Jump to content

Menu

acurtis75

Members
  • Posts

    1,666
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by acurtis75

  1. I received the email below (names removed) today from the math kangaroo people. Apparently everyone who tested for grade 3/4 at the location near Houston where we tested received incorrect scores. I believe this will affect the rankings of everyone in Texas as there were several students at this location who checked their answers after results came out and were expecting perfect scores. On May 20th, I sent email to the manager of the center with all parents' addresses in BCC field. I am sorry if you didn't get my message. I have to admit, I used wrong answer keys and all your children's answers were evaluated incorrectly. The answer cards from your center reached us way to late, when all other cards were already in the scantron company. It was the reason for evaluating them manually. Unfortunately, the human mistake happened, I only wish it affected your children. One more time, please accept my sincere apology. We are working on straightening the issue out and you will hear from us sonn.
  2. Does anyone have a blank copy of the 4th grade test? I would like dd to review the answers but she can't find her copy. We received scores and she performed very poorly which is unusual for her so we are tying to see what she did wrong.
  3. I haven't been on the boards lately because life has just been too busy. I'm supposed to be finishing my taxes right now but decided to take a break and do some reading/planning first. I think I came here just to see this thread. Quark and dmmetler it is reassuring to know you don't always finish books. From reading your posts my dd has some similarities to your kids who are both a little older (she just turned 10). I've been frustrated about the fact that we seem to have a lot of unfinished books around here lately. We took a lot of time off preparing for contests this last year. I talked with a few friends lately whose children are on more structured schedules and I was feeling a bit like we are too unstructured because we always seem to have 20 half finished curriculum resources here.
  4. We use them for similar reasons to dmmetler. Dd loves to read and I started using Fred when she went through a stage where she hated math. This happened while learning long division in mus delta I believe. She could do the problems but was bored and tired of the repetition. She started doing Fred, living math books and eventually Beast Academy to provide some interesting math to counteract the boring repetition. She now likes math, even mentioned potentially studying it in college but enjoys using all the different resources. I never check her Fred problems. She works through it on her own and likes to read the books for fun so I won't sell them but don't really consider it a part of our official curriculum. .
  5. We did Song School Latin starting at around that age (been a while so I can't remember exactly when we started). It wasn't around when we started but I like mathusee (MUS) primer and plan to use it when my youngest is ready to start playing with numbers. You could also go straight to alpha if he already knows some numbers. My daughter loved playing with the blocks when she was 4/5 and learned a lot of math concepts on her own using them. I know MUS isn't always recommended for accelerated kids but I have a 10 year old who started with alpha after suffering through Horizon and Singapore for K/1st. She could do the math easily but didn't enjoy the pace. She then moved very quickly through all the mus programs including pre-algebra. I slowed her down some with supplements like singapore cwp, life of fred, beast academy, etc but now she is easily working through AOPs pre-algebra so I think MUS gave her a solid basic math foundation.
  6. This is basically the same experience that we had in Houston. 30-40 kids. dd took level 4 exam. Kids were grouped in rooms of 1-4th grade and 5th - 10th. Almost all the kids are Indian which is the same experience we had last year at a different location in Houston. Our location last year was a Polish/Russian school so there were a few very blond polish looking kids. This year it was at a math tutoring center. DD was 1 of 2 or 3 kids who weren't Indian. The others were Asian. She has dark olive skin so she doesn't stand out in the picture and I don't think she noticed either year that all the kids were Indian. She felt good about the exam but I forgot to tell her to mark her answers so we aren't sure about the score. We rushed to the exam after a long day outside at the rodeo so we'll see if that impacted her results.
  7. We are currently doing BA 4A and AOPs Pre-algebra at the same time. DD loves BA and wants to finish the series. She's worked a little along on the 3A-3D books over the last year as review while she completed MUS Zeta & Pre-algebra and said she wanted to continue while she does AOPs pre-algebra book. She considers it a fun math break.
