So it’s been 4 years since I posted here. I could use some eyes on this as I am not happy with where we are. I need to do some damage control with my 8th grade girl.Suggestions for my 11th grader coming soon to the HS Board! I went back to work, we went into a coop 2 days a week that at one time was good content but now is just wasted time and socializing mostly with now very few classes of content only with certain teachers. Other teachers simply should not be there IMO at all. They are bored with life filling their time. Wasting ours. She is just taking Drama, Art, Grammar and Comp from the best teacher there but if it’s not producing fruit we drop it in Jan. Assignments are light so this cannot be her only source of LA for the year. We have talked about her interests and I feel strongly of involving her as she doesn’t want to school at home at all anymore it’s boring and she feels isolated. (Attitude and structure I will have to work on with her I realize). It’s been difficult for her all the girls her age at coop are so clicky and moody there is SO much drama there every week I can’t stand hearing about it every week. Same with the church youth group. Trying another large church just for her this fall for their youth group to try to find more girls who are more easy going. Hopefully it’s just the age she has only 1 friend who has a very busy drama play life so getting together is few a far between. The writing class she took last year was IEW based but the teacher never graded any of it. No feedback. I helped her fine tune. LA I have all the Killgallon books for MS I bought in prep for MS so we are starting there adding Wordsmith and probably Rod and Staff 7. We have RS 8 not sure if it matters which one we do I remember from years ago people said do them in order from Grade 6 up. She likes to write overall and I’d like to pull in her interest Science topics and Egyptology into some cross curricular essays and summaries. Not overkill but gentle progress is needed. MATH Lials Pre Algebra she is doing now and doing much better than at the coop for math. Don’t ask. I’m great at math but honestly am losing patience for teaching it. Always wanted to outsource Algebra and beyond but DO did not impress me my sons tried it and was a fail. Janns wasn’t much better for us. Not sure why many on here love them they were not a good fit. Had better results looking up videos on Kahn Academy to answer their questions. SCIENCE She is taking Rainbow Science 2 at the coop he is a decent teacher. It’s a lukewarm intro IMO but she wants to add an Astronomy and Space class I’m checking out Great Courses and a good text to pair it with at her level and do some cross curriculum writing projects and light papers. She likes hands on projects and crafts a lot looking for a space project kit for activities somewhere. Maybe even a rocket kit. SOCIAL STUDIES She wants to take World Geography this year (countries, capitals, rivers, mountains etc only she said not cultures )and study Egypt, hieroglyphs, and some archeology. I found a link on the forum here to a reading the hieroglyphs course online that sounds promising if it’s still being offered. Looking for visual open and go geography resource. Maybe pair with Modern States Geography for some lectures. She took Civics and World History (Abeka not thrilled) at the coop and I stepped in to help her finish the textbook for History when the teacher went off script and wasn’t getting it done. So a year of something else here now I think is fine. LIT Haven’t researched this yet. I would like to read a few books with her, maybe watch a literary guide or talk on it, compare notes and discuss. Not sure why I’m looking so much at TGC probably because the sales look like they are on now and I hoard curriculum. ✌️Lighter here probably better. Figuratively Speaking and just pick some titles? VOCAB I like the look of VOCAB for the HS student by Levine. Might just go for it she reads a lot of books and absorbs words like a sponge. Still have English from Roots Up my sons did that she missed that boat. Don’t want to overload VOCAB. LANGUAGE She took a year of Spanish at the coop now wants to try German. I speak fluent French she has no interest I have all the books for that. 😩 I will check my library for the latest programs available and try to pair it with maybe Modern States German not sure if that’s too advanced or not. German workbooks? She is taking Gymnastics at a local place, but intro class is all 6 YO. Ugh. She says she doesn’t care yes she wants to do it this year. I might check out 4h we have chickens but not sure she really has true interest in showing them etc. Maybe farm girls are nicer tho. 😘 *** She likes designing things. She plays a game where she build houses and designs the furniture, rooms, kitchens, lofts, windows, wall colors, accessories, landscaping, everything. How can we pull that in? I am taking some time off as I can over the next 6 months to do some refocusing with all 3 kids, fine tune and hope I have the patience to do it. I admit I’m upset with where we were but I can only go forward. She needs the most structure IMO. It wasn’t always peaches and cream then either it’s hard work!! Pray for patience for me! I am balancing alot right now and hoping I can keep up the pace without casualties. 😅 Any suggestions welcome!

