Agreeing with others. I see no reason to treat time and money as topics in a math class. Kids will either learn money by using it, or by understanding decimals. Reading a clock simply comes with practice reading a clock; I bought my kid a watch and showed her how it worked, then would tell her to remind me when it was time to do various fun things.

I would consider “without help” to mean no people help and no electronic (calculator/type) help. I would freely allow manipulatives. Yes, teaching is all in the guides. My daughter loves to read them on her own, but for any sections that were truly new information for her, we needed to read them carefully together. Otherwise, she read for the story and not for the math.

I annotate in books when I’m learning from them. It helps me engage. I can’t convince my kid that this is an ok thing to do, so I arm her with post-it notes and flags.

For the Algebra class that my daughter is in, it is calculated as follows: 40% Alcumus, 35% other homework problems (similar to Alcumus in difficulty and style), 20% writing problem (one problem of average to slightly above average difficulty in which they have to write an incredibly detailed answer), 5% class participation. Their grading philosophy is that green AND blue equals an A. Bottom of this page outlines their grading: https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/handbook/current/documentation

You would use Grammar Town (just the TM is fine) and Practice Town (TM and Student book).

I use the student book for CE, but not the teacher manual. My daughter is fairly visual, so we get the color edition. There are some things, like word searches, that require being written directly on, but we choose to photocopy those pages so we can get (and return) the books from our charter school’s library. For the first level, I made our flash cards myself, but I was happy to buy them for the second level. We did get the TM for the first level of CE, but decided we didn’t care about the tests, and there really wasn’t anything else we found valuable in the TM.

Yes! I loved the modeling of making mistakes, exploring unfamiliar concepts, and working together to combine their different strengths!

Purely for perspective, BA 2A came out when my kid was in 4A or 4B. I bought it for her just for fun because she adores the beasts, and the challenge problems in 2A were *still* hard for her. The challenge problems are meant to be just plain hard, no matter what the kid’s level is for non-challenge problems. The BA Probability chapter is awesome, but the kid would need to have multiplication down pretty well first, both single digit and multi-digit. That’s the only prerequisite.

There are so many games where the probability is embedded and could easily be understood at that level. Yahtzee and Dragonwood are the first twoto pop to my mind.

Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Salsa Spanish streams for free and is my absolute favorite thing to use for young beginners. http://www.gpb.org/salsa/term/episode

Patty Paper Geometry? We also have a book called The Art and Craft of Geometric Origami that is fun to play around with. Or one of the Zaccaro books, like the 25 Real Life Math Investigations or Scammed by Statistics? All of these are lighter options that would keep some math in, but likely feel more like a break.

Beast Academy is taught directly to the student and has their online version up and running as well. i have less objection to using Prodigy as a main math program for a season than others do. No, it doesn’t teach, but it doesn’t sound like you expect it to. It sounds like you’re using it as a screening tool to find the areas he actually needs taught in. My biggest issue with Prodigy is that there’s a lot of “filler” in the time it takes, so if DD played Prodigy for 30 minutes, she only did maybe 10 minutes (at most) of actual math. She played for fun, so it was no big deal. If I was trying to use it as a main math program, it would have consumed a lot of time to get through relatively little math.

I wouldn’t. It really is exhausting to defend your position all the time, plus as a teenager she is likely to be less experienced in doing so. If the teacher and the vast majority of students hold the same beliefs, I would find it hard to believe that those beliefs won’t permeate the course. If I have to spend every evening discussing the class topics with my child, then it’s not really going to save me the time and energy that I’m looking for when I outsource a class. And I’d fight the “stick to it” battle with something the kid at least wants to stick to at the outset.

This is my answer as well.

I don’t find that I’m especially tied to grade levels. When DD’s friends were all starting kindergarten and she was determined to do so and clearly advanced, I agreed to it even though she was a year young. When we moved and decided to sign her up for an independent homeschool charter, I enrolled her by age, and she therefore repeated second grade on paper, though her materials were all not second grade. Now, due to both social and academic fit and not having access to certain classes and camps due to her official grade level, she’s requesting a double grade skip, and I’m supporting her in her request to the charter. Except for access to programs that admit only by grade level, I find the designated grade level to be a non-issue for us. Therefore, I would only retain or advance anything out of the norm because of best fit in grade-based programs. Anything further seems like it can be adjusted more easily as a child transitions from middle school to high school, when there’s often a clearer picture of how the academics, maturity, and mental health pieces all fit together.

