Homeschooling2or3
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Posts posted by Homeschooling2or3
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We don't have any experience with Blue Tent, but we do with the CLRC Lit & Comp class. It is excellent! my DS learned a lot, it pulled him up, and although he complained along the way about the amount of work, towards the end he asked if Ms. Carman has any other classes he could take. A definite winner for us.
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I am looking for an online art class for a grade 9 boy with little experience in art. We prefer an actual live (online) class with a teacher vs. video-based classes, as he will need feedback and support.
I searched this forum but didn't find much. We already looked at the Aim Academy class (the time doesn't work for us) and the CLRC classes (he prefers something that includes painting, not just drawing).
Any leads are welcome!
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13 hours ago, ScoutTN said:
Lantern English
Write at Home
Thank you for listing these options. They are both asynchronous. I prefer something with live meetings with teacher and a group of kids.
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After two years of trying, I realize I need to outsource teaching how to write to my grade 8 boy. There is nothing wrong with his abilities, it is just that I am stretched so thin with other subjects, another homeschool kid, and a job, that writing seems to always fall through the cracks.
To that end, I am looking for an option with an actual teacher, synchronous meetings once or twice a week, teacher feedback and grading etc. I checked out WTM Academy Expository 1 and Online G3 classes. Any other options I could look into? Any experience with any online classes?
Thank you.
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6 hours ago, PeterPan said:
What tests were done? Did you post about this on LC? And how old is she now? If you have the test results, we could talk you through them. My ds was diagnosed with his SLDs at 6 and it *can* be done but often isn't. Being super bright does not mean there's not an SLD. Given that it's affecting her view of herself and seems discrepant, it would be reasonable to assume something is going on. The reason it matters is because there can often be some more things that go with it, even if the reading comes in. And if there's not a phonological processing difficulty, you'd like to know *what else* is explaining it. For instance, my dd was kind of crunchy in the beginning and it turned out she had convergence issues (developmental vision) that we didn't realize. We later ended up doing vision therapy for it.
So what you might want to do is review her evals, see if anything got missed, and then consider other *screenings* or evals to make sure there's not another explanation. My dd's convergence issues were affecting her visual memory, which was why we had to work SO HARD on fluency and spelling. We fixed that and boom. She also had some retained reflexes and a dab of auditory processing (dichotic listening) issues. Top ACT scores btw, quite smart, but she needed those helps.
Regarding the testing, I don't actually have written results, they were shared with us in a meeting (long story why we don't have it in writing, but I will ask for it - I feel not everything you mentioned was tested).
6 hours ago, PeterPan said:Why is WWE going slowly? It's hard or you're using the workbook that expects writing?
WWE - we started on it late in the year, so didn't finish it. Towards the end of last year it also seemed she got bored with it. But she did it just fine, though the copy work included words beyond her reading level.
6 hours ago, PeterPan said:7 hours ago, Homeschooling2or3 said:listening to SOTW
How is this going? Can she narrate what she hears or reads about? How are her narrations?
SOTW is going great, she can answer questions and narrate no problem.
6 hours ago, PeterPan said:8 hours ago, Homeschooling2or3 said:Hebrew
How is this going?
Like English, she started on it in kindergarden and was never able to catch on to the reading. I dropped it last year when we first homeschooled to focus on English, but I want to introduce it again this year.
6 hours ago, PeterPan said:You want to create a language rich environment because she's missing the language input that she would get by reading. While she is not yet eye reading, you want to ramp up ear reading, read alouds, oral language instruction, etc. Ear reading is typically ⅓ the speed of eye reading, so she's going to need MORE HOURS to keep up with the language acquisition of her peers. Her vocabulary and syntax growth will slow if she does not get this input.
Thank you for your insights, appreciate it a lot.
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My 2nd/3rd daughter has struggled with reading since kindergarten. She was always the youngest in her class (Dec 23rd when the cutoff is Dec 31st), which might be part of it. Covid erupted when she was in 1st grade and she finished that year not reading. Last year (2nd grade) we homeschooled and did AAR level 1. It went slowly, but we finished level 1 and she now can decode any words that correspond to what was taught in AAR level 1, though doesn't read fluently.
(We got her evaluated at the end of 1st grade. She doesn't have any learning disability they could detect at 6.5 years old, if anything, she is above average in most areas tested).
This year, we are continuing with AAR level 2, but I would like to accelerate the reading, because it is affecting her self esteem ("all my friends already know how to read"), as well as expand on LA in age-appropriate ways. Also, last year I found we didn't do AAR every day - it was hard so she tried to avoid it some days, and I didn't insist every time. To add variety and support the learning, I was thinking of adding one or a couple of the following:
1. Explode the Code, starting in book 2 as a review and covering 2 more books
2. FLL level 1 - I looked through it and it seems to be too slow and basic for her, but I could use it, one week on one week off, in the off weeks continue with WWE1 which we started last year but only got half way thru.
