Anatomy & Physiology or Microbiology would build off of his Biology experience. Geology is often offered with a lab. I would definitely seek out options for as much in-person lab-based experience as possible.

This is my mindset on a good day, & the assumption I generally operate from. As I said, I’m happy with the quality of what he produces. I also know that by this age schools are asking for far greater volume of output, however. Occasionally I wonder if I’m holding him back, or possibly even hurting his confidence, by offering too much “partnership”.

He’s in 4th grade. We’ve used an eclectic mix of language arts curricula including annual participation in NaNoWriMo; W&R Fable; MCT Sentence Island & Paragraph Town; IEW Fables, Myths, & Fairy Tales; & Killgallon Sentence Composing. I’m aware that many homeschoolers delay composition due to fine motor development. This isn’t an issue for him; he has always enjoyed writing & fills whole pages daily during NaNoWriMo each year. He has been writing paragraph-length compositions with proper form (hook/details/clincher, proper organization, good vocabulary) for about a year & a half.

I was also not diagnosed with anxiety until adulthood. It can be tricky to suss out, particularly with academic acceleration in the mix; don’t beat yourself up about it. Be sure to tell her how proud you are of her for self-advocating & accepting the help that was recommended to her, though - many are embarrassed or ashamed to do so.

Writing is bugging me this year. I don’t feel that I can assess DS’ progression in this area as well as I can in other subjects. My big goal for the year is to get to where I can present a him with a paragraph-writing prompt & he can select a sub-topic, plan his writing, then complete a quality first draft mostly independently within an hour or so. Currently the process is taking about twice that long, with lots of second-guessing & wanting to bounce ideas off of me in the planning stage. Once his writing gets going, he’s fairly independent. He does get bogged down somewhat when generating hooks & transitions, which are newer skills. I’m happy with the finished products, but the process feels slow & I worry that I’m over-scaffolding. What say you, Hive Mind?

Intro: For your first point, I would cue him to find more precise vocabulary to convey his points. “Good pride” might be more accurately described as confidence or a sense of accomplishment, for example - while “bad pride” would be arrogance or (one meaning of) condescension. Paragraph 1: I would assert that “bad pride” is an independent idea which merits its own paragraph. Paragraph 2: Why do you believe this to be true? What makes us feel pride in others’ accomplishments? (There is a whole fascinating evolutionary psychology rabbit hole behind humans “teaming up” mentally) Paragraph 3: Agreed; he needs to explicitly connect the ideas of pride & shame (or “disappointment”, in his words). Conclusion: I see above that you’ve discussed openers with him; have you discussed clinchers, as well? The essay feels incomplete because it is lacking that final, unifying statement.

Nothing much. We didn’t start the year with pieces of CAP Narrative II as planned - dove right into writing across the curriculum instead. Everything else is running according to plan.

Extracurricular activities. Social homeschool co-op, Scouts, soccer, tennis, ice skating, etc. He’s incredibly social & picks up casual friends pretty much anywhere he goes, but his deepest friendships are formed with those he spends the most time with.

My DS9 is incredibly social & athletic. He’s involved in club soccer, group tennis lessons, group art classes, private violin lessons, Scouts, & a social homeschool co-op (field trips & holiday parties). For about 8wks from Sept-Nov & again from March-May, our schedule is crazy! He has >12hrs/wk of activities those weeks, not including at least one camp out during each stretch which takes place from a Friday evening to a Sunday morning. The rest of the year various activities are on break at any given time, so it’s less hectic.

Reading through the first several chapters, this looks almost identical to what we did last year for Chemistry. I’m beginning to wonder if that isn’t the issue I’m running into… it appears I may have supplemented to a higher level than I realized. Not so much for biology, so it’s good we’ll hit that again more deeply next year, but for Astronomy & Chemistry. ETA: The ACS Chemistry in the Community book looks intriguing! It seems to delve more into the practical applications of Chemistry, balancing equations, isotopes & radioactivity, etc. We haven’t done Earth Science formally at all! DS has two grandparents who do related work (archaeology & civil engineering), so that could open up interesting rabbit trails. I’ll take a look at the Prentice Hall series. 📚

I assume you are referring to their Level III text? I can’t seem to find any samples of the third online, so it’s hard to say. We’ve thoroughly covered the content from the first two books. Generally speaking we prefer to stick to one major discipline per year - though of course it’s all interrelated & we circle back to what we’ve learned in other fields whenever relevant.

Yes, he will complete Alg I in either 6th or 7th. Thanks!

DS is studying RSO Physics this year (4th) & will complete RSO Biology 2 next year (5th). Then… we run out* of courses. We’ve been heavily supplementing the elementary sciences & most of what I’m seeing at the “middle school level” isn’t any more in-depth or challenging that what he’s already completed. We own Joy Hakim’s Story of Science trio, so we could do “Scientific History”. I looked through the Quest Guides which include timeline-building, comprehension questions, data collection / representation, projects, & examinations. It looks like we could cover ~30 chapters per semester, so it would probably take 2yrs to complete the series. Would these make up an adequate science course? I like the look of Derek Owen’s Physical Science / Physics, Clover Creek Physics, & Clover Valley Chemistry - but I believe these are all considered high school level & I’m not entirely sure they’d be a good fit before 8th grade or so. * RSO does have an Astronomy 2 course, but it’s only one semester & if their other courses are any indication we’d complete it in far less.

We would be interested in getting involved with this. We have used Michael Clay Thompson’s materials for years, so enjoy the materials put out by RFWP. Who do I contact for further information?

