Mommy to monkeys
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Posts posted by Mommy to monkeys
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Yep, my oldest daughter. We used a timed CAT in 4th and 6th grader and she felt so overwhelmed she was in tears much of the test. She thought the test was easy, but being timed made her feel sheer and utter panic. (Both times) And yet when we received her scores she had essentially maxed them out. Go figure.
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As my kids started to outgrown naptime, they had the option to read or sleep. So the time became known as "Quiet Book Time". Still the same thing even with older kids. They can read or they can sleep. I don't have much twaddle at home and try to keep it from coming home from the library. With that in mind, they can pretty much read anything during that time that they'd like. Every month or so (or more often if I have a kids in a reading slump) I pass them a book and say, "Hey. Read this." And they do. Easy peasy. I'm convinced that this time of an hour. every day. 365 days a year (or almost...) is why I have such great readers. Even my youngest two who still have speech issues are fluent readers. I'm also convinced that this time of an hour of silence every day is why I'm still sane. (mostly)
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Anything CLE sunrise
PentimeAbeka elementary science
Abeka handbook for reading and 1st grade readers (a page from the handbook and one story or section from a reader. Boom. Done.)
Stacks of books to free read, read slowly and copy or write narrations from, or have them as read alouds
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10th grade
Jacobs Geometry with Khan Academy
DIVE Chemistry
Notgrass American History-perhaps
IEW SWI C plus lit list
I don't know what else. Im finding he's reluctant to cooperate with courses that *I* put together, but if it's in a lesson plan that someone else wrote, he won't argue with me so much. ALSO I'm finding that he needs to spend less time doing planned work with the rest of us. Scratch that. WE need him doing less work with the rest of us. Teenage testosterone is no joke. It's making him not so nice and definitely not particularly cooperative. This year has been hard. I have enrollment forms for public school sitting in my desk drawer. DS has expressed he doesn't want to go, but he knows if he doesn't want to submit to me as his teacher at home (and treat the rest of the family like actual human beings), he can go submit to someone else as teacher. So I'm planning next year with that in mind....he may not remain at home. -
CLE math
CLE LA OR Rod and Staff English (I'll let him decide)
An IEW theme book (spread out over 2 years if necessary)
History and science are still undecided
Family Time will continue. An hour of reading aloud will continue as will an hour of silent reading.All decided now.
CLE math
AMCM Early Modern with Entymology
Oh I love how streamlined that looks.-
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CLE math 100
Abeka readers for phonics
Pentime
FLL OR CLE LA - I remain undecided
They'll sit in on whatever history and science I do with my middles if they choose and also must sit in for family read alouds, but as far as formal curriculum goes, the 3rs is it for 1st grade here. -
Math-
CLE Alg 1 with Khan Academy to reinforceI'm thinking we're going with Teaching Textbooks Alg 1
English- IEW SWI C or EIW, Easy Grammar, Lit list
Science-Dive Earth Science orApologia Physical
History- Probably CLE SS 800 with additional reading from Sonlight 100
Spanish-Duolingo
PE- She LOVES fitness blender workouts
Family time studies-
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CLE Math
RS English withPentimeOR CLE LA
WWE 2 maybe
Something for science and history
Family Time - not even close to having this all planned out yetAfter spending the better part of this year in a very bad place, I've decided to go another direction.
Sticking with the CLE math but everything else will be A Modern Charlotte Mason Early Modern. We already did our consult and I feel so much better. I don't do well with things undecided and all the little details with 6 kids were going to kill me. I don't do details.
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Loving-
CLE math- as alwaysRod and Staff English- for my 9 year old. He loves doing this together
SOTW as a spine- never any complaints
STACKS of books
DIVE Biology- my son declared that this is very difficult but that he loves it and is really learning the materialNot feeling the love-
Everything Good and the Beautiful- just not good for us.
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How did it go with IEW?
Looks like you are using EIW now.
Can you do a comparison?
Pam
We got about half way through SWI B with ease. The checklist then started to become tedious and life had some hiccups...which just led me to feel very behind. So, I did end up returning it. After that I essentially created my own writing projects and the skills from IEW actually stuck!
This year my oldest is using EIW 9. It is definitely a more independent program. And it's a program that isn't designed to fill a whole year which makes it no pressure to slug through. My son prefers it....because it's easier. But I don't think he's really learned anything. And his writing has seemed to take a step BACKWARDS. In between essay units from EIW, I've been essentially reteaching them myself using the principles from IEW and his writing is far and away better when we do it this way.
