Pixjen
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Posts posted by Pixjen
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This thread is dangerous. What began as inspiration turned into an innocent reorganization here, but quickly morphed into an all-out room re-do. If I'm not back with pictures in a few days, send reinforcements. LOL
:iagree:
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My son has only been going for a few months, but non of the instructors has EVER done anything like that. The only place I've ever seen the instructors touch is the shoulder, knee, and arm/hand, and only in context of correcting a stance or motion. Two of the instructors are even long term friends of mine, and they have never acted anything but professional when they are in the building.
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We've always had to use the kitchen table for school since we live in a small space. However, as my DD moved up into middle and high school she started doing more work independently. She eventually got a desk for her bedroom and did most of her work there. With my 8 yr old we're back to the kitchen table again.
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Please check the first post for an update and a picture. Thanks!
ETA: I did try a 4x4 Expedit in the area to act as a divider and storage, but it didn't work very well. I think partly because it's too dark (black/brown) and it made it even harder to sit at the table.
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I have two kids 14 years apart. The oldest is in college and the youngest is almost 8. We have lived in the same house for the last 12 years and I **still** have not figured out how to arrange things so it doesn't look like Staples threw up all over my house. :confused:
We have a small house, and basically everything happens in just 500 sg ft. Our living room and eat-in kitchen are basically all one room, and that's were all of LIFE happens. The rest of the house is bedrooms/bathrooms. I don't expect my house to look like something out of Better Homes, but I must admit that I lust after homes with dinning rooms, or *gasp!* an actual family room! I've surfed for homeschool "room" ideas on Pinterest and the annual blog hops, but I rarely ever see rooms/tips/ideas that are for those of us without dedicated rooms. I'm desperate enough to shamelessly beg and bribe someone from IKEA to come work their magic on my house. (Have you seen their little "house" displays? Amazeballs!!)
So I'm asking (almost begging!) that if you are in the same boat, please post some pictures or tell me how you've survived! I have a 9x9 area and one small wall in my kitchen to work with. No kitchen islands, or extra cabinets or drawers. There is a light that hits me in the head every time I write on the whiteboard, and a backdoor that fights with the chairs for space. The table is also craft central, and my living room is Legoland.
Looking forward to your photos, ideas and suggestions! :bigear:
ETA: I'm adding a photo of the area I have to work with. Reading through the responses I've realized that part of my problem is that I'm split about how I want my house to look. Part of me wants it to be a fun and creative area that embraces the culture of a lifetime of learning. The other half wants a home where I would feel comfortable inviting people over. I think maybe that's why I love IKEA catalogs so much, because they really seem to effectively combine LIVING areas with function and storage.
So, here is my space, which is actually much cleaner looking that normal. *lol* This is what you see the second you walk into our house:
To the left of the frame is the TV. The fireplace has never been used the last 12 yrs, and often becomes the dumping ground for toys and books. I've been thinking about cleaning out the inside and using to store/display books. It doesn't have a real mantle, so I finally bought a floating shelf from IKEA to act as one.
The middle of the photo shows the space we usually use for school. Just behind the fireplace wall is the galley kitchen. The window has a window seat of sorts, but is usually piled high with crafts and books that we move off the table so we can eat. What you can't see is the back door which swings into the space and crashes into the chairs.
I have two ledges on the wall by the table for our whiteboard and a large canvas that we use as a bulletin board of sorts. I use it to hang our art piece of the week, motivational posters, weather charts, etc. I use the ledges so that I can switch the two boards as needed. The theory behind that was that I could also hide the boards and put artwork up instead when we have company over. That's NEVER happened. I hit my head on the (off centered) light over the table several times a day.
To the sides of the ledges is a small bookcase that holds some of our current books and supplies, and a set of plastic drawers that holds more supplies and manipulatives. It's very disorganized and cluttered.
Finally the rest of the right side shows our living room. The secretary was supposed to work as a command center for me and my laptop. But it's become more of a hazard because the top doors threaten to impale anyone who comes too close (lol). Since it's an antique, there are no places for the wires, and it's turned into a giant, cluttered octopus of wires and papers. Couch pillows are on the top of the secretary because the cat leaps from the couch to the top of the secretary, and then to a beam that you can't see and knocks off the breakable decorations up there. Sooooo fashionable, don't cha think? *snork!*
Finally there is the couch, and just outside the photo is another bookcase and another pile of junk. The coffee table lid slides apart and holds a billion lego blocks. This is only about half of the ones we own. DS has another two or three underbed boxes that are in his room.
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Sleeping Queens is a favorite with my son and his friends.
Rat-a-tat Cat
Ticket to Ride (with parents)
No Stress Chess (great for learning, and fun alternate ways to play)
Set
Carcassone (we got the 5 expansion box)
Qwirkle
Uno Flash, Attack and Spin (all fun variations!)
