choirfarm
-
Posts
2,463 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by choirfarm
-
-
Food poisoning???
-
My middle son has some of the same problems. In 9th grade it seems like there is a jump between being able to read and just get the overall facts that are good enough for middle school and the higher thinking questions and amount of minutia in high school.
Here is what you need to do. Have a Biology conference with him. He needs to bring his textbook, any and all worksheets and notes he has taken, copy of all tests and quizzes he has taken.
Now look over them together. What kind of questions is he missing? Are they the essay questions? Definitions? Questions that come from charts and/or graphs in the book(my son has trouble with these).
Now, how is he studying the material? Is he just reading it? Typically that is no longer enough anymore. My oldest son highlights the material as he reads it. My middle one takes notes: writing down definitons and important points. Some kids make out flashcards on index cards or do online ones. My middle son is taking Biology. He takes notes, does the study guide that is provided, goes over the chapter with dad, and finally makes a study sheet for the exam that he must show his dad before he takes the exam.
One thing I did in college was to make out a sample test. So look at the chapter that he is covering. Go through it with him. What definitions will they ask? What would be a good essay? Make out a test together. Have him take it the next day and the two of you go over it to see where his weak areas are.
Is this time intensive...YES!!! I haven't figured out a way around it. My oldest can do it all on his own and doesn't need my help, but he is now 11th grade. My 9th grader still needs my help...
-
Yes, despite my attempts to ask questions, I think that my opinion that ALL low income homeschooling students shouldn't be EXPECTED to take AP courses, as the ONLY acceptable way to do high school, showed through. I think people think I have stronger opinions than I do though.
Now this is different than what I thought you were asking. NO.. not everyone should take AP courses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not wealthy, poor or everyone in between. The lower income families that I talked about earlier, had their children go to our local cc. Is it the most rigorous?? NO, but they took enough dual credit that they graduated with a high school diploma AND an AA degree. It only costs 20 dollars an hour to take a dual credit class at our local cc. Then they stay at home and go to UT Tyler or Stephen F or somewhere. They work as well. They get a decent education. They don't go in debt to get it.. That is a GREAT education. It will help them in life!!!
You were asking if they should shoot for excellence. I don't think AP is the end all be all of excellence!!!!! That is a completely different question. I agree with you on that point!!
-
TOG does this. However, if you want to do this on your own, then I might go to the Hippocampus site and download a syllabus for an American history course and a world history course. Then I would try to mesh them together.. An awful lot of boring textbook reading, though. You might try to print out the books from the TOG bookshelf and see what you can do. I think somewhere on the TOG website is also a list of what topics they cover when.
-
Are you doing any lapbooks or notebooking as well?
My boys were in 2nd and 4th when we did Astronomy. They each made a power point presentation. Obviously, the 4th grader had much more to say on his slides. We made links to many of the videos that are included in the extras. My mother-in-law was still teaching 3rd grade and they studied astronomy. I sent her their power points and her kids really enjoyed them. They were in 3rd and 5th when we did Botany and they made their own notebook.
-
Easily. We did Astronomy in the fall and Botany in the spring. We did Zoo 1 in the fall and Zoo 2 in the spring when they were younger. It goes WAY too slowly if you don't. The exception to this is the anatomy book. That is really a middle school text.
-
Evaluations- What I tended to do was to test over 3 or 4 weeks at a time. For example, I might have a WWII test and then a Korean War/Cold War test. I used the evaluations and made my own. I think I also found some on the files of the Yahoo groups.
Writing- I found it best if we picked an essay/assignment and did the outline/rough draft one week and then the final draft the next week. That still meant they wrote at least 3 or 4 papers each quarter, which I thought was completely reasonable.
As far as reading, my boys never had a problem with it.
