Have you considered Jump In? It's by Sharon Watson. It's fabulous for 8th.

Khan can been done without an app too; use your web browser. For only 10 days I'd just skip math. 🙂

Junior Analytical Grammar is a workbook that if done daily will only take about 11 weeks. If spread around half speed or so it seems like it'd tuck right into your style? It covers all the parts of speech with basic diagramming.

My fourth graders were given a big pile of high quality children's literature at the beginning of the school year. Hopefully more than they'd read in a year. There are various genres, lengths, and skill levels. They are required to read from that collection daily, in whichever order they chose. We discuss them regularly (a few times a week at a minimum). No tests or written work. We always had family read aloud times in addition. They always read whatever they wanted apart from school. I used this method with my now graduated kids and my current high schoolers. All four were very adequately prepared for high school lit analysis and greeted Homer and Austen alike as old friends.

If you're not getting responses you might try making your own thread. 🙂 The only one you listed that I've used is Spelling Wisdom. It does not teach any rules. It's studied dictation only. I wrote about Writing Road to Reading above. I'm using an old 4th edition book and the phonogram flash cards. That's it.

Another one similar to SM is Math in Focus. The textbooks are easily found inexpensive on the used market and we only purchased the workbooks new. As long as I went through the textbook with them I didn't feel like I needed anything else to teach it well. I added the Enrichment workbook for a harder challenge.

I found Rod & Staff spelling with my oldest and used it with the next four kids too. Natural spellers buzzed through and did even better. Not so great spellers were met where they were at and steadily moved forward. It's painless to implement, teaches spelling rules, requires *using* those rules, no busywork or fluff exercises, and it averaged 10-20 minutes a day at any level. Then came the youngest. He's 8 now. He began R&S 2 around the same level everyone else began the series. It was so hard for him I shelved it after a month. Dude could read middle school books but struggled to spell cvc words. A year later it was pretty much the same. He'd only learned words like the, you, are, etc because of Duolingo. (Studying Spanish but couldn't spell the cat sat on the mat; asynchronous much?) This January I started him on Writing Road to Reading's spelling. It's not "fun" and it's parent intensive. After a couple months he can spell simple words and he's getting good at breaking words into syllables. It's a forward direction and confidence at last. 🙂

Jump In gets my vote. I've used Jump In and Cover Story but not the other one you listed. Cover Story was well loved here and I'll totally use it again, but I think Jump In is more what you're after. 🙂

When my older kids were around that age we had very memorable years with Adventures in the Sea and Sky (Winter Promise) and Further Up and Further In (Cadron Creek). I think this coming school year is the year to pull one or both back out for my youngest two! One will be 6th and the other 3rd. Either both of them in Adventures or little guy in Adventures and bigger girl in FUFI.

The baby of the family is here. Again I haven't put much thought into it and I'm making this up as I go. 😄 Grammar: continue First Language Lessons 3 and go into 4, none of his siblings made it to 4 but it's been a fabulous match for him. Lots of oral and minimal writing is his jam. Spelling: continue in Writing Road to Reading Writing: Writing With Ease 2? It's the pencil to paper he needs; he does the questions and narrations blindfolded. Reading: pile of really good books in various genres, lengths, and difficulties to read and discuss Math: same Horizons/Singapore combo he's using now, and we'll try Beast Academy online Science: ....crickets, maybe joining sister for chemistry History: Story of the World 2, real books, videos, etc (he was due to use it for this year but the whole family randomly fell into US history) Spanish: just Duolingo for now, he's doing okay with it and he's not ready for something too serious

My fifth kiddo will be sixth grade this fall but I haven't given planning any brain effort yet. I'm totally making this up as I type. 🤐 The current school year has been a rocky road aside from the actual school, and we've done a lot more flying by the seat of our pants than normal. Grammar: R&S English and/or Fix It, we've bounced between them this year and it's working, I think **Since this was posted I made her do Junior Analytical Grammar in a "look kid, there's only 8 bloomin' parts of speech, why are you acting like it's rocket science" move. We did the first unit aloud in 10 minutes. If she'll give it a good go I'll give her beloved Fix It back. 😂 Lit: pile of really good books of various genres, lengths, and difficulties for her to read and discuss Spelling, R&S 6 or a fast track through Writing Road to Reading, her choice (she's a decent speller, but not quite ready to be done with the separate subject) Writing: um..... History: probably Middle Ages, Oxford books, loads of real books, movies, etc. Science: Guesthollow's free chemistry? Spanish: yes, something Bible: continue in the God's Great Covenant series **Well... I think she's out-maturing this one. She finished this year's early and she's contentedly notebooking through Training Hearts Teaching Minds for now. **added April 9 I'm thinking about putting her in Adventures in the Sea and Sky with her little brother or Further Up and Further In by herself. These would replace history, science, and bits of the above.

An average 5th grade child with no formal grammar study will be fine in R&S English 5. While book 4 is "enough" for some 5th graders there's nothing magical-not-to-be-missed about it. 🙂 Fwiw I don't remember a large jump in any level of the English. There comes a point where a child without any grammar study may want to drop back when starting the series, but I'd say that's more around the 7-8 level.

Yes! I used it with 8th and 9th graders one year. We fluffy purple heart loved it. If we did any of the fill in the blanks exercises it was orally. The discussion questions, essay suggestions, extra units, etc were fabulous. I started skipping the vocab but that became one kid's favorite part. 😄 We read an extra book on the side to correlate with the units. It was a fabulous year.

He's so asynchronous a day by day, graded schedule would drive us both mad. 🤐 Before winter break he was asking for help spelling really basic one syllable words for his letters to big sis. Today he broke the word Spanish into syllables and spelled it orally for something else. I'd say it's working. (If he had to write it the p might be a 9 though. 😄 )

If I only had $30 I'd spend it on math. A library card and tablet paper will cover the rest. 🙂