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shadah

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Everything posted by shadah

  1. Does anyone have an opinion on the update? I'm thinking we will go with the old version if it's a good price. ???
  2. White board worked best here. We keep all books in a bin. I have, at times, put sticky notes on each book, stacked their books at the table and said have at it. When they are done, they go back on the bin. Both are visual ways to track assignments.
  3. We were looking at a review of The Good and the Beautiful history course and dd noticed it comes with a game to review. I was wondering what other curriculum come with games or use games to teach. We thought of a few. Right Start SSRW AWOA Happy Phonics ?
  4. Blast Back! Ken Jennings Junior Genius Guides DK Find Out Magic School Bus Chapter Books Benjamin Blog Country Guides Brands We Know
  5. I downloaded several of the freebies and all of the samples. Reading through, possible cons would be the use of vintage books and the constant emphasis of "good." I like old books, no problem there. The "good" part of it can be preachy, but I guess no different than R&S, CLE, Abeka, or many CM currics. I can tune it out. I like the full color, the low price, and my daughter asks to do it. We are halfway through level 3 and going double speed. It covers things we would otherwise not get to like spelling and geography.
  6. We are using the language arts. The history looks like it has vintage reprints in it. I don't see any extra reading. If I took the trouble to put a history program together I would have everything in audio, have a board game as a review option, and have different levels of assignments. She has all this in a three day a week schedule. I already have history covered, though. I haven't seen anything of hers I wouldn't try if it was a subject I needed. Have you written her? I often write and ask people why they wrote a curriculum a certain way. It helps when you can see what they were aiming for.
  7. I don't think there is a particular order. Characters appear in several different books, but the stories don't overlap.
  8. Dd is using the 3rd grade 1st ed. She likes it. I think it is academically solid and varied in content. I would write something like this if I ever took the time and trouble. That is usually the decision-maker for me. Would I write it/design it like that?
  9. I would watch Pocoyo which is kind of like Salsa Spanish. It is not really meant to teach German, but it is basic enough and slow enough to learn from. We watched an episode 3-4 times before moving on and then moved on to Peppa Pig.
  10. Tam Tam is a phonics pre-course to Tamburin. You do basically a letter a week with a worksheet and activities. I used the activities only. They are reading fairly fluently by the end. Tamburin required reading but is still mostly game-based. The student makes the games themselves. They were easy to make - mostly index cards, dice, etc. The worksheets have a lot of cut and paste. Dd loved those. The only German book that has got any love here is Bobo Siebenschläfer. We have done better with cartoons and music in German.
  11. We did Tam Tam, Tamburin, and then switched to Planetino, all of them by Hueber. It's the best I have ever found out of everything we have tried.
  12. I use this in a weekly class. https://www.hueber.de/planetino/?id=pg_index_pli I order from Book Depository. It has songs and games. I add notebooking, more singing, board games, and active play. My kids are frustrated because it is too easy, but they like not being the only ones learning German. We don't have a Saturday school, so basically I made my own. I found it works better to teach children older than mine. The younger children in my classes have been slower to really speak German. The older kids are motivated to do things liks duolingo and watching movies on their own.
  13. I taught this class yesterday. It seems I was wrong again. The children I thought were five are seven. I just misjudged what a 7yo could be expected to do. If I teach again it will have to be middle schoolers. I have drastically cut down on content. I am working on skills as they come up. We spent class time yesterday on short vowels. It came up so I went with it. My children are no longer attending though. Next week we will be covering scissor skills so I can include cut and paste activities in place of much of the reading and writing. Neither of my kids is an auditory learner, so many of the ways to compensate are not things I am used to: more discussion, comparisons, activities, call and repeat, simon says, etc. To be honest, I feel silly but I am determined to make this work and teach to the best of my ability. By the way, MotherOf Boys, I like your siggy. I am also a planner who has learned to teach my children as they are. I am still too rigid in my planning for classes. I would have been better off seeing what I had first and then planning my semester. Lesson learned.
