My box with Caesar's English in it just arrived today and we will be afterschooling with it next year. We might even begin in the summer. So while I am not really any help yet, I wanted to let you know that there is someone else here who will be in the same boat :) Twenty lessons seems quite doable to me, but admittedly we are blessed with ample afterschooling time.

Well, of course you can wait but I will give you an idea for a free tutor. If a local high school requires that students earn service hours, you may be able to find a native Spanish speaker high school student to spend time speaking one-on-one with your child. Check the private schools if the public high school doesn't require service hours - it is a common requirement. Of course, a high school student is not an adult, trained tutor and the experience would not substitute for that type of tutoring. But we have done this here in Denmark with great benefit. Our high school tutor is a super-smart young woman and she has helped improve our Danish. A lot! I might give her an idea to kick off a conversation, or sometimes she reads books out loud with my son. He reads a page and then she reads a page. They talk about the words and the pronunciation. She needs to earn a substantial number of service hours for graduation - it is really a win-win.

:iagree: Seconding the Maps, Charts and Graphs series. We are fans. For what it's worth, Seton puts Level D into its 4th grade curriculum.

AmyontheFarm, Just wanted to thank you for the link to your Symbaloo page. I am super-inspired! What a great way to present links to kids.

We are afterschoolers and DS11 is finishing up 5th grade. His current school asks him to do minimal writing and I really need to supplement. But in the interest of efficiency (his, not mine LOL), I am reluctant to follow a writing program and I would prefer that he just write across the curriculum. I have a few ideas but I would love some more. DS11 is not a reluctant writer, but I must take care not to burn him out. I would say that his skill level puts him ready (or nearly ready) for WWS. He does creative writing for fun, so I will surely leave that one alone. My ideas so far: Letters We live an ocean away from the grandparents, so letters would really be appreciated. They'll actually be emails, but they will be written as proper letters. Summarizing/Narration We are reading through Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. We live in Denmark so this is kind of an obvious set of fairy tales to read. I have had him summarize two of the tales. I just break it up into WWE4-size chunks. So far so good. We do (Catholic) faith formation at home so I thought of having him retell a Bible story or write a biographical sketches of a saint. As we approach confirmation, he will need some sort of portfolio to present so I am eager to slide some writing into our "output." Outlining I think that he is ready to outline from a Kingfisher's History encyclopedia. I own the really old (1990-something), white version that is supposed to be good for outlining. Resources! Here is what I am considering. Within reason, I am fine with purchasing multiple resources so that I can draw from them and put together something on my own. I am going to buy the WWS Instructor's manual and read through it. I just love the looks of this program, but it would probably be too time consuming for our situation. Maybe we will just pick out certain chunks to use rather than doing the program straight on through. I am interested in Write Shop because it has a gentle, two year schedule that would suit an afterschooler and the web site says that you can adapt the program to make it Write-Across-The-Curriculum friendly. Also, I am intrigued by what I read here about middle school IEW being good for writing across the curriculum. But I look at the website and I just can't figure it out. I have zero interest in DVD lessons or a steep learning curve just to learn the IEW-specific methodology. Maybe I just forget about this resource? Sorry this got long! In summary, I would like some ideas for middle grade writing across the curriculum and thoughts on the resources that would best facilitate this type of writing. Thanks in advance!

