Well, I'm not sure I can do it *all* the time, but scribing has mostly solved our issues. In just one week of me scribing for him, he went from telling me it was his least favorite part of school to again singing about how fun it is and how great it is to have a mom who's into math. :) So I'm going to make a concerted effort to do it with him more often to hopefully keep the fun alive. Thanks for all the thoughts!

This is me to a T. Man, I remember taking my Qualifying and Comprehensive exams in grad school, even, and deliberately choosing my seat off in a back corner so that it'd be less obvious to those around me when I inevitably started crying during the exams. I remember thinking - if only my own students could see me now! lol. You would think 20+ years of school would've gotten me over test anxiety, right? lol. I memorized hundreds of proofs (wrote sketches of the proofs on notecards and walked for hours on end while re-working them), making sure I knew how to prove every major theorem I'd ever seen, and every. single. past exam question. Often, I did well, but it was never enough to ease my nerves on the next exam. In my case, stressing over exams didn't help - I'd usually stop studying the day before and just relax the day of. However, having studied so much helped me be *more* relaxed than I was otherwise (though that's a pretty relative term for someone with serious test anxiety).

Yes to this. I remember being annoyed at some of the way tests went (some of ours, it was pathetically, painfully, obvious that my child didn't understand what he was being asked to do, but the script kept getting read without even a moment's hesitation regardless, but when I observed these situations, it wasn't part of a WISC since they didn't allow me to observe that one), but my husband and I both felt like most things in the report just made sense when we thought about our kid.

I got it today from the library, and it looks like exactly the sort of thing I'm looking to do once we finish SM and BA! Fun, not too stressful, and a wide variety of interesting topics. :)

I'm curious about this, but don't know if the following question is a tangent or not, but I'm wondering if anyone can weigh in why AoPS is really considered "the best." In particular, I have little love for the algebra/trig/calculus/analysis track, and I would've much preferred to do a program that was good and solid, but not super intense, and then move on to "fun" topics (e.g., NT, combinatorics, etc.) much more quickly (had I known then that they even existed). I'm just wondering about the pros and cons of such a plan, I guess? ETA: I know that no program really is "the best" for every student. I just meant that AoPS seems to be plan A for most folks - unless it doesn't work out for some reason and then they go to plan B.

Man, I do love how "safe" nonfiction books are! lol. No gore (in most cases), no bad language, no sexual innuendo that I'm uncomfortable with.

I really like that idea, but he's also currently not great with a computer. Perhaps just lack of opportunity since we're just not a super plugged-in family. Maybe that'll change in the next year, or maybe it's something I could teach him more intentionally. Thanks! This is a great idea! And since it'll take a while for me to get the books, I went ahead and just printed out some old MK sample problems and gave them to him to see how he'd respond. He loved them, and was super pumped to be doing them, and I think he enjoyed that they were fun and not super hard (at least up through level 6, because we stopped there for today).

I remember spending lots of my time just in my own little world, paying just enough attention to the teacher to realize when I was expected to do something, and the rest off thinking about stuff that I found interesting. So I agree that giving him interesting stuff to think about right before might be a great idea! :)

Have you checked your library? Maybe a dumb question - but I always forget to do stuff like that. I just checked ours and it turns out that they have it so I'll definitely be checking it out to decide how well it might fit our situation!

I've always loved this idea and really really wanted one! Maybe I can convince my hubby when we move next.... Whew, maybe not, after looking at those price tags.... :P

I've always loved this idea and really really wanted one! Maybe I can convince my hubby when we move next....

Oh, you are speaking my language here! lol. I put together a graph theory class for kids ages 6-10 at my local co-op, and I was so excited to teach it! Only to find out that most of the kids signed up were there because there parents felt they needed more math practice and so the poor kids came in "knowing" they hated math right off the bat. Despite the less-than-stellar start, I felt like it went really well - but I sure wished that I hadn't had to re-invent the wheel. While we didn't prove all of our results (for obvious reasons, ones like the four color theorem were conjectured by the children, confirmed by me, but left unproven...), I felt great doing a whole class where the parents and students alike were convinced that "this was interesting and cool, but definitely not math."

I expect to be in much the same boat as my 8 year old is finishing up SM5 and BA4 right now, but I don't particularly want to jump into Pre-Algebra right away. We do lots of enrichment already (cryptography, basic graph theory, some basic number theory, etc), and looking through a lot of other resources (Zacarro, Hard Maths, LoF, etc.) doesn't provide much that's new to him (we did all the LoF up through Jelly Beans, I think? But he did get bored with them so we quit. Same with Khan academy). I'd really like to spend some time with more fun topics (more number theory, combinatorics, graph theory, etc. I'd even consider gambling, voting methods, fair division, artsy stuff like tilings and tesselations, etc.) before moving on to Pre-Alg because I don't think he's ready for the level of attention to detail that he'd need for something like pre-Alg, even though he certainly gets the concepts (he's already finished the DragonBox Algebra 12 and Elements multiple times). So my question is this: while I could certainly create my own "kid-friendly" version of this sort of curriculum, I feel like that could be a black hole, and so am wondering what other options there might be. Are the AoPS combinatorics and NT books accessible to a kid who can "get" algebra concepts - but hasn't actually done a full algebra course? What about the EoM ones? Are there other options? FWIW, we do still have fine motor issues over here, and while I'm not opposed to scribing for him some, I do have four kids (2-8) all vying for my time...

How is it more engaging? I'm curious.

I second Spalding. Not great for a normal 3-4 year old, because of the fine motor skills needed for writing, but great for a 5+ kiddo. My oldest needed very explicit instruction and doesn't intuit rules well, so he struggled through stuff like 100 EZ lessons, HOP, Bob books, Alphaphonics, etc. Three months of Spalding had him reading chapter books.

