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Embassy

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Posts posted by Embassy

    Splitting up kids' studies

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    My guys are 23 months apart and I split them up this year for science and read alouds. They are so very different in personality and learning style so I needed to adjust things. It has been wonderful. I wish I did it earlier. I didn't find the need to separate them for history though. I too made up my own curriculum for history and science. You can see how I approached science this year here. I am doing the same topic with both of them, but using different resources.

    Mandarin...

    in Accelerated Learner Board

    Posted · Edited by Wehomeschool
    Added links

    Jennynd, any suggestions on titles we should look in to. Thanks.

     

    Danielle

     

    Not Jennynd, but here are the videos I have on my list.

     

     

    1. http://www.56.com/u85/v_NTMxODg4NTg.htmlhttp://www.56.com/u85/v_NTMxODg4NTg.html Lion King in Mandarin

    a. “大头儿子小头爸爸” (Big Head Son – 78 episodes)

    2. “马丁的早晨” (Martin Morning – 52 episodes)

    3. “机器猫” (Doraemon the Japanese robotic cat – 500 episodes!)

    4. “喜羊羊与灰太狼” (Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf – 465 episodes!)

    5. “拇指熊” (Thumb Bear – 11 episodes)

    6. http://www.fanpop.com/external/7358 Chinese songs and video links

    7. http://www.youtube.com/user/chinesesunflowers#p/u Chinese YouTube cartoons

    8. http://www.flashempire.com lots of cartoons in Mandarin – like this one http://www.flashempire.com/theater/play.php?id=77993

    Appropriateness of The War of the Worlds

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Yes, but only after 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. :) I particularly like the Wesleyan edition of Mysterious Island. It's one of only two unabridged translations, but it is larger than editions of the other translation and the picture quality is better. All of the original illustrations are included.

     

    Thanks for the recommendation. I'll see if my library has that one. He finished 20,000 Leagues under the Sea earlier this school year so it sounds like it would be a good fit.

    Appropriateness of The War of the Worlds

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I haven't read the book The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. My son is begging to read it. I have read another H. G. Wells book and it was not suitable for an 8 year old due to the cursing and violence. Can anyone tell me if The War of the Worlds has material that would be objectionable to an 8 year old? If he does read it I would read it along with him, but I don't have time to preread it right now.

     

    Thanks!

    Going in depth with younger children.

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Sorry - just saw this! This was many years ago now so I am not sure that my memory will serve. We used a well known child's history text and fleshed it out with other books, both fiction and nonfiction, and we even went to a museum that focused on this subject! It did not make much difference for history I think because we moved on as we continued learning over the year.

     

    Now if you were to study a single subject or people group for a lengthy period of time (what I am doing now with my younger ones - Colonial US History this year) then I think it makes a difference because it will be with them longer. Will they remember who founded the VA colony? Probably not, but they will remember some of the finer details of Colonial life and culture and who Squanto was, and why tobacco changed the course of America's early life. (We are using a combo of Joy Hakim's History of US, From Reformation to Colonization, Time Travelers: Colonial Life from http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com, and the DVD series from the history channel.) I really like the Time Travelers for fleshing out the life these people led and for hands-on experiences. They *do* remember those experiences.

     

    I love history and it is very important to me that my children absorb at least some of it. We do still use historical fiction and nonfiction books, and they always LOVE the historical fiction. I also assign reading on the historical period we are studying. I have found that the older they are, the more they retain. I decided (on the second time through the ancients with my oldest two) that I would never do ancients again with very young children and I have not done so with my second group. They will get it in another year or so, but my 8yo would not walk away with much and I would rather wait until she does.

     

    Thanks for taking the time to respond. Yes, I was thinking of a single subject that goes in depth over a long period of time like the entire school year. Hands-on experiences do seem to be memorable, don't they?

    Going in depth with younger children.

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I found that when I did that, a few years later they didn't remember much of it. I have chosen to do things differently with my younger children. Music would be the only thing I think would be of value to go "in depth" with as it is a practiced skill done every day.

     

    Wow, I find this interesting. It seems that going in depth would make the information stick. Do you mind sharing what you used and why you think it didn't stick?

    Mandarin...

    in Accelerated Learner Board

    Posted

    I think learning Chinese is too hard to make it worthwhile for non-Chinese . I have not tried to do so, but there is an interesting essay "Why Chinese Is So **** Hard" by David Moser, who has: http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html .