Most Lego board games, except Heroica. Too hard.
Blockus
Life Stories (my fav! Non-competitive)
Froggy Boogie
Connect 4x4. Much better than regular connect 4.
Boochie. Fun inside or out!
Ruckus
Blink
Swap
Left, Right, Center
Rory Story Cubes
Hit the Deck.
We have Dutch Blitz, but we need someone who really KNOWS the game to teach us. We've tried figuring it out on our own, but we need help. *lol*
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I iron perler beads for the kids. :D
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I would love to see what people do WITHOUT homeschool rooms. We have a tiny house, and no room to dedicate to homeschooling, so we end up at the kitchen table. But I struggle with figuring out storage, whiteboards, maps, etc., without going crazy from the mess. Especially since we basically LIVE in 500 sq ft. (The living room and eat-in kitchen area all one big room. Everything else is bed/bathrooms.)
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We love lots of classics:
The Court Jester with Danny Kaye
Herbie the Love Bug movies (the classic ones)
Arsenic and Old Lace
Father Goose
The Apple Dumpling Gang
Robin Hood with Errol Flynn
Ben Hur (esp. the chariot race)
Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone
For Older Kids/Adults:
North by Northwest (Cary Grant)
Operation Petticoat
To Catch a Thief
Rear Window (with Jimmy Stewart)
The African Queen
Modern Movies:
Incredibles
Up
How to Train Your Dragon
Night at the Museum 1
Star Wars (original trilogy)
Despicable Me
Lady and the Tramp
Aristocats
Wall-E
Classic Looney Tunes cartoons
And a bunch more that I can't remember at the moment... :001_smile:
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We have something similar, but cheaper. :) It does help some, as does using an activity ball to sit on vs. a chair. (The disc is great for a "regular" chair.) http://www.amazon.com/Isokinetics-Brand-Exercise-Balance-Cushion/dp/B000WQ4Z94/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337559211&sr=8-2
I have this too! My 7yo son is very tiny, and basically still needs a booster seat at the table for schoolwork. He was terribly embarrassed by his booster whenever friends would come over to play. I got one of these for him, and now ALL the neighborhood kids want to sit on it when they come over. :D He does a lot of standing at the table during school, but it does help him focus when he decides to sit.
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After using Saxon for a few years with my DD, I will personally never use or recommend it to anyone else. I am not a mathy person at all, and found the directions to be confusing and frustrating. We loved Teaching Textbooks, but of course YMMV.
Is there any reason he should be told that he might be doing pre-algebra again? Can you just explain that you'll be working at a pace that will allow him master to the subject? He's really not "behind," just working at his own pace. Perhaps you could find some pre-algebra or algebra based games that you could play over the summer, vs textbook type learning. Maybe some living math books?
Or maybe you could explain to him that different math books (like schools) teach different topics at different times, and that any review will be just to fill in the missing gaps in the books. Emphasizing the books are the problem, not him.
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There is a workaround but it's somewhat clumsy, and will require you have a wifi connection most of the time for it to work.
I have an app on my Ipad2 called SplashTop HD. http://www.splashtop.com/remote
When SplashTop is running on my laptop, and I open the app on my Ipad, I can remotely access all my computer functions. For me, using hand gestures is a bit more awkward than a mouse, but it's mostly because I keep forgetting the commands. I just tested accessing my DE files, and I can read them on my Ipad just like I can on my laptop. It's not ideal, but it does work.
If all you mainly need are the Student Pages, they can be accessed for each week through the "workbook contents" link. You can save them to your computer, then upload and store them in your Ipad to access anytime. There are a few ways to do it...
1. Save the workbook contents to your computer.
2. Use a program such as Dropbox or Evernote (my brain!) to store the PDF file.
3. Using the Ipad app, access the PDF documents as needed.
Options:
1. Save the document in your program of choice (mine is Evernote) for storage and access.
2. Save the document for storage in your program of choice, BUT....also open/save in iBooks for easy access. (Files look and act more like ebooks.)
3. Same as above, but open and use the PDF files in an app like Notability (my choice) which allows you to mark up PDF files. For example, if you don't want or can't print out the student worksheets, they can fill them in on the Ipad. Or, you can check off the little check boxes as you work through the week's topics, make notes, etc. If you find you need a hard copy for your records, you can print the individual pages before or after they have been filled in.
I haven't played around with this too much, as I have both DE and Print. But until TOG comes up with an app, this may be the best workaround currently available. Hope it helps!
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Can you move if it doesn't?
Unfortunately that would require selling the house. Not that I would mind, I've been trying to get out of here for the last 11 years. (Didn't want to move to TX in the first place. :tongue_smilie:)
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We do play in the backyard sometimes It's just that the kids also like to ride their bikes and scooters, and driveway is too short and the alley too dangerous.
