The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler is the kid version of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by the same author. I just finished pre-reading TRAFOAH and it was very well done... pretty sure I got that book as a recommendation from you. I just put The Splendid and the Vile on my own reading list, but it's too long for the kids to get through. I will add your Churchill bio to the list. Thanks!

Thank you @Lori D. , especially for the more appropriate Hiroshima recommendation. I will refine my list a bit. Also, Escape from Warsaw sounds very good.

Dracula! This was another adult book my 13yo loved this year.

I will preview it, but it's probably fine. He's read Norse Myths by Gaiman, which had some sexual content as well.

For a modern series my 13 year old loves, try Gregor the Overlander. As a previous poster stated, the classics are really a good fit for the in-between age. You have clean plot lines, but more complex language for the older brain that is ready to handle it. My son has read a number of classics for pleasure this year that would have required a lot more coaxing and hand-holding even just a year ago. I have also found some wins by skipping the so-called YA category entirely and just giving him adult books. He loved The Martian, which has a clean plot but very foul language. I am not thinking of another example right now, but there were several books he read this year with adult protagonists.

Coming back to my own thread to mention Three Tigers, One Mountain as a possibility as well.

Thank you. Forgotten Ally looks like a good background info read for me!

This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for, thanks!

This is for an advanced 6th and advanced 8th grader. The 8th grader can read more if there is a good one that the 6th grader isn't ready for. Build up to WW2: - The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler, parts 1 and 2 - The Faithful Spy (graphic novel) For the European war: - Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler, parts 3 and 4 *- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas *- Devil's Arithmetic and/or Number the Stars and/or When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Maus (graphic novel) - WW2: Under the Shadow of the Swastika (graphic novel) - 2 shorter graphic novels on Battle of the Bulge and Normandy - Possibly The Good War by Terkel for oldest For the Pacific War: - WW2: Against the Rising Sun (graphic novel) - Hiroshima by Hersey *- Empire of the Sun *- Unbroken, young adult version *Where I have the asterisks above is where I think I need to narrow down to probably just one choice in each section. If there is a better book or books that I'm missing, I'm also up for more suggestions. I've chosen not to do Anne Frank because it would be impossible for me to get the abridged version edited by Anne's father, and I'm not interested in reading the longer version with my kids at this time, mostly due to having two kids who are currently mortified by all things "body related" at the moment. I don't want to lose the momentum of the conversation we are having about history, IYKWIM.

So, this year my ds (US 9th grade) will finish up a very intense year of modern history. We have really been taking our time and digging deep. His US 9th grade year is the last year of obligatory schooling where we live. After he finishes, he is going to go to public gymnase, which is like a college-prep US 10-12th grade school. During this final year at home, I will be having him do some in-depth Swiss history. But I would also like to assign some deeper dives into history through well-written history books published for the general public. Both non-fiction and novel. There is very little in terms of adult content we will need to avoid at that point, though I don't want overly graphic sex or violence. Some of my ideas: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (General, Eastern hem.) Wild Swans (China) We The Living (Russia) The Good War (WW2) Bastard Brigade (WW2) What I'm missing are books for ancient and middle time periods, and maybe some American books, although we really did go deep into US history this year. I am looking less for overviews and more for connections- following one thread or idea or region over time, like Silk Roads for example. Or sharp focus on an engaging topic, like Bastard Brigade above. I'm looking for really engaging books, which is why I'm hunting for adult popular history books. This is my kid who really seems to enjoy and soak up history. While I plan to read the books as well, his history will be almost entirely independent for this particular year. We have made it our huge focus for the last 1.5 years, and the mom-intense subject next year will be sciences.

Question in the title. Looking for a novel about the Chinese experience in WW2. Engaging non-fiction would be ok as well. I would also be open to any titles for me to read as background teacher's education. Thanks!

I don't. I sleep like a log. My mom had myriad sleep problems, including apnea, until a more perceptive doctor realized she had restless leg syndrome. She tried a medication for it and now sleeps soooo much better. She now gets deep sleep, no longer needs a CPAP machine, etc. It might be worth looking into RLS.

I'm so jealous! I practically have plans on how I'm converting the kids' rooms to exercise areas the second they move out. 😂 How is the noise level? My recollection from the gym is that rowers are pretty loud.

The biggest question for a "behind" kid (1 of my 4 is this) is this: Is progress still being made? If the answer is yes, then I wouldn't really worry about it. If the answer is no or not sure, I'd consider taking her to someone who can evaluate for any learning disabilities. There isn't a finish line to learning. I don't mean to be trite or cliche. It took me a lone time to understand this myself. Let's say your child is a full year behind across the board, but continues to progress, always staying approximately one year behind grade level. Then what? She can start college, junior college, trade program, etc, at 19 instead of 18. Absolutely nothing bad has happened. It sounds like you are in an adoption or foster type situation, so it is worth noting that your child may be making huge leaps in emotional age, processing trauma or separation, etc, even many years after she came to you. In the case of my behind child, she is dealing with a "heavy medical load," which, while not life-threatening, requires a huge amount of treatment. I have to remind myself that this is her real work right now, and probably will be for another year or so. As long as she is making progress in school, her grade level is truly irrelevant.

What an interesting topic to dive into! I hope you get some good resource ideas.

Can an older child be paid to do Barton with a younger sib?

If you mean The Illiad and the Odyssey, the best adaptations are: Black Ships Before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus. We used audiobooks for both of these to aid in name pronunciation. I was blown away by the quality. They are gruesome for sure, but not *graphic* in my view. We also read the graphic novel versions of both.

Commenting in my own thread to say I've just checked the table of contents for Humankind: A Hopeful History and it actually goes over the Stanford Prison Study and its flaws as well. It's sounding more and more interesting as a book. I'll be pre-reading and then possibly assigning. It would be good to find a hopeful way to end modern history!

