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Cabertmom

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Everything posted by Cabertmom

  1. Just my two bits--don't let them force you into being induced unless it's what you want or there's a really good reason for it, like not enough amniotic fluid. Not every baby is born within 10 days of his due date, and their estimates of weight are not very accurate at all, so if they tell you the baby is going to weigh 12 pounds, it ain't necessarily so. Mine have been 10 days, 15 days, 19 days, and a record whopping 29 days late. My mom was the same way with the 4 of us. All of them were born healthy in spite of being technically overdue, but the one who was induced under pressure from the OB at 15 days had a ventricular septal defect. I don't know that that's related at all, but since VSD is normal until shortly before birth, one has to wonder if perhaps he would have benefited by waiting to be born until he was ready. I read not long ago that the baby sends a chemical signal to the mother's pituitary gland that says he's ready to go, and that sends the mother into labor. Isn't that awesome? Jumping down off my big soapbox now, LOL.
  2. Oh man, if someone told me when to push while I was in labor, I think I'd be ready to strangle him. To say the least, it would not help with the peace and concentration that is so important to giving birth. However, as someone else noted, if you have an epidural, I think you would have to be directed as to when to push. I had the first two at a hospital with the door opening and closing and a nurse-in-training chatting with my husband about poetry. I had epidurals with them, though that was not my plan originally. I also got in trouble with the staff for falling asleep with my newborn son in my bed, LOL. All of this led me to having the last three with midwives and no epidurals in a quiet dark room. Obviously I'm biased, but I'd say if you have decided to go without the epidural, then your body should know when to push without anyone interfering. In fact, normally it's really hard not to push at the right time. If you push during a contraction and then only, you save your strength, and it's most effective. You probably already know this. However, with my youngest son, the contractions completely came to a standstill after I was completely dilated, so I "directed" my own pushing and had him standing up because he was his heart was slowing a bit so it was important to hurry things along. I'm pretty sure that they would have done an emergency C-section if I had been in a hospital. Glad I wasn't. ;)
  3. We also found http://www.multiplication-games.org/game/48/Fairy-Fun.html yesterday, which my little girly girl really liked. That website has lots of varied games too, which is nice. However, I prefer programs that focus more attention on problems that have been missed rather than just practicing everything. That way, the time is better spent. That's what I like about Timez Attack and now also Math Rider. We got the trial version this morning. I wish it was a bit more varied in terms of what one does, but the concept is neat. Seems like a great deal of borrowing from both Lewis and Tolkien, but as those are two household favorites, that's just great. FWIW, I had my 6-year-old use the addition part of Math Rider, and trying to type the numbers in fast enough sort of stressed him out, so I started having him tell me the answer, and then I typed it. We'll see how it goes over time with both of them. My 12-year-old wanted to do it too, though he really doesn't need the practice, having graduated from Timez Attack. :001_smile:
  4. Thanks everybody for the great suggestions. Mindy, the thing that my dd9 doesn't like about Timez Attack is the intensity as well as the darkness of it. Would you say that Math Rider is also intense-feeling? It doesn't look dark, so that's good.
  5. I just saw this. Granted, the study was so small, one has to wonder about how efficacious it really is, but it's always nice to hear something good about homeschoolers: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110908104009.htm In case you don't have time to follow the link, they took 37 homeschoolers and 37 public-school children. The homeschoolers did significantly better on testing with the exception of unschoolers. It would be interesting to see the same test repeated near the end of high school, including the unschoolers.
  6. I need some suggestions for effective multiplication fact software. We have Timez Attack and used it (belatedly) with the oldest 3 children, and it worked really well. However, my 9-year-old daughter finds it too dark and too stressful. Does anyone have ideas for fun multiplication fact software, websites, or iphone apps? Free is great, but I'm willing to pay if I have to. I already had her make index cards with the facts on them, and we go over those every day, but she continues to have trouble with the same facts. We used Times Tales years ago, but I'm not happy with the results for our kids, though I love the idea. We also have a couple different CDs of multiplication facts set to music, but that hasn't done any good either. Anyway, I need something electronic to help her learn these, leaving me to do other things.:bigear:
  7. I would love to hear the answer to this too as 100 Easy Lessons has become like pulling teeth. We're already doing All about Spelling, though, and Explode the Code so I'm wondering about just getting the reading portion and not the writing portion. I don't want to take over the thread. I would just love to hear other people's experience with PAL so far.