Yes, you cannot do it all. We always did history, history in depth, and literature. I had them read the church history and we discussed it, but I didn't require any written work. The exception was in TOG year 4. My oldest read all of the works of CS Lewis. I used some of the TOG stuff for Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. I used the Teaching Company lectures and had him write paragraphs for the questions that went with the lectures that were on his website. I also had him write a research report. I gave him half a credit for it. We sure enjoyed the church history materials and even it you don't get credit for it, I would read all that you can.
Maps- I never stressed. I have tons of books that have different maps in it. If that failed, I handed them the teacher's map. I always gave the quarter exam with the map portion and they did well.
-
I will be looking forward to your responses because I don't see any threads talkind about lower income scheming to hold their children back.. Are you sure you aren't letting something color your interpretations??? I know I think it is possible for anyone of any economic background to do anything they want. Many of my relatives have been dirt poor, rural people. You also need to define some of your points as in what makes people happy.. For my grandparents, living in the same house and simply made them happy. They lived lower middle class and wanted ot stay there
This has been a very educational thread for me. I had no idea of some of the assumptions and prejudices some wealthier moms have about lower income moms. I always knew that lower income moms were sometimes thought of as lazy and negligent, but I never knew that there was an underlying assumption that that they were also likely to be abusive and sneaky, and scheming to purposely hold their children back.I have seen the behaviors described, exhibited by a couple dads, who were otherwise generally abusive and just thought of that as part of their general nastiness, and did not connect it in any way to their income levels.
I have seen tired moms with no imagination, but have never yet encountered a low income homeschool mom who I didn't believe was wanting the very best for her child, even if she wasn't able to gather the resources necessary to give it to them. Maybe I've just been naive :-0
This has caught me by surprise and helps me more understand the stigma I've encountered and didn't understand. I really was clueless to what was behind certain things that were being said.
I'm not going to go back and respond to every comment and I'm not going to try and prove my opinions--which truthfully are not yet fully formed and static. I started this thread as prompt, rather than having an agenda of my own...other than maybe curiosity and boredom while stuck inside during a snowstorm.
I think this has been a good thread. I really appreciate the time people took to respond. Thank you! I really learned something.
-
Next year dd13 will be a 9th grader. I would love to outsource a few classes or maybe even most of them. I am considering a mix of online classes and possibly a few at the local ps. I am not against her going full time to a decent public hs, but our local hs is not good. Especially for math, so I forsee continuing that at home.
First of all, how motivated is your daughter. How academic?? How does she work with others?? The answer to this has been different for both my boys.
9th grade for my oldest was entirely at home. He did Biology and TT Alg I and II in 8th. So he did Chalkdust Geometry, Chemistry, TOG year 3, Driver's Ed, and Introductory and Intermediate Logic. All at home. He wasn't socially ready.
10th grade- He took AP Homeschoolers Stats online. I'm glad I only chose 1 AP class to do.
11th grade- Spanish and racquetball at cc, online AP Gov and AP Chem
12th grade- the only class I will teach him at home will be history, I think. He'll be taking Spanish 3 and 4 as well as English I and II at the cc. He will probably take AP Econ, AP Physics and AP Calc. We will do TOG history only for year 1.
Now my middle child..not nearly so driven or self motivated. He is much better socially and NEEDS outside deadlines and accountability.
9th grade- AP Gov-- this has been a tough class... He has almost gotten used to it. I don't think online is the best format for him
Spanish and racquetball at cc. He is doing well and cc is what I will use for him. He will be taking 2 classes a semester from now on. I'm undecided about any more AP.
For both my boys, 9th grade came as a bit of a shock. The work amount went up considerably and I was no longer flexible. I'm doing this for their transcript, and I want it to be true. I need to be able to back it up. In previous years, if we didn't get things done, no big deal. That said, my dad died in May of my oldest's 9th grade year. School ended. We were on week 32 of TOG... I called it good enough for credit.
So just be careful not to overload your 9th grader. I have come really close to doing that to my 9th grader this year.