I don't regret using EIW this year, because I really did NEED something less intensive for me right now. Also, if we had never tried it, I would always have wondered. ;) That being said, I have already purchased SWI C for next year.
Hope that helps a bit.
(My other child that I used IEW with before is using Good and the Beautiful Language arts and loathes it, BUT she told me that if I made her switch curricula again mid year, she'd lose her mind.)
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Science in the Beginning hands down. We actually tried a Good and the Beautiful science unit earlier in the year (along with their LA and History) and none of it really worked for us. It felt all over the place to me and not nearly as in depth as what we've done before (even when I fly by the seat of my pants!).
But that's just me. Some people do love it. There are some good reviews on youtube if you want to get more of a feel for what it's like. GraceandGrit's channel is the one that comes to mind.-
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I use them. I'm happy with them because they use books I generally like (though I liked some more than others), narration, and experiments that are actually linked to the topic at hand.
I've used all the Form 2 and Form 3 that are out so far. Do you have a question about a specific one?
Emily
Which ones have been your favorites? Also, have you thought ahead for how to assign high school credit for the form 4 sciences?
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I really am less than thrilled with Apologia General/Physical Science and have yet to find an alternative that would be a good fit for us.
The Sabbath Mood Science Guides look amazing! Has anyone used these? I did a search and not much of anything came up.
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About 3 hours in the morning of either independent or one on one work with me
1-1 1/2 hours of family time studies (after lunch and a walk)
1 hour of quiet reading time
That's about 4- 4 1/2 hours not counting our 2 mile family walk after lunch, and any time spent studying or pursuing interests in the afternoon. I am ok with this.
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Pick at FEW things you want to do, and then stop there. Don't want to put up lights? Go look at other people's. Don't want to decorate? Go downtown and look at store windows and smile because you don't have to drag out all that stuff and put it back. Don't want to bake? Go to the local coffee shop and indulge in a few cookies. And call it good.
After dh was diagnosed with terminal cancer a month before Christmas last year, we figured out that we do what we want to do, and let the rest of it go.
What did the Grinch say? "It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
:grouphug: I'm so very sorry. Your post definitely made me pause and put things in perspective.
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Perfect solution for everyone: Make a tradition of each December, the kids visit your mom for a day and she does the Martha Stewart cookies or crafts with them. Your kids get a tradition of doing holiday activities, your mom and your kids get a special time together, and you get a day of rest. :) :hurray:
Unfortunately, I now live several states away from my mom. Otherwise, this would be perfect. :)
The best thing I ever did for Christmas was buy a fake, pre-lit Christmas tree whose limbs are already attached. There's like 3 things you have to do, and it's ready to go. Saved me hours and hours of time. I no longer dread putting up the tree. I get it done in five minutes, and then put the tub of ornaments out for anyone to put on the tree as they wish.
((hugs)) It sounds like you already have some very nice Christmas traditions, by the way.
This is the only way I'd consider having a tree. And thank you, by the way.
My very oldest child is a boy and he says he doesn't care at all about having a tree. BOTH of my girls are very excited about the prospect though.
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I am holiday impaired!! Because I choose to be.
Part of it is the burnout and growing disdain for holidays I’ve seen in my own mom who put a lot if effort into family get-togethers and tradition, only to end up feeling used and unappreciated. For me, the stress isn’t worth it.
I've seen this in my own mother. She does LOVE all the holiday stuff but does end up feeling this way.
Learning how to break free of the expectations (whether real or imagined) and learning to do YOU can be hard, but it's so worth it. Your kids are definitely old enough to have a say in what they'd like to experience during the holidays, and old enough to respect that Mom can't go all out Martha.
Can you make a game of it? Maybe write ideas down of things you can handle on strips of paper and have each kid choose one out of a jar, one each week of December? It doesn't have to be extravagant--hot cocoa as a family at Starbucks, attend a tree lighting, bake ONE type of cookie (ha!), go for a family nature walk and collect pine cones....whatever. Simple activities have a way of meaning more than store bought STUFF, and have a way of evolving into effortless traditions.
I'm in process of making a list of things for this right now. Things I know *I* can handle. I do love the idea of spreading it out over the month of December so Christmas isn't just one grueling day.
I've read this over quite a bit, and I don't think your holidays sound bad at all. I think they sound peaceful. :)
Holiday trappings stress me out, too. We have come to the conclusion that it IS a holiday. It is not Mom's Overtime Shift. We focus on a few things:
-peace
-giving cheerfully
-togetherness
I cannot cook a 5 course meal and be cheerful about it. Dh can, and does. That's his strength.
