Wow - thanks! It looks great.

We would find a fair amount of books at the Scholastic book fair when the dc were little - but alot of it was things like the generic Daisy Meadows Rainbow Magic fairies series. I wouldn't expect to find much for them now, especially because since discovering the WTM I've become a lot choosier about what they read. $25 for a box sounds good, if you think there will be lots of titles you're interested in. Otherwise, I'd pass.

Has she read the Little House on the Prairie books? And not history, but animal characters have been big for my dd 8. Her hands down favorite is Wind in the Willows.

I guess I'd use a dotted horizontal line between "around" and "over" for "and". I'm using Rod and Staff 5 Following the Plan, and it doesn't have any examples using multiple prepositions with the same object either. I like to get these things right too :-) Wish I could be of more help.

You read Caesar's Gallic War with HO 2, right? What about setting him the beginning of the Gallic War in Latin? Or for an easier option getting the Latin For Children C history reader volume with all the translation practice from Classical Academic Press. Similarly for Greek he could try the reader from JACT Reading Greek. For secondary reading, have you looked at Tools of the Ancient Greeks/Tools of the Ancient Romans? I thought these books were at a good level for fifth grade, and liked the science/engineering chapters. My dds enjoyed some of the projects too. HTH!

My guess is that the coral is the object of all three prepositions, so I would have three slanted lines beneath the verb swam for "through", "around" and "over," and the prepostional object noun "coral" on a horizontal line starting from through and crossing all three preposition lines; and "the" would be on another slanted line beneath coral.

If you'd like to add in activities, this kit http://handsnhearts.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1 from Hands and Hearts had fun projects enjoyed by my 5th and 3rd graders this year. Like some other posters, we were less thrilled with the Ancient Egypt History Pockets - it really was all cut and paste. Of course our favorite Egypt activity of all time is mummifying the chicken, from the Story of the World 1 Activity Guide. Tales of Ancient Egypt by Green was the girls favorite Egypt book. We did it as a read aloud.

Erin Hunter's Warriors series is a big hit with lots of the 8 yr old crowd here. Since your daughter likes Desperaux, she may also enjoy Brian Jacques Redwall series, which is one of my dd 8's favorites. If you haven't read Wind in the Willows yet, she loved that last year. Warriors is about cats, Redwall is about mice, and of course W in the W is about Mole and Rat. There's also Babe, the Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith (about a pig that herds sheep). HTH!

I have just started planning a summer fun unit on China. A few activities I have found based on Chinese discoveries: make a magnetic compass, build (and fly!) a kite, make your own fortune cookies, use stamps to make a moveable typeset print. I hope your break week is lots of fun.

Thank you! Looking forward to reading lots of these for medieval history next year.

That does sound tough :grouphug: You said she has no outside school-type experience? Does she take any classes? She might benefit from a summer camp where she is in a school-ish environment. Our local district does enrichment classes in the summer in art and drama on the school campuses. Maybe you have something like this where she could become familiar with the classroom and its operations (like raising hands for questions, only using the restroom at recess et c.) Or perhaps there is a sports or interest based camp where she could meet some children who'll be in her school? One other idea - email her future teacher and set up a class visit for the week before school starts. Meeting the teacher and seeing the room ahead of time can help with separating when school starts. Good luck!

How about Tools of the Ancient Romans http://www.amazon.com/Tools-Ancient-Romans-History-Discovery/dp/0974934453/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364946193&sr=8-1&keywords=tools+of+the+romans for a quick intro with hands-on project ideas? I just used the companion volume Tools of the Ancient Greeks for our Greece Unit for my dd11 and dd8. It made a great spine. This will give you a quick overview including science and technology, which can be underserved in similiar books.

We have been using WWE 3 Workbook for DD8. She loathes the dictation component - she hates to get things wrong and be corrected, and since she is not a natural speller, she struggles with many of the words. Once she worked out that I would dictate part of her narration back to her, she began narrating in three word sentences. I'm trying IEW with her, but feel that we haven't yet found our fit yet for writing curriculum. I hope you find a good fit for your dc.

