I just got these two books and think they look great. I was wondering how others have used them. I'm imagining tying them in with the mchenry unit studies I just got at the bundle sale, but would love to hear what you've done. Thanks!

My kids LOVE this: http://www.periodicvideos.com All about blowing stuff up! The Basher book: http://www.basherbooks.com/usa/subjects-periodictable.html The elements, Theodore Gray: http://periodictable.com/theelements/

This one looks helpful http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/69246489/Ancient-History-Mash-Up

He sounds a lot like DS11, except that mine wants nothing to do with a set curriculum. I recommend Make Electronics Books 1 and 2, with kits, Arduino, and if he's into sound at all there's a book called Handmade Electronic Music, and its a blast. He audited an EdX course called Introduction to Aerospace Engineering which he really enjoyed and is casually auditing the Engineering of Structures around us. Anything science designed for elementary or middle school has been a bust.

We are loving The Origin and Evolution of Earth and Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution We've also enjoyed How to Listen to and Understand Great Music We've gotten some DVDs from the library, but never got around to them. Listening to them on Audible in the car and over lunch works for us. Next sale, I hope I can find the list above. It looks great and we're doing Ancients next year!

I asked my recent 5th grade graduate how it felt to be an official "middle schooler." He looked at me like I had grown a second head, and reminded me that since he was already doing middle-high school work that it really didn't matter. No graduation gown necessary :)

Mythbusters! Been sorely missed around here since they took MBs off Netflix.

Interesting thread. First, I need to identify myself as a scientist, a geologist with a strong physics background. That said, since college I've "done" very little science. I think building scientific literacy had less to do with "doing science" (although experiments are a blast) and more to do with encouraging curiosity, providing opportunities for exposure to lots of real science, and encouraging critical thinking. I have sometimes worried that my science teaching approach wasn't comprehensive or orderly enough. We've tried several science curricula but always gravitate back to reading about, learning about, and experimenting with whatever the boys are interested in at the time. We talk about current events, read magazines like national geographic, watch coursera lectures (most recently How Things Work), listen to great courses (currently Origin and Evolution of Earth), attend an excellent homeschool program at a local state park, and occasionally complete an Ellen McHenry science unit study (really enjoy these but usually only manage one or two a year). I have been pleased that the boys have a tremendous amount of general, we'll rounded, scientific knowledge, and that they have learned to think critically about "science" in media. They've also tested very well in general science and received compliments from scientists and teachers. I also make a point of connecting with other scientists in fields we are learning about. I've always found scientists sre happy to talk about their specialty and eager to pass their passion for their field on to curious young people! I suppose not every scientist wants to meet with a kid, but i think there are plenty of others that do (and they're probably more fun anyway). So, that's my long winded advocacy for a meandering approach to scientific literacy.

We use khan academy for brain breaks and gratification (accomplishing the grade missions).

I just bought Quantum Physics and The Origin and Evolution of Earth. DS11 loves them so it depends on the kid. I've found course book pdfs online as well.

We got a big bag of them on ebay and the Unofficial Technics Builders Guide and DS11 has built all sorts of awesome things.

We use it as part of our math curriculum and I think that it is wonderful. The kids love the badges and watching their percentage complete increase. Since we don't use a strictly grade level math curriculum, I like having the printed "mission completion" pages for their grades. I let them choose what they work on, but they usually opt for the mastery challenges because those increase their percentages.

Listen to the bravewriter faltering ownership podcast. http://blog.bravewriter.com/2012/07/21/05-faltering-ownership-2/ I was very frustrated that DS11 was suddenly unable to accomplish the simplist writing assignment. The podcast described him perfectly. He had become critical of his own work and was trying to do writing assignments that he wasn't comfortable with. Things started to improve as soon as I was able to sympathize with his new writing self consciousness and remembered to tailor his assignments to his interests and purposes, in his case rockets :). I'm sure we'll hit a brick wall again if I suggest that he write a story from his past, but he's cheerfully researching and writing about orbits, so we're both happy.

I've given the kids the option of one of these or 5 khan academy problems per day. My 3rd grader really likes them and they provide a pretty thorough review in just a couple problems. He complains that the hour hands aren't correct on the clocks though :)

We love the audiobooks! My favorite chapters would probably be the ones skipped. Unlike other history texts, there are chapters about artists, musicians, athletes, not just politicians and wars.

Baseball, rockets, digital music production, did I mention baseball?

We're watching Ken Burns Jazz. We also enjoyed Ken Burns Civil War.

DS11, at 5 and late August birthday, was not at all ready for school. We did another year of FIAR and violin and he was much more ready to hold a pencil the following year. We've always worked at his pace and I never regretted it. He's in 5th doing mostly middle school level work now, and has lately been complaining that his friends are in 6th and he's in 5th, but I don't think it really matters to him :)

I get them from audible. We drive a lot so it's one of our favorite homeschooling resources.

We listen to History of Us in the car. Today our 3 chapters were baseball, jazz, and rockets. It's as if she read DSs' minds. What a great curriculum!

We went from scratch to khan academy programming to arduino, to html, he still enjoys scratch, though.

These threads make me feel so much better. Let's see FLL-ds1 and I hate and it ds2 loves it Wwe2 100 EZ lessons Math mammoth Singapore hig Bfsu - actually I love it,but can't seem to get it done Lof- we just didn't get into it

We're using Jacobs Human Endeavour, Khan Academy, and Singapore IP (I know we're supposed to use all the books, but only this one seems to get done) between Beasts. If 4d comes out on time our timing might work out well this time because I challenged him to finish khan 5th grade before starting 4c, and he's working steadily to finish khan pre-algebra. Deerforest, how did the jump to pre-algebra go? I have been thinking about that for next year.

We are planning to use the time travelers wwII study. We did parts of the civil war study a couple years ago and I was a little overwhelmed. After completing day 1 of the wwII study, I wondered if anyone sticks to the schedule provided and if so, do you drop some other work to make time? I like the activities, and want to supplement the text with several other sources (Hakim and Jennings), add some literature and picture books, movies, etc., but I am not sure how to make time for all of this. Maybe I should just stretch it out over a couple months, but that might feel like a lot of ww2! I'd love to hear how others have approached this. Thanks in advance!

Love khan here! We don't use it as our core math, but when I have a particularly busy work week, or we just need something different, ds11 works thorough his missions (6th grade math and prealgebra). We simply do the topics as they come up. He watches the videos and does some problems. If he doesn't understand something, or isn't getting the problems correct right away, I sit down with him and explain the concept and we work through some problems together. He often needs to be reminded to use a white board to write out the problems, but otherwise it's very independent. He's also working though the coding, big history, and loves, loves, loves doodling in math class. I like being able to print out the progress/completion charts for his portfolio.