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dolorsofmary

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Everything posted by dolorsofmary

  1. Thank you and I agree, but my sigh my husband does not speak it in the home. I guess he wants a program, He has a thin booklet he uses but well I don't know . I tried to get him to speak it when our son was very very little but he felt that that was foolish. I read to him some studies and he said no despite. Maybe this will help him. I have the accents all wrong and I have a hearing impairment so it would be very hard for me to teach it. Thanks! I did some research on my own and came up with the following; (does anyone have anything to add to my comments please?) 1) Salsa cost over $1k! but very entertainment driven and can get videos on-line for free supposedly 2) All Bilingual Press: hmm sounds interesting and less expensive · Español para los chiquitos (An Interactive Spanish Course for Young Children) is designed for children who do not yet read (about K-1st grade). The program includes a textbook, 2 audio CD’s, 1 activity book, and 1 parent/teacher manual for a total cost of around $50. · They also stock about 10 different bilingual story/grammar books, available with or without audio CD’s, that you could use to supplement any curriculum · http://www.allbilingual.com/SpanishforKindergartenandFirstGrade.html http://www.allbilingual.com/pdf/ch05.pdf standard spanish, I called them, they are a home based business and they are there to support the parents. This seems to be the least expensive route well the others had a larger upfront cost and it lasted longer, but because this focuses on children who are very young this might be more appropriate. 3) Power glide sounds very interesting! http://www.power-glide.com/Spanish%20Elementary%20School%20Year%201.html $150.00 for grades k-6 4) La Clase Divertida (The fun class) $110 grades k -6
  2. DOes anyone know of a good curriculum? My husband's 1st language is spanish. He is fluent in Spanish and English. He has been teaching our son who will be 5 in August SPanish from a very slim spanish booklet. He will be exhausting that soon. Any suggestions that is hands-on type maybe or like sing spell read and write for spanish? THanks!
  3. My friend who is lending me montessori equipment was able to only give me 1 box of equipment. It is in no way an exhaustive curriculum. So that is why I am not taking off in the montessori direction, note added so no one is confused. Thank you! Please advise! Thank you again!
  4. My husband and I have a disconnect on what curriculum to choose for our son for the kindergarten age 5 this September. It is only a $200.00 investment that I am agonizing over but perhaps my son’s love of learning or lack there of as well. And I wish to have a one mindedness between my husband and I over this. I don’t know what to do. He reads nothing about homeschooling. He just relies on me and then opposes me on certain things now. We have ALWAYS been of one mind on everything until got to this point. Please read on: My husband’s position: (At least it seems to me is thus: What is most important to him I feel is preparation for reality which is ‘everyone hates school’ and things like ‘the love of learning’ and ‘learning style’ are a bunch of hooey and that Montessori is for kids who are mentally challenged. So buck up and do it. It does not matter whether it fits the child or not. We all made it through school some how so what’s the big deal. He definitely wants me to homeschool. Also he feels we need to keep beneath the radar and stay with an accredited curriculum so we will not be targeted by the government. He likes Mother of Divine Grace curriculum for this reason. Mother of Divine Grace is accredited, it comes highly recommended by the founder of Trivium private school (7th and up.) No we are not planning on sending our son there. It is just highly recommended. He would like me to start a program when my son is in kindergarten age (which means this September.) To help explain my husband let me add that my husband is Hispanic and much of his childhood was spent in Dominican Republic during a totalitarian regime where if you said the wrong thing you would disappear. He also feels since our son is darker than both of us and because of our last name, that he/we could be easily targeted. To back up his fear on the playground a little girl of about 5 yrs old wanted to play with me but not my son. I asked her why and she said that my son’s face was too dark! So I guess he has some point. I live in a nice area of southern NJ. In the summer my son can get to a beautiful dark golden color especially on his legs. Also my husband is against having our son repeat a grade. I feel that it might be very good for our son to repeat kindergarten. I explain to him that there is a big jump from 5th grade to 6th grade and a big jump