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Tracy

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Everything posted by Tracy

  1. We have also used BJUP, and it is a great program. I really like that I don't have to do very much except put together the supplies. My only problem with it is that the topics are so random. There is no effort to tie the topics together and make connections between them. We are going with Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Bernard Nebel for next year.
  2. I highly recommend the Five in a Row series (4-8yos). You didn't say what age your PreKer is, so Before Five in a Row (2-4yos) might be more suitable. My dd loves this curriculum so much, she is already asking to do it again next year. It is very flexible and can be as simple or advanced and complex as you want it to be. The lessons can very short or a lengthy hands-on activity, depending on your needs and circumstances. It doesn't feel structured, at all, yet every week, we are hitting on social studies, language arts, art, math and science. Every day, we just put the little one to bed and cuddle up on the couch with a book and use it to learn something different everyday. Some days, we end up looking up things on the computer, engaged in dramatizing the story, or drawing and coloring at the table. Other days, it is just a short discussion, and we are done. You can see more of my review on my blog. We jumped right into FIAR, but if I had known what a hit it would be, I would have started with Before FIAR so I would have two years of material.
  3. No, you are not slow, at all. Giftedness can be masked by other problems, especially in the early years. And sometimes it takes professional testing by people familiar with gifted issues to sort out the giftedness vs. LDs, etc. Many gifted people are actually 2E (twice-exceptional), meaning they are gifted with some sort of learning or other disability. Have you checked out the TAG (talented and gifted) lists? They are a great resource for these and other gifted issues.
  4. Thank you so much for this reference. I never thought to even look for such a book. I am looking for it ASAP!
  5. With Grasshopper (4yo), we don't do anything elaborate. We just follow the suggestion in WTM to read it once per day. We only memorize one thing at a time, and we have done both poetry and scriptures, and is now expressing interest in learning the Star-Spangled Banner. We choose what to memorize together. I keep in mind that in order for her to memorize and enjoy it, she has to have some investment in it. So I let her have a lot of freedom to choose for herself, but I help by providing suggestions for things that are related to her interests. (For example, she was going to get a prize at church for memorizing certain scriptures, so we did those. She also was interested in learning about the planets, so I found a poem for that.) I make sure she understands the vocabulary, but beyond that, she just reads it one time per day. If she really likes the poem, she may read it several times per day. (The latest one she really liked, so she read it over and over while she was doing her math.)
  6. I suspected when she could roll over at 5 weeks old and was doing motions to songs at 4 months old. But I was pretty sure when she could identify the entire alphabet, upper and lower case, at 21 months, and could count to 10. My younger one is a little harder to figure out. He will be 2yo next month and is still almost entirely non-verbal. But he can point to all the letters of the alphabet when asked and is very motivated to learn his colors (he frequently asks to be quizzed, in his very cute, non-verbal way). Since giftedness runs strongly in families, there is a good chance that he, too, is gifted on some level. But we will not know to what extent until he starts to talk (soon I hope).
  7. You may find that he also goes through SOTW more quickly, too. Or you may find that he has so much interest that you spend a lot of time supplementing it with other books. I think you just need to jump in and see how it works for him. With my dd4, I knew she was gifted a long time ago. I knew that her abilities were likely going to be all over the board--she would be more advanced in some areas than others. So it seemed reasonable to me to give her whatever level material she could handle, but at the same time, I envision her graduating high school a year early. With that in mind, we are starting the ancients next school year. She will be of Kindergarten age, doing 2nd-3rd grade work, but we are calling it 1st grade. It is my hope that in that manner, we will get 3 full cycles of history in before she graduates. I don't know if this will work for us. It is just a starting point.
  8. I had the same problem when we started, and I felt like I was pulling teeth to get suggestions about what to use. (But in reality, there are just so many consideration that there is no way to get all of that information from a forum.) I was so overwhelmed. In the end, I found some very good resources where I found practical pros and cons about all the different curricula. Check out my blog page about it. http://myfamilyiseternal.blogspot.com/2009/10/finding-my-first-curriculum-or-scary.html
  9. Personally, I think that most parents can be a better teacher to their children than a certified teacher. My DH is a ps teacher, and after going to college and meeting his colleagues, he said there was no way those people were going to teach his kids. OTOH, if you are really concerned, in TX you can do the virtual school option so that your daughter can be home with you, and there will still be teachers involved if she needs help. But IMHO, barring some unusual circumstances, if your daughter is doing well in ps, she will only do better at home.
  10. http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/cursive-handwriting.htm
  11. I think it entirely depends on the kids. Grasshopper first attempted to write her name when she was 2. She knew her letters and how to spell her name, so it sort of looked right. But I didn't want her to practice it that way. I bought a Kumon book, and that was perfect for her--very large letters and only a few on a page. But she catches on so fast, and her penmanship is so good that I haven't done anything formal with her beyond that. I was going to wait until 1st grade to buy a program, but she is doing so well,we probably won't need one.
  12. I also love Homeschool Tracker. I totally recommend the Plus version. It is way different from the Basic. It is a great deal for the money. But I do want to mention that there is a huge learning curve in using this program. If you get frustrated learning new software, this is probably not the planner for you. I, personally, love to tinker with new software, and I used it from the beginning when I only had to manage one child's work, so it wasn't too overwhelming.
