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Missouri Okie

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Everything posted by Missouri Okie

  1. CINDYZ, At what lesson in OPG did you start the Pathway Readers? I've ordered the Pathway Readers and was wondering when my 6yo son would be ready for them. We're currently only on lesson 51 of OPG.
  2. I used to count the days until I could ship 'em off to kindergarten. That seems repugnant to me now. The more I considered homeschooling, the more my attitude toward my children improved. I became a kindler and gentler parent because I realized they needed to LIKE me to be receptive to my teaching.
  3. Wal-Mart has Monet and Van Gogh 2011 calendars for only $4 each.
  4. I skimmed everyone else's responses, and I agree with all of it. I didn't see anyone stress the social bonus for mom, though. Truly, it is such a great thing to meet women just like you who live nearby. Of course having all the moms there all the time has a bad side too, as sometimes the momma bear comes out.
  5. The founder of Classical Conversations promotes keeping your babies and little children (too young for class) with you as you observe your older children's classes. However, our group offers a nursery and a preschool for those younger than 4 at a cost of $7 per child per week. With a lot of children, the expense can add up, so some in our group have chosen to keep their little kids with them anyway. I've noticed those moms tend to spend a lot of times in the halls.
  6. Last year I went to a Christmas MNO that was a lot of fun. We were told to bring a few of our favorite things. We didn't bring enough for everyone, just one persons whose name we drew when we got there. For example, I brought a favorite book, some daffodil bulbs and a copy of a favorite recipe since I like to read, garden and cook. Other people brought things like gift cards to their favorite coffee house, a bottle of their favorite cleaner, a bar of their favorite soap, or a box of their favorite tea. It was fun to talk about what we brought and why it was one of our favorite things...then we got to bless someone else at the party by giving it away. It was a good way to get to know each other better.
  7. Coincidentally, I was having the same thoughts today regarding my son who started taking violin lessons in May at the age of 5. We practice EVERY DAY for about 30 minutes because that is what is expected of him by his teacher--we've practiced something like 150 straight days. Of course, he's not at a level that he's practicing on his own. I'm administering those daily practices. I was thinking that our emphasis has become the violin. I was wondering how beneficial it would be if we applied the same rigor to reading, math, and Bible. Of course, at his age, that would probably put in me in an early grave as a lot of the onus would be on me. I know I'm not being helpful in addressing your questions, I just thought it interesting that I was having similar thoughts.
  8. Try this link! http://satorismiles.com/2010/08/19/planning-and-organizing-and-exhausted/
  9. I'm the worst...I get every lesson organized the same day as I do the lesson. I must get organized. I must get organized. I read this blog post by someone who actually has organized her RS stuff. I plan to do something similar, someday.... http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Over-Dianna-Hutts-Aston/dp/0803731078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287970246&sr=1-1
  10. Our study of the space race is set to happen in about a month. I haven't read either of these books, but have read ABOUT them on blogs. This is the Way to the Moon by Sasek http://www.amazon.com/This-Way-Moon-Miroslav-Sasek/dp/0789318423 The Moon Over Star by Aston http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Over-Dianna-Hutts-Aston/dp/0803731078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287970246&sr=1-1
  11. It just so happens that Art Reed's book is on sale until Oct. 25 for $9.98 at the Classical Conversations book store. http://www.classicalconversationsbooks.com/usjosamabo.html
  12. That's great to hear. Congratulations! I'm in PR1 too with my just-turned-6-year-old son who is still in Kindergarten. He was not reading well even though we had gone through 100EZ Lessons. He did okay with that but when we got to real books such as Hop on Pop he seemed to be entirely relying on picture cues and guessing, which was discouraging to me. I did not know where to turn next. My instincts told me I needed to pretty much start from scratch with him to break these newly-formed guessing habits. I don't even remember how I got sold on PR (it was before I got on these boards) but it seemed like a good approach from what I'd read in a HS magazine and from the website. We started in PR1 before I knew that most people waited until their child was reading well to start. We have been going through it VERY SLOWLY, basically covering one sound a day with days off for review. I'm really hoping the Phonics Road does take him to reading. His reading has already improved even though I'm limiting his reading to words that incorporate the sounds we've already covered. We've stopped reading 'real' books. It may seem like a drastic (dare I say crazy) approach, but it's working. Even though we haven't got to the week when the actual spelling words start, he's writing words phonetically on his own as he's playing, in Bible class, etc. Also, he's very consistent in reading the individual words I put in front of him. Bottom line, we're enjoying success from PR too!
