I did Explode the Code with my kid who hated to read. Requiring him to read outside of school work was more headache than it was worth. I exposed him to quality literature by listening to unabridged books on CD during breakfast and in the sixth grade he discovered fantasy literature written for juveniles. It took him a couple of months to read the first novel, a couple of weeks to read the next, and about one week for the last. Having run out of literature for juveniles he picked up a copy of Ringworld, adult science fiction, and isn't having any problems with it in the seventh grade. Once they find something they really like, and there is no competing twaddle entertainment such as video games and tv, they will make astounding progress. The other problem I see with reading in the first grade is that their choices are limited to relatively bland readers. This improves in the second and third grade when their knowledge of phonics is enough for them to read bits and pieces of other things.

MPH 5 & 6 with my oldest. He's currently in 7th grade Interactive Science. My younger two are currently in MPH 3rd grade. I chose MPH over Interactive Science because of the supplements that came with that program. I recall ordering interactive science at the sixth grade level just to see what it was like and I couldn't tell a difference between quality or content, just that MPH seemed to have more questions for kids to answer. I also ordered the entire MPH science curriculum from 3-6th before it went out of print so I haven't examined the most recent edition. The disadvantage of the 7th grade science program is that there is no test bank and that answers to reviews are not available. I remedied the lack of tests by ordering "Excel in Science" a book of test papers for 7th grade science directly from Singapore at http://www.sgbox.com (very good service, I chose a cheap and long shipping option but it got here within two weeks rather than the 6 weeks that they estimated) Because of the quality of the science book I would not hesitate to order more science workbooks from them. I can't say the same for the English though. However, because Singapore uses a national curriculum you can use mix and match between the different science curricula without coming across too many we-were-never-taught-that kinds of questions. I guess what I'm saying is that if interactive science doesn't offer enough practice, you could always order workbooks or tests from a different curriculum.

Singapore 6 didn't result in as much facility in fractions, decimals, and factoring as I wanted, but the first few chapters of NEM emphasizes this. On the other hand, Our 60s algebra book teaches radicals and negatives from scratch. It also teaches the logic, set theory, and terms from scratch which are needed to understand the explanations, theorems, and proofs.

Come move next to me. What does she like about it? The proofs or the subject matter?

Is this the same Charles Murray that cowrote Bell Curve?

We use Singapore Science, comes with test bank, workbook, activity book. Most activities can be done with items around the house, but you if you skip a demonstration it's not a big deal. The best part of this program are the very indepth questions that lead to more conversation and more books from the library, if you want. If you don't want, you just go to the next section.

Whaleship Essex was awesome.:iagree: There is a juvenile version in print though. I was interested in Moby Dick after reading Essex but couldn't even stay awake through the movie. Very sad, shame on me. Other recommendations if you liked Essex are Pirate Of Exquiste Mind (I don't know why I put reading this one off for so long, it was good once I got started and it fleshed out the historical context of Magellan for me. Lots of adventure and action. Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade. Definitely not the dry and boring history book I thought it would be, debauchery, treachery, etc of European traders in the Phillipines, Indonesia. (The Essex crew deliberately wanted to avoid going in this direction and you can find out the true nature of those rumors by reading Scents of Eden. To complete that historical period (maritime history of Pacific) I still need want to read Bounty: The True Story. It seems to be highly rated in Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Bounty-True-Story-Mutiny/dp/067003133X

Alex, I'll take forensic toxicology for $200 ;-)

http://www.alibris.com http://www.bookfinder.com are the ones that I use.

Well, if it doesn't work out, the kid will be in remedial math in community college with half the other college students out there. That's the most likely worst case scenario I can imagine.

Dinosaurs covered with reptiles in science. It wouldn't be included in history because dinosaurs didn't leave written records of the events of their time.

I think the Amazon Kindle can adjust the font size for whatever book you download to it.

This raises the question: Which of the above programs actually formally teach logic rather than simply have the student use logic to solve problems? For those programs which formally teach logic, has anyone ever written up a scope and sequence in which they are compared?

