Monica_in_Switzerland
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Posts posted by Monica_in_Switzerland
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I have combined my two oldest and two youngest for spelling, so I only run two classes of spelling. It had not caused any issues.
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I learned about these books on here, I think from @Spy Car, but it could have been one of the other dads. I love these books:
The Drama of American History series, by James and Christopher Collier.
These books are organized topically, so that each book overlaps chronologically a bit with the book before and after; this means the first chapter of each book tends to give a good "where we are in the story" summing-up before launching into the topic for the book. The books are short, between 6-8 chapters each. We have the kindle versions, so I'm not sure on page count, but the chapters are typically between 10-20 minutes of read-aloud time.
We read them together at the table, one chapter per sitting, maybe spending two weeks on a book. In their independent reading list, they read historical fiction or additional non-fiction that corresponds with the time period. For example, we are doing the Civil War right now. We'll spend 2 weeks on the Collier Civil War book, then probably another 2 weeks on the Reconstruction/Jim Crow book. In the mean time, the kids are reading Bull Run, Across Five Aprils, Battle Lines (Civil war graphic novel), Big Bad Ironclad (another graphic novel), Follow the Drinking Gourd (picture book), and a whole Mark Twain study that started previous to the two Collier books, but overlaps, including Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Celebrated Jumping Frog, and The Trouble Begins at 8 (a biography by Fleischman). We'll also watch the movies Lincoln and Little Women.
So while we are moving basically chronologically, we are focused topically by the Collier books, which I find very helpful. We read them together, so I address any questions or vocabulary immediately as we go.
I've got the Collier books combined with the SOTW3 and 4 books, so we just pause SOTW each time we come to the next Collier topic. I hope that makes sense.
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Not quite what you're looking for, but we really enjoyed the book "Indians" by Tunis. The book is about tribal cultures, grouping tribes by geographic locations, which helps to link behavior to environment, and it features well-done pen and ink illustrations.
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On 9/18/2020 at 7:18 PM, forty-two said:
Take a year off? Don't start reading lessons at age 5, but wait till age 6? Or at least give yourself permission to? I mean, next school year's a long way away - maybe you'll feel up to all the sounding out next year, but there's nothing wrong with planning to wait till the year after, when she's six.
This is basically what I did with my youngest. I just couldn't bear it last year. I was dealing with my third, who was really struggling to take off academically across the board. So I just... ignored the youngest. 😂 Somehow during that year, he taught himself the letter sounds and CVC words. Now he is 6 and flying through reading lessons. In fact, we don't really do reading lessons per se, we're just going through the McGuffey readers for reading and Phonics Pathways for dictation. In the mean time, my third blossomed from the needed attention and is now (8 years old) a strong independent reader, able to read middle school novels.
My other suggestion is to change reading programs. Switch over to Phonics Pathways. It's a cheap investment and works great, and it'll be new to you.
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7 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:
Does that French speaking part of Canada have the stereotypical Canadian politeness? That seems like it could be a safe option
I can't speak to attitudes, but Canadian French is sooooo hard to understand! 🤣 There is a nurse shortage in Switzerland, so we have quite a few French and Canadian nurses. I'm forever asking Canadian nurses to repeat themselves. Even my DH, a native French speaker, struggles with the Canadian accent.
One thing that makes me laugh: I've stayed in contact with my high school French teacher (American) and we get together any time I visit my family in the US. I can remember once upon a time admiring her beautiful accent when she spoke French in class, and trying so hard to imitate it. Now, when I hear her speak French, it sounds almost like nails on a chalkboard. Her grammar is perfect... but the American accent!!! Sooooo strong. It's funny how perspective can change.
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2 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:
I know! The researcher wasn't even trying to study native speakers' command of French genders, but was establishing a control group for French language learners. The native speakers were supposed to have 100% accuracy, with only the time to correctly complete the test needing measurement.
I edited and added some info to my post above. I^m surprised by the results, but now that I've read through the link, I don't think it's quite as bad as it sounds.
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14 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:
Have you seen this study? "Fifty-six native French speakers, asked to assign the gender of 93 masculine words, uniformly agreed on only 17 of them. Asked to assign the gender of 50 feminine words, they uniformly agreed on only 1 of them. Some of the words had been anecdotally identified as tricky cases, but others were plain old common nouns."
Wow!!! That is truly shocking! Makes me feel much better as noun gender is my number one issue... 😂 I'm constantly yelling at my kids, "What gender is ____?" when I'm typing emails or letters, they seem to have just picked them up.
What I see in forums is no ability to conjugate or make agreement, and constant homophone mistakes. I'm probably blind to seeing gender errors!
ETA- After reading through the link, I don't think the results are quite as bad as they sound. What they are basically saying is that in a group of 60, at least one person got the gender wrong on a noun most of the time. Looking at the small list of nouns, these are high school and college level vocabulary for the most part. I can see this happening, as the only way to know gender outside of the handful of nouns that follow some semblance of a pattern, is through exposure.
