mom2bee
-
Posts
2,605 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by mom2bee
-
-
On 5/2/2022 at 9:36 PM, Green Bean said:
Yuck, no! If you're going to reject a publisher because it's
On 5/2/2022 at 7:21 PM, Green Bean said:confusing gobblyguck.
then you definitely don't want CAP Writing and Rhetoric.
Or CAP Well Ordered Language.
-
2
-
2
-
-
I think that (after this event) you should talk with your sister directly. Tell her that you're interested in exploring new recipes and seem to be going through a phase with trying lots of new recipes and many of the ones on your list happen to include nuts.
Let her know that while you're exploring this phase, you're no longer keeping a Nut Free home, and that you wanted to let her know so that you guys can plan accordingly with get together, visits and play-dates.
I think it's better to be open about the decision to not be Nut-Free at a time that is not right before a big event. That way she's not caught off-guard.
No anger or judgement. Sis might not be happy, but that's on her to manage, not you.
OP, You don't have to lead a Nut Free life because your niece is allergic, but I think that you should make that decision and announce the decision openly so that mom can plan accordingly.You've been very generous and very thoughtful for a decade. The time to bring this up is not right before a big family get together, or during the holiday season.
Mention it privately and directly to your sister at a better time.
Explore some recipes that include nuts in your own home. Share some special treats with your kids.
Teach them about cross-contamination, and food-safety for their cousin and other allergic people (ie: You can't eat peanut-butter cookies in the car on the way to an event with cousin), but also teach them how to have open communication.
Once you've indulged in Nut-inclusive foods for a time, you can decide if you want to return to a Nut Free home for your nieces-sake or not.
-
5
-
-
1 hour ago, Baseballandhockey said:
I really want to make a cake that has almonds for my niece's graduation. I don't know why, I just found a recipe that looks really good and I want to make it. It fits with our theme 🤪
The board has so many talented minds on it. I'm sure someone here can help you find a cake recipe that will also look really good, fit with theme and not potentially create a rift in your family.
It's hard, because Life Threatening Food Allergies do place limits on the lives of the person with the allergy as well as the lives of those who include an Allergic person in their own lives.
Thank you for including your Allergic-Niece in your life so thoughtfully for the last 10 years. It's not easy.
Thank you for checking your impulses and seeking a way to keep her included on this special day, as well.
I don't think that making the cake--in this context--is reasonable, because a person, a child could die.
Even if you can get over that for yourself, I don't see how you will EVER be able to make that right with her parents, your children, your parents, etc.
Please, let us help you find another cake that will fit the theme and look amazing.
-
7
-
-
What grade are you looking for and what do you want to know about Elevate Science?
-
I don't like Well Ordered Language. The verbiage is pretentiously and flowery to the point of being hard to understand.
When teaching the principal parts of a sentence (Subject and Predicate), they liken it to a King and Queen, explain that the word 'prince' comes from the Latin principus meaning first in importance so just like a prince is first in line to become king so the subject and predicate are the principle parts of a sentence.
A later lesson/chapter teaches that Adjectives and Adverbs are like vassals--serving the king (subject) and queen (predicate) of the sentence. Do your children know what a vassal is? Not 1 of the 21 children I used this book with knew what a vassal was.
Also, the sentences used for the exercises are rather inane. They're along the lines of Many brown kittens romp playfully. and Mittens fit snugly.
-
2
-
-
If you want to train your mind and set a worthy-example for your kids, then I suggest you go with a lite-reading schedule.
1) Make the habit of reading 10 minutes every day without fail. Start with ONE book.
2) Nonfiction Childrens books are great to develop your knowledge of the world.
They are readable, factual, well illustrated, and easy to read. Go to the library, the children's non-fiction section and pick a book that has an overview of history. Most of these books can be well-read in 10 minute increments.2b) Once you've established the habit (probably 2-6 months), get a 3-subject notebook and use it to take a 1/2 page of notes from your reading most days that you read.
2c) Just an FYI: Getting a reference resource that is meant for grades 4-6 or 4-8 can be a great way to give yourself a high-level overview of The Basics.3) If you're awful at math, make 5 minute time to learn, recite, write and drill your math-facts each morning. Review your math facts again at night.
