Already Gone
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Posts posted by Already Gone
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I have had success with aforementioned insanely meticulous vacuuming every day, but it did take more than seven days. Also, we have hard surface floors throughout, which I suspect helped.
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We're using MEP Y1--I think we're at lesson 136.
We don't supplement, though I sometimes do some oral drill on our non-school days while we're driving around (skip counting, math relays, etc.). Every once in a while I hear the siren call of the Singapore word problems, but I haven't caved yet.
We do most of the activities, though like many, we've been doing fewer from the second half of MEP. Sometime an activity is just too involved (and, um, I didn't do the prep) in a non-classroom setting. Sometimes it seems unnecessary (the oral drill mentioned above takes the place of many of the activities for us). BUT I will say that I tend not to skip activities until I have a grasp of their function in the overall program. Often I'll think an activity is utterly pointless only to find that it lays some important groundwork for something several lessons down the road.
Yes, we're liking it :001_smile:.
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Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but the Baldwin Project has Amy Steedman's collections of saints' stories online, and here's the chapter on St. Augustine (assuming you mean of Hippo?):
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Not that I've seen a lot of film versions, but we're fans here of the aforementioned Ingmar Bergman version. It's not what you might expect from other Bergman films--it's very kid-friendly, in my opinion, and charming. My kids are young and I worry a lot about the impact of frightening visual scenes, but (for instance) the dragon at the beginning is downright lovable. I wouldn't say some of the scenes wouldn't create issues in highly sensitive children, but it seems less likely to than many other treatments I've seen. I loved it as a kid and my kids love it.
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I switched my K-er over to one a few months ago. He's only doing printing, but I read on a thread here about how it helps with hand position and some other tricky aspects of writing. I tried it on him with my own fountain pen and he made immediate strides. Since then I got him a Lamy ABC. Our experience with it has been very, very good. His writing, and his attitude towards writing has radically improved; he really thinks of it as a craft now.
I didn't do much in the way of separate instruction. I showed him how to hold it, but both my pen and his have a shaped grip which makes that very clear. I showed him that, when he pushes down too hard or holds the nib at the wrong angle, the ink is either blotchy or not there at all. I think that's about it.
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Agree about the Yahoo group.
Also, although I may be wrong in this impression, I gather from the book that you won't necessarily be using the Socratic method every time or all the way to the end of a particular line of inquiry--sometimes the author specifically suggests that you'll have to step in and explain things or rule certain possibilities out, correct certain errors, etc. My sense from this (and again, I may be wrong, and please do correct me if I am) that it is less important to transmit particular lessons via this method as to introduce Socratic questioning as a habit. So often I'll ask my son a series of questions, but if he's headed down a totally wrong track and I'm at a loss as to how to lead him back, I'll say something like, "well, what about this possibility?"--after which we would discuss the pros and cons of that explanation and then test it out. In a way I suppose I am "giving him the answer," but inasmuch as we are doing it in the context of the Socratic method (and, hey, Socrates himself often "gave answers" in this way!) I still feel as if we're headed in the right direction.
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What do you think of including the following?:
Anne Bradford
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harper Lee
Ayn Rand
Pearl Buck
My two cents. . .the first two would be excellent choices, given what you've described as your goals. Harper Lee would be fine for a look at the pre-civil-rights era, though I think in many ways Quicksand or Their Eyes Were Watching God would be better--perhaps less accessible, though. Of the two, in my humble opinion, Quicksand covers more historical ground and Their Eyes Were Watching God is the better novel.
Which Ayn Rand were you thinking? I can definitely see how she ties into a specific historical moment, but both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have some male/female interactions that might be difficult for a young woman (I say this as someone who was about your daughter's age when I first read them). I don't know what your values are, of course, but both feminists and conservative Christians have found these problematic--not to put too fine a point on it, The Fountainhead eroticizes rape, and while Atlas Shrugged doesn't go that far, it tends in that direction (also it's huge, but your daughter may be fine with that :)). She wrote some other works, of course, but honestly I can't remember how the relationships are portrayed in them.
I have to confess that I've never read Pearl Buck. But I understand that most of her work is about China? So it may be hard to find something to tie directly into U.S. history.
When I tried to come up with my original list, I found it skewing mightily towards southern and modernist lit as well. There's some great stuff in that period, but part of what you probably want to decide is whether you want to go for historical relevance or literary quality. Alas, the two things do not always go hand in hand. . .
