Mommy to monkeys
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Posts posted by Mommy to monkeys
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I've really embraced the idea of curriculum being a resource to reach a goal, rather than curriculum being the plan for the year, this year. 6 weeks in (started our school year in February) and it's working so much better than last year.
Each day eldest must do some math, but, whether that's khan academy or singapore or a hands on lesson or life of fred or another resource altogether that I thought looked fun doesn't matter. I have let go of the need to do X number of pages of singapore each week. I still use it as our spine, but, if eldest has learned it somewhere else like on khan academy, I will skim the chapter, assign some of the challenge problems, and move on. This past month we haven't opened singapore at all because we hit burnout last year memorising number facts to 10, and facing re-doing those chapters this year because of a lack of fluency was not making eldest happy. So instead we've been using khan plus a few extras and focusing on memorising those facts along with some other topics, and it's working well. When we get back to singapore in a week or two, we will likely spend a week or two doing the challenging questions and selected extra concepts in chapters 2, 3 and 4, and then jump to starting again on chapter 5. (I'll also be skipping the shapes chapter altogether except for the word problems, because she's done the whole early math geometry section on khan, and i think we will be skimming fractions when we get there too). It's been great. It's also given me freedom. If I find a great math project or game, I don't have to try and fit it around our normal lessons, I can just say, hey, lets do this today, and whatever concept it helps teach, when we hit that concept in our book, will go faster and we can skim it later.
Spelling and handwriting happen every day, but they're a page each, easy 5 mins.
As for other subjects I think I have a good middle ground. I don't define which day what must happen or anything else, but, at some point each week we must do something sciency, and something history related, and some intentional PE, and other things. Using science as an example, quite often these happen on the weekend, a science experiment with daddy or a bushwalk or observing something interesting. If it doesn't, I look for whether there's any opportunities through the week. If there isn't, then I pull out my open and go science resources. I have a subscription through a local coop with open and go science lessons, I have some fun science books, and I also have a number of interests that I can pull up a documentary about and do an impromptu lesson on from my own personal knowledge. So, real experiences take priority but I have resources available and ready to grab to ensure it happens each week even if no life experiences come up.
My plan is a set of goals, rather than a list of page numbers. Do math every day, Learn something new in science each week, and then I have a collection of resources to help me achieve that goal and I use the one which makes the most sense to me at the time. Of course I've only been doing this 6 weeks but we're all much happier taking this new perspective.
A set of goals rather than a list of page numbers. This is exactly what I'm trying to work out on paper right now. A very loose plan with lots of wiggle room and space to let real life experiences interrupt without having to feel as though the plan has been completely derailed.
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For many people, each year of knowing what you want to do and can do, takes you closer to high school where the default expectations can often fall far from what you know you want and can do. This is indeed part of where my anxiety is coming from. I know that. My oldest with officially be high school aged next year, and trying to figure out how to do what's required is frustrating. I don't LIKE having an education that fits into little boxes/credits. It feels so unnatural, and yet I'm kind of at a point of accepting it as a necessary evil and trying to make the best of it in a way that I can handle. Realistically.
December through February people focus on reality. Come March we start looking at what we are told we "should" do, sometimes by people who live very different lives than we do.
Do you want your kid to turn out like, YOU?! That isn't good enough, we are told. Without the resources or desire to change our OWN life, we are supposed to provide that for a child/student. And even if they don't want it either and are fighting us.I actually had a discussion with my oldest two this week about their dreams, goals, and what they'd like the rest of their homeschool journey to look like. And do you know what they told me? They're happy. They feel like they're learning and enjoy their free time. Neither feel intellectually inferior to the public school kids in our area. (we do live in one of the poorest counties in the state. School system isn't great) My oldest son wants to be an electrician, and my daughter doesn't know what she wants to do which I assured her is totally normal at TWELVE.
I'm starting to like myself more. And respect what made me who I am. If I'd done all the "shoulds" I wouldn't have had time for what I did do.
