Jump to content

Menu

partyof5

Members
  • Posts

    412
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

37 Excellent

About partyof5

  • Birthday March 1

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Female
  1. I just need to post a quick thank you! I haven't been on the boards for a couple months due to just life and busy-ness...but last night I was prepping my 10th grader for her visit to the local public school for the PSAT today. She is prepared as she can be for content but then I recalled something on here about school "codes"...not sure what triggered it, but I knew I could come here to find out everything I could ever need to know about this test. So I logged on, typed PSAT in the search and there it was... Janice in NJ's blessed PSA about the PSAT, plus numerous other reminders about the cursive statement, etc. This community is such a wonderful gift. I quickly found the state code, and I was able to walk my dd through the form-filling process, thanks to the link to the proctor guide. Wow...she feels ready and confident. This is as it should be, of course, but sometimes there is just a little extra research and work to get there. SO, before leaving this morning, dd says to me, "Homeschool moms just seem so much more well informed than everyone else. You guys really know what's going on. What other kid would have seen the proctor guide online before the test to know what to expect today?!" Yup... and I gave credit to the hive for that lifeline. Thank you all, especially Janice in NJ, whose posts have given me hope on my high school journey and kept me informed more times than you will ever know. Have a great Saturday! Melissa
  2. My 9th grader is actually on the year 4 leg of this journey due to our schedule in previous years. She is a musician first, which is quite time consuming, and so we have streamlined the quantity of history reading a bit and made literature the focus since it's her favorite subject after music. For "fun" she has been working through Beautiful Feet "History of Classical Music" on the side. Otherwise, she is following TWTM history reading recommendations alongside the literature, especially Tindall's "America: A Narrative History" and "Idiot's Guide to American Gov't". We do not have time (nor inclination) to pursue all the other Teaching Company lectures and things that I would personally love to be doing but that might send this child over the edge. ;) What she has read for Y4 Great Books, taken from lists in TWTM, and mostly self-selected: The Rights of Man (portions) Selected Primary Sources from Fordham website Pride & Prejudice Selections from Poe Jane Eyre The Scarlet Letter Great Expectations Gettysburg Address Short Stories (from IEW's Windows to the World listings) Huck Finn (currently) Coming up this spring: Up from Slavery Poetry selections from R. Frost The Great Gatsby Their Eyes Were Watching God Our Town (maybe) Animal Farm (maybe) Mere Christianity The Crucible (maybe) An Elie Wiesel book for perhaps The Book Thief Not sure about the spring readings yet. I would also like to incorporate other readings but have yet to prepare for that. I am continually impressed by the research and additional information many of you provide your children with in GB studies. In fact, I almost didn't post because I sense that our list is not as adventurous or global as some others may be. BUT, my dd is loving her reading, writing well on her literature and history topics, and we have very enjoyable discussions...all part of what I want her first of year of high school work to include. I'd be interested to hear about what other Modern History resources you have used or plan to use, and what literature you would select. Thanks for the thread! I am bookmarking for next year when we come back around to Ancients and are making some tough choices on what to tackle.
  3. We may be busier society in general, but I am constantly re-assessing our family needs and interests and opting out of activities and options. I just need to know when it's too much for OUR kids and stick with that. Some people are energized by more activity while others are energized by doing less. I err on the side of more activity but I have a child who needs less and I work to provide that environment for her. As for home projects, ick. My mom feels like cleaning is the key to happiness. I do not feel like this at all and would rather ignore the dust while reading a book...every time. Ha!
  4. Great thread, and I did relate some of your responses to dd14 today. She was not too surprised to hear others have minimal time too and I think she felt reassured in a way, so thank you for starting this conversation. I think dd has more time available to her but she is still learning time management and currently has the illusion of "no time" when in reality I think she probably has an hour or so each day tucked into the schedule but it gets lost because of her slow pace. That being said, she is also involved in a couple of intense self-chosen activities (cello & piano) that we support. She does find peace and relaxation in these and will likely pursue music in some form as a career, so these feel like free time to her on most days. Even when it's work and learning, she loves it. On average that's 2-4 hours a day between practice, orchestra, and private lessons. At this point, I see this as part of the specializing aspect of high school. I am glad that her free time is spent at the piano or studying theory "for fun" rather than being online, gaming, texting, or watching TV though those are not forbidden activities in my home. She simply doesn't choose them and I suspect that if she finished her math or writing early she would sit at the piano, by choice. Yay! On weekends, she usually has a bit of homework left over from the week, music practice, church activities, family time, and then often has time to spend with a friend too. Feels fairly balanced most weeks.
  5. Dd 14 wants a wool pea coat from Delia's...she is getting that for certain. It's her only real request and it's pricey enough that it's her only significant gift. iTunes gift card for stocking, funky socks, plus a kitchen gadget or two. Other years we've gotten her yarn for her new knitting hobby, or tix to an event or concert. My husband gives all the girls a "date with Daddy" gift certificate and they LOVE planning this with him. It becomes a future gift that involves a personalized outing. I love this idea and so do they. The first year he did it they were not sure what to do but now the certificate he makes for each of them is something they look forward to and the 14yo has really gotten creative with her requests!
  6. All 5 of us are now signed up for the Feaster 5K. All the best to others running before turkey & pie!

