Maureen
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Posts posted by Maureen
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I love looking up literature on shmoop.com. It's free, accessible, and funny. Obviously not all titles are on it, but many classics are.
Also, just as a thought, I'm also doing Gilgamesh with my 9th graders this year. We are reading a trilogy of picture books available on amazon (can't remember the author but one of the titles is Revenge of Ishtar) and Geraldine McCaughrean's Gilgamesh book. There is a time for the difficult prose of an ancient book, but sometimes I think kids just need familiarity with the story and characters who might be alluded to in later literature.
My two bits
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We are actually doing this course this fall. We are combining this book with the Green Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses 2nd edition book available on Amazon. I have assigned the chapters in the green book to serve as a review at the end of the appropriate chapters. I have tentatively scheduled daily assignments working through the BTB text chapter by chapter.
Lesson preview - 8 days
Lesson 1 - 9 days
Green book - 6 days covering pp. 1-17
Lesson 2 - 9 days
Green book - 5 days covering pp. 47-55
Lesson 3 - 10 days
Green book - 5 days covering pp. 19-30
Lesson 4 - 5 days
Green book - 10 days covering pp. 109-134
Lesson 5 - 7 days
Green book - 4 days covering pp. 35-45
That takes us up to Christmas. My girls have already studied Latin for 4 years, so the grammar of a foreign language is already under their belts. I also purchased the short Spanish books by Karen Rowan. The first one is Las Aventuras de Isabela. I will probably have them start reading through it during lesson 2. There are several of these books and they look great.
Each daughter (3 of them) will be responsible for making and studying vocabulary cards. We separate them out between daily review and weekly review for some of the older well known words. I also look through the pages and assign them to conjugate all of the new verbs in all tenses known. Verbs are key and need lots of practice. I will be learning it right along with them as our family wants to become fluent.
It helps that my husband is fluent in Spanish and we hope to have Spanish only dinners before too much longer!
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Thanks for posting this. I made my 2 8th grade dd and my 6th grade dd read Great Expectations this past spring to illustrate how reading skills are a muscle that needs to be used to be strengthened. It was a tough read for them (and they read an assigned novel almost every week). We are now reading Jane Eyre. I love the classics and am enjoying sharing them with my girls. They do plenty of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Hunger Games on their own. I think all of these books can have merit if you discuss them with your kids. Quality of writing, social context of the stories, author's motivation and purpose for writing, etc. All can be discussed. It is interesting to read a pop fiction book and a classic one after the other and then compare how the stories affect you and how the themes can stick with you (or not!) for a long time after you close the book.
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I'd strongly recommend Khan Academy. I'm using it with all three of my daughters right now since they've finished their curriculum for the year. It is perfect since your students go at their own pace and only get the practice sets checked off when they've shown mastery. Review is built in. I started all of them at the very beginning (Basic Addition) and had them fly through the easy problem sets and move up. Each has had certain spots where they've had to work for a while to get 10 right in a row because of careless errors. It also exposes the formulas and such that they haven't really committed to memory yet. You can click on the topics and just have them scroll down and do all the starred practice sets. I have assigned Khan for 5 hours per week right now and will back it off to 2-3 hours over the summer. I think it is a great way to reinforce the concepts. If they are stuck on anything they can use the hints button and get help, but they will still have to do 10 in a row later to get the star. I love Khan. It is easy for me to set them up as a class with me as their coach where I can check up on their progress and verify they've done their time. I'm doing Khan too and only have a few more practice sets in Calculus before I've done them all!
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You're very welcome. I always think sayings take on more meaning when translating because you have to think about the connotations of the words. It is one of the real benefits in learning another language as it gives you a new awareness of words and their subtleties. I love your mottos.
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In answer to your earlier question, "altus" means high or deep. Not sure how you would want to add Be Patient into your motto as it doesn't fit quite so well as a verb form. Maybe you could add it in with Laborate cum Poteste et Patientia. If you like the Paciencia spelling better that is more of the middle ages spelling coming off of the Latin pax, pacis (the noun for peace). They are both the ablative forms for the noun patience. The other way I can think of would require using the verb habete (have) or tenete (hold). I know that in Latin sayings translating into English as "remember" they use "tenete in memoria" literally meaning hold in memory. I guess if it was me I like Audete, Gaudete, Laborate cum Paciencia et Poteste. I like the idea of combining the need to work hard and yet be patient.
