Stellalarella
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Posts posted by Stellalarella
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How in the world would one day per week of live instruction help someone learn Latin? Honest to goodness--the main thing about learning Latin is making oneself do the daily drills--learning the chants, studying the vocab every day.
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Maria Miller of Math Mammoth gives her opinions on Common Core http://www.mathmammoth.com/common-core.php here. I found that article helpful.
Basically, some of the problems occur when people create poorly written problems in an attempt to meet the standards, or standards are applied incorrectly. She gives great examples.
I've seen viral facebook posts and online articles about "stupid common core math," and it is frequently an example of something my kids have learned in MUS or MM.
I remember wanting to throw MUS Epsilon (Fractions) out the window because I couldn't immediately understand his presentation of a topic I felt already capable to execute. I can sincerely understand why parents would dislike (and hate) math curriculums that they cannot understand.
Because of my learning curve in being able to teach the math concepts, I assume that PS teachers are facing the same issue. Yeah, all those 40 year old 4th grade teachers learned math the same way I did--Here is your algorithm, here is your drill practice, here are your perfectly formulaic story problems. And repeat 30 times. 1980s math instruction.
There are a whole lot of us who are relearning math--teachers, students mid-way through school, parents trying to help with homework.
I think teachers are going to need a couple more years of solidifying their new math instruction. Maybe eventually they will be able to explain it better to parents.
But heaven help the poor little 6 year olds who are supposed to write out sentences to explain how they arrived at their answers. That is just brutal.
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Giving someone a book that I've loved is one of my most favorite things in the world.
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We used the old NLE exams, this website about all things Roman, generic map practice, and the history from Lively Latin 1 and 2.
Also, the syllabus that NLE provides is very accurate.
We took our exams this week and it felt like a celebration--all these years of learning Latin on our own and I could finally prove that we had learned something.
It was nice to have some external validation....
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Older copies of the Holt Science & Technology series (Earth Science) for Middle School are easily available on Amazon. I like those books for middle school science. And I've also used the Holt S & T LIfe Science middle school books with my younger dc.
Here is a link to a thread here. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/457600-fyi-holt-science-math-textbooks-workbooks-pdf/
The book is intended for sixth grade and is not a difficult read. That's why I'm recommending it to you, even though it wasn't on your list.
edited-- I should have said physical science not earth science.
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I felt, I imagine, like a lot of public-school parents today...feel about Common Core math. Those worksheets that you see floating around on Facebook, railing against the ridiculousness of CC math...well many of those look a LOT like the Singapore approach.
...
The thing with MUS is that, the actually are pretty conceptual, if you stop and think about it! The blocks are very similar to a parts-whole approach and lend themselves very easily to number bonds, bar models, and even mental math.
Yep. I'm with you on that.
Just ran across a facebook link the other day poking fun at a common core math problem that was just a simple exercise in learning how to break apart tens to perform a multi-digit addition problem--which is what any kid would learn through MUS, MM and also SM.
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You don't really have to do it if you don't want to. :)
But I will say that after a while, it does become rewarding. I watched one kiddo gripe and gripe about it, but finally he knew enough that it started to feel like an enjoyable puzzle. Slogging through the marsh is no picnic, but there is a beautiful meadow on the other side (for some of us, anyway :).
Some folks consider their investment into the curriculum purchased and decide to stick it out for that reason alone.
Another reason to stick with it might be the inherent value in learning to learn something you are not excited about. That can be a character building exercise--bending your will to learn something you would not normally choose to do. I have a son who is bending his will to get through a high school biology class right now. :)
Another approach would be to take a little time and discover why many over the centuries many have believed that learning Latin was crucial to a good education.
But seriously, you get to choose! :)
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I didn't find SM open and go--in the first place the teacher instruction book is separate from the student's textbook and practice book. But MUS isn't necessarily either because the practice pages don't provide explanations.
Something that is a similar to SM is Math Mammoth. The author calls it a worktext; both the explanations and the student's practice are one page--so you print off one thing to use.The answers are at the end of the printable worktext.
ErinC--I noticed that you have several kids. So, if you are like me, you may find that investing in the extra time to understand the math with the oldest dc will pay you dividends with the children that follow. Once you know it, it is so much easier to teach the younger kids and curriculums that rely on conceptual teaching (and several separate books!) are less overwhelming to pick up and use (like SM, for example).
The older kids end up having to be patient with mom as I learn along with them, but they have the benefit of seeing me learn, which is a valuable life lesson. The younger kids get the benefit of faster, more efficient instruction. It's just how it goes. :)
I bet other posters can share more examples of open and go curriculums. But there really isn't a way around doing the work to learn it well enough to teach it competently.
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It's just part of the deal.
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Definitely using supplements that come at the math topics from a different perspective help students make multiple connections and cement the concepts.
If you have a student in the early elementary grades, Miquon is a program that makes a great supplement, and it is super-easy to plug into whatever topic your "spine" math is covering. From our experience, the topics covered in Miquon worked well as supplement for grades 1-4.
