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Kelli in TN

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Everything posted by Kelli in TN

  1. Kelli in TN
    I'm betting everything on this. As the mom of a low IQ child I refuse to say this is all he can do and no more. It's a delicate balance of saying to myself "He might not go to college but that's okay" and at the same time saying to myself "Let's assume for now that he will go to college someday" But I have convinced myself that IQ's can be nudged up a bit. I hope to prove myself right.
  2. Kelli in TN
    I'm glad you mention this. I used to beat myself up over our this very thing. We are very hit and miss on science during grammar stage. It is just not a priority to us. From 7th grade up it is, but before that I am satisfied with exposure to science and nature. Occasionally I will use a curriculum, but mostly I grab interesting library books and have them read them with absolutely no output required.
  3. Kelli in TN
    Oh, I don't know. I can't see how being hip and current and trying to draw in people who might not otherwise come to church is wrong. I don't think it is an either/or (as in hip OR pleasing to God). I think you can have both. God looks at the heart, not the hymnbook.
  4. Kelli in TN
    This caught my attention: I nearly always jot my notes on the back of our hot sheets (that's what our programs are called). And then I stuff them into the bottom of my purse. Then I lose them. So I can see the benefit of your musings being saved. I don't know if I would ever twitter in church. I don't twitter any other time. I'm just not twittery.
  5. Kelli in TN
    Oh, please don't. I am huge enough already!!!:lol:
  6. Kelli in TN
    Oh, but I use things that, at least here, would make me a likely candidate for slacker of the year. Apologia high school science? Teaching Textbooks high school math? I can't tell you the number of times that I have avoided threads on these boards out of shame and fear that I would not be taken seriously because of my low standards.
  7. Kelli in TN
    Dang. Have we met? That sort of describes me and my poor offspring.
  8. Kelli in TN
    I've been doing this crazy home edukashion thang since 1991. It does not make me any better at it than anyone else, but it does mean I've seen a lot of interesting things along the way. I can count on one hand the number of families I have seen that I thought were truly doing their children a disservice by keeping them out of school. In fact, I can count those families on one hand and have 3 fingers left to spare!!! I have not agreed with the approaches that many families took and have butted heads on occasion with other homeschool parents over methodology, but at the end of the day I believed that those parents were still providing an adequate or better education for their children. I think we just need to really be careful here. When we see a mom who is falling down on the job, if we honestly care about her and her children we could look for ways to come alongside her and help her through the rough spot. Usually it is a temporary thing. I think the families who chronically undereducate are few and far between and yet, at least in my school district, the number of students being undereducated by the system seems pretty high. I wonder if we did a study how the percentages of undereducated students in homeschool settings might compare to the system's undereducated? I have a theory that the system might produce the higher percentage of undereducated students. I have often fallen short of what I wanted my children to accomplish, but I have never failed them the way the public school system failed me.
  9. Kelli in TN
    Canon Powershot SX10 IS Check out the Flickr Camera Finder for this model. Scroll down and look at the pictures this camera is capable of. Don't stop there, though, look at some of the Flickr groups for this camera. I chose it because it has a great optical zoom, image stabilization (that can be turned off for macro work and such if you want), fully manual settings and a full menu of auto setting to choose from, hot shoe mount, lens hood. CHDK has a firmware hack for it now so you can shoot in RAW ( I don't have the CHDK on mine yet, but I will download it eventually), and Lensmate has created an attachment that will allow filters to be attached safely to the camera. Some of my favorite people who shoot with this camera: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsarahmiller/3484980588/ Look through Jim and Sarah's sets to find the one where they bought the flash and did experiments with the bouncing light and such. Excellent work. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sniderphotography/3471220233/ His macro work and his HDR work are jaw dropping beautiful. Very talented young man and he shows what this camera can actually do... http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocurti/3494664558/ This was taken with my SX10 and has not been edited. This is SOOC (straight out of the camera) http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelliappleton/3404595696/
  10. Kelli in TN
    Hmm, since I am finished with admissions with one and then next one is YEARS away from the admissions process this might be a good time to read it!
  11. Kelli in TN
    I cannot speak for all "more loosely organized denominations or to non-denominational Bible churches.". I do know that if there is a any anti-Catholic bias in my church it is not coming from the top. Our pastor has addressed this boldly as our membership comes from very diverse backgrounds. He has made statements like "I don't want to mess your theology (directed at any folks who might have an anti-Catholic bias) but I am pretty sure the pope will be in heaven when you get there." It sounds pretty smart alecky and irreverant, I know, but that is his preaching style and I understand the underlying sentiment was basically "knock off the prejudice, we don't do that in this house". We do not recite creeds in our church as it is a very informal worship style. I ran into a good bit of anti-Catholic bias when I was part of a southern, mainstream denomination that shall remain nameless. I have never run into anti-Catholic bias since leaving that denomination.
