Saxon really focuses on teaching procedures, but isn’t strong in teaching problem solving skills or concepts, so I would use the time to work on those. Problem solving skills could be learned with old Math Kangaroo tests. If she prefers a more lesson-based format, then Zaccaro’s Becoming a Problem Solving Genius might be a good introduction. Singapore Math’s Challenging Word Problems book could be a more typical school-y option. Some issues of MathMania from Highlights would also work. Concepts could be played with using something like Amazing Math Projects. If you just want review and practice, then using Prodigy Math’s Online game could work. If you want a fun, creative supplement, then Math and Magic in Wonderland would be a good fit at that level. So would Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School.

No. My child does choose to write in cursive over manuscript, but her manuscript is pretty much illegible and she doesn’t use it. I don’t care what format she writes in (manuscript, cursive, or typed), as long as she fulfills the actual assignment.

Everything is completely up in the air right now, even more so than usual. We are exploring private school options for next year. It’s so weird to say that; DD has been homeschooled from the beginning, and I believed she always would be. If we do not find a satisfactory school option, we will likely do an extremely relaxed year, even more so than our usual. One idea that intrigued her was a completely arts-focused year. There are several theater groups and art classes around here. She could actually do Hoffman Piano. We could get a membership at our local makerspace and go to their meetups. We would need to keep her physical activity stuff on the schedule (currently parkour and aerial silks) because it is important for her to regulate, but she could potentially do dance or other more performance-based activities. I do not post on the regular grade threads. DD simply doesn’t come close to “fitting” in those threads, which means that I don’t find much community in them and my educational choices are unlikely to be useful to others with similarly aged kids on the thread.

And the second recent essay was a prompt to write a descriptive essay about any place, including a fictional place. (ETA: I have no idea why it turned one sentence blue in the cut and paste. It isn't any different in the original document, and won't let me alter it here.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Hogsmeade, you can get nearly all your magical needs met. There are stores where you can get school supplies for Hogwarts, like Flourish and Blotts or Scrivenshafts. If you are not interested in school stuff and would rather hang out with your friends, you could go to the Three Broomsticks or the Hogs Head. There are also stores that are just fun to be in, like Honeydukes and Zonko’s. You can get almost anything you might want in Hogsmeade. Any student going to Hogwarts needs plenty of magical school supplies, and there are stores in Hogsmeade for that. If you need school books, you could go to Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore. When you run out of ink, or you lose your favorite quill, you can go to Scrivenshaft’s to get new ink and quills. You might even be able to get color changing ink or a quill that jumps into your bookbag by itself at the end of class. You should not have problems getting school supplies if you can get to Hogsmeade. Of course, you don’t just go to Hogsmeade to get school supplies. You need to be able to hang out with your friends too. For that you can go to the Three Broomsticks or the Hogs Head. The Hogs Head is much less popular, but you could go there if you liked quiet. It is also much more welcoming to non-human magical creatures. The Three Broomsticks is much more popular and serves the same variety of magical drinks as the Hogs Head. You could go to either one to hang out with your friends. You could also have some fun going to Honeydukes or Zonko’s. Honeydukes is the magical candy store. It has a lot of choices including chocolate frogs, which are very popular; Droobles Best Blowing Gum, which can fill a room with blue bubbles that don’t pop for weeks; and many other options. Zonko’s is the magical joke shop, where you can get enough stink pellets, nose biting teacups, and frog spawn soap to last a whole school year. Hogsmeade should definitely be able to keep you entertained. No matter what magical items you need, you can probably get them in Hogsmeade. You can get your school stuff, and when you get bored of that you can go hang out with your friends. After that you can buy some candy at Hogsmeade, or visit Zonko’s to get what you need to ruin Umbridge’s day. You can get almost every magical item you need in Hogsmeade.