I recently purchased : CPO Life Science (Calif. edition) CPO Life Science Teacher's Guide (not the Calif. edition) CPO Earth Science (not the Calif. edition) and I have the CPO Earth Science Teacher's Guide (not the Calif. edition) on its way to me. My DS11 (currently in5th) wanted to afterschool life science with a textbook. I am in LOVE with these books!! Alas, my son decided that he didn't like the book while we were in Chapter 1 :( He got bogged down. The first chapter is about measurement, the scientific method and graphs. Math is not his favorite part of science. But I think (hope) that Chapter 1 of the Earth Science book is going to save the day here. It is nearly the same material presented with less detail and at a (slightly) lower reading level. I'm guessing that this is because CPO's sequence uses Earth followed by Life. (As an aside, this is going to take some convincing on my part. DS11 does not at all like jumping and skipping around - it annoys him when teachers do this. He likes to start at the beginning of a book and work straight on through it. Maybe he will decide to do the Earth book before Life, idk.) At first, I only ordered the textbooks but after reading more here I went ahead and got the Teacher's Guide for Life Science. And I am SO glad that I bought it. I was glad enough that I went ahead and ordered the one for Earth Science. Because I have a Calif. edition textbook and a non-Calif. Teacher's Guide things don't match up perfectly but this appears to be no big deal. I am very glad that I bought the non-California edition of the Earth Science book though, because it has the Astronomy Unit in it. I have not analyzed this in depth, but I think that there are more differences between editions with Earth than Life. So I guess I would say that if you have to buy a mismatch between student and teacher with Earth I would proceed with some caution. As for labs, I have decided to mostly ignore them and seek relevant experiments from anywhere-and-everywhere-else. So I can't offer any help there.

Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed reading your (very lovely and moving) post!

Thanks!

Does anyone have experience with Dr. Dave's Science Teaching Manuals from Royal Fireworks Press? We are VERY limited as to what we can round up for science experiments, so I need to avoid anything that requires specialized-anything. I can only use/get truly ordinary household items.

Can you find out what style your school teaches? Do you expect to stay in the same district? If you don't think that you will move or that the school system will change its cursive style, I would teach what they teach...unless I hated the style :) My son had Zaner Bloser at school from K through 4 and then we moved. His new school does not expect a 5th grader to re-learn to a different style. But the school DOES expect good handwriting. I love the free Zaner Bloser font tool! DS 11 still needs handwriting practice, so I use the tool to make up some copywork for him. We do this 2x per week. I use either an American theme (e.g., Pledge of Allegiance, Statue of Liberty inscription) or something from our religion for the copywork, as these are two subjects that we are actively learning at home. And I give him themed notebooking pages to go along with the text.

No advice to offer, but I do have a bit of encouragement! One of my (now grown) sons had super-messy handwriting until about age 13. For some reason, HE decided that he wanted better handwriting and - lo and behold - he created better handwriting for himself. It is not to a particular style, but it IS nothing short of exquisite!

Don't be surprised if, after your daughter is in the school for a period of time, that you change your afterschooling plans. My 5th grade son started at a new school this year and by the end of the first semester I (we) decided to make major shifts in our afterschooling emphases.

You may want to take a look at "Genesis 1: House of the Covenant by Mary Daly." It is a coloring book (13 coloring pages plus the text) that discusses the first chapter of Genesis (and part of Ch.2) and its relationship to science. It definitely has an Old World POV. Evolution is mentioned, but that is not the focus. It is really quite poetic and lovely. In the introduction, Mary Daly notes that it is suitable as a stand-alone resource for the middle grades, and I agree. It is a Catholic publication available directly from the author here . CHC also carries it and they have it listed on their website for 4th grade.

First, I would like to thank ALL of you so very much! Each reply helped me think this through and clarify our needs. We are actually liking Math Mammoth well enough, but DS11 wants a textbook. This I understand. He wants something that reminds him of his former school back home in the USA. Moving half way across the world can cause nostalgia/homesickness at unpredictable moments:) I am going to take a chance on ACSI Grade 6. I also like the looks of the Holt Middle School book a lot, but a cheap copy is not available to me at the moment (Europe). Ultimately I was swayed by the fact that ACSI has a Teacher's Manual available. If a cheap copy of the Holt book appears available, I might get that one also. The online supplements are quite good. I just hope that the religion in the ACSI book isn't a problem for us - we are Christian but we are neither Protestant nor Creationists. But I sure did like seeing Rembrandt in the preview! Well, we shall find out soon enough...it is now on order.