Who do you like best and why? Taken these classes? Please chime in. Would really love to find just ONE and stick with them all the way thru for online classes. 1. Rigorous Enough? We are working thru Lial's Pre-Alg for both my 6th and 7th grader now and it's gone extremely well. I LOVE Algebra, but don't want to teach it. I'm looking at these 3 options for the fall, and would LOVE input from those who have taken these classes. Derek Owens grades the papers, I've read great things here in the past about Jann, and had Dr D recommended locally on my FB group and I don't know anything good about that one. I like that Derek also has science options, but there's no reason why we couldn't JUST take science from him if we wanted. . . Thanks for your input! Have another one that rocks I didn't list, please share it. Videotext Alg was recommended by my local HS store, but it's $600 and I don't know much else about it.

Does anyone know of a good rock unit study, either free online or a simple program like MP or VP that would have a student workbook, vocab? My son has gotten really interested, and I'd love to let him go deeper. We did a basic rock kit study back in 3rd grade, but looking for more depth.

Thanks for the thoughts. I've hesitated in buying Wordly Wise before. And both your comments ring true and remind me why. We read a ton here, and good quality titles each year. We manage to get in 4 to 5 good lit studies with them which have vocab building each chapter. It's probably more than enough. We've done English Roots Up with the older 2, my 8YO is just starting it now. And I'll check out Vocab from Classical Roots maybe that would be a better fit for the olders. We are 2,5,6th grades here right now. . . .

Which ones are the best and why do you like them? We used IXL 3 years ago but didn't really use it, and have Khan accounts but we just got 2 new PC's in the schoolroom so I'm excited. Be excited with me!!! I want to utilize them for actual skills practice and not wasted time. Prodigy is not free so can't do that right now. What are your favorite free sites? I just saw mathgames.com because of a recent post that looks really solid too. Looking for any suggestions to reinforce skills and get additional practice. Has anyone made a fun LA site yet for these grades that is worthwhile? Spelling challenges, parts of speech, comprehension etc.?

Ran across this last night -- looks fun thought I'd share it. https://www.uen.org/3-6interactives/science.shtml

That makes sense. Thanks for providing your take on it. :coolgleamA:

Just checking in on where folks stand on Wordly Wise or other vocab workbooks. We do read alot but we have time to add an on your own type program to our day. I'm happy to put up a word wall section and go thru them daily like we did with our English Roots. Was actually super quick and easy to do. I've read threads in the past about some who love these, and others who have said it's not really necessary or they didn't gain anything. For those that have used these -- did you gain from it or was it a time waster ?

Any good resources your children have enjoyed? My 10YO son has finished Fabers Level 1 books (all of them) and loved them, would love to share some with him if there are any good ones folks have used. Thanks!

This was bugging me. I called my Dad and he said I learned mental percents and basic interest calc in 6th to 7th grade or so. He was always helping with my math homework, we have the same brain and he loved math so was always a fun time at the table. So makes me feel better for our grades here, we have time to master what I feel is important, but not for those of you who say high schoolers are not mastering these skills. And college students are needing help? I swear sometimes I don't know what planet I am on. :hurray:

Yes thanks for all the great advice. I will not jump ship on RS, we will keep going but look at adding Daily Mental Drills and probably something else to flesh out some holes. I did the crazy panic home school teacher thing. :smash: My apologies!! I am a little shocked hearing this about interest and %. I was taught this, and we must have practiced it in school because I can mentally figure any % off discount from any number rounded to the nearest dollar as long it's not a really huge number. 45% off 1200. 4% interest on 25K for 10 years. I was also taught how to calculate simple problems like the one above from RosemaryAndThyme. This is seriously not difficult! My sisters school is teaching the kids interest over the years. Why can't they teach real MATH ANYMORE!!! How can we say this is acceptable!!! Keep up the challenge in your home school. This is really bad folks!

Ok thanks for talking me down. I'll look at these suggestions tonight and see what I can do. I forgot I bought MM a few years ago. Will find the external HD it's on. My sister is an aide in 5th grade class. Every year at the end of the year they take the kids to a half day field trip called the marketplace. They are store merchants, banks, and consumers. They come in, buy products, sell products, calculate interest to get loans for cars and homes. This made me wonder. . . so I checked the standards.