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I have no idea if there is a rule of thumb about mottos being singular or plural. I would go with whichever gives the meaning of the motto best. Are you giving a charge to the world? or Is it more of an introspective thought?
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I will add that these are the singular imperative forms of the words. If you are stating the command to multiple people, the words would be Approbate, Audete, Gaudete, and Laborate.
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I'll take a stab at it. Good and strong = Bonus et Potens or Pius et Valens. Bonus is a generic word for good while Pius adds a moral element of goodness. Potens is usually denoting physical strength while Valens adds a feeling of wellness as well. For your second motto, the words you seem to want are the imperative forms of the words. I would use either Approba or Aude for the Be Good. Aude connotes a sense of daring or the courage to act in a bold manner. For Be cheerful I would suggest Gaude which mean to rejoice or have joy. For work hard, Labora Cum Poteste would mean work with strength. The cum would be optional since poteste is in the ablative case and is understood to mean by, with, or from. If you are looking for something different in your second motto like "To be good" Esse is the infinitive "to be " in Latin. Good Luck!
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What a great article! Thanks for posting Candid.
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"The 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) High School Transcript Study (HSTS) found that high school graduates in 2005 earned more mathematics credits, took higher level mathematics courses, and obtained higher grades in mathematics courses than in 1990. The report also noted that these improvements in students’ academic records were not reflected in twelfth-grade NAEP mathematics and science scores. Why are improvements in student coursetaking not reflected in academic performance, such as higher NAEP scores?"
Hmmmm...
Have they never heard of grade inflation??
Thanks for posting the link.
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Dave At Night is great.
Darby by Jonathan Scott Fuqua is set in the south in 1926 and deals with racial equality. It has a white girl protagonist learning about race relations. It is more of a juvenile book, but has a good theme to explore.
Jeeves is also a great story.
I agree with you on The Great Gatsby. I hated the book when I read it in HS. I just had my girls watch the Robert Redford movie a couple of weeks ago when we studied the 1920s. I also had them read Animal Farm and The Wave by Todd Strasser (true story happened in the 1960s but deals with the idea of fascism). I wanted to deal with communism and fascism during the 20s to give them background for the 30s-40s and beyond. I also then showed the documentary "A Class Divided."
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Thanks so much for the opinions. I've decided to order the first chapter of a few of the courses to check them out. DD has been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by some of our current curriculum and I think I'd rather let her feel competent in an easier course for a while rather than continuing to have her feel in over her head. I can easily beef up a course by letting her choose independent research projects. SHe also just needs to get a few courses checked off and have more time for her art.
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Yes, I had read all of those reviews. I was hoping for something more recent.
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I have only seen this style of paper in this book. That said, I do think it has merit. I've had my girls use either the Approach paper or her version of the Literary Summary for most of the novels they've read. I think you get out of an Approach paper what you put into it. Writing only essay questions and not the answers could lead some students to write lame or ridiculously difficult essay questions without putting much thought into them. I really like the Key Quotation and response. You could certainly tweek this to fit your goals, but I do think the assignment can be beneficial.
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I have read every review I could find online including the two you referenced. I was hoping someone here on the boards had some experience with actually using the courses. All the reviews I've found are from 2010-2011.
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My son went to the local PS for part of 9th grade. The HS is lauded for its high achievement and great test scores. My son really struggled in his Algebra class. I begged the school to let me pull him out from just math and do it at home. They refused. I had to sit in a meeting with an administrator and his counselor and try to make my point for individualized instruction for math. I expressed my concern that he had been working with a tutor for a couple of months, but that it just wasn't enough. The administrator turned to me and said, "I just don't understand why so many parents pay for outside tutors when we have such an outstanding group of math teachers." I (judiciously) kept my mouth shut. There is a tutoring place on every street corner in this town. You can't find a parking place at the library after school hours and every table in the library if filled with a student and his/her tutor. This is a fairly affluent town and the parents can pay for this tutoring, but it is galling that the school takes credit for the test scores and then acts incredulous that the kids even need tutoring. At the same time, as the second semester started, I was in the counselor's office being told that my son's Algebra class might be changed since they were having to create more Alg 1 classes since so many kids had flunked first semester of Alg 2. (What a disconnect!)