Hi all! DD has always been resistant to any school-y type of writing, though she enjoyed writing fiction. She has surprised me with how well she is writing now that she is doing so willingly, and my plans for teaching seem like they may have been too basic and underestimated her. If anyone is willing to read through, I'm going to post two recent essays. I'd like advice on what to focus on next. Not necessarily curriculum to use (though I'm open to it), but more what specific things to work on. First essay, with an open prompt of "write about anything". This was meant as a baseline assignment so I could get an idea of what she could do right now. She chose to write about a topic in which she had disagreed with the majority opinion at a recent book club meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------ In the World’s Greatest Detective, I think that Hugh Abernathy was actually the worst detective instead of the best one. In the end of the book you see that he has closets and closets full of detective gadgets and disguises. He was also several years older than the other detectives, so he had a lot more time to practice. And the only case we know he did well at was the one case with the Colebridge cutthroat, and even on that case he hadn’t thought of the possibility that the cutthroat could be a woman. So, he only became famous for one case, and even on that case he had some advantages and made some mistakes. All the detective tools gave Hugh Abernathy an unfair advantage over the other detectives. If Hugh Abernathy needed to be disguised for something, for him that’s no problem! He can just go to one of his closets and pull out a disguise that best fits what he’s doing. If Gabriel needs to be disguised, he has a few disguises, but it would be a lot harder for him to disguise himself than it is for Hugh. It’s not that Hugh is any better at disguising himself than Gabriel is, it’s just that Hugh has more access to disguises. Hugh was also much older than the other detectives. He had a lot more practice doing detective work because he was older and therefore had more time to practice. If Gabriel had been alive long enough to get as much practice as Hugh got, Gabriel would have been at least as good as Hugh. So, a lot of what Hugh knew came from having more time to practice. He wasn’t any smarter than the other detectives, but he had more time to practice and pick up little detective tips. Since Hugh was only really known for one case, a lot of his fame was the fact that he had the opportunity to do that one big case. He was probably decently well known before that case since Lord Entwistle decided to hire him instead of any of the other detectives, but that could have come from his other advantages. Also, he just decided to rule out all women because he thought that it was impossible for women to be murderers without any evidence at all. If Lord Entwistle had picked any of the other detectives, they would probably be famous instead. Also, from some of what he says, you get the idea that Peartree was probably altering the stories to make them more fascinating, so the details of many of his cases, including the Colebridge cutthroat one, were likely Peartree-made. Hugh was really no better than any of the other detectives, he just had a lot of advantages over the other detectives. If the other detectives had the advantages that Hugh did, and one of the others had been hired by Lord Entwistle, then instead of having huge lines outside his house he would have almost nobody coming.

I have no idea how it would compare time/cost-wise, but this is my daughter’s third year on a Destination Imagination team. While no category of problem is specific to robotics, this is her second year in a row solving some major part of the challenge using robotics, and her team has also done a good bit of non-robotic engineering, worked with a variety of tools, done some basic wiring, and random other stuff. It is always combined with some artistic pieces (creating backdrops, writing and performing a skit). Time commitment and costs are fairly low at the regional and state levels, though if they qualify for Global Finals, those costs are pretty crazy. We have never been fortunate enough to just find a team. I’ve started teams in both places we’ve lived.

There was a Facebook post from Beast Academy/AOPS folks a year or two ago. I’ll never be able to find it, as it was buried as a reply to a reply, but the gist was this: Beast Academy 5 and Prealgebra are very similar in content, differing mainly in style. The company was responding to a request to make a BA version of Prealgebra, and said they wouldn’t even know what to cover, since so much of Prealgebra was already covered in BA5. They recommend students still do Prealgebra after BA5 in order to have a gentler transition to the style of AOPS. As more evidence that BA5 and Prealgebra are substantially the same, my daughter wanted to get through Algebra sooner to make a specific deadline. She went directly from BA5 to Intro to Algebra with no problems. My vote would be to go directly to Prealgebra.

I assume there is writing in his English class? If so, does his writing give evidence that he needs specific instruction in grammar or spelling this year? How is his typing? What is the purpose of teaching it? Proper ergonomics? Fluency/speed? Does he type for any of his classes? If so, how is he doing with it? What do you mean by “computer”? Coding? Learning to use software such as word processors, spreadsheets, photo editors, etc? I’m wondering if, for next year, you envision the same amount of outsourcing? More? Less? If less, then some of these subjects could be moved to next year’s schedule. Grammar does not typically need to be done yearly. Typing, as a skill, is best done for a short amount of time every day to build muscle memory, so I wouldn’t do it unless it can be committed to with frequency. Spelling may or may not be needed at all at this age, depending on the child. I know it is heresy to say this on a Classical board, but I think history can also be negotiable. At least, it can be minimized for a year, or done by listening to some great history-focused audiobooks. I didn’t catch it if you mentioned this already, but are the classes in person or online? Is there a good way to fill the social need next year if you outsource fewer classes? Are the current classes meeting the social need? We’ve had mixed results with outsourcing for social purposes, so it’s worth evaluating.