     

    I'll encourage my children to learn Spanish or French.

     

    What determines if something is worthwhile? Just because someone is not Chinese it doesn't mean that learning Spanish or French will be more beneficial. There are so many variables.

    Going in depth with younger children.

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    Thanks for the responses. I'm interested to hear the different opinions.

     

    Why a full year? I would be a tad concerned about what you excluded in order to include that much depth on one thing, if you see what I mean. For us, 3-4 units a year has sometimes been a good fit - that's 9-12 weeks, which is a lot of time. On the other hand, if you were using the topic (say, human body) to include a bunch of other stuff (like a bit of chemistry when you do makeup of the bones, and nutrition, and some physics when you look at how muscles work, etc.) then it could be a great way to take a child's interest (I assume the child is actually interested in the topic, and that's why you're asking) and expand it to cover all kinds of subjects. (For history, we usually take one time period and do a whole year of it, but I assume you're talking more about science here.)

     

    Just a general question. The curricula/unit studies could apply to history or any other subject with no assumption of a child's interest level.

    Going in depth with younger children.

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    What do you think of curricula/unit studies that go in depth on a specific topic during the elementary years? Would you child hate spending all year learning about the human body, for instance? Does your child thrive with depth?

     

    By depth I am talking about introducing information not normally introduced until high school, but done so in an age appropriate manner.

    amount of time per grade?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    The time we spend in focused sit down work is about 60-90 minutes for K-1st grade. For 2nd-3rd grade the focused time is about 2 hours. But overall, we spend about 5 hours on school activities for those grades.

     

    Today, for example, my first grader is spending time on PE, dancing to music, watching a tale of China on DVD, participating in a relay and computer game contest about bones, listening to the music of Mahalia Jackson, and watching a movie about a book he just finished. This is the bulk of his day with some sit down work in math, reading, and a foreign language.

    For those of you with PG and globally-gifted kids...

    in Accelerated Learner Board

    Posted

    Overall, we learned that she basically needs to work on her listening skills and learn how to work through challenges instead of just giving up when she reaches a new level.

     

    I'm sure this doesn't apply to you, but it reminded me of something. When I was in school eons ago I sat in a parent teacher conference where the teacher went over my achievement test scores. I didn't understand percentiles, but I did hear my teacher say I needed to work on vocabulary. For years and years I thought I had a poor vocabulary. I saw my test scores from that year a couple of years ago and I was astonished. My vocabulary percentile scores of the achievement test were high average - they just weren't as high as other areas.

     

    I tested my oldest son in Kindergarten through a local university. Everyone else wanted to charge me $$$ so I went to my old department and borrowed some tests that I was qualified to give. It gave me valuable information on my son's learning style and strengths. It helped me approach learning differently with him. I knew he would score well based on his academics and just living with him, but the results surprised me because they painted a clear picture of how he thinks. I don't have an IQ score, but I didn't need one. Now if I can figure out how to handle all the overexcitiabilities in this household I would be very happy.

    Mandarin...

    in Accelerated Learner Board

    Posted

    I don't know this language, have had very limited exposure to it, but dh feels like this is the direction we should go in.

     

    My oldest is almost 11.5. It needs to be easy to implement. Is Rosetta Stone my best bet? Or is there something else? I love the *idea* of a tutor or on-line class. A tutor, though, is probably out of the question. I could SKYPE a tutor for Thai, but not mandarin (my aunt and uncle live in Thailand for 6 mos. out of the year).

     

    Thank you...

     

    No, I wouldn't go with Rosetta Stone. I did and wished I hadn't. After much research and reading I purchased My First Chinese Reader for my 2 boys along with Pinyin for Everyone (fount at betterchinese.com). It comes with a teacher's manual which is available in English and instructions so it isn't too difficult to implement. Everything is available on audio as well as CD-Rom activities so you don't have to be a native speaker to use the program. I also use Mandarin DVDS and YouTube videos to supplement. I haven't started using the program yet (just bought it last week), but I suspect it will fit us well.

     

    I started with Muzzy in the early years - that was a mistake too. I tried using Rosetta Stone for 3 years and my kids didn't learn much. They didn't like it either.

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