My son isn't the major writer in our house, but my husband is. I have been amazed at the number of books written by writers describing the craft of writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott; On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King; Writing Toward Home by Georgia Heard; The Anatomy of Story by John Truby; and The Way of the Story by Catherine Ann Jones. These are ones he recommends frequently to people trying to craft their writing. Many focus on the narrative, but in general could be applied to all forms of writing. Bird by Bird is by far my personal favorite, but be warned it has a bit of adult language. If I remember correctly so does Stephen King's (though it blew me away with how fantastic it was and so very much not what I was expecting). Though nothing a 10 year old hasn't heard before and none of it used in ways of incredible vulgarity. These would be good books to let her read and work through. As for forms, that can get kind of crazy. I'd have her pick a style she likes and then work on various forms of that style. For example, there are 6 different forms of parallel narrative http://www.lindaaronson.com/six-types-of-parallel-narrative.html . Or 16 different forms of stanza poetry verse. http://www2.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/PoetryVerseForm01.htm . Since most all curriculums focus on just getting students to put words on paper correctly, and your daughter is obviously doing that, I doubt a curriculum is where you are going to find your answers. You could always consider talking to a creative writing teacher at the local community college for ideas on a sampling of important forms.

We have literary lessons from LotR and I really love it. We used it for middle school English and slowed down to one book a year rather than all the books over 1 year. The pace is fast for younger students, but the topics are not too difficult for younger students at all. You would need to supplement juvenile books and/or graphic novels references to Shakespeare etc, just for the sake of time and a bit of subject matter with younger readers, but a 5th grader could use the curriculum and get a lot out of it.

As someone for whom history is my weakest area, I greatly thank those of you who took the time to lay this out. My son loves listening to the Great Courses and I can supplement if I have a good flow to a course. Thank you again! This is a major stress and life saver!

I second the library. Not only does our library have a few, but through the free inter library loan we have access to hundreds.

We use a lot of activism in local and national politics. Legally there have to be public comment periods where citizens of any age are allowed to submit either verbal or written testimony about an issue. Following and becoming part of those political movements has morphed into our social studies, but I don't exactly know what title I would give that.

To clarify, when I mentioned first 5 questions, I meant in the problems, not the exercises. Sorry if that was unclear.

Much like wapiti, I don't calculate a percentage correct for exercises. We use the end of the chapter summary problems for me to create a study guide with half and a test with half. Study guides and tests go in his portfolio, and allow for me to provide a grade printout to accompany a transcript. On these, I look for a minimum of 85 percent. If his scores are under that for either (unless he just plain didn't do a problem), then I consider that a time for me to step in and really need clarification. Though I can only speak for prealgebra and counting/probability, I have found with those two books that the first 5 questions or so should be almost immediate answers if the student really gets it. Maybe a couple minutes at first, but in general they are a review of the information laid out in the previous sections combined with the short blurbs at the beginning of the chapter. Those are the problems I use to see if my son is understanding. If I see him stumped when he first begins the sections problems, then we discuss. The later problems in the section require more leaps, and those sometimes take him a bit before the ideas click. Exponents were a difficult one for my son to completely wrap his head around, but number theory he flew though. Some chapters will be easier, some harder. If you are dragging the kid through every other problem, something isn't clicking. If you are not needed (or the solutions manual isn't needed) at all for multiple sections, you might want to re-evaluate where your student is placed.

Thames and Komso are incredible science kits. They can be spendy, but are reusable and totally worth it.

We use AoPS too, just as described above to combat the easy answers issue and meltdowns. I use the summary problems at the end of the chapters as a test for his portfolio, though the book does not directly include tests. If I know my son is struggling on a chapter, we won't do the test till a month or so later when he is feeling more comfortable. That alone has greatly eased his anxiety about "failure." Failure in this instance being something like 85 percent :). He is more willing to ask for help if he is not concerned with the word test.

