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Tenaj

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Everything posted by Tenaj

  1. The only thing I would warn you about it that it does take a lot of time (or at least it did for us) to get it up and running in the spring and then usually daily checks and weekly time to keep it nice throughout the swimming season. Your kids are older so you'll be able to assign them some of those tasks. My kids were much younger and not able to help so a lot of my time was centered on the pool in the spring and summer. My kids still remember the days of the swimming pool fondly but I don't :) Our pool finally fell apart and we decided not to repair it.
  2. Since visiting Japan, I've always wished for the Japanese style futon. Each bedroom has a closet/shelf system that holds the futon, so when you are ready to sleep you open up the closet and pull out your bed, in the morning you store it away again and that space is open. At least that's the way my in-laws house was arranged in the early 90's. Another idea I've always wondered about is a system of raising the bed mattress to the ceiling during the day and lowering it at night to free up floor space. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to come up with. Chains or something so the bed is suspended then able to be secured up against the ceiling and out of the way during the day? Can you tell I have a large family in a small house? :)
  3. Ours is a big sheet of "tile board" (find at Home Depot or Lowe's) screwed into the wall - not fancy but it does the job and it's cheap :)
  4. We also used it very briefly (maybe for six weeks or so). Same experience as Michelle, good teaching but why, oh why, stand right in front of the whiteboard. We gave up and my son ended up doing MUS Geometry because it was sitting on my shelf. One of the sales that I haven't regretted was getting rid of the DVD's and the Jacob's Geometry book.
  5. Our system is that any word that is spelled incorrectly is written five times at the end of the lesson. I lightly mark this words with a checkmark in the book then retest them the next day at the beginning of the lesson. If they get them right, I "cross" the checkmark. If they miss them again, they write it 10 times that day and it's retested the next day. On Mondays, we retest all the words missed the previous week. If they are missed again they go back into the "system" for the current week. I think there's only been two words over the first book that required more than one week for him to "master". I suppose I could extend the system to include a later review but haven't felt it was necessary.
  6. I'm just wondering if I'm crazy to even consider this. Give me the straight scoop please - how much time on an average day does Right Start require? I'd be using Level C with my 8 yo. He is currently using SP2B but is just really getting stuck with some of the leaps that are happening and I'm wondering if he needs more of the manipulatives, games, and teacher helps I would get with RS. It seems that RS has a similar approach as SP but has more specific guidance and more hands-on? Am I right in this assessment? Right now I'm probably spending about thirty minutes a day getting him through Singapore and it really doesn't seem that he is retaining much at all. It's not that I want to spend less time at all, it's just that if that time is going to significantly increase I'm probably going to need to try something else just because of the combination of kidlets I have right now. So, is Right Start workable for a large family???
  7. There was a thread not too long ago about AHL (I would search it for you but I'm not sure how to link it). We are using World History and Lit this year with my two high schoolers and we love it. We're looking forward to year three American History I and Government next year.
  8. Thanks so much for the great input. Off to make up several lists for next year!
  9. I'm putting things together for next year and analyzing last year in the process. We love, love, love, MFW and have been following their recommendations for almost everything this past year, but in looking back, I've found that I've not been utlizing the book basket/reading time part of the curr. New baby in the house made getting to the library a challenge and, though my kids read all the time, we really haven't done any reading/literature work this year - especially my third grader. If you use MFW, do you supplement this area with something more formal? Thanks for sharing how you make this work at your house!
  10. I read it as one rebate will do it because they will compare your order number to see that there was a quantity of "two". I hope I did it right!!
  11. Maybe I should cross-post this on the high school boards also. . . I have parts of both, have used both and can see advantages/disadvantages to both. What I'm not sure about are the long-term results under each program. I've never used WS past book four and have never really used IEW past about the third or fourth layer. Evidentially my biggest problem is just stick-to-itiveness :) So, here's the question. If you've used one or the other (or both) what have you seen in your students as a result. Are you happy with their level of writing after using one program or another for a year or two or are you still struggling with the same issues as you were before you started?
  12. Zits always makes me laugh (three teens in the house!) but we're still in the Baby Blues stage also!
  13. The really nice thing about MUS is that you can move very quickly through sections that your daughter already knows. If you have any doubts at all about her abilities, I would get Alpha and just speed through it as fast as she can go. If you hit something that is new, let her practice it. There are six worksheets for each lesson, three new and three review. I have a friend who started MUS late and she just had them do one practice sheet, if they obviously had it mastered they moved on or maybe did a review sheet just to solidify the concepts. They did two MUS books a year for several years using this method and were very happy with the program. Another thought about starting in Alpha . . . if nothing else, it would give her lots of practice using the MUS blocks which is a great advantage, especially as it seems like she needs help with some of the basic facts. Beta doesn't have a lot of review - if I remember correctly, it moves rather quickly into double, and more digit addition and subtraction. HTH,
  14. I asked the reps at the RS booth this last week at the Midwest convention and the answer was no. But I did find out that they have a six month unconditional return policy.
  15. I haven't used AHL from MFW but we are doing World History(MFW). MFW adds books and replaces books from the literature component of Notgrass. The Bible component is also heavily supplemented with additional readings. Not sure if this is the same in AHL or not.
  16. Thanks so much for the suggestion - I'll look into this.
  17. The fact that he is extremely verbal is probably part of the frustrating part for me. This is my kid who can sit down and wax eloquent about any subject with anyone for hours. He's interested in all sorts of things and has a talent for seeking out common interests with people of all ages. The move from verbal to paper is really the challenge for him - I know that's fairly common with boys. He does type his final copies of his papers but usually prefers to do the rough draft in pencil - I'll suggest this to him.
