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Kidlit

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Posts posted by Kidlit

    What does your dc use to listen to audiobooks?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I'm thinking about the future and how eventually when my four year old daughter gives up naps, I want to have a plan in place for maintaining a quiet time. I'd love for her to listen to audiobooks, but because I have a younger dd who will still be napping, I'm hesitant to start something that might be distracting to little sis. Does anyone have a kid-friendly portable, personal CD player that you recommend? I'm thinking along the lines of the old Walkman, only for CDs.:tongue_smilie:

    Chapter books on Kindness

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    How about Molly's Pilgrim? It's especially appropriate since we're sort of close to Thanksgiving. How about The Hundred Dresses? I'm not sure what age the children in the co-op are, but these woul work well with lower to middle elementary, I think.

     

    ETA: Ooh, now I see that you said it's upper second grade. I'm not sure what the reading levels of these books are. HTH anyway.

    Fireproof!

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    DH and I saw it last night. The theater was packed--sold out! We ordered our tickets online Thursday night at the recommendation of my MIL who had heard that it was selling out in a lot of places. I loved it. Of course, I loved Kirk Cameron as a teen. :D I thought it was well done. I cried most of the way through it, but then, I'm usually an emotional mess when it comes to anything that involves others' emotions, so I'm not sure that's a good indication of anything.:tongue_smilie:

    Do English and Humanities teachers in schools grade papers anymore?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I'm really just a lurker here; my dc are nowhere near high school age. However, I think perhaps I can shed a little light on this. I have taught both public high school history and English, and I currently teach freshman composition at a cc. I must admit that in my early years of teaching, I did not assign enough writing, especially in my English classes. However, I primarily taught history, and I did require my students to summarize newspaper or magazine articles as well as respond in writing to essay questions on their tests. I am fairly certain I was one of the only history teachers who did much of this and actually tried to grade it. The students' writing skills varied from decent to dreadful, with most of them falling more toward the negative end of the spectrum. I did try to give them a clue as to why they missed a question, even if that meant only going over the expected response when I went over the test. Mind you, I even gave the essay questions out ahead of time. Now that I am older and more seasoned as a teacher (and now as a parent, which is definitely the better of the two teachers), I'm sure I'd do things a little differently. However, some of what I did was because that's how things were done at the school where I taught. Expectations and standardization and all that jazz, you know.

     

    Now that I teach freshman comp, I grade a whole lot of essays (i.e. this semester I have about 75 students, and they will write a total 4-6 essays each--one class will also do a research paper). I give my students two grades, one for grammar/mechanics and one for content. I try to specify, especially on the content portion, what they could do to make their paper better. I'm not sure that I always communicate it well. For the grammar portion, they have a handout that details how many points each type of error will count. It's still by no means a perfect system. I still struggle a lot in my grading, and I still try to grade somewhat holistically, especially as we the semester progresses. I also try to make specific comments to the class on the day I return their essays about errors that were commonly made.

     

    I'm not sure I answered the OP, but maybe I provided a little bit of insight.

     

    And now, I'm off to grade essays.:tongue_smilie:

    Need some advice on going mostly TV-free with small kids

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    My girls have never watched much tv. We get the occasional video or dvd from the library, but I would say that even with that, they watch no more than 2 hours a week. Usually it's less than that (if I can manage to avoid the videos/dvds on our weekly trip to the library). I don't know much about breaking the habit, but I do know that my girls stay busy all day long. Now granted, they do their fair share of fighting, whining, etc., but it's nothing unmanageable (most days--remind me that I said that tomorrow!:tongue_smilie:). I think it's just a habit that you have to break, but once it's broken, they don't miss it.

     

    I also work from home part-time, but I usually only work when the girls are napping or resting or when DH is home. He's great to take them outside or over to his mom's for a while.

    What are you reading aloud with your children?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    We're reading the original Winnie the Pooh right now. I can't say my girls, ages 4 and 2, are loving it, but usually my four year old will ask for another chapter when we finish one. By far their favorite read aloud so far has been Charlotte's Web, with Stuart Little and Mary Poppins coming in a close second and third.