I get overwhelmed put up a tree. DS loves it, along with decorating the house. He takes charge and does it with the rest of the family while I make cocoa and am in charge of music.
I can read well. I do the nightly stories for the month. That is my gift to the family.
When I was a kid it was very overwhelming. I had the mom who baked and sewed and did yearly crafts with us. I cannot even try to replicate that. The things I like now are the advent wreath for reflection, the daily calendar with a small thing to do each day (like go to the parade, or read a story, or watch Charlie Brown), and the focus on being together.
You sound very much like me in this post.
I'd ask your daughter if she can think of one fun thing she'd like to do. Make a fresh wreath for the door? Go for a drive around town looking at lights, or to a community tree-lighting ceremony, or out to a tree farm to cut down a tree? Plan to make one or two different types of cookies or other treats? (Not 10 different types.) Have an open house with friends and neighbors? Would she like to have something with her friends - maybe a cookie-decorating party?
I'm guessing your daughter is seeing other people doing fun things at Christmas, talking about their traditions, and it is attractive to her. Of course I could be wrong on that. At that age, my daughter was always looking at other families and comparing. Sometimes we came out favorably, sometimes not. :-) That's not a complaint, just the way she is.
This is exactly what's happening. And honestly, Im happy she's telling me now that she wants more rather than telling me 20 years from now that holidays were a huge disappointment. She's currently working on pinterest boards dedicated to holidays. I've told her I'm open to facilitating her projects (ie me not leading and doing everything)
For food type holidays, have you considered buying the meal at a local supermarket. Or just buy the sides and desserts?
For another tradition, you could let each kid choose a holiday movie.
I asked my kids about the holiday meal they want, and shockingly they all care very little about it aside from the dessert.... We've done take out for the past few years, and they're happy with that. Buffet style take out food and then parking ourselves in the living room to watch movies is something they're happy with.
I don’t connect to any holiday traditions.
But my mom does, so we celebrate almost every single holiday totally at her house. She likes all those tradition things, and really likes having her family around.
Ditto to the first part. And my mom also is like this. We've gone to my parents' house for holidays before, which does make my mom happy...but then I feel guilty because of how drained she is after.
Holiday celebrations and traditions don’t need to be all or nothing. It sounds like you have unreasonable expectations for yourself about what you’re “supposed to†do if you would incorporate a few holiday traditions you remember—so you don’t do any of them. If you want to make cookies, why set out to make a zillion? Pick one variety or just make several batches on one dedicated day. If you want to start giving gifts, have a simple theme for gifts like pajamas, books, fun T-shirts, or games.
I tend to have unreasonable expectations of myself in general. I'm working on it.
I would cancel all holidays if I could. They are just so much work and I'm left an exhausted mess by the end of the day and then pay for it days afterward. I dread this time of year.
:iagree:
I can totally relate. Most ladies look at me as if I have two heads when I say I hate decorating or crafting. As if being crafty is inherent in my gender. I’ve had to plan Christmas parties and the stress of decorating my home was incredibly overwhelming. Then I had to arrange crafts and games for the kids? It almost put me over the edge. Hahah.
It's very unfair that people think this. I expressed to a close friend my disdain for having to do any kind of craft project. She then invited us over and surprised me with....a craft project. So I could somehow be cured of my disdain from them? She meant well.
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Holidays can be weary on every one. You can have a low key holiday and still incorporate a few simple traditions. What do you usually do at home each year?
For Christmas, we like getting new Christmas pajamas every year. We usually go see the Christmas lights at least once with to go cups of hot cocoa and Christmas music in the car. We decorate the tree while listening to Christmas music and might watch a Christmas movie that night. My kids love sausage balls on Christmas morning and a beautiful church service on Christmas eve. Sometimes we will try and go to a show, like the Nutcracker or an orchestra or chorus performing Christmas music during December. I know some families who have a tradition of volunteering at food banks or homeless shelters at Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I have a love of creating traditions but caused myself a lot of stress when my kids were young trying to make it so perfect. Now I am a little wiser, and we can still have the spirit of family traditions eating store bought cookies or whatever. Find a couple of things that sound appealing and not too stressful. Everything doesn't have to be cookie swaps and crafting your own decor. 😉 A tradition should be something you look forward to, not dread.