-
I was just browsing for TOG year 1 stuff and ran across this companion site to the Norton Anthology.Cool maps, quizzes, etc. I think they have them for the other ones as well.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/quiz/reading/ancient.htm
-
Well, it depends...on the kid, on the age, and on the year. I love discussing literatue with my children. I hate slogging through math with the younger two. I LOVE how independent and wonderfully helpful my 16yo has become. I love having conversations with him. You work and work and work to get them where you want them to be and when they are finally mature, fun and interesting, they leave!!!!
What I don't love: the constant worrying.. Did I make the right choice??? Did I ruin his life by not having him do AOPS??? Would it have been better socially if he was in ps??? Or would he have been bullied and committed suicide? Will he flunk English in college? Would my middle one just do much better in high school? Would are relationship be better????
There is absolutely no way to know the answers to any of these questions. I like getting A's. I want to do it perfectly... With parenting and homeschooling there isn't any objective measure of that. It is really frustrating. I like plug this in, study this, do it this way and you get an A and everyone is happy... That is another frustrating thing. If your goal in life is for everyone around you to be happy, it ain't happening.... Very frustrating.
So I didn't vote. My vote would change minute by minute.. Sometimes I LOVE it and sometimes I'm crying in my closet because I am the biggest failure in the world.
-
Honestly, I don't think money can/should stop anyone from getting a college education. Now... will they be able to go to a 4 year ivy, maybe not.. But in my little East Texas town where the median income is something like 35,000 a year or something.. You can take cc dual credit classes at 20 dollars an hour. I know many lower income homeschoolers who have had their children graduate from high school with their associate's degree. We have many colleges to choose from that are an hour or less away: East Texas Baptist, Stephen F Austin, UT TYler, LeTourneau are just a few that come to mind. They can live at home and work to earn their degree. They are then just paying tuition and as with those people I know, if there grades are good at cc, you might even get help with tuition at those schools. You bet it is possible, but the person has to have the mindset to do that.
Honestly, if feels like to me that it is a mindset. My grandfather was dirt poor and was one of 8 children. He worked for a couple of years after high school and he was determined to get an education. He went to Southwestern where he played football ( yes, they had a football team during the depression..he attended in 1933 if I remember) , helped in the chemistry department, worked at Oshmans, sang in the glee club and worked odd jobs like cleaning the university windows. ( I have no idea how in the world he slept.)
One of my husbands grandmothers went looking for a loan. Someone finally loaned her 50 dollars and she boarded the bus and went to college... That is all she had to her name. She just wanted to go and she went. ( I'm sorry I don't remember what college it was, one of our small regional ones like East Texas commerce or something...) She was a high school Spanish teacher and influenced many people and had a rewarding life.
I think about Ben Carson's mom who was determined that he would have a better life. It is all in the mindset.. You have to be determined and look for ways for it to happen and be smart about it.
-
I just wanted to say that I typically take a good week at least to put my syllabus together. Then I spend another week or two printing off the maps, timeline figures, questions. This was just for history.
English was always another week to do the syllabus because I always tweaked and changed literature around. I taught 10th-12th grade English, so I have tons of literature resources. Another week to work on the questions, worksheets, essays, etc.
Basically I spent the month of June doing this. However, all I had to do throughout the school year was to take out the materials on Monday and talk to the boys about what I expected and what the deadlines for the week were. ( We tended to change our discussion days, essay assigments depending on activities for the week.) Then sometime that week I would read over the teacher's notes for an hour or less to prepare for the discussion. I watched the documentaries, TC lectures and movies with them.
-
Not meaning to hijack this thread, but does Tapestry have tests? I posted about grading for notebook-type history, but didn't get a response. Just wondering if Tapestry includes tests.
Yes. I wouldn't bother for grammar level at all and most dialectic. However, the rhetoric level has weely exams as well as quarter exams.
-
Ok, this is what I did when I used it.
First of all I looked over the weeks and what books were used/what I had/what library had ( for my lower grammar kid..just used library for her and bought books for older two) and picked my resources.