If you know your math facts, but can't subtract fluently by hand, then get in the habit of doing ONE problem by hand and checking it every day--thus working a subtraction and addition problem each day. Once you get the hang of multidigit +/-, then tackle multi-digit multiplication and division. -
On 1/1/2022 at 6:02 PM, KrisTom said:
We began homeschooling last year using entire Abeka core curriculums for three children. This year, I switched my older two (3rd/4th graders) to classical---mainly Memoria Press materials and a Classical Academic Press writing/rhetoric program. Next year, I will be adding our 4th to the mix for Kindergarten. I really like Memoria Press, but there are so many pieces to the curriculum. I know some are just tiny chunks, but it sort of adds to my personal chaos, no matter how much I "organize." Half a year in, and I still don't have my bearings. I considered switching to a more Charlotte Mason approach, and we tried a little, and my son wondered why he had so many different living books to read at once, so we sort of just went back to our Memoria Press.
What other classical programs exist that have less pieces but are complete curriculums?
OP, 2 questions.
1) What about Abeka wasn't sufficient and made you go looking for something "else"?
2) In your experience, what does Classical Academic Press do that Abeka does not?
-
Meriam Websters Vocabulary Builder book is the most cost effective book for etymology that I know of. It's not too heavy on the spelling though, but it's great for etymology.
If you want something more curriculum-ish that includes spelling more directly then
Spelling By Sound and Structure is etymology and spelling at level 6 and above.
Dynamic Literacy Word Build has 2 series (one for elementary/ middle, and the other for middle/highschool)
Spelling Through Morphographs is expensive but highly effective.
-
As some folks know, I am a huge fan of Gregg Shorthand and I have some of the original student books for 3 different versions of Gregg Shorthand: Pre-Aniversary Gregg Shorthand, Gregg Notehand and Gregg Shorthand Simplified for Colleges. They are a part of my treasured books library.
I like Notehand best for modern students because it explicitly teaches students to take notes and study. It's not meant for verbatim dictation and is easier to learn. I think that Notehand would take about a semester and should be began in 6th or 7th grade so that students have the chance to make it "a part of them" prior to changing campuses in 9th grade.
As a nation, our students lack general knowledge and self-learning skills of critical reading, note-making and revision techniques.
If a lot more high-school students possessed the ability to read-to-learn, knew how to make notes, study and knew how to leverage memory techniques, I think we'd have greater levels of innovation and reach a greater percentage of our youth academically.
-
2
-
2
-
-
@daijobu The more I think about this, the more I am sure that one can't use the word "per" in ratios.
In English (maybe only American English) the word "to" is used for ratios, I have never seen any variation in the wording accepted.In rates, however, there are 2 units and the wording can vary with either "per" or "a(n)".
On 10/17/2021 at 10:33 AM, EKS said:It has nothing to do with being able to understand both ways of saying it, or even saying it both ways. It has to do with what is appropriate to say in a scientific context and what is not. It is never appropriate to say "miles an hour" in a scientific context. It doesn't matter what region of the country you're from.
I disagree. You're trying to force a "hard and fast" rule where it doesn't exist nor would the rule actually apply.
On 10/17/2021 at 10:30 AM, EKS said:When I see mistakes like that, it makes me wonder where else the author is going astray. To me it shows that the author doesn't actually know what they're talking about when it comes to distance, rate, and time, and that they haven't been exposed to enough scientific writing to know that it is more appropriately written as "per hour" in this context.
I have a physics textbook from 1856 and another from 1919 and they use both "per hour" and "an hour" throughout. It looks like "an hour" might be a little more common, but I'm not counting exactly.
It's likely that the author grew up reading scientific texts that used both "per hour" and "an hour" or perhaps he grew up reading texts that phrased it "an hour" only. He's dead now, so we can't really ask him.
-
1
-
-
On 10/19/2021 at 10:32 PM, daijobu said:
Good questions. You can represent ratios as fractions. "50 miles per hour" can be written as
with the fraction bar replacing "per." Or in the context of pediatric medication dosing, on can write "20 milliliters per kilogram" as
. I think of "per" as a synonym of "for every."
It's similar to using "of" to represent multiplication. Have 2 of a quantity is akin to have 2 times a quantity.
Those are both rates--the units are different. Neither of those is a ratio or a fraction--I mean, yes, it uses "fraction notation" but it's not a fraction (ie, rational number, or representative of a single quantity)
-
1
-
-
On 10/16/2021 at 9:34 PM, daijobu said:
... To my mind, "miles an hour" is not accurate. One should write "miles per hour" which is consistent with the idea of a ratio or a fraction.
Wait, I am confused. I'm not attacking you, but I have two questions.
