Nikita
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Posts posted by Nikita
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Thanks to all of you!!
I did manage to get the pdf of Sheldon's Advanced Language Lessons (which is the one I wanted) from the other link by searching at http://www.archive.org. I had to click on the "All Files: HTTP" link which gave me direct access to the PDF file (clicking on the "PDF on Google.com" link just gave me the same info page as going directly into Google Books.)
I was also able to get the Serl Intermediate Language Lessons in the same way.
So thanks again to all of you for your help :-)
Nikita
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Thanks Tara. I did exactly as you described and still can't see or download any of it. I did manage to get a limited preview of the Advanced Language Lessons (ie, I can see it but can't download). I wonder if it is because I am in Canada? I wouldn't think that would make any difference since it's so old it can't be copyrighted anymore. Oh well, thanks for all your help!
Nikita
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Thanks Sweetfeet, but I'm not even seeing a single page. Just the Table of Contents listed below, with none of it clickable. And when I search for the book by title, every edition comes up saying No Preview Available. What am I doing wrong?
Nikita
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how do you actually see the content of the books? When I click on the links in the original message, all I get is the TOC, not even a preview?
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Carnegie Mellon publishes an excellent curriculum specifically designed to go with the Mindstorms kits. Find it here:
http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/content/lego/curriculum/index.htm
There is also a fabulous book called NXT Zoo which includes instructions and programming for robot animals. Here's the amazon link:
But I agree with others that 7yo is too young to do much with Mindstorms unless an adult is willing to learn along with him. And be forewarned, it takes a *long* time to learn enough to program a robot to do anything really cool.
When he's old enough (around 9 or 10), look into First Lego League (FLL) which is a cool competition where kids work together to build a Mindstorms robot that completes challenges on an obstacle course. I coached a homeschool team for 3 years so my son could participate, and all the kids got a lot out of it. (They also do an indepth research project on a science topic, which all my team members enjoyed just as much as working on the robot.) I think there have been discussions about FLL on this forum before so you may find more info if you search for it.
Hope this helps,
Nikita
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I'd go with the children's chorus. My son sang for several years as a soprano, then had to find a new chorus after his voice changed. My experience was that conductors of children's choirs really know how to develop a boy's voice and are very encouraging. A good children's chorus will also spend more rehearsal time on teaching - developing sight-singing and technique. (Now I'm feeling sad that my boy has decided not to continue with it this year...)
Nikita
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Thank so much, Colleen and Tonia. I think that's the same company, I'd just thrown away my old invoices and didn't keep the info. Thanks again,
Nikita
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Does anyone know how to obtain Rod and Staff materials in Canada? I'm sure there is a distributor who handles them by mail-order - I used to get them at a curriculum fair that is, sadly, not being held this year.
Thanks!
Nikita
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We've done co-op activities for 5 years, and also decided that this is the year to cut it out of our schedule. I do think my kids will miss it though. However, we live in a big city with lots of homeschoolers, so we will still have other group activities (a homeschoolers gym class, maybe a craft club for my daughter with a few friends, group field trips) but it will be less stress. I was always involved in organizing the co-ops and the burden of planning plus the travel time just took too much away from my own kids.
Good luck, it sounds like a good decision.
Nikita
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We did a lot of adventure books in those grades at school. The ones I remember vividly are:
Treasure Island
Banner in the Sky
Mutiny on the Bounty
Those are still among my very favourite books.
You also might want to look at the booklists for Bravewriter's Boomerang (gr 7-9) subscription. I think you could sign up for individual book discussions if any of those titles are appealing. (I think you have to sign up for the monthly subscription and then cancel it.) She also has lists from previous years which might contain useful suggestions for you.
Nikita
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This is funny, because just this morning I thought to myself, our whiteboards are probably the homeschool investment that I've gotten the most use out of.
We have two whiteboards, one for each kid, that are about 2x3 feet each. We don't have a school room so they move with us to the kitchen, dining room or living room floor! I got them first for my reluctant writer who complained so much about the scratchy feel of pen or pencil on paper, and of course he hated chalkboards for the same reason! By using a whiteboard he was finally willing to work on spelling or diagramming sentences. (We spent many $$ on pens and pencils before finding ones he was comfortable with - ones that had a comfortable grip and moved smoothly enough across the paper for him.)
The kids (10 and 14) still use them for grammar, as well as math. My son, even at 14, much prefers to work out problems on whiteboard rather than paper. The kids create game boards on them. My daughter draws while we read aloud. I prop one up and make notes while I'm teaching math or we're talking through a novel (venn diagrams, or lists of characters, or new vocabulary). DD practices her cursive on them. We make lists of what we need to get done that day and check things off in a different colour.
