I might have some things to suggest, but I am wondering about the ages of your kids first?

YES! My son is generally not a fan of educational songs...but I have added a soundtrack and a movie to reading Story of the World on occasion. When we learned about the Indus River Valley civilization, it started with a section on geography, and I found this aerial photography video of a section of the upper Indus River (a part that wasn't very developed), and it had this soft Indian music. I read the chapter to my son while the video played, and didn't turn off the music. It felt like I was narrating a National Geographic video. It was fun and kept my son's attention. We did it for a few other chapters that featured landmarks I could find video of, but none of the others had music.

What language? (There's some language specific apps).

I haven't heard of that, but it sounds interesting. Is there an actual curriculum that does that, or is this just an approach?

I LOVE THIS!!! What age kids did you do this with?

I've only used TGTB Marine Biology, which I loved. And I have several other Marine Biology curriculums to compare it to. It was shorter than all the others, but the writing was good, the organization was good, and the activities were great. Here's how other curriculum compared: While TGTB had less content than Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day, what was there was more accurate and more well written. I also liked the lay-out of TGTB better. It just looked nicer. I love The Seaside Naturalist, but it was too long for my ADHD son's attention span. The Marine Biology Coloring book by Thomas Niesen is NOT for elementary kids (it seems aimed at High Schoolers, maybe even college age, though some middle schoolers would be fine with the reading level). It's a real science text just with good technical illustrations that you color as part of the learning process.

This one by Extra Credits does a really good job of explaining what gerrymandering is and how gerrymandering can lead to more extreme polarization. What it doesn't explain as much as how gerrymandering can be used to break up the other party's district so that they don't have enough votes in any district to win a seat (another gerrymandering ploy). It more explains gerrymandering to get rid of mixed districts and making re-election easier, and how that can lead to candidates with more extreme positions in those districts.

Semicolons, Cupcakes, and Cucumbers. It's a fun book (my child WANTED to read it as a bedtime story...over and over), and I think adequately covers commas use in lists (but not so much as a pause in a sentence or other uses).

For creative projects, if it's a gift with a deadline, yeah, that's easier. But also, for me, doing podcasts while I work helps. It feels like I'm getting two things done at once, and I will want to stick with the creative project to the end of the podcast (this helps for chores too).

I am looking for any any short picture books (fiction or non-fiction) related to any of these subjects OR even longer non-fiction books that contain a page or two on any of these subject with really good illustrations. I'm not really looking for "how to" as much as books related to the history, or a story that incorporates this. Chinese woodblock printing Chinese movable type printing Korean movable type printing or block printing Japanese woodblock printing Printing in Europe in the middle ages (not Gutenberg...I've got stuff for him, but anything after that).

It's not so much to read, but The Body Book by Donald Silver is one you can use to make a full child size skeleton and organs that go on top (they are attached by brackets so you can lift them up and see what is underneath after you are done). It's really cool. Our whole co-op used that book to do that together.

I don't have suggestions for your main text, but if your child enjoys making models, The Body Book by Donald Sliver is amazing. We used it in our co-op to make a full scale (as big as a child) model of a human skeleton and human organs on top of that. It's really cool where you can see where everything is. Combined with a good book that talks about what each of those organs do, it could be really powerful. Ellen McHenry has more models and games related to the human body, and these are free! She also has a curriculum on the Brain and Cells that would work for that age in her shop. Oh, and our other favorite activity was this "working" model of lungs. It's really cool. It helped me understand what the diaphragm was and how it worked. https://team-cartwright.com/working-lung-model-for-kids/

I would read to him or with him every night in English. The Piggie and Elephant books have been good for encouraging my child to read. It's almost 100% dialogue, and I read one character's part and my son would read the other part. This made the reading easier (since he had breaks) and more fun. I've done this with kids I tutor too and they enjoy it. But regardless, continue to have him read some with you...but also to have some times when you read things to him that are above his level, because this will help keep him learning vocabulary in English. Also, if the school does not have homework, All About Spelling is a curriculum that can continue to help him after you're done with "100 Easy Lesson." I can do that in 10-15 minutes a day, reinforces the phonics skills he learned in 100 Easy lessons (I haven't used that one but I believe it's phonics based). But if he has a lot of homework I would not push that, or maybe just do it on summer breaks (do they have those in Japan?).

