mom&nana
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Posts posted by mom&nana
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I'll be using the JR K program with a 3 year old and my soon to be 6 year old in the fall. We will be subbing out the MP Alphabet and Number book for the Rod and Staff ABC series preschool books, since I already had those here. My soon to be 6 year old is also using MUS, and I plan to put the 3 year old in the MUS Primer book soon.
So we'll be adding some and exchanging some of the JR K program but I think it's going to be a good year. I bought all the Supplemental Read Alouds and they are fabulous. :)
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Perhaps these history portfolios could work?
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Kelli, Your dd might enjoy thissince you say she likes MUS.
Thank you for the video link Beth. We will definitely watch it together later today. :)
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OhElizabeth, well it's not that she hates TT. She just really likes MUS. We had it narrowed down to TT or MUS when we switched and my dd liked both options. I couldn't make up my mind, because there were sooooo many negatives about both programs on these forums. So I brought in the sensible one (my dh) and he chose MUS. Well now my dd loves MUS she wouldn't let me change if I wanted to, but I have thought of TT (just because I wonder if MUS is going to be enough, it's hard to ignore all those negative reviews). Would she be willing to do them both... probably not. LOL... but a girl can dream, right?:lol: But MUS has her tolerating math, most days she finds it enjoyable---well at least she does it without complaint. Before that Math had her in tears, gave her a low self-esteem, etc. MUS has really brought about a very positive change.
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:lol::lol: Well I've been enabled quite a bit from this forum so just passing it on. ;)
I don't know if it'd be redundant with the MFW k stuff, but you can always look at the Preschool stuff as a fun supplement, just fun learning games to play anytime. But I'm like you.. way to much stuff I like and all these ideas that never become fulfilled.
I think you'll have fun with AAR, you'll have to give us an update when you get going with it. And get that little guy a little Learning Resources cash register to play store with. My girls got one for Christmas from my SIL. :)
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:lol: Too funny! I think I get it, but only because I have some kind of similar brain that would do such a thing. Actually, I figured I'd rip the whole thing apart and scan the pages in the order I wanted them so I'd have something on my ipad in the proper order. Mercy, hope that's not a copyright issue or something. If I buy it, it's mine. If it's set up so consistently, that ought to be easy to do. There are pdf editors for the ipad that let you rearrange pages. So by the time I'm done, I can merge the week plan for MFW and those pages for AAR, all in order, and have it be in one pdf file, right on my ipad. Hehe... :)
The lessons do sound long to me, but he's just an incredibly wiggly boy. He can sit, but he's a kinesthetic learner. Guess I better start thinking through that. That's why I got the games book for LoE, because I knew I was going to have some issues there. The speech therapist did a test on him that as this side thing ended up going through the learning modalities. He was dominantly kinesthetic with the next being visual I think. That's going to make it an adventure, sigh. Everything gets thrown, hit or whomped. Everything is a gun. He's more likely to throw manipulatives than move them nicely, lol. If I were REALLY swift, I'd figure out how you do those sound worksheets more kinesthetically. Shoot them with dart guns? Make them bigger and throw something at them? Wow, I'm just realizing what a ride I'm in for, lol.
LOL, well I have no idea about boys. :) That Ipad plan of yours sure sounds nifty!! Technology is so cool. :D
Swellmomma is right, the coloring pages have some of the cutest ideas-not just coloring. I remember on the letter N (for nanny goat) we glued little pieces of foil paper on the stack of cans, and they have you making little peanuts with your thumb prints for the letter E with the elephant. We glued spaghetti noodles on the P for porcupines, added cinnamon to the pie on the R page where the Rascally Racoon runs off with the pie. So yes, it's lots of really fun, cute ideas.
Now have you looked at the MFW preschool activity cards for your wiggily boy? I just received them recently and they use the Lauri toys sold in the MFW preschool package. There are lots of varying activities included, fine motor and large motor activities, math skills, patterning, etc.. An example using the Lauri lowercase letter linking set is that they will have you lay them all out of the floor and have your child jump to the letter you call out, same with the number set. They have the lacing and linking shapes... games where you put the shapes into a bag and have your child feel for a shape with eyes closed and name it. They have the pegs and pegboard where you build towers, make patterns, etc. There are quite a few activity cards for each Lauri toy. We tried out a few already and my girls loved it.
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Amazon takes responsibility (active, first contact vs as a last resort with a-z guarantee) on fulfilled by amazon stuff. I got a "like new" copy of Alice in Wonderland that came stamped "not for sale" with a cracked spine and I complained and was refunded, did not need to return.