When I plan for the future and self-educate, I do so with more respect for myself now. This increase in respect for my background has brought an increase in disapproval, but...99% of the time I weather it easier than the greater approval shown towards my self-attacks.
Life is short and uncertain. The crap that counts is often not prioritized; and the stuff that doesn't is. I don't have time or energy for waste anymore. I'm 50 now. An immature fit 50, but a weathered one who has seen a lot.
Aging changes our worldview. As we age, we tend to pick one of two quite different paths. Instead of getting rigid and planted, I don't cleave or believe in much of anything.
Reading widely is one way to live and learn. I think the benefits are underrated as it is accessible to so many. It seems too easy. It is mocked and called foul. Reading has kept us afloat in every season where I've felt we were going under. I've read aloud at least an hour or more almost every single day for years, and they've had an hour of silent reading time as soon as they outgrow their naps. It seems almost too easy and yet we've certainly reaped much from it.
What a delusional, neglectful, and prideful crone I am to declare myself well-educated and daring to give just what I have. But I do. And plan from a place of believing that I'm good enough. Maybe more than good enough. You're amazing and have been an inspiration to me and many others on this board for years
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First, I would try to choose resources that both my children and I would find interesting. Any resource that relied on too much hands on work was immediately jettisoned, because no one in the house liked it ever and so it was always getting put off. Also, if, after using it for a few weeks, my children or I found a resource particularly painful to use, we would stop using it. Seriously, life's too short to torture everyone with resources that are a poor fit!
Then I would look at the resources I'd chosen and break whatever it was we were going to do into manageable lesson sized chunks. After many years of going way too long into the summer, I finally realized that I needed to be sure that I had a maximum of 160 lessons per thing rather than 180, or, better yet 144 (4 days per week for 36 weeks). This allowed for the inevitable setbacks. Anyway, I would list each lesson in a spreadsheet just as a list and not tied to any days.
Then I had a blank weekly schedule for each kid. So it listed things like math, grammar, writing, etc, and also had spaces for each read aloud and each independent assignment. Each weekend, I would make up each kid's schedule by looking at my master list and distributing the lessons/readings/assignments. I would do this in pencil (this is key). Then as we went through the week, if something got put off or changed, I'd erase whatever it was, and move it or write down what was actually done. That way the schedule would also serve as a record of what was done.
The combination of a master list and writing things in pencil really worked for me. It gave me flexibility, appealed to my perfectionism (it would drive me crazy if I had a typed schedule and then something didn't get done), and forced me to look at where we were in each subject in relation to the entire year every week.
Anyway, I hope something in there helps!
I'm completely with you on dropping the very handsy on-y type lessons. They feel very meaningless to me and so it's nearly impossible for me to stay consistent with them. Plus, my kids always complain. No issues dropping that stuff.
And I do need to be more mindful of how many lessons are required to complete the curricula that I choose. Although, I will say that I'm less and less drawn to curricula as time goes by and more to just plain books.
Ah yes, planning in pencil. I plan..re plan...and then re re plan. I'll admit that I tend to enjoy the planning more than the actual doing.
I do something similar to EKS. For some subjects like Math, we just do the next thing, so on my weekly (pencil) schedule I just put the name of the text. I have to keep an eye on it and make sure we don't get behind--which is usually not a problem since we do math over the summer. This year, though, we got behind in 5th grade math after spending more than six months on one book. =P So, lesson learned.
For something like logic which we do twice a week, at the beginning of the year I count the pages, divide it by the number of days we will work, and put a post it or bookmark in the book saying "do x many pages" and that is how many they do each time they have logic.
I take a relaxed view on Bible--we can keep doing that in the summer. So we try to do one chapter a week, but if we float it into part of another week, I don't worry.
For history and science I have a schedule as a spreadsheet of what we will read and/or do as a lab that week. So each week we do history twice and science twice so I have two rows for those on my spreadsheet. So for that week's lesson schedule I might put Science week 28-1 which means week 28, day 1. If we get behind it doesn't matter, we just go to the next one. So we may be in week 30 of school overall but on week 28 of science.