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So what does everyone put in their crepes?
We like nutella or sugar for sweet, and all sorts of things for savory. When we used to go to a crepe restaurant pre-kids, I'd get one JEF (jambon épinard fromage- ham, spinach cheese), one Hawaiian (ham, pineapple), then I rotated through all the various dessert crepes!
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47 minutes ago, Quill said:
Here’s my question for anyone learning French: how do you accept mistakes? I know that, to learn a language well, you must risk mistakes. You simply have to be okay with the fact that you will say “poison” when you’re trying to say “fish,” will mix tenses, and will forget whether a pencil is a feminine or masculine article. But I also know that the French, as a whole, are proud of their beautiful language and often don’t want to hear me bumble through with my bad accent and wheelbarrow-load of errors. I remember speaking to a lady at the train station in French, and she snapped, “I don’t speak English!” Ugh! It wounds me! I just really hate to butcher the language to a French person.
Additionally, if my daughter is with me, I defer to her far-superior skills. I let her order the pizza, let her request the cheeses, let her ask questions at the market - though I could. Just not as well as she does.
I really think my perfectionism and my need to be seen as very competent gets in the way of language learning. When I was in France, I constantly had two warring sides in my brain. One side said, “Here’s your chance! You have loved French since middle school and now you can actually speak to French people!” vs. “I forget how to say ‘a piece of’ and I don’t want to just say ‘I desire pie’”.
Signed, Doomed Perfectionist.
I second everything @maize said. I've lived in France for a year, and in Switzerland for 15... and I've never met a snobbish person re: language errors. I have met a few who immediately switched to English when they assumed (probably correctly) that their English was better than my French, but I've never met anyone who gave me a hard time about it.
Having said that, I allowed myself to be virtually crippled by fear of error for a long time. I finally got lonely enough to get over it. 😄 I have also spent enough time in French forums to see that the average French-speaker- who might speak with a wonderful accent and no obvious oral mistakes- is functionally illiterate.
I speak French, but could stand to improve greatly. I am learning Latin with the kids. I'd love to learn German in a life of infinite free time!
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11 hours ago, Amethyst said:
Never heard of this first one. Thanks. I never even thought of Holes, great idea. Love that book! I had already put Esperanza Rising on hold at the library. I'm pretty sure my own kids read this years ago, but I never did. And The Cay is a great idea too. Another one that I read, but never thought about regarding non-White characters. Thanks!
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and its sequels are favorites here. They are just beautifully done. The books are also gorgeous, with color illustrations from time to time. But its the story that is truly remarkable. It's actually similar to Holes, in that all things come full circle in an amazingly satisfying way.
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38 minutes ago, bibiche said:
Why not make galettes instead of crêpes? They’re a favorite here. Doesn’t take care of the whiny dancers, but at least it checks off the gluten free thing. 😉
By galette, do you mean sarrasin crepes?
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22 hours ago, barnwife said:
A quick update on me...I exercised yesterday! Anyone who thinks a fast and furious labor isn't exercise can just scroll to the next post!
Me: DH, you're in charge of dinner.
DH (half an hour later, checking on me): Should I call the midwife?
Me: Sure, tell her I am making progress. (I wasn't sure this was the real thing.)
(One Hour later)
DH: It's time for the midwife to come, right?
Me: Sure, but at this rate it could still be a while.
(Half an hour later)
Me: Oh, DH! Our baby! He's fabulous!
He's already captured the hearts of his 4 siblings. So my important jobs for today include resting and trying to name him. Hope everyone has a great day!
Hooray!!! Congrats on a healthy happy baby!!! Nothing quite as exciting as a fast birth!
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I can second all of the advice you have gotten!
My structure for my 1st grader is to read/spell a bit from Phonics Pathways (10 minutes), then have him read from a graded reader for less than 5 minutes. We use the McGuffey readers, but these are old fashioned and very moralistic, so not appealing to all! I really like the I Can Read books, especially those by Arnold Lobel, for a more modern, fun reader.
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We do 60 minutes. It is our most solidly time-blocked portion of the day. My 8th and 6th graders work for the full 60 minutes, and my 3rd and 1st graders do 20-30 minutes during that time. We simply build up gradually so that by Pre-Algebra they can do a full hour.
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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and its sequels are lovely, all characters are Chinese.
Holes- main character is white, but many others characters are black, plus it's an amazing book!
Esperanza Rising
The Cay
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Magna tiles or marble run?
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I'm also sorely tempted by crepe maker, but I need to be able to get a good result with a gluten free batter, and I'm also concerned that making crepes for 6 will just look like me standing in the kitchen while everyone dances around me, whining. 😄 But we do love crepes and they are great for using up odds n ends!
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I wonder if a word with a sound like "fasia" if it might be a Latin word?
