Embassy
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Posts posted by Embassy
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Do I want Primary Math Standard Edition or US Edition? Also, for the lower grades, is the textbook necessary?
Thanks much!
The SE is supposed to have a better Home Instructor's Guide as well as a little more content. I would definitely purchase the textbook. The workbook is practice of what you learned in the textbook.
I find the SE Home Instructor's Guide to be far more than answers. It gives additional activities especially relating to mental math.
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I count hours, but not because it is required. It is the way I have our schedule organized. We spend about 5-6 hours a day on school, but I count everything including PE, music lessons, read alouds, life skills, educational games, and hands-on activities. We have a small amount of seat work. I do a greater amount of subjects than the public school does though.
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Oh, and I've been to your blog many times before. Is there a way to subscribe via email? If there is I'm not finding it. Thanks!
Thanks :001_smile: I just added a way to subscribe through email on the right hand side of the blog.
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I am looking for map reading resources for my son who loves to read maps. He often plays around on Google maps and Google Earth, but would love to be given directions to follow on a map. (i.e. Mark the scenic route between San Francisco and Memphis). Is there any book, game, or website out there that you can recommend that will feed this interest of his? Thanks!
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Spelling by Sound and Structure (Rod and Staff). Although second and third are pretty simple, fourth and up are very challenging--not the spelling words, necessarily, but the exercises which teach the rules and whatnot.
Thanks! That looks like it might be a good fit.
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What spelling program can you recommend for a child that spells fine for his age, but needs a program that teaches according to rules or patterns? He has hated AAS and Sequential Spelling. He would really like the standard workbook curriculum with a weekly test, but I need one that teaches according to spelling rules or patterns. Any ideas?
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I put together a study of India this year for my boys. You can see it here. There are lots of books listed and many of them would suit that age range.
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I only have the SE, but I love how it describes manipulative activities, gives the assignments for the textbook and the workbook along with the answers, and gives additional activities to help reinforce concepts. It also has mental math activities listed.
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I have a son prone to distraction. With a toddler in the room with us it makes life interesting. I've generally taken the approach to let the distraction continue and give my son opportunities to learn to work in a distracting environment. He is doing better the older he gets. Sometimes all work gets interrupted for a few minutes and that is okay - it is hard not to stop and laugh when the toddler rips up tissues and throws them on our heads telling us it is snowing. It seems like the more practice he gets the more focused he is becoming. Usually I have to stop and remind him to focus several times a day and sometimes I do need to block a particularly tempting distracting activity. Making his lessons more interesting than the distractions helps too.
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Standard because the Instructor's Guide is supposed to be better and because it had more content wise. I am very happy with the Home Instructor's Guide.
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When did you start structured learning?
At what age did your child start reading CVC words without much difficulty?
(If this applies to you) What was your child's approximate reading level in 4th grade? 6th grade? 8th grade?
Just wondering about this early reader thing and how most early readers level out around about 4th grade. Has that been true with your children? Did you find that early structured learning positively impacted on reading ability long-term?
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When we transitioned our little ones (all around age two-ish), we moved the child to a bed next to ours (touching), then moved the bed across the room, then into the other room.
This worked well for one child of mine who was 1. For my other kids I have rocked them to sleep and then carried them to their bed (still doing this with my 2 year old). When they awake while I am still awake I rock them back to sleep or walk while holding them. If they woke after I went to bed I just let them sleep with me.
I have done the transition to the child's bedroom at age 1 and it is pretty firm by age 2 and by age 3 the child usually sleeps in his own room full-time. I had a king-size bed with my youngest (makes a big difference!). With my boys I started the transition by placing their mattress up against my mattress.
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No, I don't think early readers are necessarily gifted or accelerated. I would say they are more likely to be gifted or accelerated, but there are so many other factors besides reading.
To me gifted is not about academic achievements, but the way a person relates to the world. The gifted individuals I know feel things deeper and have a general sense of being intensely alive. That exuberance can show up academically through pursuit of passions and general intelligence, but it can also be absent academically if a child does not care about learning what the teacher/parent/school wants them to learn.
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I'm using Island level with my 3rd grader. My 1st grader is mostly doing informal things like journaling, blogging, extra reading, and Mad Libs for grammar. He is also doing some phonics and spelling. I plan to start him on the Island level in 3rd grade. He wouldn't be ready for all the writing assignments before then. I'm still trying to figure out what to use for LA for 2nd grade though. Hope you get some good suggestions.
