Assuming we're talking about an able-bodied, child with no extraordinary situations: Yes, it is reasonable to expect a 10 yo to wake up to the alarm and get themselves ready in the morning. I have that expectation for my 10yos. I sure as hell expect them to retain the ability while they're 13yo. OP, I can understand your frustration with the situation entirely. But I urge you to figure out what you are dealing with. Is she willing to get up at 7:00, but struggling to gain wakeful consciousness and get out of bed? If she is willing, but needs scaffolding and support, I'd give her scaffolding and support. Any time I'm teaching a skill or habit--even if it's something I feel shouldn't "have to be taught"--I teach it according to the learner. Some kids need scaffolding and support for the most ridiculous seeming things. *shrug*. Teach the kid in front of you, not the one you think the kid in front of you ought to be. IF she were being willfully defiant/lazy/uncooperative about getting up, I'd go another way with the situation entirely.

When my kids were doing timed fact drill sheets. I taught them to work in two phases. The "quick-pass" and the "finishing-pass". For the "quick-pass" they Work downward in columns. quickly read each equation. If they know the answer--write it If not, continue reading down the column. When you get to end of that column, make a mark--squiggle, box, circle, check whatever I don't care. Just make a mark, so that THEY know, that they've completed that column. Then move to the next column and work their way up, doing the same thing--reading all equations, completing the equations that they knew immediately, and making a mark at the top of the column. Once they have read all the problems and answered all the ones that they can immediately they being the "finishing-pass" Go back to the first column and fill in as many blank equations as they can before time is up. This way, kids complete as many equations as they genuinely can and don't deflate their score because they get caught up calculating the ones that they don't know immediately. Additionally you can measure their genuine progress with the facts. If you intentionally work on memorizing one multiplication table each week, then the kids and teacher should see marked improvement on how many they get done on a "quick-pass" vs a "polishing pass". If you're working on the 8s, then you should be getting them done in the "quick-pass" vs the "polishing-pass", things like that. Some kids like to do the two phases in different colors so that they can see easily how many they knew and how many they have to work on and can tell "At the beginning of the month, I had 32 greens, but now I only have 6 greens." Things like that can be motivating.

I've almost maxed out the math that I am willing to co-learn so whatever I get, he's on his own with it for the most part. It needs to be a text that's not too scary format wise and he can at least make some progress in most chapters of. I'm an applied-math-guy at heart, I find the heavy-theoretical stuff boring and difficult to get through. So naturally I have a kid who is interested by the heavily-theoretical stuff so I have to try and find the perfect book that's going to be friendly enough for him to work on on is own, and engage him. AoPS only covers single-variable calculus. We found some of AoPS Intro books incredibly boring and slowopaced so he has a low opinion of the AoPS math books from that experience. He thinks that he might be ready to go give AoPS another try in 8th grade since it's "practically the standard" but I'd like something to gift him for his impending 7th grade year.

I don't think that I want something even more theoretical. I'd like something that he can begin work on sooner, rather than later, but that'll offer value on repeated readings, exploration etc. It'll be a self-study/independent text, so I don't want something that's too big of a stretch for him. I'm hunting for a text that'll stoke, not extinguish his interest.

Congrats! I've made a mistake or two in my parenting life-time, but teaching reading early and often to my toddlers was NOT one of them. Enjoy the journey!

I'm on the lookout for the most readable text for calculus that might interest a pure-math enthusiast. The theoretical underpinnings that gets glossed over or raced through in applied calculus texts is what I'm after for our next pass. Courant - vol 1 and vol 2 Apostol - vol 1 and vol 2 There was a 3rd name, but I forgot it. I'm looking for a book/series to give a complete coverage of single and multivariable, which is why I didn't include Spivak. If you know of anyone else who wrote a calculus book on the same wavelength/level as the 2/3 above, please mention it.

So here's my quandary. I've gone back over some of their papers and they have been doing these things 1.5 -2 years. I don't know if I see a decent amount of growth between about 2 years ago and now. Is there some standardized "test" or "assessment" I can give them specifically to measure their writing skills?