  8. We did it for the first time last year and dd9 enjoyed it. Unfortunately this year the only location near me doesn't have available seats so we're going to miss it. She found the problems challenging but fun.
  9. We used MUS from alpha to pre-algebra and just added Beast Academy, Singapore Challenging Word Problems and Life of Fred as supplements. DD had no problem transitioning from MUS to Beast Academy. We were already on Delta when BA came out so the first book was almost all review but she enjoyed it anyway.
  10. Our children sound similar. My daughter is now 9 but what I discovered around that time was that she was bored in math and we needed to move faster. I also stopped doing worksheets for math facts. She played games like math bingo and various others on the ipad. We used MUS. We started at alpha because using the blocks fixes the counting up and down issue. I also thought she needed to go through the lessons. To save money I found an old version of alpha on vcr tape instead of buying the whole curriculum. We did this even though she could add and subtract before we started. We used an acceleration system which I've written about extensively in old posts but I'm not sure how to link so here is a summary. Watch dvd, do a few problems, give the opportunity to "test out" of that chapter by passing the text. Sometimes this meant that we moved through several chapters a week and several books in a year. We supplemented with Life of Fred, living math books, Beast Academy and other things and ended up starting pre-algebra when she was 8.
  11. I've tried just about everything suggested on the boards and we finally decided it wasn't worth our time to do formal spelling. Since dd likes to do spelling she uses various spelling bee prep material and we do oral spelling practice with the words from her vocabulary from classical roots book. As use book A. She also has "How to Spell Like a Champ" and we've used words from there and from the Scripps booklet.
  12. I would say this is very similar to what happens here. DD can do most everything by herself but we lose a lot of time when the transition is up to her. If I plan time to check what she's done in between subjects it gets done more efficiently. If I have to be gone for a while I to the introduction/time together for all the subjects at once and give her a checklist. We might spend 20 or 30 minutes discussing what she should do, anything she needs to know before she starts and approximately how long it should take per subject. If she has a checklist she gets her work done most of the time but it takes longer because she daydreams, gets distracted or takes rabbit trails. For example, today during her bible study time (which took place while I was taking a much needed nap) she was supposed to read 3 verses in Acts 16. When I got up she hadn't finished the lesson because "it was interesting" so she read the whole book of Acts. I don't mind that she spent more time on the lesson but when she does this it means we don't finish the checklist and the part of me that would like to be organized and efficient wishes we could finish our plans for the day.
  13. This is a good idea. I might just get her stuff to make her own.
  14. It is ridiculously expensive but dd would probably love several of these. Especially the one with career aspirations that says Ninja.
  15. DD is suddenly on a creative kick so I'm planning on getting some more sewing and art supplies. She has been cutting up old clothes and creating all sorts of doll clothes and other things. Right now she is making a quilt for her toys. She always gets Beast Academy stuff for gifts. She still likes going through the books and wants to "finish" the series even though we are currently in pre-algebra. We will also probably get some Lord of the Rings legos because she recently finished reading the books and loved them. A game called Idiom Addict we played on vacation recently and really liked. If we have a really good next 45 days financially (we are self employed) I might upgrade my iPad with a new refurbished one and give her my iPad because she has a first generation. So far I haven't come up with anything very exciting so I'm looking forward to ideas from this thread. Last year I ordered several things we saw on the thread.
  16. She can probably do most of that by herself if you give her a checklist to work on while you are gone. I've found that dd9 CAN do everything by herself now but that doesn't mean she necessarily gets it done without me there. My dh has started taking her to his office every once in a while and I give her a list and his responsibility is to ask her every hour or so how much she has done to curb the daydreaming. He doesn't really check work or have any idea what she is doing but the occasional check in on her means she gets more done. DD likes checklists. She also really likes free time to read, sew or work on any of her many creative projects so giving her a list that says get xyz done and then you can have free time works pretty well.
