Did you use Worldview Software for your son? I was wondering what you thought?

Every now and then I read an article that really leaves me stunned by what is going on in our world. Today my husband sent me a link for another one. http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html This one just makes me utterly grateful that we homeschool. Do not read if you have blood pressure issues. It could easily raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels. If parents sending their kids to private schools are morally bad, then homeschoolers must be down right EVIL. :willy_nilly: :eek: :banghead:

I'd be willing to try this. Heck, I'd be willing to try just about anything. My son has NO focus. It drives him crazy and me too. I'm beginning to think about medicating him. He is constantly off in la-la-land. We have resisted meds, it was one of the main reasons we chose to HS because we knew he would be lost in school. He doesn't jump up or run around, he just instantly goes off into another world.

I will definitely be able to implement that next year. Thanks for posting.

I don't know if this will be helpful to anyone or not at this point, but I wanted to explain why I chose this over IEW and how it has been working out so far. The verdict is still out on the whole curriculum, but if it helps someone's writing phobic child, then it will be worth the effort. I think most are familiar with IEW now, so I won't go into to much detail about it except to contrast the differences with WITS as I see it. IEW was going to have my son create a key word outline of a fairly large-sized paragraph. He would know from the start that he would be expected to write a paragraph about this passage. I was concerned that he would balk at the size of the paragraph when he went to read it and then it would go down hill from there. I was afraid he would be intimidated by the program from the get go. This is where WITS seemed to have an advantage for my child. It starts very small and builds from there. (It is also flexible enough that you could start at a more challenging level if that was more appropriate for your child.) How does it work??? Picture a domino tile. This is the size of a WITS tile. The tiles are full of symbols for your child to use as an aid for what they need to remember when writing. The edges of each tile are grooved to remind the child to indent each paragraph. The tile has pictures of lightbulbs on it which represents a sentence--a sentence is an idea and your chid's sentence is his/her "bright idea." Each lightbulb has 6 rays coming off the top of the lightbulb to represent the six kinds of sentences (who, what, where, when, why and how). The wide, top part of the light bulb represents the need to CAPITALIZE the first letter of each sentence. The black base of each lightbulb represents the need for punctuation at the end of each sentence. The lightbulbs are raised pictures so the child has a textile sensation when he fondles the tile. The lightbulbs are colored to represent the types of sentences. For example, "who" sentences are represented by purple lightbulbs. The logic being "Who" most often refers to people, people/purple, "p." So to use the tiles: The first tile has 2 purple lightbulbs and 1 yellow on it. The theme of the tile is crating a "Who" paragraph. The child begins by brainstorming "Who" words for a person. You can choose anything of interest to your child for the topic. They typically brainstorm about 10 nouns that show "who" their "person" is or key characteristics of them. They they use their list to create 5 simple sentences that tell who their person is. Typically these sentences will use linking verbs. The next step is that the child constructs a 3 sentence paragraph using the ideas from their sentences and/or from their word list. The third sentence is supposed to be a "what" sentence that also illustrates "who" the person is. It will often use an action verb to convey this. After they have worked on the first paragraph, they edit their paragraph. This is the time in which we discuss order of ideas, varying sentence type and structure, adding adjectives etc. From the beginning of WITS, it is emphasized that editing is an integral part of the writing process. We discuss, but the child is responsible for creating the edited content. For reference, this is taken verbatim from my son's writing notebook--minus the atrocious handwriting and spelling mistakes. :001_smile: This is the 5th paragraph he has written using WITS. He remembered without my telling him, to capitalize and use punctuation. That in itself is a MIRACLE. He is in 3rd grade and just turned 9 a few days ago. Very bright child who is writing phobic--just shy of breaking out in hives when required to hold a pencil. EXAMPLE: Who--Avengers Brainstorming Nouns: Hulk, Bruce Banner, haymaker, superhero, Avenger, comic book character, brute, scientist, protector, gamma radiation Sentence Forming: 1-Hulk's real name is Bruce Banner. 2- He is a super hero. 3- He is a haymaker. 4-He is an Avenger. 5- Bruce is a scientist. First Paragraph: The Hulk's name is Bruce Banner. He is a haymaker. Bruce is a scientist. Final Paragraph: Bruce Banner, a scientist is the Hulk. He is a haymaker. The Incredible Hulk smashes everything.

