Mary in GA
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Posts posted by Mary in GA
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have never read a more predictable book. Yes, I got the parody...I got the jokes...I just didn't like it.
I reread this a couple of years ago when ds was reading it and felt the same way about it. When I first read it as an 18 or 19 year old I thought it was riotously funny as did ds. Guess it's an age thing.
Mary
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We don't have a community college, but ds took dual enrollment classes and his freshman yr at a small university before transferring to a large, very competitive university. Definitely made a difference. I think he would've died a quick academic death and immediately lost his HOPE scholarship without prior college class experience!
Mary
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I just "discovered" a 9 dvd set of those concerts that my mom had sent us, and I apparently set aside and forgot! Shame on me. I'm going to get them out for music study when we start back in Jan. Thanks for the review.
Mary
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The Chosen and The Promise by Chaim Potok
Pride and Prejudice (for the 100th time!)
Mary
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URGH. Didn't even come close to finishing it. Picked it up after my sis left it at my house on her last visit.
Mary
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I have never used a reading program, and for years I second guessed the decision. Dc have always scored really well on standardized testing though, so I've become more at peace.
Mary
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Actually, my one that had the most problems was transferring after getting here associates degree, so she was a junior. The roommate who gave her the most problems was a 27yo sophmore. It was a nightmare. We moved my daughter out of the dorm within 2 weeks and got a full refund on the semester.
Never again will I attempt a dorm. Drugs, s*x, and total party land. And no help from the campus. We actually had to bring in the actual police. I even had one attacked with a knofe from a fellow dormmate on drugs. I don't consider this a way to "socialize" my kids.
Yikes! That's frightening!
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I have graduated two form homeschool and will graduate the third in another year. They are all doing fine. My third is the most social child I have ever known. They are all very strong in their beliefs and do not parrot our beliefs.
The funny thing about this post is the comment about the college dorms. We will never try a college dorm again, because the public school kids who make up the majority of the dorm make it impossible to study because of the drugs and co-habitation going on. The dorm is not a dorm but a free for all party.
I also don't believe that the peer dependent teen years do anything to promote teens forming their own ideas as much as discussion with adults with more wisdom and experience.
Linda
:iagree:
I have graduated one so far from home school. I'll add to the dorm comment, though. Ds stayed at home and commuted his first 2 yrs of college. He is in a dorm now at a different university and it is working well. The school takes great care to match transfer students of similar credit hours together as room mates. His roommate is a very serious student, as pretty much anyone who transfers into this university has to be! However, we NEVER. EVER. would have gone for this dorm thing when ds was a freshman. That's when you get so many kids who just go nuts b/c they are suddenly "free."
Oh, and despite being home scooled ds doesn't have any problems compromising with his roommate!
Mary
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When we use TOG (and even when we're not!), we almost always have a read aloud going that all the dc can listen to. I say all, but with 6.5 yrs difference between each successive dc, the littlest was left to do some other activity! Now she's old enough that she listens when I read something aimed more at her older sister. I often try to choose read alouds aimed a little higher than oldest schooling dc but not always. My ds, now 19 and living at college, sat in for read alouds even as a sr in high school doing dual enrollment and freshman in college! Read alouds are great family bonding time. Oh, and I'll add that dh sits in for read alouds too before he has to get ready for work. Enjoy!
Mary
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I would consider to not register until you legally have to. If you don't have to legally start until they are 6, then don't file paperwork before that time. That doesn't mean that a 5 year old is doing nothing except playing or whatever, but rather that you don't worry about hours/days until one more year. Wait as long as legally you can before legally “being in schoolâ€.
-crystal
I agree with this.
My state reqs are 180 days 4hrs/day. We only have to show attendance for the day, however, on our attendance forms. I never worried about the 4 hrs/day req. I don't believe formal academics should take up 4 hrs for K and early elementary. They do a lot of informal learning as well at home. Enjoy your homeschool journey. As one poster has already said, I too had no clue what home schooling was when my oldest was 18 months!
Mary
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Oh ack, for some reason I was thinking that CLE was as comprehensive as R&S, just laid out differently and more of a spiral approach than mastery? We are using R&S right now, but my kids greatly prefer a worktext format rather than having to write everything. (And since I have so many I can't do the lessons orally, so they do have to write stuff out.;) )
JAG/AG is my other choice besides CLE. Hmmmmmm.
