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JWallace

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Posts posted by JWallace

    Beefing Up His Day

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I’m assuming the science and history go beyond the 2.5 hours? You are just trying to beef up his work that is separate from the other students, right?

     

    Some ideas of things we’ve used that are ideas to consider:

     

    Use “Adventures in Fantasy†curric to have him write a book. It teaches the student step by step how to write an entire fantasy novel. (Draw a map of an imaginary place. Pick characters out of a long list: unicorns, elves, people, dwarves, etc. Decide which are bad guys vs good guys. Decide where your characters will travel on your map....etc.) Slowly, the child is able to form a plot and write the book. Your novel could be as simple as a Dr. Seuss book with just a few words on each page, all the way to a tens of thousands of word chapter book. It will depend upon the child. Note: I did this with both my boys 2 years ago and they loved it, but I helped them along. I honestly can’t remember if I needed to help them, or if I just did because I had the time and wanted to. I remember that there were lots of papers for the boys to fill out (like character sketches or plot ideas) that I would get them started on and then walk away from. The papers were fun for the most part and weren’t work-booky, but I think I spent a little bit of time going over them before handing them off to my students. It’s a bit of a jumble in my head now after 2 years.

     

    Puzzle books like Perplexors. These can be done alone. Some kids love these and some don’t, so don’t buy a bunch until you find out what your son likes. My son loves them, but I didn’t like them when I was a kid.

     

    Art—we are using Discovering Great Artists. The projects in this book are simple, but satisfying. Some art books involve too many moving parts for me and I get tired of trying to come up with all the supplies. This book has a few projects like that, but a lot of them are pretty simple. I’m happy because they’re simple, my son is happy because his art projects turn out nice. Note: If you get this book, most of the projects in the first half are painting and drawing and it’s not until you get to the second half that there are different types of things (sculpture or other things like that.). I wish I’d known that when I started so I could have mixed things up instead of doing painting after painting after painting... My son is in 7th grade and I get him started with each project and he does them on his own for the most part. I might help with a suggestion or two, but that’s about it. They’re independent projects and take up to an hour per activity.

    We have morning time followed by history and/or science then go into seat work/independent work. That adds an hour-ish to his day. But those subjects he loves, and I try to make as hands on/activity based as possible so he doesn’t consider school to start until his seat work begins. [emoji23]

     

    LOVE the sound of Adventures in Fantasy! He loves to journal and write short stories so this will be right up his alley! The puzzles sound great, too. Thanks for the suggestions!

     

     

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Beefing Up His Day

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Well, don't punish him for being quick...

     

    But maybe start some projects that are his to own and work on.

     

    Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

    Definitely not punishment.

    He’s very bright and I don’t think he’s being challenged right now. No extra math or grammar, mainly looking for some fun extras to fill in and round out his day. ;)

     

     

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Beefing Up His Day

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I need some ideas :)

     

    My sixth grade son is getting through with all of his school work in 2-2.5 hours. That’s Bible/BSF homework, math/math drill/fraction practice, handwriting/journaling, spelling, grammar, writing, geography, and his instrument practice. We do history and Science as a family. He flew through his vocab for the year. And he’s a VORACIOUS reader. He probably reads 3-4 chapter books a week...I made a book list of quality literature for the year and he’s 2/3 of the way through that list.

     

    I’m all for being thorough!! And he’s doing quality work. But he’s bored afterwards which leads to too much tv or wanting to pull siblings away so they can play. And I also feel that this is a good time to work on building stamina since I plan on adding more to his workload next year going into 7th/middle school. I feel like he should be working 3.5 to 4 hours.

     

    What are your thoughts??? Do I need to relax? Or is there something I can add to beef up his day? It needs to be student led as my time is limited.

     

     

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    Fix Our History!

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Background:

    This school year I am teaching a 5th, 4th, 2nd, and Ker.  I wanted to try my hand at Sonlight and a literature-based history curriculum. I placed my older two students in Core D (Early American History-1850) and combined by younger two in Core A (World Cultures).  We are absolutely loving it and all our school work is getting done. 

    **We are only using History/Bible/Lit...we have other curricula for math and LA

     

    I was hesitant to make this change so didn't think in terms of long-term planning when I purchased the two cores. I love it and would like to stay with it (or something similar) next school year, however....

     

    Problem:

    If I stick with Sonlight next year, I'll have two in Modern American History and two in World History.  I think I would much rather have all four children study the same time period in history.  There is too big of an age gap to combine into one core, and I'm not sure I'm ready for my younger ones to study 1850-present...

     

    What would you do?  I'm spinning my wheels and not sure where to go at this point...unless I just deal with the fact they won't be studying the same time periods.

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