For artist study I generally make up a spreadsheet of the artists we want to study that year and I try to get through them all. We did a bunch in the fall, and then got swamped, and have taken up doing one a week now and should be done in a few weeks.
So I have sort of master plan for the subject broken out by week (for anything that is not just do the next lesson) and then the weekly schedules that have what we plan to do (and can revise them in pencil or recopy)
I also have on graph paper the weeks numbered and dated on the left. The lesson numbers are written in in pencil next to each week under the headings of "writing", "science", "history", "grammar" and "Latin." This is so I can keep a running track of about what week will be finishing 'everything.' It just helps me to get an overall view of how on track or off we are. As I said, it is in pencil and has been revised many many times. =)
I hope this helps. I am not sure all this detail was needed!!
I'm envious of the organizational skills that y'all possess. I can do the planning to break things down and make things fit, but it's really stressful to me having everything broken down into so many pieces. If it's something like math or grammar, we just do the next thing, but the other subjects like science and history.... I feel like I need a looser way of planning. I feel like my heart wants to be a type A person, but a space cadet lives in my brain. ;)
You are absolutely not alone. We are on our sixth year and I still struggle to find balance between schedule and flow. A couple of blog posts that helped were at http://melissawiley.com/tidal-homeschooling/ and also Sarah McKenzies read aloud revival blog - particularly the "I am not an airplane" post as well as others.
I think it can be helpful to embrace the ebb and flow. So long as your kids have progressed and are learning it's ok that we have good schooling seasons and slower ones. I often think of the farming communities of earlier times where schooling happened in between seeding and harvest or when there wasn't so much snow that kids couldn't get to school.
I love Melissa Wiley and the analogy of having high and low tides speaks to me. I would love to find a middle ground between structure and what she describes simply because I have so many learners to juggle.
Now Sarah Mackenzie gets me. Maybe it's having all those little ones with a set of twins at the end, I don't know. ;) But just her outlook and ideals align very much with mine.
This is exactly what I do, and for me it is the perfect combination of planning ahead yet staying flexible. I would rather under-schedule than over-schedule, so I intentionally spread work into small assignments. We can always double up or work on the weekend if we need to catch up, but I deliberately kept things simplified so that it wouldn't be burdensome to stay on track.
I have a fillable PDF form that has 9 rows and 5 columns, which makes it perfect for planning a quarter at a glance. I basically "scheduled" a quarter's worth of work into a page. So I have Q1 math, Q1 history, Q1 science, and Q1 LA as my master lists, and I will transfer assignments to a paper planner each week. Each weekend I will see exactly where we are in comparison to the plans, and will make an up-to-date weekly schedule.
For chemistry, I list each day's assignment in columns 1-4, and column 5 is where I list any last-minute materials needed. I've already collected 99% of the supplies and have it in a tub - from q-tips and paper cups to batteries and magnets. It's just things like alcohol and dish soap that I save for the last column. For literature, I use MBTP, and it works about to about 4 days per week of work, so that is already done for me.
I've cut out fun little supplements that end up eating a chunk of time. I have plenty on my shelves that we can sprinkle in when we want to, but again, I would rather set up a minimalist schedule that allows room for supplementation than a full schedule that leads to burnout or getting behind.
This is huge. All of the little extra subjects steal focus from the main ones. It's very difficult for me to have so many different subjects with so many boxes to check. Fewer subjects done better is what we need.
That is a nice thought. I'm not so sure my homeschooling reflects my parenting style. Hmm
Eta: this reminds me of that thing Hunter is always saying... Teach from your strengths not your weaknesses.
For example if you are a free spirited person/parent, homeschool in a box from Abeka will probably drive you nuts. If you are a very rule focused, step by step, type A person, unschooling would probably be a poor choice.
I've spent so much time trying to teach in whatever way I think I'm "supposed" to (And how I think I'm supposed to teach has see-sawed quite a bit) rather than what's most natural for me. I like that saying of Hunter's. To teach from your strengths rather than your weaknesses. And therein lies much our problem. I'm very aware of my many weaknesses, but I'm still working on figuring out my strengths. I tend to have high expectations of myself that I'm not able to reach.