Math Explorations? Exploratory Mathematics? Math for Liberal Arts? Liberal Arts Mathematics?

Is there any particular reason why the calculation needs to resolved and stated all in the same line? Starting with the example of 182 279 + 45, this problem can be solved in stages. Just add by place value where it's most logical to the kid. 300 190 + 16, which becomes 490 + 16, which becomes the total of 506

How do you assess a middle graders written output? Do you have a set of rubrics per type of writing that you use? I'd like to determine if either of The Boys would benefit from a formal writing program of some kind.

We're doing a Business Studies unit so that The Boys learn about starting a small business in our town/state. So far, I have for them to Meet and talk with Small Business Owners in the area writing a (mock) business plan for a business idea that they have IDing and understanding the government agencies that they'd need to file paperwork with research and compare options for business loans work through business application problems in a couple of the math texts we have. They keep a budget for their personal finances and so I"m wavering on whether I should include something on small business accounting or not. Any ideas on what I might tweak to round out the course?

As students progress through science courses, how do they maintain mastery of material from previous courses? Is there a series that just provides lots of cumulative reviews of a course? We're almost done with our home grown, text-based course in Physics, and it looks like after this one boy will do Anatomy and Physiology, and the other Chemistry. I have been harvesting practice exams and past exams because I plan to just give them a random "midterm" or "final exam" from some Physic teacher as a review every week or two to keep them fresh, but is there a series out there that does this already for any or all of the various science courses students take in Highschool/college? The test prep books I have seen have too few exams to make it worth the investment. I don't want to have to come up with dozens of exams for physics/chemistry/biology/A&P, etc.

Spanish update: The Boys academics are mostly in Spanish now and they seem to be handling it really well. We just made the switch with our materials. All input for Reading, History, Social Science, their daily General Review/recitation and their Presentations is 100% in Spanish now and 90+% of their output for those subjects is in Spanish. Science and Tech Ed. are bilingual due to lack of sufficient Spanish language resources and the fact that I teach those subjects directly. Buddy has had another Spanish growth-spurt. He's reading childrens novels much more easily now and thinks that he might be able to make his goal of reading 50 chapter books this year after all, but we shall see. When he's finished the chapter books/childrens novels that we own, then we'll have to resume using the public library for him. For Pal, I decided to put out more money and invest in some Spanish language novels that Pal wants to read and it's a complete 180* difference. It turns out he doesn't have nearly as much trouble with reading in Spanish as I thought. He is reading quite readily now and has said that he was just so bored by the other books that it was really hard to read them. I'm not about to spend hundreds building him his own private Spanish language library, and so I'll have to figure out what do with about this. Hoping that this absurd pickiness about books is a phase because I've never had to struggle with getting either of The Boys to read anything and really don't want to have to deal with this going forward. I'll probably release Buddy from "Spanish Language Arts" sometime in 7th grade. He's got a really good "feel" for the rhythm of Spanish already and usually catches his own mistakes if he leaves his writing for a bit before he proofreads/revises it. Otoh, Pal and I are going to continue to work on language arts type skills in Spanish probably until he starts 9th grade. Or graduates from 12th. I can never tell with this one... 🤔 Aside from school stuff, they play in Spanish fluently for their ages because their recreational activities (video games, media, card games, etc) have been in Spanish for years. One Spanish speaking boy that they've played with for months now was surprised when they spoke to their grandma in English. The Spanish boy asked them when they'd learned English, and the boys were so happy that he had taken them for native speakers all this time. It really put a pep in their step and made them feel that they are winning at Spanish.

