Eilonwy
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Posts posted by Eilonwy
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Recent hits: ULAT for French, at least for one kid, other one I’m not sure about at the moment. AOPS Prealgebra is going better than expected for my oldest, and she’s steadily going through it. Middle School Chemistry from ACS is also going well, as is the DSD exam prep at the German Saturday School.
Tried and true: Virtual trip around the world, reading books and watching videos from every continent, and Beast Academy for the younger two is still going fine. Reading practice with them reading Harry Potter out loud. Still working about once a week on math operations with place value counters for my youngest. History with SWB’s books.
Misses: CAP’s French for Children B starts moving way too fast about halfway through the book (too much verb conjugation without enough practice) so we’re doing extra review and videos from Francais avec Pierre (all speaking in French with subtitles). But we’ll add the book back in once the new verbs are solid, so it’s not too dire.
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We do German and French instead of Latin. German in particular has lots of grammar concepts to learn that don’t occur in English, and French has Latin roots. We’re currently using a mix of CAP’s French for Children and the ULAT for French, and the local German Saturday school plus my native-speaker partner for German. I don’t know Latin myself, and it has far fewer speakers than these two modern languages, so they made more sense for us.
Latin is, in my mind, an “enthusiast” subject, so I think it would be great for those who want to but I can’t really imagine most people considering your kids “less” if they didn’t do Latin, especially if you substituted with something like grammar, roots, or modern languages.-
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On 8/29/2021 at 11:02 PM, wendyroo said:
I really like how he uses pictures and movements to cue students about various words and language structures instead of any spoken or written English. That method helps the student think in the target language rather than always translating from English, and when one of my kids mis-conjugates a verb or forgets a reflexive pronoun, I can easily cue them with the hand gesture and they self-correct.
@wendyroo, thanks so much for recommending ULAT. We’ve been spending time on this twice a week since September, and it is working out really well for my two younger kids. They practice with each other. The hand gestures do help to give cues without speaking English, and the frequent listening and speaking practice is really good too. It’s a great program.
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16 hours ago, Lori D. said:
Whew! Your child is older than I thought -- I was guessing about 10yo, since Oliver Twist is in the 5th grade AO booklist... 😉
For Dickens... If you haven't done A Christmas Carol (and then enjoy the Muppets Christmas Carol -- a number of lines straight out of the book)She’s older enough that I thought we had already added the necessary offset time for the AO booklist. I may try your Christmas Carol suggestion with her and also her 10 and 7 yo siblings, thanks!
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18 hours ago, Lori D. said:
BUT, you're getting CLEAR signals here from your children to put this book away and go for something that is much more age-appropriate and interesting. There is a real risk of killing a love of books and reading by continuing to trudge through book after book that is above a children's reading level, interest level, and maturity level.
I think we’re going to switch to Pride & Prejudice and see if that is more enjoyable. We read and enjoyed Lorna Doone recently, even though it took months. It also had a fairly graphic murder of a toddler by the Doones, though, that I cut out for the most part. Our current literature theme is English lit written between 1750 and about 1850, so these ones are old books although we do read lots of newer ones as well. We’re not using AO as a curriculum; I’ve just looked at their booklists from time to time for ideas. I thought at this point that I had waited 4 grades already, but oh well! Thanks for the reinforcement that this really just wasn’t a winner right now.
On 10/27/2021 at 11:30 AM, WTM said:I edited the murder scene when I read it aloud to make it less disturbing. In retrospect I would have waited (my kid was younger) but I think she could handle it at 13 (with lots of discussion
I did read the murder scene and it made me feel sick- no way that’s suitable for right before bed for my 13 yo. Thanks for the heads-up on that! She is fine with switching books. Maybe we’ll read a synopsis so she isn’t left wondering.
14 hours ago, WTM said:I will credit North’s Plutarch (AO’s recommendation) for getting DD comfortable enough with archaic language that Shakespeare was a pretty easy transition. But otherwise we found we would need to tweak the lists a lot.