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I hit stress and overwhelm every single year. My oldest is 14 and we've always homeschooled. Always. I know it takes awhile to find your "groove", or so I've been told, but I don't know that I'd say we're there. Or rather...I'm not.I know all homeschool moms are different. Some are very organized and have an ability to focus and juggle all the details and moving parts of life. Whether that means they use something completed scripted or construct an intricate plan from scratch and follow it to the letter. They have it all together. Consistent. Organized. Not me. Despite my best intentions, I get lost in all those details. I'm not the best at following a plan, even if I make it myself.On the other hand, I see moms with this amazing ability to just go with the flow of life and embrace all kinds of projects and experiences that are completely open ended. I simply cannot live like that either. I need to set a course. To know where we're headed. (That and I really don't like crafty, project type schooling. And there's a certain amount of guilt that goes along with that...)So here I am, like I am every year, trying to take a good long look at myself and my children, letting everything sink in. Contemplating how I'm going to balance my ideals with what's realistic. My ideals tend to be unreachable. At least, not completely reachable. And so I'm trying to find that balance.Previous years I've sway back and forth- textbooks. CM(ish). A mix of CM and textbooks. And yet, I still haven't found "it". Maybe I never will...but I'm going to change my approach to planning this go around. Instead of going through a list of subjects I want to teach/have them learn and picking resources, I'm trying something new. Realistically looking at my routine (which includes my low energy level), and our natural rhythm and seeing what types of things/resources fit into it. I read somewhere that homeschooling is a natural extension of parenting and so how you homeschool should be a reflection of that. That concept has always resonated with me, and yet I haven't truly embraced it. I'm going to try.It would be nice to know I'm not alone. I've met so many homeschool moms, and yet I've yet to meet one that I felt truly understood where I'm coming from. It can be so discouraging.I'm not exactly sure what my question is. Has anyone changed your way of planning rather than just changing curriculum? Did you find what you were looking for?
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Well, I have an idea, but I've not taught ninth grade yet, so I don't know if it would work for you or not. I'd get as many samples of upper grade complete writing curricula as I could stomach. I'd look at the scope and sequence for each. Then I'd do a lesson and see how I liked it. If I could easily figure out the objective, and could come up with three ways that I could teach that lesson to my student, and if I didn't want to stab my eyeballs out just looking at it, I'd think about purchasing that book. Then I'd work ahead of my student, week by week, making sure that I could teach that lesson.
I wouldn't look for my student--I'd look for me. If I liked it, I'd know that I had a snowball's chance of being able to teach it and manage to check off my boxes for assignments for that grade level.
You've hit on my issues. There's a huge push to make sure you find curriculum that meets the learning style of your student regardless of whether said materials make the teacher want to stick a fork in their eye. I'd really prefer to keep my forks separate from my eyes this next year....
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Anybody have any ideas at all?
I'm thinking maybe getting my hands on an old ultra cheap set of abeka english 9 lessons plans just to see what/how many assignments might be a good idea.
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I'm trying to determine what course to take as far as writing for my oldest son who will be in 9th grade next year. I asked a similar question earlier this school year and we were in a really bad place as far as writing went.
So I let go of the curriculum, gleaned ideas from the ever helpful hive, and trusted my instincts in teaching him. It's made a world of difference and I'm thrilled with the progress we've made. Our current routine is to do two narrations per week (one history, and one literature) as well as work on one project (report, essay, creative piece) per month to go through that whole process of brainstorming, organizing, writing, editing etc. After a few months on a roll I thought we should get the IEW back out....Nope. Frustrating. Too many steps made every assignment take forever. It felt like were going backwards instead of forwards (I still need to send this back...)