from 8th grade to 9th grade. And if one had to repeat a grade past let’s say 2nd, then people will talk and our son would feel it. Its best to do the repeat in K than later on. He disagrees and says one grade builds on the next, and that is that. He does not believe that there are any big jumps. I don’t know how to back up what I am saying. For me it was just one grade after another. I believe in the trivium fashion it does jump more largely from 5th to 6th and from 8th to 9th. But I don’t know how. I have not gotten that far and I have never experienced it myself. My position: Our son’s learning style is very important to me. I see where he is very much of a kinestitic learner. If money were no object I would add an extension onto my home where I would have all the Montessori equipment needed to help my son be prepared. Up to the present moment I have been going to the library every week with my son since he was 3 months old. I have been reading to him daily or almost daily and following booklists for his age. (great books/Charlotte Mason method)(So maybe my son has some auditorial learning ability too but usually when I ask him to do something that he does not want to do I have to ask him to do it at least a few times, typical kid of course.) I have embellished as much as possible on different books in a variety of ways, etc. I also have ‘Montessori on a shoestring’ and when I have the time I make some Montessori manipulatives for him to use. I also have some real Montessori equipment a Montessori teacher friend lent me and is driving down from MA to teach me for the cost of her gas money to show me how to use it. I am very impressed with Laura Berguist especially after her visit to our homeschool conference. I like her program (Mother of Divine Grace) and how it is based on the trivium, it uses many of the books I have already read to my son, it does not seem to be worksheet driven (I hope), it is accredited, and I would have the security of knowing that I am teaching the right things in the proper sequence. My son is trying to teach himself to read. We have been playing a phonics song since before he could talk and he is just starting to read sight words now. He wants to learn to read better. I assist him as much as possible. I have purchased about 1 month ago ‘Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons’ and once I got to lesson 2 in the quick paced fashion, recommended by the author, my son had had enough. I like though how Mother of Divine Grace takes this same book and spreads it over 2 years, compared to the author wanting you to be done with it in 3 months! Wow! My son says he likes school and we completed today lesson 1 of the Seton pre-k activities booklet (I purchased this a couple of years ago and tried it a few times here and there, now he seems to like it and states he wants to do school). It took him, it seemed, a good 2 hours. His handwriting skills are pretty lacking which I know is very typical for a little boy, so he is really where he should be. His pencil and scissor grip has improved greatly though. I am seriously considering NOT purchasing Mother of Divine Grace kindergarten curriculum ($200.00 investment) (at least not right now) and instead continue to do what I am doing (I have to repeat what I did all year though (I have exhausted all my booklists and library for pre-k and k and my library is going through a serious budget crunch so I will probably no longer be able to get interlibrary loans) and add to it Sing, Spell, Read, Write for preschool. A $90.00 investment. Then maybe when he is 6 years old I can start him on the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum for 1st grade or K when he is 6 years old (in essence hold him back 1 year to give him a boost later on perhaps.) Still I have a very successful homeschooler acquainance who states that I should just let him be and don’t do school. She believes in unschooling and my husband of course thinks that is a bunch of hooey too. Her claim is backed up by ‘Better late, than early’ by the Moore foundation, and ‘Raising cain: protecting the emotional lives of our boys’. They sight that children are naturally far-sighted, much better suited for climbing tries and catching butterflies and running around outside. One should not engage a child too early with ‘close work’ especially boys. One can strangle their child’s love for learning and make it harder for them. They back up what they say with many studies. They state that their claims based on readiness data are widely disregarded by the USA school. Yet Maria Montessori states that typically children go through a peak time of wanting to learn to read about at age 5 and if you miss that time then learning to read can be made much harder. And if you read the well trained mind it states (if I recall correctly) that art and music is of lesser importance in the early years (where Mother of Divine Grace feels it is very important in the beginning years) and one should be taught to learn to read, write, and do math early. Of course in the end one needs to know their children and see where they are at. My son wants to learn to read. Every day he works with the magnetic letters on the fridge and goes over to the phonic chart and sounds things out. He often will spell out (with magnets) what he thinks are words and we’ll review for a few minutes. So I think he is ready to learn to read. I don’t want to push. My husband is like ‘push, smush, just do it. And stop being so underconfident.’ I am like ‘I don’t want to ruin his love of learning.’ I don’t know what to do. Please help. One thing I can do is put together as best as I can a mock day with Mother of Divine Grace Kindergarten curriculum since I already have some of the materials (maybe between me and my library ½ of the curriculum but I am guessing really) and see how it goes and see if my son likes it. I don’t know. I would like to try Sing Spell Read Write though first. I think for my son’s learning style that might be up his alley. I don’t want to do that AND Mother of Divine Grace at the same time. The day would be too long. So again maybe I’ll do SSRW pre-k in Sept. 2010 and then Mother of Divine Grace k level September 2011. Yet I still have to convince my husband that this is the way to go. I am taking my husband with me to a local upcoming homeschool conference in hopes that it will help us get on the same wave length. Please any advice you can send my way will be much appreciated. My husband truly has no reading time. I read when I can. I can tell him what I read but his opinions are ground in so I cannot change his mind. Help!
  5. Thank you all so much for all your advice, encouragement and direction. It is so valuable.
  6. Thank you so much for your great advice. I am humbled by it. I have to say that I do do science experiments and have silly songs but I think I need to increase it. Thanks again for the great advice!!
  7. Thank you all for your tips, advice and encouraging words. I am doing most if not all of your advice that does not involving purchasing something. I am trying to be very very wise on money. I don't want to throw any money away. I love the way I am schooling my son but I feel that religion wise I could do better. See here is where I am at: I was raised with a lot of comparisons and so I naturally compare even when I don't realize it and so maybe that is the nut of the problem. I believe that I was given the gift of faith early in life. My son who is 4.5 yrs old does not seem to show this gift. I am sad about that. I guess I want him to be me. That is sad. I feel like I have failed him or perhaps God is asking me to become more patient and stretch me. I see where all of my husband's and my siblings and 99% of our cousins have lost the faith and I SOOOO don't want that for my dear son. BTW I have gone to 4real and catholic well trained mind forums and registered but I guess because it is a long weekend I have not received approval yet. Thank you again! I do LOTS of things with him religion wise. Here is what I do: I ask him to say 1 prayer either Our Father, Hail Mary, Angel of God or make up a prayer, his choice. He has to kneel and bless himself which he does in a monkey funny way oh well. I don't sweat it. Same thing at bed time. I say my morning and evening prayer too. We also pray when we see an ambulance or anything with flashing lights or a broken down car and bless ourselves when we pass a Catholic church. We go to mass every Sunday. I don't take him more than that because he says it is too long. He gets m&ms for good behavior at church and we try to sit near the front. I whisper to him that this is the1st story, 2nd story, the big story. Then after I receive communion I breathe on him and say 'breathe Jesus' and then I have him kneel and do a spiritual communion and say with me "Jesus I cannot receive you fully right now because I am too young I cannot wait to receive you fully' Then at Rosary time I have him say 1 intention it can be 'I want this toy' or 'thank you God' or whatever. And he has to say 1 prayer it can be made up or Our Father or Hail Mary and that is it. We do the 'fun Rosary' where at each mystery he gets to pick a role and play it out like 5th joyful mystery we play hide and seek and he is Jesus and when he is found he says 'did you not know I had to be about my Father's business?' and then after the Rosary we do the chaplet of divine mercy. I don't expect him to do any prayers here but we/he acts our the stations of the cross where the 1st 4 hail mary beads, he is 'arrested' and then he carries his cross and then he falls down, etc. He likes the fun Rosary and fun chaplet but out side the few seconds it takes he is bored and runs wildly and shouts and says it takes too long. ANd tries to drown us out. At times