Thank you for that info.
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Ok, I'm back with a question about this! I reread it a few times and get it now, lol. So do you tend to do all that AND the Ziggy activities on the same day, or do you alternate days? So you do an UC sheet and all the UC activities *and* the Ziggy pages, all on the same day? How long does that tend to take?
Well I'm still confused even though I re-read it a few times. But I can answer your question I think... when we used AAR we did a lesson a day. And 1 lesson covers a worksheet page, the letter activities (reading, etc), and the ziggy page. It's all in one lesson so we did do all that in one day and I didn't find that it took too long. We usually did all the activities and reading first, then I would let them color the worksheet page. Sorry if I wasn't understanding correctly. I still can't figure out what that poster was trying to say.
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Ok Beth, I'm curious too. :)
Last fall we switched to MUS. My dd tested into TT Pre-algebra at the time, but we ended up choosing MUS. However, we decided to back up in MUS. I don't think she was really solid on some of the concepts, and I wanted to make sure she was really understanding. So we've covered MUS Epsilon in a few months and are up to Week 23 in Zeta so far. We plan to move on to MUS Pre-algebra when we finish. I really liked the samples of TT, but my dd loves MUS. She wouldn't let me switch even if I wanted to....but to add TT to MUS...now that's intriguing. :) Although, my dd might rebel...lol.
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I had problems a couple of times with "fulfillment by Amazon" materials---was sent the wrong book or a different edition than advertised on two different occasions--but had no issue with getting a refund quickly. Unfortunately that meant I still didn't have the books I needed.:glare:
This recently happened twice to me also. I was sent a different version of the book on a "fulfilled by Amazon" order. It peeved me because I did want the specific book advertised but I just kept them anyway. I don't really understand those "fulfilled by Amazon" things anyway. So I don't know if the blame should be put on Amazon or the seller when I was sent a different version than advertised.
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This has given me good ideas for the next dd. Back to my original question, has anyone else used the level 1 game supplement? :D
Sorry about that. I didn't buy those yet, but I plan to soon. I think OhElizabeth is right, it makes sense to get them. It will be a fun supplemental add on that includes Ziggy. I don't think there are any Ziggy activities in the regular TM for AAR 1. However, I haven't looked at the TM that closely yet, so maybe I missed something.
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Oops, I totally missed your reply mom&nana! That makes sense. I didn't think you'd be able to rush the Ziggy activities or rearrange them. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out and explain it. Well I guess we could invert it and plug the MFW activities into pre-AAR, lol. Sound crazy yet? Whew.
That's what comes of not knowing what you're trying to do! Well I didn't realize what was OUT there. I know what we did when my dd was little (SWR with letter tiles), but it was the crassest, most unfun methodology that totally relied on whatever I thought up. I love that there are more options now that bring more to the table. And I really don't know if that would work, but it actually might. If MFW is set up for 6 days per unit/letter, you could do 2 days of AAR to 3 days of MFW and basically work through the alphabet twice. And maybe the first time through you do the more glossy fun stuff (zebra pudding, etc.) as you learn the letters and the 2nd time through you do more of the word ladders and whatnot as you work on the sounds in pre-AAR.
Are the Ziggy activities letter-specific as you go through? I'll bet they are. So if you do them in order, just using a post-it note to hold your spot, you can't change the letter being used for the game?
You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.
I think you can do just what you explained with MFW/AAR. It sounds like most of the above posters agree that the Ziggy Activities need to be done in order. But I do like the idea of doing the worksheets together all one letter at a time.
I've been using PR to teach my 7 year old to read. I like it, but I wouldn't really call it fun...lol. I like that AAR is a lot of fun games and activities that make it much more interesting for the child. And I did use the Pre-level with her last year, even though she was past it. It was a fun review. I will also play the games from AAR 1 with her, again as a fun review. She enjoys it and I think PR lacks a little in the learning to read department. My younger children will most likely do a few levels of AAR and then move over to PR.
I think a few of the Ziggy activities might be letter specific, like the letter F Riddle one I mentioned above. I think they could easily be used at any time though.
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Mom&nana, I WONDERED about that!! I looked at the samples again, and what you're saying makes sense. What I *want* to do is use the letter of the week structure of the MFW K5 and use the more explicit phonics of AAR. (Or LoE if it's ready in time, or maybe LoE K5 will be a better follow-up to this? I really don't know, it isn't written yet.) If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right? It's not so crazy to dissociate the phonemic awareness and the letters and sounds, but it did seem a little nuts, like you were paying and then just making a hassle for yourself.