We haven’t tried Plutarch, though we’ve done a fair bit of Shakespeare. However, it’s been Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, not Othello. She’s fine with the level of the language but the content hasn’t worked. Maybe a different Dickens another time.
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On 10/27/2021 at 11:30 AM, WTM said:
It gets darker- there is a graphic domestic violence related murder. When we read it, we did so with a lot, a lot of discussion about the disturbing issues encountered in the book — anti semitism, child labor, child abused, domestic violence, etc. I edited the murder scene when I read it aloud to make it less disturbing. In retrospect I would have waited (my kid was younger) but I think she could handle it at 13 (with lots of discussion) . Would your child be curious to finish the book if you decide to stop?
Maybe I should pre-read the murder. I knew it was there but not that it was graphic. Sikes’ repeated abuse of Nancy has already turned up.
I don’t think she is that into the story. She finds it really grim and heavy, especially right before bed, which is our only reliable reading time. We are still reading it, but I think we could just agree to abandon it. Move on to Pride & Prejudice, or Gulliver’s Travels, or even The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I’m joking on the last one, kind of, but it didn’t seem darker. Some of the same themes…I really don’t understand why Ambleside Online has this in the elementary booklist. It seems to me to be completely inappropriate. But maybe I have sensitive kids.
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7 hours ago, cintinative said:
We have not started any Dickens yet. I am leaning toward David Copperfield though. I had considered Oliver Twist because it is shorter but I like the story of David Copperfield and decided to give that one an attempt. We are going to work though some other stuff first though.
At this point, I’d definitely recommend going with the story you like. But maybe it gets better…
I’m reading Pickwick Papers on the side myself, and it is much lighter, even though the main character ends up in jail and the courts are unjust.
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Update on Dickens progress following discussion on this thread: currently about a third of the way through Oliver Twist with my 13 yo (read aloud). And it is grim, grim, grim. Between the child abuse and anti-semitism on every page, we’re not sure we should keep going. For anyone that has read it with a young teen, does it get better?
Or should we bail out now?
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On 9/20/2021 at 4:18 PM, kristin0713 said:
The new info is presented very quickly and the textbook has no translation. (Is that typical of a high school textbook?)
On 9/20/2021 at 5:44 PM, Arcadia said:For my kids’ german Saturday class, the kids who are going for AP German and the Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz would use german only textbooks and materials.
The local adult complete beginners Saturday School class uses the Hueber Schritte International textbook and it is German only with no glossary. So is my daughter’s Cornelsen Prima Plus textbook. She’s planning to take the DSD1 exam this year.
I think it might be common. They try to use pictures to get the ideas across.
After a series of presentations, I can also imagine that most of the kids were just tired and wouldn’t have taken in any more. That could be a fairly intense class, even if it’s short. Hope it improves for you!
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13 hours ago, Sk8ermaiden said:
He took the Saxon placement test and easily tested into 6th grade math. 🥰 So he's doing Saxon 7/6 at the school and finding it very manageable. He was telling his mom the other day that he got all the problems in class right, and then the teacher put two "challenge" problems on the board and he got them both right too. He said, "Maybe I am not actually bad at math."
That’s wonderful, so glad it worked out!
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I think the usefulness really depends on if your main mental model of division is that x/y means you are splitting x into y equal groups and the answer is how many one group gets (which is what I use mainly), or that it means splitting x into some number of groups of size y, and the answer is how many groups. If it’s the second model, then repeated subtraction could be quite useful and intuitive. If it’s the first model, it’s not much help at all.
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zombie 🧟♀️… though an interesting question
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17 hours ago, jboo said:
I thought Wiliams's was pretty good but gosh, it was pretty inappropriate as well. For example, the butt-kissing scene in The Miller's Tale shows up. In fairness, an appropriate version of Chaucer would have to leave out a lot of the stories.
True, the butt-kissing scene is in there…I was wondering if I should include a warning about that. It didn’t seem like my kids thought about it all that much, though, just to the potty humour extent of being super gross.