I asked this same exact question (nearly) several years back. I LOVED the Math that Stick series, but of course we needed something more all encompassing. What I love about the Math that Stick series was that the lessons were easy, and visual, and genuinely helped my child understand better, and that the games kept him intersted. LOTS of people suggested RightStart Math when I asked here (and other places). We tried it, but didn't really get to use it much before we decided to send our kiddo back to school (for various non-related reasons). So, take this comparison with that in mind. It was hands on. My son was excited about the abacus but I feel like I would have done better continuing to use a program that worked around a ten frame. I loved that the lessons were scripted (a real script, not having to copy a movie or extract a script from the teachers guide like with Math U See, what we had tried before Math Facts). They were not hard to implement in one sense, but there was not just ONE thing you were working on like in Math Facts. You were working on several concepts at once. Part of the difficulty may have just been jumping into the middle of the program, since where we were was half way through a book level. I feel like if I had spent more time with it it may have gotten easier. The math games did seem fun.

These are the two places I go to most to look for things like that. I've linked to the search for Rome on these, but you can search more specifically (like for Cincinnatus, etc.) https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/search/?q=Rome (Note, this site has these terms of use: The Florida Center for Instructional Technology grants to all students and teachers permission to use a maximum of fifty (50) clipart items in any non-commercial, educational project (report, presentation, display, website, etc.) without payment or special permission, subject to the following restrictions. See more here. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Rome (Note, while most things on wikimedia commons are either in public domain or under some sort of creative commons licence, you need to look on the image page to see restrictions on use. Mostly for educational home use it would be fine though, unless you are sharing these publicly).

Not homeschooling this year, but I'm tutoring and afterschooling my own child some. For reference, my son has dyslexia. All About Spelling has consistently been wonderful. I love the way it teaches using spelling rules, and I love how easy it is to implement. I have stopped using letter tiles much though I see their purpose. I didn't use All About Reading most of the time, not for lack of wanting to, but initially for lack of funds. I have used it a little now and really do love it. But I also appreciate the free resource I used: ProgressivePhonics.com. It really does offer a good phonics base and is the easiest curriculum I've ever use (in any subject). So simple. Love the team reading aspect of it, and my kids and the kids I tutor laugh over the silly poems and pictures with them. However, I can see now what it was lacking that AAR had (initial phonetic awareness exercises for the pre-reading stage, explanation of syllable division rules, and it's lacking some of the advanced phonics that I've heard AAR has in later levels (including some of the rules around ai/ay, ou/ow, greek/latin root study, and some multi-sensory aspects but I don't feel like those have been essential anyways). Both AAR and PP lack practice with nonsense words, which I added in, based on advice here, and it made a huge difference. The math facts that stick series, at least through ADDITION/SUBTRACTION worked after trying several other things with my son, and I've been using it with tutoring too and seeing the kids continue to love and learn from it. I still love Story of the World, in spite of errors discovered in Volume 1....it's just written in such an engaging way. I'm really loving Science in the Ancient World, by Jay Wile....and The Story of Science by Joy Hakim...for different reasons. Jay Wile's, a Christian resource, is packed with great hands on experiments and I really do think he explains the science behind them well. It has some good, though brief, historical bios, but I think The Story of Science (while lacking the great hands on activities) does better at digging into the lives of scientists and how their science changed the world affected history. Hers is meant for older kids though, so is a bit long for younger kids. My son was in 6th when we used both of these, and it was the perfect age to use both. I also am sad that Wile's book only includes European scientists, even when it gets into the middle ages...its missing all of the great scientists from the Golden Age of Islam, and scientists and inventors from China and elsewhere, that I've found both in Story of Science and some other books. I also really loved the Science of Ancient Egypt unit studies by Dr. Dave's Science on Teachers Pay Teacher (only a couple hands on experiments that had to be bought separately, but the text itself is great), and the free unit Experimenting by the Vikings. I only really have one major curriculum that was a flop, and that was Math U See. It was great for teaching place value, but once we got into addition and subtraction, it lost my son. Also, if you're not just watching the videos, trying to do lessons using the teachers guide is a pain. It's not a simple script like AAR/AAS or the Math Facts that Stick books.