Administrators are to blame. Poor teachers are to blame. (ds Alg 1 teacher had a phD in physics. Why was she even teaching in a HS?? She had me thoroughly bored in the 10 mintues I spent in her classroom at back to school night) Credentials do NOT = good teaching. Parents are to blame. Kids are to blame. Govt. beaurocracy is to blame. I think they had a good thing going when a town paid a teacher to teach in a one room school house and parents had local control. The system is unfortunately broken and new "standards" and tests will not fix it.
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:bigear: bump
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I've been looking at their website and course offerings. I would love to hear from people who have actually used this curriculum.
What classes have you used?
Why did you choose Pacworks?
How much do you think your student has learned/retained?
Opinions?
Many thanks!
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Faith -
What a great high school for your parents to go to! How sad that it is hard to find something even remotely close to this now. Even in my own educational history I am amazed at the change. When I went to Kindergarten it was what preschool is today. We didn't even begin to learn letters until the end of the year. Now, kids who aren't reading in Kindergarten are behind. And yet...
Standardized tests and graduation requirements seem to keep dropping since I graduated. Obviously there is a fundamental problem, but then we all know that ( which is why many of us homeschool).
The problem carries over to college as more and more kids show up unprepared and incapable of doing the work. I agree with most that has been posted already. Not everyone is cut out for college because not every career can adequately be taught in a classroom. Forced apprenticeships had their problems in the past, but wouldn't it be great if teens could work real world internships into their course work to explore what the work world is really like. That is a great chance to learn that physical labor type jobs cause sore muscles, etc. Other jobs are repetative and boring. A rotation of 4-6 two month on the job internships could be a real eye-opener to teens if they were given the chance to work in vastly different career categories.
Butterflymommy - Your musings about SAT correlations would make a fascinating research project. I think there is much truth to it.
Except for the very elite universities and colleges, a degree is pretty much just a piece of paper. Unfortunately, we are still in an era when that piece of paper is required as a matter of course. As more people have them, their value is becoming deflated and more people feel the necessity of earning advanced degrees. A degree may or may not reflect any body of knowledge or any acquisition of a skill set. It open doors. It is kind of the same with SAT scores. Unis can't personally interview each prospective student, so they make certain standards to help narrow down the numbers. Once you're on the job or in the school, you may or may not succeed, but that is usually up to you (hard work, personality, etc).
My dad considers himself a very lucky man. He went to college (3 in 4 years), enjoyed learning and so took classes he was interested in (never graduated), but really was just biding his time to join the Air National Guard. He became a fighter pilot and later went with American Airlines. I grew up on a street of 15 homes. The homes were built at the same time the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport was completed and so 11 of the 15 original owners were airline pilots. Some unfortunately were employed by Braniff, TWA, and other airlines that went bankrupt. One father even had to move to Saudi Arabia to fly for an airline there. Others lost seniority in new airlines and lost lots of pension dollars. There is certainly an element of luck that my dad's airline didn't experience any financial troubles until after he had retired and received his lump sum pension. He would be the first to agree with you.
Even if you don't wind up "using" your degree, I think the fact that you "finished" is a good indicator of perseverance and as an employer would be a plus.
The next decade or two could see some really interesting changes as the internet and open courses offer a chance to individualize a degree and potentially show a future employer that you have drive to learn about a particular field and used the resources available to become knowledgable. That is truly the way of successful people.
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I would strongly suggest that you do not try to jump from Fourth Form to Latin 3. I went through Prima Latina, Latina Christiana I and II and First through Third form with my three girls and we are now doing a Latin 2 class. EVERYTHING in the Latin 2 class is new. Latin 3 is all about translation of original Latin works. The Latin translation in the Forms is minimal in my opinion and not based on orignial Latin. I think you should consider skipping Fourth Form and use something else like Wheelocks. My girls are doing the BYU high school Latin courses and use the textbook Latin for Americans. It has lots of translation practice to help prepare for Latin 3. They are currently in the 2nd year, 2nd semester of high school Latin and have learned way more grammar than they ever got in the Form books. I looked on the memoriapress website and it says that fourth form follows the same format at first form, so while I haven't seen a fourth form book, I have used all three of the others. I think the forms are good for younger Latin learners because they go slower, but at the high school level I would do something else. I am doing the Latin right along with my girls so I think I speak with some experience.
