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skueppers

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Everything posted by skueppers

  1. I print it 1-2 weeks at a time. I store the uncompleted pages in a manila folder, and move them to a binder when they're done.
  2. I assume there are no public school options that would be more acceptable to you than the school he is in now? If there were, that might be a good compromise. Would giving your son a choice between afterschooling while attending PS and going to the private school be an option?
  3. You might take a look at VisualTimer -- it's much less expensive, and works fine on the iPad, even though it's not full screen. We use VisualTimer constantly here.
  4. I've posted mine, which includes our vacation last week in Arizona. We had a blast!
  5. Do what feels right! If the time comes when she's not ready for the "next thing," find somethin else to do in the mean time. For example, if she's through with your K math program but not ready for first grade math, play some math games, look at math in a different way, etc.
  6. I use Anki for memory work. The app is expensive, but I love it. Plus, it works on all our iDevices, so buying it once lets us all use it. What's special about Anki is that it determines automatically how often you need to review each item. I would suggest trying it on a computer (free) to see if the concept works for you.
  7. I'm a Mac user, and I agree that Mac application would be a great thing. It would definitely be of value to me to have an iPad/iPhone version. A piece of advice about a project like this: it is a good idea to figure out, in a general way, what it ought to do in the long run, even though you will not have it do everything right away. Architecture decisions you make today will still be with you years down the road. In other words: think big, but start small.
  8. We don't have quiet time here, but if we did, that is where I would schedule free reading. My daughter often does her free reading at bedtime, but also does it in the afternoon or during school time, depending on the day.
  9. How about mazes or dot-to-dot puzzles? My non-writing, non-drawing son is a maze fiend.
  10. Both Miquon and MEP were flops for my daughter this year, although they were fine last year, when we did parts of Miquon Orange and part of MEP year 1. I discovered that manipulatives confuse rather than help her, because she gets distracted by the procedures she's using with the manipulatives and stops thinking about what the question is she's trying to answer. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. MEP was a flop for us because she found many of the puzzles too hard, but also couldn't handle getting help with them. She also didn't like the teacher-led instructional model. I decided not to continue working with these programs because she fell in love with Math Mammoth; I had purchased the blue series intending to use it as a supplement.
  11. My daughter is also in Kindergarten this year, but she's 6.5, so about a year older than your daughter. I agree with everyone else -- don't worry about her lack of focus. She is five. My daughter sometimes exhibits a lack of focus, and I don't stretch lessons out longer than usual because of it. She's not doing it on purpose, she's just young. I do have fun stuff for her to do if she finishes more quickly than planned, though. I make a list in the morning of the stuff we have to do, making sure that list can be reasonably accomplished by a set time. If she finishes by that time, she picks something from the list I put on the bottom of the board. Oh, and if I had tried to do formal, required lessons with my daughter at 5.5, I expect it would have gone badly.
  12. My 6-year-old is a strong reader, but can only repeat 2 numbers correctly from a six-number sequence. I do know her listening skills are weak, though.
  13. Other: I am teaching my daughter cursive this summer at her request. I have not made a decision about my son, and he is not old enough anyway. I'm unconvinced that cursive is an important academic skill. I disliked cursive as a child and used it only when required. This year, I learned the style of cursive my daughter wants to learn, and it's fine, but I'm still not a convert. People say cursive is faster than printing, but I did a comparison with my mother-in-law, who has a beautiful cursive hand she uses daily, and she didn't write any faster than I did in manuscript. I had no trouble with essay exams in college.
  14. I think both of my kids were 3. They have a series of bookmarks they can use to sites I approve of, and that's what they do. They have their own accounts on the computer, so I can customize what each of them uses.
  15. I think this is sound advice. I find that I know my kids really "get" something when they start demonstrating that they know it in contexts far removed from the original teaching situation. With my kids, I find that a lot of this stuff is developmental. When they are ready to identify ending or middle sounds, they can do it with minimal practice. Before then, there's no point spending time on it. I don't know whether this would apply to your son, since he's needed speech therapy.
  16. I think you may have too much going on. Have you written out a daily and weekly schedule, including breaks, and determined how much time you think this will take? Will you still have time for everything else you might plan to do, like field trips, park days, grocery shopping, OT appointments, etc.?