I was so afraid to ask this, but I'm so grateful I did. These kinds of ideas are so helpful. I'm going to get as many non craft/cooking ideas down on paper as possible and let my kids pick the ones they'd like the most. Maybe they each pick one for the season? We shall see. I don't want to overplan...this has been my downfall. Plan too much, fail, and then do nothing. Then feel guilty. Determine to try again next year. Repeat.
And thank you, Jesus that everything doesn't have to be cookie swaps and crafting my own decor.
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I think the best thing you can do is involve your kids. Read about the ways people celebrate holidays and decide together which things sound like they would be fun for your family (or fun for the kids and tolerable for you.)
This is the first time any of them have expressed an interest in actually doing more. I'm open to facilitating some of their ideas...I just can't handle putting it all together and doing it myself, which is what I used to do when I only had small kids.
:grouphug:
You don't have to be all Martha Stewart. You can keep it simple: put up just a Christmas tree; your children could draw names at Thanksgiving and give a special Christmas present to the person whose name they draw. Wrap each child's presents in his or her own color. Take turns opening presents on Christmas morning. Have a special breakfast with stuff you made the night before that you just stick in the oven in the morning. Or just a regular breakfast with one special new thing.
See. Maybe this is part of my problem. My mother is Martha Stewart. What you're describing doesn't sound nearly as intensive as what I had growing up...and tried to duplicate.
I'm just wondering -- if you don't do a Christmas tree, do you do Christmas stockings or gifts?
I'm just trying to figure out where your starting point is, and what stresses you out so much. Do you do anything special for holiday meals? Do you have any traditions, like reading Christmas stories or playing special games on holidays?
I guess what I'm confused about is what is so overwhelming for you, so hopefully we can figure out how to minimize that. Unfortunately, I know you said you "feel robbed of time to think and just BE" when you have many things to do, but that happens to all of us and sometimes you have to try to change your mindset from feeling put-upon to realizing that you're spending your time doing something that makes your kids happy. If you find a way to turn your focus away from wishing you were doing something else to making it into spending time with your kids doing a fun family thing, that might help a lot.
Could you be over-thinking this? Decorating a Christmas tree and maybe putting a few decorations around the house would only take a few hours of your time. Baking some Christmas cookies could be as simple as buying a package of ready-to-bake cookies from the refrigerated case in your grocery store.
I do make a turkey on Thanksgiving unless we spend it with extended family. We have a Thanksgiving madlibs, and they usually watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie while I'm cooking.
We haven't done Christmas gifts in many years. I have a child with a birthday right before Christmas, so that definitely makes it harder. Last year we went to candlelight Christmas Eve service at church. Then on Christmas Day we read the Christmas Story, got take out, and marathon watched Christmas specials.
I generally make big plans as to how I'm going to make a zillion batches up cookies leading up to it (as my mom made a different kind of cookie for all the 12 days of Christmas...) and then burn out after two days.
With the decorations, part of the problem is that I have sensory issues. If there is a lot of "stuff" in my space, my brain is spinning and I cannot think. If we have decor, it needs to be isolated enough for me to have a part of my living space relatively stark.
The more I think about it, I really am thinking I need to find our balance between nothing and too much.
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I'm not a holiday person. At all. I had perfectly "normal" holiday celebrations as a child with all of the traditions that go along with that, but never do I remember having any kind of warm fuzzy feelings about it. When I started to have a family of my own, I began to dread holidays because of all the traditions I was supposed to do that go along with celebrating them. I don't like cooking. And anytime I hear the word "craft" or "project", I die a little inside. It's not that I don't want to be thankful at Thanksgiving. I just do better being thankful with a time of quiet reflection rather than....all the other "stuff". I find it all so overwhelming. We've always participated in family and church gatherings around the holidays, but in my own home...I've kept things as simple as possible. Readings about whichever holiday, discussions, and then music. Essentially that's all. Even having themed decor stresses me out. Whenever there is a multitude of things to DO, I feel robbed of time to just think and BE.
My oldest daughter has expressed that she really wants MORE in terms of traditions, but she is not interested in giving me any kind of input (or helping) as to what she's looking for other than the fact that she wants a Christmas tree this year, That I can handle. (We haven't had one in 9 years I think?)
Just because *I* don't connect with holidays doesn't mean I want to deprive my children of them if it's something they are realizing they do long for at this point and time. I'm hoping to find ways of enriching their holiday experiences without completely draining the life out of me. Is anyone else "holiday impaired"? Have you been able to find ways of making holidays special for your family that you were also able to connect with? And if so, please share. Any other words of wisdom? I know I cannot be the only one in the universe who feels this way, but most of the time I feel as though no one understands at all. Please don't verbally stone me. I've always carried so much guilt over this.
