ArizonaGirl
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Posts posted by ArizonaGirl
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I agree with Jen, Ellie, and Pata. I go with the original WRTR.
I do struggle to fit in all the levels with four children at once. We do phonograms orally and written together, and then two of mine are combined for spelling.
Although I have the fifth edition, I also have the second edition (1969), so each child has a grammar workbook on their own level. We do a lot together orally and compose sentences with their spelling words, so the oral grammar work is often review for the older kids. At least I know that in their workbooks, they are working at their own levels, even if I can't cover everything for every child every day.
They may share writing assignments.
My first-grader, for example, will write a couple of related sentences, while my third and fifth-graders will write a full paragraph.
I will require much more detail and complex sentences from my sixth-grader.
I still struggle teaching all at once, so sometimes I just work every other day with each child--two levels one day and two other levels the next. I can go a little faster one-on-one than a teacher in a classroom, so we will cover two-three days work in one sitting.
Does that make sense?
I'd definitely recommend the original Spalding and the Writing Road to Reading, but that is where I am comfortable.
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I wouldn't let a disagreement in theology scare me away from Apologia. We believe in Christ and the Bible, but I don't necessarily agree with the viewpoint of everything taught in Apologia. I just be sure to look through the chapter and discuss anything I think is necessary with my children. Usually, though, they already know what we believe and can pick out differences on their own.
Apologia Science is fairly thorough. We have used General Science and Physical Science here. That said, my high school student told me she didn't like her text book preaching at her, and requested something different for biology. Together we chose Prentice Hall's Levine and Miller Biology, and she is using that this year. When she saw how thick the book was, however, she sighed and said she wished we had just stuck with Apologia!
Ultimately, the decision is up to you. Can you ask to look through the textbook before sending you child to class? That may help you decide what you can live with and what you may wish to do differently.
Best wishes!
ETA: I just noticed your children are younger. It looks like you are asking about a five-year-old. We have also used Apologia Astronomy, with me reading out loud to my younger children. The book was mostly okay, but occasionally came across as preaching. We dropped it after a couple of chapters because my children were bored and I found Real Science 4 Kids, which we liked much better. I don't recall anything really objectionable in the Apologia Young Explorer Astronomy book, but again, you may want to look through it and be sure your child knows how you feel about the viewpoints taught.
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I have used several different writing programs. I, too, would suggest moving through WWE faster.
My own third grade daughter loves doing Writing Strands 3.
My fifth grade son struggled with Writing Strands 3. WWE 3 was to hard for him, so we are doing WWE 2 and Six-Trait Writing Grade 4. It is a little bit of formula writing or teaching to the test, but it works for him. At least he is writing something. I felt a fifth grader needed more that just WWE. Six-Trait was too easy and boring for my third-grade daughter doing Writing Strands. We still do WWE3 with her for dictation and narration purposes.
My favorite program is Writing Road to Reading, using the new teacher's guides. I have my children practice writing sentences using spelling words and the concepts from their grammar lessons. When appropriate, we do writing assignments from Spalding as well. I know it is kind of a mixed-up system (combining so many things), but at least I know my children are learning to write.
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I teach my children cursive because I believe it is an important skill.
That said, let me tell you a story.
My twelve-year-old son was at a scouting merit badge clinic. Several of the other boys leaned over his shoulder and said, incredulously, "You know how to write in cursive??!!!! I wish I knew how!" The public schools in our area don't teach it at all.
Now, my son hates cursive, but admits he can write faster with it and thus was using it that night. His writing is terribly illegible, but he is working on it, more so since his friends made that comment. (Yeah for positive peer pressure).
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I'm agreeing with Ellie here.
Did you know that Spalding is currently offering a Home Educator's online class? It probably isn't necessary, but it does give better insight as to how the method works.
At the very least, I would suggest watching the videos of Spalding being taught in a classroom. Better yet, if you live close enough to a school that teaches Spalding, visit one and observe the classroom.
It is sometimes more difficult to understand in writing from WRTR than it is to simply watch an example. At the very least, you can relax and know you are teaching it correctly.
I am not nearly as strict or consistent as I should be, but my first grader is finally getting those first 45 phonograms memorized. We have always worked on them, starting formally in Kindergarten. For some kids, it just takes time. Even my son (attending a public Spalding school until we moved away a few years ago) is still working to learn all the phonograms. He was in second grade when we moved and is now a fifth-grader.
Have patience, and teach the rules just before introducing new words. Your child will get it in time. My first grader reads very well, but is still learning phonograms. It does work, but it takes lots of repetition and saying and writing the phonograms. Improvement will come in time.