Kristin, in your case with all those dc I think CLE would be a great choice for you and it is thorough. I didn't mean to sound like I was trying to dissuade you! My dd (she's 7th IDK why I said 6th earlier) is using it for the reasons you want to use it. I don't have time right now to do oral lessons as much with her. Next year should be different. I like CLE, but R&S is my personal favorite. And I recognize that for DD the explanations in R&S 7 and 8 get pretty long, dry and tedious! She likes CLE. My main point in my rambling on in my previous post, is that if you wanted to look up a grammar concept addressed in CW or how to diagram something in CW, it would be hard to do in CLE Light Units. An additional resource for you might be helpful.:001_smile:
Mary
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Well...I own the entire R&S series from previous dc, so usually we look up new grammar and diagramming in the 7th or 8th grade book. We do have a couple of handbooks, R&S (and I can't remember the other.) The handbooks don't cover the grammar in depth so I've found it easier to understand the new concepts using a text book.
This is our first year with CLE LA, and it would be really hard to look up how to diagram something in it! There is no index, only toc in the Light Units. I don't have the TM, just the answer key, so maybe there is more organization in there. CLE has a lot of good points. Students can use it independently more easily than R&S. CLE is fairly incremental and gives a good bit of review through out. CLE is fairly rigorous, but I think R&S is more in depth and more rigorous. I like the organization of R&S. IF you go with CLE, you could get an R&S 7 or 8 book for you to use as a reference. They're pretty inexpensive.
Grammar and diagramming are explained in the CW core manuals, but I really preferred explanations and examples in R&S. This is the first year we have really begun looking up the grammar we didn't know-mostly because I feel like we now have a good enough background after having completed R&S 6. When dd was working on Homer, I did a lot of sentence simplifications! I never bothered with trying to coordinate our English with CW-too much work for me. I always viewed CW as reinforcement and practical application. Have fun with CW!
Mary
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Thanks!:D
Thought of some more questions as I looked through it some more.
Would we still need to do the grammar notebook if we used the workbooks that correspond with Harvey's that CW publishes?
If you don't use Harvey's, what does your grammar/CW time "look" like? What if whatever grammar program you use doesn't progress in the same order as Harvey's - is it a problem if you come to something in CW that you haven't covered yet? How do you handle that? Do you still do the grammar notebook that CW says to do, just using the definitions and such that are in your grammar program? I'm just trying to get a feel for how it would all work together if we went with another grammar program.
Dd, 6th, is doing Diogenes this year. We have never used Harvey's. We have been using R&S and this year CLE. We have always used the CW workbooks, and if we came to grammar we hadn't covered yet sometimes I modified the sentences that were given for diagramming practice if they were just too complicated. Sometimes, and more so this year than in the past, we look up the parts that we don't know to diagram and that is the English lesson for that day!
Mary
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Have a blessed Christmas and enjoy the time with your dc!
And if any of your dc are like my ds on pins and needles waiting for final grades to come in, they are still in my prayers!
Mary
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I do think that he's a little better where he gets to choose the curriculum - for example, he chose to study classical civilisation this year, and I also followed his wish to make LOF his main maths programme. Is there any way that I can persuade/inspire him to excellence in other subjects?
He does seem spurred on by the prospect of exams, but only if the grading is done by an external body; I am entering him for two such tests this coming summer. Should I just accept his bad attitude about non-exam subjects and assume that he will pull his socks up when he goes to (rigorous, private) school in 18 months? This seems like a bit of a gamble.
Thank you
Laura
My ds now 19 was like this throughout his home school career- dedicated to excellence in what he enjoyed, did the minimum to get by in every thing else. I was never successful at motivating him to go the extra mile in a subject he didn't enjoy. Dual enrollment at the college and now the threat of losing his scholarship and co-op job at the university are excellent motivators. I talked to him about motivation and studying recently, as teaching good study habits was something I have always felt like I failed to do. He told me that there was nothing I could've done and he would never have done these things until they really counted!
Your ds is obviously bright, I would bet if he has any bit of competitiveness in his nature he will "pull his socks up"!
Mary
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Have you tried doing SOTW Sonlight style? I loved Sonlight, but I love WTM more. So I've added read-alouds, readers and some extra history books from Sonlight. It's worked very well for us, you can see my SOTW plans here. Also, the AG is a great source of fun activities and extra books. Hope that helps!
This is what I do as well.
I've used all 4 years of SOTW, and I think for me, the problem with SOTW 2 is just the time period. I felt like of all 4 books, 2 was a bit lacking in flow compared to the others but I chalk it up to the time period covered. I struggle with Middle Ages whether I'm using SOTW or TOG!
Mary
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The answers to many of your questions vary by university.
In most high schools an AP class such as government or econ may last 1 yr, but are only 1 semester class at college.
