sewingmama
-
Posts
2,717 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by sewingmama
-
-
Thanks for letting me know about your blog - the official website seems pretty scanty on the details.
I noticed that you mentioned that you spend about an hour a day with your youngest. There is no way my DD (who will be 5 in June) would agree to that :001_huh: On the website it says that you can break the instruction up into 15 minute blocks but I don't think she would cope with four sessions a day - she's fairly resistant to writing at the moment but willing to try learning to read -she knows her letter sounds but is stuck on the blending. She gets frustrated easily. I'm worried about it being too much and turning her off it all before she even starts. Would the program still work if we just did one 15 minute session a day?
I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol:
I wish I had never come across that post that mentioned PR - I had never heard of it before that and I was settled in my choices - now I'm up in the air all over again :D
Oh and I also meant to ask - Is it scripted? or do you just watch the DVD and explain it to the child in your own words - I'm not sure how well I'd do at that.
-
. I just read on another thread that a grown woman refuses to homeschool her own children because "her mother retreated to her room as soon as the dad got home"
Maybe this mother went to her room and spent the entire evening in there - I can see how that would cause resentment - i.e. my mother only wants to interact with me when we do school - or I must be such a trial to my mother because after spending a day with me she needs a whole evening to recover.
I don't think spending a small amount of time in your room to regroup is detrimental - I think spending large amounts of time can be misconstrued by kids as being ignored.
I know with my own kids that even at their young age they are usually happy to give me time alone for between 30 mins to an hour and they happily entertain themselves. However after that time they will start becoming "naughty" in attempts to grab my attention. Yesterday I spent a bit too long on the computer :blush5: and my 20 month old came into the room and grabbed the garbage can and held it upside down and purposely emptied it out in front of me . That was the end of computer time :lol:
I remember when I was a a teen (around 18) and we got our first internet connection. My mum would spend many hours at a time online and I would be trying to tell her something about my day and she would just answer with Hmm yeah that sounds great with her eyes focused on the screen. I remember really resenting that - not because I was hungry for attention all the time but I felt very ignored - having to wait a couple hours till she was done before I had her full attention.
I think a limited time out is just fine but hours every day is probably not a great idea because of the message it could be unwittingly sending to your child.:001_smile:
-
Thankyou. At the moment I have ordered Phonics Pathways and was planning on going the AAS route - but I don't know - I'm still thinking about it :D
-
Anyone used this program? Can you tell me how it works and what you liked/disliked?
:001_smile:
-
My DD goes to public PreK 3x a week and my DS1 will be going when he turns 4 in September. No harm has been done to them by it - in fact it has been of immense benefit to them. They haven't learnt any bad habits -it's a nice enviroment with nice kids and teachers. It's just something different for them to experience and the chance to play with other kids their own age. My kids get lots of chance to interact with others of differing ages because there aren't any kids their age in our life (church, friends etc) so it's their only chance to meet up with same age children and in my DD's case the only time she gets to play with other little girls.
My DD has never had a day off sick in the three terms she has been there and in fact has never even had a cold since she has been there. It costs me $240 for the whole year which I don't consider expensive for what she gets. It's play based - the only academics they do is story time for 15 minutes at the end - the rest of the time they move about freely playing, doing preschool craft and playing outside in the enormous playground. It's only 3 hours a day - so plenty of time left to play at home. I only have good things to say about it if you can find a good one - my DD's social skill's, speech and behaviour have improved immensely since she started there.
-
I don't know if those pictures are so accurate. I taught in Korea for a year and most of the school lunches did not look like that - they consisted of similar things but a lot grosser and poorer quality.
In case anyone is interested - in Australia kids mostly bring their own lunch from home or buy something from the school canteen but it's not served on plates or anything - it's takeaway:)
-
200 days is what is required in Australia. I just follow the public school year as my DH is a school teacher so we can only vacation on school holidays anyway. My kids (will) get the same days off as the public school kids. It's useless trying to make them work when DH is home - he is a big interuption. So the kids get the same days off as he does.
-
It seems like I'm the only one here who would love a detailed list of what to get a birthday child. So many children I know have EVERYTHING and I detest spending ages picking out a gift only to be told "Oh I already have one of those". I also hate wasting money buying something they don't need.
Honestly I would not buy her a book. Not everyone is a book lover :001_huh: - books can be right up with clothes on the list of "boring presents given to kids". I've seen many a birthday child receive a book as a gift and toss it over their shoulder without even looking at it as if to say "Oh another boring book". Whenever people ask me what gift to buy my own children I always say "Please get them a book". Every single time the person always replies "Oh but books are such a boring present I want to get them something fun".:glare: So far I haven't been able to convince a single person that my children really WOULD love a book for a gift. :confused:
I would stick with the clothes and cash. $4.00 in a card and a t-shirt sound great for a child you hardly know.
-
Before I had children I wanted 8. After I had my first I wanted 1. :lol: DH wanted 6.
It took 4 years to conceive our first - I was 30 when she was born. I had the next two quickly after that. I have had two M/C's since our last baby.