  14. Thank you. This helped me. I'm being too rigid in my thinking. I felt guilty for feeling frustrated. I can always stash my kids in other classes and work with what I ended up with in this class. It's just a different path.
  15. I asked for 3-5th grades. I ended up having to accept 2nd and up. I thought it would be fine. Homework is copywork and memory work with some reading but not alot. I showed up the first day with a class of 5-6yos plus a few older ones who are unschoolers (noschoolers? Or at least very nontraditional). So, I am sitting here writing plans for what my kids could do at 5yo and that's not going to work either. I will figure the class out, but I think what really bothered me the most was the alien feeling. I have never dealt with this level of learning. I'm pulling notes of things I strewed when my oldest was two. I was on the phone this morning with a friend who has preschoolers trying to get a feel for how these ages and stages learn. I'm not expressing this well, I know. I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just baffled how to teach things it seems my kids were born with or learned while I wasn't looking. The upside of this is that my other class (planned for 3-5th grade as well) has 6-8th graders several of whom are likely smarter than I am. They are a wonderul challenge. I look forward to a rewarding semester and a good challenge for my kids.
  16. I signed up to teach a co-op class this semester. I targeted the material at my 5yo. Prereqs for this class were 7yo, reading and writing on grade level. Apparently, I have no idea what a 7-10yos should be capable of. I had five units planned over fifteen weeks. That's one teaching week and two review weeks using games, books, active play, etc. Only one student can read at all. But, the problem is not just reading. My kids retain and use information. I don't see that happening with this class. We might be able to get through the first unit this semster if I break things down more and drill it to death. Sorry, I'm just venting. I'm stuck for this semester teaching. But, if I slow down and teach the class, my kids will be bored. If I teach at the level and pace I had planned, my kids will get it and the others will only have exposure? I thought my kids were ahead. I knew they think a little differently. I had no idea how differently. I feel like we are aliens and have landed on the wrong planet.
  17. I have a teacher account. The content is slightly edited and they compete against their friends who are also in my "school."
  18. Dd8 wants LfC for Christmas. She did the free trial and is in love. We are making her wait until next year, though. This didn't fit our budget.
  19. We obviously love languages having lived overseas. I would first run through courses your library has. They are fun and no commitment. We did adult audio courses in the car and kids courses, videos, cds, etc. for school. That gave me a good idea what we liked and what we could do. I did not purchase a German course we committed to until last year. We did a little bit of everything and loved it that way. Dd is 8 and wants more organized goal-oriented learning so we have curriculum for everything except Russian. I can't fit it in as an "official" study so we just play with it - alphabet, songs, phrases.You know the only way to fail at a foreign language is to not do it.
  20. My 8yo is doing duolingo. My 5yo is doing tinycards. It has the duolingo vocab but is a little easier to do. I type for him most of the time, though. As far as methods in general, immersion and tpr have been a total bust here. We tried for years. It was a complete waste of time. My kids are too literal. They want to understand everything right away. We use cartoons and songs for exposure but I have found little teaching value in it. In other words, don't limit yourself to children's language programs if your child doesn't think that way.
  21. The Littles Calendar mysteries Adventures of Sophie Mouse
  22. Have you checked to see if your library has a subscription? Ours did. You may want to look into buying an out of state library card. It's been worth it for us.
  23. It's the colors that are distracting. We worked with lima beans for awhile because they are white. I have drooled over some natural wood manipulatives. But, it's just not practical. Her flashcards she wrote are black and white. Her drawings on her math papers are just in pencil. My explanations on the white board are in one color. I know this is weird, but I am kind of like this, too. I have a photographic memory for print. I can re-read books I have read before and play music. I can picture it in my head. I blank out if the page has color, though. She hasn't complained about that. But, I wonder if there is a connection. I didn't expect it in my kids. Look at all the money I wasted on cute kindergarten material and "fun" math. I have simplified since then and everything is going well except math. It's still a puzzle. Okay, now I'm embarrassed. I just told the world how weird we are. I have always looked at it like nothing really comes easy. A gift in one way is a curse in another.
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