I was hoping the Hive could come up with some great ideas that we hadn't thought of yet. But I think there are no easy answers in this situation. :glare:
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Bumping...
Any other ideas? The street has been deserted all week except for the kids from Family A (who are now throwing rocks at cars to entertain themselves). It's so sad.... :sad:
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The police were called for the gun incident. And for the time that he was overheard yelling on the phone (they're always outside talking on their cell phones) to "come and get him," and then yelling into the house that there was going to be some shooting and to get inside and hide. :scared: He was sitting on the front lawn waiting for the drive-by when the cops finally came to diffuse the situation.
My friend (who called about the shooting incident) asked the police about this family and was told that we do NOT want them as neighbors. The 18yr old has made a target of himself by turning other thugs into the police in order to save his own skin. The police told her to move because they can't protect her since he keeps getting into trouble. She says she won't move unless they pay for it. (She's a Section 8 renter.)
CPS has already been there threatening to take the grandkids away unless their mother (Mom A's daughter) comes and gets them. Empty threats because nothing has been done about that. The parents have even tried getting the kids kicked off the schoolbus for bullying and foul language, but so far all that's happened is there's been an aid put on the bus.
The Family A kids will corner the neighborhood kids (even with the parents there) and verbally abuse them, trying to get the kids to fight or burst into tears. If they won't fight, then the Family A kids follow the kids up and down the sidewalk, bumping into them with their bikes.
It's like our own personal gangland. *sigh*
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We live in a quiet neighborhood. Probably lower middle class, lots of hard working families. Within the last 5 years there's been a bit of a baby boom and there is a group of about 10 kids on our block that all play together nicely. There's a few squabbles, but just normal kids stuff.
This spring we had a family (let's call them Family A) move in that has been terrorizing the neighborhood. It's a single mom with two kids, but also other grandkids, nieces, etc., so there is 8-10 ppl living there at any one time.
The oldest (18yrs) is in and out of jail; has pulled a gun on another teen down the street; and has had the police out here looking for him several times. One of the other kids has to go to the special school for violent kids and has been in and out of juvy. The other ones are bulling the kids on the schoolbus and all the kids on the block. (And this is only SOME of the stuff that's been going on. :()
Since we homeschool we've been able to avoid the worst of the trouble. But the few times DS (7yrs) has been outside to play he's been bullied by the Family A kids, even with me standing right there. (I don't let him play in the front without supervision anyway.)
So now all the neighborhood kids, except for Family A, are hiding inside their houses rather than playing outside. When the kids aren't bullying, they're going into neighbor's yards and taking stuff. Mom A will stop the kids sometimes, but she's really not an involved or concerned parent.
It's ridiculous that one family is holding an entire block hostage. There's been a flurry of phone calls between homes, but most families afraid to get involved. But what can we/should do, if anything?
Should we contact her landlord and tell them what's been going on? Confront the Mom and ask that she somehow control the kids behavior? (I don't think this will work since she told her son to "kick (another kid)'s a**" before.) Call the police? Call CPS? (Both of which are already involved with this family anyway.) Ignore it and stay quietly inside our houses and hope she moves soon? (She's a renter)
I'm open to any suggestion! :bigear:
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STEAMPUNK!
I totally want a Steampunk ceremony in a cool location, like an old hotel, warehouse, or (safe) abandoned building. I'd love if our family and friends would come dressed up too, and we'd have a big party afterwards with music and dancing.
would be the song I (we?) would use to walk (dance?) down the aisle.In real life, I don't know if any of our family and friends would actually be willing to take the time to dress the part....but I can dream. :001_wub:
We'll be married 15 years in exactly 10 days! (Wowzers...that time went by fast:svengo:) I'd like to renew our vows, but there's not enough time to plan it for this year. We had a totally conventional wedding, which was nice, but I've grown a lot since then and am more willing to embrace my geeky/nerdy side than I was back then.
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When I was younger there was another girl in my city with the same first and last name. She apparently went clubbing a lot, but had an unlisted phone number. I can't tell you the number of phone calls I got from guys trying ask "me" out. Most of them didn't believe that I wasn't her.
It wasn't too bad until she caught the eye of someone who worked in the police department (who also didn't believe I wasn't her), and decided to use the information he found in public records about ME and showed up unexpectedly at my house. He quickly realized his mistake when my husband came to the door. :D
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I am right now, using Level 1. I started out having him memorize all the sounds, and as we progress I only focus on him reading the new words each level. Sometimes at the end of a level I'll go back and have him spell out the words, now that he has had practice reading them.
I have found it takes a little more thought since the lesson plans never mention reading, but DS is making progress by leaps and bounds, so I have no complaints. Hope this helps!