I do love homeschooling. It has not always been easy. It was especially difficult in ‘19-‘20 when we (rapidly & unexpectedly) left our amazing overseas community to return to the US… only to have the world shut down. We were broke, lonely, & DS wasn’t diagnosed yet - which meant everything took twice the effort for half the results. We purchased our home nearly 2yrs ago. We’ve settled in, gotten involved, made friends, & built a community… finally it is beginning to feel again the way it did in the early years. DS is currently in 4th grade & if things carry on like this, I have no doubt we’ll continue through at least middle school. If DS wants to give something else a try, we’ll absolutely support him - but if not then he’ll probably just naturally transition to college coursework over time.

I can’t speak for others, but for us it is more a combination of the two - X minutes give or take the nearest natural stopping point. Many readers this age are advancing through reading levels that will impact book length substantially, so when discussing reading with other parents, time is more comparable regardless of reading level than number of pages or chapters. A “chapter” might be 5 large-type pages or 30 small-type pages. One parent saying they assign 30 pages per day could overwhelm another thinking of their child needing to read 2 of those large-type early chapter books per day before they are ready… but 20min is 20min.

In 3rd I required 20min/day during lessons from a selection of books that stretched his reading level. I read most of our literature at bedtime (30min/night) & he was allowed to stay up an additional 30min for free-choice reading. This year, in 4th, it’s 30min/day in lessons, occasional assigned history reading, & 30min free-choice at bedtime. I read literature aloud during lessons now so we can begin doing more with the books (summaries, aligned projects, etc) & either DH or I read aloud 30min at bedtime, as well. The books I assign for history are shorter & easier than his free reading - around 100pgs of the Illustrated Classic / Classic Starts style. This was intentional, as I didn’t want him to balk at the idea of assigned books.

Summer session didn’t happen. DS attended his day camps, continued swim lessons, began violin lessons, & played in a last-minute indoor soccer season. We were plenty busy without adding in lessons! FALL Language Arts: Paragraph writing across the curriculum. MCT CE I. AAS 6. NaNoWriMo. History-based literature. Mix of history-based assigned & free choice reading. Math: BA 5B/5C History: HO Early Modern Science: RSO Physics Electives: Scouts, soccer, tennis, ice skating, violin, studio art class, social co-op activities SPRING Language Arts: Paragraph writing across the curriculum. MCT CE I. AAS 7. History-based literature. Mix of history-based assigned & free choice reading. Math: BA 5D, Didax Pentominoes History: HO Early Modern Science: RSO Physics Electives: Scouts, soccer, tennis, ice skating, violin, studio art class, social co-op activities

As DS heads into upper elementary, I am hoping to transitioning some of our literature from basic read-aloud to novel study. Last fall DS gave daily verbal summaries of his daily reading. I would like to build off of that this year with paragraph-length written summaries. I think matchbook chapter summary projects, which create a visual tour of a book from multiple lift-the-flap style sections (one per chapter) composed of a picture on the outside & a summary on the inside, would particularly appeal to him. My question is… who should do the READING for these? DS is perfectly capable of reading the selections, but should he be? Would it be better to let him focus on comprehension while I read? Does it matter?

Currently he would probably get 6/15 on the first section & 9/15 on the second. We’ll definitely be completing PreAlgebra & Intro to Algebra before getting to Geometry so he has 2-3yrs to pick up more of the algebraic background. He is familiar with radicals. I like the puzzles, but it feels workbooky - like something intended to be completed independently, whereas we generally use a more Socratic method. (We would be reading from & discussing the physical TT book, not using their online platform). I can see him being very resistant to the CTC geometric constructions, which is what has me leaning toward Patty Paper for that particular element. PPG looks easier physically & the explorations look similar to the CTC puzzles. Mostly I just want him to be comfortable with vocabulary & two-column proofs prior to tackling AOPS Geometry in high school.

I require much of DS’ schoolwork to be hand-written & everything that would be “submitted” (worksheets, final drafts, etc) must be clear in terms of both legibility & logic, but we don’t include penmanship as a subject anymore. We spent 2yrs on manuscript handwriting, 2yrs on cursive handwriting (at his request), & are headed into our second year of typing. I assign materials in all three formats, but cursive far less frequently than the other two.

We use a workbox approach. He has a rolling cart with several drawers; a different component goes into each (a mix of desk/wherever, rigorous/straightforward, & various subjects). He chooses the order in which he completes his boxes. There was a bit of a learning curve initially, but it has worked out really well overall.

Has anyone used Teaching Textbooks Geometry as a Pre-Geometry course for a mathematically strong middle schooler? DS9 will wrap up BA 5 & begin AOPS PreAlgebra next school year. I presume that will continue through 5th, lining him up for AOPS Intro to Algebra in 6th. My concern is getting to AOPS Geometry in 7th. I’ve heard it’s the most difficult in the Intro series & DS is a very algebraic thinker… Geometry may not come as easily to him. TT Geometry seems very approachable. I’m thinking that it, in conjunction with Patty Paper Geometry. could form a fun middle school level introduction. Is the material solid? Is there any reason it shouldn’t be used? ETA: We would still plan to use a more rigorous geometry curriculum at the high school level.

These will be familiar from the BA Logic chapter - there they were called “Truth-Tellers & Liars” puzzles. My DS loves them! https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/knights.php

The books Myth & Magic In Wonderland / Camelot and The Number Devil would be fun!