We are afterschooling math (high fifth, low sixth grade) and my son would like a textbook. The kind of book that looks like a textbook! Fat with a hard cover:) Ideally, I would like a textbook that has an answer key available, but this is not absolutely necessary. I would probably buy a 6th grade book unless the program was super fast paced. We will continue to use other resources, but by golly if he wants a textbook then I aim to find him a textbook! Any suggestions? Thanks.

This 4th grade teacher has a great blog post about math notebooks. I love the idea of the child creating a personal reference book, and I am encouraging DS11 to start this type of math journal. For example, my son is just about finished with Life of Fred fractions. I skimmed through the book and listed the concepts besides fractions that he has encountered in the book. Each one would make a great entry. Here is a very incomplete list: cardinal numbers vs. ordinal numbers, symmetry, division by zero and Roman numerals. From Phantom Tollbooth (a recent read) I pulled order of operations and polyhedrons. Usborne's Junior Math dictionary is a great resource. Don't be too put off by the word Junior; I found great stuff in there about polyhedrons and functions! We are actually using the British Maths version, but I imagine they are quite similar. I think that the process helps you take ownership of the concepts that you learn. Great thread!

Excellent point. Rumi! Yes, we must have Rumi!

US citizen living in Denmark.

A few more: Congress for Kids Celebrate Constitution Day (lots of links) Sept. 17 Preamble Lesson Plan (Gr 3 to 5) How the U.S. Government Works by Syl Sobel

Thank you all so much! And your responses have helped my clarify in my mind what I am looking for. I see now that I have three criteria: Picture books - the kind that appeal to older children and adults. Content that will either (1) help my non-Muslim child understand our Muslim friends and Muslim culture or (2) teach about interesting Muslims from history such as Saladin or Ibn Battuta. And I want books that, were I to show them to a Muslim friend, her response would be positive. At the very least, I wouldn't want her to cringe:) Again, thank you!

We are not Muslim, and I am searching for some quality picture books about Islam. What do you think about these books? Do you have any reservations about them? Are they respectful toward Muslims? Muhammad by Demi. Is the visual portrayal of Muhammad considered acceptable? Saladin by Diane Stanely Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta 1325 to 1354 by James Rumford I'd be interested in any other recommendations!

Muse looks good.

I have had some hits and misses with Seton. We are Catholic afterschoolers. Hits: Maps, Charts and Graphs series. My son really loves these workbooks and they do a great job teaching map skills. They are secular. The Rosary in Art and Art Through Faith. Beautiful art with great commentary. Very high quality paper and printing. I love these books for both faith study and art appreciation. Misses: The religion curriculum. I purchased it and returned it. For my taste, it was too focused on enumerating all of the ways that you can sin. I am all for teaching an orthodox version of the faith, but I was afraid that my son would get the impression that being "good" was well-nigh impossible. I went with Faith & Life. Grade 4 History text, "The Catholic Faith Comes to the New World." I dislike the portrayal of the conquistadors (too glorified) and there is an early chapter about the crusades that doesn't even fit the focus of the book. But I didn't return it because I kind of like Chapters 6 through 13. Seton's customer service people are super nice!

We are getting ready to start afterschooling 5th grade grammar. And now, thanks to all of you, I now have both Rod and Staff Grammar as well as MCT. I tried so hard not to want to order something else, I really did :) And then I couldn't decide if I should skip over Island Level and just get Town Level. He is in 5th grade and his grammar is on grade level, but I was so intrigued by the previews of Grammar Island and Building Language that I didn't want to miss out on the experience of reading those books. Ha, I can't wait to read them! If he just breezes through them, so be it. Then I will get Town.

Adding to the list: Prufrock Press not everything but the Logic Series and probably more Homeschool in the Woods Activity Paks Connecting With History (Catholic) Beautiful Feet Study Guides You can store your downloaded curriculum in Dropbox or a similar application if you don't want to worry about a computer crash.