Thank you for the references. I will look further into it. I'm also thinking of a book study comparing Lord of the Flies with the more recent book Humankind: A Hopeful History which includes the real-life story about Tongan boys who are shipwrecked on an island.

I'm sorry, i missed in your sig that you were dealing with various SN. How about doing something like a mind-map about a topic. Those things that look like blobs connected by lines. You can model it, then ask for independent mind-mapping. Then perhaps colored highlighters to group things that might be able to be combined into a single sentence. Then, you might be able to say, "Write out the green sentence." Green things highlighted might have been Paris, 19xx, and considered ugly. How can ds turn those into one sentence about the Eiffel Tower? Just some ideas. I hope you get more specific advice from others dealing with ASD.

Sounds interesting! I'll be listening in for more details.

So far, I've given no thought to style or revision for kids under 11. This has worked fine so far. My 11 year old has dramatically improved her paragraph writing this year with instruction, and my 13 year old is gently moving into essays. For the 11 year old, I am having her outline a short chapter form A Little History of Archaeology. There are other books in this series. My older is doing a paragraph from Little History of Philosophy and a paragraph from Little History of Economics each week. Great series. Anyway... - After she writes her outline, I have her read through her notes and then write a one sentence overview/summary. Typically, this sentence becomes the paragraph topic sentence, at this point now with very little modification. - I then have her go through the notes again, and have her pull out the 3-5 most important details relating to the topic sentence. We spend a lot of time talking about relevance to the summary paragraph- does the archaeologist's age/nationality/birthplace matter to the topic (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't), etc. She then sees if any of those details can be combined into a more complex sentence structure, and then writes 3-5 sentences for the body of the paragraph. - Finally, and this is where we are currently working, I ask her to re-read the topic sentence, reread the body, and try to find a way to wrap things up. Can we rewrite the topic sentence using other words, or with added insight from the details of the paragraph? Not every paragraph needs a conclusive conclusion. Some would be better with a transitional sentence if the topic yields itself to another hypothetical paragraph. So we practice both, but not on each and every paragraph. The best book for teaching fiction IMO is The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever. While aimed at elementary, the breaking-down of fictional writing into recognizable patterns applies to everyone and is useful to everyone. To contrast this, my 9 year old is currently reading a book like Let's Read and Find Out or a short fairy tale or Aesop's Fable, and then writing a 2-3 sentence "summary" and illustrating it. The only thing I correct is capitals and punctuation, and any spelling I think she should know or that she should have copied form the book. I don't even actually ask for a summary. I say, "Tell me 2-3 interesting things about this book/story, using full sentences." I think this method helps us avoid silliness like "This book is about fish." That obviously isn't interesting! But by asking for interesting things, what I am really doing is teaching how to write the body of a paragraph. I would not expect topic sentences until much later. If you'd like to talk about topic sentences, why don't you read their "interesting things" sentences, then you write the topic sentence for them, buddy-writing style. Kid writes: "Clown fish live with anemones." "Anemones can shoot microscopic poison darts." "Starfish can survive out of water for several hours." You write: "Tide pools contain many different types of life, specially adapted to the rough conditions at the edge of the ocean." (It doesn't have to be perfect, the goal is to get the idea that the topic sentence is like a net that holds all the rest of the paragraph together.) You can then reverse the exercise, where you write the topic sentence first and have them find three sentences. Or have them write the topic sentence and you write the details, or you write the details and have them come up with a TS. Lots of options here to make this more of a game.

Before anyone freaks out, this is not a political thread. 🤐 We are just wrapping up WWI and the Russian Revolution. We just finished Breaking Stalin's Nose and Between Shades of Gray (Soviet's hidden genocide in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.... incredible book, btw) in addition to corresponding SOTW4 chapters and books from Collier's American history series. Oldest also read Animal Farm and then we listened to a reading of Orwell's "What is Fascism" essay on youtube that we found. Next up is the rise of fascism, and we'll be reading The Wave as a discussion book. This brought to mind other socio/psych experiments that show everyday people doing horrific things for an authority, like the Stanford Prison Experiment and the one where they got students to shock other students (actually actors, no real shocking) well past the point of begging for help. My question: Is there a single resource or book that reunites these studies?

Echoing everyone above. Adding: - Bean burritos (you can make and freeze your own instead of buying the frozen ones at the store) - On the weekend, make a big batch of some kind of filling salad- lentil, quinoa, pasta, tuna... salads for example. These are great fillers, and a slice or two of cheese, some chopped fruit or veggies, a hunk of bread... and you have meal. - An omelet with some preprepared filling options, like pre-grated cheese, chopped meat from leftovers, sautéed mushrooms/peppers/onions... whatever the kids like. - Various soups, which can be frozen into individual servings for microwave. Same can be done with pasta sauce, sloppy joes/BBQ meat, etc. My grandma, who lived alone, would make a regular size batch, then freeze into muffin tins for herself to make portions. I think it's more about readjusting expectations of what a meal looks like, rather than any true difficulty in finding food kids can prepare or serve themselves.

I'm also going to question definitions a bit. Things that are typically defined as (physical) "play" are not things I particularly enjoy, though I will occasionally humor my kids. Things that are typically defined as exercise (with all of the negative connotations)- running, walking, hiking, climbing, yoga, weight lifting... are things that truly bring me a lot of happiness and even relaxation. Having good workout buddies can be an AMAZING add-on, though I don't need it. I enjoy the banter between two people who are not competing with each other but only with themselves. The sense of camaraderie is fantastic. I considered myself non-athletic though all of middle school. Then I discovered individual sports and realized I loved being physically active. So I would say... the words don't matter much. If you are doing a physical activity, and you enjoy it, call it play. 🙂