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Um, after reading all this great advice about folding, I'm pretty embarrassed to admit this, but. . .
I don't fold.
My laundry set-up is in the kitchen. Next to it I have a large shelving unit, on which are laundry baskets for colors, whites, dirty towels, clean (dish and cleaning) towels, kid #1's clothes, and kid #2's clothes. The last three items get filled straight from the dryer or the clothes lines. I hang all formal wear (which in our house is just church clothes and my husband's stuff) and put everything else (semi-sorted) in bins for my husband and myself. I do actually fold the bath towels, 'cause otherwise they wouldn't fit in the closet. But really, almost everything we wear is made out of t-shirty material and doesn't get very wrinkly.
I don't have a large family, so I don't even have an excuse for this. But it (or some variation on it) might help someone who does. :)
Also, I want to second the suggestions for a family closet (if you google the term you'll get some awesome set-ups), which I have obviously only a pale copy of, and drastically reducing wardrobe size in the manner described on http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/ (perhaps a bit off-topic, but I find all her household advice just brilliant).
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Evlogia's Ages of Grace is a 6-year rotation. She has a description here, though the curriculum itself is a) under construction and b) Orthodox. The description sounds like a good start, though, and is definitely inspiring (I'm not even Orthodox but all her stuff just seems so lovely!).
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So here are a few of my thoughts, trying to emphasize things that can be tied into historical moments. You probably realize that there's a bit of a gap between that and "the quintessential / distilled / essential guide to American's women's lit," since a lot of women's lit, especially early on, tends to focus on the domestic. Because of the overlap of feminism and women's lit, a lot of the really canonical material is going to be more about the personal as political than about the political in and of itself. So I could expand this a great deal in terms of what she might read in a typical women's lit course in college, if that's more the direction you're thinking.
Just to get you started, though:
- Mary Rowlandson, (The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, 1682. One woman's story of being taken captive by Native Americans)
- Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852. Probably a no-brainer.)
- Mary Chesnut (Diary, covers the Civil War but published in 1905)
- Harriet Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1861)
- Louisa May Alcott (Work, 1872. Follows a young woman through a wide variety of different employment situations.)
- Nella Larson, (Quicksand, 1928. Follows a young African-American woman through a wide variety of different employment situations. Good look at different aspects of African-American experience in the early part of the century--Tuskegee, Harlem Renaissance, etc.)
Many of these have "adult situations" but nothing risque.
- Mary Rowlandson, (The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, 1682. One woman's story of being taken captive by Native Americans)
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I'll try and post a longer list when I have the time (this is probably the one subject I know way too much about), but I would say that any such list really, really, really needs to have some Willa Cather on it. Very accessible, but also very deep and very brilliant.
Are you interested in poetry and drama as well as novels? Are you looking for works that have specific tie-ins to historical moments? And how would your describe your daughter's reading level and--how shall I put this--her maturity? There are some important books that one might not want a 14 year-old to read, depending on where she is.
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By "guides" are we referring to the lesson plans? Yes, I use them, though I've been known to skip activities occasionally. I have to agree that that's where the frequently-cited "meat" of the program is--and also a lot of the practice in math facts (much of it done orally), since you mention that as a specific goal.
If you won't be able to work off your computer, you might try printing them 2 to a page or even (if your eyes are younger than mine :)) 4 to a page.
We're in Year 1, if that helps.
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Bumping.
'Cause even though I love MEP, I sometimes get Singapore Anxiety. :)
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I used the first book for my son--I think the pictures and format helped interest him--but since then I've been making my own. I write in a GD style anyway and have pretty neat handwriting, so I just take a few minutes before our lesson and make him up a copywork sheet. I think for me this takes less time and effort than printing on the computer does, and it also enables me to tailor the sheets to what he needs to be working on, what he's interested in at the moment, etc. I wouldn't swear that I'll keep doing this all through his copywork career, but we're both pretty happy with it for the time being.
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Getty and Dubay have also produced a book for adults--I want to say the title is Write Now--and (if you can get over the cheesy title) you might take a quick look at that, as it gives several examples of ways people have adapted the style. Some of them are more formal, some of them less; it's more flexible than the intro texts might indicate.