How do you use "per" re: fractions?
How do you use "per" re: ratios?
-
After Dimensions 6, the workbooks provide additional practice problems but those problems have to be copied onto paper and worked--there is no space to work the problems in the workbooks.
I think that you should look at the TOC for Dimensions 7. If you foresee your student needing additional practice in at least 2 of the chapters in a volume, then get the workbook.
-
1) How often does he write and how much does he write at a time--a sentence? A few sentences? A paragraph?
2) Has there been improvement in his handwriting up til now?
3) Can you post a few samples of his writing?
4) What is the reason that you've never gotten an Eval or Diagnosis for a child you think may have a Learning Difference?
5) What kind of paper is he writing on?
6) What kind of pencils/pen is he writing with? -
19 hours ago, jrichstad said:
My DD11 is intractably bad at arithmetic, because she makes what we used, in my day, to call careless errors: copying a problem with an addition sign instead of a minus sign, lining up decimal points incorrectly, adding in the problem number, etc. I was the exact same way! This seems to be slowing her down in math, to the point where I feel like we've been doing some of the same work over and over again for the past 18 months. My feeling is that this is just an EF issue and that there's not really much point in making her beat her head against the same issue when she'll either grow out of it ... or grow into a calculator. I'm tempted to make sure she's setting the problems up correctly and then just hand her a calculator.
Math folks, what do you think?
Please do not hand a calculator to a sloppy student. It's just a machine and Garbage In -> Garbage Out.
A calculator just gives her an electronic avenue to generate an incorrect answer.
1st) Are her answers correct? Meaning, did she get the correct answer to the problem that she wrote down even though it doesn't match what you'd expect based on the problem in the book?
2nd) What does a daily math lesson look like for her?
3rd) Does she produce similarly sloppy work in any other subject?
First and foremost, what math is she doing and what does a lesson look like?
-
2
-
-
Looks good to me!
What all is in your ANKI decks?
-
1
-
-
On 7/11/2021 at 7:25 AM, besimistic said:
Hi. I want some advice on using placement tests at home, especially in the early years, as well as recommendations.
Here are some questions I have after searching through the forums. I'd greatly appreciate your feedback you may have:
1) Have you found doing annual placement exams beneficial as a rough tracking of progress in different subjects?
2) Do you recommend any (preferably free)?
3) Are Lifepac's placement tests relatively accurate for grade levels?
4) Are there any paid placement exams that do something significantly better that makes it worth paying, especially in the grammar stage? I'm an expat from NJ so I don't need to certify any testing (at least that's what I found online) so I don't need that feature.
Thanks!
Option 1: Ultimate Phonics has a reading test that you can print for free and administer at home to determine how well your child can read phonetically. You can administer tests for K-4 level reading and the instructions are on the page. At the bottom of the page it tells you which phonetic concepts are being taught. It's super easy to do.
Unfortunately, I don't know of anything as easy to do for arithmetic and this test is strictly measuring the skill of decoding. (Decoding fluency is super important in reading! It's probably 75% of the reading puzzle at the K-2 level)
Option 2: You can use the website easyCBM and make a Lite account for free. It has a series of printable assessments that you can print for your students and input the scores for online. I haven't played with it extensively yet. It gives you access to Printable versions of all of the student materials for K-8.Reading has different subtests by grade:
- K-1: Letter Naming
- K-1: Letter Sounds
- K-1: Phoneme Segmenting
- K-3: Word Reading Fluency NOT PHONETICALLY BASED! Perfectly skipable in my opinion
- 1-8: Passage Reading Fluency
- 2-8: Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension
Mathematics has different subtests by grade
- Numbers and Operations
- Geometry
- Measurement
- Numbers Operations and Algebra
I'm not personally able to endorse the easyCBM tests, but they are there as a free option for you to administer to maybe look for specific skills that your children might be strong vs weak in for their grade ranges.
Option 3: Let's Go Learn has online diagnostic assessments that you can purchase and your kids take online. It's $25 per subject and if you more than 1 there is a small discount. You don't have to do anything but pay and have the kids take the tests.
-
1
-
Phenomenal! Great Job!
-
How to Think Like a Coder Without Even Trying is written to be very kid-friendly. It could be a very good precursor to Programming Logic and Design which is definitely meant for an older audience and I do NOT recommend it for a child under 13!
Hello Wold! is a coding book that uses Python to teach coding. Very accessible--it was written by a father who was teaching his 11/12 year old son to code.