the Rosary is when he is disciplined the most and put him on the naughty chair and then he misses the fun Rosary and he is disappointed. We also have the Rosary on cartoon video too. I know boys are different. When he was younger if I read him a religious book (which was not all the time) he would close it and say 'the end' But the most fun of what we do I feel is the plays. We did a play about St. Martin de Tours because he has a sword and breastplate and all - right up my son's alley and it was soooo much fun. I made hungarian goulash (he was born in what is now or was hungaria. We did a minnie play about his life and it was soooo much fun and I filed it and scrapbooked it. My son was St. Martin. he of course cut the cloak etc etc but when it came to knocking down pagan temples we built up blocks and my husband pretended to be a pagan worshipping it and my son knocked it down. Then I made a newspaper tree and St. Martin, my son, knocked it down (St. martin was to stand underneath the pagan god-tree as it was being chopped down but instead it fell in the opposite direction just missing many pagans and so many converted) and so we did that. Tonight we are going to do St. Longinus. I am using plastic wrap to hold a little bit of water and I'm going to tape it to my husband's shirt (husband will play Jesus) and my son with his play sword with stab it and kneel down and say 'Truly this was the son of God. and we did St. Nick day with gold coins in his shoe, etc. I have him hold a baby Jesus doll on Christmas morning and we sing Happy Birthday and I photograph it and scrapbook it. We do advent and lent in a big big way so much that we are sorry to see it end. I use Catholic Cuisine website and mosaic booklist for great religious books to add to the calendar (it has booklist by calendar really cool) and Maureen Whitman's For the Love of Literature (Charlotte Mason based catholic booklist) that covers math, art, music, science, history and it is broken down by age group, tons of fun and from there and my library (I am on a 1st name basis) I have found much much more. But after all of this and there are other feast days that we do up like Our Lady of Guadalupe (my son is Juan Diego and I have the kiddie video and it really impressed him and I played Our Lady and my husband was the bishop, the uncle, and the mean guards) It makes it fun. I have a minnie altar in our bedroom with statues, we use holy water, etc. etc. But still I feel that I could do more. Perhaps the best I can do is teach him to stop whining so much. I read love and logic for early childhood, very very good! I have it on DVD (I think I'm more of an auditorial learner) See when you have an only child you can do more for them and expect less and ask less of them. If he is not sick I have him help me do the laundry and sometimes the floor and definitely pick up his toys. ALthough we can tolerate more, if he is loud its not so bad becuase it is only 1 kid and i have serious hearing loss in 1 ear so I just kick up my voice a notch. Maybe I should be stricter. I saw where my husband who has no reading time really truly improved after watching part of the love and logic dvd. We have not sat down to watch all 2 hours of it yet. We need to complete that. It is very very good and helpful. There was a time when our son would sass us and he was barely 4 yrs old because we did sooo much for him. Now he is more respectful. Your thoughts. I enjoy doing all the things I do. I love doing the science experiments and adding food and music to historical kiddie books, etc. and esp. anything to do with religion I LOVE domestic church. In fact htere is a website called domestic-church.com or .org it is really really great and I do a lot of my things from there. I stil have my Christmas stuff up until Candlemas and then we'll take it down and walkaround the inside of the house with music and bless everyrooom with holy water. I love it. But I still feel like I could do more. Your thoughts please. A lot say relax and enjoy this time but really if I didn't do these things we'd just be watching tv in the wintertime. My son is just starting to play bingo but he doesn't want to play it all the time. In other seasons we go to the park more and the pool all the time in the summer. THe winter is harder with cold and sickness and cold. We are where it is cold but we never get snowman snow. He made a snow angel last time. I take him to classes at the library and at a petting zoo near us Its fun and adds things and gives us different ways to do things. I always want to tweak what I do. I feel like I'm in a fish bowl with no one else to bounce ideas off of and to grade myself by so to speak. Do you know what I mean? I"m going to try to go to an open house at a catholic homeschool co-op near me to see what the do to get ideas. I'm looking for a tweak. Your thoughts ideas? Sorry about the length. Thank you!