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I purchased the download earlier this school year. Has anyone had difficulty with pictures showing up in the workbook, teacher's edition, or flashcards? I have several blacked out pictures especially in the flashcards. It shows up fine on the screen but printed out many pictures are just a black square. Is this my printer or a problem with the program? I contacted Nallenart awhile ago, but they never got back to me.
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Well, my ds is in 1B now so I don't have a definite number for you, but it looks like it will take a little over half of the school year (maybe a month into the second half of the school year). But we do living math , Speed Math Strategies, and separate drill practice along with Singapore so we may only do Singapore 2-3 times a week.
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You know, as a mum of "only" 2 kids, who didnt start homeschooling till they were 7 and 9 years old.....even though my younger was a very high needs child and I had to sit next to him most of the day till he was 12 or so......I still had a fair amount of free time. Way too much free time, really...so I came here, got organised, researched etc. For years. And I had time to clean house too.
The thing these threads bring up for me is......if you have younger kids, of course you are going to be more tied up with the day to day activities of younger kids..it will pass, but for now, this is the season you are in. Dont be envious of those with more time on their hands....one day, that will be you too. People dont write what they are doing just to annoy you. For many of us it has been beneficial to see how organised some people can be. Dont take it as a personal slight, for goodness sakes. You dont know whats going on in their homes at all. They may be locked in their bedrooms making spreadsheets while the house falls apart around them. That may be one area of control they have in a chaotic home. Or their house may be spotless but they cant stand everyone piling in their beds for a cuddle and readaloud. YOu dont know.
And if you have 6 kids....what did you think? Having 6 would be as easy as having 2? I don't understand that one at all. If you have many kids, you will have more work on your hands, a wider age range, more people to tend to, more housework, more to cook for, more appointments to attend....it didnt just happen by itself. You chose to have 6 kids, didnt you? I guess thats not a politically correct thing to say on a Christian message board, but still....I am often surprised. Some people have 10 kids and are very organised and disciplined and others with 3 or 4 can barely manage. I know poeple on these boards who have many more than 6 kids and i never see them complaining about the sorts of things people complain about with far less kids.
I think it pays to give grace to other families who are organised, disciplined and whose kids are doing well. It doesn't just happen by itself...they worked at it. And I believe for many, it happened because they were motivated by something...they probably started out chaotic and disorganised too. I certainly did. But the homeschooling journey exposed me to so many great things....parenting methods, homeschooling methods, organisational methods...that over the years I learned from those who went before me, and I grew, got organised and at the same time- my kids got older, which is kind of intevitable!
Its ok to be where you are at...and its great to come here for support when you are feeling a mess.....but one of the best things I read over the years here was mums saying "homeschooling is my work, my job, and I treat it as such- I don't take days off lightly" and "your kids need an education- give them one, or they should be at school". Its controversial, but I tend to agree with it. I remember one mum who came here looking for support for not educating her kids for many months- and the response was tough with some mums telling her straight that they felt her kids would be better off in school. It sounds tough, and we all need a soft approach at times, but there is a time for toughness too.
Spreadsheets are not a sign of a good education, but don't be envious of those who are successful and together. Instead, learn from them.
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Everyone is so different and each family has variables. I ran across a post similar to this one day except it was talking about my blog. Talk about a punch in the gut. The last thing I wanted to do was make someone else feel bad by reading my blog. It is tempting to just go quietly into the background and never blog again. But I don't. I won't. I believe in what we are doing and hope that someone else will benefit from what I post. Nobody out there is perfect and doing things perfectly, but people are trying to make the best choices for their children and family. And the choices I make and the things I do fit my family, but they don't have to fit yours.
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Many whole to parts learners don't have enough contextual knowledge to understand phonics until they are a bit older. My dd had phonics instructions for both reading and spelling from K-3, but she was so utterly frustrated with spelling that by 3rd grade she began pulling her hair and calling herself stupid. For 4th grade, we dropped SWR and started using Calvert Spelling on CD. Suddenly, spelling became her favorite subject. Finally, about the beginning of 5th grade, I saw that phonics instruction kicking in and making sense to her. That's why I would have been more relaxed about spelling in the early grades if I could do it over with her.
I looked up Calvert Spelling on CD, but didn't find anything but an online program. Is that the same thing? What types of things does it have a child do?
