M&M
-
Posts
716 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by M&M
-
-
You have made a lot of changes, and you need time to adjust. Forget about the grade levels, and forget about jumping into logic stage right now. You cannot expect to jump into classical ed at age level after doing a very relaxed schooling. That is raising the bar too high for a 10yo boy.
We have always followed WTM, yet my oldest son was not ready for logic stage in 5th grade (and he was 11!). This is the boy who shut down in 3rd grade and stopped learning for most of the year. We worked on reading and a lot of attitude adjustment that year! We started 3rd grade over the next year and he did well. Now he is 12 and in 6th grade and is happy to be starting logic stage work in some subjects. Logic stage progression is sometimes gradual, some subjects they excel in and jump into logic stage learning while other subjects are still in grammar stage.
Tell your son not to worry about his age at graduation, homeschooling does not work like traditional school. He has lots of time to "catch up" (I don't like using that term but in this case I will). Tell him that if he works hard on his reading and math skills, he can progress more quickly than his ps friends because his learning will set the pace of progression not the school calendar.
Teach him phonics, I like OPGTR, I have used or am currently using it with all of my children except the oldest (it wasn't available then). It has served us well. There is someone on the boards that has a free site using Webster's Blue Backed Speller for phonics. She has a lot of info on remedial phonics, as she teaches it.
I am a fan of simple products that are non-consumable and are easy to use PHP really fits the bill.
From one Jersey girl to another, hope this helps!
-
I have not read all of the replies, but has your dd done any copywork? If you are jumping into WWE without doing copywork, you are missing an important step. Copying from a model starts the process of being able to hold words in your mind. Dictation is the next skill that builds on copywork.
If your child is having trouble, why not let her copy the dictation passages for a while, and then once that is a skill she has mastered, take the copywork and dictate it to her. Then you can progress to just dictation.
It is just like math, you wouldn't ask her to learn to multiply without understanding addition first, one skill builds on another.
Each skill takes time, slow and steady and you will get there without the tears.
-
to H'school that is. I'm questioning if God did call me to H'school, or if it was my will alone. I have had two previous failed attempts with DD (K and 1st). I had NO clue what I was doing or what to expect-she went back to PS mid year. I had done no research. I didn't know there were different teaching methods or so many different companies that sold curriculum. Looking back it was a recipe for failure, but again-what if it was God's way of telling me it wasn't the right thing for our children. I was elated when DH suggested H'schooling this year as I wanted to give it another go. I truly felt it was placed on my heart. DH's reason to H'school this year is because we don't plan on staying in Texas and didn't want our children to change schools mid-year (DH did this a lot as a kid and didn't want them to have to go through it). My DD also learned some things in 2nd grade last year from fellow classmates we weren't to thrilled with and we felt this would only increase.
I can't figure out if this is the enemy's voice I'm paying attention to. If not having any time to myself is causing the anxiety and irritability. I don't have any friends here to get together with and no space to fill my creative side. I'm burnt out
Between the first day of school and the times in between changing curriculum, 36 weeks will be complete at the end of June. I've barely schooled
I think of how different things would be if my DC's were in PS-the peace and quiet at home. Not hearing them argue until it was bedtime. Time to read a book. Time to meet my DH for lunch-alone. Time to be me! And then I feel selfish because my kids should come first right? Putting them back in PS feels like a cop-out. Even writing this makes me want to cry. I don't want to put my kids in PS, but if it's God's will then I need to right?Please give me some insight and your thoughts.
:grouphug: Sometimes we need perspective. The transition from ps to hs takes time. Going from a ps mom to a hs mom takes time as well. Finding a rhythm in your day and your curriculum also takes time. At anytime the things that you have all figured out can and will fall apart. Siblings also need time to learn to get along with each other all.day.long. Finding time for yourself and your husband in new ways takes time as well.
None of this means that you should not be homeschooling. It doesn't mean you are doing a bad job. You just have to know that everything will not just fall into place and there is chaos and it is messy and crazy....and wonderful, and amazing and......
I have this great idea about how homeschooling should look in my house...on a rare day it gets close. Most of the time it is a struggle, and for a short while everything does go well. And then life happens.
Yet, my children learn. They learn to get along, they are progressing! I see that learning is happening even when we had the chicken-pox and then the flu and then my bil died and then my dh's uncle died all in the course of two months!
Just because things are hard, doesn't necessarily mean that you are not doing what God wants you to do. You have to look deeper. Look at the saints, none of them had it easy but they were called by God.
There are solutions to your problems, but first you and dh need to pray for direction. Step back, take a deep breath, and see where God leads.