Shannon--I did not go to the workshop because I spent over an hour with the woman who created the curriculum. She walked me through it step by step. I asked her about the seminar and she said that she wouldn't be able to go into as much depth as she had done with me, so I skipped it. I too was very impressed with the curriculum and purchased it. My son gives new meaning to the phrase "reluctant writer" so I knew that I needed to try something "different" from a traditional approach to writing instruction. I went to the conference fully intending on purchasing IEW and went home with this instead. I have been using it with my son since we came home and thus far, it is EXTREMELY promising. He enjoys it (Alleluia!) and seems to be making steady progress.

Has anyone out there seen and/or used the Wits writing idea tiles manipulatives by Write Minded Education, Inc? I'm currently at the Greenville HS Conference and the product seems like it would be an excellent step for my extremely reluctant writer. I'm hoping to tap into a little of the hive's collective wisdom. I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or comments which you could offer on this product. Thanks!

I've been wanting to take a look at it for months, but have never been able to find a copy. Thanks for the link. I got the last one from a Prime seller so I didn't even have to pay for shipping. I figure that for less than $20, we can't go wrong. I'm sure we'll get something out of it even if it doesn't prove to be a good fit for us. I appreciate the "heads up."

I have to agree with Jaz, Times Tales is AWESOME!!!!!! I have written a review of the program that explains their concept better than I could here. I was shocked by how quickly and effectively TT worked for my son. I didn't know if he would ever learn his multiplication facts until we tried TT. Worked like a charm! http://neweducationexplorers.blogspot.com/

My daughter (11) is also an avid reader and excellent writer (except for her atrocious spelling). Like her mother, she couldn't spell her way out of a paper bag. We tried SS last year. It seemed really promising since she was clearly NOT a naturally gifted speller. It did not go very well and she really did not like the program. For whatever reason, she was not able to retain the patterns that she was supposed to be absorbing. She did like the fact that the daily lessons were quick. But I found that she needed to be "tested" much more frequently then the program recommended. She had way too many "gaps" in what she had learned otherwise. Much to her chagrin I also continued to test her on words she continuously misspelled from week to week. It would take FOREVER before there would be improvement on the ones she kept missing. But the whole point is to actually learn how to spell, so it was not an overall success for us. This year we tried Spelling Workout Level G. It has been a much better fit for us. She works on 20 words a week that have some sort of a logical connection whether it be a Latin/Greek root or a suffix etc. This allows her to be a little more consistent in her spelling and more successful. I give her a pre-test for each group of words. If she knows them, we skip the lesson and move on to the next. I plan on using the next book next year. Good Luck! (As an aside, I am a horrific speller and an attorney. Thanks to the beauty of spell check, I can avoid looking like a complete moron USUALLY, but not always. Thank goodness for technology. I do, however, avoid handwriting anything at all costs. Try not to let your daughter get too discouraged. It can be extremely frustrating for an intelligent person to struggle with spelling.)

I would definitely tell you to go to the High if your daughter is into art. A large portion of it is modern art. They have an audio headset tour for kids which is extremely helpful to explain the exhibits. Depending on your child, the adult audio tour may well be appropriate as well. I listened to the adult and had my DD listen to specific ones when I thought she would like it. You have already been given a list of the really good ones: Fernbank, Atlanta History Center, Coke, Carlos Museum, CNN, Cyclorama and Stone Mountain. They are all good choices, especially given the age of your daughter. The only thing that no one seems to have mentioned yet is the Lake Lanier Christmas Lights that starts on November 16th. I would definitely avoid the Kids Museum, your daughter is too old for this one. Unless there is a show she is really interested in, I would also avoid the Center for Puppetry Arts, given her age. As for the zoo, we are members. We go all the time. That being said, if you live in a big city and go to the zoo all the time. Skip it. There are other things which would give you a more unique experience that you may want to do first.

Here is a link to a national map which shows the state by state voter identification requirements. http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id.aspx I think the map has some very interesting patterns. Obviously from the heated responses on this issue, it can become quite political. The voter ID requirements map reflects some of the same patterns that the political pundits have been projecting for election results, etc. It is kind of interesting.

Think of how much more laundry we would have to do if we had more than two kids. As it is, I wish we would have a "Naked Day," so that for once when the last article was clean, folded and put away the laundry bin would stay empty for more than an hour. :tongue_smilie: I have always wondered how much milk, cereal and other staples large families go through. I imagine it is mind-blowing--especially once they have teenaged boys who could easily eat a horse.

Voted!

Voted. Good Luck!