3. Lightning Lit & Comp - grade 2 (she loves reading books with me)
4. Bookshark LA grade 1
5. WriteShop Junior B (she loves the idea of "publishing" a book)
My questions:
1. Which curricula can work well with AAR2, support the reading process and expand on it?
2. If she is still learning to read, should I even bother with grammar, spelling, writing etc?
3. How many minutes of LA in a day is enough? too much? her attention span is not great, and also we are doing math, science, history (listening to SOTW) and Hebrew.
Thank you.
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On 7/30/2021 at 7:25 PM, Plagefille said:
We like the Basics of Critical Thinking from Critical Thinking Co
We used Basics of Critical Thinking in grade 6 and loved it.
I am actually looking at what to do with him in grade 7. I with CTC had a next level for this book.
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6 hours ago, Lori D. said:
Welcome!
Since you are transitioning this student into homeschooling, and it sounds like you are only needing literature to finish out this school year (from your statement: "Given that there are only a few months left to the school year...") -- I lean towards @regentrude's suggestion. For the rest of the spring/school year, just pick some high interest books and just have fun discussing together a few times during the reading and then at the end.
I do differ, in that an individual lit. guide to go with the individual book can give you some ideas for background info on the author/times/work or questions to springboard you into discussion. But we only ever used excerpts from guides and discussed orally -- no pencil to paper. as there is no need for killing the enjoyment of the book with "busywork". 😉
What type of literature is your student interested in? We could help you come up with a good booklist, plus some possible individual guides to help with information and ideas for discussion and/or activities... 😄If "DIY" is not a good option for you, and a literature program is preferred, I can provide some info or personal experience for some of your Lit. choices -- I will just add that if purchasing just to finish out the school year of 9th grade, LL8 or EiL9 are expensive to only use a portion of a full-year program...
Lightning Lit. 8
We used this with both DSs -- one did it in 8th, and the struggling writer did it in 9th. If you have a strong reader, you will definitely finish more quickly than the 36-week schedule. You can also just use selected units. If a student has never done any "digging deeper", LL is a very gentle guided intro into literary analysis and beginning formal literature study. If the student has done previous literary analysis/formal studies, then LL will probably feel light, and like busywork.Each of the 12 units has an 8-10 page lesson with information about a literary element or literature topic, and then there are 10 work pages which put the literary lesson aspect into practice, or has some beginning analysis on a short excerpt from a classic work of literature. While each unit does contain 2 "busywork" pages (a crossword and a word search), and some work pages are not as clearly needed or helpful as others, some of the work pages are quite useful for the beginning guided analysis.
You could pick and choose which units you want to do -- the second half of the program has much more of the guided analysis in the work pages than the first half. Not that it means your student would be similar, but my DSs didn't care for the poetry units (neither is fond of poetry), and neither cared for the first 2 short stories. They really enjoyed all the rest of the literature and the program overall.
The program covers:
- 3 short stories = "A Crazy Tale", "Wakefield", "Reflections"
- 3 unites of poetry, with about 5-6 poems per unit
- 6 longer works = The Hobbit (fantasy), A Christmas Carol (fantastical), Treasure Island (adventure), To Kill a Mockingbird (realistic), A Day of Pleasure (nonfiction/memoir), My Family and Others (nonfiction/memoir)
Essentials in Lit. 9
No personal experience, but compared to what I cover in my Lit. & Writing co-op classes what this program covers seems quite light. However, if you're just planning on using parts of it to finish out this year, then that could work. Just a quick skim of the sample videos, it seems like he includes talking about Writing as part of the Literature... Don't know how that fits in with what you need/want... Over the course of the year, EiL9 covers the following (with daily video lessons of info -- so you may want to skip or just pull excerpts from those) :
- 7 short stories
- 5 nonfiction short selections
- 1 novel = The Hobbit
- 16 poems
LLATL Gold
We used just a few excerpts from the American Lit. and British Lit. programs. These programs were disappointingly very light to us. There is very little "teaching info" on literary devices or literature topics, only a few comprehension-type of questions per work, and almost no discussion-type of questions. There are suggested projects/activities for the student to pursue independently. When those suggestions are papers, there is no real guidance in how to go about the writing and there is no rubric to help the student in knowing what has to be in the paper, nor a grading rubric for parent. No personal experience with the World Lit. program, but from the table of contents, it looks a bit meatier in how much literature is covered -- don't know about if it has more instructional information or discussion questions. LLATL Gold is a program would best fit a student who likes to work independently and is self-motivated to do research and dig deeper on their own.____________________________
Not to disrupt your decisions 😉 but you did ask for comments 😄 so here are a few other thoughts beyond your Literature...
re: History
I totally understand the need for gentle due to the anxiety/depression, but what about something extra for your 9th grader to to do in addition to joining your younger students for Bookshark G? Some historical fiction of her own perhaps? Or a spine text that is a bit meatier than the gr. 1-5 level Story of the World vol. 1 and 2 (which I suspect she might find boring and babyish?)?