In terms of language, Ackroyd’s version is less appropriate, but like you noted, quite a few of the stories have questionable scenes.
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My kids really enjoyed a comic-strip style version by Marcia Williams that we read last year.
I’m currently making my way through Peter Ackroyd’s prose translation, though this is definitely not appropriate for elementary children!-
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1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:
So, I’m sure than my kids’ sulking and inability to listen are temporary, but realistically, part of self-care for me has been to realize that it’s OK to admit that they don’t work for ME, and that it works best for all of us to have consequences for them. Because otherwise, what happens is that I suppress my feelings about them and then I eventually explode. And that’s much worse than having more rigid boundaries that help us function.
In my previous post, in addition to time, I have found so far that it takes putting in limits & consequences, enforced as supportively and calmly as possible at that time, over and over again over that time while their brains sloooowly mature and then over time it gets better, not that it is simply a matter of waiting. It's just that the limits don't immediately become internalized by kids, so it also takes time. It's especially not a matter of just waiting when you are sacrificing your own self-care to the point that you can no longer do things supportively.
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@WTM, it sounds like you are taking lots of positive steps, and I really hope this will start to bear fruit for you. Best wishes for improving your family situation successfully in the longer term. The pandemic seems to me too to have been really hard on support relationships, so I hope this will also get easier.
I had a time a few years ago when everything parenting seemed insurmountable, but it has gotten a lot better since and my kids' development seems to help enormously in that, as well as talking to myself differently and making more time for self-care (not baths, chocolate or wine, but daily gratitude exercises, physical exercises, and more sleep).
On 8/30/2021 at 1:57 PM, Not_a_Number said:I'm sort of terrified of what DD9 is going to be like as a teen 😕 . She's ALREADY a pill. She's totally missing the people-pleasing gene and always wants to do exactly what she wants. And she's terrible at knowing what she is and isn't able to do (this sadly comes from DH, which has also been an issue), so it's also quite hard to troubleshoot with her.
@Not_a_Number, don't lose hope at this point! With one of my kids, 9 was the worst year of all, and she too is not a people pleaser and at that time was very prickly and just pushing against everything all the time. I've seen amazing development in her over the past 4 years, as she works out what she needs or wants and now makes realistic plans to do it. The increased ability for her to do the things she wants to has really helped, and now we get along quite well. That doesn't mean we won't have another period of difficulty in her teen years, but 4 years have done wonders and we are solid for now. You've got some time before 13 and yours could follow a similar path. At least, I hope this will get easier for you too!
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3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:
Yes, they are both more into structure than puzzles
Hmm, interesting, this might be a useful clue as to how well BA will fit a given kid. I’m definitely curious about how they’ll approach level 1. It makes sense to me to have a consistent program all the way up, hopefully it’ll have lots of place value.
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1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:
I think just like math as a way of thinking about the world? I'm not sure. I was a very puzzle-y kid and they are not. When I get the jigsaw puzzles out, I'm the main one doing them 😛 .
Yes, it could be they see it as something more structural than playful, if that’s what you’re getting at. My kids are more into puzzles than I am.
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Just now, Not_a_Number said:
My kids are kind of meh on jigsaw puzzles, it's true. And are impatient with other puzzles, too. I think they take after DH in this way.
Mine all got an introduction to jigsaw puzzles with their grandmother, who gave them jigsaws for their birthdays several years in a row and then did them together when she came to visit.
It sounds like your girls probably do see different things in math than primarily puzzles. But it’s not like people have to be puzzle-motivated.
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1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:
I do think my kids are remarkably not into puzzles for some reason. Or maybe they just think of all math as a puzzle?
Maybe, but mine like jigsaw puzzles, sudoku puzzles, crossword puzzles, riddles…so the pattern is clear!
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21 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:
Yeah, I think that's the best way to use it -- as a way to review concepts already fairly well internalized. And as a way to get faster at them and to get deeper understanding. I think they would have been too frustrating for DD9 as an introduction to concepts, and DD9 is an extremely mathy kid who was doing high school math in grade 3.
