SophiaH
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Posts posted by SophiaH
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And it has been a journey...Milovany asked me on a thread from the general board to come share a little about my family as my dh and I are being chrismated next Saturday and our four children are being baptized. I don't really know where to start, and as this space is so confining, I'll give the Cliff Notes version.
Cont.
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An update on me:
This thread by GretaLynne was so timely and helped in starting my family on a new path, and this thread by JenniferB revived our initial searching. We have since become catechumens in the Orthodox Church and are being chrismated next Sunday!
Thank God for PJ and Milovany and all the wonderful ladies on the EO board!
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We live in the country. Our outside cats are excellent mousers (and catch birds and snakes as well :001_huh:). In fact, just yesterday I walked out the front door to a huge 6-8 inch mouse being eaten on my door mat by my momma kitty. :ack2:
For the couple of mice that have made it past the cats to get inside, snap traps with peanut butter have worked every time within 1-2 days. Just make sure you check them every day, 'cause they STINK if left for a couple of days. Good luck!
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I believe it would be with doctoral students, yes. Which is somewhat better than the ST ds did at the same uni that was with Masters Degree students--somewhat hit and miss each semester.
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OhE,
Brainware Safari is supposed to work on six areas including both visual memory and visual processing. The memory sections have really challenged her; I don't know if it's made a difference yet outside of the program, though...
The VT didn't make any other recommendations, or suggest any other therapy. Our nearby university's psych department does assessments for learning disabilities and ADD/ADHD according to their website. I assume that would cover the full spectrum including processing disorders that we've been discussing?
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My son is a weird paradox. He has a perfect auditory memory and understands very difficult subjects but has trouble finding words and recalling basic facts.
What has worked best for me is to work on strengths first and remediate weaknesses on a daily basis. Motivate with high level work and keep skill level work in small daily chunks.
Yes, this is dd. Thank you for the ideas!! Very helpful!
Thanks for the book ideas...I'll check them out!This book is great.
and this book will be released tomorrow!
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Oh, I also wanted to thank both of you other ladies for your thoughts. It's so helpful for me to hear other's experiences. You've given me some new ideas.
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We did have convergence issues with her vision and dd completed vision therapy in March. Her follow-up exam in June looked good but I've been having her use Brainware Safari to help, in particular, with her visual memory.
But, that was what I was wondering--is something else going on here? I guess a professional eval is the only way to know for sure. But then I wonder, what good will that do? Will it really give me any information that I could use to help dd (I'm sure it would), or would it just give me a "label"? Just thinking out loud here...
Thanks, OhE, for your always-helpful and always-candid advice. :)
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We do formal schoolwork (the three R's) in the morning, and interested led (content) subjects in the afternoon.
We do something like this already since we follow somewhat of a LCC philosophy, so I guess I already have the framework in place.
English next year will consist of LLfLotR (heavily tweaked, mostly done orally), plus spelling, typing, and handwriting. His handwriting is painfully slow, which causes a lot of problems since he can think about 100 times faster than he can write — his brain is always getting way ahead of his pencil, and then he has to stop and concentrate on writing the letters or guessing the spelling, then he loses his train of thought, and it gets very frustrating. I want him to be a reasonably fast typist and decent speller before we get heavily into writing.Yes, this is more what I was wondering. Dd loves practicing her typing, and has this same problem with thinking much faster than she can write--which probably adds to her reversing letters and using non-sensical spelling, since she's thinking more about the ideas rather than the process of writing itself. I guess I'm worried how NOT to neglect certain skills, especially in Lang. Arts, w/o using continuous incremental curricula, even when that constant repetition is in one ear, out the other. (Three years of grammar and three years of AAS, and no inroads made in either discipline.) What it really comes down to, though, is that the way she learns (big picture, whole-to-parts, difficult conceptual understanding coming before fitting the pieces in) is so contradictory to my own learning style that I'm having trouble letting go...
Thanks for re-posting that. That is very helpful! I've thought about doing something similar. Dd is going to be doing a President's notebook this year and I found this resource from which I thought would be good to teach simple outlining. She could use her outline and eventually some other resources we own to rewrite a short essay on each President. Many of these skills could be culled from Classical Composition that I already have on the agenda.I do teach him many of the skills necessary for writing in other ways, though. Below is an example of how I use TC courses, which I posted in another thread:
Yes, I agree with this. I *adore* anything with puzzles & logic and so we don't have a problem incorporating them through games or more naturally either.Activities like programming, chess, and strategy games can develop logic skills, and we discuss things constantly — over lunch, over dinner, in the car, while on nature walks, watching documentaries, etc. We might discuss how a specific commercial is trying to manipulate the viewer, or why a politician chose certain words, or whether a history documentary presented a balanced view of the subject. It just makes more sense to me to teach analytical and critical thinking skills in the course of daily life, especially at this age, verses handing kids a Critical Thinking workbook.
