chiguirre Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 My bil and his family are staying with us as they get themselves established in the US and I need to homeschool my nephew for the next few months. He will enroll in public school 4th grade next August. By the time he gets his English assessed and a permanent school assigned for this year it will be at least the middle of April, plus this is the year state testing starts and he's had no prep for the high stakes tests that are scheduled for the middle of April and beginning of May. All in all, it's best to homeschool him for the end of this school year and into the summer to get him ready for 4th grade. His English is actually pretty good, but he needs to expand his vocabulary and work on spelling and homonyms and homophones. I'd like to do interest-led, short unit studies with him. I'm looking for free or low cost resources that I can pull up on science or geography or history topics to enrich our reading and make school as fun as possible since his life right now is super stressful. I still have the Five in a Row books and I know that there was a similar free resource but I can't seem to find it. If you know of any free or low cost (under $10) book study resources, I'd really appreciate the help. I don't have any particular topics in mind, we're just going to do whatever dn wants in terms of topics. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I would probably use resources from Evan-Moor and your library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrymum Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 There's always the library.....but you probably know that Bring a stack of books home then read them then make some kind of report on it.....like a trifold board, paragraph, newspaper, ad,.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 HomeschoolShare still has resources like that; book studies like FIAR. I'll go through my links and see if I have anything else that could fit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I also found this: Using Children's Literature To Teach Science. Also: Young Naturalists guides for the classroom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyMom5 Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 There are books for homophones, but how is his reading? I'd focus on that and math basics, to be sure he's on track. Do you know any 3rd or 4th grade teachers? I do, and I'd ask them what they expect at the end of 3rd, beginning of 4th grade. I have found targeted lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers- but you have to know what things to target. This may sound off-topic, but I would look at summer day camps, swimming pool days, library story hour, and other such programs to get him out and about over the summer. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xahm Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 All About Learning Press has a homophones book that includes games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Servant4Christ Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I think you could probably use R&S placement tests which are available for free download on Milestonebooks website to give you a general idea of where to begin. R&S has remedial reading/phonics that literally starts at the very beginning that you could breeze through until you figure out where he is. CLE Math uses the first light unit (workbook) of every grade to review the previous year, so if you buy just light unit 401, it will review everything from third grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnneGG Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 (edited) I would probably buy some units off of Teachers Pay Teachers or subscribe to Read Aloud Revival for a few months. You could check Etsy for unit studies. There are lot of different things within your price point. We like HearthMagic and BooksandWillows. Would he like Reading Eggs/Eggspress? It’s an app, but it’s well done. It also includes Math Seeds but I think that may only go up to 2nd. Edited March 10, 2023 by AnneGG 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted March 11, 2023 Author Share Posted March 11, 2023 I sat down with dn to see how fluent his English reading is. He is surprisingly good at sounding out English words. He doesn't always know what they mean but his English phonics are solid. I'm impressed by how well his Caracas bilingual school did teaching English. He's reading at an adult level in Spanish and his math skills are good. We're going to go through Singapore Math 3A and 3B so he can continue afterschooling Singapore math/AOPS going forward. I did these with my dd and I'm comfortable teaching them again. We went to the library today and he got his own card and picked out a bunch of books. I think our first mini unit will be on the heart/circulatory system. He got a graphic novel about the first heart transplant and I've reserved a couple of non-fiction books on the topic. I've also got a hold on a bunch of Junie B. Jones. I figured we'd do a unit study on all the traditions of American schools. I'm planning to sign him up for swim team and some summer day camps at the Y and our local CC. Thank you so much @HomeAgain Homeschool Share is the site I was trying to find. I used it 10 years ago and liked it then. It will be perfect for pulling something together quickly if he wants to go down a rabbit trail. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malam Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 https://www.commonlit.org/en/library?initiatedFrom=libraryhttps://readtheory.org/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ishtare Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 Core Knowledge is a free curriculum you may want to check out. Their readers and workbooks are excellent and they cover history/geography, science, ELA, and math. For the circulatory system, you may want to check out Visible Body's Anatomy Learn Site and their eBook library. They're free and they have a lot about the circulatory system. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted March 14, 2023 Share Posted March 14, 2023 If your library has the Max Axiom series, it is age appropriate science vocabulary told in a cartoon format. There are probably 20 or so books in the series and if you cover most of them, you can verify that the basic vocabulary and conceptual knowledge is in place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted March 14, 2023 Share Posted March 14, 2023 Likewise, the Crash Course Kids video series on YouTube can help check that he can follow pace in English. The videos will also help with filling in gaps. They have a parallel En Espanol channel if you discover conceptual issues. You might also want to check with the school district to see if they have an ESL program. Here we have several elementaries and one Jr high where the majority of instruction is done in Spanish. There is also a pathway where you continue to have formal grammar and other instruction done in Spanish through all grades even if you aren’t in a Spanish instruction school so that you can remain fully bilingually educated. YMMV, but if you are not in a village, odds are there is a decent ESL program in place in public school. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted March 20, 2023 Author Share Posted March 20, 2023 I scored tickets to our science museum's homeschool labs!!! Woot!!! It's not Taylor Swift, but I'm pretty psyched. Does anyone have any handy resources for Indian Ghat wildlife or photosynthesis? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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