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Have you looked at The Writing Road to Reading? It may appear a little intimidating at first, but if you take the time to familiarize yourself with it, you will find it very simple to implement.
Kids do very well with it.
See Spalding Education International for more information--and start only with the basic textbook. Perhaps you'll be lucky enough that your library might have a copy?
Anyway, it teaches simple basic spelling rules without bells and whistles.
Good luck finding what is best for your child.
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Have you looked at BookAdventure.com? I'll be honest--I haven't used it, but it will quiz on the books your children read.
Mostly, I just don't like to sit and supervise computer time. It is easier to keep it off, but if you really can't read ahead of your child, it is another way to see if they actually read and understood the book.
Perhaps you could give it a try with something you have already read to see if it will work for you.
I also struggle with reading ahead of my children, especially now that I have one in high school. We are still using Sonlight's questions for my younger children, and I will get only a few pages or chapters into a book before my high school student catches up to me and asks for the next book. Reading ahead on limited time is difficult.
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Often, my boys will have a hard time correctly identifying the subject or verb in a sentence. When I ask them to find the prepositional phrases first, they can then easily find the subject and verb.
Identifying prepositional phrases simplifies everything else.
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I considered Robinson Curriculum, but ended up going with Accelerated Achievement. Elementary Math (K-6) is included with that one, and we used it for a while but have since found other programs that work better for our family.
A2 is a nice resource, and it did work for us when we first started homeschooling. It was a nice way to jump into five grades at once without spending a lot of money on curriculum. My children got a good education while I researched and learned and we adjusted to being home together. It just wasn't the best thing over all for us, but sometimes I wish we could go back to the simplicity of it.
Mostly, my children hit a road block when the reading material became too advanced and they had read everything they could handle. I needed to let them mature a few years, and my oldest felt it was just much too intensive on the American History--It has some great resources, though.
Sorry for the side track on this thread..... I hope you've found some helpful answers to your question.
P.S. A2 lets you order a sample for $.01. Everything is on the disk, but the print function is disabled. That might be a nice way to take a look at it.
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You are welcome! I'm glad I could help.
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When my kids were in school and using Spalding there, they came home with spelling homework everyday.
In the younger grades they would do things like write each word twice (15 spelling words) on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday they wrote each of 30 words once, and then had a practice test on Thursday. If they got 100% on the test, they didn't have to take Friday's test. Missed words had to be written for homework Thursday night.
Sometimes, instead of just writing words, my children were assigned to alphabetize them. This was practice with both spelling and grammar.
From my days in a Spalding school as a student (and my older children echo this), class time was spent writing sentences using the spelling words. The sentences had to show that students really knew how to use the words and not be something like a list or, "I must write a sentence using the word 'xxxxxx'." Sometimes we just had to copy definitions out of the dictionary.
Does that make sense? At home, I also encourage them to open their spelling notebook and use the words when they write other assignments for me, or simply have to list some nouns on their grammar worksheet, or whatever else they may need. Hopefully, this way they won't have to ask me how to spell every other word they want to use when writing.
If you find a system that works really well for you, please let me know. Though most of my children do really well with spelling, I still have one (fifth grade!) who still struggles with spelling even easy words from sections J and K (about second grade level). I need to change something with him so he can remember his words better.
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THIS is what I am looking for. Can you elaborate on how Core 1 and SOTW are different? Similar? What you like and dislike, or maybe prefer is a better way to say this, about both?
Story of The World is just stories. There are very few illustrations, and they are in black and white line drawings. The maps are always zoomed in to the area we are studying. I have to get out the globe to show the children where in the world Mesopotamia can be found. The activity guide is usually just a larger zoomed in map to color. My son dislikes coloring, so we just point with fingers and call it good. He will sometimes color the pictures if I let him paint them or do something different from crayons and colored pencils. He enjoys the very few odd activities like crossword puzzles or word searches.
I haven't checked out the extra recommended books since we are short on time, and some of them are part of Sonlight's Core 1 anyway. We usually don't do the hands-on activities because I am not creative that way and have little patience for it. However, my ten-year-old loves that kind of art project, and occasionally I will let him take over and do it by himself or with the little ones.
Sonlight has very little to no hands-on activities, though we did find a few in the Usborne book used in both Cores 1 and 2. Again, I let my children do only what they chose of those activities. Sonlight has a lot of picture books, and it includes some literature that goes along with the ancient history. My children love the extra stories and read-alouds. Some of them do not coordinate at all, like Charlotte's Web. I consider that to be just literature or reading. Some of the more colorful books were enjoyed by my younger children. The larger chapter books with few pictures often lost the little ones but were appropriate for the targeted age ranges.