I would really like one more but I just don't know. Since our youngest is almost 2 and no more babies have arrived - I'm getting used to not having young babies around and most of the time I like it :001_smile:
So if God sees fit to send us another I'll be happy - if he doesn't I feel satisfied with what I got. There was a time we thought we would have no children - and then we were blessed with 3 - so I'm happy (and maybe done). I'll probably always wish I had more though but God had other plans.
-
When I first mentioned it to my DH (a public school teacher) his comments were somewhere along the line of "Are you crazy, our kids will be.... "insert every homeschooling myth you ever heard" :glare:
But that was before his "precious princess" and "sensative genius son" were born. :D
When my DD reached school age I had very ill health and discussed with him what school we should enrol her in because I could barely get out of bed let alone homeschool.
This time his comments were "Are you crazy - I'm not putting her in school - I go there every day and I know what happens there and there is no way I am exposing her to that. Plus I thought you said you wanted to homeschool - you can't back out now" :D
I did put my DD in public Pre-K 3 days a week because of my health but fortunately I am much better now and so will be homeschooling for K.
My DH is super-supportive now - so much so that he said if I ever get sick again he will homeschool them himself when he gets home from work and on weekends :lol:
-
It's typical in Asian countries for early potty training. I taught little 2 yo's in Korea and they were all PT. However they also used to let the little ones pee in the street any time they needed to go - in the gutter, on the footpath, in a bottle :001_huh: So I query whether they really were PT since they were never really required to "hold it".
Most people here have their child toilet trained by 2, At least day time trained.
I trained all of mine before 16 months (daytime).
I'm not most people ;) Both of mine trained just before their 3rd birthday. They were on the late end of the scale though - at their playgroup most of the kids were trained by 2.5. I tried a few times earlier on and they just were not ready and it was stressing us all out to try. I started at 2.5 to train my DD and it still took 6 months :001_huh: My DS1 only took a few weeks but because of my first experience I didn't try till he was closer to 3.
I was just thinking last night about how much longer I have to buy diapers for my baby. He is 20 months - I should drag out the potty chair and give it a try although I don't see it happening if he is anything like his brother and sister :lol:
-
Thank you so much. I was looking for something to do until we officially start K in a few months and this is great. We started yesterday and the kids are enjoying it a lot. We are substituting all the books because no libraries around here have them but it's working fine anyway. I really love that it's a curriculum that my younger two can also easily follow along with as well. I won't be using it as my full K curric. but definately intend to include it with what I already have planned.
-
Thanks for all your suggestions.
Apart from physically (she was walking independently at 9 months) she has always been a bit of a late bloomer - always on the scale of normal - just at the later end.
She had her hearing checked when she was 2 to assess the late talking and it was perfect. She was given 6 weeks of speech therapy and that really got her started with the talking. We found out she was quite clued in once she started speaking - her first word's were all colours - we just didn't know she knew them due to lack of speech.:D
I haven't had her vision checked -I should - her Dad and his side of the family all had vision issues since childhood. I'll put that on my to do list.
Because she is in public Pre-K she will be given a "school readiness assessment"in a couple of months so I'll mention the concerns I have to them there and see what they suggest (probably to send her to PS which is not happening :D).
Her comprehension seems to be fine - I am reading Chapter books to her and she will often retell the story to me in much better detail then I can remember it.
Dh and I have always felt there is "something not right" but she is basically just plugging away at the tail end of the normal spectrum that most of the advice we get is always just to "wait and see". Hopefully it will be just like all the other times when I start feeling a little concerned and start asking "Is this normal" that she suddenly takes off in the skill and makes me seem like "one of those mothers":lol:
-
I highly recommend the book "Reading Magic" by Mem Fox. She talks about this exact thing. If your DD is unfamiliar with a word then just tell it to her -don't make her sound it out. Kids who are taking a long time to sound out words loose the plot of the sentance/story and have trouble making sense of what they are reading - so the words become meaningless and difficult to comprehend.
Read to her yourself -lots and lots and lots. Read the same story over and over till she can read it back to you without having to sound it out.
My DD is having the same issue - so we are forgetting the sounding out for a while and going back to reading out loud.
-
abbeyej - Thank you that was very helpful - especially the part about what to look out for as she develops. At the moment the only word she is writing is her name. She does write random letters -all left to right of course.
She is not reading yet - she knows her letter sounds and we are working on blending which she is having a bit of trouble grasping but I'm not worried about that yet. She understands rhyming and can make up her own rhyming words. She is also fairly consistant at picking out the first sound of a word correctly.
So it sounds like she is on track then :001_smile: I think I get easily concerned with my DD because she didn't say a single word till after she was two and because of other issues she had at the time she was tested for autism (thankfully most of those issues have resolved). She had a very traumatic birth and I guess now that she is school age I'm still on the lookout for signs that she was affected by it.:001_unsure:
Just my little observation here - no scientific evidence to back it up whatsoever - it seems kids that aren't completely dominant with one hand do this more, and more persistently than kids that show a 'handedness' early. DS is pretty ambidextrous, I am, my brother is - we all did this. My brother and I both ended up left handed, ds still wavers, but I think he's going to be a righty for fine motor skills. I never noticed my girls doing this at all and they both showed their hand dominance early.We pretty much knew by 4 months old that she was going to be a lefty - she used that hand for just about everything. In fact my mum first noticed it from photos that I sent her - she told me she was going to be a lefty just from what she saw in the photos - and she was right - although I held out hope for a while she would still end up right handed - just easier for me to teach her things like sewing. LOL
-
Just wondering- Is she a lefty?
