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rootsnwings

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Posts posted by rootsnwings

  1. Well I have to vouch for your daughter! Fifth grade math is hard! And confusing! All of a sudden they are thrown from the basic arithmetic operations into fractions, decimals & percentages!! It's really a lot of tedious work! We did Singapore 5A & 5B last year (just finished 5B) and it was tough but Singapore just CLICKS with my oldest! I know MUS moves VERY slowly and has a lot of review (it's a mastery program so they do the same thing everyday, all year). It also comes with manipulatives to show them, concretely, why the math works. Rightstart math is another great manipulative (& game!) based program I am using with my younger son. He is learning math with the alabacus and it is completely amazing FOR ME. I never knew how an abacus worked til we started RS, but you can use an abacus to teach up to highschool level math...!!! Maybe look into some of those options?

  2. When we used US Edition we used the IP as supplement and never went with the CWP because, in my honest opinion, Singapore has PLENTY of challenging word problems already in the curriculum! Last year we switched to CA Standards edition & dropped the IP altogether because it was obvious that it's built right into the Standards curriculum & again with the CWP, simply unnecessary imho! (although I do think IP is a fundamental part of the US Edition materials & I would not use those materials without IP)

  3. Well I, personally, am subbing to this thread because my plan is to use K12 HO for my 11yo after we finish the last SOTW book. We're on book 3 now & will do book 4 through next year & start K12 HO in 7th. I would love to see what you guys do with the curriculum as it sounds very much like what we already do with SOTW. We add in timeline (but I want to start it at the beginning, when we start K12HO). We have some map work we do in SOTW, and he has developed into writing more essay-style narrations rather than 1 or 2 sentences (that has always been hard for him, now I just have him summarize the story). I would love to hear your take on the 2-level outline vs. 3-level, etc as we are just learning to outline & take notes & I need all the help I can get with explaining to him (general paragraph-writing instruction seems to be helping some but maybe you know something I don't know!! ;))

     

    Hope to hear you guys enjoy your new Curriculum!!! :D

  4. READ.

     

    That is seriously my only goal for my 4 year old. I had all these big elaborate plans & already have my hands on a whole lot of curriculum that I want to use, but this year my goal is READ. We will use Explode the Code every week day & he will have the option to work on Singapore 1A if he wants to. He actually enjoys doing math work so I just wait for him to ask before we move on. He's FOUR. ;)

     

    I am teaching the kindergarten class at co-op HWOT this fall so I am excited about that but I will not require much from him on writing until 1st grade when we will start giving narrations. SOMETIMES when he is in on my oldest's botany lesson or activity, he will dictate a short narration that I copy for him & then he draws & colors me a picture to go with it. I honestly don't WANT him writing his letters until he completely understands how to correctly write each letter (which he will get explicit instruction & supervision for) and they simply do not have the physical ability/strength, in my experience, to properly write their letters/numbers before first grade. We just got into a REAL PICKLE with my 11 yo because he went to ps in K & 1st & evidently no one noticed (INCLUDING MYSELF) that he was writing EVERY SINGLE ONE of his letters incorrectly. I think it is a HUGE reason his handwriting is messy & I hope to avoid it with my next two by any means necessary!

  5. My 4yo has the red dye sensitivity, for sure & my daughter has the annatto sensitivity too! So crazy. We get all our dye-free candy(LOVE Yummy earth Lollipops!) & cold/cough syrups through our local Frontier co-op. I can usually find dye-free vitamins at the health food store but I've noticed recently that even Walmart has the gummy fish oil/omegas dye-free now, too. We always skip red icing & I make Julie hold her gumball to make sure Caleb doesn't get red or else they have to switch! LOL! Evidently yellow gumballs are not dyed with annatto, so she's good on gumballs :D

  6. I can't remember or don't know if this person is a member here (sorry), but the botany plan on her blog might be useful

     

    http://eclectic-homeschool.blogspot.com/2011/05/botany-study.html

     

    if you want to beef up what you've got already.