For this year, I would just let go of doing other things. The outsourced classes are covering all the core subjects except history. I find that most outsourced classes take at least twice as much time as the same things taught by me. Simply having the instruction and assignments structured for a group instead of targeted exactly at my one child takes a lot longer. Because of this, I’ve become really careful about outsourcing. We outsource when either I am not capable of teaching a subject, when having a group for discussion or projects is a specific benefit to the material, or for fun low/no homework “extras”. Otherwise, we cover the material ourselves.

I second using old Math Kangaroo tests. You can start with the grade 1-2 tests. MK emphasizes problem solving skills; few of their problems look like “math” to a kid. When my daughter has used the old tests, I give her about an hour to work on them, and used to break that up into multiple sittings. Then I would score it and we would use the white board to go over any questions she got wrong or left blank. It was fairly low commitment for me, and she made some good gains with it. She has done MindBenders, but I don’t see it as being nearly as useful. MindBenders teaches only one type of problem solving, and as the levels increase they tend to be more about finding the hidden trick than about solid logic skills. Their problems also make a lot of assumptions that create issues, everything from assuming gender for names to knowing/assuming which jobs involve any physical work, and lots of other issues. Not only do kids not always know the assumptions the problem writers are making, sometimes the assumptions are just plain *wrong*. I could see this being especially frustrating for an ASD kid.

I like Hoffman, and so does my kid. However, it does stay “young” for at least the first several units, finger puppets and all.

Zaccaro has a Real World Algebra workbook. The Algebra in it is definitely on the simpler side, from what I’ve seen, so better to go along with the first semester of Algebra 1.

I only used a couple of her books, but the activities were frequently a lot of work gathering materials or prepping. And I used BFSU without complaint about the prep work, so when I say the prep work was a lot, I mean a LOT. We’ve used a lot of the Thames and Kosmos kits, and I like them. Most things do usually come in the kit, and I grab the experiment book out first thing to see what I’m going to need to have on hand. They are high interest, and the booklet explains fairly well. They have an entire range of chemistry sets: C500, C1000, C2000, and C3000. The higher the number, the bigger the kit. We’ve used 500 and 3000, but not the ones in between. 500 was very basic, and I hesitate to recommend it. 3000 is so thorough that it could be used as an entire hands-on middle school course or as the hands-on component to a basic level high school course.

Dragonwood and Qwixx are two more games where the probability is not explicit, but pretty easy to work with.

It also looks like they may have only done the five subtests that are needed for a GAI, and not the other five subtests that are needed for a FSIQ. If that is the case, they should still be able to turn the GAI into a standard score for you, but you won’t have a FSIQ.

I would simply ask the school what the scores are. They clearly have them.

I did get Kumon workbooks for multi-digit multiplication and division, but they were fairly useless for us. DD did the multiplication mostly in her head, using strategies as taught by BA. She automatically converted all long division problems into fractions and simplified as much as possible, and the Kumon books rarely gave a division problem she couldn’t simplify down enough to just do it in her head as well. She has now completed Algebra 1, does multiplication using only the strategies taught in BA (no straightforward algorithm), and long division problems through simplification. It works for her.

I create nothing, but I do use some good options that others have created. Dragonbox apps were a lot of fun. Dragonbox 5+ and 12+ cover simplifying equations in a way that doesn’t look anything like equations at first. Dragonbox Elements is an introduction to Geometry. Hands on Equations isn’t exactly fun, IMO, but it does really get to the idea of an equation as two balanced sides. My kid liked the hands-on nature of it for a while. We played some with number tricks, like these ones, took them apart to see why they worked, and then made our own. Not really higher math, but we recently did a bunch of cryptarithm puzzles together. Those were fun; you can find some silly ones in a google search. We’ve worked our way through about half of Patty Paper Geometry and just decided to get it back off the shelf. Not a game, but it’s been a much more fun introduction to Geometry than any regular curriculum would have been. The book is written so you can either use a more instructive approach or a more discovery-based approach. have you already done the Penrose books? How about the Math and Magic in Wonderland/Camelot books? None of it is higher math, but it’s all interesting stuff that isn’t always covered at all in math curriculum.