  8. Thank you all for your tips, advice and encouraging words. I am doing most if not all of your advice that is coupled with the advice to buy nothing else. I am trying to be very very wise on money. I don't want to through anything away. I love the way I am schooling my son but I feel that religion wise I could do better. See here is where I am at: I was raised with a lot of comparisons and so I naturally compare even when I don't realize it and so maybe that is the nut of the problem. I believe that I was given the gift of faith early in life. My son who is 4.5 yrs old does not seem to show this gift. I am sad about that. I guess I want him to be me. That is sad. I feel like I have failed him or perhaps shutter, he has failed me or perhaps God is asking me to become more patient and stretch me. I see where all of siblings and 99% of our cousins have lost the faith and I SOOOO don't want that for my dear son. BTW I have gone to 4real and registered but I guess because it is a long weekend I have not received approval yet. I do LOTS of things with him religion wise. Here is what I do: I ask him to say a Our Father, Hail Mary, Angel of God or make up a prayer, his choice. He has to kneel and bless himself which he does in a monkey funny way oh well. I don't sweat it. Same thing at bed time. I say my morning and evening prayer too. We also pray when we see an ambulance or anything with flashing lights or a broken down car and bless ourselves when we pass a Catholic church. We go to mass every Sunday. I don't take him more than that because he says it is too long. He gets m&ms for good behavior at church and we try to sit near the front. I whisper to him that this is the1st story, 2nd story, the big story. Then after I receive communion I breathe on him and say 'breathe Jesus' and then I have him kneel and do a spiritual communion and say with me "Jesus I cannot receive you fully right now because I am too young I cannot wait to receive you fully' The at Rosary time I have say 1 intention it can be I want this toy or thank you God or whatever. And he has to say 1 prayer it can be made up and that is it. We do the 'fun Rosary' where at each mystery he gets to pick a role and play it out like 5th joyful mystery we play hide and seek and he is Jesus and when he is found he says 'did you not know I had to be about my Father's business?' and then we do the chaplet of divine mercy. I don't expect him to do any prayers here but we/he acts our the stations of the cross where the 1st 4 hail mary beads, he is 'arrested' and then he carries his cross and then he falls down, etc. He likes the fun Rosary and fun chaplet but out side the few seconds it takes he is bored and runs wildly and shouts and says it takes too long. ANd tries to drown us out. At times the Rosary is when he is disciplined the most and put him on the naughty chair and then he misses the fun Rosary and he is disappointed. We also have the Rosary on cartoon video too. I know boys are different. When he was younger if I read him a religious book (which was not all the time) he would close it and say 'the end' But the best of what we do is the plays. We did a play about St. Martin de Tours because he has as sword and breastplate and all - right up my son's alley and it was soooo much fun. I made hungarian goulash (he was born in what is now or was hungaria. We did a minie play about his life and it was soooo much fun and I filed it and scrapbooked it. My son was St. Martin. he of course cut the cloak etc etc but when it came to knocking down pagan temples we built up rocks and my husband pretended to be a pagan worshipping it and my son knocked it down. Then I made a newspaper tree and St. Martin, my son, knocked it down (St. martin was to stand underneath the pagan god-tree as it was being chopped down but instead it fell in the opposite direction just missing many pagans and so many converted) and so we did that. Tonight we are going to do St. Longinus. I using plastic wrap to hold a little bit of water and I;m going to tape to my husband's shirt and my son with his play sword with stab it and kneel down and say 'Truly this was the son of God. and we did St. Nick day with gold coins in his shoe, etc. I have him hold a baby Jesus doll on Christmas morning and we sing Happy Birthday and I photograph it and scrapbooki it. We do advent andlent in a big big way so much that we are sorry to see it end. I use Catholic Cuisine a website and mosaic booklist for great religious books to add to the calendar (it has booklist by calendar really cool) and Maureen Whitman's For the Love of Literature (Charlotte Mason based catholic booklist) that covers math, art, music, science, history and it is broken down by age