  18. Thank you for reminding me of the importance of the evaluation phase. I have been slacking off on this part (not on my evaluation but on having him do the evaluation sheet). We just talked about this yesterday. He tends to skim over any directions in his hurry to complete the assignment and that is definitely something we can improve upon. Some of the problem is that I can't always sit right beside him to complete the assignment. This kidlet needs that kind of attention so much that with my littles, I sometimes have to let some subjects be independent to his detriment. I probably need to re-evaluate that part of our schoolday and give him more support! Thanks for all your suggestions.
  19. I'm beyond frustrated with the writing skills of my seventh grader. We've used a variety of materials over the years, mainly writing strands and IEW but nothing seems to click with him. Yesterday's writing assignment in WS was to pick four or five points about a subject and write one sentence about said subject. He picked his pencil and made a list of descriptive terms and then proceeded to write a very, very long run-on sentence making no attempt to connect the parts. So, my quandry is, do I just continue with WS (he's at the beginning of book 4). My approach with this would be to just keep repeating an assignment until he "gets" it. Or . . . what? I've considered purchasing Write Shop for him - would that be a good fit? I hate to waste money on it if I can accomplish the same thing with what I have on my shelf. I have IEW and could go back to that? He just is nowhere near his grade level in writing skills - I'm beginning to panic because we are only one full year away from high school! I was explaining to my dh last night that I know I'm not suppose to compare kids but I'm fairly certain that if I gave my first and third graders the same assignment they would have been able to complete it with at least some attempt to connect the thoughts/parts of the sentence together because they already understand the concept of a complete sentence. Any help/advice/sympathy (LOL) would be greatly appreciated.
  20. I used Sonlight 100 for my ds's freshman year and we use MFW World History currently. I agree with Pam about the questions in the Sonlight guide at that time (they may have changed, and I haven't used all the levels). The readers were disappointing as so many of them were far below high school level - fun reading - but not exactly the challenging curriculum I had in mind. We've been very happy with MFW and my dd will be using the new Year 3 when it is released. I have to depart from the MFW sequence with my ds next year because he's already done the American history component so he will be doing Notgrass Economics and Government along with IEW American Literature for his Sr. Year. Along with Pam - the MFW daily guide is written straight to the student - that's important to me because I have many littles that need my supervision. My kids have learned a lot from the writing assignments - the research paper was a bit rough to start the year with but we made it through that assignment. The literature has been challenging but not out-of-reach and the writing assignments complement everything so well. The Bible component has been great. We really have no complaints and my kids have been insistent that we stick with MFW for the next year.
  21. I was watching for you but I'm not very good with faces and like you said, had a full load with me this weekend. I also spent a lot of time looking over the One Year Adventure Novel - took my dd back and she looked at it and then we bought it for her. She'd wanted to do creative writing next year and this looks really good. I told her that I'd buy her the "My Villan beat up your villan" t-shirt when she gets her novel done.
  22. Hey - I bet we saw you there! We stayed at the LaQuinta, also. I was having trouble with the downtown motels and since I had stayed at the LaQuinta when the convention was at Landmark, I returned there also. We had no problem driving in and dealing with the parking and we actually appreciated not walking around downtown so much after dark. We felt like there was more variety for food choices also. I think we're going to stay there again next year. There seemed to be several homeschooling families staying there. One of my sons spotted one family and said that they must be homeschoolers - it was confirmed when we saw the blue bands. I asked him how he had spotted them and his quote was "Well, there were kids walking with their Mom and they were actually talking and laughing together and having a good time." That made me giggle! Now I know - maybe it was you!
  23. I just returned home from the convention and have to say that I thought this year was much better than last year's. There were some rooms overflowing but I think we have to remember that it must be a LOT of guesswork to determine where the crowd will flow each year. I know last year the seminar I went to where Jonathon Pennington was speaking was filled to overflowing and this year it was about 3/4 full. The popular speakers must ebb and flow each year. Yesterday the vendor hall was very, very crowded right around lunch time but after Tim Hawkins began at 2 it seemed to clear a bit. Thursday night, Friday morning, Friday evening and this morning were really not all that bad and it seemed to me to be much easier to get around than last year. The table situation seemed much better to me this year. Last year, the only tables were located in the back of the exhibit hall and were at a premium. This year there were tables everywhere! Every floor and especially today it seemed like a lot were available. In fact, this was the first year I was every able to find a seat at a table and we even managed to seat our whole family group of five by ourselves at one. I was amazed! My teens and I had so much fun this year. I was only able to attend about four workshops (a new baby in tow) but those I attended were great. The vendor hall was fun - though I admit that I was much more organized in my approach to it this year. I had my list and stuck to it (for the most part). The parking didn't work out very well as far as the "recommended $5" garages but we drove just one block further and ended up only paying $4 yesterday and $3 today so I was happy. Isn't it funny how people can be at the same place and the same time and have completely different experiences? Part of it is probably that I had really, really low expectations this year because it was the first time I had to tow a baby along . . . on the other hand . . . it was the first time my dh attended and he was absolutely amazed at the number of people and the vendor hall.
  24. Well, I had planned to do school until Thursday but we have dear friends here until tomorrow (right now there are 14 kids in my house) so I am trying to decide if it is worth it to open the school books for just one day. Probably not.
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