I've liked Teaching the Classics by Adam Andrews - this is a dvd program for mom to learn how to discuss literature. Last year my ninth grader did an online class by Adam Andrews (Center for Literature) - it was a class where the students read the book and then discuss it online with other students led by Missy and Adam Andrews. there is an optional writing component you can sign up for, but we did not do. I was impressed with how my son's literary analysis skills grew through this class. Bravewriter classes are working for my high school dysgraphic student, but many don't seem to like the format. It works great for us however. I do a lot of putting my own literature together as well depending on the year.

I teach a class from his textbook (which is very different from his small scale kits). I have downloaded the instructions for the kits (since I already have the chemicals) and I find the instructions overly complicated as a source for homeschoolers looking for labs.

I'm not sure how I'd feel about an offer to help, but I'd turn it down if I didn't know you.

Definitely talk to the university engineering department. When I was in engineering, I had engineering classes that were spread over four years. The first year engineering classes were prereqs for the second year of engineering classes that were then prerequisites for the third and then fourth years. For anyone that transferred in having done a lot of physics and math, they still had to start with the first year engineering classes and couldn't speed up that sequence. Look at what transferred in as well as what still has to be taken and how many years that will take.

Kitchen Table math has lots of ideas of how to teach without worksheets. I'd get Cuisenaire rods, fraction rods, tanagrams, pattern blocks, and do lots of exploration. I'd get a balance and measure things - like how many legos weighs the same as this ball. Measure things with a ruler. Get cups and measure how many cups of water to fill a cooking pot. Count lots of things. As counting gets good, ask how many groups of 2,3, or 4, etc. Work lots of puzzles. Build things with popsicle sticks and glue. Make up work problems using real life objects and people. If you and brother and sister each want to eat four cookies, how many would we need to bake? Some of math skills are built by learning to count and use numbers, but much is learning special relationships (volume, measurements, geometry).

Fractions, fractions, fractions - as others have said. Also, area that kids do poorly in are negative numbers and distributive property - especially distributing a negative. Good luck.

bedwetting/nightmares are most likely related to camp. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that anything bad like abuse has happened. It certainly all can be from anxiety even though dad is around and it is only during the day. It is still a big adjustment. Definitely talk to your doctor about infections, etc., but it doesn't sound like that. You can get a referral from your regular doctor or just call up a psychologist who does testing and ask about IQ/gifted testing. They may also help with any anxiety related issues.

Wow, I've never had big issues with them. I've had things backordered, but received everything in a timely manner - I always order with plenty of time before I actually need it so I don't worry about waiting a few more days. I've had to return things and it has been easy. I give a lot of my business to amazon due to prices, but I will still use RR lots.

Like others have said, get some manipulatives like Cuisenaire rods. I mixed Miquon (which uses Cuisenaire rods) with Singapore, but Miquon does not have much instruction at all. Take it slowly, used rods to demonstrate ooncepts and to figure out problems. I'd heard the HIG is very good, so consider that.

Unlike math, you can do a lot of catch up in writing if you wander down a different path and then need to go back and teach a different format. If you are teaching basic grammar, spelling, sentence structure, learning through research, you can put the pieces together later. The writer's voice does take time and practice to develop, but there is certainly not one way to go about teaching how to write.

I think some people do better with a separate writing curriculum, but I don't think it is necessary for everyone. For a fifth grader I would do some writing and I think you have that planned. I don't think it is a disaster if you don't teach all writing or even the writing that others are teaching at this age, because you can always do it later. It sounds like you have a plan to use Hake and it sounds like a good plan to me.

Can you get another from the doctor? This is what we did when one fell apart. We've used both eye patches with stretch as well as a tubular piece of cloth that slips over glasses to patch one eye. The cloth ones are easy to make.

Learning Ally has been much easier to use since we got an ipad. It makes a world of difference for my child to easily be able to access the books. I would go through our literature for the year (I use Sonlight). I'd decide what read-alouds/readers were even available through Learning Ally. I'd make a list of everything I wanted my daughter to listen to for schoolwork. If there was something they had not recorded, but I really didn't want to read aloud, we'd request it and it would get recorded - we didn't do this much. Our science text was already recorded as well, so she listed to that. For schoolwork, I'd say you have to listen to this book this week (on in two weeks or whatever). Same for science - I'd assign a chapter to listen to weekly. For fun, I'd pick out a bunch of books I thought she might like as well as have her brose books at the library to find ones she thought she'd like. She really liked listening to several series (like 39 clues) on Learning Ally. This gave her the ability to listen to whatever fun stories she wanted without me having to read it all aloud. She would often finish an assigned book quickly. Rather than assign a new book, I'd tell her she has to pick any book to listen to. She would spend hours drawing and listening to books.