  8. In past years, I've always used some version of a simple checklist with the equivalent of "next" on it. However, this year I've got my own master list to keep ancient history with SOTW for everyone, history with textbooks for the older three, and ancient literature for ages 6 to 16 together. I'm organizing all of it according to the SOTW ancient history chapters since everyone will be involved in that. Science for the younger kids and theology for the oldest two also have something beyond "do the next lesson," but most other subjects are still in the realm of "do the next lesson." I'm trying to figure out a way to put the "do the next thing" items together with the daily or weekly lesson plan type subjects in the simplest way possible with as little repetition of labor as I can. I typically use Excel to do this. I tried HS Tracker, but after putting 60 hours into it, I decided I really don't like the way the daily task list comes out. Any ideas on how to do this for 5 children easily and well, preferably in Excel?
  9. I'm looking at finishing out The Joy of Science biology portion this year plus using either Khan Academy or Brightstorm for biology for my two teens. I'm wondering if anyone has used Khan Academy or Brightstorm for biology and found it to be sufficient. Also, I'm trying to figure out how I would come up with grades. I'm thinking I could have them write a short synopsis of the lecture and grade that. That way, they would each have a brief overview of biology at the end to use for future reference as well. We'll probably add virtual dissection as well at some point. Is there any means of finding out what if any book the lecturers use as their primary source of info? If so, we could get exercises out of that.
  10. We use an ever-evolving weekly schedule with subjects and checklists for each child and an understanding of what one check mark means (1 lesson, 1 hour of reading, etc.), and I also make an Excel spreadsheet to make a weekly plan to make sure we are getting enough done each week to be done by the end of the year. Does that make sense? I prefer doing it in Excel because it's free, I change my method with frequency, I can update it easily, and I can just print out a new one when I lose the paper copy.
  11. How exciting! My 9-year-old has been begging for her own LOF book since we discovered them back in January and started using them for the older kids, but now I'm flumuxed because she just started on MM last March as did my 6-year-old. I don't really want to have 2 math books going at once. For those of you who have already gotten your mitts on these, would you consider using them as stand-alone math books?
  12. Thanks for the support, everyone. You'd think after this many years I wouldn't need it, but I guess we all do now and then. I especially appreciate the reminder from jadedone80: "Not everything in high school has to be grueling to be good enough. :)" I think we'll at least start with it and supplement quite heavily as planned.
  13. Chris, I made an Excel spreadsheet last year and printed the pages into a notebook for each child. Each page has a range of dates with increasingly small ranges as it gets more modern. On each page, there's a column for the date of the event and then a much wider column for what happened then. As they hear a date from SOTW or get it from any other source, they put the date and what went with it in the timeline notebook. Pax Christi, Carla P.S. I've used the pictures from Hannah's help and also just by googling people as well to add to the timeline.
  14. I would recommend that she learn to use the entire Adobe Creative Suite, especially InDesign. She should also learn Illustrator (a drawing program) and Dream Weaver (a web design program). She could do this on her own with the books or tutorials available or at a community college. In order to start using these practically, she could start publishing a family newsletter or some such. The downside is that the software is terribly expensive, but the student versions are much less so.
