Wow, checking back in on this a few years later...just thought I'd mention some of our finds. Cajas de carton-Francisco Jimenez -- true stories of his childhood as a child of migrant workers, pretty simple reading. Antes de ser libres-Julia Alvarez -- story of the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Trujillo. Marianela-Benito Perez Galdos -- this is a classic from Spain. This was the toughest book we read. La Ciudad de las bestias-Isabel Allende -- I think I heard that she wrote this so that her grandkids would have a good book to read in Spanish. La Catrina - La novella -David Curland -- easy little book from a TV show I believe. Not exactly great literature, but good practice. El senor de los ladrones-Cornelia Funke -- this is a story that takes place in Italy, translated into Spanish from German, but was a fun story and a great source of vocabulary.

We're not a bilingual family, but 14 year old ds is getting pretty proficient in Spanish. I'm looking for titles of books that are at least for teens or older, but without adult themes, preferably by Latin-American authors. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks, Karen

A certain amount of repetition is necessary, but I would be bored out of my skull to repeat each lesson more than 3 times. As my son got older, we did less repetition, doing the listening lesson once, then the Basic Structures lesson, then finishing off with the listening lesson. And even that we didn't do 3 days in a row. We also did not repeat any parts of the Basic Structures lesson, we just went through it once, breaking it up into several days (I tried to stick to about 15 minutes.) The other thing to remember is that the concepts build on each other, so there's continual review as you continue on to the next lesson. I also tried to make up other ways to review the vocabulary. All our verbs went on index cards, and he would draw a few at random and have to act them out. Then later on he would have to tell me how he would say that he was doing the action (como, or estoy comiendo.) I also wrote pairs of opposites on separate index cards, and we would play GO FISH to collect pairs. Or I'd put our vocabulary items on the table (plate, cup, glass, whatever) and review them orally. Karen

I've used lots of other little things that I've picked up here and there. When ds was in 4th grade, I added in a standard Spanish textbook (free from our umbrella school that was getting rid of them!) that we alternate chapters with Learnables lessons. I've also bought several kids' books in Spanish that we've worked through. We have a couple of Frog and Toad books that were fun. We have a few book and tape sets from Berlitz Kids. He is also reading Harry Potter in Spanish on his own, and he enjoys that. I figure the more directions I approach things from, the more he'll pick up. Karen

We did things a little differently. I'm a very visual learner, and it helped me to see the words in Basic Structures. So we listened to the lesson once or twice, then did the corresponding Basic Structures lesson, then listened to the lesson one more time, taking the test on the even lessons. This has worked very well for us - we are working on level 4 now. Karen

We did a great book called Awesome Experiments in Force & Motion by Michael A Dispezio. Not only did most of the experiments work (always a plus!) but there were lengthy explanations of them. Also, one kind of led to the next instead of being scatter-shot. I liked it a lot better than the van Cleave books. He also has 2 others covering light & sound, and electricity & magnetism. If I were to do grammar stage physics again, these would probably be the core I'd work with. Karen

We did it near the end of the previous year.

We just finished it, and I also have a reluctant writer. I modify a lot of the writing assignments, particularly the outlining, which he detests. I tend to work with him on the outlines. What do you think the next topic should be? What should we put under it? etc. We also did the Remedia Outlining, and it was OK, but he still needs a lot of hand holding. But the program is very easy to modify to suit your needs. For instance, sometimes I let him summarize info instead of an outline. Karen

Wow, there's a lot of information here! Thanks for sharing. Karen

If you get their catalog you can find older editions of the workbooks. Karen

I don't have any answers for you, but my ds is about the same age, and I wrestle with these same questions. And having only 1 student, I don't know what to expect out of someone his age. I don't want to be impossibly hard to please, but I want him to keep making progress. When is it good enough? How do you find a balance? Where did you find your rubric? Anyway, I hope you get some good answers. Karen

Starting in pre-algebra, I had ds start writing definitions and other important info (math properties, working with exponents, using slope-intercept, etc.) in a spiral bound set of 4x6 index cards. He's not happy having to write things in it, but when it comes to looking something up quickly, he's glad to have it. We will continue in this notebook through high school, and start a second notebook for geometry. Karen

You'll probably also deal with grammar in his writing. If he's going to be doing Latin or another foreign language, that'll give you plenty of opportunities to review English grammar as well. Karen

We haven't started using it yet, but for next year (6th gr) I bought Critical Thinking Bk 1 from Critical Thinking Co. It is designed for classroom use, but I think it will work as discussions between ds and me. It has chapters on intro to critical thinking and logic, errors in reasoning, propaganda, advertising, examining arguments, and being open-minded. Definitely secular. Karen

There are times I think it would be nice to have answers prepared for me instead of having to hunt them out myself, but I have never bought them, so I'm not sure what they have in them. But after buying the student text, study guide & lab manual, and supplies, I've spent about as much as I can afford on one subject! I am glad to have the LabZone CD, but I found that used. I don't know if I would have paid new price for it. Karen