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Look up dyslexia and see if there are other indicators.
Yes, he does a lot of reversals and has done so for years. I have him correct them, but he doesn't see that a letter or number is written incorrectly. I have often thought that this was because he hadn't really learned them yet, but I'm not so sure now. In college I had a teacher pull me aside because she was concerned that I had dysgraphia because I kept writing characters of a new alphabet backwards. I just told her that I hadn't learned them yet. Once I really learned them I had no problem. My older son still writes some backwards, but he self-corrects because he sees that they are incorrect. My little guy used to write capital letters in place of ones he typically reverses (like b/d), but I have been working with him on capitalization lately so maybe that is why I am seeing so many reversals. Maybe the fact that he wrote a capital instead of lower case shows that he hasn't learned things like lowercase b/d enough yet. Repetition isn't an effective strategy with him. I have to connect something new with something already in his brain. So maybe I can try that to see if reversals will diminish.
He was an early writer though. He could write capital letters accurately at age 3. I think he learned on a Leapster game. He has always enjoyed writing which is not a typical sign of dyslexia from what I have read. His handwriting may contain some reversals, but it is more on the "neat side" for his age.
My little guy also tends to skip little words in his reading. We have been working on reading every word as it is written and he is doing better. He will sometimes look at the first part of a word and guess at what it is and it may be nothing like the written word. He can sound some things out especially if I separate a difficult word into parts.
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Thank you for the responses. I'm pretty sure my kids are non-sequential learners, but not sure about the visual. I've read Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World and did the test for my little guy. I was sure he would be right brained, but he came out as both brains. My other guy was a slight left brain. I've tried some of the visualization ideas with my younger son and it draws a blank from him. But I do know that if I attach meaning to something (especially if it is silly) that he will remember something well. For instance if he is trying to remember the Arabic word for thank you we will say something like "thank you for the cranberry shoes" because the Arabic word sounds a little like shoe-cran. I think my little guy may be more auditory-spatial with some difficulty with attention, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, I do have the first level of AAS. I used it with my oldest son in first grade until he became too frustrated with it. He was reading very well for his age, but as a whole to parts learner trying to figure out if a vowel was short or long was very difficult. I can try it with my little guy to see how it goes for him.
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Again, for Christian mothers who do not use a prepared curriculum and who are using secular materials, what specific methods/tools do you teach your children for Biblical reasoning? For instance, if you are not working one on one with them and they are using materials that present information in opposition to your faith, what do your children do? Do they go to Scripture, use Bible study tools like concordances, etc.? I am not asking about Bible studies, but the incorporation of Biblical principles into secular materials. What tools do your children use?
I have pretty much let my ds have free reign reading and exploring science that talks of (non-theistic) evolution when my faith disagrees with it. We discuss it sometimes and I refer to Bible texts that talk of God as the Creator. I'm also not dogmatic about things. I talk to my son about Bible texts on a specific issue and we look at what the Bible actually says and what is assumed. I leave many issues open ended except for one - in the beginning God did it. And the beginning was the beginning not a specified unit of time.
So in short, the method we use is just talking. We do most subjects together, but my son does a ton of science reading and study on his own.
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My son just turned 7 and is in 1st grade. His reading skills are excellent for his age, but his phonics skills are quite a bit behind his reading ability. I'm not sure how he is reading like he is. He is currently reading chapter books without much difficulty.
My older son didn't learn to read with phonics either. He took off with reading and his phonics skills were lagging too. However his spelling skills started to take off by the end of his first grade year. He has excellent spelling skills now. My younger son hasn't "taken off" with his spelling although I do see improvements. But I have pretty much done no spelling instruction. He is currently on book 3 of ETC online.
What would you recommend?
Should I focus on spelling and drop the phonics?
Where can I find a comprehensive list of phonics and/or spelling rules? (This is a weak area for me as well since I didn't learn to read with phonics and know a word is spelled right by seeing it written correctly)
Is there a spelling or phonics program that you would recommend?
I'd like to see how he does with several months of instruction, but I would like to choose a method that would be helpful if he did have stealth dyslexia.
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Real Science 4 Kids was a hit for my boys.
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Do your children enjoy MCT Language Arts? If so, can you share what curriculum you use for other subjects. Does your child like MCT above and beyond the other things you use or equally so?
Favorite children's poetry books?
in General Education Discussion Board
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:iagree: My son loved this one.