  15. I actually feel a bit embarrassed asking this question because I know SOTW is intended for elementary ages. Here is our situation, though. We just started using SOTW last year when we were studying modern history. I had the little kids (ages 8 and 5) listen and do the coloring pages. I had the big kids (ages 11, 13, and 15) take notes as they listened to the audio version, enter dates into their indivual notebook timelines, and I was frequently stopping the CD to add to it and talk about things from other perspectives. All in all, it was a pretty good history year, and I felt like everyone learned a great deal (including me). This year, we're going back around again to ancient history. When the oldest kids did ancient history before, it was as part of a co-op (not SOTW), and they don't remember much at all I am sorry to say. Thus it seems to me that learning the facts about history that would be gained from SOTW as a base would be valuable. What does everyone else think? For the oldest 2, I was thinking of using the audio SOTW as we did last year plus assigning corresponding chapters from an ancient history textbook that I already have that is intended for high school plus combining it with reading things Aeschylus and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and some Plato as well. I would probably have my 12-year-old focus more on historical fiction to go along with it like The Bronze Bow, The Golden Goblet, and the Rosemary Sutcliff novels set in Roman Britain. The little kids would just listen to SOTW, and my oldest daughter has agreed to choose and plan an activity from the activity book each week as I am so incredibly uncrafty. I would probably have my 9-year-old do a timeline notebook as well. She started this last year, but I let her stop as she was finding it miserable and difficult. Does this sound reasonable? Has anyone done anything like this? I guess ultimately the reason I want to do SOTW for everyone is that much of history in our home comes from discussions that take place because of what we read and/or listen to together.
  16. I like Rosemary Sutcliffe as well, but another good version is Padraic Collum's The Children's Homer. It actually starts with the Odyssey and works its way back to the Iliad. We're using it as a read-aloud right now.
  17. What about Life of Fred? If you have a "just the facts" sort of son, he might not like it, but if you have someone who enjoys creative fun, he'll love LOF. They are not easy. In fact, the problems really make you think. Instead of being lots of similar problems, each one is different, and the student really has to figure out what he needs to do to solve each problem. At the same time, though, it's so much fun that my kids don't want to put it down and came away with real understanding. Dr. Schmidt has 2 pre-algebra books. The first is pre-algebra with biology (mostly focused on some basic genetics), and the second is pre-algebra with economics. Both should be done and in that order. My 6th grader whizzed through them after doing LOF Fractions and LOF Decimalsm and my 3rd grader can't wait until she's old enough for "fun math." My 6th grader did each book in just about a month, but that's in part because he was taking it to bed with him (and doing all the problems), and he looked forward to doing it very much each day. He was doing Horizons at the same time, so I think finishing both pre-algebra books over summer would be quite doable. Pax Christi, Carla
  18. We have used Analytical Grammar starting in 7th grade with my oldest two, and they are finishing up the last season of it in the next few weeks. I have found it to be very effective. It seems to me that, in spite of the name, the grammar of a language is really a logic-stage subject and not a grammar-stage (memorization) subject. It requires a great deal of analysis to truly understand. Until the children reach that stage, we talk about grammar, and it comes up as they write (IEW mostly), and a certain individual who is writing to you now is pretty neurotic about proper grammar when speaking. In my experience, however, learning formal grammar before the logic stage has been like trying to pour water into a leaky bucket. What the various parts of speech are doesn't really seem to stick until about 7th grade. That could just be my kids, though. I tried using Junior Analytical Grammar with my then 10-year-old son last year and decided to just wait until he was ready for Analytical Grammar. He'll be starting it next fall. I do think studying grammar is extremely important. You can't learn to do even basic things like punctuating properly without it. For example, if you don't know what a noun and a verb are, you can't know what an independent clause is, and if you don't know what an independent clause is, then you won't know that it is necessary to put a comma to separate independent clauses in a sentence. Moreover, as another poster mentioned, you can't possibly get very far in learning another language beyond preschool without an understanding of grammar. It's not that I don't think it's important--I just don't think it's effective until logic stage.
  19. I do some of each. With math, science, history, grammar, and religion, it's a given amount of work--a lesson or a chapter. With reading and piano, it's time. With spelling, it's a certain amount with me (AAS), and with writing (IEW), it's sort of a combination of the two depending on the assignment. I might assign an outline or 1 or 2 paragraphs. Each of the children has a weekly checklist. For most of the children, the checklist is divided by the day, but for my middle child, he works well independently, so there's just a smiley face for each time I want him to do a given amount or time of each subject for the week, and he can choose the order in which he does them.