I'm a fan of Getty-Dubay and am teaching it because it's what I use. For what it's worth, I learned cursive in an American school, and then re-learned it in a German school (after an absolutely humiliating speech about how "in Germany we write legibly" :)). I then modified it for American legibility when I was in an American high school, and that's what I kept for a long time. I fell in love with Write Now because the script seemed so much cleaner. And yes, much faster, which was very important to me--at the time I was grading many, many papers and a fast but legible handwriting made a big difference in my life.
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We've been using it since August of last year, with a few breaks. I don't have much experience with other math programs, but both I and my son love it. We've been in Y1 and didn't do Reception.
Based on my limited experience, I totally agree with the advice above about a) joining the Yahoo group, b) using the lesson plans and not just the workbooks, and c) not worrying about doing every single problem or spending as much time on something as a classroom would.
BUT I would also caution against dismissing individual activities, especially in the lesson plans, as being too easy or not worth the time. I've found in many, many instances that a very easy maneuver will be introduced in a new context--and I'll be asking myself, "huh. What was that all about?", only to find in another two or three lessons that context revisited in a much more challenging way. The easy problem gives my son (and for that matter, me) a chance to wrap our minds around how new approaches work so that when we get to the meaty problem we can focus on the math and not the context. I don't think I'm making much sense, so if anyone else knows what I'm talking about and can put it more articulately, please help me out!
Also, did anyone notice?--the "Textbook 1a Referenced Activities" is up on the site now. I'm not sure how long it's been there; hope they get to the others soon!
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Going over it after he's figured it out his way makes sense--thanks. One of the things I tend to forget about MEP is that even if you totally blow a given activity, it will come up again enough times for both teacher and student to master it. :)
(The lesson, btw, is towards the very end of 1a. It's not actually in algebraic notation; I just didn't know how to make the little box on the computer.)
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My early math education was abysmal (though I got better and better the more theoretical it got) and I have yet to get my hands on the Liping Ma book. I've been using MEP Y1 with my little guy and so far we are very, very happy with it. One of the things I love about it is that it encourages so many different approaches to problems; I feel (hope) it is to a certain extent making up for my own inadequacies. But I feel a little out of my depth when it comes to allowing my son to do things contrary to the instructions.
So, for example, today's lesson had a lot of work on the number line. Towards the end there were some exercises and the lesson plan said the students could use the number line to solve them. My son was perplexed by this (not sure it matters, but these were not straight addition/subtraction; rather things like 7-x+5=10) and finally we gave up and used the rods, which he loves. Given that he's getting practice on the number line from other activities, does it matter how he solves more open-ended exercises? Or should I be really insisting on the number line precisely because he doesn't quite get it yet? Am I making a lick of sense here? Any input would be most appreciated.
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This post may give you some inspiration:
http://evlogiaonline.com/2009/03/04/beauty-in-simplicity/
She may be coming from a different place than many, in curricular terms as well as others, but it's a lovely perspective.
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Here's the link to the spreadsheet. I'm sure it's full of mistakes and typos; feel free to save your own copy and edit (but I don't want to know about my errors; did I mention I'm a slacker? :)). As you can see, I started listing books but stopped when I decided to stop worrying about them. But you could go through and fill that in, of course.
As I was wrapping this up, I thought a little about the over/under thinking thing. I think I am both underestimating the thinking I put into it--probably 75% of the work involved understanding the units enough to decide on an order for them--and that I am underthinking in a manner of speaking. My son really thrives on this program because of his personality; much of our development and review comes from conversations inspired by the activities (he's one of those kids that just won't stop talking), so we don't really make use of a lot of outside resources. Keeping it extremely simple and flexible appeals, obviously, to my personality. I'm not terribly worried about keeping us on a schedule; if I realize Monday morning that I've forgotten something I'm likely just to skip that week or come up with some kind of work-around. I think that wouldn't be ideal for a lot of people (it's probably not even ideal for me but it's working okay so far).
BUT I guess what I really want to say is that I wouldn't want people like myself to shy away from BFSU because of a perception of lots of prep work or complexity. I realize it's not for everyone, but I love it so much, and my son loves it so much, that I just want to convey that even slackers like me can use it with good results!