So I guess that's a question. Is it sane to re-organize pre-AAR by letter of the week or nuts?
Hmmm.. in theory it seems like it should work. I do think the Ziggy activities build upon each other. I think it's possible that you could just do the Ziggy activities in order but it wouldn't necessarily match up if you do all the other worksheets for one letter at a time.
In looking through the TM, I didn't see why it wouldn't work to do all the letter A stuff at one time, and so on. But I tried it out on my 3 year old doing everything but the worksheets. She already knows most of her letters and some of their sounds. I chose the Letter F just randomly. The F activity in part one is singing the Alphabet song, pointing out the letter F on the chart, reading the Zigzag Zebra F story, having your child color the Uppercase F sheet, and then the "Get out of the Wagon" game. That is a rhyming game with 2 cards that rhyme and one that does not. My 3 year old did this fine, no problem.
So I went on to part 2 lowercase f activities. The lowercase activities include, the alphabet song and finding the lowercase letter f on the chart, reading Lizard Lou f poem and pointing out things that start with the letter f on that page, then the lowercase f worksheet, and the game "I spy" with Ziggy. The "I Spy" game uses cards and ziggy segments the sounds in one of the words... ex. C..r...a...b. The child then has to tell what Ziggy is spying. It took several tries, my dd struggled with this a bit. She could get some of them, but most of this was just going over her head.
I went on to Part 3 "the sound of F". She did fine telling me what started with f out of the 4 pictures on the worksheet page. But then they have a riddle game. You read the riddle and the child guesses the answer. The answers start with F. She bombed on that one, it was just too difficult.
So with that in mind, I'm thinking it's probably best to do the program in the order it's in. I'm thinking the lessons build upon themselves.
But I have used parts of MFW K in the past. I think it is such a sweet program. I'd like to use it again in the way you describe adding more of an OG phonics program to it. AAR doesn't have much in the way of review. It just goes through the letters one at a time. If you child doesn't get it, (like my 5 year old didn't at the time), it's just too bad, keep moving on to the next letter, or either keep repeating activities, or make up some of your own to help cement it.
So I wonder if you could do something like you described with MFW using AAR more as a supplement, pulling activities and such as you see fit. It might not make it worth it, or be very sane ;)...I don't know. I think MFW has more of those fun activities to help cement the letter names, sounds, etc.
ETA: I had forgotten about it, but AAR does have a page of additional activities in the appendix that you could do with the letters. EX... use a handwriting program, form letter of the day with toothpicks, pipe cleaners, etc... trace letter of day in pudding, sand, salt, etc.... They also suggest reading books after all the activities each day. I just think MFW is probably more intentional with their activities, if that makes sense.
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There, I wrote her. We'll see what she writes back! I think that's a really good point about changing the way you implement the worksheets. The samples looked adorable with the little crafts to go with them. Do they get old or repetitive after a while? Why are people ditching them?
The worksheets are repetitive. Part 1 is all Uppercase letters and the little crafts are really fun on those sheets, but it's mostly coloring. Part 2 is the same thing only it's lowercase letters. They have a few pages that are different like coloring all of one kind of letter to reveal a picture or finding the different ways "a" could be shown in print. Then part 3 is all the same cutting and pasting 3 pictures that have the sound of the letter shown on the page. There is just very little variety in there and I think that's why my kids got so bored with it. The TM has the fun activities with Ziggy and other games and such, like the wagon, memory match, etc.
In hindsight, I wondered if it would have been better to use all the worksheets for one letter at a time instead of in 3 different parts. What I mean is...say we are on Letter A... Do the uppercase sheet one day, the lowercase page the next and then the sound page on another day... then move on to B. I wonder if that would have helped variety-wise without disrupting the flow of the program? I don't know, it was just a thought, but one I haven't put into practice.
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Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)
Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?
My kids loved Ziggy when we did the Pre-1 level last year. One was really too old for it (6 yo at the time), she was way past it but she still wanted to do it. The other child (5 yo) enjoyed it too, but still has trouble learning the names of the letters. The reading books are tons of fun! The activity book did get old, it's a lot of coloring. My kids didn't mind that part, but when we got to Part 3 with all the cutting and pasting they rebelled against it. We did finish it, but it was because I was pushing to get it done.