There are lots of different ways you can approach Brave Writer. The kids can read the books aloud (or you can do it as a read-aloud). I'd only have one read-aloud going at a time for a 10 and 13 year old. If you decide you don't like the Boomerang selections as well, you can pick copywork and dictation out of whatever you are reading aloud or whatever you child is reading to himself. This year I am going with all backissues. I started with the literature my kids are reading for another source and then I bought the issues of Arrow and Boomerang that go with those books. We don't have Brave Writer backissues for all the books we are reading,but that is okay. I will either do something similar or we'll use the time to work on specific grammar issues, etc.

I don't think it is a waste of time to get an opinion from another professional. Even if you don't pursue anything vision related, it may relieve any doubts in the back of your head about could VT help?

Like others have said, go see a developmental optometrist. While you can ask your NP his opinion on vision therapy, I wouldn't necessarily trust his answers. Our NP was in the middle of testing our third child when I mentioned to her that I thought I had figured out a way to help my daughter's reading (and my son's writing). I told her that I was convinced that vision therapy would help. She told me that she had heard of VT, but didn't really think I needed to spend any money on it as "there's an app for that". Oh, was she wrong. Vision therapy has had amazing results.

You might look at Math Mammoth fractions and then just pick and choose what topics he needs to do. I also tutor other kids and find that they are often weak at fractions. Depending on the student, I teach fractions using Math Mammoth, an assortment of prealgbra and algebra texts, some of Ed Zaccarro materials, etc. Also consider the AoPS fraction videos that go with the prealgebra book. Really, every student is different in their background and how quickly they pick it up.

SM can give an excellent math foundation for the early years, but I've also seen it done very poorly. I'm a math person and have used SM from the being with my kids. My oldest - did SM preK - 5B, added Miquon as well in elementary and he did the challenging word problems. My original intent was to move to NEM (older edition of upper level SM), but he started AoPS Algebra in 6th and rapidly went through many AoPS texts. He's quite advanced in math by nature and my only regret is that I didn't expose him to some other topics such as discrete math younger. My second did SM preK - 5B and then started AoPS Prealgebra. We mix some more traditional math texts alongside AoPS now as he just needs to take some topics slower and with more drill. My third is doing SM 5A now and we supplement with Beast Academy. My fourth is doing SM 2A with Miquon mixed in.

It also depends on your son's learning style. Does he want to interact in class? My son is fine with doing the classes later, though he has only done math and none of the programming classes.

Maybe not the easiest book, but here's another idea: Basic Economics by Sowell http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-Economy/dp/0465002609 The author also has a list of free discussion questions on his website (and linked in the book).

My oldest has done math orally for years since he is severely dysgraphic - good enough that he won math scholarships in middle school while at the same time he could barely write the numbers. He is working on advanced math and his writing has progressed significantly this year with vision therapy. Now he writes some math scibbles as he works problems; one problem takes a whole page, not all the work is shown and it is very messy - but significantly better than last year. My second (8th grade) is very organized and neat. He writes the number of the problem, shows his work, and boxes his answer. He goes down the page doing one problem at a time. My daughter (6th) shows her work, but the work tends to spiral around the page in a random order. At the moment, we are mostly working on her severe dyslexia and visual problems as we work on how to do the math - I'll tackle how to present the math as other issues don't overwhelm her.

Best of luck. I think it is great that he is thinking about his future and asking your input. While I agree with what's been said above, I don't really have anything new to add to the conversation.

My high schooler is reading MOH at an accelerated pace. It is written at an easier level than some history texts, but I'm impressed with how much he is retaining. We add other literature, writing, discussions, and some other texts for specific events. Ultimately, what is best for your student is what he learns best from and retains information from.

For a read-aloud, I'd choose Charlotte's Web. As an audio book, we love to listen to Trumpet of the Swan in the car.

More than The Writer's Jungle (the downloaded book), what really helped me was taking the online class Kidswriter Basic, which is basically a class with mom as the student and goes through the Writer's Jungle. This class helped mentor me tremendously.