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Thank you, Kriston. I'll take a look. It's all new to me and no one has offered us any suggestions. I'm learning a lot here, though, and now have access to both EPGY and CTY, so at least there are some options. He does love that math course, though. It's actually quite entertaining and well done.

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Which math course is your son enjoying? I missed it if you already mentioned it somewhere.

My kids all took to reading like ducks to water, so we never used any formal program for reading. Writing is a whole other beast though, and we could certainly stand to do more in that area. So far I have resisted paying for any formal program, other than grammar and vocabulary workbooks. Both my school age kids can write beautifully when they are motivated, as in preparation for a homeschool group report. My horse crazy daughter finds a way to weave horses into every state and country we study, and my son enjoys finding esoteric trivia to spotlight. But both are less comfortable with the art then I would like, and it would be nice to close the gap a bit between their input and output. My goal this year is to get my 11 year old really typing and then I will probably sign him up for an online writing course.

I wish I had a clue about online language arts for younger kids. Sorry, Q!

Thanks, Lorel.

He's enjoying Elementary Problem Solving 1 at CTY. I'm sure the children of most posting here are way beyond it, but it's very well done. There is a tutorial, a practice and a workout area. All involve sound and animations with cute made up creatures (and unlike so many of you, my son loves animals and books with mice as the heroes - he is most definitely 7!). The graphics are very clean and colorful. He hates to write - and that includes writing for math, although he'll tolerate that - don't have to write too much to write a few numbers down. The quiz, however, is a plain old paper and pencil quiz, which then has to be transfered to the answer sheet online. It would be easier for him to just do it online, but I guess it's good practice. He's never had written tests in school other than weekly spelling tests.

Since the public school isn't challenging him, I'm thinking I'll make it all up at home. I wonder if he would write in a colorful workbook - if you have any suggestions. When I was a kid, I loved filling in answers in workbooks. It gave me a sense of accomplishment. He finds it tedious, and difficult because it's writing.

So any suggestions of anything to make him want to read more, I'd love it. (He CAN read - just doesn't want to, which means that he's not getting the practice he needs to become fluent. Too much work when he can be read to - and his comprehension was tested as over 13 years beyond his age, which is probably a big source of his unwillingness to read b/c it means he only gets his information s-l-o-w-l-y and with difficulty when he reads himself).

Thank you!

ps - in response to one of the earlier posts, I checked out many of the links on your site last night, but almost all of them refer to workbook based programs. I think we need a little more excitement so that he's learning without even realizing he's learning - which is how he picks up everything anyway. Thanks again.

Thank you, kcab - that's exactly what I was looking for. He loved Reader Rabbit Toddler so long ago - I'll check into both. He definitely needs the basic phonics practice, and I believe we even have Zoombinis at home which he hasn't used in a couple of years. Worth another look. Thanks!

In terms or writing assignments, we don't use any workbooks or curriculum. I kind of wing it. Not sure that's so great, but I am more at easy with the verbal side of things.
We did a character development "assignment".
The idea was to invent the characters in the story before even thinking out the story.
It was very open ended and fun.
DD7 started writing about crayon people. For example: Sky Blue was a girl crayon about her age,, etc. She mapped out all the characters and named them. Then she would write a little here and there. She kept going back to each crayon and adding personality traits and interweaving their "stories".
She never organized it into an actual story, but it's a work in process.
She really enjoyed it and I think it's a good excersice to cultivate her writing "voice" which seems to be what the school is focusing on in terms or writing.

Questions wrote:
ps - in response to one of the earlier posts, I checked out many of the links on your site last night, but almost all of them refer to workbook based programs. I think we need a little more excitement so that he's learning without even realizing he's learning - which is how he picks up everything anyway. Thanks again.

The character development project was more like a game. For a child who doesn't like to do extensive writing, you could have them dictate, to a recorder or to you.

Incog

Well, I just started looking at EPGY and they are adding Language Arts and Writing for 6th grade. I might need to use this for my daughter next year.
Anyone familiar with that course?

Also, does anyone have experience with jhu-cty Crafting the Essay course? I've been eyeing this for a while but have forgotten to ask this board about it.

Well, after my meeting yesterday in which I was informed that the teachers are teaching the curriculum and can't vary from it, I signed him up for the epgy language arts/reading courses (it's currently buy one, get one free). He's happy in school, he loves his teachers, and I don't want to jeopardize that. As Trinity mentioned in an earlier thread, it's more important to undo the damage from his last school. And he wants to do all these distance learning courses. So I'll let you know what I think of the lower level epgy language arts courses in January. Take care, everyone,

Questions

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Is he going to do that course while in school, during regular LA class?
(yes, I see that they are 2 for 1, and looking at the rubrick I kind of like it)

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Wow! I've never heard about a deal like that at EPGY! It sounds too good to pass up. I look forward to hearing your opinions.