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Photojenic's Weekly Lesson Planner
Just in case anyone is interested, this is the weekly planning form I use to plan out our school work including TOG for LG. I adapted this form from one I found on a TOG Yahoo group (I wish I knew the original creator so I could give them credit.) You could probably tweak if for almost any TOG level.
We only do school 4 days a week, and instead of filling in page numbers I put X's for the days I want to read/do something. The top part of the page has a Plan for the Week. This is for me, not for my little guy. As your kids get older you can tweak the directions for them to follow.
IMPORTANT: I do not do everything I have listed in my Plan for the Week. I have listed SAP sheets, narrations, etc., but I rarely do them. It's just a reminder for me to at least look at them each week and decide if I want to use them. Otherwise I'll fall into the habit of not even looking at them and have missed out on some useful ideas.
On the second page I created my own form to record any additional materials I stumble across. One thing about TOG is that you often find great ideas that might be just a little over your student's current level. I try to write down or print out these ideas and add them to my TOG binder so that the next time I come to that week or unit I have some fun ideas already waiting for me. :001_smile:
Hope this helps!
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You are right. It is absolutely okay to do this. But moms that are buying TOG need to know that they are paying $200 for what ends up being a book list.
Hmmm....I guess I don't see it that way. I don't believe it is just a book list, but a buffet because TOG integrates geography, history, lit, vocabulary, writing, fine arts, etc. I may not choose to "eat" some of the offerings, but they will be there whenever I want a sample.
I basically have two "only" children. I've never had the option of choosing curriculum with the idea that any other children would be using it, and I rarely get to re-use any curriculum EVER. But I can use TOG (once I get all the year plans) for my DS' entire school career. That is HUGE for me.
I already had all the Classic year plans, but I really liked the digital option with Redesigned, so we're making the investment again. I hope other families will be able to see that TOG can be used with young and only children successfully.
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I have two kids, 14 years apart. I started TOG (Classic) with DD when she was 7th grade and used it through high school. I started TOG (Redesigned) with DS last year for 1st grade.
Honestly, I don't understand why so many ppl say not to use it with the lower grades. I wish I had found it when I first started homeschooling with DD...low these many years ago. However, I do think 4yrs old is a bit young for formal schooling (I'm CMish, not WTM). At that age I would do "fun" schooling like Letter of the Week.
TOG in the younger years doesn't have to take that much time. In fact, it's the smallest part of our homeschool day. We do all our table work first, then cuddle up on the couch for our history and literature reading. I don't require DS to sit and listen, but instead allow him to color, play with legos, etc., while I read. (Although he usually does end up on my lap because he likes looking at the pictures as I read.)
If we're doing maps that week, I print off the teacher's map and have him highlight the names of the area's we are studying. If we are doing lapbooks that week, I have him do one or two mini-books a day. (I do all the cutting and writing inside. He does any coloring and gluing.)
I pick out several extra activities, like a craft project or a movie, but we rarely do more than one or two a week. At this age it's more about introducing them to history, rather than expecting mastery of it. I guess you could say I'm a very laid back TOGger. :D
I have absolutely no regrets starting TOG with my youngest (and last) at the start of his school career. But I also learned when teaching my oldest that there is NO WAY you can do everything listed in a typical TOG week. It is really and truly OKAY to just pick one history and one lit book and not do anything else.
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Nicole and Helena, your trees look so impressive. I'm afraid I don't have the skill to make my own tree like those though. I'm thinking of getting a wall decal like this Large Tree Decal Sticker Mural but that too looks daunting for me to put up on our textured walls.
This reminds me of something I saw on HGTV once.... A designer took fabric and cut it into a desired shape, then "glued" it onto the wall using liquid starch and water I think. Let me Google.....
Ah ha! Found some ideas. How about Orange mixed up her own batch of starch and used tested the idea with fabric decals she made. The Makingitfun blog used liquid starch from the store. Maybe you can use this technique to make your own fabric "tree" for your wall.
long term success with workboxes?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted · Edited by photojenic
I've done workboxes off and on over the last few years. At first I tried using the shoeboxes that Sue Patrick recommended, but I didn't like that my supplies couldn't lay flat. I tried some 12x12 plastic Sterilite drawers, but they weren't deep enough. Now I'm using a regular bookcase and metal holder/file thingies.
I don't use use them exactly as she describes, but more to hold the current books and supplies for each different subject. I can just grab one, plop it on the table, and then put it back when that subject is finished. It's not perfect, but it's working for me right now. ETA: I don't follow any plan or use velcro numbers. I don't have special boxes for extra stuff like recess or phys ed. I have a paper "daily" plan of sorts, and when we've finished x number of boxes, or worked about an hour, we take a break and do something physical.