Evolution - lots of strategy, requires thinking about how your opponents may play and adapting your own strategy Pandemic (and any of the sequels) - multiple choices to be made every turn, cooperative so strategy can be explicitly discussed along the way but each player still makes their own choices Hogwarts Battle - also cooperative, so strategy can be discussed along the way. Ties in neatly if the person in question enjoyed the Harry Potter series, and is a really well done game, not the usual gimmicky tie-in. Sagrada - more logic than strategy, you need to place pieces in ways that are advantageous without knowing what options will be available on future turns Gobblet - this is a variant on tic-tac-toe, and actually a lot of fun to play. Games are super-quick, so easy to fit in. Chess - an obvious pick, but for good reason

We found vocabulary programs overly simple, unless we used ones aimed at high schoolers, at which point they became rather dull. If you find a great one, let me know! We do use Vocabulary Cartoons. I just cut the spine off the book and hang up one word per day. There’s a “quiz” every 10 words to review. Rummy Roots uses Latin and Greek roots in a card game. My daughter loved Caesar’s English from Michael Clay Thompson. If you might use the MCT materials later, it’s best used alongside the level it is in. If you have no interest in the full MCT program, CE can be used standalone. (Most people would advise you start with the Island level first, but if using the vocabulary as a stand-alone, I’d go directly to CE.) If he wants to continue with spelling, Scripps puts out a study list every year for spelling bee prep. You can find it online easily enough by googling “Scripps spelling bee study list”. You can also find Words of the Champions that way, the booklet that they give the school winners to prepare for the regional bees.

If you are planning to enroll her in a charter next year, choose the charter now. Meet with them and ask them what credits will be accepted for her freshman year, and whether they will be accepted as meeting a-g requirements (if she might consider any of the CA public universities). If you are choosing a charter, there may be advantages to sticking with the private school half-time (and paying full tuition) for easier credit transfer. Many of the CA charters do have a process to accept credits from those coming in from having been PSA students, but some do not, nor are they required to accept your credits. If you are filing a PSA next year, then none of the matters, and you are more free to make whatever decision is right for your Family now. I second the caution about enrolling with Inspire for high school. This audit is not looking particularly positive, and that could leave a lot of students without a school suddenly. In addition, having heard many parents talk about their experiences with Inspire, they’re great for K-8, but have completely dropped the ball for a lot of high school students. There are stories galore of them doing things like approving a courseload at the beginning of the year, then suddenly deciding they were wrong and throwing out half a year’s credits, or telling people that only online classes counted for a-g, or just piles of other bizarre stuff. If you use Facebook, join the group CA Homeschool College Seekers. They’re a wealth of information, including having people who can give great information on the charter choices.

Not meaning to sidetrack the thread too much, but the issue I find with this is that it assumes the parent/teacher has an understanding of the math, and that is not always the situation. I mean nothing here regarding the OP’s understanding of math, of which I have no knowledge; it is a general observation. I have seen and heard some atrocious explanations of arithmetic from people who are trying to teach what they never actually understood themselves, starting all the way back from “carrying/borrowing” concepts in first and second grade.

Grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s fun to play with different combinations of cheeses, whether to add herbs, or other variations. Because of the variations, it can be done repeatedly without feeling repetitive.

As to this, I disagree. All math is absolutely not created equal. Several people have been having a discussion about what makes for a great math education in this thread. There are vast differences in how programs teach students to sum 34+25, those differences make a huge difference in people’s ability to actually understand math, and that understanding can have a big impact on a person’s enjoyment of math. Those differences are why there are such strong negative opinions about programs like R&S and Saxon. These programs are focused on drill, not conceptual understanding. It is not about color or cartoon characters. Math Mammoth is about as visually boring as you can get, but is still a strong math program.

Piggybacking on what Farrar said, while we’ve done math both with and without curriculum, we always come back around to curriculum. When we aren’t using a curriculum, I’m pulling from multiple other math resources, or were truly shelving math altogether for a time. I don’t attempt to make my own math curriculum or worksheets. I intentionally choose curriculum that has a lower time commitment for us, so that DD can move ahead without needing to spend so much time on the more straightforward parts of math. For her, that was Beast Academy, because the low amount of repetition (and me adjusting the curriculum to have even less repetition when appropriate for her) meant that she could finish a full level even if she only worked on it for a moderate amount of time 2-3 days/week. I could also see using Math Mammoth for a different kid, one who needed more repetition, and carefully selecting only the problems that the kid actually needed; MM worktexts are inexpensive, so I wouldn’t feel at all bad about not using a chunk of the program.