Yes she is.
A lot of the problem is that she is just so stubborn about wanting to do everything her own way that it's hard for me to tell if she is just being a pain in the butt and not following my instructions on purpose or if she actually has a real problem. At first I was content to say it was just normal developmental stages - but as I said I've been working with her for 6 months and it's actually getting worse as in becoming more and more of a habit.
-
that my almost 5yo writes and reads backwards or left to right?
She is not actually reading yet and can only write her name.
She always writes her name left to right. I can't exactly be sure that she is writing her name starting with the last letter since her name is Anna :D (lucky for her).
When I ask her to sound out a word she starts from the last letter and works back. Tonight we were out shopping and she said "Look we are at AEKI (IKEA)(she spelt the letters out - didn't actually read the word).
When she writes her letters she always starts at the bottom of the letter rather then the top.
It doesn't matter how many times I work to correct her she continues to do it her own way. Her letters themselves are not actually reversed - they all face the correct way.
She goes to public Pre-K and I asked her teachers if this was normal when they were starting out and she told me not to worry about it -it would correct itself. Well it's been 6 months now and I haven't broken her of it yet.
So is this normal or does she have some type of learning issue? Any suggestions on how to get a stubborn child to follow directions :glare: I'm planning on using HWT when she starts K at home in a few months -is there anything else I should look at that might help?
I should probably mention she is left-handed so I'm not sure if that has something to do with it.
Thanks for your advice.
Oh and I forgot to mention that she often says words/sentances kind of backwards when she speaks. For eg. tonight she said fruitgrape instead of grapefruit and every single time when we do beginning sounds she says things like "A starts with apple" etc instead of the other way around.
-
Another vote for MEP here -that is what I will be using for my DD.
-
In Australia you can get your kid a library card as soon as they are born. All my kids have one because we can only check out 20 books at a time. I keep all the cards and just keep handing them to the librarian as each card fills up :D It's no real trouble to keep track of the books because I keep them all together in a plastic tub out of their reach.
As they get older I'll allow them more control over their card - but that won't be for a long time yet.
-
Food is a good idea - especiallly snacks. They have a lot of fun snacks although you would probably be ables to get them in the USA too. Just make sure if you bring back food it is customs friendly.
-
That's why I'm asking: do all thin women get these comments?
Yes they do. I'm genetically thin - my mother and sister are tiny as well. At 9 months pregnant I weighed 63kgs or 138 pounds (my babies were all average weight between 6.5(3 weeks early) to 7.5 pounds).
I don't find the comments hurtful like an overweight person probably would but it does get annoying. There used to be a woman at work that would always come up and span her hands around my waist (yes I was that thin). I was always very healthy though.
I get annoyed whenever I go to the doctor - they are always so focused on my weight and whether "I'm always that thin".
I'm probably one of the few people in the world who wishes they could put on some weight :D I actually hate the way I look - I think I look sick and drawn a lot of the time - I feel jealous of woman who have a little more meat on their bones - it makes them look healthy.
-
Well my kids are so close in age I didn't really get to experiment much on the oldest before the next came along - now they are all kind of lumped in together with my parenting experiments :D
I am enjoying my third child more as a baby though then the first two -it's easier to relax and know what is just a stage and when something is truely wrong. After you have more then one child you do realise that things pass and they get over it :) I was always worried things were wrong with my DD but I saw that she grew out of a lot of things as she got older and now with the youngest instead of worrying I can just say "Oh DD/DS did that at that age - it's nothing, he'll grow out of it" - and it is easier to bear 2yo tantrums that way knowing it's just a stage a lot of children go through as opposed to feeling intense guilt that the reason my 2yo is throwing a huge tantrum is that I'm a crappy parent with no clue on child raising:D
-
All three of my kids got those lumps after their vaccines - they do take a while to go away - I think the longest one we had was three weeks. It's normal.
-
Yes that is exactly what happens to my house every day -except that my oldest is only 4. I thought it was a little kid thing that they grow out of - I'm soo depressed to see that they don't.
Now off to sulk around in depression at the thought of having to deal with this for another 15 years or so.
The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted · Edited by sewingmama
Thank you -this has helped a lot. The only thing my DD will write voluntarily is her name and she isn't even forming the letters correctly for that yet either (she won't let me correct her - she's stubborn as they come). There is no way I'm about to set myself up for the torture it would be to get her to use a writing intensive program straight out.
I really like the look of the program but I just have this feeling that it is not for my DD right now. I'll start out just teaching her to read with Phonics Pathways and use HWT to kickstart her writing and go from there - hopefully it won't be too long before she is ready to start PR.