Dd loves to create, but I think her poor writing and drawing ability has really held her back in this regard. But she lights up anytime I let her use the computer to type something, so maybe I should allow her to type more of her work. Duh, huh? :rolleyes:My DD is totally different from DS, she loves to write — letters, funny stories, even "reports." Last year she wanted to make a little book of reports on Egyptian pharaohs and queens, so I helped her write half a dozen reports (6-8 sentences), which she illustrated. I walked her through the process of thinking of 3-4 important facts about each person, adding a general introductory sentence and a conclusion, and then I helped correct any grammar or spelling errors. So her writing and grammar skills are probably pretty typical for a 3rd grader, but she learned the skills in context, in an activity she chose.I think I'm just feeling like dd needs a massive structural change in our day to get the most out of her education. She's so eager to please that she does whatever is asked of her, yet I can't help but feel that I'm stifling her with a lot of work that makes me feel better, but is not really doing anything useful for her. Anyway...
Thanks so much, Jackie, for your input.
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Thank you for all the wisdom in this thread!
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I've been reading with interest the recent ongoing conversations about how moms are creatively meeting their 2E kids' educational needs. An overriding question I have in regard to these discussions (with which I find myself nodding constantly) is: How do you balance following a kiddo's interest in content subjects with incrementally increasing their abilities in those important skill subjects?
(I guess this question could be posed to all those who use some interest-led studies, but I'm thinking about Jackie in particular who mentioned not starting writing and grammar until much later. This is more the way I am leaning after my experience with dd.)
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The stealth dyslexia label fits dd to a 'T'--almost as if you could substitute in her name into the article. And I know it sounds crazy, but I'm pretty sure dd is an auditory-spatial learner, not VSL...but, possibly with an auditory processing disorder? Is that even possible? She has all of the symptoms on this checklist for the "tolerance/fading memory" subtype and the "decoding" subtype of APD, but she really seems to learn best through auditory means. She listens to audiobooks and educational CDs for hours a day, and loves listening to read-alouds. Those things are how she prefers to get her information, although she loves to read non-fiction--as long as she's allowed to do so silently and not out loud.
Some days she seems almost...normal. And other days, she ends up in tears of frustrations with herself because she "can't think straight." EVERYthing is a distraction for her--especially the thoughts in her own head. Is this common? How do I deal with this day-to-day inconsistency in ability to focus?
Her handwriting is terrible!!! Should I really focus on it this year, or just gradually keep trying to improve it as we go?
Her spelling is extremely poor, but we finally seem to making small strides using A&P. And actually, we're finishing up with REWARDS which has helped her decoding but has had the unexpected benefit of helping her encoding as well! Thank goodness for small miracles!
Do I just forget trying to teach her math facts, grammar terms, Latin vocabulary, and other "random" facts? I've tried finding "big picture" type curricula, which seem to be much more effective for her. Should I just try to tie everything into history, which she loves and with which she has wonderful understanding and recall? Would that help her retain those other "random" things?
I would love to hear other's experiences with their dc that seem to fit the stealth dyslexia label--how do you deal with some of these issues?
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Scholaric looks interesting! I don't really want to sign up without knowing a little more about it, but I guess a free trial is not a big commitment! ;) Can you share what you like about it?
What I can see is promising for me is that it's online, so I assume I can use it on my iMac at home, and even pull up the schedule when out and about on my Droid phone using the web, right? That would be huge for me since I have to use this stupid phone and don't have an iPad (yet).
Does it have a calendar too? I would LOVE to be able to go to ONE PLACE to see the lessons for the day and any scheduled activities. At least have the ability for my iCal to sync with it. Do you know if it does that.
Tell me more please!!!:D
I'm using Scholaric for my planning this year. Here is his blog and there is more info about it on there, including a tutorial video.
Pros I found so far: -ability to repeat lessons
-ability to print out daily/weekly checklists for dd
-it's online so I can access it from any computer
-ability to bump lessons
-the developer seems to be very open to suggestions and is very active in updating the program
I've inputted most of my lessons for the year, but still not sure that I know all of the features of the program. Does anyone know if you can "share" lessons that we are doing as a group with a sibling or will I have to input them all again? (I haven't contacted the developer yet to ask.)
I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any sync abilities with ical. I just finished with my free trial and paid my $2 for this month (via amazon payments) and plan on using it for the remainder of this school year.
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In our school room, we have 7 (including a large wall-sized Ikea-like cubed one that I built). But, we have 19 throughout the house (soon to be 20). We recently got rid of seven large boxes and one huge tub of books trying to downsize. Library book sales and used book stores are an obsession for both dh and me. :blushing:
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It's at the top of the page of the link posted above:
NATGEOK4
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I just ordered! Thanks!