I have come to a realization that in teaching I do much better without ultra scripted material. I get completely lost in the details if I can't see the big picture. I thought I wanted step by step but really what I need is clear expectations for each assignment....and then I can just reverse engineer a plan from there that fits each child. Does that make sense or do I sound like a crazy person? (Maybe better not to answer that.)
I've been using the books Write On and Writers Inc to get ideas for different types of assignments and that's working really well. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for, but I do need to know what types of assignments he needs for high school as well as how long they should be etc. That type of thing. Guidelines. Or perhaps a really bare bones writing program? Help me out. What am I looking for? I'm not panicked as I know we moved forward, but I need help to gain some focus on what's next.
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Man, do I NOT have a plan.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Yup. This is me too. We're not even technically half way through this school year...
We'll continue with CLE math and read lots of books. I may as well not even try to guess what else, because my plans will change 3,587 times between now and when we begin.
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Yes, we've made changes. I didn't even realize how much of a total overhaul it was till I started going through it in my head.
Math is the same. My 8th graders science is the same. I put everyone together in SOTW 4. I read that aloud at family hour and then give everyone books on their level. That family reading hour followed by quiet reading hour is our constant. I let a lot of the other things go, so I could give each child all the hand holding they need for writing. And it's helped SO much. My oldest especially is coming along amazingly with his writing. No regrets in focusing on that for awhile.
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I've regretted MOST of the extras we've gotten as I've discovered I really do better with less stuff.
With that being said, we regularly use-
-wall maps
-laser printer
-prismacolor colored pencils
-pencil sharpener
-audio books
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Someone asked this very same question in the facebook group. The suggestion was to email her. I do know that Kathy Jo will email you what she has completed of Level 6 if you need it before she finishes it.
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I've had the same issue this past year with my dd (then 11 now 12). No matter what I have on her list of things to do, she will finish it in 2 hours. And she does a decent job. Math is above grade level even though she doesn't like it and writing well is easier for her than her older brother. She can take notes, write narrations and whatever I ask....but she's really really fast. If I add project based hands on things to her work, she sees it as "pointless busywork". And the times that I've said we should try to work based on time instead, she's very frustrated. Her mindset is that doing it in that way is punishing her for being efficient...and she has a point.
Now we do other things that she doesn't think of as school like family reading time (ie morning time but in the afternoon), an hour of reading time in the afternoon, and an afternoon activity (art, poetry tea etc). But I'm letting go of trying to make her work for a certain amount of time. The other side of the spectrum is that I have a teen who takes ALL DAY to accomplish the same amount of work my daughter does in 2 hours. :huh:
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The focus should be on helping him master organization and paragraph skills. At 13, he can master those skills and still learn how to incorporate argumentation in his writing before high school graduation. He is not doomed at 13 to turn in a mess and have mess accepted.
Yes. In sitting down with him and helping him write today, it was clear that his major issue is organizing what he wants to put down. That is where we need to start.
I don't know what IEW is asking him to do, because I haven't used that curriculum. But the fact that he is paralyzed when faced with writing a paragraph suggests that he is too preoccupied with the mechanics of it. Even fantastic writers start out with disorganized, jumbled thoughts that don't fit into some neat framework. That's what scissors and paste (or copy and paste) are for. He still has time to figure out academic writing.
I think Andrew Pudewa is a great writing teacher. And the process of taking notes via keywords and retelling has been useful to my son. It's that checklist that's been crippling. And as we've gone on and on more is added to the checklist. So instead of being able to get content down on paper, he overwhelmed with where he's going to get a "who-which clause" in or making sure he has the variety of sentence starters required, varying lengths of sentences etc etc. When the checklist was very short, it wasn't a huge ordeal. But it progressed into taking him over an hour to write a single paragraph. Truly. Now, the finished product reads at much higher level than anything else he's written. But now he just absolutely hates writing even more than he did before.
I know you've already tried Bravewriter and perhaps you didn't like it, but I find what Julie Bogart has to say about the stages of development as a confident writer very convincing. Her podcast about the Jot it Down stage was particularly valuable to me in demonstrating that these stages are not necessarily age-related; in other words, skipping straight to academic writing or writing conventions for a child who doesn't even free-write comfortably might be more difficult and time-consuming than quickly going back to Jot it Down.