I then typed a syllabus that had what to read by what week of the plan. I liked doing it that way because if we needed to a week could take two if we were traveling and had partial weeks or sometimes I combined weeks and told them to do two that one week.
Then I made a notebook for my older two. I ran off the timeline figures from the yahoo groups. I ran off the maps in map aids. OH... that was my one dislike from Year 4.. THEY DIDNT HAVE MAPS FOR A LOT OF WEEKS.. If I remember correctly, WWI?!!!! I think I may have made my own... I just printed the questions as they were from the CD. I used to make my own worksheets, but just found it too time intensive. I would circle the ones I wanted them to answer.
I am pm you.
-
:001_smile:
That is what I wondered... I figured he knew more than he thought. Unfortunately, much of the failure of my children can be linked to my lack of specific instructions and/or checking up on what they have done... Sigh.. it never ends!!!
-
My only experience with IB was that they were starting the program at the school where I was teaching 20 years ago. It looked good.
As far as the anti-Christian thing... I just don't get it. Just look at the teachers and the culture of the school. We started doing this Outcome based education and man suddenly people were showing this video at local churches about how it was anti-Christ and all sorts of stuff. We got a copy of the video, and what they said on it just wasn't true at all... I am a very strong Christian. A group of girls met for a Bible study in my classroom once a week. The school ended up dropping that. But just because a program is listed as Christian or anti-Christian, don't believe it. Talk to the teacher. Look at the fruit of the life of that teacher!!! Ok. vent over.
-
How much writing has he done before and with how much help? I just really started writing with my 4th grader. Sometimes I will read her something and she will dictate a paragraph to me and then copy it the next day. Sometimes she takes notes one day, writes another, edits it another, and copies it another. My goal for her this year is to be able to write a good paragraph by herself in one day. I'm not sure we'll make it, but that is the goal.
In 6th grade, I will ( did with older boys) start writing papers. I started with 3 paragraph papers and worked up to 5. I had to help them brainstorm, outline, etc. at first. Now they can do it on there own. Here is a paper middle child wrote last year in 8th grade. It still needed some work, but you can't fix everything at once. He wrote it in the middle of 8th grade. He has gotten better at making longer body paragraphs now. However, we are still working on how to write introductions and conclusions.
The Union army dejectedly walked down the long road to Washington D.C. their uniforms torn and mud splattered all over their bodies. A Confederate army that was supposed to have no chance had routed them. It was the year of 1861, the year the Civil war started. The first battle of Manassas had given the South morale; it foreshadowed that it would not be a short war, and proved that the Southern generals were more daring.
Before the Battle of first Manassas, both sides felt they would whip the other side. Both armies were green, and McDowell, the commander of the Union forces, was hesitant to attack. The Union forces outnumbered the Southern forces, but after the Confederates won, they beloved they could whip the Union repeatedly. The Confederate morale soar sky-high.
The First Battle of Manassas foreshadowed that it would not be a short war. The Union thought the war would be over in no time. Lincoln had said the South would be back in the Union in no time. Before the battle, people from the North frolicked to get a good view of the battle, as they believed to see gallant Union forces spank the Confederates into submission. However, they would see what war was like, filled with terror. It would not be a short war.
One of the reasons the Confederates won was because their generals were more daring. When McDowell had reached Manassas Junction, he took 2 to 3 days to plan. Jackson got the nickname for standing strong, and he took chances. Perhaps if the Union generals were more daring, the y might have one, and changed the fate of the war.
The people who had witnessed Manassas thought they had seen terror, it had just begun. It would last four long years, filled with blood. Soon the people would long for it to be over.
-
So this was supposed to be a 2 page paper? This is a nice paragraph. Here is what I would expect a 10th grader to do on this subject:
I. Introduction- It should have an opening hook like maybe a description from a famous eruption to grab the reader's interest and a few basic sentences about volcanos in general. Then his thesis statement. His thesis statement needs to be an opinion about volcanos....something he can prove like maybe which one is most dangerous???