We don't do much "school" work until later, but we do let them play (supervised) with scissors and glue. If you want something he'll find FUN (which sets a great stage for schooling later), I would suggest you print out some preschool packs that might be of interest to him (something like this http://www.3dinosaurs.com/wordpress/index.php/free-space-pack-space-blog-hop/).It give him a chance to play with scissors and glue, practice pencil skills, interact with you in fun ways, and maybe even learn some new stuff (we would then get topic-related library books and spend the week reading extra as well). Now, I confess that I only did this with my first two, despite my best intentions, because it was much harder to keep it up once I had four of them running around... But I felt like they were a fun activity that set the stage for "seatwork is fun" and also gave them lots of practice with fine motor skills (which my kiddos definitely lacked).

This isn't a "big" answer to this question, but my oldest recently had fun with the "climb through a piece of paper" challenge, and it might be a fun activity for you. The challenge was to cut a piece of paper (one single 8.5x11) so that it's big enough for a person to climb through. Now, granted, he's skinny enough, that he actually managed to climb through his just be removing most of the inside, so then I made the challenge to make it big enough for ME to climb through. I let him experiment a lot, and meanwhile cut mine like I learned when I was kid (https://blog.doublehelix.csiro.au/climb-through-a-hole-in-a-sheet-of-paper/ shows how). It was fun for him to see and we talked about how, in some sense, we're turning area into perimeter. So instead of discarding the inside area (like he had done), I managed to find a way to convert that inside area into my perimeter, thereby giving me a much larger perimeter than I started out with.

I'm just curious at what age you start having kids to both languages every day: right off the bat, not till they're older, or something in the middle? My oldest is 8, and some days it just feels like a lot of work to be doing everything we're doing. I don't feel like it's a lot in general: * piano and viola (his choice and he very much wants to continue) * math * chores * coding/programming (his choice, again) * language arts side of things, which currently includes - reading ~1/2 hour per language (sometimes more when he gets carried away) - writing: 2ish sentences copy work in German, and alternating spelling working and writing a "book" in English (his preferred choice for English writing :D) - alternating Lesefreunde / Sprachfreunde (German language schoolbooks on reading/writing/oral stuff, since his German definitely lags behind his English skills) I don't feel like we're doing a lot of "extras," but I feel like this is just taking too long. Part of it is fine motor skills (the writing takes roughly 1/2 hour per language, even though it's not that much). I feel like I see this "what can I cut" threads on the General education board all the time, and there's usually so much on there that one could point to and say it's not necessary to do every day. But it's harder for me to see an obvious thing to cut in our schedule, except to wonder if perhaps I should be alternating language arts, perhaps, and only do one language per day? This takes close to 5-6 hours each day, without counting breaks, and that just seems crazy to me at age 8.

I agree. My 8 yo loves these, even if a bit of content goes over his head (e.g., Moby Dick). On the other hand, I also still encourage him to read picture books, because my own experience just shows me that the vocabulary is richer and the sentences more complex than most younger chapter books. Another trick I use though with a kid who I know can read something but won't, if I know they'd really like the story, is just to start reading it aloud, and then have to pause to take care of a younger child. I almost always come back to find him reading further on his own... lol. This works especially well for series, and he's now reading the all the Star Wars Rebels chapter books (which have surprisingly complex language), as well as the Warriors series (about cats). Interest is a huge motivator, over here!! ETA: The back of my Spalding book also has recommended reading books for each grade level, and since it's much older, I doubt very much has to do with witches or scary stuff.

I have a friend whose daughter is extremely bright (I think) and interested in creepy-crawlies (constantly collecting them and examining them and prodding them until they die, unfortunately, despite being stung and bitten and who knows what else). Because of other behavioral issues (no dx as of now), I suggested that she encourage her kids' focus on these things to give her something to really do with her time and energy (there is an awful lot of it), and even create a space (maybe in a garage, and not her home!!) where her daughter can start keeping/raising something(s). She agreed that it might be a really good idea at this point, but has no idea where to start (and definitely doesn't want them in the house right now). I know there's some experience here with snakes, and so thought I would ask how to help a young person (5 yo) start some sort of insect/reptile farm/pet/home (I have no idea what to call it, even)? I might pop over to the GE board and ask, but I feel like we need advice from people who might have a better idea of what would satiate an extremely "intense" child, if you get my drift.

Wow, you guys are awesome!! Thank you so much!!

I'd never even seen the magic school bus reboot. Cool! How are the Horrible Science ones? I've heard mixed reviews about how graphic they are.

What kind of shows do your kids watch once they're past the preschool shows like UmiZoomi, Sesame street, Sid the science kid, Magic school bus, etc.? My kids have watched all the Bill Nye the Science guy videos as well lots of nature documentary type series like Wild China, Supernature Wild Flyers, Planet Earth, etc. They do also enjoy a variety of full-length Ballets as well. I guess I'm just wondering what else there is for elementary/middle aged kids outside of the Nature genre. I'd love to have something math/science-y and something history based that we can watch we get the urge to snuggle up at home with hot chocolate and a movie. If it's available through netflix or comcast to stream, even better. I'm not sure we're ready for great courses yet, or anything with lots of lecturing.

This is probably true of me as well. Our piano is in the living room, so I'm usually right here when he's practicing and it's hard for me to see him get so worked up. I think I would probably respond better if I were somewhere else in the house and could hear what was going on, but not every single detail.

Nope, you're right that she said he should be rolling his arm when he does that particular thing (which he wasn't). But she also says that he shouldn't be practicing much more than 20 minutes on the same thing at this age because his form will get worse the more tired he is.