I have actually done the research and spoken directly with 5 academic advisors from major universities in my state and an adjoining state. I have also had conferences with 3 community college enrollment advisors as well. http://clep.collegeboard.org/exam/college-algebra This is the exam all of them independantly recommended passing as a sign of mastery for high school algebra in order to have my son opt out of showing an entire year of coursework in a portfolio. All of them also said that direct classes with fairly standardized titles such as Algebra, Trig, Geometry were preferable to different titles which sounded more flowery. Four of them said they would be leery of a homeschool transcript which did not have have foundational math, but only listed higher level courses. This was the same for science, English, etc. Two of them discussed the strong desire for parents of homeschooled children to have such credit by examination methods as CLEP to back up the grading used. "...the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) has been the most widely trusted credit-by-examination program for over 40 years, accepted by 2,900 colleges and universities and administered in over 1,800 test centers." Taken directly from the college board website. CLEP tests were perferred over AP classes in 3 of the schools I talked to because of their standarization. Though some colleges only allot elective credit for examinations, many actually allow for lower coursework credit. Lastly, the point of CLEP was not to place the class on a transcript, but to give credence to a transcipt which had classes listed, but no portfolio work. It provides third party documentation to make sure the transcript is not inflated (a major issue with homeschool transcripts according to all 5 schools). It is also a way to show that my under-aged student is ready for dual enrollment. CLEP was suggested by all three of the community colleges around us as a way to show that a third party thought my son could handle college work. It doesn't get him out of entrance exams, but it means he is looked at with legitimacy. Trust me, I have done my research. I wouldn't comment if I hadn't.

I second the Easy Grammar. My son sounds much like your daughter in that he hates the "schoolish" feeling of many books. Saxon was a complete bust! He likes that Easy Grammar is a page or two a day and often takes him less than 15 minutes. It doesn't skimp on rigor, though and I like that part.

We are EG all the way. Though I will say my son wants to be a linguist, so he is biased about the rigor of EG. It may not seem rigorous enough at first, but by grade 5, the book is hitting predicate nominatives and object of prepositions vs. adverbs. It has been extremely helpful to us when it comes to foreign language learning that EG does not shy away from these terms. We have not found it formulaic like the previous commentor, however, my son is deeply interested. My husband is a high school English teacher and is frequently impressed with how fully our son understands very complex concepts. I attribute this to the micro increment approach EG uses. He was never overwhelmed, and got plenty of practice. The best advice I could give you is to not shy away from having your child memorize the adverb, preposition, and various other lists given in the earlier books. They may see silly at the time, but we skipped them and were hurting for it later.

Check your local library and see what they have available. Ours carries both Latin for Children and Song School Latin. It would be a free way to see which approaches she might like. It could also give you a dialog for what she might be thinking and what you want.

Jenney's Latin is awesome for us. It is a high school text, but the student must have a very strong foundation in English grammars the terms are not defined. As an example, it merely discusses how to derive the object of the preposition, not how to find it or use it successfully. However, 2 years of Jenney's is comparable to the content of 4 high school years. 6th and 7th grades would be my choice,but only if you use the Latin as a foundation for teaching English composition and foreign language learning. Once you can break down the grammar for Latin, the Romance languages are much simpler to understand.

My son is 9 and planned his own high school graduation plan with him graduating at 16 with both his diploma and his Associates degree from the local community college. He informed me of this intent last year and had main much the same panic mode you seem to be expressing. Basically, he wanted to cut out the "exploratory" middle school years. After blocking it out; it wasn't that crazy. We are doing high school courses now, only it just goes into his 4th grade portfolio. Much like others said above, the pace is slower than a traditional high school course, and there are rabbit holes we venture down, but the depth of content is there. In three years he will begin high school transcripts and CLEP test for credit competency in subjects like Algebra 1, Spanish 1 & 2, and the like which he has no desire to retake. This allows for the courses to go on a transcript because CLEP is both federally mandated as accepted by college (with provisions for how determined by each separate institution), but also nationally recognized as viable measure of learning. This way he can be doing whatever math he is interested in, but still have a complete transcript. He will still have to do science, foreign language, English, etc, at a much higher level than now for us to award him credit, but he won't feel like he is having to double back and repeat himself.