For grades 5-8, the Keys To… series can work very well. Workbook series, each focusing on a specific topic from multiply angles: Measurement, Metric Measurement, Fractions, Decimals, Percents. The Algebra and Geometry series make a great introduction into high school Algebra and Geometry.
A lot of the great supplements have come out since our DSs were in the elementary and middle school grades, but we did find doing excerpts from Singapore Primary worked great as a supplement to MUS. I credit Singapore Primary 3A/B, 4A/B with helping our math-struggler DS learn how to think through word problems, and then 5A/B and 6A/B with being able to tackle harder, multi-step word problems. We were using MUS as his spine program, which worked great for introducing topics in a very visual way, but MUS is quite weak (IMO) in teaching problem-solving. Singapore 3A/B introduce the student to a "bar method" of visualizing what you know, and what you need to find, to help you figure out what steps you need to take to "solve for the unknown" -- in other words, how to set up an algebra problem.
Singapore also allowed us to review concepts from a different perspective, which encouraged making connections and math thinking. I recommend using a grade down of Singapore as supplement with MUS. For example, if you're currently working through MUS Delta, go with Singapore 3A/B; if using MUS Epsilon, go with Singapore 4A/B; etc.
Newer Highly-Rated Supplements:
- Zoccaro: Primary Grade Challenge Math (gr. 1-4); Upper Elementary Challenge Math (gr. 3-5); Becoming a Problem Solving Genius (gr. 4+)
- Beast Academy (I'd suggest using the gr. 3 level with MUS Delta and Epsilon, and using the gr. 4 level with MUS Epsilon and Zeta)
That is a very helpful explanation of how SM complements MUS. Thanks! :)
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To illustrate--ds is wrapping up Delta and he successfully answered two volume problems on a review sheet today. But when I asked him to tell me what volume is, he drew a blank. So I sat down with some manipulatives and we walked through it again. We've walked through this many times over the past few weeks.
It just takes a while to get it thoroughly, thoroughly understood.
It's not really about any one math curriculum. It's the teacher's job to teach, check, recheck, review and spiral back around when needed. Even if a person adds on a great problem solving supplement, that doesn't mean that the story problem book is going to take a kid through the nitty gritty step by step process of explaining how he solves a problem.
I think, too, that if we, as teachers cannot verbalize to a kid what area is, what volume is out of our own foundation of excellent understanding, the kid is very unlikely to pick it up either.
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One thing to remember to do is to require your children to explain the concept to you verbally. Initially they may struggle with this, but don't give up. Once they can verbalize the concept to you (and teach another sibling) you will be on the right track.
By all means, add a supplement if you desire, but don't skip this important step of explaining the concept back to you. :) Also, expect this to be a multi-week process--as in, just because they could explain area quite proficiently in December doesn't necessarily mean they will be able to in February. I've found you just have to keep at it. School time, drive time, dinner time, bed time. :)
In many schools today, kids are required to write out sentences to explain how they arrived at their answers.
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I use Math Mammoth to supplement. I like the mental math exercises in addition/subtraction in particular.
We also use LOF to supplement as a fun exercise.
I will have one kiddo finish Delta this week and at that point i will pull out of the MM Grade4b workbook and have him spend the rest of the year on that.
I have also supplemented with MEP, which is free.
I don't look for supplements to match up with the scope and sequence of MUS (because there aren't any, I would guess). I use supplements for the joy of it and for extension. For example, Delta only touches on fractions, so I will pull out MM to teach fractions more thoroughly this year.
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What if one takes the idea of going after parents for educational neglect farther out than just homeschoolers--
Is a parent neglectful if that parent sends a child year after year after year to failing schools and the child does not ever really learn how to read? Is the public school parent culpable because they do not read to their children, provide reading materials at home, value education, help the kids do homework, provide a stable home environment that allows the kid to go to school and be able to think? If the public school parent sees the child failing and does nothing, nothing, nothing is that not neglect?
Should agents of the government visit the parents of children who are failing in failing public schools?
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My Ms/Mr Government Agents aren't like that at all.
In fact, judging by the content of several threads lately, they are a lot more open to what homeschooling means and how it can look, than are many of us here on these forums!
That is a blessing.
But it's by no means guaranteed.
I would find it incredibly ironic to be overseen by anyone from my local school district. The elementary school my neighborhood is assigned to is ranked 407 out of 444 in the state. That would be the bottom 10%. The middle school is the worst in our city, out of 7. Our assigned high school is the worst in the city, and in the bottom 3% of the state.
The state education department just took over our district because of THAT high school and THAT middle school Now we no longer have a board of education. The state will try to figure out how to improve those schools. Talk about educational neglect. Those schools have been on the failing list since we moved here 13 years ago. That's an entire education--K-12. Failed.
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It appears to me that norms about the choices in basic parent prerogatives are changing.
When a couple in Maryland can have an accusation of child neglect and a finding of unsubstantiated neglect just for letting their kids walk to a park--then the times they are a-changing.