Sonlight takes us much longer to complete. I can read Story of the World and finish the questions in the activity book much faster than I can finish reading a day's assignments from Sonlight. Sonlight tries to present varied viewpoints. I will read from Child's History of the World, and then cover the same material in Usborne, and the information is totally different in the way it is presented. This duplication helps my children remember the events covered and gives them a fuller, more accurate picture of history.
Story of the World is just from the viewpoint of one individual. If you want more variety, you have to seek it out yourself. The recommended additional resources look great, but I just lack the time to really focus on them.
I don't feel my son is lacking in his education. He loves books and will read on his own. He sometimes listens in on the cores for the older children, and he loves the pre-school read alouds I do with my younger children. He is learning, even though I'm not really focusing on his level beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I hope all my rambling is somewhat helpful.
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We used Core 1 a couple years ago and are near the end of Core 2 with my 3rd and 5th-grade (They were 1st and 3rd when we started Core 1). Core 1 was just right for my struggling 3rd-grader and a little hard for my then-first grader.
I am using SOTW with my current first grader simply because his older brother (7th grade) is doing Core 6, which uses SOTW as its core. I just don't have time to do all of Core 1 in addition to all the other things we are doing. His older brother simply reads SOTW to his younger brother and then moves on to do his own work in core 6. I go through the study guide with my first-grader. Following the Core 6 schedule, my first-grader will do books 1 and 2 this year, and books 3 and 4 next year with core 7.
I intend to do Core 1 again in a couple of years when my current 1st grader is in 3rd grade and my pre-schooler will be 1st grade. In that case, I will be using Core 1 after SOTW, but we will go through history more slowly and in depth. We will see. We are not there yet. I may decide to just pull my first-grader into Core 3 with us when we get to it in a few months. I would really like to use less than four cores at once as we are currently trying to do.
Although SOTW and Core 1 both cover world history, they do it in different ways and from different view points. I don't think there is a lot of duplication at all. Of course, we are only on chapter 7 or 8 of SOTW at this point.
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Have you looked at The Writing Road to Reading? The approach is simple. Have them use spelling words to write sentences which include the grammar concepts your children are learning.
Once sentences are easy to write, they learn to write related sentences--or in other words, a paragraph. Then you move to the elements of a paragraph like topics sentences, supporting details, and a conclusion. It really is very simple.
For my children who just cry at doing even that much, Writing With Ease has been helpful. I also have a daughter who wants to do much more. Writing Strands is a good fit for her.
Good luck!
ETA: I start teaching writing skills in Kindergarten. My children compose a lot of sentences orally and I write them on the white board. As their fine motor skills catch up, they begin to write the sentences on their own. Lots of writing skills can be taught orally before a child can actually write for himself.
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Have you looked at The Writing Road to Reading? English really is organized and full of simple rules, even though most people don't think so.
Spalding Education International has more information about the program.
Good Luck!
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My classes went in this order: Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Trigonometry, AP Calculus AB, and AP Calulus BC. (Yes, I had six credits of high school math and gladly never took another math class--even in college since my major didn't require it).
I know other kids took classes labeled Pre-Calculus after Trig, and other classes had different names, but I could never quite figure out what order they were supposed to be or how they fit in the full scope of things.
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You might want to take a look at The Writing Road to Reading.
Of course, they will tell you to back up to the beginning, but that may be just what he needs. Because he is older, he should be able to go fairly quickly and be up to his grade level very soon.
.....Just another idea....
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Some of mine really need the extra review and some don't. Each child is different.
I teach some things together, and those that don't need it are simply "over learning" and that is good. Over learning means that it will come naturally and automatically later when they really need it.
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I have used both Easy Grammar and Growing With Grammar. I like both programs.
Easy Grammar required more input from me. Since my time is very limited, we are using Growing With Grammar this year as it is written directly to the student and my children do not need me to teach before they can do the assignment. I just have to be sure to review their work to verify that they comprehend what they are learning. Sometimes they need a little clarification of what is being taught.
I do miss having them memorize prepositions and linking verbs as Easy Grammar requires. I may pull those back in and take a short break from Growing With Grammar to do those things with them.
I also have them do Easy Grammar's Daily Grams each day. Easy Grammar is only written for 2nd Grade and up, and for second grade you only do Daily Grams aloud together as you teach new concepts. It is very easy to use.
I started using Growing With Grammar because I needed a program for my very enthusiastic then first grader. My current first grader requires a little more help from me since he doesn't write as much as his older sister did, but he is still fairly independent.
