... We know several foster parents, and their experience has been very rewarding.

For spoken languages, I don't think you can start too early, in terms of getting them to hear and produce the correct phonemes for any given foreign language. That doesn't need they need a formal program to memorize grammar and vocab, but watching videos in the language, learning songs and chants with good pronunciation can be very helpful.

With the exception of Cambridge's "Minimus", which I'd classify as somewhat reading-based, and Rosetta Stone Latin, which I'd classify as useless, all of the Latin programs aimed at the younger crowd teach grammar explicitly. None of them go very far, so I don't know if it is fair to classify them as "parts to whole" -- they never get to the whole.

The Singapore Math "More Challenging Word Problems" book is filled with great math problems that aren't busy work by any means.

I hate to be a whiner, but there are a ton of threads that predate the web site change with links in them to other hive threads. All these links are now dead.

Holy cow! Quick off-topic question: how did you find the correct pages? I came across a broken (updated) link in an old post, and couldn't figure out how to find the right page -- is there any easy way to do this?

I'm as big of a proponent of Latin as you will find. It is an important part of our educational plan. However, unlike many (most?) people here, I don't see much value in starting before late middle school (7-8th grade). Again and again, I read moms here singing the praising of early Latin. But what does it accomplish? With something like 6 years (!) of preparation, students who have started Latin in 3rd grade don't even get to skip one year of high school Latin. Yes, they are "ahead" a bit, and yes, first year Latin is a bit easier in high school, but at what cost? I say, wait until they are ready to go full steam into it, and then do it. LNM is a beautiful text, and will only get cheaper in the future, as more used copies become available (assuming you want to go that route). Wait until 7th grade and try again with LNM at a 7th grader's pace.

Here you are recommending using the passive voice, which may be discouraged at this age.

I would absolutely enforce this rule. Ways to reduce repetition are to use pronouns, to use synonyms, and to use more specific terms. When he uses synonyms, he can decorate them with adjectives to add more meaning. So, he could use "This plant" or "This strange plant", or "This jungle-dwelling plant". An example of replacing the subject with a more specific term is in the last sentence of the first paragraph -- does every part of the plant as a whole eat the fly? Or can you mention the more specific parts and functions that do?

I'm sure the cheating is rampant, but I don't believe this figure at all. What is the source? I bet that at least 32% of students have no assigned papers to write in any given semester.

I haven't seen the movie, but isn't a lot of it about the Harlem Children's Zone project? If so, a big part of this project is training parents to be better parents. HCZ is a very ambitious project, and it isn't cheap, and it will take a long time to prove whether it works or not. For the sake of the kids, I sure hope it does work.

Also, I find it interesting to compare the first and last bullet points in the author's article: Keep in mind the author's experience only covers US Government, and that, in my experiences, the different disciplines have very different exams. I wouldn't expect that his experience with history is at all relevant to Calculus or, say, Latin. Importantly, for classes like these, the college syllabus is very well defined, and I don't think differs much from university to university, and there isn't much choice as to how superficially or in depth you study them -- either you memorize the 3rd declension noun endings or you don't, there's not much ability to do it "superficially" or "in depth". So, if his real argument is that "the US Government exam is too much of a survey", well, maybe that's a legitimate complaint. But that brush isn't nearly wide enough to cover the whole AP program.

While I think that certain AP Classes at certain schools may indeed be a scam, that is, those classes where few students take or pass the AP exam, I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, I say, the AP Exam is not a scam, and perhaps it is too easy to get a syllabus approved. The College Board publishes distributions of exam scores (e.g. 30 % of students got a 5 on APUSH...), but it would be interesting to see those broken down by school or classroom. Perhaps if a given AP class routinely has the majority of students fail, or not even try the test, it should lose the AP designation.

There's so much wonderful material and activities available now, including those that are academic, extra-curricular and many that are kind of in-between (OM, Science Olympiad, etc.). Our biggest problem isn't choosing what to do, it is choosing what not to do. Any suggestions on this, and depth vs. breadth, especially at different ages?

Even if there are no professional theatre companies nearby, we've always gotten a lot out of going to local high school and other amateur productions. And they are inexpensive! For Shakespeare, if you can find the BBC miniseries "Playing Shakespeare" at your library, you won't regret watching it, I cannot recommend it highly enough. As far as repertoire, I wouldn't overlook drama in translation, from such authors as Moliere, Ibsen and Chekhov. Finally, I'd mix in few modern plays, too, just to show the genre isn't dead. Maybe Neil Simon, David Mamet or Tom Stoppard, or some recent Tony winner? "Rosencratz and Guilderstern are dead" would be fun to throw in if you are also reading Hamlet.

Dragon Rider, by Cornelia Funke, was a big hit at that age. We were especially proud to read a very big book on our own, and it was the right mix of suspenseful without being scary for a young child.

The fabulous discounts are necessarily in the devices, but in all the free books and library books you can get without leaving your house.

I didn't really "get it", until I found a friend with a Kindle, and was able to hold it, and see how it felt in my own hands, and watch how much others really did use it on a daily basis. Do you know anyone who has one who will just show you how the page turning, library checking-out, etc. works? This helped me out a lot.

It is just me, or did DA just go down hill after the first season? Frankly, I'd prefer to see another set of character in or around that same time period, rather than thrashing around the same plots and characters.

Google has one too, at http://www.google.com/santatracker, which is disturbingly educational.

The above is just fantastic advice. However, it just reiterates to me how important test prep is. I can't believe there are people (including the SAT folks) who say that test prep isn't useful. Moreover, it shows that, with training, you can do well on the essay without being a great writer, so what's the purpose of the test?

What's the definition of a strategy game? We love Dominion, but also "Ticket to Ride", which I don't think counts as strategy, but I couldn't tell you why.

Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida"

I think the proof is in the pudding, as it was. I had an acquaintance with a step-daugher who attended a Waldorf school through grade 8, who had serious math deficiencies coming into 9th grade. She hadn't been exposed to fractions or decimals, much less the pre-algebra that is expected these days, but she did have a beautiful (and apparently ubiquitous) hand-made book. I know that a sample size of one isn't good, but if I were to investigate a school, I'd want to talk to graduates and their parents.

The Connie Willis time-traveling books "Blackout" and "All Clear" are two fantastic books set during the Blitz, and really give a great feel of what must have been like to be there.