Japanese update: The Boys have almost completed the Beginning Japanese program and I'm very proud of them for sticking with it. It's highly effective, but it's a lot of work, and not particularly exciting, but they've persevered and have learned a ton, though they've still got a ways to go. They're watching and beginning to enjoy Anime that they've never seen before in Japanese and keeping phrase logs in their personal study books. We've found a Japanese conversation group that meets and The Boys hope to join and attend regularly in the Fall the group reconvenes after the summer. They have a couple of kana picture books that they're able to read pretty well now and we hope to acquire a few more. They're looking into a few podcasts to keep up/improve their aural comprehension for when they've completed the BJ program and we're going to move them into online lessons with a native teacher to help them continue progressing.

@Heigh Ho how do you address problems/sticking points during the weekly meetings? Do you spell out for the kid what they have done wrong/where they've gotten off track, or do you send them to find and fix their own errors? How long do you let them flounder, before wading in to save them from themselves? Or do you use a sink or swim model? Do you let kids choose if/when to pull the plug on a project?

I would just get a sharpie and make a list of words with the two sounds of C and G on a stack of index cards then let him read them and sort them into piles.

If projects are an integral and productive part of your families homeschooling, then can you give me some insight on how you kept them evolving and productive as the years went by? What does the division of labor look like between you and a 6th-8th grade compared with the division of labor between you and 9th-10th grade, and finally you and your 11th/12th grader? What are some ways you support and scaffold your 6th/7th grader that pay off hugely by the time they're 11th/12th graders. How did you scaffold in support for them from Point A to Point B?

I might look for a fantasy-loving World Religions or Philosophy major to read and discuss fantasy with Pal in the Fall.

If I decide to outsource literature at some point, should I look into a 1-1 tutor or is there an online service that I could pay for where my kid can choose his own books, but discuss them with a tutor or peer group? If we go the 1-1 route, should I expect to have to compensate the tutor for the time spent reading the books or just the time spent in active discussion? We don't want or need a grade or paper work or anything like that. Just someone who's read and will enjoy discussing the book in nauseating detail.

No, we don't have an outside person, though we had one for a few months one year. Reading: I taught them "Spanish phonics" (way to early) and from that they were able to decode, and we practiced reading off and on for years but it wasn't until their oral/aural language took off, that their reading has blossomed behind it. As for writing: I have them do copy work and write short passages that mimic native--or professionally translated--materials as much as possible. We have dictionaries and a couple of thesaurus to help with word choice, we have books that teach idioms and we note any that we find "in the wild". We don't learn languages primarily by grammar rules, as I don't think it's very useful to speaking organically and fluently.

I'm probably over thinking this whole thing, but since I don't really read and write Spanish myself, I have to be attentive to make sure that their Spanish literacy is not stagnating. In the ideal world, I'd like for them to be able to read and write equally well in English and Spanish by the time that they get to highschool, so we still have time.

I guess it makes sense that natively bilingual kids wouldn't struggle with vocabulary. I'm trying to decide the best way to move them (us?) through "Intermediate Hell" before it becomes too big a task that they don't even want to try anymore. They are really quite good, but nowhere near to being native level. We're not in the Midwest, but we use the library book sale and the used bookstore to get books in Spanish, so we also have a very mixed bag of books. Next year, I may begin buying books online so that we have more choice/control over what books we acquire. That El Nino Volador series looks like it will be a good fit, length and format wise. He's read El Principito and felt comfortable with the length/format. The problem with novellas/books written for Spanish learners to practice reading is that they artificially restrict the grammar structures used, but many intermediate level materials are written to an adult audience and have microscopic print or story lines that my 11yo doesn't care about...Books written to a Native audience can be all over the place complexity wise. I had wanted to require them to do their writing in Spanish in 7th grade, but I might just delay because I think that they need a good solid year or two of recreational reading in Spanish, before they're ready to produce quality written output in Spanish. We're doing a lot of nonfiction reading and discussion this year. They'll be able to start taking history courses Spanish either in July 2018 or January 2019 and that'll require a good bit of writing anyway so maybe it doesn't matter. What do you think? I guess that so long as they're writing on level in Spanish by highschool graduation it'll be fine...