II. Pelean Eruption
A. Description
B. Famous eruptions of this type in the past.
C. How dangerous it is
III. Strombolcan
A. Description
B. Famous eruptions of this type
C. How dangerous it is
IV Vulcanian
A. Description
B. Famous eruptions
C. How dangerous it is
V. Conclusion- Restate the thesis and conclude the paper.
Each paragraph should be at least 6 sentences. This should get you the length you want. Honestly, my 4th grader is currently writing the type of paragraph you posted above. A 10th grader needs to write much more!!!!!!!
-
AAh.. this is what I suspected. If you are not already bilingual, you won't be successful. Everyone that was either seemed to be bilingual themselves, lived in a foreign country, or have relatives that are.
I have been somewhat successful. Let us see with the boys we did Powerglide Jumpstart Spanish for awhile. Then Rosetta Stone.. Then I got SOS Spanish which was a very good fit for my oldest, self-motivated boy. However, he ignored the speech parts except when I made him. He finished I and got through 1/2 of SOS Spanish II. He is currently breezing through Spanish at the cc as an 11th grader. The grammar is all review and so he can concentrate on speaking. The teacher is a native speaker. They had 20 or so in their Spanish I class, but only 6 survived to Spanish II. My boys and their friend made A's. My 9th grader had done maybe 1/3 of SOS Spanish I in 8th grade. He found about the first 1/2 of Spanish easy, but now really needs to study. I know they will get individual attention and she has them do lots of oral activities in class, with 4 or 5 tutorials where they have to make an appointment and speak with her in her office as well as oral reports.
That is my experience.
-
Ok.. The Lively Art of Writing in in my cabinet. I just pulled it out. I think I may have gotten it when I started my teaching job... ( The teacher died of a heart attack mowing his lawn, and I took over his class. This was 20 years ago.. The date on this book is 1965. Is there a newer/better edition?) I've never looked at it. I will look it over today. Thanks.
-
No one who fluently speaks another language, has relatives who do, of has lived overseas may contribute to this thread.
Now... if you have this kind of background (as in none) have you been successful in incorporating a foreign language and to what extent. How old are you children and how are you defining success? Almost everyone in the other thread had extensive other language background so this is for "the rest of us."
-
Well.. it looks like online with some of the major companies like Vanguard or Fidelity that you may need at least 1,000 to invest... He might need to just automatically put it into a savings account until he has the minimum to open the account... then he could automatically deposit...
-
That is exactly what I tell her. All she has to do is copywork and everyone here on the board is talking about how their children do all their work in cursive by this age. She struggles to do 2 or 3 sentences... I am just so tired of the tears and "I can't do this." She thinks it looks awful. I even showed her the brother's workbooks at her age and she is SO much better... But it doesn't look like she wants it to. She likes the way her printing looks better....
Not to hijack' date=' but how does a fountain pen help with writing and grip? Is there a type you recommend?O.P.- how receptive would your daughter be if you told her that you made a mistake with her brothers that it's too late to correct, but you think you can help her avoid the same mistake by helping her with her cursive? Maybe you can require cursive copywork but let her print her other papers, just so she will know the correct formation when she's older and wants to use it from time to time.
Thanks!
Hailey[/quote']
TOG: How do you make this work for you?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Just wanted to point out to those that are considering TOG that you do not have to do it this way. In fact, they want you to do socratic questioning not lecturing. They have a great video in the teacher training that shows someone doing this in a co-op. They also show how to do socratic questioning in real life:
Mom, can I go to Tom's house?
Rather than saying, "No, you haven't turned in your Geometry yet." You should ask, "What were you supposed to get done today?'
Then they list.
"Do you have all that done."
"All except Geometry. I guess I have to get that done before I can go, huh?"
"Yep"
I'm sure the poster probably does involve her children. But if she is lecturing over the material and putting things on the board and showing power point slides, it is not how they recommend doing it if anyone wonders.
We just sit in the living room and discuss!!!! It doesn't have to be that fancy.