My ds attended a small university for dual enrollment (we are in GA). Anything under 30 hrs and the dual enrollment student was considered a first time full-time freshman for his first semester of college upon completing his senior yr of high school. The next semester the student's classification would change to what the number of credit hrs would normally be. Also, in my state, dual enrollment students receive funds for their college classes under a subset of the HOPE scholarship. Their tuition is treated as public school.
I suggest you contact the dual enrollment adviser where your ds would attend and ask him all these questions. He schould be able to answer your credit hour and financial aid/scholarship questions for dual enrollment. Our adivser was great. As far as other scholarships are concerned, talk to the financial aid office at the college and other prospective universities your ds might want to attend after dual enrollment about what is available and who qualifies. I spent a lot of time on the phone! HTH.
Mary
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Great idea. Joining belatedly. Praying too!
If ds falls below a 3.0 after I don't remember how many hours he stands to lose his HOPE scholarship and his co-op job. No pressure!! Thanks!
Mary
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The Home Instructor Guides for Singapore teach mental math techniques and contain mental math exercises.
Mary
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Not sure what levels you're looking at, but in Homer and Aesop the student has models in the workbook where he is supposed "mark" parts of speech or the beginning and ending of a scene. In Poetry the student marks stanzas and meter for example on the model poem in the workbook. HTH
Mary
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Well, I use both. I used Singapore with with 2 older dc, but decided to try RS with last dd because I thought it would be a god fit and also I wanted a change too. I struggled with the scripting of RS for a while and found it stilted, but I stuck with it and found a groove and I really like it. I preread lessons and don't do them as scripted. I also look ahead in the RS book because I've found sometimes I needed to condense esp. in the earlier lessons. None of this takes much time. Once I got into the groove, I probably spent about 15 min per week looking over lessons. We use SM half a yr behind chronological grade level. We are in 1st grade and finishing EB 2B and will start 1A after Christmas. This wasn't a "plan." It just worked out that way. We SM about twice a week and RS 4 days. This is my first time doing things this way and we will probably go year round. Siloam (I think!) on this board also does something similar. Maybe she'll chime in. HTH!
Mary
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by TTC and its GREAT! This is just what my 10th grader NEEDS! I think he's at a point that he can appreciate it. I laughed at the bike riding metaphor (brings back memories)!
Do you think this would be good for a student already in college? I had thought about getting this for ds before he started his dual enrollment classes, but never did. Now that he's in a bigger more rigorous U he is struggling more with organization and time management. He has always made pretty decent grades, but he knows that many times they could have been better. He says he's thought of things he'll need to do differently next semester, but if the TTC video would help I'll get him to watch it with me over the semester break. Thanks.
Mary
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I kept knowing deep down I wanted to do Classical Writing. I kept plugging away with my oldest, doing a lousy job of it because I had a bad attitude and was lost. 1/2 way through last year I enrolled my oldest in the online Maxim/Chreia class. Now she's in Herodotus. I started understanding where all of this was going. With great trepidation I started Homer skills this year with my middle one. I didn't have the guts to jump full force so I started applying Homer skills to Writing Tales 2 models (we did WT2 last year).
NOW I really get it. We are now doing Homer as written (well we don't do Harvey's) and it's going great. I probably should feel like a loser that it took me 2 kids and several years (plus buying and selling and rebuying Homer more times than I'm ready to admit) to get it. But I'm going to celebrate anyway. At least my youngest won't be the 'gee mom hasn't got a clue' guinea pig on this.
Heather
Wow, Heather! It's so great to hear from some one using CW upper levels. I posted a while back about how I was a Homer dropout, but now I really love Diogenes! I think I'm going to have to re-evaluate Homer for next dd. I was tempted after round one to say that I would just wait and put dd in Older Beginners. But after reading your post, I may have to take another look. (I still have a few years to decide!) Thanks for sharing and encouraging!
Mary
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I really feel like in this economy (or any time really) minimizing debt is the most important consideration. I have 2 nieces who graduated with what I call "crushing" debt in student loans $40-60 K. They chose majors where the income potential did not off set the debt they incurred. They are still struggling and paying over 10 yrs after graduation. Debt can really effect quality of life long after college is done. I'm just a hard core pragmatist! Those dreams of the "college experience" have to be tempered by "cold reality." Are there opportunities for co-op jobs or other work at the private schools to help with costs? Just a thought. Good luck with tough decisions.
Mary
Going through the grieving process while h'schooling
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
So sorry you are dealing with this. I found it comforting to read fun read alouds with dc gathered around (got my mind off things for awhile.) Made sure we all got out some. The olders did some by themselves. Made sure the youngest got out to play. It takes some time.
Mary