  7. We are just beginning this journey with our oldest. Except for science, I am using essentially all of her SWB's recommendations for high school and my 9th grader is loving it, especially the Great Books portion. She was thrilled to not be doing a traditional text book for history, and while it is a bit harder for me to acquire and schedule the readings we choose, it is worth it so far. We have some bumpy areas to work through but looking at the big picture I'm very happy with everything we're doing. Check back with me in mid-February and I'll let you know how things are going. ;)
  8. Thank you Lecka for your very helpful reply. I'm making quite a list on the library inter-library loan system so I DO appreciate your suggested reading! And I like your ideas about pre-reading activities in the content areas to build background knowledge and can see a lot of applications that might help us. She is very visual I'm finding, and while I usually save the more "fun" picture books for after our core readings, I think it would be wise to use them first and I have no idea why I couldn't have thought of this before!! The vocabulary is a big piece and I can already think of some easy ways to introduce these tough words ahead of time...thanks for that tip. This is a particularly tough issue with science. She likes the Apologia "exploring creation" books (b/c she does them with her big sister) but they are SO wordy I think we might find more success with something else... Thanks again for taking the time to share so much detail!
  9. I appreciate the different points of view on what to do first, and I'll use all of that to ask some questions when I start trying to make calls & appts. I still don't know yet what our insurance would cover, but I am hopeful that the area we live in will lend itself to finding good help. It's funny to me that there seems to not be a clear path between the work of a neuropsych and audiology and which comes first, so I'm guessing that coordinating these two to facilitate their ability to analyze dd will be critical to getting to the bottom of this. I'm starting some different reading activities with her right away to work on phonemic awareness because it seems to be an area that I can pinpoint a concern and work on some things at home while we sort out the diagnosis stuff. To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to ADD until some of the replies came in, because I've assumed her inability to follow multi-step instructions was a memory issue...I'll have to do some reading about this too. And dyslexia was not on my radar b/c I have no experience with this...I'm learning a lot here already! Has anyone read "The Mislabeled Child" and have feedback about its value? Meanwhile, I'm reserving all your other recommendations at the library. Thank you ALL for your thoughtful suggestions and speculations...it gives me more to work with so that I can do some reading on my own and feel more confident that what I'm seeing IS worthy of follow-up. And honestly it's comforting to know that others have experienced (and survived) these moments and have found working solutions for their kids.
  10. I've never drawn out multi-step tasks, but my guess is that it might work and I'm going to try it today. When I have her repeat them to me, she does often miss the last one, so I restate everything and have her restate it and she can sometimes do this. But when it comes to doing the tasks, she still occasionally forgets the last one, but this is less frequent when she can verbally restate them successfully. Thanks for your input!
  11. Thank you Kelli & Crimson Wife! I appreciate this input and will do a little reading on the tests and potential problems you both mentioned. I'll also do a little insurance co. research and see what's covered before getting in too deep. Glad it might not be too late. She's 8 and I think if I can get a pediatric visit in this summer, I'd like to put the ball in motion on this, while learning as much as I can as fast as I can! Thank you both...I appreciate you taking the time to reply!