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I don't regret starting my oldest in B and I gave up on trying to do it with my 2nd (he did MEP Reception and most of 1A, then Singapore 1A before starting B).
This is us. I started dd9 in B at the end of her K year. We had to slow it down in a couple of places, so I thought I'd try A with my son for K. I didn't really like it, and he wasn't ready for formal math, so I decided I'd just wait until his 1st grade year (this year) and use B. I much prefer doing it that way. Now, dd4 is all.about.school. So, I bought Singapore Essentials for her to do this year, and we'll see where we go from here but I have no plans to start her in RightStart until she's ready for B.
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Yes, you have to have the TM. I was able to find a set (WB & TM) on the boards for something like $60?? I can't remember the exact price I paid, but I posted a WTB ad. For my dd, it's definitely been worth it.
I'm very interested in this... I noticed the teacher's guide is over $90.00! Is it necessary? -
There is a sample chapter here.
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I started reading the article to my dh in the car yesterday, and we both couldn't believe that he told the end of the story, when it was obviously a huge part of the plot. I never would've read the article if I had even suspected that he would give away the ending. But I never suspected that he would...
I thought just a simple "spoiler alert" at the beginning of the article would've been sufficient (and considerate...).
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For dd9, we've been using REWARDS Intermediate coupled with Apples and Pears spelling (for encoding) over the summer. This has been a wonderful combination, as they both teach similarly (with morphemes). My dd's ability to decode multisyllabic words has increased dramatically.
I found out about it on the Special Needs board (do a search), but don't discount it's usefulness for kids without learning difficulties. My dd is just a very spatial learner and the strictly rules-based programs (for spelling or phonics) did NOT work for her. REWARDS teaches the dc to identify all prefixes and suffixes in order to break larger words into smaller parts. The bigger chunks seem to make more sense for her. I plan on using it for all my dc--SN or not.
What I like about REWARDS is that it's meant to be used somewhat intensively over a short period of time. There are 25 lessons and each one is taking us about 30 minutes one-on-one, but I think it would be easy to break a lesson up over two days, if needed. It's a great bang for your buck as far as time vs. results.
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I chose CC over CW for a couple of reasons. I didn't want all the other stuff included (grammar, lit, etc.); I wanted only writing. CC, therefore, made more sense financially. Also, I appreciate that CC is so streamlined. There is only a TM and optional Student Pages, which I did not buy. The school that Mr. Selby uses his program in takes the kids from Fable up through all the levels in 4th-9th grade, I believe. I like that, in theory anyway, the kids will have the full arsenal of the progym under their belts by 10th grade--all ready to use for rhetoric work. We started using Fable at the end of last year (3rd grade) after finishing Writing Tales I, and dd and I both really liked it. It was a nice step up from WT--outlining and finding descriptive synonyms from the beginning. I was very impressed with how it guided dd to creating some creative sentences. This year, I'm planning on switching between Fable and Narrative throughout the year to provide some variety. For some reason, I feel more free to progress through the levels at our pace with CC.
I don't think CC is as detailed in the instructions for the teacher as CW seems to be, so that might be something to think about. My degree is in English, so I'm fairly comfortable with writing in general, although the progym is new to me as of a few years ago.
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My dd9 has completed 5 sets of lessons and is loving it! She has previously completed Prima Latina, most of Latina Christiana 1, and all of Lively Latin BB1. We have used VL over the last few weeks as a break from traditional grammar-based Latin. She's enjoyed it so much and is doing so well with it that we will continue to use it alongside First Form Latin this year. She has been surprised at how easy those long translation paragraphs that Jenn mentioned above have been; they have really increased her confidence. Overall, we are very pleased with the program!
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Still finalizing:
Math: Singapore 4a/4b (TB, WB, IP, CWP3), when finished do LOF Fractions
Latin: First Form + Visual Latin + Ecce Romani 1A
Comp: Classical Composition Fable & Narrative
Religion: BSGFAA + Orthodox Catechism
History: SOTW 4 + Guesthollow American 2
Geography: Star-Spangled States
Science: CKE Earth & Space + Tiner's Exploring Planet Earth
French: Powerglide
Grammar: Winston
Spelling: Apples & Pears
Lit: MCT
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting D
Art: Artistic Pursuits + Artpac 3
Music: Simply Music (piano) + homeschool band (flute)
Our Journey to Orthodoxy
in Exploring Orthodox Christianity
Posted
My parents are not believers but I grew up going to the Christian Church with friends. Dh was raised Southern Baptist. We married and dh was ordained as a SB minister. We became youth/college ministers, then went overseas as missionaries to a somewhat remote area, where we were left with Christ and nothing else. Upon our return to the States at the end of our term, reverse culture shock (mostly with the American Protestant church) slapped us in the face. The last six years have been a struggle trying to find out how we fit in with a denomination that no longer made sense to us. I have felt terribly lost.
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