kubiac
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Posts posted by kubiac
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Let's assume good faith, OK?
Every family has to figure this out for themselves. My personal take is that I have zero doubts about the overall efficacy of homeschool (although, as with everything in life, it can be done well or done poorly), I just don't know if it will always be the exactly right fit for our family. Our finances may change, the kids may change, etc.
As mentioned above, the best way to ameliorate your fears about the potential weirdness of homeschool kids is to meet some current and past homeschool kids. Ask your wife if she has found a regular homeschool park day. Take the kids there a few times, and maybe go on some homeschool-organized field trips. See if those are your people.
I am NOT a real homeschooler (yet?) but from what I can tell homeschooling is kind of like exploring any school option in your area. Take the tours, read the websites, go to the open house, gossip with people at the supermarket, and then just close your eyes and jump.
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This blog post I did a couple of years ago might have some more ideas:
http://postapocalyptichomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/11/train-books-for-children-mini-reviews.html
Also, I Stink and I'm Dirty (et al) by the McMullans.
And another vote for Freight Train by Donald Crews. I swear we have a minimum of three copies in this house (paperback, lap book, board book!) because it is such a staple.
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Thank you this seems right up my alley!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/opinion/sunday/growing-up-at-sea.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
Traveling wasn’t just exciting. It was the only way I knew how to live. Glimpsing stretches of beach that looked untouched and thinking, “I want to go there,†then actually dropping anchor and going ashore, was wonderfully freeing. My correspondence school courses were completed on beaches, and sand always found its way into the pages of my book reports. Every science paper featured aquatic creatures we had observed that day. A trip to a St. Lucia rum distillery? Time to write a report on sugar fermentation and distillation.
Cabin fever would strike when land was out of sight for a few weeks. This was how I learned to love reading. When I ran out of stories, I turned to our collection of medical manuals (through the Hesperian Foundation’s “Where There Is No Doctor†I learned of some deeply unpleasant parasites).
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I have some books like this in my Literature-Based Geography book list.
Tracy Mirko this is amazing!! Printed and I think I might laminate too!
Other suggestions if anyone wants them:
* ARGENTINA: There's another pampas book by the same author that's wonderful. The one you have is the sequel.
* CAMEROON: The Fortune Tellers by Lloyd Alexander and Trina Schart Hyman is a beauty.
* ANTARCTICA: http://www.amazon.com/Animals-Robert-Scott-Saw-Antarctica/dp/B003F76DXI <-- there are 4 books in this excellent series -->
Again, THANK YOU. The Hive is such an extraordinary resource.
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This may be terrible but I just bought the new Duggar book written by the four older girls as my tiny way of contributing to their liberation fund.
Those young ladies seem smart, healthy, well-adjusted, loved and sensible, but it doesn't hurt to have a little money in your own name if your husband you married quite young happens to turn out to be a dud and you need to strike out on your own for whatever reason. Not to mention just getting some distance from Jim Bob and/or paying for higher education should they desire it.
It's weird, I think in some ways it's easier to appreciate the Duggars the further you are personally from their lifestyle and belief system. To me it's like an ethnographic documentary in some ways. They speak American English and I assume they're 10 times as media-savvy as I will ever be, but then side-hug chaperoned courtship to some guy who solicited your dad before he ever encountered you and I'm as fascinated and intrigued by your strange exotic lifestyle as I would be if you were a Yanomami tribeswoman from the Amazon rainforest.
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Good thread.
I'm in the same boat as boscopup and others. Occasional overdue fees are charitable contributions/membership fees. We try to go on a regular day, library books stay together in a special bin by the front door, and I use the online system for renewing/holding as needed.
We have access to both a city and county library, both with multiple branches in easy drives from our home. Together the systems have about 15 million books. In our circumstance, we'd be crazy not to use the library.
That said, I also strongly believe in book ownership (like you would not believe, really) so we collect vast quantities of reading material at used book sales and thrift stores as well. I've found that having old book friends that you can pull off the shelf over and over again is pretty key to our family bonding over storytime.
I do need to set up a "suggested independent reading basket" of browsable non-fiction or easy readers for my older guy, but that's a topic for another thread!
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Jana and Jill are doing medical stuff. I think Jana is working towards becoming a doula, and Jill might be working toward being a full-fledged midwife.
I didn't realize the show was back! I'm obsessed, although Jim Bob is not personally my cup of tea.
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I believe this to be a myth promulgated by crotchety old ladies who want to keep reading instruction the exclusive province of crotchety old schoolteachin' ladies.
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Laptop. Keyboard is so much better IMHO.
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He's not too young to start listening to quality chapter book audiobooks.
A dear favorite read aloud of ours for that age is Teddy Robinson.
Oh that reminds me, we had a great time read this Stories for Under Fives collection--among other things there are a couple of Teddy Robinsons in there!
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I knew a girl who applied to 30+ colleges and got the admissions fees waived at almost all of them by writing to the admissions offices and telling them she needed the fees waived because she was applying to 30+ schools. I remember being mildly appalled by the circular argument but in retrospect I admire her hustle.
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Just pulled up this this thread from a few years back and these lists are amazing. One note: Stevie by John Steptoe is quite "intense," by which I mean it generates a lot of hard questions and feelings in the reading.
We had it but I gave it away because the emotions and the internally narrated evolving point-of-view seemed like it wasn't a good match for my kid at this stage. Maybe in a couple of years.
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I have read several books and seen several presentations about this.