Honestly, I love the concept of Bravewriter and a lot of the things she says have helped some with my daughter, but it seemed more whole to parts to me whereas my son needs parts to whole. One step at a time. Every time we attempted Free writes, he was just miserable. He looked near tears and he is no crier. None of my kids love free writes very much, but they would just stick something in their free write about how mean mom is to make them do it. NOTHING like that from him. I thought IEW would be a good fit for him. Step by step. But I honestly am questioning it. Is it me and my consistency? Or is it the program? Both? I don't know.
Mommy to Monkeys, I have been trying to think of a resource that a 13 yr old would not find too babyish. You might read through https://archive.org/details/schoolcompositi00johngoog and see if you think it would be helpful.
I printed a couple lessons from this last semester when we needed an IEW break and it really went okay. Not sure why we didn't use it more? I think I needed to get back to the super expensive writing program that I bought....
I know I'm a huge part of the problem here. I have sooo many resources around and I'm not sure how to utilize what we need without jumping all over the place.
We sat down together and did the sample from Write On! that Hunter linked to. So, he did the 3 sentence report and then built a paragraph off of each sentence. He had no problems coming up with the topics. And he had no problem writing coherent paragraphs once I had helped him with the notes for each paragraph as well as assuring him he was able to scrap the checklist and just write for this assignment.
I'm not entirely sure what our next step should be. Practicing more of the same?
Last night I read through the Write On sample. Tonight I'll go and read a few more lessons in school composition.
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Persuasion, thesis, all that stuff is rhetoric level.
I now have 2 requirements for full blown rhetoric level studies that involve ME. First that the teacher/student/self-educator or whoever is mentally healthy and not overwhelmed by life. Secondly that the student really is at the rhetoric level.
I'm most definitely overwhelmed with life. That is just the way it is. I really would rather him master the basics rather than throw things at him that he just isn't ready for. My goal for him (and all my kids actually) is to be ready for community college.
I spent the evening looking through links and saving and printing files (thank you, btw, Hunter!) It's hard not to feel overwhelmed in moving forward.
The Write On Teacher's Guide made a lot of sense to me. I remember reading it through a few years ago, perhaps? It just wasn't what I thought we needed at the time, but I'm ready for it now. Funny how that works out, isn't it?
We're going to start with lessons 15 and 16 from that at the bottom level and go from there. I KNOW he can do it at that level without a meltdown. He is OCD with sensory issues being taught by a mama with Sensory Issues, high levels of chronic anxiety, and compulsive tendencies. Maybe I should have lead with that part...
ANYWAY, thank you again for the links and responses. A lot to look through. A lot to ruminate on.
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The more explicit the instructions, the less well the completed assignments prepare the student for future writing. :banghead:
I remember how excited I was when I could first afford "good" writing curricula. I looked ahead through all the explicit lessons and imagined my student completing those assignments and assumed that level of writing would carry over into daily life. Imagine my horror as we buckled down and completed many of those lessons and her daily writing deteriorated and she lost ALL confidence in daily writing. It reached peak a when she asked me to help her write out a birthday card and I knew that was something she had been confidently and happily doing in the past.
First do no harm is now my motto.
It is pretty easy to convince a student that there is a "right" way to write something. A rigid and narrow way. The more rigid and narrow the instructions, the more sets of instructions we need. Before long, the student has a pile of "right" ways to write things that they must choose from among and apply to the current project. Some students just get defeated and give up.
I don't have any magic answers about this one.
Children under a certain age are required to be given instruction in composition. At the very least we need to do something. First do no harm. Don't spend money you do not have. Don't use something rigid if it makes your kid stop writing altogether and lose confidence. Don't spend huge amounts of time on something that results in small gains at the expense of doing something else.
Long term default plan? Yes, I do have one. It is mostly do no harm, and mostly free, rather than great. I will post it in my next post. I need to restart my computer first as it is being wonky.