  12. Hi, This is my first post on the special needs board and I'm sure that with some guidance I could find posts related to my questions, but I'm not sure what to search for yet. Your help is appreciated! My youngest is the first to have any real trouble learning, and I feel like I've made her wait longer than I should have to recognize this...Her older sisters are both excellent students, with one working far above grade level. This scenario has had me second-guessing my gut instincts that my youngest is struggling...basically I have worried that I was subconsciously comparing her to her sisters. "Maybe she's just more 'typical' and the older two are too advanced to compare, and I'm just comparing accidentally?" Well-meaning friends have helped cement that idea for me, until now when I realize I may have lost some time. As we approach 3rd grade, I'm realizing that my gut was probably right...she is not ready to move from "learn to read" into "read to learn" AT ALL and there are multiple other issues as well that are now seeming more pronounced, including: inability to rhyme properly (she thinks "beak" rhymes with "eat", for ex.) has never been able to pronounce the letter 'r' well (though we live just north of Boston where it's 'normal') wild guesses at spelling, esp. for vowel sounds comprehension issues with fun "easy" books HUGE comprehension issues with content area that I read to her (SOTW and science) seemingly distracted and slow-moving when it's time to write anything, including copywork (spaces out instead of getting to work) can't follow multi-step instructions requires months of prompts for memory work and she often feels like every time is the first time (like FLL parts of speech definitions) makes lots of mistakes on work where she has to read a short set of instructions on her own These are just some highlights of my concerns but I can't even begin to figure out what kind of general area they may "fit" into, if that's even possible. I had similar "nothing is sticking" feelings with math until we switched to MUS and it's like a lightbulb went off...is the blocks? the videos? Mr. Demme? At her last well-visit I had a suspicion of hearing issues and the simple in-office screening showed no problems whatsoever, and was therefore discounted. I also had a pedi opthamologist look at her eyes (she has a freckle near her iris that gets looked at every 2 yrs) and asked her to look into the fact that dd squints ALL the time when reading or writing. They found NOTHING wrong...'she must just do that out of habit'. SO I'm guessing I go back to the pediatrician first, but now that I feel confident that I'm looking for more than basic eye/ear tests, what am I actually asking for? A referral for auditory issues, speech, language, memory? I'm not sure what to ask for and I am concerned that being ambiguous will result in a hesitant response from the dr. (fwiw, if this were to happen, i'm open to changing docs) I'm looking for a roadmap if that's possible, as well as some helpful resources for me to begin researching. I want to be able to help her before her frustration level increases...I feel horrible about putting this off for so long and second-guessing that feeling I've had. Thanks for reading and for offering any support you can,
  13. I understand you completely and agree that it is okay...I will even go so far as to say that is appropriate and good!! I believe there is a difference from playing the "poor me" card and just being real, in a gentle way. My kids realize that when we go to dance or music or anywhere that involves me sitting & waiting, I am doing just that, sitting and waiting for them...they noticed early on that it might be boring for me. This gave me the chance to explain that I bring them to these activities out of love for them and their interests, but sure...I could be getting other things done at home and wouldn't just sit there for fun. ;) Sounds like you are already trying to strike a balance that seems healthy. FWIW, we are a Dave Ramsey family (on year 4 of 4 on our debt-free plan) and the sacrifices involved with this are something we are very open with as well. The point is, I don't want my kids to think the world revolves around them (because it doesn't!) and these discussions work to that end. Good luck & try to enjoy the vacation by delegating some of those duties! ;)
  14. :party: Congratulations to all of you--what a fine example of perseverance and hard work in the face of great challenges. SO much to celebrate at your house today! Melissa
  15. Hi, I have no answers for you but I know that it has been discussed here before...you might try a search for "Notgrass" or even a tag search and I bet you'll find all kinds of info. Good luck!
×
×
  • Create New...