Here's a possible list- https://platonicrealms.com/encyclopedia/Latin-terms-and-phrases-in-math
None of them are quite right, but I could imagine a person adopting one of them as her catchphrase to mean what she'd like, such as "de facto" or "ab initio" or an actual/exact value or something that has not yet been manipulated.
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1 hour ago, Ethel Mertz said:
Monday - hotdogs, corn on the cob, sauerkraut, roasted brussel sprouts, salad
Tuesday - take out from local restaurant:
Wednesday - boneless, skinless chicken breasts, baked; potatoes of some description, salad
Thursday - taco night
Friday - pasta, salad,
Saturday - Trout, sweet potatoes, salad
Sunday - breakfast-for-dinner
The chickpeas sound great but the link takes me to a bakery menu. Do you have a recipe link?
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Falafels
Pasta with mushroom tomato sauce
Potato gratin with green salad
Burgers
Tuna cakes
Pizza
Fajitas
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14 minutes ago, Acadie said:
Not sure if you'd consider a digital option, but I really love Trello for organizing projects. I make boards for everything from a college search to writing a novel to hosting Thanksgiving to home repairs we'd like to do someday. It's visually gorgeous and very easy to create boards, add lists and invidual cards to each list. You can attach websites and all sorts of stuff very easily. There are lots of higher level functions I don't use.
One of the coolest things to me is I can drop something for several months and when I come back to it, I have all my thought processes, resources and steps clearly laid out before me again.
It reminds me a little of the kanban board concept, with the post-its as the cards on a particular project board.
Thank you for typing out "Kandan". I was listening to that whole video, thinking, "I know she's not saying condom, but it sure sounds like she keeps calling that her condom board..." 🤔
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My thought is... not a huge monetary investment to make, so I'd just toss it.
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So I learned this system from a Power of Moms organizational program that it doesn't look like they sell anymore, although they have a new product called STEP that probably contains similar info.
You need something like this- https://www.amazon.com/Hestya-Expanding-Project-Plastic-Organizer/dp/B07D8SSKJ2/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=multi+tab+folder&qid=1599891486&sr=8-10. It could be hanging files, the product I linked (easy to store and carry around, holds 12 projects), a tabbed spiral notebook as mentioned above, or something visual on a wall like posted above, or even make this entirely digital with any number of apps that simply allow you to make lists or documents...
Basically, you need some type of "slot" for each project.
In that slot, or on the first page of the section in a spiral notebook, you will make your list of "actionable steps". For a sewing projects, it might look like:
- Call Dan and ask what colors/themes for quilt.
- Research fabrics and set budget.
- Purchase fabrics.
- Wash and iron out fabrics.
etc.
All of the steps need to be clear actions, like in a recipe. You can't simply write, "start working on quilt." Break it down into distinct steps that can be checked off. One of the biggest issues with project work is indistinct actions, like "Get ready for yard sale." The step is too unclear and too overwhelming to be useful. You need things like, "Go through children's clothing boxes in garage and sort clothes into sale or toss piles. Needed: 2 boxes/bags."
Behind this first page of actionable steps, you have room for any notes you need related to the project. You can glue in ideas you found from a sewing magazine, jot down a pattern number, sketch out your design... or maybe the one page of actionable steps is enough for more straightforward projects.
But to make the system actually work, you need a set time and day to take a look through each and every project list, usually once a week, and transfer the steps you'd like to complete in the upcoming week to some kind of daily or weekly to-do list. Personally, I find the big "Idea board" style project systems very quickly because visual background clutter to me, but a post-it note right at eye level in the kitchen with my actual daily to-do list does get noticed and done.
ETA- I am re-reading and I sound really bossy. 😂 I just am trying to point out that there are many outer veneers for project organization, but it really comes down to: Easy access to actionable steps.
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Much sympathy. My DH is stable right now, but has very difficult to control asthma. And hearing someone cough all night is heartbreaking.
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Singapore Math vs. Math Mammoth
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Both are great. I found SM had plenty for my oldest two, but I've printed off MM chapters from time to time for my third, who needs more reinforcement and smaller conceptual leaps.
Both programs work great if you teach them well. Neither will teach mental math skills unless you hover over the kid and reinforce and insist on mental techniques and add drill in the forms of games and similar. Information on how to do that is included in both programs if you get the HIG for SM or read the chapter introductions for MM.
MM advantages- smaller conceptual steps (IMO), ONE resource to have open on the table, more practice problems.
SM advantages- easier to accelerate when a kid gets it and is ready to move on, very customizable with add-on books (also a disadvantage due to complicating things), more detailed HIG.
You get out of Asian math programs what you put into them (as a teacher). I have a STEM degree, but still dedicated MANY hours of research on how to teach elementary math the Asian way. Take the time to read up, watch videos, etc, and then either program will work brilliantly.