We have used it as the introduction for quite a number of concepts, and for some of them it’s worked well, but in others we hit big roadblocks. My kids all like puzzles, though, I believe more than yours do. I have been (over the past 6 months) supplementing/preparing with more basic concepts earlier, which has been very helpful. Unfortunately, though, I can only work on one thing at a time, so if I put a push on French as planned, I know extra math will fall off the table…I wish I could do all the things!
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On 8/29/2021 at 11:02 PM, wendyroo said:
The online activities that correspond to each video are very low tech (and still avoid all English). Most have the students speaking - the course is entirely pictorial and verbal for a long time. They might listen, repeat, name objects pictured, do hand gestures that correspond to verbs, form statements, form questions, answer questions, etc. My young kids sometimes want to try the activities, but I don't push them until they are 7ish.
I tried the first lesson with the two kids, with mixed reviews. He goes through the lesson, and then through the activities in the video. I’m not sure if he does this for all the activities or just when he’s explaining the different kinds of activities. If he keeps that up, do you get your kids to watch him do it and then do it themselves, or just do it themselves and check the video of the activity if confused? My 10 year old found it too repetitive, but I think it was also that he couldn’t understand very much yet. Also, do you find the timers useful and get your kids to time themselves?
I really like that ULAT is so focused on verbal French. I think CAP’s French for Children is good for understanding grammar but not so good at listening and speaking and that’s a hole in my older child’s French ability.
13 hours ago, TheAttachedMama said:I would suggest that you first teach them to speak and listen/understand French. (The same way we often learn our first language.). When they have a foundation in that, I would then add in writing and reading. I've had GREAT success with Paul Noble products. They are available on audible. We used the product for adults, but he now has a new program for kids.
Thanks, @TheAttachedMama, this does make sense as a strategy and I’ll have a look at Paul Noble’s materials.
On 8/30/2021 at 8:13 AM, HomeAgain said:We were able to pair both with Telefrancais on youtube, also produced in Canada, and each of those helped to extend the vocabulary after it was learned in the above programs.
We could definitely do this, thanks for the idea. I found the Julie et Sami books too, and I see what you mean about the grey for silent letters, that’s clever.
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On 8/31/2021 at 3:22 PM, MeaganS said:
I'm not making things up, right? They weren't originally planning on a level one?
I got that impression too, that level 2 was the beginning. My kids are all older than this now, but I’m really curious how they will do level 1.
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44 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:
Nallenart's Art de Lire worked well here for a few years. A level provides enough material for 2-3 days a week, IIRC, so you can definitely do two levels in a year if you wanted. I bought the pdfs because shipping from Canada would have been outrageous. I liked that it focused on phonics in units.
You can try Getting Started With French. Not on the computer, not too grammar heavy, and you can do it orally at your own speed.
Thanks, @HomeAgain, I’ll have a look at both of these. Is Art de Lire story-based?
ETA: Phonics focus would be really suitable for my 10 year old. He needed quite a bit of phonics instruction to learn to read English, and he really liked the clear rules.
We are in Canada anyway so shipping wouldn’t be too bad. I need to start the younger two on French so that they can communicate with the francophones in our province.
ETA: How far does Getting Started go compared with Art de Lire?
Omicron anecdata?
in The Chat Board
Posted · Edited by Eilonwy
I’m certain I will know some people within days. We had a superspreader event (confirmed Omicron) recently and each day’s case numbers are approximately 50% greater than the previous. But our public health people said we’re at capacity for testing now so I expect we won’t know the true numbers going forward. Hospitalizations haven’t risen yet, but if the entire province is exposed within the next 3-4 weeks, well….
The people here are highly double-vaxxed with mRNA, but kids only got the chance to start the series 2 weeks ago, and boosters are currently available to over-60s, immunocompromised and health care workers. I firmly support prioritizing the most vulnerable, but I feel like we’re a little behind, and case numbers are rising so fast there is really no time to do more.