I like the smallish size of ours because they are portable. When someone is sick, we might even take one upstairs and all of us sprawl around it on my bed to play a word game or a math game.
BTW, the dry-erase markers do double-duty for workbooks as well - I put page protectors with the logic workbooks and the kids do the pages with the dry-erase markers, check their answers, then erase their answers and initial the page. That way both kids can use the same workbook and I don't have to do any photocopying.
Nikita
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I think Book Depository does carry all those titles, but may not have them all in stock at once. When I ordered (your entire list except for the answer keys) they shipped all three titles separately but within a day or two. So they seem to ship as soon as titles are available, rather than holding the order until it is complete. They all arrived very quickly.
I checked the ISBN numbers on the Galore Park website and compared them to the numbers at Book Depository, to be sure I was ordering the correct titles.
Nikita
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If you can stand another science option, then I suggest you look at Nebel's Elementary Education. I mention it because it is a bit like Bravewriter and very unschooling-friendly in that you can just dip into it wherever you like, but it is also very strong conceptually and describes a lot of hands-on activities. It is meant as an entire curriculum for gr 1-5, but more than half of it is devoted to science concepts and I think it takes the concepts into enough depth at least for middle school. I used it extensively about 3 years ago, then we got involved in a science coop doing FLL and that took over our science for a while. I just pulled it off the shelf yesterday and happily realized how easily it will dovetail with the TOPS units that I'm thinking about.
You can see sample pages on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Nebels-Elementary-Education-Creating-Tapestry/dp/1588208923/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217274495&sr=1-1)
One drawback is that it is really a teacher manual and not very kid-friendly - small print, only a few line drawings - it doesn't lend itself to browsing by the kids.
Nikita
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It really sounds like these should work for us, and the kids are excited about them, which is a pleasant surprise for me. You ladies are fantastic!
:-)
Nikita
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Well, I've used one or two of both AIMS and GEMS, and while they were good, I really felt they would be better for classroom use, which is why I'm looking at the TOPS units for this year. I think I'll get more value for my $$.
From GEMS, I used the Cabbages and Chemistry, which took the basic purple cabbage experiment (acids and bases) a little farther - the emphasis is on scientific method and we did most of the activities. Each lesson builds on the previous one. My son (11 or maybe 12 at the time) got bored quickly. My daughter (she was 7 or 8) enjoyed it a lot more but didn't have the patience for the very specific instructions and she wanted to explore a little more freely.
I've also looked at the GEMS elementary algebra books as well as one on plate tectonics and didn't find them too inspiring - they are quite scripted for a classroom situation and I think they would work very well there, but they seemed cumbersome to do at home so I didn't attempt them.
I've also borrowed a couple of the AIMS math/physics units - the pre-algebra one called Learning with Lines, I think, and also one that uses Lego to do basic physics experiments. We tried some of the Lego one, but it required a lot of building before we could do the activity, and seemed quite prescriptive and not as open-ended as we wanted. My sense from both books was that the activities were excellent, but were most useful if you wanted to cover exactly the material addressed in each activity. There is a lot to choose from in each book, but you likely wouldn't want to use all the activities because that would be overkill.
I do think that you get more value from the AIMS books because there are more activities and it's easier to pick and choose which to do, whereas the GEMS activities all build on each other. I was originally planning to purchase some other AIMS books for this year, but then I came across TOPS and it really sounds like it will work better in my home. My kids are used to some pretty free-form exploration in science though - we don't do the spine/reading/report type of science here so YMMV.
Hope this has helped,
Nikita
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Sue, can you give me any idea how long each task card would have taken for them to exhaust? Would they have spent an hour per task card, or more, or would they have gone through several at a time? Thanks for any insights. I'm glad to hear they enjoyed the Rocks and Minerals, that is one that I'm considering.
Nikita
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For our science this year, I'm having my kids choose several TOPS units based on their interests and then I'll find other resources/texts to support those topics (probably PH Explorers, and living books).
We love the samples on the website, but since those are not the actual format I cannot tell the difference between the "task card" series and the "activity sheet" formats.
It looks like the task cards give you more activities at a lower cost, so I'm wondering what is in the activity sheet series to make them more expensive - are there really extensive teacher notes, worksheets, extra extension activities? For some topics (Electricity, Pendulums) there is a title in both formats and that's just confusing me - which do I choose?