  17. I think Math Mammoth 1A is a reasonable fit for Kindergarten, but that 1B would be too much for many kids. We use the Blue Series, and have been doing the equivalent of 1A and 1B this year. My daughter is an older Kindergartner, and is pretty good at math, otherwise I think 1B would have been too much. You might also take a look at MEP. My 4-year-old has been asking for math lessons lately so I've been giving him some of the stuff from MEP Reception. My daughter used MEP Year 1 soon after she turned 5. I think it's more "fun" than Math Mammoth -- it has a greater variety of activities, and contains interesting puzzle sorts of problems. I would still be using it if my daughter hadn't decided she preferred Math Mammoth. MEP is available for free at: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm
  18. I finally wrote a report, though it covers the last three weeks, not just the last week...
  19. Have you considered Sequential Spelling? I mean, it does use a specific method, but it's not exactly a script, and it's not complicated. The rules are developed in Sequential Spelling implicitly, rather than through the teaching of explicit rules. It's possible one of your kids might be ready for it and the other not, though. I'm not doing a spelling program right now -- Erika seems to be a natural speller, so I'm holding off to see how her spelling develops on its own. But I happen to own the first volume of Sequential Spelling, which I'd be happy to loan you. :)
  20. Costco has also had these periodically for about the same price, though they didn't have the whole range. But if you're not ready to buy right now and you're a Costco member, try looking in their book section whenever you're there.
  21. Yes, they're progressive phonics-based readers. My daughter really liked them, and now my son has taken to them as well. The version they sell at Costco is slightly different from the ones sold at regular bookstores -- the format is larger, and the books are organized into different sets. I think it's a good deal.
  22. I'm not familiar with all of the HOD emerging readers, but here are some books my daughter has enjoyed that seem to match up with the level of some of the HOD emerging readers or are books she's read at the same time. I've sorted these into my impression of how difficult she thought they were to read. Nate the Great (series) Young Cam Jansen (series) Amelia Bedelia (series) Several books by Dick King-Smith -- The Invisible Dog, Aristotle, Jenius the Amazing Guinea Pig Violet Bing and the Grand House, by Jennifer Paros Magic Tree House (series) Ivy and Bean My daughter has also enjoyed many of the "True Book" series of non-fiction books, such as: African Animals, by Ann Squire Antelope, by Melissa Stewart Bobcats, by Ann Squire I would say these are somewhat more difficult to read because they use some specialized vocabulary.
  23. I don't really feel like we're approaching the end of the school year yet -- we still have two months to go before my son's preschool lets out for the summer, and we've mostly been following his school schedule. I'm planning to continue light school in the summer. I think doing school together has been good for my relationship with my daughter, and she's learned a lot. She's made a lot of progress in reading, and while she hasn't quite reached the stage of reading for fun, she can read books like Magic Tree House, Dick King-Smith's "The Invisible Dog," etc. independently. My gut feeling is that she's working to get to a level of reading ease that makes it fun for her to read books she's truly interested in, and she hasn't quite gotten to that stage yet. She's solid on addition and subtraction within 10, and is working on addition and subtraction within 20; I'm sure that will also be solid by the end of the school year. She reads and writes German at a level appropriate for a first-grader in Germany. (Reading and writing isn't taught before first grade in Germany.) The kids lobbied to stay home together next year instead of having our son going to another year of preschool, and after a lot of thought, we agreed. So next year I'll have a preschooler and a first grader. I hope he won't be too bored, and that my daughter won't have too much trouble concentrating with him around -- she is easily distracted. I also hope that as the year progresses, he'll be less crazy and more interested in joining in on read-alouds, etc.
  24. I think it's good to be prepared with answers for the most common follow-up questions and remarks, which in my limited experience are: "How long do you plan to homeschool?" "Do your kids spend time with other kids?" "I could never do that." "How does it work? Do you get books from the school district?" "Do you use a planned curriculum?" "How do you know what to teach them?" "How do you get time to yourself?" I always feel better when I have some idea what I'm going to say.
  25. My language arts approach this Kindergarten year has been to continue practicing reading, and to do handwriting and copywork. We do handwriting and copywork in German, so I supplement that with additional copywork in English. We've talked a little bit about nouns and verbs, and the very most basic things related to capitalization and punctuation have come up in copywork. I only talk about those things if my daughter asks about them. We have not done a separate spelling program, and I think her spelling is entirely acceptable for her age/grade. ("The name of this storee is the litle kiten.") She normally asks me for help spelling any words she isn't sure of, so the example here is the kind of thing she comes up with when she writes on her own. I don't plan to use a spelling program next year, in first grade, either. I'm planning to do copywork and studied dictation.
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