I'm building outlining and note taking into my son's day now actually - 3rd grade. He'll be fine -- Oh and a method that's really cool to read about, as you explore, is the Charlotte Mason method (inspired how I teach at home and I felt like I knew it all with a master's in education & having taught first grade!). And re what to use - we're practicing outlining/note taking as part of history (reading fiction by kids his age about WW1) and as brainstorming part of creative writing lessons. Also - I don't use textbooks. There are SO many resources online - many free. But I use some paid ones: IXL for Grammar, CTC for Math (and some IXL too); vocabulary.com; Cambridge Latin course, Drawing with Geography; and recently discovered this for Science: http://www.eequalsmcq.com/ and we also do Java coding from Youth Digital! To say he's learning more than his public school friends is an udnerstatement! Oh and we don't do every subject every day (and that's not all of them - we spend 3 hrs on "school" every day and have a wkly PE, cooking, building class with lots of other hs kids & field trips on some Fridays & lots of other opptys to "socialize" (as I know that's the other big concern most poeple have). Hope this helps!
