My daughter is 9, I have found if I call anything schoolwork, she hates it. So I call it projects. We've been doing Native American type things this fall and I discovered the Indian in the Cupboard series on audio tape. The amount of history and factual detail, as well as an honest view of what happened in regards to the native people is amazing. She loves listening to them, but if I had put out a workbook on the same topic we would have been fighting to get it done. Most of what she's getting for Christmas is "really neat toys" – they are also, with one exception, things that fit into things we are, or will be studying. We do as many fieldtrips and watch as many videos on any given topic as we can, she hates writing and her spelling is absolutely horrible. Her reading skills are much better. Anything hands on works wonders. I also have two rules: no TV till after 5 pm (unless it's a relevant video) and no friends until her schoolwork is done. Since they get home from public school after 2:30, it helps to motivate.