@SusanC @Renai @Slache can you recommend any childrens elementary chapter books that were originally written in Spanish that are Fantasy, Sci Fi, or Action/Adventure? @SusanC and @Renai I think you both have kids older than/around the same age as mine. Care to share any insight, tips or tricks for encouraging kids to read widely in their weaker language? @Monica_in_Switzerland It sounds like you're achieving biliteracy at an even pace. Any guidance or words of wisdom for me?

Biliteracy is proving a tough nut to crack. I'll be interested to see how this changes over the years. Buddy's ambition was to read 50 chapter books in Spanish this year but he's finding that it takes him about 2-3 weeks to get through a chapter book, so he's likely to only get through 17-25 this year, but I"ve been encouraging him that it's going to pay off huge dividends in the future and not to view needing to work through the vocab (some times explicitly) as a bad thing. I've told him that he should shift his attitude to realize that he needs take advantage of this time to really do his best to absorb vocabulary as he reads this year instead of rushing through stacks of books. I keep trying to focus him on the fact that the more vocabulary he masters now, the easier it'll be to read more books next year and the year after that. He knows it's good for him, to take his time and try and get those words down, but has been consoled by re-reading some of the books he's already worked through and realizing how much easier it is for him to enjoy the books, the second and third time through them. Once you've worked through the book the long way around, going back through it a month or two later is easier and funner so he's been encouraged by going back to re-read books he's "unlocked" already. Pal, otoh, could do with a bit of his brothers ambition. I know that I just finished insisting to one kid that re-reading is good and beneficial, but I'm gritting my teeth to not say anything as Pal is continuously reading the Busca Fieras book! He's reading that same book almost every day as "free reading", and as a rule I try not to care about what they read in their own free time, but...he's going to make me nuts. To his credit, Pal will readily read Spanish nonfiction and picture books but he dabbles in and out of most chapter books. It's not that he can't read them, it's that he doesn't want to.I get that it's harder for a book to "hook" a kid when the reader doesn't understand a decent portion of the vocabulary at first glance. Also, because we've sourced books locally at the 2nd-hand store, I realize that we have a weird mix of chapter books. Pal used to read any and everything, but these days is very into fantasy, action, adventure and exciting books. So I"m on the hunt for more Spanish-language books in those genres, I need to stock the shelves with books that'll tempt him to read something besides Busca Fieras again.

We're trying to take it one semester of one year at a time, but we do have ambitions for earning a multilingual diploma for highschool, though I'm still fuzzy on the "how" of it. Our focus is on 3 languages and Buddy would really like a diploma that acknowledges his fluency and proficiency in all 3 of those languages. According to him we could do a third of the HS credits in each language Or 1/2 in Spanish, 1/4 in Japanese, 1/4 in English. Or 5/12 Spanish, 5/12 Japanese and 2/12 English. Or 1/2 in Japanese and 1/2 in Spanish. Or something else all together. I keep reminding him that it's still a few years off before it matters and the most important thing is for him to be proficient in each language by the time that it does matter. re: Resources, I simply can't imagine doing 1 non-native language well without the support of modern technology and certainly not 2 languages. Trying to make this work without even only the resources available to me locally, without online stores such as eBay and Amazon would just be a beast. re: Math, math in Spanish is useful, but if you have limited time, It's more beneficial to do a wordier subject in Spanish. K-2 math gives you a lot of good vocabulary and exercises ordinals, prepositions, numbers, colors, but by 3rd-5th grade not so much. However, Math Mammoth has a Spanish version (I never used it, because we'd done the series in English already). For 6th grade and beyond, look at Dr. Baldors 3 books. He has one on Arithmetic, Algebra and a combo of Geometry and Trigonometry and they're native Spanish texts, not translations. We do pretty much everything but Math in Spanish, though we did a few units in Math en espanol so that they learned to discuss math correctly in Spanish. We don't like splitting our time between multiple "schools" but when we've had to, we find it easier to get Spanish in, where it fits in. Media. Recreation. Evenings once everyone's winding down and recreational reading.