  17. vocabulary from Classical Roots is marked with letters not grade levels. It is a workbook but no puzzles or crosswords. We use it for LA and also use the word lists for spelling bee practice. We also use Latin for Children. The activity books include crossword puzzles and other games.
  18. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to get several of these and will let her choose. It is emotional stuff that is tough for her but she finished The Girl Who Could Fly and loved it once she got over being upset in the early chapters. She read all of the appendix information in Lord of the Ring so she enjoys details. She read all the Narnia books several years ago but I'm going to suggest she read them again. She also loves the Box Car Children and has never mentioned the kids living on their own as an issue. Don't know why it's different than the Girl Who Could Fly but apparently it didn't hit her the same. I haven't read Ender's Game but plan to read it before I give it to her. I have a feeling she would be upset by it or the later books in series. She has only ever read one book that she strongly disliked. It was either the 2nd or 3rd book in the Wizard of Oz series. I haven't read it so I can't remember details but she hated the ending...something about a boy searching for a princess who discovered he was really the princess or something. At the time I started a thread about it to get some feedback to figure out why she was so irritated and I remember someone telling me their husband had read all the books and said that particular one was confusing.
  19. Thanks. Just looked at the summary and those sound like something she will enjoy.
  20. I'm sure I could search the forum for this but thought I would ask for some quick suggestions from this group. We're driving to Florida and back for the Bible Bee competition and I'm looking for book suggestions for dd9. We'll be in the car 15 - 16 hours each way. She has studied for this competition several hours a day for the last 60 days and I wanted to surprise her with a stack of books when we get in the car next week. She recently finished Lord of the Rings and loved it so she asked to read the Hobbit again on the trip but was disappointed that it is "so short" and won't last as long as Lord of the Rings. She loves to read historical fiction and pretty much anything she gets her hands on. I would prefer no adult romance type content but other than that don't really censor too much. She really likes to finish a series once she starts it so after reading some posts here I decided to hold off on Harry Potter because of some content in the later books. She is very sensitive and I let her read a lot more than she can watch...she would be scared to death of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies but is okay with reading the books. She cried because main character in "The Girl Who Could Fly" had to go live away from home for a while.
  21. Most of my closest friends who homeschool started 6 months to a year after us and have used a lot of the books we complete. I don't know that they spend as much time researching and obsessing about curriculum as I do. I haven't run in to a lot of people in my area who have even heard of Art of Problem Solving. We don't do a coop but we have a group that we are part of that does a lot of field trips and social activities. We are mostly attending elementary age activities. This might be why no one uses AOPs. Since dd is really far ahead in everything I rarely discuss curriculum unless asked directly what we use and then I answer in vague terms. My close friend who I pass books on to is more familiar with dd and I don't have to worry about awkwardness in discussing that dd is doing pre-algebra in the 3rd/4th grade.
  22. Glad to hear you bought the practice books because I was worried :laugh: Initially Dd seemed more willing to tackle the hard problems in Beast Academy than other programs. I also had her read this article by "the guy who wrote Beast Academy" which I think helped. http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=hardproblems
  23. My daughter read them all right away too but she has picked them up to read again several times. I make myself feel better about $30 books that she reads in 5 minutes by passing them on to friends to use when we are done. Unfortunately most of our friends have slightly younger kids so we rarely get to find someone else's books to borrow.
  24. Unless she just hates the comic book I would get the practice books. They are really good and some of the problems are very easy but some are also very challenging. We started at 3A even though the topics were all things we already covered. I think it was worth our time and it was the first math book dd asked to work on by herself during free time. There were definitely problems that she had to attempt a few times. I specifically wanted to get her used to having to try to solve problems more than one way before we started AOPs pre-algebra. Even though we finished mus pre-algebra and are working on AOPs pre-algebra soon we still do the Beast Academy books. DD is currently doing 3D and has asked the the next books for Christmas.
×
×
  • Create New...