Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

Dolphin

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,372

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Dolphin

    Please check out my plan for my first 2 weeks of home school...ever...

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    We are starting on Monday, and I am in full blown panic mode. All the kids in the area went back to school this week, and my son is not enrolled in school. What on earth am I thinking? Math, especially math. I was horrible at math, and now I am going to teach it? I think I have lost my marbles!

     

    Okay, I got the crazy thoughts out. As this is a message board I will clarify that while yes these thoughts are going through my head on a regular basis, I know that I have made the right choice for our family, and that it will be okay. I will make mistakes, but everybody does.

     

    Could you please look at my plan for the first couple weeks and tell me if it sounds reasonable. Once I have mentioned something, I will be carrying on with it, this is the plan for building up to a full day.

     

    Day 1

    Pictures

    first day of school survey (thank you Carrie)

    Going over schedule, expectations, and rewards

    introduce independent work

    Math

    WWE3

     

    Day 2-5

    start independent work

    SOTW3 w/AG

    Rosetta Stone Spanish

    Christian studies 1

    Lessons in Responsibility

     

    Week 2

    AAS

    Adventures in Atoms and Molecules

    FLL

    Latina Christina

    Getty-Dubay italics

     

    Week 3

    Formal reading

    Art and Music

     

    DS is a bookworm who is always reading. We have PE and other things like that just happening already. Does that sound like a slow enough, but not too slow start to the school year?

     

    I am sorry if this is not the most well formed message, but I am a little panicked.

     

    Thanks in advance

    What are good independent subjects for a 3rd grader?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Thank you everyone. I can see the sense in that. I will start with what I have and see how it goes. If I find it really overwhelming I will then look at changing. I was thinking that I had scheduled too much, but it sounds like maybe I haven't. I am lucky that this year DD is only 3 and won't be needing to be taught much. I think I am just in panic mode, everyone is heading back to school, so it is suddenly much more real that I am stepping off the main stream path. I will take some deep breaths and just start.

    Cheers,

    Nicole

    Can we discuss having tea for a moment?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    I have to admit that I have only read through page so far, but I will be coming back and reading more later, maybe with a cup of tea in the morning.

     

    It is nice to see that other couples have had issues with tea, we were having some too, but we have found a few things that work.

     

    We read something about romance, that for men tea is romantic, and means that we love them. Women need romance to be in the mood for tea. DH has taken over a lot of the evening chores. He puts the DC to bed, loads the dishwasher and has just taken over in the evenings, this puts me much more in the mood for tea.

     

    As for quickness, maybe everyone knows this, but I discovered it 6 years into marriage and I don't know a tea slang for it. Men's nipples have a purpose. For us it speeds things up and sometimes that is a good thing.:lol:

     

    The other thing we discovered is that you don't need a full cup of tea to be satisfied, sometimes some foreplay that has a happy ending for both is good. Still really intimate if you are both involved.

    mouthy punishments

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    We do some similar things. We have a count to 10 time out. That way if we are in public or with his friends I can say "take 10" If we are at home alone he does it on the time out wall, if we are out he just steps away. The one time that he choose to see what I would do if he didn't, I explained that DS was making bad choices and we would need to leave, and we did. We got to the car and he was told that I was very mad and the wise choice would be to sit down and not say a word until I was ready to talk to him. I found that sometimes not knowing the punishment right away is a very effective punishment. At home he got to help with chores the rest of the day. The take 10 also works, as now that they are older I will sometimes close my eyes and count to 10 when they are misbehaving and when my eyes open they usually look at me and say I am sorry right away.

     

    We do Cinder Fella punishments (I am sure my DD will soon get Cinderella) my favorite is cleaning the kitchen floor with a toothbrush.

     

    We also for repeat offenses do lines. My DS had a problem for a few months with telling lies. I made him write I must not tell lies 25 times and told him that I would add 25 every time he told a lie. 150 lines and after that we have not had a lie in over a year.

     

    I hope this does not sound like I am a harsh mom. My children are very good, and very happy. I believe in being strict but flexible. We have certain areas where I expect 100% obedience, but I try to make sure that there are more areas where they are free to be themselves and kids. We have a house where we put our feet on the furniture, are loud, sing alot and can all express our ideas and opinions.

    What are good independent subjects for a 3rd grader?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I am starting home school on Monday and I am starting to panic. I really did not want to just sit my child down in front of a computer or with workbooks, (and just to clarify, I am fine if other people use that method, it just is not what I think will work best for my ds).However, I think I might have gone too far the other way.

     

    Things that I am pretty sure that I do not want to change.

    Story of the world

    All about Spelling

    Singapore Math (and MM when needed)

     

    Subject that I would consider changing if there is a really good, independent way for ds to do.

    WWE

    FLL

    Adventures in Atoms and Molecules

     

    I think I am actively teaching everything but Latin and Spanish.

     

    Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

    Nicole

    Step Into Classics?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    My husband does not want our son to read the Steeping Stones Treasure Island. He says that not knowing the end is part of the thrill of the book, so that I need to wait until ds is ready to read the unabridged book on that one.

     

    Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre and The Three Musketeers are other good ones. We are going to do A Christmas Carol as a read aloud this year, but we are going for the unabridged on that. DS is a 3rd grader.

    How do you get your 6 year old to improve handwriting?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    If it doesn't improve, switch. My ds had horrible handwriting, never got better. He was learning manuscript. I switched this summer to italic and in one week we had huge change. He handwriting is getting better daily. I read something somewhere, that the two styles use different parts of the brain, and sometimes some kids just can not get along with one of the styles. So if it is not getting better doing all of those things. Start again with a different style. We are doing the Getty-Dubay italic series and I love it. I am sitting with him, we do three pages/letters a day. I guide him as we go. Love it!

    How do you encourage little brother or sister(s) to play quietly?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Ours is 3. We give her the choice of doing school herself or playing in her room. It is not far, but far enough to not be too distracting. She has workbooks, and a planner like her brother. If I spend 5 min "teaching" her and setting her a task, I then get 10 min with ds. Some days just go like that. She also loves reader rabbit, but that can only be done very quietly and with headphones. That gives me my longest spurt of 30min (math time)

    Another Singapore Math Question, transition

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    So my ds has been in private school up until now, this is our first year of Home School and he will be starting 3rd grade. I saw that singapore math says sometimes you need to start with B from the year before. What I have done was buy the 2 B math practice and have him do all the reviews so that I could see where he was behind. I also got the CD rom Rainbow Rock and he has been "playing" that all summer.

     

    He is all good, except for division. That was something that he did not even start with his old Math curriculum. I looked at the comparisons and saw that 2A is where Singapore does a lot of division. What should I do? I don't want him to be bored as he is good with all the other concepts. My 2 ideas are this, and I welcome opinions on both as well as new ideas.

     

    1. Buy the 2A text book (dd will eventually need it) and just go over the division part together before we start in on 3A

     

    2. Do the division book from Mammoth math

     

    Thank you in advance

×
×
  • Create New...