Here is a friendly reminder for her to not just plow through each math course in order according to the schools and some curriulum providers. Sure, we need to learn decimals and fractions, but stats, probability, and other topics enrich a child, particularly if s/he is not ready for higher thinking/reasoning of geometry. www.artofproblemsolving.com has some courses that are not in the scope of what is typically covered in math. We found Life of Fred www.polkadotpublishing.com helped my kids understand and enjoy math along w/Zaccaro's books and Murderous Maths for fun (just agreeing w/others who posted...these are good!) HTH, Spetzi

The FREE stuff! lol I also like Knowledge Box Central and Hands of a Child.

We like the Life of Fred math books www.polkadotpublishing.com. My kids like a spiral approach to math so the kids learn a new concept and do some problems like that. In the same session they also do problem types that they learned yesterday, last week and 2 months ago. There might be 4-8 of each problem set which always seems to be enough practice w/o it being overkill. I've been eyeing Art of Problem Solving math, but haven't used it yet. www.artofproblemsolving.com. They have some interesting articles, too. http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php We use a lot of different math items, but I like to stick with one basic math curriculum and supplement w/other cool, fun items. Edward Zaccaro writes some good math supplements, too. There are also fun math games. My kids love working with numbers so this doesnt' feel like "work" to them. Your son may feel the same. I know it feels overwhelming to homeschool and to keep up with a gifted child, but keep researching, reading books and message boards and asking questions. You may try some things that don't work, but you will find your groove. :D

You ROCK! Thanks for being so generous with your hard work. You have really saved me some time over the years. :)

I know Beautiful Feet has a guide for the History of Science. We are going to use Hakim's Story of Science, but I'm getting this for my younger ones. Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids I know Janice Van Cleave has Science Through the Ages and Scientists Through the Ages. There is also a series of Ancient Science so you can study scientific advancements in different areas of the world. Hope some of this helps! Spetzi

Movie Sarah Plain and Tall w/Glenn Close was pretty good. There was a great show on the History Channel about house building on the frontier (sod houses, log cabins, etc.)

Thanks for your response. I am going to pull the trigger! :lol:

Jeannie Fulbright has free notebooking pages on her site. I'm sure the ones you pay for are better, but these served us well. http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/notebook-pages We easily completed 2 books in a year, including the activities and notebooking.

I made a decision when ds was 4 that I couldn't let his mind slow down to the age of his body, especially with math. I wrote most of Saxon (lots of writing!) or we did it orally. I realize that doesn't answer your question, but if I were you I might do the writing for now and have her try again in a few months. Or you could have dd write out the problem, but not the solution. Have her learn that of writing the problem and answer part step by step. Good luck!

I think RS4K is not very good. It mentions topics/vocab/people and does not go into depth about them or even explain them fully. I felt it was a bit scattered, but we did enjoy the experiments (Chem). We loved Noeo Physics I.

I'm interested in Art of Problem Solving books. They look good. We've used Zacarro's books, Life of Fred as well as Horizons and Teaching Textbooks (not all at once, but we use a lot of math resources!) Tell me more about it and whether it worked for your child. Thanks!

We love Life of Fred. We've also used Basic Not Boring Math for Gr 6-8. There is not much instruction, just opportunities to solve interesting problems. When ds did it the workbook was sports themed which made it more enjoyable to him. I thought it was a GREAT review and had some interesting topics like probability as well as practical ones (map reading, etc.) Good luck!

We used it in 4th and 5th grade. He completed 2 seasons in 4th and the last one in 5th. He did one lesson/day which meant one section per week. It all went well. I don't think you would want to do half a lesson in a day. One *might want to take a day to talk about some of the more challenging concepts rather than flying through doing 4 lessons then the "test" then moving on. We did this a couple of times. Other concepts he just completed 3 lessons then tested on. We loved AG!

Memorizing comes to mind: countries (or a continent's countries) on a map, captials (state or national), presidents, Gettysburg Address or other speech or passage, squares/square roots, prime numbers, etc. I realize this is a not a skill, but it's what hit me in the moment. Playing an instrument or a specific song on piano or guitar might work, too. Yo-yoing, magic tricks...... Sorry, that's all I have at this early hour!

I used it w/an 8/9 yr old and 11/12 yr old this year. While I wouldn't call it exciting, I didn't think it was boring, either. It was interesting to me. The readings are short (a page or two). HTH,

Thanks, ArticMom. My state has lots of info on their website. I never thought to look! I'm going to look at Stratton House, too, Starrbuck. We use MFW ECC this year and MCT also. Still doing research if anyone else wants to chime in!

[quote name= If it were me' date=' and I weren't doing the 1-science-per-year gig, I'd be out there in the summer doing gotta do it outdoors because it's summer stuff-- getting water samples from streams and looking for one-celled organisms (diatoms, planaria, amoeba, etc); making different volcanos (okay, start with the basic, vinegar and baking soda one, but then what happens if you add dish soap? Food coloring? Corn syrup? All of the above??); doing projects in physics such as the backyard ballstics kind of stuff, or making the biggest soda bottle rocket you can. I'm not a mom who frets getting messy :). You make some good points. However, she always wants to dig deeper and know more so I'd like to have materials on hand that explain more and more rather than taking time to search on the computer or go to the library for every question. If I only had her I'm sure we'd do cool activities daily, but with the other 3 I find we don't always have the time to do as much as dd9 wants to do/see/read. [Plus, we have done most of the things you mentioned :)] Thanks for the suggestions, though. Fellow no-fret-messy-mom,

Does anyone have a valid coupon code for CBD? I really hate to pay shipping (for anything!) Thanks!

www.thesimplehomeschool.com Middle School Physics It's online text along w/short videos (online) and online games. There are also hands on experiments, but it's not hard to implement.

:confused: Anyone?

I LOVED level I, but level II was...just OK for us. We liked it enough to continue and use all 3 courses, but level I was so special that it was a bit of a let down to go to level II. Most of the course is notebooking out of Usborne books with some Young Scientist Kits thrown in. JMO,

I'd like something for the summer for science-hungry dd9. She enjoys reading science books, but I would love a good curric that held everything together for me/us. It can be pithy. She'd like to study earth science (rocks, minerals) or oceanography, but she's flexible. She recently studied birds, chem, physics, ecology and astronomy. I was hoping for a different topic. What science do you love? TIA,

check 1, 2, 3

Usually I have $150 order, but if I don't I have piggy backed (combined) with some local friends to get the free shipping. That's another option. If it's just a few items perhaps you can get them from amazon.

Funny! Once my little one was licking the salt shaker (yuck!) and my then-5 yo tattled, "Moommm, Sarah is licking the sodium chloride again!" I also get a kick out of my kids knowing the answers on game shows. That always impresses the grandparents.