Strangely enough, the clearest, most interesting and down to earth description in how to do this is a book I read about common core! The Story Killers by Terrence Moore.
http://www.amazon.com/Story-Killers-Common-Sense-Case-Against-Common-ebook/dp/B00GB1QS9E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395979355&sr=1-1&keywords=the+story+killers
He explains it later on in the book; when explaining why the new LA and even some current LA practices are bad and kill the soul of stories while not learning much, then explains in simple down to earth language with actual books how to discuss them with students in a way that interests them and does not kill the story. I love reading, and I always hated the way we studied books in school, he offered concrete reasons why and good alternatives.
A book I enjoyed that may make a similar case is Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.
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There is a book called Babies Need Books, by Dorothy Butler. She is more conscious of beautiful language than any other book advisor I have encountered, and she divvies up her recommendations by year (infants, ones, twos, threes, fours-and-fives). By the time I got to her recommendations for fours-and-fives, I stopped cross-checking them with other sources, and just ordered sight unseen, since her suggestions were so marvelously spot-on for the other ages.
ANYWAY, here are some recommendations off the top of my head:
* Animals at Maple Hill Farm & Year at Maple Hill Farm by the Provensens
* Heckedy Peg by Audrey and Don Wood
* Any and all folk tale retellings by Paul Galdone
* Shirley Hughes books, especially Dogger and the Alfie books
* Virginia Lee Burton books
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I absolutely would steer my children away from groups of kids I knew to be unvaccinated, just as I would separate them from children whose parents I knew to be members of the Anti-Bicycle Helmet Society or the Freedom from Carseats Club. I am mildly concerned about measles and whooping cough exposure, but I am majorly concerned about exposure to reckless, superstitious grandstanding.
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I dig it. I use it to get rid of surplus books that would sell on Amazon for .01. If those don't go after a month or so on PBS, I just remove the listings and donate them.
I don't really think of it as free though, just a better "upcycle" option for a lot of stuff. Right now I'm using credits to collect my current obsession: Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science books.
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Does it have to be a "type" of school?
Anyway, after reading The Book Whisperer, I am pretty well convinced that a "language arts" curriculum of two-plus hours of free reading per day could suffice for or even surpass a standard curriculum.
Bear in mind, I have no actual proof of this other than a similar feeling about my own education. Wide, interest-led reading filled in a LOT of holes and supplied or enriched interests that were not a part of the standard school program.
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Isn't http://xtramath.org/ supposed to be good for this? I'm not this far along in our schooling!
I've also seen recommendations on here for Timez Attack (which may have sections for more than multiplication?).
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This was a VERY good one.
That thread was, IMHO, a sterling example of the often dark, dirty Internet at its very best: disparate, physically and perhaps philosophically disconnected people coming together to exchange ideas, tolerantly consider new information and perhaps open minds a little wider.
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My husband made it, with the official Bulletproof Coffee "without mycotoxins!!" [eyeroll smilie] and Kerrygold butter and whatever the other thing is, and to me it just tasted like coffee with real (not fakey creamer) half-and-half.
I am a bitter, wizened old crone of a skeptic, but to me it seems more like a genius marketing ploy than a particularly novel way to "biohack your body!!"
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5
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My almost-4yo loves "Bill Guy the Science Guy" :) and the They Might Be Giants science video. I also like the Schoolhouse Rock science video, but I think my kid finds it less comprehensible than some other science stuff.
I've also been pleasantly surprised by the Cat in the Hat Learning Library books. Good vocabulary development in those.
The DK Eye Wonder books also seem to be good for this age, although I wish they covered a richer array topics than, say, Cats and Dogs.
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I visit Vegas somewhat frequently to see my in-laws, who live ~20-30 minutes from town (Summerlin).
Given free choice and infinite money, I would 100 PERCENT STAY NEAR THE STRIP.
Outlying Vegas is exactly every single recently developed car-dependent western-American suburb. Vegas near the Strip is extremely walkable (much more so than drivable--traffic is terrible most hours of the day), and they have monorails to help get between the casinos. There is a ton to see and do there, even without spending money, and even moreso if you do have a little to spend for tickets and such. I think locals tend to avoid the Strip (not least because of the aforementioned bonkers traffic) but if you can arrange it (money-wise and family-politics-wise), stay downtown!
I find very little that's shocking about downtown Vegas with the possible exception of smoking inside, which seems completely wackadoodle to me. Oh, and the heat. The heat is a sign from whatever gods you believe in that this area of the world is not suitable for human settlement. And yet Vegas exists.
Stuff that's NOT on the Strip that we've enjoyed with very itty bitty kiddos:
* Clark County Children's Museum >> SO SO SO excellent.
* Plant World >> like a tiny children's zoo (it's a plant nursery but they have many exotic birds, two huge desert tortoises, etc.) [FREE]
* Bass Pro Shops >> We don't have these in L.A. so I find the whole thing fascinating, but they have some neat aquariums (aquaria?) and this insane three-story duck waterfall and, of course, a zillion taxidermed game animals.
* Red Rock state park for hiking and nature
* Splash pad and playground at Tivoli Village [FREE]
Stuff that IS on the Strip that's we've enjoyed with little kiddos:
* Circus Circus performances and arcade (shabbier than the rest of town but who cares?)
* Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay
* Excalibur Tournament of Kings dinner show
* MGM Grand lions (not there any more maybe?)
So when did 3 become the new 5?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Am I the only one who has read many many many times that kids who are below-average readers at the end of first grade are statistically likely to remain behind, and that children who are not reading well at the end of third grade are probably going to continue struggling for the duration of their academic careers?
I think if 3 is the new 5 it's because "early intervention" isn't just a watchword for autism, it's also the order of the day for informed parents who are anxious about dyslexia, learning disabilities and general underachievement.