Ali in OR
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Posts posted by Ali in OR
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My 5th grader will be using Editor in Chief and Reading Detective this year. Both kids have Mind Benders books just for fun this summer.
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I place 2 or 3 orders per year and only when I have $150 worth of stuff for free shipping, so probably $300-$500 per year. If you need to buy a lot of books for history (we use Biblioplan) or literature, RR is usually cheaper than Amazon. I order well in advance of when I need the materials so back order issues don't really bother me. The occasional back-ordered item usually arrives the next week anyway.
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I recently ordered the horrible histories box through Amazon.uk for dd's birthday (which hasn't taken place yet, so haven't read any of the books yet. I thought about cheating and pre-reading them, but the box comes nicely shrink-wrapped and I decided not to break into it). Shipping wasn't free, but the whole bill for 20 books plus shipping was about $36 I think. That was cheaper than the bookdepository.com price with its free shipping (and they were out of stock on the box set anyway). The amazing thing to me was that they came in just a couple of days. I would definitely order through Amazon.uk again.
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I don't have any evening work either. I spend maybe an hour on Sunday evening filling in that week's schedule and doing any prep work needed. I correct work during the day right after it is done. And I do some summer prep work to make things run smoothly (getting copies made, etc.). As the work gets more difficult I will need to put in a little more thinking time. I think I will hit that with writing this year--I need to put more thought into dd's writing assignments and make sure we're covering everything (paragraphs, outlining, cursive practice, etc.).
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Glad you had fun at the park--sorry you encountered such attitude. Like a previous poster, we had a great experience at Disney World. There are separate lines for disabled guests, but more than that, the Disney workers go out of their way to escort you to the special lines or to guide you into shows first. Maybe seeing that effort on the part of the workers helps guests see that it is a Disney policy to be as helpful as possible to disabled folks. I have never seen anyone grumble about our dd getting any kind of special service--again, I'm sorry you went through this. Life's challenges are hard enough without that.
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I would check out Home School in the Woods timeline materials. We are starting our second cycle and will be starting timeline books using their products. I've been planning on using their timeline figures for our second cycle for several years now. But I ended up also getting their CD with timeline pages. You can print the pages horizontally or vertically. You can buy their binder or just provide your own. You can print out as many pages as you have kids. The CD also includes a suggested placement guide if you need help figuring out how to fit everyone on a page. This is not the cheapest way to do a timeline, but we did it the cheap way our first time through. This time I want their finished product to be a reference that my kids can use in high school and college.
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Well, I'm still caught up on reading a book a week. I'm sorry that there aren't any classics on the list, and a few too many kid lit books, but I can always aim a little higher next year!
This week I read Doc Susie. It's a book my dad lent me a few years ago about a female doctor in Fraser Colorado in the first half of the twentieth century. Very interesting, especially if you have a family history or interest in logging, trains, and/or doctors. I read it so I could give it back to my dad when I saw him briefly this week, but then I forgot to give it to him! Also read The Cat Who Went to Heaven which is very short kid lit, so not sure I should count it. But I enjoyed it very much and look forward to dd reading it in the coming school year.
Next up: Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. Another one borrowed from Dad. This one is about a girl in Hawaii who gets leprosy in the 1890s I think and is sent to live in the leper colony at Moloka'i. Reading the Amazon blurb, it sounds a lot like The Pearl Diver which I read several years ago about a leper colony in Japan.
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My approach is to freeze ingredients separately. This still takes a little assembly time, but I always have pizza sauce in the freezer in 1 cup straight sided Kerr jars with a plastic screw on lid. They thaw fast if you just put the jar in a bowl or pot of warm water. Then when I make pizza dough I try to freeze extra, just as a ball of dough. You do have to remember to get it out of the freezer to thaw, but if you put it in the fridge the night before, it's really not a lot of work to make a fresh pizza. I have partially cooked the dough before freezing--cook about 3 minutes I think. I make them smaller so that I can fit them in a gallon size freezer bag if I do it that way.
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Not a book, but probably our favorite thing was watching the Ken Burns series on The Civil War. Got it off e-bay. I was surprised how into it both of my dds were; I thought I would have to force them to watch it. I was only going to have my then 6 yo watch the first episode, but she wanted to see the whole thing.
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I finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog and really enjoyed it. I know last week when I had just started it I said it made me feel kind of stupid, but once it moves beyond just the "profound thoughts" it is really good. I also finished The Aeneid for Boys and Girls by Church so I'm caught up with 22 books completed.
Up next...probably more pre-reading of dd's history books for next year. Maybe Mara, Daughter of the Nile or Tirzah. Or The Cat Who Went to Heaven...it's short and sweet.
Margaret in CO--My Sister's Keeper was one book club I just couldn't read. My dd was the same age as the girl when she was diagnosed and my oldest dd has significant health problems. It just hit too close to home to be a comfortable read. But I always cheat and read the end and when I did, I was so glad I hadn't invested any emotional energy into that book! But I gave it to my mom and she loved it.
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It's not blueberry season yet, so they're expensive in the stores. Around here you can pick your own in July and August for $1.25 per pound. We picked at least 20 pounds last year and froze them. Still eating them too.
