American lit to go along with history, also DBQs based on US history for writing Science - Story of science Einstein Geography - McHenry Mapping the world French - outsourced!

I figure when kids have got the hang of handwriting, it's time to focus on spelling. When they can handle spelling common words, it's time to focus on punctuation. When they've got that under control, it's on to paragraphs. Once that's mastered, begin working on essays. In other words, I teach from smallest to largest... letter to word to sentence to paragraph to essay. Of course, you could keep on working on one area while shifting focus to another, but it seems silly to try to get a child who can't write a sentence to try to write a paragraph. Or a child who is working on forming letters to also try to spell the word correctly. With my kids, kindergarten and first was when letters were mastered, first and second was when spelling was the focus, second and third grade was when we worked on punctuation. Fourth and fifth grade were great times for learning paragraphs and now in middle school, we're on to essays. I think some kids could have a different readiness for these skills, but these ages feel about right to me. Currently, my kids' essays are of the five-paragraph variety... either summarizing, persuading or comparing/constrasting. In a year or two, I think they'll be ready to branch off of these template types of essays.

Minimus is great for piquing interest with minimal teacher knowledge required. It's light and aimed at upper elementary and only briefly touches on serious grammar. Both my kids and I enjoyed it!

Not what you're looking for probably, but my kids loved watching The Poisoners Handbook on American Experience. They read the book too. There's also a Horrible Science book called "Painful Poisons".

If you don't want to do a full program, I would make a list of words he is misspelling. Every time you get to 10 words, input them into spelling city and have him practice those words. Or if he doesn't like games, just have him write the list down a few times and test him on those 10 words.

Nice Find!

We liked Galore Park So You Really Want to Learn Maths. We did book 2 and 3 after SM6b. It does start off with review, but moves on to new topics. My daughter never felt it was intimidating or overly tricky. The word problems are much easier than the CWP.

What helps is always starting at the same time (8:30) and not getting overenthusiastic about subjects. We do only 5 subjects and we generally do it in the same order every day from heaviest to lightest.

I assume you have done Minimus Secundus? I think Latin Prep is a great next step. But -- I see you have a 7 yr old. In order to translate Latin, you need to be able to handle the intricacies of the case system and some verb tenses and noun declensions that English doesn't have. It requires a certain way of thinking about language and a resilience and background in grammar. It's not really until middle school that I would attempt Latin Prep. Alternatives that focus more on vocab and less on grammar are Song School Latin, Lively Latin (we used this) or something like "Learning Latin through Mythology" and/or other readers. Another possibility is to do the Exploratory Latin exam. You can get their materials and focus on learning the vocabulary. In reality, the effort spent on a year of Latin at early elementary age can be covered in a few weeks at middle school age. It's great to get a taste for a language like Latin in early elementary, but to really dig in and learn it, I'd wait until the right developmental point --- it'll be so much easier and more efficient!

Eva Ibbotson!

I find the best beginning chores are the kind that are not vague or ambiguous. "Put away laundry", "bring in the firewood" or "Empty the dishwasher" have been good useful starter chores in our house. I like that they're not scalar... the job is either done or not done. "Sweep the kitchen" is too unclear because you can say you did it but actually just moved a broom around halfheartedly. We also have kids help clean up the house once a week. Recently we just stepped it up and now my girls are in charge of cleaning the kitchen. Every night. Right after dinner. They have a list of things to do. We did it first together for a few days and then they were on their own. It's mostly wonderful, but there are arguments that have broken out about whose turn it is to choose the music or whose turn it is to take out the garbage. Still... they do a decent job. I pay them a $10/week allowance for their work - automatically deposited directly into their debit card accounts. They're feeling flush with money!

I wouldn't worry. Not drinking water isn't inherently a problem. If you don't want him to drink soda, just don't have it in the house. Provide juice and milk and water and tea and whatever else your family likes to drink. If he's thirsty, he'll drink something. If he's not thirsty, he won't. We actually get most of our water from the food we eat. Some weird food myths in the past have advocated drinking 8 cups (or maybe it's 2 liters) of water each day, but it's just a made up, random amount. Does he have a water bottle or drinking fountain at the pool in case he gets thirsty? Does he have any underlying kidney problems? Other than that, I'd just let him sort it out. If it's turned into a power struggle, you will never win... and he might avoid drinking water (at least when you are around) simply in response to your concern. I'd really just let it go. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24464774 http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=lNTLwK-yeDw (start around minute 34 to watch the segment on water drinking) http://www.npr.org/2008/04/03/89323934/five-myths-about-drinking-water

Oh TERC Investigations in Number, Data, and Space!! That was the worst waste of time ever!

Memoria Press would fit the bill. It's not exciting, but it works. They are a conservative Christian publisher, but it's rarely noticeable... I've had my kids just be on the lookout for particular points of view that are a bit off. It mostly just gets iffy around the Middle East section.

I think homeschooling is an option that used to only appeal on the fringes... Either a religious fringe or a social fringe or a geographic fringe. It never even occurred to me that I would homeschool my own kids. But here I am! It got trendier, I wasn't working, my daughter wasn't learning much at school and basically I figured I could do better. But as for whether there's actually a crisis in education, check out Diane Ravitch's book on educational reform. Among other things, she argues that every generation thinks the past was better. There's historical precedent for believing we are in the midst of a crisis, but I think you'll find people perpetually think that the educational system should be overhauled. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xyOxAKKwfDYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA13&dq=1920s+article+school+reform&ots=hA5WL9epnr&sig=6WGK55_DarnNTz0y2RL2luOV_00#v=onepage&q=1920s%20article%20school%20reform&f=false

Thank you! I'm so glad for the wealth of knowledge of this board.

What crisis? I mean, any public education system will have flaws, but which flaws make you feel that there is a full-on crisis?