We've been using Rod and Staff grade 5 and 6 math for the last year, and it's been good to build solid foundation for some things, but now looking at my state math standards we need to do more it is not enough. Please help recommending MATH for 5th and 6th grade. I have a 5th and 6th grader. we are solid on the basic 4 operations, fractions we've got down, word problems and measurement. Need more on geometry we are just ok there, algebra, probability, ratios, mean, median, range. (RS goes to hundreths, not millionths in decimals etc to name an example of what I am seeing and we haven't even covered interest yet or creating a simple spreadsheet.) We've done Miquon and Singapore Standards thru 4 and am checking it in the morning but I never ordered 6. Thought 6 was a review year. I have 5 tho. I've checked a few "math grade 5 texts" don't know if Houghton Mifflin would be good enough. Found a used one for $5 worth a look. Old edition tho so good luck finding a workbook I assume. Would like to check out a good 6th grade text as well. I think I could use material from both grades to firm us up. . . . What I am seeing in RS is there is only 1 or two pages for a topic where we are lacking, then it moves on and not enough practice or review. I have a mathy 5th grader who is on par with his 6th grade brother so we teach math together. That's how math has evolved here. Would really like to take the next 6 months and polish where we are at/expand their understanding before I decide where to go with Pre-Algebra in the fall if that's possible. (Digesting the Pre-Alg thread . . .) Tried the fancy stuff and just want old school now or something that is open and go we can run with. Don't want to buy a whole new deal. :) Thanks for the HELP!

Way cool, I found it and I'll check it out. Thanks Farrar!

Hey thanks so much both of you for the depth as I obviously have no experience with this program. I need to decide how hands on I will be for this subject. I loved Algebra as a kid, but hey it's been awhile. :laugh: A long while. So do many folks using JA along another program? What programs are spiral and straight forward? I do love explaining the why behind math if I can get in the right mindset.

No I haven't -- I'll look for it thanks!

How long does this program take typically? Truly accessible for a 6th grader? I was thinking about jumping in about December and working thru summer if it's a full year program. How teacher intensive? Thanks for your thoughts. We are doing a comprehensive review of all math learned so far before jumping in to Pre-Alg. But as I've learned so much from the past . . . . it's ok to plunge ahead too. :laugh: I've had NO time to research pre-alg this summer and would LOVE more input or suggestions. . .

We have enjoyed using Rod and Staff Math the last 3 years; it's simple, straight forward, not busy, and gets the job more than done. I want to make sure he is rounded out this year before we start to Pre-Algebra next year. Really tho, I'd love to start introducing Pre-A this year but don't know where to start. I may grab a Beast Academy level. I have all the Singapore Math Word Problems and will be working thru those. . . Any other ideas or what have others done? I was looking Foersters Algebra, but didn't think they had a Pre-Alg. OH! I know many of have loved Jousting Armadillos maybe that would be a good segway to Foersters . . .

Wow thanks for such a great list!! We've read maybe of third of these already so there are still tons to pick from . You rock it!!

I'm putting together a list of great books to read this next year. Our favorite part of the day! Please join in and share your favorites for this age. We are reading LOTR aloud as a family taking our time thru the best story ever written. Complete with different voices, my husband does the perfect Gollum. We have made it thru the first 2 books of Narnia, and will finish the series this year. Thinking of Incredible Journey Mixed up files of Mrs. B Lassie Sign of Beaver Robinson Crusoe I'd like to pick a few titles to go with our history study period of 1700 thru 1850. I need to research what else I can pair up here. I'm looking at the Landmark Books too to supplement history. Thought please?

Agreed! And yes I take them to be bound at a print shop not far from me, I bought a binding machine from a city office and they gave me boxes and boxes of coils and cover sheets. But I have yet to use it and haven't even opened the directions. !!! On my list.

Hey this might be the solution. Every source so far has been newsprint thanks so much! I really like binding our own writing books, and I don't feel we got enough writing done last year so I know if we at least have these easy to grab ones we don't have to search for the paper, do the revision, find the revision, write the final all on separate pages. I just lose stuff and with so many papers it gets crazy over here. I will give this a try, as the ones on Amazon are for K or 1 or all newsprint.

For the past 2 years I have coil bound lined writing paper from Zaner Bloser so we could have a resource to go to just for Rod and Staff English assignments, and a second book made for just writing assignments so they'd all be in one place. I color code the covers and backs with a design to match the colors of their books each year to make it easier. The last 2 years the paper we've bound is newsprint because ZB didn't sell white, or maybe I ordered from RR I can't recall. Newsprint tears and its harder to write on than the white paper I used for K and 1 which was white. middle child always complains about writing on the newsprint. Where do you all buy your reams of white???