group, tons of fun and from there and my library (I am on a 1st name basis) I have found much much more. But after all of this and there are other feast days that we do up like Our Lady of Guadalupe (my son is Juan Diego and i have the kiddie video and it really impressed him and I played Our Lady and my husband was the bishop, the uncle, and the mean guards) It makes it fun. I have a minny altar in our bedroom with statues, we use holy water, etc. etc. But still I feel that I could do more. Perhaps the best I can do is teach him to stop whining so much. I read love and logic for early childhood, very very good! I have it on DVD (I think I'm more of an auditorial learner) See when you have an only child you can do more for them and expect less and ask less of them. If he is not sick I have him help me do the laundry and sometimes the floor and definitely pick up his toys. ALthough we can tolerate more, if he is loud its not so bad becuase it is only 1 kid and i have serious hearing loss in 1 ear so I just kick up my voice a notch. Maybe I should be stricter but that is a work in progress. I saw where my husband who has no reading time really truly improved after watching part of the love and logic dvd. We have not sat down to watch all 2 hours of it. We need to complete that. It is very very good and helpful. There was a time when our son would sass us and he was barely 4 yrs old because we did sooo much for him. Now he is more respectful. Your thoughts. I enjoy doing all the things I do. I love doing the science experiments and adding food and music to historical kiddie books, etc. and esp. anything to do with religion I LOVE domestic church. In fact htere is a website called domestic-church.com or .org it is really really great and I do a lot of my things from there. I stil have my Christmas stuff up until Candlemas and then we'll take it down and walkaround the inside of the house with music and bless everyrooom with holy water. I love it. But I still feel like I could do more. Your thoughts please.
  9. Thank you! I'll try to find Cathy Duffy's top 100 picks unless you can link it for me? Thanks!
  10. I am brand new to the this group. I have read many books on educating my son who is 4.5 yrs old. I am trying to Catholic homeschoool him. I am brand new to homeschooling and this is my only child. Here is where he and I are at and what I think we need to do but I would like some encouragement and direction as well please. My son is a busy little boy, rather hyper but very good little boy. My joy. I don't want to make him hate learning and I've read Raising Cain protecting the emotional lives of our boys and Better late than early and part of The Well-Trained Mind and part of Creating your own Curriculum by Laura Berquist and mary Prides Homeschooling book and quite a few books on discipline and general raising of children book. My favorite discipline book so far is Love andLogic for the early years. ANy one have a better one? I love it. I have the DVD too. Very good stuff! Well back to what I was talking about. I feel like I'm in a fish bowl and hope that what I am doing is right. I don't want to turn off my son from learning so read to him and let him play. I try to use good and great books from book lists and then when I discover a favorite author/topic I research that further and try to get more of the same, etc. I get books for his level for literature in history, math, literature for literature sake, art appreciation, music appreciation, science. My son loves science and then music the most. When we do music, art or history I add what food might have been eaten that period of time and what music might have been heard at that time or art or whatever it might have been and I am going to try to add to that the dance of that time too if convenient. Like I have a kiddie book on Christopher Columbus so I made a little bit of hard tack and after we feel how hard it is I will soak it in apple juice or water and then we'll see what is was like for them to eat it - yuck I imagine! For science I do science experiments with him and read to him like Magic School bus. Like we did the volcano and the pepper dispersion on top of water surface and the planets, etc. I love it and am learning/refreshing so much of my knowledge. But still I have no lesson plan. I don't know what others are doing. I feel like I might be missing something especially in religion but it is not my son's thing it seems yet at least. I see lots of curricula on the internet but I am bound and determined to NOT buy buy buy and then not use it. I want to spend my money with great wisdom and not throw it away. Any suggestions please? Thank you!
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