  13. For some reason, it became all the rage last year among the families in my homeschooling circle. I jumped on the band wagon and regretted it because it was so expensive but did not offer much. I bought the first level geared for 2 to 6 year olds, which included a math and phonics curriculum. It taught the phonics sounds by associating the sound with an animal name. Fine, but not worth the price. The math strategies were counting and letter formation using dots. The dots were used for addition and subtraction. No other concepts were included. I had visions of teaching my child to read at 3 as Dr. Jones encourages, but soon realized she just is not ready for that. I feel sheepish now even admitting that I got sucked in. I'm not sure about the more advanced packages, I think some of the people I knew were interested in the extensive drilling aspect of it, but I'm not sure. I think people were also impressed by the mental math demonstrations of young children he provided in the promotional DVD. If you have young children and want to try it out. I'd be willing it to sell it to you cheaply.
  14. I noticed a 20 volume set of G.A. Henty books is 50% off on Vision Forum today ($220). I haven't read any of his books, but see many of them on various book lists. Is this set worth the price in your opinion?
  15. I am a CCer with a kindergartner this year. I haven't had too much trouble finding books to correspond with CC cycle 2 science, history or geography this year, but I've been preparing a list for a year. Here's my blog where I list what we've read. If you're a week behind us, maybe you can find some sources there. It ain't much as blogs go but could help since we're in the same boat. I haven't blogged yet for week 5 but will on Monday. A couple of the books we read for week 5 were Joan of Arc the Lily Maid by Margaret Hodges and The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader (excellent for migration, adaption and hibernation). I think the Homeschoolshare site has good activities associated with that book. We also read aloud The Apple and The Arrow, which is a Sonlight kindergarten-level book set in the Alps (we may reread it again when we do Switzerland in geography). Next year, I plan on finding living books that correspond to the history, geography and science memory work. That means somewhat of a departure from SOTW, but I think that books about American history at a first grade level (whether read-alouds or independent reads)will be easy to find.
  16. A veteran homeschooler gave me a stack of unused Dover Coloring Books such as Story of the Civil War Coloring Book (by Peter F. Copeland), The Lewis and Clark Expedition Coloring Book (by Peter F. Copeland), United States Coloring Book, Castles of the World Coloring Book, etc. I see many of these are listed as recommended resources in WTM. Does anyone use these? Is there a meaningful way to incorporate them in lessons besides just having them color a page in the book that relates to the topic we're studying?
  17. What is the World Made Of (All About Solids, Liquids and Gases) by Zoehfeld
  18. We started when my son was 4, although he turned 5 a month later. We didn't push it with him. We would go over memory work for about 15 minutes often but not everyday. He got a lot of it by just listening passively to the CDs each night before going to sleep. Their minds seem to be wired for memorizing, but there is no sense pushing it. I'd say he learned about half of it really well, especially those items put to music. In our community, the youngest memory master was 7, but he was the only one that young. That same boy had also been memory master at 6.
  19. We're going to be on Week 3 on Monday. We had the week off last week for Labor Day. I think our group started earlier than most. This is our second year, and my five year old remembers a lot of the timeline and some of the math, which is making it easier. It was good having this extra week to review. We've been spending about 15 minutes a day on memory work, and we have it about 95% memorized...he's inconsistent on the Latin. I started a blog to chronicle my son's kindergarten year. http://thegreatgreenroom-julie.blogspot.com/
  20. One more thing, you cannot download it all in one fell swoop, you have to download each bit individually, which is the work I referred to previously.
  21. You sure can. Plus there are a lot of extra songs that individuals have saved to the parent forum that are not on the audio CD. It's some work, though, saving them individually but a lot cheaper.
  22. We did CC last year with me son. He was 4 when we started but turned 5 in September. If we worked at it everyday for about 20 minutes, he could retain all of it, even Latin. If we slacked off, he could remember much of it by passively listening to the audio CD before he went to bed (especially anything, like history, the prepositions or the presidents, that was set to music). This year, I didn't order the CD, but downloaded all of the memory work and songs from the connected community onto my own CD. I did this because of the extra songs on the file-sharing forum written and performed by Amy Joy Tofft (I'm going off of memory on the name, so I'm sure I didn't get it exactly right) which are not on the audio CD. These extra songs make it easier for him to learn the English grammar and science memory work that aren't set to music on the regular CD. The downside is that it is somewhat time-consuming to individually download each song. Also, each bit of memory work is its own track when you download them this way making dozens of tracks you have to cycle through to get to the week that you need.
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