Looking forward to this post... I'm not looking for great right now. I'm looking for "enough".
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The current website has a broken link to the free TM, but wayback machine still works.
The ebook is $10.00 cheaper than it was. Make sure you don't try and order it from the above link.
This TM is just awesome teacher training no matter what you use.
Here is the intro and conclusion worksheet that you can use along with the 2 free report lessons in the TM.
Thanks Hunter. I know I've looked at these samplesonce upon a time, but perhaps I need to revisit this resource.
I personally like IEW. As for the different length of times required, some things I do when I'm not ready to move on (Want to fill in time)
1. Rewatch parts of the DVD again whenever I want them to spend more time watching the DVD, but don't want to move on.
2. Have them reread, outloud old writing projects they have done. I have them work on reading at a good pace, volume, .. Basically start setting them up for the idea of giving a speech. I also talk about how far they have come in their writing.
Once the work is done they email it to someone. Right now that someone is my husband's cousin. She is also an English teacher. In the past once of twice instead of emailing it to someone they called up someone and read it to them over the phone. My Mom and aunt worked well for that job.
ETA: We never watch an hour of the DVD at a time. We always break it up. After about 20 minutes we stop watching no matter what. I find one hour of DVD watching is pointless for my boys. After about twenty minutes the stuff they learned falls out of their brains and gets replaced with nothing. You can always stop the DVD whenever you want, no need to wait for Andrew to tell you to.
I do like IEW very much. Not getting it done is more MY problem. I will say my 11 year old doesn't enjoy it BUT she has no problems with it. She just naturally writes with most of the things on the checklist already, so most of the time the editing is very quick for her. DS on the other hand spends SOOOO much time planning out every. single. sentence. before he gets it down on paper to make sure he will get everything he needs from the checklist.
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I would not just randomly select another writing program. I would consider a 13 yr old who cannot easily write a paragraph as having a pretty significant deficit. I would want to proceed with intensive remediation. I would want to start with evaluating exactly what skills need to be targeted.
Can he take effective notes? Yes. He is capable of taking extremely thorough notes.
Can he categorize notes according to content?
Does he know how to create a cohesive topic sentence? Not without my help
Can he organize his notes into a logically ordered sequence? Can he create an outline based on his notes? This is where we dropped off with IEW. Fusing notes from multiple sources was a bit overwhelming for him. He was able to do it, but it was extremely slow which he found very frustrating.
Does he know how to use transition words? He does this to a certain extent. But when he writes, it is extremely to the point.
He has a near photographic memory for factual information.Ask him a direct question about anything he has read and he can answer it. Writing another thing entirely for him.
For years, he did ok. Not fantastic, but ok. When he was working through Climbing to Good English he was able to construct paragraphs, because it gave very STEP-BY-STEP instruction. With an IEW assignment, again, he can complete the assignments with that very micromanaged instruction. WITHOUT all the steps, he is unable to do it.
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Teaching writing has been my achilles heel. I honestly feel we're strong in every other area...but writing is kind of important. :crying:
This is mainly an issue for my older two children. We've been doing IEW SWI B. This is year two on it. The instruction is good, but for a couple of reasons Im wondering if I need to do a reality check and go another way.
Firstly, I'm not seeing what is being learned carried over for my son into anything else. If it's not an IEW assignment, he is still completely paralyzed by writing even a simple paragraph well ( I can relate).
Also, while I believe this instruction is solid, the way it's organized is making it very difficult to stay consistent for me. (I mentioned this is the 2nd year working on it, right?) The DVD lessons are sometimes an hour long....and then other days are sometimes short...it makes me feel all over the place. If my kids are independent, I have no problem with them doing an hour and a half of writing one day and 5 the next. That's fine. But if I'm going to be involved, I need each day to require similar amounts of time from me. I know that makes me seem like a crazy person...but I do need that in order to be consistent with ALL my kids.