I think this sort of thing is an incredibly personal decision. Just to use my son and I as examples, he wanted to only draw pictures on the front of the flash cards because the drawing helped him learn and the writing distracted him. He is an auditory, kinesthetic learner. I, on the other hand, want only an incredibly simple icon and the words full and bold. I am a written visual, concrete learner. The same situation happens with a notebook. I like dividers, outlines, subheadings, and lots of examples/bookwork practice. He wants drawings, comic strips, chants. Book work is tedious and distracting so that set would be filed under each heading depending on which skill it was stressing. Neither of us would be successful with the others notebook or flash cards. You have to find what works for your brain and learning style. Learning style profiles exist online often for free if you have not had one done. Myers-Briggs can also help a lot with this sort of question as well.

The academics on paper are important, and Icannot speak to them since each school is heavily different on what they want. However, I would purchase a planner for your daughter immediately and begin to have her get used to using it. Everyone has to figure out the best way for themselves to self-organize, and unfortunately it can't really be taught without some trial and error. I would give her test dates a month in advance and then not say another thing about it until one week out. Secondly, give her all her work for the week on Monday and then leave her to it expecting all of it by a certain time Friday. In my experience with private high school (both attending as a student and looking into teaching in private vs. public) one of the major factors I encountered in the higher end schools was the amount of weight they expected from the student. There was absolutely no hand holding at the high school level. It was one of the major reasons I chose to teach in the public forum. I know my personality and I am not that sort of disciplinarian. Since your daughter is in a situation where you are with her in some way all day, you might not evening be aware of the ways you are helping her schedule, organize, and be academically responsible. That would be an extremely stressful wake up call if a scholarship and a permanent record were on the line.

My son asked to start beginning languages when he was about 3. I didn't listen to him and thought it must have been something he saw on TV or heard somewhere. Oh, no, he meant it. When I finally realized how serious he was, I bought a high school level, really clear book for Latin and our charter school provided us with Rosetta Stone. He was only in Kindergarten. He never even looked at the Latin book. I would read, and then translate it as best I could into language he could understand. He played with Rosetta Stone off and on, but there were times it frustrated him because he was too young to really get what they were talking about. However, in only a year or two, he was flying through both. Now, at 9, he is still majorly into languages and still wants to be a linguist, only his list of languages has expanded to Arabic and Japanese (both of which I'm sweating). I say this because, it didn't matter that it was a high school book or an "older kid" program. What mattered was that my son was really, actually interested. He was going to sponge up whatever I could expose him to. Your son is 7 and is asking "older kid" questions about grammar. Let him learn. You might need to translate a bit, but who knows where he might go if you let him.

I would consider using it as a high school credit only if the child decides they do not want to pursue a career which would need the intensive sciences - elementary school teacher, linguist, business major, etc. Let's face it, many adults in our modern world need an exposure to chemistry, but they do not need in depth knowledge. If you polled most people on this forum, I don't know how many could rattle off the periodic table, or truly discuss complex chemical reactions. We all would probably be able to break down water, possibly explain what a noble gas is, define protons and neutrons, but in general that is the extent of most chemistry knowledge needed for many people. I'd talk to your sons about what they think they may want to do. If they don't know, then I'd keep a more formal high school, college preperatory chemistry course in the plan.