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We are not in that situation, and I don't think we ever will be. We're fiscally conservative, frugal people. I don't think we would ever sign up for an activity that cost $300 per month. And we don't have amazingly talented kids that put us in a situation where we would have to think about it! They both take piano lessons and ballet and play little league softball in spring, but all of that is still less than $300/mo for two kids. Instead of investing in kid activities, we'll be able to retire someday, the kids will be able to go to college without (much) debt, our mortgage will be paid off before they go to college, etc. Those goals are far more important to us.
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Blokus and Sequence are the favorites here with an almost 10 yo that is not that into games and a 7 yo who is far more strategic.
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Our troop did a bake sale at a public event last fall. The obvious best seller were the cookies. There was a big tray of snickerdoodles, another of chocolate chip, and one of something else I can't remember. Snickerdoodles were gone first. There was a pricing deal I can't quite remember--a certain price per cookie or you could get a bag with 4 or 5 (can't remember) at a price that was cheaper per cookie. Most people went for the bag.
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These are both very strong programs and many folks here use one or both. Lots of people do the grammar book (or much of it) orally. Or on a white board. It could feel like drudgery if you had to write out all of the answers to all of the questions everyday. But a very thorough program. I like the spelling program too. Kids can do it on their own and the activities to learn the words really teach a lot about the English language. My natural spellers work a grade ahead (program starts with a book for 2nd grade, but we do it in first).
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I read an interesting George Will article on this topic. He said that companies began requiring degrees for jobs that don't really need them when it became illegal to do any kind of testing of applicants. I think that was in the late 60's?? Tests always have some bias, so when those were deemed unfair, the easiest way for companies to determine if you had what they wanted was to require a degree.
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Started with SWO but switched to Rod and Staff which I have been very happy with. My kiddos are natural spellers--I'm going to go ahead and transition my 5th grader to vocabulary next year in place of spelling.
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If you are interested in picture books, I absolutely love The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton and am glad that we have one to keep forever. James Herriot's Treasury for Children or the Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit are also great to own.
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If you were getting ready to order form RFP, I would say that you only need the teacher's edition and not the student book. But that's not your situation. The TE is basically the student book plus teacher pages at the end of the book. The teacher pages have a couple of pages that explain how to use the components of the lessons (eg Ceasar's Spanish, Caesar's Word Search). There are answers for any questions that were asked in the lessons (analogies, word search keys). But probably the thing I would miss most is that the teacher pages have a cumulative quiz for every chapter. You can probably easily create a chapter quiz, but making it cumulative takes a lot more teacher effort. That gives you an idea of what you're missing. You can decide if that is really necessary for you--you may get plenty out of the student book alone.
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We've been okay dropping everything over the summer. We did listen to our Latin chant CD last summer, and I'll try to do that again this summer. The girls read continually so that isn't a problem. I see how math could be a problem, but don't assume that it will be. We've been able to take a break and start right back where we left off--no regression.
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We did all of the level 1 Noeo courses. We enjoyed both chemistry and physics more than biology. Dd is saying that she really enjoyed the chemistry experiments, so maybe that would be our top choice. Super Science Concoctions is a great book. I think they recommend an experiment a day. If I recall correctly, a lot of that books is scheduled in the latter part of the course. Good stuff.
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I think you would probably like either one of your approaches. Both of them will have you reading lots of great books. We use Biblioplan but I've always been kind of partial to Sonlight too. Biblioplan would focus only on history. Sonlight has a broader range of reading--history and lit. Biblioplan would schedule SOTW for you. It is also based on WTM's four year cycle if that is appealing to you. If you buy a lot of the books, there probably won't be much difference in cost, and Sonlight is a lot easier to buy. But if you enjoy the thrill of the hunt for good deals, you may be able to get a lot more books for your money with Biblioplan. You will have to track down and buy the books yourself. I get many from Rainbow Resource and a few from Amazon and even a few from Sonlight. I buy a bunch of them used using Amazon Marketplace or DealOz.com to find the cheapest price--and some of the books are out of print, so this is the best way to find them.
Another appealing thing about Biblioplan is its flexibility. The readers are separated into 3 age categories. The K-2 category is picture books--great ones, usually available in our library. Sonlight doesn't really have picture books. Then there are readers in the 3+ category (roughly 3rd and up) and 5+ and family read-alouds. I've been able to customize and choose books in different age brackets that I thought my dd would be able to handle. Or use some of the 5+ books as read-alouds.
Anyway, there are advantages to both programs and either way you will be reading and enjoying great books.
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Week 22? I think I'm only one book behind! Thought I'd missed more than that.
I just finished our June book club book--The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. It is about a man who has a car accident and suffers a brain injury that makes him think his sister is not really his sister but an imposter. It has some interesting ideas but I think it should have been edited down to a much shorter book.
Next up: reading Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog which is our July or August book club book. I'm just starting it and so far it is short chapters that alternate between a genius 12 year old and a genius conceirge, both hiding the fact that they are geniuses. Each genius shares her profound thoughts and I was feeling kind of stupid reading it. Then I caught a mistake in it that made me feel a little better.
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Our children's hospital has a Starbucks in the downstairs lobby. When dd was in there for a week, I remember thinking that I would have loved having a Starbucks giftcard. Not sure how many hospitals have that though.
time travelers cds from homeschool in the woods
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I love the Time Travelers CDs. We add them to an already very full history curriculum (Biblioplan), so I don't try to do everything. It has worked well for us to just do the lapbook portions of the ones we have tried, and even just that is a lot. You can spend several weeks on just the lapbook. I believe they all include a list of optional reading you could do to fill it out more also.