  20. We used Fallacy Detective and Thinking Toolbox a couple years ago, and I think it would be quite easy to cover both in a year. They are lighthearted, and my boys just sucked them down. I don't agree with all of their "logical" conclusions where Christianity is concerned, but overall, I thought they were good books. Right now, I'm trying to decide whether to use Introductory Logic by Doug Wilson for my 7th, 9th, and 10th graders (which we already have) or whether to get Traditional Logic from Memoria Press. Has anyone used both of these and developed a preference? Is one more advanced than the other, or do they both cover about the same stuff? What about Art of Argument? Does that cover the same material only in a more down-to-earth manner?
  21. I'm looking for recommendations for Italian curricula. We did Rosetta Stone years ago but with absolutely no retention. My kids just figured out how to know the answer without actually learning anything, and I do think that grammar is important. I do speak Italian pretty well (at least I used to), so I can help. Here are the books/programs that I'm currently considering: 1. Italian Now! - looks great, but doesn't have a 2nd year program that I can find 2. Prego - good reviews, but I don't know much else 3. Ciao! - used this in college a million years ago, but I'm worried it may go a little too fast, but could work for 2 years 4. Aurolog/Teach Me More - I think this may be better than Rosetta Stone, but I also think one would have to be very self-motivated for it to work. Not sure we have that here. I'm open to other possibilities. Has anyone used any of these? Good? Bad? Indifferent? What I would love to find is something like Ecce Romani with a consistent story line. I loved that program. I need this for my upcoming 10th grader, 9th grader, and probably 7th grader. I'm planning on using a little kid program of some sort for my 4th grader and 1st grader, and depending on what we end up choosing, I'll figure out where to put my 7th grader.
  22. You know, I do think it's worth learning "proper" Latin pronunciation. As one person noted, it makes it easy to sing, which will probably be fairly useful, and it also makes it easy to figure out how to pronounce things properly in all the romance languages with ease and to learn them more easily as well. The next question is whether to use classical pronunciation or ecclesial. Let me tell you, "Veni, Vidi, Vici" starts to sound pretty ridiculous if v is pronounced like a w and c is pronounced like a k. When you take it as a complete system, it makes a lot of things sound quite absurd. I don't know this for sure, but I have to think it was a created system based just to be different from ecclesial Latin pronunciation. On the other hand, ecclesial Latin is really the same pronunciation as modern Italian (giving it yet another use). It's also more elegant and more universally useful. Here's a quick rundown that I'm just making up as I go along for how to pronounce it. I'm just going to include the letters that are pronounced differently than they are in English: a - all c - when followed by e or i, it says ch as in church. When followed by a, o, or u, it says c as in cake e - eggplant g - follows same rules as c--says j when followed by e or i and g as in garage when followed by a, o, or u i - radio o - orange u - tube ae - eggplant What am I missing here? Hope this helps someone.
  23. I'm wondering the same thing. It looks like the best of the Montessori method in many ways.
  24. I actually think Life of Fred could be helpful. I often find my kids making "dumb" mistakes--things I know they are capable of doing--when they are bored. My 6th grader just zipped through LOF Decimals in a matter of days because he liked it so much. An alternative would be just to watch him do a problem step by step and have him tell you as he goes just what he's doing. That way, you can see where the problem lies.
  25. Well, I guess I could say that our experience was the opposite. The kids spent a year of diligent effort and only got just over halfway through Jacobs Algebra. LOF is going very well in comparison, and my daughter is pretty much over the problem I previously mentioned about worrying whether a differently worded answer is still correct (when it is). I can definitely see how not working through the problems wholeheartedly before looking at the answers could be a big problem for some kids. You mentioned going back to algebra I for a child struggling in LOF geometry, but they are so different. Do you feel like your child got algebra? If so, I'm wondering if supplementing with something very straightforward might help. I wish I could help. We'll be using LOF Geometry next year. I can't tell you how great it is to have kids who actually look forward to doing math rather than dreading it. My 6th grader is finishing LOF Fractions and was doing it on Saturday because he wanted to. Let us know what you come up with.
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