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I say this with great hesitancy, as I am pretty much a newbie, but I am quite possibly the least planning-oriented mom on the planet and I love BFSU. I took several hours one night and typed up a spreadsheet that has the different lessons, worked out in order, broken down into their parts, along with a list of materials (I highlighted things I'll need to buy or instances in which we'll need to look at something online, etc.). We do science on Mondays, so the night before I look through that day's lessons and think about whether or not I have all the stuff; about five minutes before learning time I actually collect the stuff, and that's pretty much it.
I suppose one thing slacker thing I've done is I don't worry about the recommended books. Sometimes I pick some up from the library after the lesson is over, considering it as a review, but honestly, I haven't had the experience that most of them illuminate anything new for my son, and some of them are so simple that once one has had the lesson, they seem, well, worthless. In other subjects I lean Charlotte Mason-ward, and if I wanted to match up literature with the science lessons, I think I'd need to track down some of those so-called "living books." :)
I'm posting, despite my hesitancy, because I so often see people who are obviously leagues above me in planning ability and execution get frustrated with BFSU. Is it possible--and please, I don't mean this as a criticism, just humbly, as something that might help--that folks are overthinking this program? Or am I just underthinking it? I'm certainly open to that possibility.
My spreadsheet, I believe, is a reinvention of the wheel, and I've only filled in the details for about 1/4th of the lessons, but if people feel it might be useful I'll try to wrap it up (seriously, it should only take another hour or so) and post it to Google Docs.
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I would spend the time making sure you are going over the lesson plans as written, as that is an integral part of that program, and helps the child to think the *MEP way*, so to speak.
Hee. No worries there. I'm more or less obsessing about the lesson plans, which I think are quite, quite brilliant.
We enjoy CSMP as a nice little addition to our math studies. It does not replace anything that we use and we really don’t get around to it all that often. But my kids love it!
Okay--good to get insight from both of you. I think I'll just continue to drool over it in my spare time and glean ideas for the future, but stick with MEP in real life. As it were. :)
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We are finding it to be a lovely addition to our math time. I hope some of you may too.
This thread is certainly helping me wrap my brain around it a bit more. Thanks so much. Would you say, though, that you are finding it a necessary addition to your math program? I ask because I'm quite, quite happy with MEP so far and don't want to get into the "grass is always greener" pattern, especially this early on (but I have terrible problems resisting cool new shiny toys. . . ). Is there something--in terms of content--that CSMP is covering that MEP does not? Or would you say the primary difference is puzzles vs. games? I don't mean to sound dismissive of that difference, by the way. But so far my guy is having enough fun with MEP for that alone not to warrant adding in more stuff.
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I'm nowhere near this point with my kids, so take this with the proverbial grain of salt, but in the past I've taught college English, including multiple levels of composition, for years, and here's my take:
- Those particular formal steps in that order do sound potentially restrictive to me. A lot of people don't really know what they're going to write until they start writing; I've often told my students that if they know exactly what they're going to say before they start the paper, there's a problem. The writing process itself should ideally be one of discovery. That said, two big caveats:
- First, one should be able to produce a coherent outline at the end of the writing process, if not at some point during the process. That is, if you can't outline the ideas and see a logical structure, your paper might just be disorganized. I've often recommended that students do an outline as a second-to-last step just to double check their structure.
- Second, I can't emphasize enough that revision is a really, really important skill. Generalizing here, but the main failing I've seen in about 99.9% of my students is their inability to envision alternatives to the way they have put things (and then, ideally, to chose the best alternative among several). Every, every, every piece of writing, no matter how impressive the first draft, could stand to go through some kind of revision process, and I firmly believe that every, every, every writer can benefit from it. Revision--if by this we mean carefully considering your own writing choices, as opposed to some mechanistic process--is where you really grapple with your own work and learn to improve yourself. I'm hoping that sounds passionate rather than preachy. :)
My two cents--hope that's not too impractical of an answer. . .
- Those particular formal steps in that order do sound potentially restrictive to me. A lot of people don't really know what they're going to write until they start writing; I've often told my students that if they know exactly what they're going to say before they start the paper, there's a problem. The writing process itself should ideally be one of discovery. That said, two big caveats:
Writ, as in past participle of "Write" :) Those out of the US....
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
I use it, but I'm fond of off-the-wall locutions (okay, it's an affectation. I enjoy it). :001_smile: Mostly as in, "writ large"--so, say, "that's an example of our family dynamic writ large."
I would probably qualify as an "older person" at this point, though. Certainly not "younger". . .