jahkamakura
-
Posts
17 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by jahkamakura
-
-
My son is older now- 16.5yo. He'll be 17yo in late fall. This year we are starting out, with fear & trepidation, on a new path for him. He'll be going to school for the first time since pre-school. By grade he's entering 11th, but this program is a charter school on a community college campus. It accepts students who are entering 10th or 11th by tradtional grade. For the first semester all new students are in a self-contained classroom doing high school level subjects to consolidate their basic English, Math, and study skills. Once they demonstrate their readiness by getting study skill credentialed & passing their subjects, they can begin taking classes in the CC. Ultimately, in 3 years time, they graduate with a high school diploma and a technical certificate or associates degree.
The emphasis on teaching study skills, how to relate to teachers & how to navigate the college system will be helpful because these are the areas where my son will need extra help to transition to the college environment. My girls didn't need help with those things; because of ds's executive function weaknesses he needs explicit instruction in the environment where he will be using those skills.
Ds will be taking 4 classes at school:
High School English
High School Math- probably an intermediate algebra or college algebra level class
Environmental Science
Critical Thinking
He will afterschool for these subjects:
Spelling: Wizardsspell for drill (I choose the words); Megawords 4 if we can make the time
Japanese: Rosetta Stone & Tuttle Publisher's Beginning Japanese; the CC does not offer Japanese & with his dyslexia I don't want to introduce yet another language. He is learning, but at a different pace than how a school program would present foreign language anyway. My goal is to get him proficient enough by graduation to satisfy a foreign language proficiency requirement for most 4 year colleges.
Math: I have purchased Thinkwell's Pre-calculus to give ds video instruction he can go back to for specific topics if he needs review or another perspective before completing an assignment- I've found he clearly "gets" math better when it's presented orally
Writing: he will see his writing tutor twice weekly to get help with completing his writing assignments for school (not going to leave it up to the school to help- they won't even be convening an IEP meeting until he's 6 weeks into the semester)
Of course, I will be moniitoring his homework & helping as necessary, making sure he gets it done completely and gets it all turned in. I will also be documenting how much effort I'm expending at home to help him, so the school realizes the kind of help he's getting outside their setting.
This sounds like a wonderful program! I need to move from Japan to send our son. Where is it?
Juli in Japan
-
I don't know, but thought I would bump this up for you so someone else can answer.
Juli
-
If you're comfortable leaving your family, your dh is onboard, your dd and her husband want you there then I'd go. It's a one time thing being there for your daughter and your first grandchild.
My mother was with me 4-8 weeks for each child. It was wonderful for all of us. Dh loved that I had support because he was very busy. I loved the prep time with my mom...washing and folding little clothes, buying diapers...She loved being there with me when the kids were born. She loved cooking, cleaning and walking the babies at night. My mom just loved to serve.
My mom has passed away, and some of my fondest memories and favorite photos are of those times when my babies were born.
Juli
-
Glad you love your pen! They are usually used to address New Years cards or for kids to practice Chinese characters.
Have you tried Japanese pencils and erasers? They are so much better than any in the states. My kids always make sure they bring theirs when we visit Oregon otherwise no school work would get done.
Juli in Japan
-
Algebra 2 is a tough course to fit into a summer - it covers a lot!
Could they begin doing it now and finishing up at the end of summer instead?
He's in boarding school now so I doubt he could start an online course and keep up with the regular school work. The mom is asking the teacher when the courses need to be finished. I got the impression it was by September. It seems like it would be very intense to finish a year of math in a summer.
Thanks for the online suggestions. I'll keep looking.
-
I have a friends whose son needs to take Algebra 2A and 2B this summer. She is looking at online courses as we live overseas. Does anyone have a suggestion? It would need to be a self paced course due to the time difference.
Thanks,
Juli
-
Mine usually have at least 4 books going at the same time -an English school reader, a Japanese school reader, an English book for fun and Japanese book for fun. They also usually have a few non-fiction books they read and then those, "I just thought I'd read my favorite parts again" books. As long as they are completing their school reading and understanding it I let them read whatever they want.