Good luck to you.
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Thanks all for taking the time to chime in.
Nscribe - Thanks for the list of questions. I'll have to give those some thought. She loves to read, but definitely prefers fiction to non-fiction. She has persevered through 4 years of Latin even though it is hard for her and I have, in frustration, given her the opportunity to quit more than once. I think one of the hardest things is that I am teaching a pack. She is only 6 months older than her next sister (She is adopted) and her 11 year old sister is very bright. So all three are working at about the same level. All of their coursework is the same except for math. She knows they are ahead of her and I'm sure that bugs her since she is older. She is by far the best artist in the house, but because that isn't a graded class, I think she downplays her talents in comparison to theirs.
She is by far my hardest child to homeschool. We all took a Multiple Intelligences test last month for fun and surprise, surprise - her highest scores were my lowest and my highest were her lowest.
I will look into Lial's BCM. I guess if I have to, I could type/write out just the problems I want her to do so that I can give her a clean page to look at when working.
I have dropped Algebra with her this week. She is currently reading from the Fred elementary series and I'm going to have her make Robinsunne's Multiplication clock.
She has never shown interest/aptitude for creative math problem solving. I'm wondering if there are any "gentle" intros to this type of math that she could do.
How hard would it be to combine Khan with AoPS Pre-Algebra or Lial's BCM?
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Thanks for the background, Kai.
I haven't wanted to let up on math because I don't want to limit her options in the future. I do sit next to her doing math everyday now. I have been hoping that she would gradually become more independent but that is not to be yet. It is very difficult to keep her on task even with me at the table, and unfortunately that is for every subject. Her two younger sisters are becoming more independent though, and so I guess I have the time to sit with her. It is difficult for me to not get frustrated because math is easy for me and I get tired of re-explaining the concept for the 1000th time. :banghead:
I also feel sorry for her because she has very little time some days for pursuing her art since I insist she gets the basic subjects finished first and she works at a snail's pace.
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I have one daughter entering 9th grade this fall. She is a very average student and has already been passed up mathwise by her two younger sisters. She is currently doing MUS Algebra I. She forgets previous concepts and does terribly on the tests (I think she would do better without the multiple choice possibilities). She is a fabulous artist and will definitely NOT be a STEM student.
I have talked to her about doing math for 4 years in HS and think we need to do Algebra I over again. She doesn't really have it mastered yet, and I definitely don't want to touch Calculus with her later. In 7th grade she did TT Pre-Algebra and didn't do well either. She didn't really like the format and never wanted to watch the videos. Once she learns how to plug-and-chug a particular type of problem, she's fine until it is written a different way or she hasn't seen it in a couple of weeks. She is also not strong on quick recall of math facts.
I have all of the Fred books, but worry that she will only get into the story and not really learn the math.
I have Lial's Intro Algebra book, but the page is awfully cluttered for her. (She is easily distracted.) That is why I liked the MUS book because the pages are so clean.
I have AoPS for her younger sister who is already doing Geometry, but I don't think it is a good fit for her.
What other programs should I look at? She really needs to get the basics down. She is also SLOW!!! She lives in her own creative dream world most of the time, so this concrete math thing of writing out steps and having to do it the same way every time is a struggle.
Should I do some sort of consumer math with her next year and come back to Algebra later?
Thanks in advance.
Meeting With a Couple Who Are Considering Homeschooling
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I totally agree with Maura! With 4 teenagers now, if I could turn back the clock I would have played more games and gone on more field trips. We read a ton and I think that was our favorite part of the day. I pulled my kids in early elementary and was stressed for several years about the comparison of what we were doing and what their friends were doing in "real" school.
I would also caution them that homeschooling is HARD. There have been days when I was ready to throw in the towel. Fortunately, there have also been days when I have witnessed those wonderful light bulb moments when my child finally gets some concept they've been struggling with.
Friends make comments that they don't even realize undermine my confidence and our lifestyle choice ("Are you going to LET your kids go to high school?" - As if they are locked in a closet!!!) I think both parents need to be on board with the decision to homeschool and if mom is the teacher, dad needs to be the principal and support mom 100% in front of the kids.
Good luck to them!