  13. I am debating the same thing, as I will have a 1st grader. I am thinking about purchasing a bundle. I will definitely need map aids and was thinking about writing aids, too. I don't think we will really use it much for 1st grade, but I figure we will use it eventually.
  14. www.spellingcity.com creates worksheets out of spelling words that you can include arrows for.
  15. I started planning next year almost at the beginning of this year (doing K this year). But this is our first year homeschooling, and I found that within a couple of months of ordering materials, I had stumbled upon other philosophies/curricula, and I wanted the time to research. My goal was to find an integrated history/literature, science and math programs that we could stick with throughout the elementary years so I don't have to do this research again for years to come. I have settled on TOG, CSMP math, and Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. Also, we will continue working through the Spelling Workout series and using spelling words to practice handwriting.
  16. Next year, we are going to use Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Bernard Nebel. It is designed to help kids make connections between all of the little bits and pieces that they learn. I originally was looking for something that was more structured than traditional science curricula. But I didn't like the 4-yr rotation of classical curricula. (DH is a physics teacher, and waiting until year 4 to do physics just wasn't going to fly!) This seems like a really good compromise between the two.
  17. I haven't use TOG, yet, but one of the things that I like about it is that although the other subjects covered are divided into 4 levels, the writing is actually divided into 12 different levels. This makes it easier to give writing assignments to children whose writing does not match up with their grade levels in other subjects. However, the TOG folks are careful to say that the writing part of the program does not constitute a complete grammar program, although I have noticed that there is some grammar (like parts of speech) covered in the free samples.
  18. I have seen many people refer to TT as behind other programs in grade level. Those who switched to TT from another program usually jump a couple grade levels in order to be doing the same material. That is not to say that TT is not a good program. It is just "labeled" differently in terms of grade level, so you have to be careful in what level you place the student.
  19. Check out this blog post for a nice overview of the program. http://puzzler.multiply.com/journal/item/12/Show_and_Tell_3_CSMP You could send a message to the blog author, as he has taught the complete program from beginning to end once and is almost done with it with a second child. I think the reason that the program was not widely adopted was because it is sooooo different and requires a lot of learning/training for the teacher. I am surprised to see people using it as a supplement or going back and forth between programs, because it seems a like lot of work for me to get up to speed if I am not going to fully adopt the program.
  20. I tried giving my dd all kinds of manipulatives--pennies, abacus, etc.--and she still likes to use her fingers. And for 11, she will use her nose, placing her fingers in a diamond around it. And then she will ask me if she can use my fingers when we get past 11. It is completely normal at this age.
  21. You might want to try reading to him the way he reads to you (without announcing it in advance). See if he notices the difference. Just keep going and wait for him to say something. As for rules, I think it totally depends on the child. My dd is very, very sensitive to criticism. She often changes the words in the sentence without changing the meaning. But I don't correct her unless she has actually changed the meaning, because I don't want to quench her enjoyment of reading together. I think that this is key. You want to make sure that your reading time together is something your child thoroughly enjoys. Maybe you need more interesting material. Maybe he is feeling very self-conscious, and what you need to do is back off and focus on what he is doing well. Perhaps he feels that at 12yo, he is too old for this, and his behavior is a way to rebelling. Maybe another approach, such as narration or book reports would be better for his age. It is hard to tell without seeing what is happening in your home, but any child that is mumbling his way through reading is probably feeling something negative about it. I think you should figure out what those feelings are and address them first, rather than creating reading rules, which will only serve to create an even more adversarial situation. (OTOH, I have a very rule-oriented child, and I can see where having rules can be very helpful with this type. But I don't think this is very common.)
  22. I think the best way to know this is to look at their free samples. You can download the first three weeks of year 1.
  23. Thanks to all those that shared their reviews of TOG concerning Mormons. For anyone that might be following this thread, I was made aware of a book in Year 3 that has a substantial section about the Mormons in Nauvoo. It is pretty derogatory, but the book was written around 1920, so for me, it would be easy to use to demonstrate how people have viewed the church historically, and how history is never neutral, always biased in some way. At any rate, I certainly don't see anything to deter me from using TOG. As far as I can tell, it is far better a program than any LDS program I have looked at.
  24. We are using Horizons K right now, and while it is a fairly advanced K curriculum, and I really like the gentle way that it teaches advanced concepts, it has turned out to be complete drudgery for dd. There is just nothing fun about it for a child that doesn't inherently like math. So we are switching to CSMP as soon as I can get it printed. It uses a lot of stories to teach concepts (great for my verbally gifted dd!) and is still an advanced curriculum (they are learning multiplication in 1st grade!).
  25. We are currently doing K. Here is my blog about finding curricula. http://myfamilyiseternal.blogspot.com/2009/10/finding-my-first-curriculum-or-scary.html. And this is what we are doing this year. http://myfamilyiseternal.blogspot.com/2009/10/view-of-our-first-year.html (But keep in mind that my dd is gifted so is doing more advanced work than other kindergartners.)
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