     

    We used about the 1st 1/3 of this plan before switching to Apologia Botany. The linked plan is GREAT and I'm still using it in addition to Apologia for videos & other links she has posted. We use the Atlas of Botany that she suggests & also the Botany coloring book. Apologia is just MUCH easier since it's written to the student & my 11 year old can read it easily & it has LOTS of activities & projects suggested. Apologia is NOT very easy to plan out though (in my opinion)... of course there may be a "guide" somewhere online I just have not looked... also, Apologia is VERY creation-oriented (which I believe in God as the creator, but NOT that the earth was created 6,000 years ago) so we skip some of the creation stuff (but I also LOVE that it gives God the credit for all the glory & majesty of nature, so it's a catch22!!! ;))

     

    Just throwing that out there for anyone interested in more of a botany course. We started in January & our Botany adventures have worked themselves out PERFECTLY in our homeschool! We are ALL loving it! :D

  7. My little ones LOVE storytime (we have gone to the public library story time since they were babies) & my middle one loves audiobooks, too!!! I just organized a felt story busybag group so we would have a few different felt stories to use in our storytime at home. You should join us! Look up Busy Bag Exchange on Facebook :)

  8. We have a "School then Pool" rule in our house!! ;)

     

    We normally do:

     

    Math

    Grammar

    Spelling

    Vocab

    Lit

    History

    Science

     

    Summer School is:

    Math

    Vocab (we're dropping spelling & will us Sadlier-Oxford for both)

    Latin (dropped Cambridge about a year ago & have taken a break until now, starting Lingua Latina very soon)

    Science

    Lit (he just finished a Progeny Press study guide for Farmer Boy & LOVED it, wants all the Little House books now! :D So I'm going to let him free read through those this summer. Where the Red Fern Grows is the next scheduled reading when we study ferns in Botany. :D It's a recommendation from Apologia, even though there is not even a fern in the story, they say every child should read it & this will be the perfect time.) :)

     

    He said he wants to re-read the SOTW books up until the point we're at now (about 1/2 way through SOTW3 & then we will pick back up with History in the fall & finish SOTW 3 & 4 by 8th grade. Trying to work Alabama History in there by travelling to different historical sites throughout Alabama all year long! We school 4 days/wk all year long and take weeks whenever we want or need them (usually scheduled, but sometimes we will just break if we are getting overwhelmed) It works! And we love the flexibility! :)

     

    (sorry that was long & tmi, but that is what "school lite" looks like around here :tongue_smilie:)

  9. Yes & I completely agree about the attention thing. It's almost like he WANTS me to put some rules in place or something, yk? I think if I make him out a schedule he will be THRILLED to check things off as we go! =) He is a real go getter (natural pleaser) & a list or calendar will be right up his alley. :D

  10. Well, I tried to plan a reasonable amount of work for my k'er (which is going to vary for every child) and then I generally expected him to finish the actual work I had planned unless I realized I had planned too much or he needed a break. Extra things he wanted to do (like your ds' story) I didn't make him finish if he lost interest (although I probably would have had him finish "shark" unless he really fought me on it--but maybe not as a 4 yo.) All that to say, I did have higher expectations once both boys officially started Kinder, but I tried to monitor as we went to make sure I wasn't expecting too much.

     

    I am laughing at myself here but you know, I think it really may be time to write out an actual PLAN for him. DUH :001_huh: again :001_huh: LOL!! I have just always "done the next lesson" in whatever subject he is interested that day & gone with it. 3 Singapore lessons? SURE! And then he doesn't want to touch singapore for another week or so. Maybe Kindy just needs to be when mama gets her ducks in a row & plans a days worth of each subject so he's not overwhelmed & knows how much to expect!!! Gosh, thank ya'll for talking to me about this because it is all becoming very obvious what the problem is now! LOL :)

  11. For kindergarten? When he asked to stop, we stopped. How good is your son at reading? For spelling out shark, do you mean you were trying to have him figure out the letters? Whenever my son asked to spell a word (and we weren't doing spelling lessons), I would have said, "s-h-a-r-k, sh makes a 'sh' sound, the ar makes an 'ar' sound, and the k makes a 'k' sound". I would not have expected him to try and figure it out on his own. Even words he could read a thousand times over like 'apple', trying to draw it out of the brain is a different skill set.

     

    Meggie, thank you so much for mentioning that tip! I have never been taught to teach (and have NEVER taught one to read) so I just thought it was better to let them figure the phonics out themselves. :confused: But I can see how they need actual instruction first. Like when I told him about "sh" making the SH sound, he was on fire about it, like he knew something noone else knew! LOL But then when I tried to have him figure out what the "ar" sound was composed of, he was clueless & got frustrated. Thanks for letting me know it is okay to just tell them! DUH :001_huh: & I love the idea of maybe having him work on his story tomorrow! I think if I bring that page out & just say, "remember we said A-R says ar, like in shark." that he will take it & go with it! ;) I will let him finish that word & ask if he wants me to write down the story for him! GREAT idea and, again, just something I've never realized I needed to do! THANKS!!