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At this point, Im definitely considering doing SWI C next year with my oldest two and then go from there.
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Ah, o.k. At least in my house I had to learn to be flexible. As posted up thread, we did the lessons collaboratively. And I was not rigid regarding the checklists. I watched TWSS to understand the system, then watched SWI with the kids, did the writing lessons with them, and modified as needed. I had to look at it as a tool in my toolbox and sometimes we have to use tools a bit differently then what they were originally constructed for. Does that make sense?
If the kids feel that the program worked for them then I would seriously consider going back to it. Perhaps if you were willing to study the lessons ahead of time that would help you feel confident to tweak and flex and adapt the program as needed so you would be less frustrated with it?
I tend to think I would feel more comfortable with it the second time around just knowing what to do differently. I did sort of study the lessons ahead of time in so much as I read through it all and tried to break down how many days I thought would work for us on each assignment.
IF we did try again, what level would we do? We made it 3/4 of the way with SWI B. Do we start over with SWI C this time? It will have been over a year in between.
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I would ask myself why it didn't work before. Is it that it was a poor fit for how you picture writing instruction to be? Were your kids not seeming to pick up the instruction well? Was it too time consuming for what you wanted/had the ability to put into writing instruction? Etc. Ask that question and break it down into EXACTLY what you think went wrong. Why EXACTLY did you feel you had to send it back. Write down anything and everything you can think of. Then write ANY positives that you observed. See if the negatives you experienced before are things that can be tweaked/overcome now. And if the positives outweigh the negatives. If not, then don't try it again. If so, then maybe it will work much better this time around.
FWIW, I found that SWI-B worked better as a collaborative effort here. (And full disclosure, I also own TWSS and watched those videos to help me understand the system better). I sat with the kids (we also had a friend coming over) and we watched the videos and did the writing assignments together. Literally, I did them, too. We also did the first writing assignment of each type by brainstorming together, as a team, on a dry erase board. Lots of discussion and sharing of ideas. I broke it all up into fairly small pieces. Once we had brainstormed together, then everyone wrote out what we had on the board then they were allowed to add in additional details if they chose. Then we all read our versions and talked about them. Then we did the next assignment outline together, but the writing on the same concept (but with a different base source) mostly on our own. It did work well that way. Time consuming but worth the effort.
I will admit that trying to even remember why it didn't work is difficult. We started strong with it but as we went on, the checklist became more and more tedious, which in turn made the process more difficult. Because of that, we spent longer and longer between IEW lessons and other "homemade" by mom lessons. I eventually dropped the checklist which did help, but by that time we had spent sooooo long trying to get through it, that *I* needed to be done. Just having it around was giving me guilt.
What DID work......well, my kids both say that it helped them more than anything else we've done. I liked that it had ONE video lesson per assignment rather than a little each day. We did watch lessons together, discussed the assignment, and then I helped as needed. Also huge for me was being able to combine my oldest two instead of having to come up with and teach two different lessons.
I went through the SWI-C with my teen last year and didn't love it. I'm doing Myths, fairy tales and legends with my younger son this year and it's a world of difference. So maybe give one of the subject books a try.
I'm not opposed to this idea, but I haven't been able to find theme books for high school?
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soo...
Am I the only one who says no, not really?
It certainly can be super time consuming, but it doesn't have to be. In that the kids are here, with me the overwhelming majority of the time, yes. Some of my kids are out of the house one day a week, but that's a relatively new development. I do a lot of running around, getting them to events, but only as much as we can handle. And I think most parents to that anyway. I don't think any of my kids' friends, classmates, teammates are homeschooled.
But my little ones are little, and math and reading don't take much time. I have streamlined that process a great deal and keep it very very simple , and therefore, short.
And my older kids are independent. My high schooler does 90% of his work without me. He just checks in with me periodically. I give him the book to work in and he does. My middle schooler requires a little more supervision, but not a ton. I only teach them a couple of hours a week, if that. Depending on what they are doing, I might not really be involved at all.
I'm sure some of you are tsk-tsking me like crazy about what a crappy, neglectful homeschooler I am. And maybe you are right. But I don't think so. My kids are doing ok. They are learning a lot and developing good life skills.
This fascinates me. I'm not tsk tsking you at all. I'm exhausted and would love to be a fly on the wall to see what you're using and how it's all going down.
Is my first grader doing too little?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Looks perfect.