HTH
-
Thanks Jean! We are sitting in the waiting room of our chiropractor and I just read this to dc. We were looking at the moon on the way here. Now we know so much more. Dd 4 called the moon a "cookie moon". I like Ice Moon we have had a lot of that lately.
-
I really like the look of this, I hope she will too.
-
Thank you very much. This looks promising, I will pass it on.
-
-
My pastor's wife just called looking for a program to teach our Jr High kids. She has had no luck with traditional church resource suppliers, and is hoping that the homeschool market has something to offer.
She is looking for something that will help them to walk throught the OT, but she wants them to see that the God that they see in the OT is still relevant to their lives today. She is also looking for an element of fun/activity as well.
Is there anything that comes even close? I have sent her links to the Apologia worldview curr, AIG, Explorer Bible Study, Balancing the Sword, and Beechick's Finding Our Roots.
Have I missed anything? She knows that she will probably have to pull from several resources to find what she is looking for, so any suggestions that come close would be helpful.
Thanks,
-
My pastor's wife just called looking for a program to teach our Jr High kids. She has had no luck with traditional church resource suppliers, and is hoping that the homeschool market has something to offer.
She is looking for something that will help them to walk throught the OT, but she wants them to see that the God that they see in the OT is still relevant to their lives today. She is also looking for an element of fun/activity as well.
Is there anything that comes even close? I have sent her links to the Apologia worldview curr, AIG, Explorer Bible Study, Balancing the Sword, and Beechick's Finding Our Roots.
Have I missed anything? She knows that she will probably have to pull from several resources to find what she is looking for, so any suggestions that come close would be helpful.
Thanks,
-
If you look your Loom disk and click on the online updates, you will see that when a book goes oop, there is a replacement shown and a link to print a new page with the changes. There also seems to be a link to print the oop page as well. Since I purchased someone's books from the 1st printing and I have TOG 2nd printing, I can now print schedules to go with the books I have. I have not actually tried printing the pages yet, I just discovered this a few days ago.
-
Gracious, after reading this thread I am wondering if ANY kids can successfully go from using SL in high school to college?????
:001_huh:
We have every intention of doing SL through 8th grade and possibly beyond. I am not that far yet, so I am not sure.
Of course they can. Sonlight is a very good curriculum that has been around for many years and many have gone on to college after using it. You can read just as may threads that say that TOG is too much. What it comes down to is what are you looking for in educating your children and how do you want to approach that education.
-
My question to anyone who uses TOG is do you purchase each of the 4 levels once and then use them again but with increasingly higher level activities/discussions each time you complete the history cycle? If so, that appeals to me for some reason.
Yes, once you purchase all 4 year plans you are set for the curriculum part. You would have to add in the books for whatever level you are doing. Again, yes, you continue to use the 4 plans over and over each time increasing in difficulty. The writing component is broken into 12 levels so that you have lots of flexibility with the writing level.
-
I like AO, but I have never figured out how I would get anything done if everyone was doing different history and literature. I have always done history all together. I used SOTW for many years and now I use TOG so that I can still use SOTW with my younger children.
-
I use SOTW for my younger children and will sometimes add a core book as a read-aloud.
For my older children the spine book was used to fill in weeks that I did not have the core reading book or we had a busy week and I just wanted to cover the information without digging deeply. I may use some sort of spine like the Kingfisher or Streams of Civ for my D level student to do some outlining.
-
We only have 5 dc but we also have a 9 seater Suburban. Everyone fits much better than our van with all the car seats.
-
I have taught two children so far how to plan their work and to work their plan. My oldest son was in4th grade. It took him all year just to learn how to plan his work. He did not get the work done all the time, but each year he has improved. Dd is 9th grade and is independently planning all her work. She was a fast learner. All skills take time to teach/learn you must determine if it is a skill you value for your children to master. Don t stress !
-
I know you already made your soap, but I really really like this soap better it is from Virginia soaps and scents. It is a lard based soap, which is what I believe Fels Naptha used to be before they were purchased by a bigger company P&G I think.
ttp://www.va-soaps.com/vss2_006.htm
I make the liquid in a 5 gal bucket and use my dh's paint mixer attachment on his drill to mix it. It make a great gel and I use it in my front loader with no problems.
-
We usually have my version of an Italian feast of seven fishes. I cook a big pot of sauce and add whatever seafood looks good (or we can afford). Usually clams, cod, shrimp, scallops, and calamari served with angel hair pasta and salad. I will also make pasta with oil and garlic sauce for those who don't like seafood. Add some wine and a great loaf of bread and we are ready to go!
-
I agree! It is especially hard with at newborn and a toddler! Give yourself some time, I am not a very happy person when I don't get enough sleep. And who sleeps with at 1 mo old and a 2 yo? I know I didn't!!!
