maptime
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Spelling You See Placement / Starting in the Middle
maptime replied to maptime's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
This is helpful, thank you! -
We're heading into our 7th year of homeschooling, and while normally I've spent the summer obsessively researching and planning our next school year, this year I haven't been feeling it. But I'm staring down the barrel of another school year starting in just a couple of weeks, and I need to figure out spelling for DS10. My rising 5th grader has completed AAS 1-4 and most of 5. I want to move to something more independent next year, as Mom Time is already maxed out with other subjects (and siblings :-)). Would Spelling You See work for this? Can you start in the middle, or do you need to start from the beginning (likely a deal-breaker, lol). I looked online and found a lot of info about developmental stages, but no clarity on which level to put him. Any placement tips? I'd say he's an average speller for his grade. Thanks in advance for any input 🙂
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History - am I reinventing the wheel?
maptime replied to HomeAgain's topic in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
Would you mind sharing the name of this show? It sounds like something my kids would love! -
We ran into something similar when my oldest was in second grade. We weren't ready to delve into the heavier parts of history, but I didn't want to just wait until he was older to start enjoying history together. I ended up putting together a year of "Important Inventions and Discoveries", and it was super fun! We started in ancient times, and worked our way through a chronological list I put together of important inventors, scientists, and the discoveries they made. It turned out to serve as both our history and science that year. Lots of biographies, and so many opportunities to bunny trail with science experiments, extra books, etc. I look back so fondly on that year in our early days of homeschooling🙂
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Audiobooks for science like SOTW?
maptime replied to TheAttachedMama's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
My ds has listened to various titles in the Horrible Science series via our library’s digital lending library. -
Have you taken a look at Memoria Press’ Kindergarten enrichment? Each week is centered around a different read aloud picture book, with a coordinating craft and often a light science or history tie-in all planned out for you. Each week also introduces the child to a poem, a musical piece, and a piece of art work, often (but not always) loosely tied to the topic of the week. It really is a sweet program. Here’s a peek at the read aloud books and science books they use so you can get an idea of what kind of books are scheduled. Obviously a lot of these can be found at the library so making a huge purchase isn’t necessary🙂 Kindergarten Enrichment Read Alouds Kindergarten Science Supplemental Books
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How does he do with the physical act of writing? I haven’t used OPGTR, but I have used FSR. It combines the teaching of letter sounds with learning letter formation, etc. It worked splendidly for my daughter who was ready (and eager) to start writing in workbooks, but it may not work as well for a writing-phobic kid, or one whose writing ability lags their reading readiness. If he’s ready for both, FSR might work to kill two birds with one stone. My daughter really enjoyed it, and I found it to be a pretty efficient use of time🙂
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A whiteboard or a notebook would work equally well. In fact now that I think of it, I have one kid who uses a whiteboard, one who uses a notebook, and one who uses whatever scrap of paper is nearest him😂 If a notebook would afford her a feeling of ownership, I say go for it. An added perk of using a notebook would be the ability to mark a section in which to keep a list of words she’s misspelled (either within a spelling lesson or in other work) and needs extra practice with- something I’ve always intended to do, but have yet to make happen😜
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I’m a huge fan of AAS, so personally, if money wasn’t an issue, I’d just go with that instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with something else. It’s a great program. There’s actually a whole thread about AAS over on the General Education board right now that you might want to check out! That being said, I totally understand being in a situation where the budget is tight and you have to make do with what you have. Either way, hopefully someone with personal experience with Phonics Pathways can chime in with some thoughts! If you do go the AAS route, there’s an app you can download in lieu of the physical letter tiles; it was $20 last I checked, but a HUGE sanity saver over here. It might also be helpful to know that the “student packet” isn’t actually a workbook, but is mostly comprised of flashcards used for review. Some people (myself included) find they don’t end up using much of the student packet, and just use the teacher’s manual and tiles. There’s more info about that in the other thread as well! Hope that helps🙂
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I’ve used both programs. Here are a couple of thoughts, based on what you wrote. if you plan on using Fix It next year, I don’t think you need to squeeze in another grammar program this year solely for the sake of preparation. Fix-It starts from the beginning, and seemed to progress quite gently. I did take my ds through MP’s English Grammar Recitation the same year he was working through MP Latina Christiana. It meshed nicely with what he was working on in Latin and didn’t take too much time, but he would (and did) say that his conceptual understanding wasn’t great. I think the memorization component proved helpful in later years when applied to other grammar studies, but the exercises themselves did little to actually make the concepts “click” in such a way that he could apply them elsewhere. If you’re looking for a good list of grammar memory work that you flesh out in the context of other writing assignments, I could see it being a helpful resource. In regard your question about whether Fix-it grammar is “enough”, I think that depends on your plans and goals. Some people use Fix-It all the way through as their primary grammar instruction and are perfectly happy with the results. I don’t think it ever gets into sentence diagramming, so if that is important to you, you may want to consider something else down the road. But I think it can certainly serve as a gentle introduction to grammar for a 4th/5th grader, if it seems like it will work nicely with the writing you’re wanting to focus on. I don’t want to muddy the waters by throwing out more options, but if you’ve identified a need to make writing a focus next year and want to start laying the groundwork for it now, have you considered taking her through Treasured Conversations? The first section is a very gentle introduction to grammar, and the latter portion gets the kiddo writing in a very painless (and dare I say... fun?) way. You may not *need* to prep for IEW and/or Fix-It next year, but if you think it would be helpful to, I’d just go through TC and call it a day🙂 HTH!
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If she wasn’t required to give a narration at the end, would your 7yo enjoy what you’re doing now? If so, I’d be tempted to stick with what’s working and drop the narrations. If you’re wanting to work on her narration skills, you could always run her through something like WWE, which might give her that practice without killing the joy of history for her🙂 Alternatively, maybe she’d like to narrate another way? By drawing a picture of something from the lesson and explaining it to you, perhaps? Just a couple of thoughts!
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I also wanted to add that in FLL 3, a student workbook is introduced to go along with the regular text. This helps give a visual component as the kid follows along and then applies what they’re learning in the written exercises (no colorful pictures though).
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I’ve used the first three levels of both programs, and I definitely don’t think you need to start from the very beginning. You can find the mastery evaluations for each level of WWE here: http://downloads.peacehillpress.com/pdfs/samples/wwe/wweevaluations.pdf Each evaluation gives you an idea for what type of work is expected of the student at the end of that level; if the kid does well, move on to the next one, etc. This should give you a good feel for where to put them. In terms of FLL, I’ll just say I put my ds9 (with no formal grammar experience) right into FLL 3 last year, and it was totally fine. The pacing is a bit faster than that of other levels, but it starts from the beginning with nouns 🙂
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Thanks everyone. I was gifted a copy earlier this year, so we’re starting this week. So far so good!
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Can anyone share their experience with Analytical Grammar? My ds11 went through Hake 5 last year and it was fine, but level 6 has become a bit of a drudgery. I’m intrigued by Analytical Grammar’s premise that formal grammar study can be completed in three 10-week “seasons”, opening up more time for us to spend on writing, etc. Do you find Analytical Grammar to be “enough”? I don’t want to forgo rigor in the name of convenience, but I do love the idea of knocking out our formal grammar study at the beginning of the year and then spending the rest of the year applying it In the context of writing/editing. Is this too good to be true?😜 If we used AG through 8th grade, would he enter high school good to go, or would we need to follow up with another program?