My fifth and seventh graders are learning to diagram sentences for the first time. Easy Grammar does not teach diagramming.
I guess I am overloading my kids on grammar, since I also use the Writing Road to Reading, and it includes daily grammar and writing composition practice out loud, on the white board, and as a group as well as writing sentences using their spelling words and whatever grammar concepts we are practicing. This is also where my children get their writing practice. I have pulled in some Writing Strands and Writing With Ease so that I remember to do dictation, and because narration and summaries are easier to do that way. I guess it is an odd combination that works for our family. Originally, Easy Grammar was supposed to be extra written practice to re-enforce what we did in Spalding, but grammar was dropped a lot last year. Growing With Grammar lets me not stress about what we miss when busy days keep us from finishing everything I want to do. At least the simple workbook format keeps us from missing something important since they can do that every day and mark it off their checklist.
How is that for a very long answer?
When I can't spend the time to really work with my children, at least I know the basics are covered with their grammar workbook and a Writing Strands assignment.
Good luck deciding what is best for your children.
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My daughter was in eighth grade and we just had to get a form signed by each of her teachers stating that she had returned her books. I didn't even write a letter, but I did stop and talk to the secretaries in the office and registered with the school district as our state requires.
We got phone calls everyday stating she was absent until the district finished processing our homeschool paperwork.
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We chose a name only because my husband insisted. We simply followed it with "K-12."
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At our house we use flashcards, wrap-ups, and the games from the Singapore Math Home Instructor's Guides. My kids love using the number cards and dice (I have ten-sided dice and we pretend the zero is a ten). I just have them sort out Uno cards instead of face cards.
I have also used timed drills--some from other "failed" curriculum still on our shelf, and some free online, but my kids don't really like the timed drill.
We also do skip counting for multiplication and division, often while doing some other activity like washing the dishes. My daughter reports that her sixth grade teacher would time them skip counting and determine a winner. This could motivate a competitive child.
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I have taught two children with just the workbooks and textbooks for levels 1 A and B. I do love the Home Instructor's Guide for levels 2 and up because of the additional instruction and games given for drill.
Level one textbook just has pictures of the activities or manipulatives and very few words. When necessary, I have found it very easy to translate to real life, and the math is easy enough that I don't use an answer key anyway.
I have used the Intensive Practice 3A for one child who needed it, and I considered it for the others, but what mine really need is just extra drill. Flashcards and math games take care of that for us.
If you feel your child needs extra hands-on activities and you may have a hard time coming up with them, you may find the Instructor's Guide helpful, but I have only seen Level 2 and up of the Guides.
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I have not used this, but I did consider getting it for my seventh grader this year because he is fascinated by the topic.
We ended up doing Apologia General Science, and he is very bored. He loves the science, but not the writing. Lab notes, chapter questions and reviews, and such are very challenging for him because he is allergic to his pencil--or so he claims.
If I had the time to figure out what to add to it for a full junior high year, I might go with Apologia Anatomy (I assume you are talking about the new book by Jeanne Fulbright). I just wanted something a little more broad instead of so focused this year for my son. Does that make sense?
Spalding programs...which one do you like or not like and why...
in K-8 Curriculum Board
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I struggle with lesson plans, too. At this point, I have most of the Instructors Guides from Spalding, so I just use those for lesson plans. They give me a week on a page, and say cover this on days 1-3, this on days 3-5, etc. I just stay on one page until my kids have covered everything and I am comfortable that they have it. Then we turn the page and go on to the next week.
I know those guides are expensive, but for me teaching so many, they are worth it. I have collected them slowly over the past few years. At first, I tried teaching all my kids from one guide. That worked for those close to the level, but necessitated adaptation for my younger ones. I now find it easier to teach four grades from three separate guides. Two of my children are close enough to combine. I base their level on where they test for spelling. I add in grammar workbooks to be sure we cover grade appropriate grammar ( I like Easy Grammar or Growing With Grammar for this), especially since one of mine spells far below grade level. He also has a writing workbook (We've used Six Trait Writing and Writing Strands at different times), again to keep him close to grade level. I also pull in WWE, especially when I am short on time to work as closely with my younger ones as I would like. It seems to work fairly well this way, and I don't stress as much about covering everything with Spalding, as much as I would like to use only Spalding.
Thanks for listening to my rambling. I guess I'm just trying to say it would be more difficult to do Spalding only for so many children without the Instructor's Guides.
By the way, Spalding Education International now has samples of the guides up on their website, if that will help.