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mama27

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Posts posted by mama27

  1.  

    I've graduated two kids. My 23 yo has always been lazier than my 20 yo. Its just a fact. If anything is hard, she quits or complains so much you WANT her to quit. If anything requires a lot of effort on her part...well, its not going to happen.

    My 20 yo is the exact opposite. The harder something is, the harder she tries. Maybe because she had a lot of health problems from ages 13 to 18, maybe its just a personality thing? I don't know. But the 20 graduated high school, and started cosmetology school in the same week (in February of 2013), she graduated cosmetology school in 9 months, started working, etc. Found out she would have to work very hard and couldn't physically do it as a stylist so she quit and got a job at Dillard's. 6 months later she got promoted to sales manager and is now thinking of going to college for business degree.

     

    My 23 yo is having her first baby, my 20 is working on her career. Is one better than the other? No. Just different and each is doing what makes them happy. Doing what they feel God wants them to do

     

    Ftr, I've put my 16 yo in charge of HER education also. She works at a vet, is involved in theater, and has an active social life. I got tired of getting onto her all.the.time. about her school work so I told her its her responsibility to get it done and if she does not it will be her problem because she won't be able to do what she wants to do with her life, which is become a vet tech. That's worked better than all the nagging, etc.

  2. You would do this even after junior year? He SHOULDN'T even graduate until next year. Or are you talking about doing this after next year?

    I would graduate him next month after having a talk with him and letting him know that you feel you've done everything humanly possible and that if he wants to continue homeschooling, fine, he knows whast to do. If he wants to go to CC, fine. If he wants to just keep working, fine .

     

    Is he unmotivated at work? With chores? With other things or just school work? If its just school work it may be he just isn't an academic person. If he works hard at his job and other things,btgen maybe that's just where his life is headed. There's nothing wrong with that. Some people draw floor plans and some people build the houses.

    • Like 1
  3. We are out a lot but I have a system that works for the most part. My youngest 4 kids have TKD Mon-Thurs, sometimes Fridays. We have park days Thursday and Friday. My 16 yo has theater Tues and Thurs, my 10 and 9 yo have theater Thursday. My 16 yo works Mon-Thurs and I am the chauffer for all of this. lol

     

    This has only been in the past year and 8 months since we moved to Texas and it took me awhile to get used to it but my kids are pretty happy. The house stays clean mostly because I stay on top of it and make sure they all do what they need to do. At this point I get bored when we are home too much, like a couple weeks ago my 16 yo had the flu and she didn't go to work. We were bored! lol

    • Like 1
  4. Why not just have him go to community college and be done at home? CC will accept him and if he is behind, he will have to take remedial classes and it will be up to him to do what needs to be done. He's almost 18, almost an adult, in the eyes of the law. It sounds like you've tried everything and really, IMO, you need to let go and let him be responsible for his own education. He may actually surprise you and step up and do it well. Or he may fail and realize he needs to be more responsible. In either case, you can't follow him around forever, telling him what to do. You've done that and more and none of it has worked.

     

    If he was mine, I'd let him work and let him decide if he wants to go to CC or try going straight into the Navy or whatever. And if he can't get into the Navy, that may actuallybe the wake up call he needs to get motivated. You can not MAKE anyone motivated. They have to find that in themselves.

     

    • Like 2
  5. We are a conservative Christian family.  We feel that SOTW has a lot of good points, but we are concerned with the way Biblical stories and fictional stories are told in a similar fashion, making it difficult for a younger children to differentiate between truth and fiction.  My teenage son is mature and well-grounded in Biblical truth, so I allowed him to listen to the audio version.  Afterwards, I asked him his thoughts on allowing his younger sister to listen and he responded, "I wouldn't let her.  The stories are all told in the same way, so it's confusing as to which is real."

     

    Another concern we had was with the way the story of Abraham was told.  Although it is true that Abraham's father served other gods, no where in the Bible does it talk about Abraham not being sure who was talking to him when God spoke to him.  I felt that conflicted with Scripture and it left me with an uneasy feeling about using SOTW as a spine.

     

    We were much more comfortable using Heart of Dakota (www.heartofdakota.com) as our history spine.  I love how Carrie, the author, integrates the Bible into all areas of her curriculum and especially the history.  (Interestly, she does use SOTW 4, as she felt that volume didn't have the concerns of some of the other volumes.)  In all of my years of using Heart of Dakota's resources, I've never felt the integrity of the Bible or my beliefs compromised.

     

     

    I agree with this. Also, I'm not comfortable with my younger kids learning about other religions until they have a firm foundation of Christ first and then, all depending on their spiritual maturity, when they should learn about them. SOTW is as neutral as possible teaching about other religions to the point where "I" didn't want to use it because it makes it sound as if all religions lead to God. For us, that's not what we believe and not what I want my younger kids thinking. You could use it and skip over certain chapters (we did that for awhile). But as a new Christian I'd REALLY recommend getting a more Christian history such as Mystery of History and using that.