We had friends who homeschooled and then they had to move into a situation where both parents being home wasn't an option. At that point, the mother realized she should have been working with her kids on self organizing long before the crisis time. It was a wake up call for me. When my son was 6 we began slowly working on him being able to move though a list of work with some level of competance. It sounds like this month might be a great opportunity to try it out with your family in case such issues arrise again. The MyHomework app for an iPad is FANTASTIC and free. It allows you to program in all the things you want your student to do each day so they can mark them "completed." You can also set timeframes of when you would like them to work on classes/assignments. Spliting recurring assignments (workbooks, or daily work) into sections really helped my son. We would then say about how long it should take for each section. If he knew Spelling would take 10 minutes, he would then get it done right away. If we cut Math into new material (25 minutes), practice (15 minutes), and review material (10 minutes), he could stay on task a bit better and in many instances would rearrange the lesson to be faster for himself. It meant that though I was still around, my day was spent with much less managing, and much more actually teaching. At 9, I am more a mentor than ever before.

For me, though I cannot speak for anyone else, the problem with Khan is that it is only drill and kill. It does not in any way teach a child to critically think about math, or to work with numbers in a way that causes them to make their own connections. The learning is completely passive. It is a site which works with memorizing process and then regurgitating. "Mastery" in this instance, merely means that the student can effectively repeat, not solve. Our family used Khan when my son was in K-2nd grade so he could experiement with seeing different types of mathematics and really explore. It is a great site for that.

My son is not there yet, but he is going along the same track as your son. At 9, we are easily plugging away at integrated Algebra 1 and Geometry. I am definitely finding your information helpful for the future! Thanks!

I hear you! While we drove around to errands my son suggested we listen to audio books. He got very excited when I found the Great Courses Classical Mythology at the library. The first few lectures/tracks were great! However, as it went on it started to get a bit more sketchy. I didn't quite remember the extent of incest which existed in Greek Mythology, or exactly how much sexualized content there was. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of fast forwarding and a few discussions I wasn't planning to have in 4th grade!

Do you have access to a library? Our library has a few Great Courses for check out, but it also allows us to use the Interlibrary Loan system (free) to access dozens more. It would give you a chance to preview them. In many instances my son (age 9) will be so interested we don't need to purchase the course because he will just check it out and listen to it over and over.

At the time, the first reaction was anger. He was upset that I would ask him to do something he knew that he could not do. I wouldn't go so far as meltdown, more hissy fit. When I pushed the situation, it became anger towards me and then guilt/shame. It was definitely intense at first. The entire experience had me directly talking with him about it. I wouldn't let it go, and really had to push the issue till he would admit all the really self hating things he thought when he didn't know an answer. He cried/screamed that he was stupid, that he wasn't good enough to know, etc. That was mainly what I was trying to push out of him. I don't know if he would have admitted that he felt that way without it. I'm not saying your son would be in the same place, just that mine didn't want to have to say out loud how badly he thought of himself about not knowing the math. It was more just admitting the issues. For some reason the lightbulb and the Russian didn't bother him. Those didn't cause a meltdown, or issues, or anything. When I moved on to those subjects it really lessened the mood. It was something about the math. You could always start with the lighter subjects and gage the reaction before going near any uncomfortable issues. He is getting better about discussing it now that he is older, and has expressed that it was something "school" and smart people were good at school. It was a point of pride for him, and when he couldn't just come up with the answer his pride and self image were hurt. "Ttranslate that problem into Russian" has become a catch phrase in our homeschooling now, and he will smile at it. It wasn't smiley at the time. Lots of hugs. Lots of reassurance that I didn't care if he didn't know the answer. I listed (and still do frequently) all the things I don't know how to do, or things I struggle with doing and need help. We have openly discussed how his dad doesn't like to ask for help (Dad admits this) and how it can be a hinderance, or how being stubborn (another thing Dad admits) isn't helping ease frustration or solve any issues. More than anything, we made it a life lesson about how everyone has to learn new stuff all the time. It doesn't make us weak, even though our society doesn't like to talk about it. It shifted to be a normal topic of discussion and a regular point over and over in our week. Good Luck!