Quark, what I meant was when we hit geometry snags, like drawing angles etc, I feel like we are working at the wrong level. At that point, we slog through it; I figure we will hit it again when motor skills are better.... then we turn to something fun, like binary-- or other off-track topics.

Geometry fine motor skills are where DS6 gets hang up as well. Especially the Beast Academy 4a section. We went through that with a lot of assistance. That didn't get him up to the proficient 4th grade level, but it did move him leaps and bounds with just that level of practice. I am happy with that. He still really struggles and gets frustrated trying to draw parallel lines and perpendicular lines. He can measure angles, but has a much harder time drawing his own with much accuracy/precision. All well, I'm not too worried about it, since we can hold off on geometry topics if we want to for a long time and focus on other fun stuff-- like binary! But every once in a while, it makes me pause and think that be is working too far ahead in math.

The complete Oz series and other books by Baum. (18+ books) Phantom Tollbooth Little Britches Wind in the Willows

DS6 read aloud- The Magic of Oz, by Frank Baum. Taking way too long because for the past month I've had a cough that makes reading out loud hard. But it's finally clearing up. Excited to finish the full Oz series in two more books and move on to more of your great suggestions. We've been working on Oz for too long. And although I have really really enjoyed them, I'm starting to be ready for a different type if story. Listen aloud- SOTW 1 and 2

Lewelma, It's not really what I hope to gain. I just see his friends in PS testing, and I feel it a bit, well-- awkward or strange that he hasn't had to do any. Not even a spelling test. It makes me question if I am being a good HS'er. :) I don't really feel like I have a need to do it, as I know where he stands. But it just feels wrong to be of school age and not have a single test in your life.

Does Singapore ever cover any statistics or probability topics?

Thank you for all the responses. I was really asking about just end of unit/year tests. I am surprised by the answers that many of you gave. I did not know that so many hs'ers skipped testing. I guess it makes sense in that we know where are kids are and what things they struggle with. It just feels odd for him to get to be 12 and never have had a test. What I the SAT or some other talent search is his first test ever?

Up till now we have only been doing the wb+CWP. I recently ordered the IP books for 5a/b but find that the format is different than the CWP and wb. They just seem denser/ more tightly packed questions. One reason that SM is working so well for us is the open spacing and larger areas to accommodate larger writing. Why are the IP books so much tighter? They are going to require coping problems to other paper which I wanted to avoid. Are all IP grade workbooks like that. Anyone else have the same issue?

I'd love to know this too! Both Dh and I have terrible handwriting, so I feel the pain of expecting him to perfect himself beyond what he sees me do... Which he likely matched by the time he was five;).

Okay, so at some point, kids need to learn to test. I know they push it earlier and earlier these days, putting standardized tests in K. But what I am wondering, is that as a hs'er, at what age do you start testing? Just generalized, end of unit, or end of year tests? I've held off and only had DS do one end of year math test once. I was easy on him-- letting him split it up over four days so he didn't feel stressed by it. I've never made him test on anything else-- just letting him enjoy learning. So when ought I introduce The Test? Posting on the Acc Learner board because he is very advanced-- working on 5th grade level but just six. So that might very well change the answers I get. Thanks.

DS is 6 and a night owl like his mom. So we wake up around 9-10. As soon as we get a leisurely breakfast we start school so we get it done before anything else. I am terrible with keeping a schedule myself, and am struggling and failing to help DS learn that skill. I need to do much better, but have a really had time getting up and going early, and have since I was a kid. I never ever made it on time to public school! Maybe I am a homeschooler just so I don't have to get DS to the bus stop and relive my chronically late past.

DS is 6 and a night owl like his mom. So we wake up around 9-10. As soon as we get a leisurely breakfast we start school so we get it done before anything else. I am terrible with keeping a schedule myself, and am struggling and failing to help DS learn that skill. I need to do much better, but have a really had time getting up and going early, and have since I was a kid. I never ever made it on time to public school! Maybe I am a homeschooler just so I don't have to get DS to the bus stop and relive my chronically late past.

We do SM PM textbook and CWP. We usually do all problems, but I'm flexible enough to sometimes skip if there are a few pages of the same type of problem that I know he has mastery over.

I'll second reading aloud. Instilling great lit in his brain. Love doing it, love the bonding time. It may be all I do well, at least that's how it feels.

Alte vests, interesting idea. Maybe having "school"being only the drudgery part of learning is a bad idea. I'm really going to have to think through this and see if I can make it work. Thanks.

You all make me feel so much better. Thank you. So I'll forego the FLL and WWE,and just work dictation/narrations into our handwriting/reading. Some days you just feel so overwhelmed, and though I've never had the intention of following TWM very closely, I do like the general idea of it. But every time I look through it, it has the strange property of making me feel like a failure!