I didn't find Challenging Word Problems for the first grade worth doing because the student isn't required to make any decisions. The problems are grouped according to operation so that all of the problems in a topic are all addition or all subtraction. All three of my children would mindlessly write out a subtraction sentence without really paying attention to what the word problem said. In the second grade things change. In the second grade Singapore students learn how to add and subtract with regrouping and the 2,3,4,5 multiplication and division facts. The first set of problems in a topic require one step to solve and since they are the relatively easy ones I take this opportunity to teach how to model the problem using bar models. The second set of problems in a topic are "challenging" and require two steps...in later grades the ordinary problems require two steps and the challenging problems will require three steps to solve. You'll also be grateful you took the opportunity to teach bar modeling in the second grade back when it was easy to figure these things out. I will be starting my second grader (main math is already Singapore) on Challenging Word Problems just as soon as she learns to subtract with regrouping. (We got a very late start with school this year for sundry reasons.) A second grade word problem involving addition and subtraction looks like this: Jerry has 45 marbles. John has 19 more marbles than Jerry but 18 fewer than Mike. How many marbles does Mike have?

I didn't use a program specifically labeled "Logic" at that age. I found that the challenging word problems in Singapore gave us more than enough practice with chains of "if-then" Son is in the seventh grade now doing Patrick Suppes First Course in Mathematical Logic (formal logic rather than material logic) and is breezing through it. Now I know that you were looking for recommendations and opinions for the third grade, but I wanted to bring up that after having watched my son work through the first portion of Suppes logic with almost no help from me--unheard of for this kid---that it would probably not only work with for a kid in the sixth grade (son's logic in sixth grade was part of his math curriculum) but it might even work for a bright fifth grader. My current third grader isn't doing any book on logic right now but rather simply learning how to follow directions. :D

Hijack: I am back from the dead. But I'm going to be busy again: better meds, got a bird dog, got a shotgun, went trap shooting, sail training starts up again this weekend, discovered Cicero, and Howard Eves." "Foundations and Fundamental Concepts" is not a traditional history of mathematics, but an investigation of the philosophical context in which new developments emerged."

I nominate the following as the definition of "pre-algebra" to urbandictionary.com Pre-algebra: Learning algebra before you learn algebra. Algebra is distinguished from grade school arithmetic based on the fact that letters are used instead of numbers. In other words, the properties of the real numbers are applied to letters. After the student gains facility with dealing with an unknown he will learn to apply to substitute a single letter with an expression. For example: instead of dividing something by x he divides something by x + 3. Ideally, the student would be able to state the properties of the real numbers, formal definition of division, subtraction, inequality, etc and state how they are used in solving equalities and inequalities. See also: pre-algebra, algebra 1, algebra 2, algebra 1/2, algebra 2 3/4, modern algebra, post modern algebra, abstract algebra.

Ask the district in which you wish to enroll your daughter what their limit on credit transfers from junior high are. A school district near me recently required a homeschooler to retake several math classes that she had already completed prior to high school due to this beaureucratic restriction. She was three years ahead of her peers before high school and only a year ahead after she enrolled. Most public school districts are not set up to appropriately address the educational needs of advanced students. No elementary school I know of offers algebra to begin with, for example, so it's not surprising that the high schools can't handle a student who began high school math while in the fifth or sixth grade.

Math- Singapore Science - Singapore Latin - Minimus Grammar - Easy Grammar & Daily Grams History - Story of the World Phonics - Explode the Code Spelling - Sequential Spelling There's a big fat Latin book that you can dowload, for a fee, online and it looked really good. I can't remember the name of it.

I got it too and ended up not using it. I thought it was super cute, but the kids got frustrated with the very long passages. While they could decode the words it just took way to long to get through a story, they'd lose interest before the end.

I was skipping through a book to the middle and reading about "Theory of Definition" when I came across this sentence and thought of you, "..the definition accomplishes this by relating the expression it defines (the definiendum) to the other experssions (the definiens) already available..." Egads! Just when you think you can tell your subtrahend for your minuend the they throw in a definien