  12. I'm not sure why, given your student's age/grade, that you would want to miss the work provided in 5B, 6A & 6B? It's not that Singapore is covering topics she has already learned, but the whole Singapore "method" is to get more & more critical thinking skills going in ALL the mathematical concepts so that students are able to dig deeper into the math & eventually work right into "algebra" (that they have been doing all along!) I would just feel like I was denying them an awesome opportunity to delve deeper, and at the same age your daughter is, my son is LOVING Singapore. We are in the middle of 5B now (plan to finish it before we start 6A in the fall ~ we school year round so it's taking us longer than the ave. school year b/c we've had more/longer breaks throughout) and I just finished planning it out for him tonight & the last section in 5B is Algebra. So it's not like he's going to be missing out on a pre-algebra program, it's build right into Singapore Standards. HTH Some!!!

  13. My plan is to GO! Go see your state! There is a TON of history for Alabama right at our fingertips & we have been BLESSED with the freedom to see it all. Most all of the State parks & monuments are FREE or super cheap and they are close enough to make a day trip out of it. So, my plan for state history is to GO! and SEE ALABAMA!!! =) Nothing beats hands on & State history is the one subject where it is feasible for us, even on a tight budget! Google and see if you can't find a list with all the national & state historical sites for your State. Schedule them in chronological order then GO & SEE!! Teach them the "Story of your State"!! :D

     

    HTH!!!

  14. Hi All! It's been a while since I've posted to the forum but I do read here fairly often & thought you guys could help me with this question!

     

    So, what are your expectations for your KINDERGARTENER? We started homeschooling my almost 6th grader when he was in 2nd grade & honestly... I did not pay much attention to what he did in Kindy :001_huh: I mean, I knew he was progressing well & just never really paid attention to what was expected of him. Now my 4 year old will be 5 in August & while he is already doing schoolwork (he finished the ETC Primers & is now working through 1A, is doing Singapore 1A after being completely bored with Singapore essentials & is now becoming very interested in HWOT (mainly, the salt box, lol). I'm just not sure how much of it should be "sit down & do your work" & how much of it should be "finish it if you want to"...:confused:

     

    Take today for instance... he said, "I want to write a story! How do you spell Once upon a time?" :tongue_smilie: LOL I told him (since he has no real spelling vocab yet) that maybe he could write a few of the words he'd like to see in his story, and asked him to name a few characters in his story. We worked together to sound out the word "fish"... then he wanted to do shark. We had just discussed how "sh" says SH so he knew shark started with SH... then we are working on the ar part and he got tired and decided he was done with that. I have told myself, repeatedly, that I do NOT want to push him but it bothers the CRAP out of me to see them start something & not complete it. I was not expecting him to finish his entire story but by golly, I felt like he should finish his attempt at spelling shark!!!! :lol:

     

    Is this something you would expect of a Kindergartener? I mean, right now he is NOT officially a kindergartener, so I expect stuff like this, but when he is OFFICIALLY a Kindergartener (he thinks it will be OFFICIAL when we start back co-op next fall) do I need to have higher expectations for him? I just know that now, with my 5th grader, I don't let him quit on stuff like that, but of course he is older & we have BTDT so he KNOWS I'm not going to let him quit or slack on his schoolwork.

     

    So. I would love it if you ladies could share your expectations for your Kindergarteners. If you have a schedule & would like to post it, that would be helpful too! I'm just not sure how much is TOO MUCH & want him to keep his little spark for learning, I don't want it to become a chore! But, I also want him to make progress fairly well rounded, meaning, I don't want him to be wanting to write stories & not be able to spell because he doesn't like working on spelling, yk? I know, at least in some subjects, he is going to need a little extra umpf from mama, I just want to make sure I'm not too hard on him! ;)

     

    THANKS in advance for any advice or commiseration!!! :D

  15. Do I need the Audio CD? This is his second year of latin (we used Cambridge in 4th grade, took a break in 5th & now we're about to start latin again). I think Latin Prep will suit him perfectly. Do I need the audio CD? Does it accompany the workbook? Like, are there audio exercises he has to listen to & translate, etc...? He did that some in the Cambridge program & it was good to have the CD for that. Just curious. Also, what about the Latin Puzzles book that goes along with LP? Does anyone have it? I think it would be a great way to add in some fun. =)

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