For anyone who has had a 7th grader or younger complete AOPS's Intro to Algebra as part of homeschool, is it realistic to expect to cover the whole thing in a year if you don't do it 5 days a week? My family's kind of swamped this year and I can only provide "class" instruction for math three times a week. (In fact, has anyone made a schedule or syllabus I can reference for realistic daily goals?) I'm also wondering about how much your students self-taught, and how you handled the challenge problems. My inclination is to require the non-starred problems and make the starred problems extra credit if he completes them himself but also to make sure we talk about them all in any case. For background: My son (not quite 12, going into 7th) completed Singapore through 6B in grade 4 and Key to Algebra series in 5th grade. For 6th, he went to a one-yr. environmental school where the math was grade level but more or less self-taught. He can handle the difficulty but math is not necessarily his passion, and he does have a challenging schedule this year. Thanks for any responses -- I've crossposted elsewhere to no avail.

Other Beverly Cleary books like Henry and Ribsy, Socks, etc. might be a good transition into Ramona books. I always found that if my children were put off by a book that "looked hard" I would read the first chapter aloud with them to get them hooked, then set down the book and go do something else. Generally they picked it right back up and started reading. I also tore through Trixie Belden books at that age in addition to or instead of Nancy Drew. Books like Homer Price would be good, too, and The Ssturdays, The Four-Story Mistake and sequels.

For anyone who's successfully used a portfolio in combination with test scores for Davidson Young Scholars admittance: I am not really sure what to put in the portfolio! My homeschooled DS10 / "5th grade" hit the ceiling on the EXPLORE test this year but I can't say he has any other specific "proof" of being PG that can be submitted. (We are hoping to avoid WISC testing for cost reasons.) He is a Romaphile and chose over the last year to read every book in the library network about ancient Rome, but I don't have anything concrete to submit about that. He's finishing algebra now, but can I just submit some of his regular schoolwork? He is a competent writer but not a creative writer; can I submit a 4-page biography of Romulus he wrote (which is good, maybe great for his age, but nothing spectacular)? He's participated in a local science academy but doesn't have anything concrete to show for it other than a DVD of a group presentation. In short, my son is PG but is still awfully good at just being a somewhat distractible and energetic 10yo boy. Can anyone describe what they've submitted? Thanks for any ideas!

Hi, My fifth-grade son is on track to finish the Key to Algebra series by the end of the year. I have been grading his daily assignments and his tests. What do I need to do to ensure a smooth re-entry into the school system if ever we decide to do that? For that matter, do I need to think about getting official HS credit for this? How would I go about doing that? Thanks, KarenDV

Yes, we received ours Wednesday in Michigan.

We are going to try Oak Meadow Basic Life Science supplemented with material from Janice Van Cleave books and Frank Bottone's Science of Life. The OMBLS -- we have the "syllabus"/textbook -- has tons of experiments already and covers some botany, human body, cells, environment/ecology, etc. It does not appear to espouse a religious perspective and, while I'm not done reading it, does not appear to discuss origins or evolution, either. http://www.oakmeadow.com I did a lot of searching before settling on this, and it looks as if it strikes the right balance of challenging and fun.

My son has breezed through Rod & Staff 3 and 4 in the last year and a half. I looked at some samples of 5 and think that it looks like mostly review, and that I could safely jump to 6, which would re-cover any new topics from 5. Can anyone verify my hunch or, conversely, persuade me that I shouldn't skip 5? (If it matters, we also are using Classical Writing - Homer and use only the RS writing assignments that wouldn't be covered in CW, such as the friendly letter.) Thanks, Karen

Check out books by Gary Schmidt. His latest is The Wednesday Wars, but also read Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and other earlier works.

Thank you both -- your responses have been helpful. I think I'm going to proceed with NEM series and Key To Algebra. My husband has his master's degree in math so I'm confident we'll be able to spot any gaps or shortcomings as we go along; I just wanted to know if I should purchase anything up front to help us. Peace, Karen

I posted this on the general curric board but thought I'd try here, too: So I'm all set to order NEM 1 for next year for my son, who will complete Singapore 6B this year in 4th grade, when I read Rainbow Resources' description of the program, particularly this: Saxon's Algebra 2 ... covers a wider variety of topics, including polar coordinates, imaginary and complex numbers, and logarithms...Also, NEM is extremely weak in coordinate graphing. The slope-intercept method of graphing lines also is not covered...(etc.) My question: is this a concern right now, or will the subjects be covered in due time? Also, I plan to use Key to Algebra with said son as a supplement; will that fill in the gaps? And as a tagalong question -- have any of you Singapore Primary users supplemented for topics such as statistics and probability? Did you cobble together your own unit or use a specific book? Thanks, Karen

So I'm all set to order NEM 1 for next year for my son, who will complete Singapore 6B this year, when I read Rainbow Resources' description of the program, particularly this: Saxon's Algebra 2 ... covers a wider variety of topics, including polar coordinates, imaginary and complex numbers, and logarithms...Also, NEM is extremely weak in coordinate graphing. The slope-intercept method of graphing lines also is not covered...(etc.) My question: is this a concern right now, or will the subjects be covered in due time? Also, I plan to use Key to Algebra with said son as a supplement; will that fill in the gaps? And as a tagalong question -- have any of you Singapore Primary users supplemented for topics such as statistics and probability? Did you cobble together your own unit or use a specific book? Thanks, Karen

My son started reading the Redwall series by Brian Jacques about that age and remains a huge fan. Here's a blog entry from when he was about that age that details almost everything he read that year: http://homeschoolblogger.com/karendv/260223/ HTH, KDV