  12. Kelli in TN
    What a nice idea! On two different occasions I have been blessed by former homeschoolers who have graduated all their students and just want the stuff GONE. The last time was very recently and this mom gave me Abeka and BJU and Saxon high school texts and her only request was that I not sell them. She wanted me to use them personally or give them away. These are not my favorite texts, so I have been having so much fun loading down other homeschoolers who are just entering high school with their students for the first time. I just gave a mom all the components for Abeka biology. This makes it easier for her to perhaps spend more on another subject than she might have been able to if she'd been buying science too. Anyway, I have no problem with reselling, but I rarely do it. It's a hassle and by the time stuff goes through all my kids it is usually out of date or it looks like it washed up on a remote beach after surviving a fire and a tornado and a shipwreck. So I just give it away.
  13. Kelli in TN
    I do this too. I rarely sell anything. I did recently sell a copy of SOTW because I had purchased a copy of year three and I already owned year three (oops, maybe I should have organized my shelves a little better). But I am starting to cast off first and second grade materials and I am just passing them on, free of charge, to folks with younger kids. I have been blessed by others in this way throughout the years, it feels good to pass things along now.
  14. Kelli in TN
    I use one level of SOTW per year. I really don't test my kids before 7th grade and then sporadically at that. SOTW is the main course, VP is part of a long list of things I use to supplement.
  15. Kelli in TN
    I personally thought the SOTW activity guide beat the VP teacher's manual hands down. I only use the cards, the other VP materials just sit on my shelf. I use the cards with SOTW.
  16. Kelli in TN
    THANK YOU!!! These look very interesting and age appropriate!
  17. Kelli in TN
    Cynthia, Did you have 5th graders watching this series of videos? Was it at their level of understanding? Looking at the website, it seems like these are geared for high schoolers, but I hate to judge anything based on website!
  18. Kelli in TN
    I have not read all the other answers but I really don't think I have ever spent that on one subject. We may have spent that per course for our daughter's dual credit classes at the college, but that would be about it. I don't know if I just have a tendency to oversimplify stuff or what, but I just go through SOTW and use my VP cards, a few books I've bought, whatever the library has on hand, my Discovery Education, stuff I find from Netflix, online sites and call it good. Right now we are about to start WW2 and I just pull stuff together that complements SOTW and we do that. Personally I think $300 is a lot of money to spend on one subject. But I am cheap like that.
  19. Kelli in TN
    I am planning our course of study for our co-op next year. Our youngest students will be doing a study on the whole armor of God. Our 8th-12th graders will be doing Lightbearers from Summit. I am looking for something for the middle group. It needs to be something that can be stretched out for at least a semester, will have no significant homework, will not introduce topics that these young minds are not ready for but will get them into a place of understanding other belief systems. I'm not interested in Summit's curr. for elementary grades. I like the looks of Brimwood's Young Historians Intro to Worldview, but my understanding is that there are only a few short lessons in that course. Please help. I've googled to no avail.
  20. Kelli in TN
    I would NOT let my 13 year old babysit for other people because he is "squirrely" as can be. BUT he is so good with younger kids that I think when he matures a bit he could be an awesome babysitter. He is a den chief in my younger son's Cub Scout den and he is so good with those boys, he gets down on the floor with them and they all push to sit next to him. Yesterday we had company that included a 6 year old girl who had no playmate (we are sadly lacking in 6 year old girls right now) and my 13 year old son found her playing alone with my older daughter's dolls. He invited her to play Wii with him and let her pick all the games.She only picked games that he does not enjoy, but he still played them with gusto. I guess this behavior probably makes him look suspicious, like he is "grooming" young boys and six year old girls to potentially abuse them. But I can assure you that he is as innocent and harmless as can be. He just honestly cares about the feelings of younger kids. How sad that he is to be viewed as untrustworthy for that.
  21. Kelli in TN
    I have used male babysitters and I would do so again in a heartbeat.
  22. Kelli in TN
    We have a Roku box, the kids bought it for my husband for Father's Day last year. It is wonderful, well worth the money. I do sometimes still hook my laptop up to my television, we do this for Discovery Education videos sometimes.
  23. Kelli in TN
    "Fake It Till You Make It: How to Convince Your Spouse, Friends and College Admissions Officers That You Know What You are Doing Even When You Don't"
  24. Kelli in TN
    We did a bed of blueberries and strawberries. By the time the blueberries get big enough to actually block the strawberries, the strawberry plants will have lived their lives fully and be ready to pull up. So says the lady at the nursery, anyway. We keep going out there looking for fruit even though we KNOW we won't get fruit until next year!!! I guess we are hoping to defy the laws of nature.
  25. Kelli in TN
    Erica, Thank you so much for updating us. What a relief!!!
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