re: Writing
How comfortable are you with teaching writing? And, how will your DD receive feedback/scoring from you? I teach Writing & Literature at our homeschool co-op, and over and over I hear from parents that "she/he will write for you, but not for me". Or, "she/he can't receive any instruction or comments on her/his writing from me." At the tween/teen ages, writing becomes a big head-butting area for many families, as MANY students take parent comments as criticism of their personal thoughts put down into writing, rather than as needed feedback on the structure and the writing process -- so they often do better with an outsourced instructor for writing.All that to say... one thing you might consider for writing next year is Lantern English -- very gentle, $60 for 8-week course, and they have a great series of courses to guide the student through essay writing. You might even consider starting this summer, as a "summer bridge" type of class. Sign up for the summer session opens May 24 and the classes run June 14-Aug. 2.
Another option, if you go with Essentials in Literature, is to also do their Essentials in Writing and sign up for their scoring service. That fills up quickly, so that would need to be a decision about writing that would need to be made soon. It looks like you could go with level 9, or possibly level 10, if she completes Wordsmith this year and it gets her up and running with solid paragraph and multi-paragraph writing.
Wordsmith
DS#1 used this one, and even at an easy pace he finished in less than 1 school year. Mostly independent (written to the student), but it is a pretty light -- geared for grades 6-8, but more on the remedial side for an 8th grader. The focus is on writing individual paragraphs of different types, and then moving into a few multi-paragraph essays at the end. It is definitely gentle, and if needing to get comfortable with writing regularly and writing a paragraph or more at a time, this could be a good fit for finishing out your year.If Wordsmith seems like it would be lighter than you need, you might look at Jump In, which is like a meatier version of Wordsmith. While it is Christian, it is not pervasive, and is mostly mentioned in some of the suggestions for writing assignments. The program was very helpful for my struggling writer DS#2 in figuring out what to write and how to organize his thoughts.
BEST of luck as you transition a 3rd student into your homeschooling! Warmest regards, Lori D.Thank you for the wealth of information, the comments and the suggestions. All very appreciated!
About Literature:
Your comments on LLATL were spot on, so probably not a good choice for us. I like what I see of LL 8, but I am not sure how to get it in Canada (anyone knows?). So perhaps I will go with the individual books idea.
DD is interested in fantasy, mystery, and adventure books. She loved Harry Potter, Percy Jackson. She recently read an Agatha Christie and enjoyed it, she might be willing to read a Jane Austen, or the Hobbit. She hated the Animal Farm (they did it at school). I don't think she would want at this point to read anything with a very heavy subject matter. If I go with 2-3 books till the end of the year, what would you recommend? whose guides are better - https://stores.progenypress.com/ or https://blackbirdandcompany.com/? did anyone try https://www.hidethechocolate.com/book-club-landing-page/ ?
About history:
Very good point on needing something extra for her in addition to the Bookshark G. Any ideas what could work? for now, she is not very interested in the historical fictions that go with Bookshark G either (The Golden Goblet for example). Perhaps she will be more interested in future books.
About writing:
I am not very comfortable with grading her written work. I am a pretty good writer myself, considering I never learned to write formally (English is a second language for me). I can spot spelling, grammatical and styling errors, but cannot quite explain why they are wrong 🙂 So yes, an outside service would be a very good idea, or at least a curriculum that spells out how to grade.
Thank you for the tips on WordSmith and Jump In. I noticed Jump In is from Writing with Sharon Watson. How is the Illuminating Literature series by her? is it very Christian? (we are not.)
Thanks again!
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I am new to these forums. I've been homeschooling my 2nd and 6th grade kids since the beginning of the year, but my 9th grade is only joining now (been in school until a month ago).
She is very bright (gifted), and likes to read but hates writing. Her writing is not where it should be in my opinion. Perhaps she was never properly ttaught.
We've figured out math and science for her. We will probably go with Wordsmith for writing and Fix It 1 for grammar. She will join what we are already doing with Bookshark G for history. The missing piece is literature, which is where I'm looking for recommendations.
She is going through a spell of mild anxiety and depression, and doesn't have the patience for "heavy lifting". I'd like the curriculum to be challenging enough to be interesting for her but not so "academic" as to bore or frustrate her. Ideally, it would be structured (by days, weeks). I'm not worried about credits at this point.
Given that there are only a few months left to the school year, I've been debating between:
- Lightning Lit, level 8 or perhaps one of the high school ones.
- Essentials in Literature level 9
- LLATL Gold
- a couple novel studies (hidthechocolate.com, Progency etc)
Any ccomment or recommendations will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
CLRC vs Aim Academy Language Arts
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I have a similar dilemma, though am considering Ashton Winslow's section at CLRC.