     

    I think we're going to read A Cricket in Times Square next.

     

    I'd forgotten about Patricia M. St. John. I LOVED her books as a child. I've got most of them around here somewhere. We'll have to give them a whirl.

     

    Great thread!:001_smile:

    Movie recommendations, please!

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    DH and I are having a date night in tonight--DMIL is taking the girls off our hands! We thought we'd like to watch a movie, and since we haven't done that in ages, we're really at a loss as to what to get. We like clean stuff (usually nothing over PG:blush: because neither of us can tolerate gratuitous ANYTHING or lots of bad language) and old stuff. So hit me with your best suggestions!

    Reading help/direction needed

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Thanks, Laurel. I think many times I get too excited for my own (and my dds' own) good. :blush: We read aloud a lot, and dd has always loved this. In fact, the first thing she wants to do every morning is "read a book." I think because of this I have always expected her to pick up and read with no problem at all. What I'm having to realize is that for almost everyone, it is a process. I think I will hold myself back just a little and give her a month or two to catch up. Thanks!

     

    Anyone else care to weigh in?

    Reading help/direction needed

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I have been formally working with my four year old dd (she is 4 years and 4 months, to be exact) for about a month now. We have been learning the consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds. So far, we have learned /m/, /v/, /c/, /f/, /s/, /b/, /g/, /t/, and /a/. She gets all the sounds very well. In fact, I would not hesitate to say the she already knows the sounds of all the letters of the alphabet. Because she recognizes them so well, I started spelling cvc words and helping her sound them out. She does okay with this, although it usually takes my sounding them out for her to recognize what they are. We also do Starfall on the computer and she has a pre-K workbook from Target that she does. However, last week, because I was curious about whether or not she could do it, I had her read the first Bob book. While I would not say it clicked with her, she was determined to finish reading it. I sense that we are definitely at her frustration level here. We did the first Bob book again today, and she mainly tried to look at the pictures and figure out the sentences. She grew frustrated if I covered up the pictures. I'm sort of at a loss now as to what to do. I don't want my over-zealousness to hinder her learning at her own pace, but then again, I don't want to back off just because it's hard. I realize that she's only four and therefore is really ahead of where anyone expects her to be. Should I purchase some sort of formal reading curriculum so that I'm more systematic and have a guide? I need some gentle guidance here. :confused:

    Has anyone taken the no nonsense approach to potty training?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I'm not sure that I'm the best person to answer this since I have an almost-three year old whom I cannot remember to take to the potty regularly, but here's my two cents, FWIW:

     

    I potty trained my eldest dd for an entire year, or at least that's what it seemed like. I finally reached the conclusion that she'd do it when she was ready, which was about three years old, for her.

     

    My youngest dd actually used the potty (pooped almost all the time, even tinkled occasionally) before she was two, due, I'm sure, to older sister's influence. However, on the day that I babysat a friend's almost one-year-old, I watched my then two-and-a-half year old regress before my very eyes. Jealousy is a very powerful emotion! Now she uses the potty sometimes, mainly when we put her up there. I'm trying to be relaxed about it.

     

    I guess you could say that I feel that the relaxed approach is the best, but I have a hard time restraining myself.;)

    I'm not sure I can do this. . .

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Oh, yes, we have an enforced rest time every day here. DD4 usually goes to sleep, even though she later denies it.:001_smile: I still rock dd2 to sleep. I refuse to give up this time, even when they are really too old for it. I think they'll eventually listen to a book on tape during this time.

     

    I know that homeschooling really is a matter of the heart. It's just so hard for me to completely make up my mind about it (not really my mind, but you know what I mean) and not be assailed with doubts at the next turn. DH reminds me that we just have to take it one year at a time. That's what I'm going to TRY to do.

     

    Thank you, ladies, for discussing this with me!:grouphug:

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