ProgressivePhonics.com I don't believe goes in the same exact order as AAR, but you still might find it helpful, and it's free. It's color coded so they read the words with phonics concepts they've covered, and you read the rest. You could go through and underline the words that she hasn't learned in cases where the order is different, and that would help. There are clear white post it notes you can use to mark up sections, and thin clear colored post it notes can be used to "highlight" temporarily, without harming the book. I've used these to highlight other fairly easy to read books in a similar way. I've done that with Go Dog Go, and after learning ee sound, Sheep in a Jeep. I've also done that with some Piggie and Elephant books, which my son loved around that stage (I didn't color code those initially...just had him read one part and me read another, and I told him to just pause if he needed help with a word and I'd say it for him, which works too. I color coded for a girl I'm tutoring though. Both ways work.).

It varies by state. For example, in Texas, where I started homeschooling, if your child wasn't attending a public school already, you didn't have to notify anyone to homeschool. In California, you have to fill out a form saying you are starting a private school (or join a independent study charter...or there's a way you can homeschool with a certified tutor but not having gone that route I'm not sure if you have to notify anyone).

If you like the idea of combining science with history, and don't mind Christian material I really like Science of the Ancient World (and I assume the others in that series are just as good). I feel like you could easily tweak it if you were a secular homeschool family (skip lessons dealing with biology/animal life which will be anti-evolution, cross out a few lines dealing with Christian themes and change "before Christ" to BCE/CE). The books talk about a scientist, and does experiments related to the science topic they are known for, and have a few discussion questions you can assign. Most of the experiments use common everyday items. It's really easy to use.

Good point about unschooling depending on a certain amount of access. But then you have kids like the one in "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" who managed it with just a mediocre local library (which is more access than none but a lot less than most people in the US have). So, maybe with a few exceptional kids unschooling could work with much less. Even here I think unschooling's success depends somewhat on the child. My oldest probably could have been unschooled (he was always in public school and now is in a very self-paced 3D animation mentorship program). He's always wanted to learn and explore, and while there may have been some gaps in important knowledge/skills if his learning were totally up to him, he would have learned a lot regardless. My 2nd born is an amazing student (also in public school). He thrives working for grades, and is proud of his work, but doesn't "want" to learn much without that extrinsic motivation. For my youngest, unschooling would have been a very bad fit. He struggled a lot due to dylexia and ADHD. He had interests in things but didn't have the desire to do anything that was at all hard for a long time, and due to those learning challenges EVERYTHING was hard. Later he did start getting more motivated to learn and actually wanting to do things and not just giving up right away...but I feel like without the push to get through the basic skills necessary to make it a little easier to learn, he may not have gotten to that place (and even now he still sometimes has trouble with sticking with it...but at least now he gives it a good start and makes the effort for a good while before petering out).

It really depends. If it's a dollar or two I may give it anyways but I tend to have mixed feelings. If they say they are hungry I will often offer to directly buy them food. That has gone several ways A guy outside a Sams club was asking for money for food and I said I don't give money but, guesturing to my overflowing shopping cart, I said I'm happy to share some of what I have. I gave him apples, oranges, some granola bars and things like that which someone could eat without cooking. He seemed genuinely grateful. Another time the man seemed miffed that I offered food not cash (even though they were claiming to be hungry) and just walked away. One person accepted an offer to buy her and her daughter a pizza but wouldn't go in with us and was no where to be found when we came out. We learned from the Pizza guy that she's been in the parking lot begging often and every time with a different "child"... which is creepy as heck. If I had seen her again I would have called the police. But here are times I have given and knew I wasn't being scammed.... It was raining, and I saw someone's jacket and a sleeping bag laid out on the railing like they were being rinsed out. I put money in the pocket of the jacket (I was a little scared on this one because I didn't want him to think I was trying to mess with his stuff...no one seemed to be around but I yelled out what I was doing). Another time I saw a man who was obviously homeless sleeping in a Whataburger. I bought a gift card at the whaterburger and left it next to him with a note, without waking him up. A third time there was a woman outside an Applebees asking for money. It was really cold out, and that was one of those mixed times where I refused but wondered if I should have given. So, when I got home I packed up a spare blanket and a hat and some gloves we had, and went back. It was after closing time and I figured if she was still there she was actually homeless. She was, huddled right where we had seen her earlier, and I gave her the blanket and stuff. It makes me see the value of giving through an organization. People who work with the homeless in an area on regular basis I imagine get to know them well and can tell the scammers from those genuinely in need.