Dd 11 loves the books of Shannon Hale. On a recommendation from this forum, I gave her Princess Academy, and she went from "I hate reading" to devouring all Shannon Hale's works. Her favorite is Book of a Thousand Days.

How's the math search going? A year ago I was in your position. My dd had used Envision in public school, and as a not especially mathy kid, had struggled at times. I was attracted to Singapore, as a more conceptual program, but recognized that I'd been taught procedurally myself, so would need teaching help. I agonized over putting her back to get in on the Singapore way earlier, but decided to try Singapore at grade level - 5A and 5B. It is going really well for us. She likes math so much better, and is doing very well. Dd(3rd grade)'s Singapore 3A and 3B would have been much too simple. I am using the Home Instructor's Guide, and find it does a great job reviewing what has been taught before at the beginning of each new subject, and giving me the tools to teach the Singapore way. To prepare before we started 5A, I went over number bonds, place value, and the bar modelling. HTH - Bocky

For us using Biology for the Logic stage with a 5th and a 3rd grader has not been very sucessful. Even using the author's guidelines and adjusted readings for my younger dd, she has not really got into the program or enjoyed it. We haven't tried Physics though - it might be easier to make engaging for a younger sibling.

We enjoyed studying prehistory last year. These are some books my then 2nd grader enjoyed: Judith Williams, Discovering Dinosaurs with a Fossil Hunter Jacqui Bailey A Cartoon History of the Earth vol 1 The Birth of the Earth Jacqui Bailey A Cartoon History of the Earth vol 2 The Dawn of Life Jacqui Bailey A Cartoon History of the Earth vol 3 The Day of the Dinosaurs Hannah Bonner When Fish Got Feet… Hannah Bonner When Bugs Were Big... Hannah Bonner When Dinos Dawned… Catherine Arnold, Dinosaurs with Feathers Alain Surget People of the Caves: Great Story and Cool Facts John Malam You Wouldn't Be a Mammoth Hunter Raymond Briggs Ug Boy Genius of the Stone Age Linda Bailey Adventures in the Ice Age These were read-alouds or read by my then 4th grader: Kathleen O'Neal Gear Children of the Dawnland Ruth Craig Malu's Wolf Gary Raham The Deep Time Diaries Daniel Loxton, Evolution Marjorie Cowley Anooka's Answer Susan Williams, Wind Rider Tricia Andrryszewski Walking the Earth: A History of Human Migration HTH.

Here's where we're getting our coop in CA. http://www.coopsbyfaith.com/standard_models.html The smaller ones are pretty reasonable. We just got three adorable chicks this weekend. Dd 11 is over the moon.

A good place for your dd to start might be Classical Academic Press Alphabet Code Cracker to learn the Greek alphabet. Both Athenaze and Reading Greek are good programs, typically taught in college. Galore Park is for school-aged students, as is Hey Andrew. Is your dd too young for an online class like Lukeion?

Geometry is a bit of a bugbear here. Thanks for posting this resource!

Ancient Greek : polla katheudomen "we are sleeping in" Sorry - not sure how to get a Greek font so I have transliterated. There is a grave accent over the alpha in polla and an acute over the upsilon in katheudomen. HTH, Bocky

I have a Kindle Fire, and it's fine for reading at night with the lights out. My favorite educational app is the math game Dragonbox Plus.

Ooh - I want it! Thanks!

My dd 5th found WWS and HO Ancients 2 together to be too much. After trying to modify HO, I decided to try Tapestry of Grace's Rome unit. We start it in another couple of weeks when we're done with Greece. I'd be interested to hear what you end up doing.

I'm considering TOG for next year too. As a previous poster suggested, I bought Unit 4 for the year we're currently doing, so we'll finish history this year with a 9 week trial of TOG. I love the idea of it, but what really matters is whether it will work for my dds. Good luck with your decision!