I'd also love to hear personal recommendations for titles that your kids loved. Oh, they are working at roughly gr 5 and 8-9.
Thanks everyone!
Nikita
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Thank you. What is the difference between Prep and "So you really want to learn..."? I visited the Galore Park website (they are having a sale until July 31) but am not finding that information. Thanks so much!
The Prep series moves a bit more slowly. The sequence generally recommended here is Prep 1, 2, 3 followed by SYWTTL 3. My 13yo son worked through some of Prep 1 last year (started late in the year, stopped early, otherwise he should have finished it all) and loved it. It's thorough, the lessons teach exactly what is needed for the subsequent exercises so it can be quite self-directed, and I feel it provides a good combination of vocab, grammar, and translation.
I would also recommend the Bravewriter manual called Writers' Jungle, particularly because you said you have unschooled. It really falls into the "relaxed" homeschooling category, not the classical. I like it a lot, and am always inspired by Julie's approach.
Nikita
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It has a great variety of experiments that use simple supplies. We've also used the van Cleave books. I tend not to buy kits because I always feel I paid too much just to have those simple supplies put together in a box for me.
I'm thinking about the TOPS books for next year (SWB has listed some of them in her recommended resources) but I haven't used them yet so can't really recommend them, although they look great! Website is at http://topscience.org/
Nikita
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They are quite willing to offer help with specific questions in the texts, etc, or sometimes you will find that your question has already been asked and answered there. Or they may be able to offer ideas for teacher guides that would be more useful to you.
My son graduated from SM 6B last year and started NSM1, which was suggested as being easier than NEM. He struggled quite a bit with the first few chapters. A friend who went from 6B into NEM1 had the same experience - there seems to be quite a jump in difficulty after 6B. Once the kids were past the first few chapters they seemed to settle in to the tougher material though.
All of that is to say that the higher levels are good texts, but not as easy to teach and if you are already feeling that it's not working, then this may be a good time to switch to a different program that will take you all the way through high school. It doesn't seem to make sense to switch to Saxon, though, if you know you don't like that either. Have you considered Math-U-See? That would have been my second choice if we hadn't been able to make Singapore work for us.
Nikita
(nice to be back, by the way - I've taken a break from the boards and missed them :-)
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My son used Miquon and Singapore side-by-side and he loved both, then at his request he stuck with Singapore from then on. I added other fun stuff and some math history as well (great list at http://www.livingmath.net)
At 13 he still enjoys math but the legos and robots have given way to other interests, except he is still begging to do the FLL (lego robotics) competition one last time next year :-)
Nikita
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The placement tests are exit tests, so yes, if he passes the 6B test that would indicate he is ready to go on to the first book in any of NEM, NSM, or NMC. If he has just finished a regular gr 6 text, however, he may not have covered everything in 6B. You might want to look at the placement tests first, before deciding which one he should attempt. I would also recommend that he really should do both 6A and 6B placement tests to be sure he's covered all the topics in the Singapore gr6 material - the A and B books contain different topics and he'll need to have mastered all of them.
Nikita
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We used them with the Miquon math workbooks mostly. You could pick up a copy of the Miquon Lab Annotations book pretty cheaply, and find some ideas in there even if you're not wanting to use Miquon.
There is a neat booklet, called Cuisenaire Discovery Booklet & Cards, on this website (http://community.netidea.com/mirhughe/homeschool.htm) which is intended as a pre-Miquon activity book to use with the rods. My son loved the games in this booklet.
Nikita
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Doing the placement test is a good idea.
You should also check out the forums (at http://www.singaporemath.com). There is a board specifically to help people decide which books to buy, and you may find info there to help you decide, or you can post your question and someone may be able to give you suggestions.
There is a chart somewhere on the website that compares the three series. Generally, NEM is considered the hardest, but has solutions manuals available. Both NEM and NSM are four-year series. NMC covers the same material over 5 years so is considered easier. My son is using NSM1 and really likes it. He did find that the first few chapters were pretty tough, though, and I've heard lots of people say the same thing about NEM.
Nikita
Ontario Online Schools
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
A friend of mine has had two of her sons take the grade 9 Canadian geography course through the Virtual High School. She speaks very highly of the experience and of the teacher, although looking at the website today I think perhaps their teacher may have been someone else.
I've also had several homeschoolers tell me that taking math through any online school is not generally a good idea, because the workload is inevitably heavy and unforgiving. I think their experiences were primarily with AMDEC.
Nikita