Juli in Japan
-
We, too, bought LOF for fun, but ds loves it. I was planning on having him do Math Mammoth as core and LOF as supplement, but it looks like it might be the other way around.
Do you schedule LOF or just let them go at their own pace?
Juli in Japan
-
I live overseas and download many books from ebookdestination.com Most of them are supplemental rather than full curriculum. At age 4 I copied a lot of free animal worksheets from learningpage.com
Juli in Japan
-
I guess I would be more concerned about what type of parents those new friends are and what type of friends they would be to me rather than what age their children are. My kids have learned a lot (of good things) from our friends whose children were much older.
Juli in Japan
-
Well, kids in Finland score higher in math than either Japanese or Singaporean kids (Finland is 2nd only to S. Korea in math), and Finnish kids spend less time in school, and have less homework, than Asian or American kids. OTOH, they teach math with an emphasis on conceptual understanding, like Asian countries do, rather than the way it's taught in US schools.
Here's a link to the Liping Ma book on Amazon. You can also buy inexpensive used copies (under $5) of the previous edition, which has the same basic information. It's well worth reading, and a book I would seriously recommend to all homeschoolers.
Jackie
And isn't the author of Math Mammoth Finnish? That is what we are using with our son who's last day of Japanese school is today.
-
My kids have gone through the Japanese system until grade 5. The biggest differences I notice is there is more rote memory in Japanese math than in the US, which seems different than what someone else said here. Kids are required to learn a multiplication song forwards and backwards and they are regularly tested on it.
In grade one they spend FOREVER learning number bonds for 10. Then this skill is used for bigger number. Not like anything I learned.
9+7=16 because 9+1=10, 16-10=6 so therefore 10+6=16.
They do attend school more days a year, but a bigger reason is that almost every child in Japan does a correspondence course, Kumon or cram school. Schools give homework (amount depends on school), but kids also have homework from their other classes. Skills are reinforced or enhanced depending on the kid or program.
Japanese math is also a mastery approach. My son is in 5th grade and just getting to fractions. This year they will do all 4 operations with fractions, but he rarely knew what a fraction was before now. I also think with a mastery approach less topics are covered in a year so they spend more time on each one. They do the same in science.
A few things I don't see in Japanese math are no work with patterns and usually only one method is taught. I did notice this year that their textbook sometimes has several different examples of how to solve the a problem. There also isn't much discovery or hands on materials used in the class, but that can vary with the teacher. There is also not enough critical thinking. They aren't challenged to use their math knowledge in other ways, like Singapore word problems.
I can't say which is better because I really think there are some math programs out there that are not Japanese. Singapore seems similar, though with less practice. I think the fact they spend so much time on basic facts when the students are young, really helps.
My kids have transferred into a British/Australian program and find it very easy. They had trouble with the vocabulary at first, but now are doing very well. Perhaps their Japanese math helped.
Juli in Japan
-
Dancing Bears. Excellent program.Do you have a link for me to check this out?
This is the only program that helped my daughter become a successful reader.
-
Hi Kris,
It looks great! I was just showing ds (10) and he was wondering what do you do with all the papers when they are finished? Do they get lost?
Juli in Kamakura, Japan
-
Does anyone have high school students that live in a place where they don't have friends or places to hang out with kids their age? Or live overseas without homeschool groups? We live in Japan and are considering bringing ds (14) home from international school because he is really struggling academically. We just don't know if he can make it there. He has friends at school, belongs to clubs and fits in well, but I doubt he would meet his friends if he wasn't at school. There aren't any homeschool groups with teens here either. We are wondering if it would be just too lonely for him.
Thanks,
Juli
-
When my kids were younger we would make little copy books with different themes. The kids would help choose the themes and the contents. Some of the themes that were most popular were jokes, knock-knock jokes, alliterations and silly facts about...Te little ones would make animal ABC's. There was often a place to illustrate the page and the only rule was that it had to be their best handwriting. It made handwriting fun because of the themes and the fact they had some say in what they were going to write.
SAT Tips
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Does this happen in the PSAT, too? Ds is taking this on Wednesday and he would be very confused if people were using calculators and he wasn't.
Juli