My 11 year old is fine with whatever I ask her to do. She isn't writing phobic like her brother and can crank out a well done narration or essay with no issues (minus intro and conclusions as we haven't covered that yet)
We've done sooo many things with writing and I feel sooo wishy washy. Bravewriter, writing in CLE and CTGE, trying to pull assignments together myself (that was a nightmare), IEW etc
I'm considering EIW for my older son. Is there something else that I'm missing? -
Only 4 here, but what I did with kids that age when I felt that way was to buy used ABeka science books and let them read and mostly just tell me what they learned. (I think I had them do the end of chapter review, too). They actually loved it and it was SO easy. If they haven't read Story of the World, you could have them read one of the volumes, too.
^Yes to the above. We've flopped out a total of 4 times trying to use Apologia science, but my kids have ALL liked the Abeka science books. The early books are slim but it's easy to pick up a few more books at the library on whatever they're reading about. Retention has been surprisingly good. We've not done the tests, but from 4-6th I've made them take notes and/or do all the questions and reviews on paper.
SOTW is another hit here for all my kids. I'm reading a section a day to my middle ones (a section. Not a whole chapter), jot down their narrations and they copy them the next day. I give the map work on Friday and hold the AG recommended books from the library for them to read alone or for me to read to them. My 11 year old outlines a section a day and does a written narration of about a page or so.
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If you want only grammar, then I wouldn't recommend Rod and Staff, or CLE, or BJUP, or ABeka, or anything else like them. If you want only grammar, then you're looking at Analytical Grammar, or Easy Grammar, or Winston Grammar.
My vote is Easy Grammar. It is not a time sucker, but you do need to be the one to make corrections after each page, which only takes a minute.
Not trying to talk you into it, but I started Fix-it with my eighth grader last year and he learned more grammar that year than any previous year. It's short enough you could speed it up, or just give him the placement test and start him at a higher level.
Thank you for the input, ladies. I'm still trying to make up my mind. :willy_nilly:
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I feel like such an idiot.
We burnt out on CLE la last year so most our year was just iew writing. I was fine with that but knew I wanted to get good grammar coverage this year especially for my older two. We've tried Rod and Staff before and it's always flopped as in kids not like it and stressing me out. For some reason that escapes me at the moment, I was determined to make it work for us. So yeah, that's not happening. I need something independent so I can spend time helping with iew. Yes, I know Rod and Staff can be independent but that's not going to happen here.
Please hit me with your ideas. Before I determined to use RS, I almost bought fix it. I backed off because 8th grade seemed too old to start it. Nothing expensive.
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August 15th and no, not for everything.
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Thank you all so much for your feedback. I'm wanting to keep it as simple as possible while fulfilling what is legally required.
I'm gathering that finding the right evaluator is key. I've looked at some pages with listings for them and I'll admit to being a tad bit frightened of the evaluators who have loads of classroom experience but no homeschooling experience.
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I've got 3 elementary, a middle schooler and two preschoolers. We keep it pretty simple. Mornings are spent with my older two working independently while I bounce between my other two school aged kids and my twins demanding I read ALL the books to them. Then we have a little outside time (hopefully) before lunch. After lunch is clean up, family hour (aka morning time) where my twins are trained to stay on a mat They are not quiet. At. All. Next is quiet reading hour and "nap time" for my twins. I spend half of this time with my oldest and half that time with my next oldest. And then that's it. Done. Computer, piano, and crafts as they choose or what not.
Last year was much much harder. Seriously. I spent a good 8 months on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We did the 3rs plus books last year and are doing only slightly more than that this year. We didn't even have much of a morning time last year, but it's gotten sooo much better
CLE Math 805 to CLE Algebra 1?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
We went into CLE Alg 1 without a hitch after 710. We briefly tried Saxon ALG and it was just awful. CLE Alg 1 introduces one new concept each lesson and then reviews previous material, while Saxon was teaching several things each lesson. My son HATED it, and I'm sure that a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've used CLE since 1st grade. It is very user friendly. We're doing Jacob's Geometry next year, and I'm hoping CLE's Alg 2 will be ready by the time we need it.