Once you have a plan for what you're focusing on, come and let me know. I have a huge collection of coding books and resources and I might be able to help you find resources.
-
13 hours ago, BlsdMama said:
I want something that will speak a word so my child can type it.
It can be some phenomenal and magical spelling program, a fancy way to use Quizlet that I don’t know about, etc.
The best way might be to simply record yourself reading a list of words using Voice Recorder on your PC. Then you can simply scaffold in as much support as your child(ren) will need.
So, they might just need to hear the word one time so that they can type it. or you might create a set "script" that you follow for each word.
"The word is (pause) ________"
"__________"
[syllabicate_________]
[A sentence that uses the word_________________]
[syllabicate_________ again]
"__________"So, for example "rascal"
The word is (pause) rascal
ras-cal
Tom Sawyer is always making trouble for his Aunt Polly, he is a well-known rascal.
ras-cal
rascalYou can run through a list of words within a few minutes if you establish a script and have a source for the words themselves.
You can sit down and record a weeks worth of spelling words in less than an hour. If you name the files well, then you will be able to refer to them easily later and assign a list to a younger child or to reassign a list of words that you see being missed often.-
1
-
-
It's been true in my experience. I always wished that Zig & Co would've published more DI @ Home type stuff. If you want a good DI program, you have to buy a program designed for the school system outside of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons which is a really wonderfully designed program but it's not enough.
On 6/19/2021 at 4:01 PM, mathmarm said:You can do without the Teachers Guide and Answer Key at this level. You have to kind of watch for the books. I hunted around eBay, Amazon, Abebooks and other used book stores and sites for these.
The 2001 edition has something called Writing Extensions. I don't know what that component is but we haven't suffered without it.
Just an FYI:
The editions aren't interchangeable for the writing programs. If you have a 1991 writing book, it won't work seamlessly with the 2001 edition and vice versa.-
1
-
-
It almost sounds like you can't choose to speed read or not, and it just happens?
I was thinking of learning to speed read for my own purposes--I have to read a lot of material in my field and I just want to be able to get through it faster.
But would you say that it's detrimental to learn it @Clarita and @Resilient since it seems that you can't "toggle" between speed reading and normal reading at will?
-
I worked at a school that used Classical Academic Presses Writing and Rhetoric and it was a huge flop for grades 4-6. I hope that the school decides to do something different next year.
The students were really bored with the stories and mostly frustrated and most of the teachers hated the program after about 4 months. It did not get better as the year went.
-
1 hour ago, JazzyMom said:
Yes, he’s neurotypical. No diagnosis other than vision issues. He focuses well. No attention issues.
I think my main concern re: grade level is that he’s now middle school age, and his written output doesn’t reflect that of a typical middle schooler. I’m not planning to put him in school, but I know he couldn’t go into a 6th grade class at this point because of his writing. (Not physical handwriting, but spelling.)
I taught 5th grade this past year for the first time. I worked at a K-8 school so I got to see what the 4th-8th graders writing looked like.
I had a couple of students who struggled to write in complete sentences all year long.Most of my students learned to write complete and correct sentences but I had a few whose writing was very sloppy, misspellings were rampant and their thoughts were disorganized.
I worked closely with the other 5th grade classroom teachers and checked in with the middle school teacher who was teaching grades 6-8. I'd say that it's definitely a spectrum of abilities.
-
1
-
The Complete Book of Spanish grades 1-3 ("3rd Edition")
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Does anyone have this book on hand? This link goes to the newest edition of The Complete Book of Spanish grades 1-3 --which is now published by Thinking Kid and Carson Dellosa. If so, would you be willing to answer some questions about it for me?
If you have this book, I would really like to ask you about its contents because it's not in my local stores, but I'm trying to decide if I should purchase it.
I have used this older edition by School Specialty Publishing since 2009. This version (can't truly be called a "2nd edition"), because it's really just a reprint from when the book changed publishers is identical content with a couple of freebies (stickers and a poster)
1) I'd like to see specific pages in the the 3rd edition in order to check if typos and inconsistencies have been corrected.
2) I'd like to know about the Handwriting practice section is it just lined pages? Or are there structured letters/ words/phrases/sentences included?
3) Jack and the Beanstalk can I see 2 sample pages of this story.
I really like the first edition of the text. I'm familiar with--but work around--the flaws because overall I find it a wonderful resource to have on hand. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at wringing every drop of Spanish learning that I can out of this book. I'm considering purchasing the newer edition.