It would be hard to find in hardback (unless you got an out of print copy), but if you are ok with Christian books Treasures of the Snow is a favorite and perfect for Christmastime (it revolves around several Christmases). If you do get an out of print copy you will get the original, unrevised version. The newer ones are slightly revised (not by the original author). I like the older ones a little better, but mostly it's a "here nor there" difference. The story is great in either version.

I would handle this one of two ways... 1. Circle the ones he got wrong and have him correct it. 2. Keep record of ones he did wrong for your own notes and have him work out similar problems with you on a white board or something where you can talk to him about it later. I wouldn't give him back a paper with stuff marked wrong unless I was asking him to change it.

Honestly, All About Spelling IS my favorite spelling program for middle school kids. But my middle school kid still needs it. Has yours gotten past it? Maybe something more on Greek and Latin roots would be the next step. I know they cover that in AAS but I don't know how much they cover (we're not there yet...my son who has dyslexia has had to go slow, especially now that he's back in school and I'm just doing this on the side).

I'm gonna jump in on this. We also did something similar (made history our a curricular spine). The main thing I tried to integrate was science, since my son loves that. I can only tell you how I did that for ancient times and a little bit of middle ages (we went slow on history, and then he went to school for a couple years and nicely they were doing state and US history which lined up nicely right after where we left off in the middle ages, as they started with exploration.) Then we homeschooled last year through a school program that was doing, guess what, ancient history again, so I have don't mainly ancient history at home. Anyways...here's how I aligned science, or in a few places how I wish we had (found something cool later). You can see there's some gaps, but it still worked out pretty well. All of Ancient Time Ancient Science by Jay Wile - This is a short book, not to be confused with his longer curriculum, that has quick experiments that can be done related to different civilizations. I would have used it if I had gotten it earlier, but we were nearly done with ancient history when I found it. Pre-history: - Paleontology - we just read tons of dinosaur books and went to a museum, and did one of those exacate a dinosaur kit. We started before we started history, which worked. - Archaeology (just google...there is so many free fun activities. We used pages from Make It Work:Stone Age for briefly covering it.) Ancient Egypt: Science of Ancient Egypt (there's lots of science topics in this, which you can buy separately or as a set. We did a couple of them) - 1st time through - Mummies (this page shows movies and experiment we did, similar to chicken mummy only with an egg) - 2nd time through - Kilns and Metals Greece - I made up this chart about how we integrated science with SOTW chapters on ancient Greece. It also included some literature choices and other things we did. You could use the chapter titles to re-allign to whatever curriculum you were using. - 2nd time around, we did Science in the Ancient World by Jay Wile for science aligned to what we were learning about Greece. Could have gone through Rome and into the middle ages too (the book gets into the middle ages and the series goes all the way to modern times). It's a Christian book but I think you could use the experiments (maybe skipping sections related to biology) if you were not a Christian. I used it along with selections from The Story of Science, a secular resource that had less activities/experiements, but got more into the stories of the scientists and how what they did fit into history and changed our world. The Story of Science had some great math tie-ins for geometry. It also did cover some earlier civilizations. Wile's book started in Greece. ROME - Continued with Science in the Ancient World and Story of Science - Read The Planet Gods, a beautifully illustrated book about the planets and the Roman god's they are named after, along with a regular non-fiction book about the planets that had modern pictures of them. (We did a planet a day while studying Rome). - Built an aqueduct with tin-foil and blocks. MIDDLE AGES - You could continue in Science in the Ancient World and Story of Science - Experimenting With the Vikings (really fun free unit study) MORE This has science tie ins for all of history. I didn't use all of this, obviously... History + Science Resources Master List