Okay, so I sit here with The Well Trained Mind book in my lap. Up to this point in DS6's education we have covered math, handwriting, and MCT-island. Right now we are down to writing one letter/page of HWT per day, doing 30 minutes of math, and taking five minutes to diagram a sentence from Practice Island. I am NOT saying that I want to add a bunch of seat work, or take away from DS's free childhood time:). I am saying that I am feeling like things are a little narrow, and I'd like to expand our horizons and put more variety into the portion of our day that is formal school. So everyone understands, we have tried un-schooling and its more formal opposite. But what is really working and very necessary to our fiercely independent, stubborn, and authority-hating child, is requiring a certain amount of seat work daily, even at his young, though very advanced age. Though many might say he is so young and advanced that I don't need to do anything, we find when we do that, that he just rebels more. And though I might be a terrible mom, for this reason I am going to have him work though the summer, in order to keep a hold of the reigns that I have so tenderly put upon him. That being said, I started to look through TWTM and feel like there is so much I am not doing. So I downloaded the Story of the World on audio. Ds already loves listening to it, and though I might kind of disagree with what has been presented so far, I do love the narrarator's voice. Okay, so now I am introducing him to history. Check. Then I read about doing narrations and dictation. I am thinking I need to start doing this. I looked through the sample pages on amazon of WWE and FLL though,and I am not sure that those are where we are. Here is a very asynchronous kid who reads at about a middle school level, but has the handwriting of a first grader, and the writing skills of a third grader. So where do I start in that sequence? Or are we just as well off having him copyfrom books we've read and summarizing books we read? Do we really need FLL or WWE? I don't really know what it is I am asking here! Every once in a while, I just feel like I am not giving Ds a broad enough education. But when I look at the breath that the WTM wants covered, I am so overwhelmed! That is so much more school time than I can imagine right now. And then I get more confused because I have one kid with one foot firmly planted in the grammar stage and the other foot firmly planted in the logic stage. I guess all in all I am just feeling lost today. Any BTDT and ideas about how to increase scope without adding too much on the camel'sback? Also insight into FLL and WWE would be loved! Sorry for such an eclectic post! Welcome to my brain.

Never mind. Edited out because you are, now as I read, beyond Island level.

One thing that I think helps is adjusting the level of output. So if a child is comfortable working three years below ideal level, and producing, say 100 math problems at that level in one sitting, then make sure that when working three years up that you don't ask more than, say 20 problems. I find that when you lower the output, there is more desire to work ahead. Also, make sure there are subjects that don't stretch too much, if at all. Remember when you were in college and had hard semesters, I know I always made my hardest classes coincide with my easiest requirements too. When I was taking differential equations, I also made sure I was taking the insanely easy health requirement. And if you think they are at the right level,but they are still really complaining about thinking, then back off a bit, move down a level,and you end up seeing a lot of growth here. A lot more self motivation seems to happen when you are just below ideal level. At these younger ages especially,I've seen a lot more growth and confidence working below I know what he is capable of.

DS6.0 is just in the process of starting into math again for the last month,and I finally feel like I have found the right program and the proper amount to ask of him so that he loves it. (See older threads to hear about our math woes that ended up with a first semester break from math.) I can't imagine that after-schooling math would be as easy to accelerate with because child must already be burned out from long school day, even if he is learning nothing new there. Nevertheless, for us we are going through a Singapore workbook at the rate of one/month or less. Once we are through 6th grade (just starting 4b), then I'm going to spend about a year?? going through Challenging Word Problems and Hard Math for Elementary School. After which I plan to start AoPS. Of course, it's all tentative, and things may change drastically, but at least I feel like I have a plan! At any rate,that should put him in AoPS by 7.5, at which point I hope he will have the extra maturity needed to stick with hard problems. And hopefully,having him do a year of CWP will help build to that! That is our plan, for what it is worth. Since he will have gone through all the cirriculm since third grade,he shouldn't have holes. And although DS already does algebraic thinking and can solve basic algebra problems, he doesn't have the maturity to push through hard stretches yet. So for that reason, though he could start on pre-algebra now (as all the Singapore books are mostly very easy for him and have few things that hit him as new or challenging) and though he already on his own time works with algebra and prealgebra topics for fun...I'm holding him back to make sure there are no holes, and most impotanatly to let him develop the maturity to work with problems that will stump him.

https://www.goodread...d_Young_Readers

https://www.goodread...d_Young_Readers Go to goodreads to check out a great list in the making!

I also noticed that there was a Horrible Histories on Netflix the other day...but haven't watched it yet. Also, as above, we don't assign him to read these books--he just sort of self-supplements with them. They get a lot of use; he has read every Horrible Science at least twice.

We got the minimalist homeschool pack, it even at that I felt the teachers manual and the student text that they gave for Sentence Island and Grammar Island were overkill. I would not recommend getting the student book. For the quizzes or activities that are in there,they are short enough to write out on paper or a whiteboard and save yourself some money. They only student book I'd get is Practice Island. And unless you are terrible at grammar yourself or have never learned this stuff, I'd skip on the solutions manual of Practice Island too. And if you really want to save money you can ditch practice island and just pull sentences to diagram from the nearest book on your bookshelf! In fact, I wish I had done that:)

We have just about every Horrible book written. DS loves the Horrible Science and Murderous Maths the most. Horrible Geography was okay. Horrible Histories is still sitting in the closet until I judge he is more mature and ready to handle the weight of human history and all its gory details. The Horribly Famous set is also waiting for a bit. I read a couple HScience to make sure they were okay in language for him. I recall one or two very minor "bad" words. Murderous Maths were excellent. Again,I only read one, but found it clean. Its hard to say if they would be okay for your children as everyone has varying standards somewhat.