    • Like 2
  6. Just because she is good at math doesn't mean she can't just use a curric that she can just do and be done with it. A lot of it may have to do with age, as she gets older, she will learn to concentrate better, etc.

    If you think TT will be easier for her, I'd try and find out. If it doesn't work, you can return it (I believe they have 30 day policy), or re-sell it.

    Have you looked into Life of Fred? Maybe the story line of that would be more interesting for her?

  7.  I suppose so. As I very seriously entertain this idea, I'd still include a math workbook and a handwriting workbook because it's necessary for us.   

     

    Really the idea is simply how do we engage and teach kids who are everything BUT visual-text learners?   Shouldn't it be okay to pare books down to the absolute bare minimum and focus on playing to their strengths instead?  I'm assuming a reasonable level of literacy, of course.

     

    It's a hard sell to this crowd because nearly everyone on this forum, myself included, has a deep regard for books and reading.  But, I think that actually makes it even more important to explore this idea of "What if my kid couldn't learn well through books? Could I still make homeschooling work?"

     

    I've thought about this more and I see no reason why you couldn't do this. I love to read. I have (probably) almost 1000 books on my kindle. Not as many on my shelves after a move across several states last year. But so far only a few of my kids enjoy reading. I have actually been thinking lately of not forcing reading anymore simply because I see no POINT. It doesn't make them readers, my parents never read to me, yet I love it. I've read to my kids their whole lives and not all of them love it, 3 HATE reading. So, I've been doing things a little differently, more hands-on, more of me reading, than them. My current high schooler won't have anymore required reading but I will continue to read to her.

    There are SOOOO many resources you could use, the more I think about it, them more I'm sure it can be done.

  8. CLE Bible 700s? It's a study of the gospels. We are doing I this coming year. It just arrived today, and it looks splendid. It also includes learning to use a concordance as a bonus. We have been VERY happy with CLE Bible from the 100s through the 600s (haven't done the 300s yet, though).

     

    "Sunrise Bible 700 is a study of the Gospels. The first LightUnit begins witha brief overview of each Gospel’s unique characteristics. Lessons in the rest of the course follow the chronological order of the Gospel of Luke but include events and teachings from the other Gospels. Each lesson directs the student to read a given portion of Scripture. This Scripture passage is then explained in the LightUnit and followed by activities that help the student interact with what they have learned. The course also teaches students how to use Strong’s Concordance. Bible memory work is included."

     

    This is a full year course. Hit the sample links on this page to take a look:

    https://www.clp.org/store/by_course/23

    this looks really good!!!

    • Like 1
  9. I know exactly how you feel! I've been doing this for 13 YEARS and I'm tired. I'm so sick to death of phonics! If by small chance I ever have another child (we have 7) that kid will have to teach itself how to read! I have 2 that are still learning how to read and I'm so over this.

    For 13 YEARS I have been looking for that "spark", you know the one. It's in all the eyes of all the moms who do this unit or that craft or that book or this lapbook or that experiment or spend 5 days building these elaborate, wonderful, fantastic, life-long memorable, something with their kids. Well, I actually got it last week for the FIRST time EVER. Why? Because I switched all my kids to textbooks/workbooks for everything, with only one read aloud by me, and when my 9 yo ds found out he was done for the day, his eyes light up like nothing I've seen! BECAUSE HE WAS DONE!!! So, I've spent the past 13 years doing all these things to make them interested in learning something, make them love reading, etc, etc. And really, all they ever wanted was to be done. Just done.

     

    So now I need a hobby or something because really I do have extra time already, last week was the least stress free wee I've had in a LONG time. Today has been the first Sunday in God only knows how long, that I haven't planned a single homeschool thing.

    • Like 5
  10. I like this idea.  I don't mind sitting through the student ones as needed with my son.  Just the thought of doing both...blah. But I might suck it up and do that if I go with it.

     

    He does not struggle with writing.  He's pretty decent at it.  "I" struggle with coming up with ideas.  He does need more work with more specific things such as essays or research papers.  He has things like grammar, punctuation, etc. down, but reigning in on something specific is a problem for him (and me frankly). 

     

    I would prefer something that helps me focus on various aspects of writing rather than me just saying ok write something.  That's too wide open.  Hopefully I'm making sense.  He writes creatively on his own.  He's not anti writing at all. 

    I am considering IEW because I might use Trisms and it uses the IEW methods.  I won't use Trisms until 9th though so I need something for 8th, but figure I could start using IEW then. 

     

     

    Google free writing prompts. If he knows how to write and really just needs ideas you do not need to buy anything.

    • Like 1
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