Lower your standards for your house and for how you think your family should be for right now. You set the tone for your family, enjoy the little things today and one day you will see the fruit of a happy family. My youngest is now 4 and we have a lot more fun now!
(((HUGS)))
-
We don't do too much during the week. We have classes at the Y and it is really close. I take my Grandma to classes, two days a week. We have been working on getting kids more independent. But, my youngest boy can't read well. So, I am still quite involved with him.
i am pregnant with our fifth child. I know I need to be more realistic with our life. I am really thinking of moving Science to Saturday. I have been working. on getting up earlier. I have a difficult time with that while pregant. I get too sick if I am up before 7.
Any tips?
First, I make sure that my older children can do some work independently, even if that means doing lots of reading while Mom is not feeling well. I have learned from using Tapestry of Grace how to teach my older children to plan out their week and to be responsible for getting the work done. We have a planning meeting once a week for history and literature(and whatever else we do in TOG) and then we meet once a week to have discussions about the work. Skill areas are done daily, science is sporatic in our house except for my highschooler.
Then, I make sure that the basic skill areas are covered for the older ones. We now use Math-U-See for math not only because it works well, but also because my children can watch the dvd's and I don't have to teach 5 math lessons a day. When I was pregnant, I did phonics with the younger children when I could and they played a lot. Not one of my children have suffered from waiting until after baby was born and we were settled. Sometimes that meant that we took a break from school. The hardest adjustment after we got back to a normal school day was getting the younger ones to learn to respect school time over playtime.
I choose curricula that is not teacher intensive, anything that I use with my younger children has to be pick-up and go. A lot of Peace Hill Press' curricula fits the bill for us. I agree with Laughing Lioness about books on cd, videos, magic school bus, etc. all of these things contributed to informal learning in our house.
Take care of yourself and rest.
-
Thanks for all the help. After soaking the chops, I marinated them in garlic, olive oil, and a little dijon mustard. I grilled them and they came out great!! Only 2 children (the oldest of course) out of 5 did not like them and there are only 2 chops left! Good thing the in-laws have something else to eat tonight!
-
Ok, this I can do! Thanks
-
Hmmm, maybe I will wait til tomorrow to cook these. I am getting nervous!
-
I cook with venison all the time..well, whenwe have it in the freezer! I made it just last night for dinner actually.
The gamey taste is what it is, and most of the time we really don't notice the difference. It is completely related to what the deer eat, so some venison will have a stronger taste than others.
We love it grilled. It cooks fairly quickly so be careful to not cook it too well done. IF you normall use steak sauce, or BBQ sauce on your grilled steak, then serve it that way.
I would have suggested that you incorporate it into a stew or a sauce kind of dish since it is your first time, but not sure you have time for that anymore.
This is a recipe I recently found and have added it to my files.
Venison Tips and Rice
Brown l# cubed venison is 1 tbls oil.
Add 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper and 1 small onion ( all have been diced)
Rice:
You can add rice and water to the meat/pepper mixture and cook until the rice is done alternatively, let the venison and peppers and onions simmer for an hour or longer and serve it over cooked rice. I have done it both ways and it's fine. Depends on how tender you like your venison.
I am not afraid of the gameyness, but I don't know what the kiddos will think. I am not planning on telling them what they are eating! I only got a little bit of stew meat so, I thought I would try the chops. Of course my FIL just told me they are not eating with us, so now I will have to see if I will cook 12 chops tonight.
Thanks for the help.
Feeling disappointed with how we are doing history.
in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
Posted
It seems to me that what is lacking is your children actually interacting with the material. If they are writing down facts that mean nothing to them, they have no reason to remember anything.
Can they pick the facts that are most interesting to them and then read more about that? Are you discussing anything that they are reading? Are they taking those outlines and writing something from them? Logic and Rhetoric stage learning needs to have some kind of analysis and synthesis along with the reasearch. They need to connect the ideas to something, literature, a timeline, supplimental reading, etc.
I use TOG because I have 5 dc to teach and no time to pull all of that together, so I have that as my tool. You can use what you have, I still use SOTW and Kingfisher with my children. What I have learned from TOG and WTM that a student at this age should ..read, think/discuss, write. That is how things stick.
Are your children doing the same time in history or different? If they are doing the same, you could combine a discussion with them, go over some interesting things that they learned and then have them write something about it.
You just started doing this in January? Be patient, you are building skills it takes time for them to process everything. Sometimes we as teachers need to spend more time helping them through the process (which as a mom of many is a challenge for me!). I often forget that there is a learning curve, and I have to give my children time to adjust and give them room to grow into a skill.