NWEA MAP is offered to homeschoolers at www.affordabletests.com.

I usually have a ginormous pile of curricula and resources, but a relaxed attitude about whether we get to it all. Some things seem to rotate in and out a bit, and others languish, and a few we love and always seem to get to. This system works for us - lots of options, not stressing when we don’t actually do it all.

True enough, I should have said “did accept”. I was more responding to her plan to spread the Intro to Algebra book over two years, which matches up with what a major university system would have labeled the courses. I would also therefore assume they would still accept it as such, given that homeschoolers don’t apply as a-g anyway.

For reference, the UC system accepts the online AOPS class hat covers the first half of Intro to Algebra as Algebra 1, and the class that covers the second half of that same book as Algebra 2. Weirdly, they also could the class that covers the Intermediate Algebra book as Algebra 2, so... You can always steal course descriptions from the website. No need to reinvent the wheel. The website describes Algebra A as “Fundamental concepts of algebra, including exponents and radicals, linear equations and inequalities, ratio and proportion, systems of linear equations, factoring quadratics, complex numbers, completing the square, and the quadratic formula.”

If you really want very hands on, consider ditching the curriculum altogether. Look at science kits that come with decent explanations, and doing self-designed science explorations. We use Thames and Kosmos science kits as our base. My daughter has done Candy Chemistry, a regular chemistry kit from them, Catapults and Crossbows, Generics and DNA, Crystal Growing, and a handful of others from them, and they’ve all been good. In addition to those, she has done a variety of engineering challenges of different types, planned garden space and grown plants, done a good bit of hiking, and been to local astronomy presentations. When she needs or wants more background information, we gather library books. Science need not be systematic in elementary school. There is no curriculum out there that would otherwise be as hands-on as what we want.

I’ve worked for CPS, both as a case manager and as a supervisor. First off, you don’t have to let them in or talk to them unless they have a warrant. That decision is entirely up to you. You would not believe how filthy a house has to be to actually substantiate neglect based on home conditions. Really. We’ve seen some *really* bad houses. We don’t care even the tiniest bit about your clutter, or whether you did the dishes that morning, or if you have a entire month of laundry piled up. We care if there is animal poop being ignored all over the floor in a house that has crawling babies. We care about kitchens so dirty they present actual health hazards. We care if there is so much clutter that there is no way to safely exit the house in case of fire. We don’t care about fruit flies as they present no health hazard. We don’t care how you’re dressed. Really, we’re just happy you don’t answer the door naked. We don’t care if a 9yo is wearing a pull-up, except to check and see if there may be a medical condition that the family isn’t addressing properly. We certainly don’t care how long you breastfeed. Please email/call the worker and ask her to bring a copy of the allegation for you to see when she talks to your husband. Standard procedure in all investigations is to speak to every family member who lives in the home, to see the home, and to ask questions of the children regarding the content of the allegations. You can choose how much of that to participate in. If you do not participate willingly, they will continue to show up at your door and/or call until the investigation time period closes, because it’s their job to make all reasonable efforts to complete their investigation requirements. Unless there is something really surprising in this allegation that you haven’t figured out yet, this is likely going to be a perfunctory investigation in order to make sure you filed your paperwork, and maybe that your 9yo doesn’t have any neglected medical needs.

We did Tales From the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne around that age.

We’ve used a few, and I like the NWEA MAP best. It is adaptive, meaning it will adjust the level of the questions up/down until it pinpoints level. Each of the two sections (language and math) takes about an hour, though the test itself is untimed and you can take breaks as needed. The results are thorough and helpful. You can access it at www.affordabletests.com.

I’ve seen a few variations on this one, but still remember running across it for the first time in middle school: A group of students are pulling a prank. The school has exactly 100 students and 100 lockers. The first student enters and opens every locker. The second student enters, and closes every second locker starting with locker number two. The third student enters and closes or opens (closing the open ones and opening the closed ones) every third locker starting with number three. The fourth student enters and closes or opens every fourth locker starting with number four. This continues until the 100th student opens or closes the 100th locker. Which lockers are closed at the end? One of the reasons it sticks with me is a comment from a math instructor that seemed rather inane, but it’s still a fun problem.

A padded, tan-colored envelope, about 12” x 15” in size, with a return address of the American Classical League.