materials like Diana Hanbury King....

[prairiewindmomma]

I am working on finding more efficient materials for one of my kids. Diana Hanbury King seems to be a good fit if I scribe. What else would you recommend if a child likes DHK? Cobbling stuff together from a lot of materials for a subject isn't working well for this kid. He needs one "thing", for it to be laid out plainly without a lot of visual distraction, and for it to be efficient enough that it can accommodate his slow processing speed and need for breaks.

[Storygirl]

What subjects are you looking for?

[prairiewindmomma]

I am interested in all types of suggestions, especially as I begin to research for the Jr. High years. Right now he is struggling in everything but history and handwriting.

 

He likes the MUS text but needs more review. We are using Ronit Bird ideas, tons of manipulatives, and I am scribing Singapore Math for him. We have to go at a really slow pace.

 

Science is another core area where we struggle. He loves to watch Nature and Nova and do experiments but he abhors the notion of a textbook and usually refuses nonfiction books. He tolerates Apologia audio books in short doses.

 

I would love to hear what works for people in a similar situation because my other kids have normal processing speeds and manageable dysgraphia and I have a lot more options with them.

[prairiewindmomma]

I meant to write above (I am rocking my toddler now so I am distracted)....ds has super severe dysgraphia and moderate dyspraxia. OT is working on it but suggests we should move to dictation software. When I say handwriting is not a struggle, I only mean that I have suitable materials in that area.

[kbutton]

Science ideas: RSO is not self-led. You work on it together, but it has kind of Charlotte Mason approach. It's not handwriting intense at all. You can get kits for the demonstrations or use stuff from home. My son loved Chemistry. Earth Science was okay, but definitely not bad. It depends a lot on what you want out of science. I also don't remember what age your son is. They just came out with a physics curriculum. Chemistry is aimed at middle to upper elementary, and I think physics is as well. The Earth and Space and Biology are aimed lower, but they have a middle school biology as well.

 

Ellen McHenry? Her books are not textbookish. You would have to teach, but it's reading and activities. 

 

http://barefootmeandering.com/site/quark-chronicles/ I haven't used this, but it's science in a story format.

 

I think all three of the options I mentioned have free samples that are pretty extensive. Check out Ellen McHenry's site even if you don't use her curriculum--she has many freebies, and many of them are games. Really good games.

[Storygirl]

If you need a reading curriculum, I like CLE. It's a reader paired with a workbook, but you could do the workbook questions orally. I think it does a good job of working toward higher level reading analysis skills, but if you jump in at a higher level, it can seem hard. For example, in fifth grade, DD13 found the 500 level hard, because she had not done 400. If you need to start at a lower level, though, it is easy to accelerate, because starting in 400 (I think), it is a half-year program.

 

We also like CLE for math, but you might find it to be too much writing. I think it would not be visually distracting, though, and it breaks the lessons into small pieces and reviews everything often. Most of the time the students only do a few of each type of problem each day. You could easily spread it out into chunks throughout the day and eliminate review problems that don't need to be practiced.

 

We like Diana Hanbury King, too, and I've found CLE to be just as easy to implement (though I'd say it is more rigorous for each grade than the King workbooks are).

 

ETA: DD13 has used CLE Language Arts (which is mainly grammar) as well, but I dropped it for my three youngest, because it was too intense for them. For someone with low processing, it might not be a great choice, even though I like it. DS11 has low processing, and it would not have worked for him.

[Storygirl]

If you need grammar, what about Easy Grammar? The daily review workbooks might cover enough material to gain a grasp of the concepts without requiring a ton of writing. We only used it at a lower level, though, so I don't know what the junior high books are like.