We have entered the age when it feels right and good to strangers to see a kid at the park and call CPS. These are folks who care about kids, who don't want to see kids get hurt, and who take a low view of parental direction/desires/plans/rights and a high view of the value of intrusive government agents.
I don't want folks with THAT mindset coming into my home to evaluate how I'm educating and raising my kids.
Having said that, I think that states like Arkansas that have a testing requirement should keep it.
If that minimal requirement goes away as some want, I think that it will just open the doorway later on to more regulation. This is how it will go--state removes testing, we have several cases of poor homeschooling parents, the legislature shifts to folks who take a high view of government and a dimmer view of parents, and voila--10 years later they institute the "We're coming to check on you quarterly Law"
I have a degree in education. Some of my kids went to a good public school. I have wonderful friends who are teachers and we talk often about educational methods.
I am telling you that what I'm doing for classical education would not fly with the current school norms. I can see it now. "But, Mrs. Homeschool mom, how can you possibly teach this kiddo to read without SIGHT WORDS???" "But Mrs. Homeschool mom, why isn't your first grader writing 2 paragraph essays?"
I'm homeschooling my kids so we can do it the way I've researched that is best--the way we want to do it. I am not having Ms. Government Agent, representative of the failed educational system of our state, coming in my house to tell me how or what to do, or to confirm if what I am doing is good enough for whatever flavor of education she is licking this year.
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Elegantlion, thank you for "Gird Up My Yoga Pants."
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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Does anybody know if some states have an age at which a kid can stay home alone overnight?
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My MIL moved in with us following a massive stroke 8 years ago. We thought we were moving her in with us for her final days. We spent a small fortune taking a dream vacation with her and our toddler because we genuinely didn't expect her to make it to the end of the year and we wanted to do this one last, big thing to make her happy.
Eight years later, here we still are. She has had countless hospitalizations, ICU stays, health emergencies, many times we've had to call 911 for an ambulance, you name it. 15 months ago she was in ICU, not expected to live, and if she did live, she would certainly need to be on dialysis for the rest of her life. She made it despite the odds and then we started talking hospice care with her doctors. She's like the cat with nine lives: no dialysis, happier and healthier than she has been in the past decade! No one can believe it.
Thing is, for years I felt like we were making no progress because we were always going from one crisis to the next. Eventually I realized: this wasn't a crisis. This was just our new life, and at a certain point, life just has to go on. School has to go on. We have hauled books to the ICU, to the waiting rooms of specialists, to meetings with social workers and hospice workers and therapists and to the Medicaid office, the Social Security office. School went on (albeit more slowly) when MIL broke her hip AND at the same time my dh was in the hospital for nearly a month followed by a six week recovery/convalescence at home.
Dying can be a very long, up and down, drawn out process. You can still comfort the sick and dying, but eventually you just have to do school anyway. Sometimes you can even kill two birds with one stone by sending a child into Mamaw's room with a stack of books to read aloud to her... :001_wub:
Thank you for sharing. I HEAR YOU! hug!
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Last December my elderly, sick inlaws moved in. We became a family of 10 and our time spent in doctor's offices and hospitals went up by 900%.
I was counseled by someone who knows me well not to push too hard on homeschooling. But I did anyway.
And pretty much went crazy.
Dad died, Mom moved to another place, and we are back to 8.
I think maybe we would have been better off to have eased up--but at the time, I just thought it was for FOREVER. I didn't know it was only going to be months, so I pushed through like a maniac.
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is a flow chart ever helpful?
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Elizabeth Bennett delivers this line as a true friend would: "That is a failing indeed. But I cannot laugh at it."
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Apparently there isn't a curriculum entitled "The No-Sweat, No-Tears, No-CPS Method of Dealing with Ineffective and Potentially Unwell Homeschooling Mothers and Disengaged but Religiously Motivated Fathers." Or a competing mini-book curriculum entitled "Call CPS and Put the Problem Homeschooling Mom Into the Hands of the Authorities and Get Her Out of Your Hair."
But if someone could just write those up--preferably with Beast Academy type comic characters, i will help you peddle it here on the interweb. The mini-book would only have, like, one page. The other curriculum is going to be....complicated.
Don't we do this thread bi-weekly?
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For the past couple of years I've sent my 16yo downtown on the city bus and then he would use his bike to go over the river.
I let the younger kids (8 and up) walk to the grocery store in pairs, which is about .7 of a mile away. There is a sidewalk 95% of the way.
I put the then 9yo and 10yo on bikes to go take care of their grandparents at a nearby apartment. They did not have to cross any large streets to do so.
I let the kids go to our neighborhood park which is about 4 blocks away.
I try to send them without cell phones so they will learn to use their brains to make decisions instead of calling me every 7 minutes.
Sometimes they've done a great job at maintaining the guidelines...and totally failed on a couple of occasions.
I live in metro area of about 200,000.
WTM online conference!!!
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Thank you!