Now I have purchased Level 1 and it looks even better. I have actually turned the whole workbook into re-usable games by coloring and laminating everything. I even took the word flippers and used my proclick to bind them. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. That will also eliminate all the coloring, cutting, and pasting for the child. And it saves me money because I have 3 kids who would have wanted to participate and those workbooks add up fast!
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Just to add my 2 cents, imho, the grammar in LoE is a basic introduction. It is suitable for a 7-8 year old as a first lesson for each topic, but it doesn't provide a lot of practice, nor does it go in much depth. It is in no way comparable to grammar texts such as R&S, MCT or KISS (all of which I have).
So, while you may not need additional grammar while you are doing LoE, you will have to do a separate grammar program after LoE. I personally think a combination of WWE plus a good in-depth grammar program like R&S will be a good follow-on to LoE.
Thank you. That is exactly what I was wondering. I appreciate you answering my question. :)
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Hunter, what is CGE?
Tx
Lisa
I was wondering the same thing.. but I think maybe it's Climbing to Good English?
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First, I agree with you on having many programs and ideas to choose from, if one has the funds to do that. Every program I have looked at over the years has added to my "tool kit" and knowledge even if I didn't specifically USE that program.
I personally have every intention of doing Rod and Staff English for grammar, because I want my children to learn diagramming. I don't know how much of LOE grammar we will use, because I know that is where I am headed. I am completely tempted to use the LOE grammar as written. It looks so simple in the way it has been integrated. In other words, I don't know what I am doing:tongue_smilie:.
This is just my opinion having looked through the manual and not having actually used any of it yet (which may make this worth zero), but it looks to me (from my background as a teacher and reading specialist, not from any experience with the program) to be a very complete and quite comprehensive grammar program. The student learns all the parts of speech, practices identifying them in sentences, and uses this knowledge practically in the composition section of the lesson. Denise also has extra practice activies, games, and work suggestions provided. Also, in some lessons, a challenge section expands on that particular grammar piece. I am not a grammar expert. I'd feel more comfortable giving an opinion if I had worked this program (or ANY program) with my own children first. I have learned so much more working intensively with my own children than I ever learned in a classroom setting.
Thank you Lori. I appreciate your input. I haven't looked at all the levels of PR closely. I do have levels 1-3 here. I know she teaches diagramming, but I've always wondered if I would need to add more grammar after we completed PR. Since LOE/SWR are similar to PR, I thought I'd ask what others' plans may be concerning grammar after completing a program like this. Thanks again. :)
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Well I have no intention to switch to LOE and abandon PR. I just think in the long run PR is going to cover a lot more but it's not just spelling. I still will most likely buy LOE at some point in the future. I'd love to have it for a slightly different perspective. I have other children coming up, and I'm not sure that PR will work for one of them, she's very different. I also have AAS levels 1 and 2 and 2 levels of AAR. I like having a lot of OG type programs to draw ideas from.
Lori- Is LOE mostly spelling then? What do you plan to use for grammar after LOE? Is the grammar in LOE basic? I guess what I'm asking is, will there be a need for additional grammar after LOE? I also wonder about grammar needed after PR? I'm not sure if more is needed or not, especially if one will be studying Latin.
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I worried about that too, Hunter. LOE looks really good. I currently use The Phonics Road. I really like PR, but I dislike having to watch those DVDs. So I've looked into LOE. I watched the videos on the site and knew most of what she was teaching from PR, but I learned a couple things from Denise. I can't trade PR for LOE though, because I'm thinking PR Levels 1-4 will cover much more than LOE does. I could be wrong about that because I have not seen LOE in person. :confused:
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Sorry I can't help with HOD, but I just thought you should know that SL G is going to cover parts that you have already covered in HOD CTC. SL Core G is Creation through the 1600's. SL Covers World history in 2 years instead of the normal 4 used in the 4 year history rotation. It will go at a much faster pace, so possibly you could just consider it review if you decide to use SL?
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Your son's work looks great and I'm glad to hear the positive review as we will be using it in the fall with Sonlight Science F. :)
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This is the one I own. I've had it for about 3-4 years. It's very very very awesome. :D It can punch about 4-6 sheets at a time.
http://www.mybinding.com/.sc/ms/dd/ee/242/GBC-ProClick-P50-32-Hole-Paper-Punch
That's the same one I have too, but I found it at Office Depot for a little over $50. LOVE It. :)
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Mine shipped the day I ordered it!
I now have a life time supply of Proclick spines. It's taken me a year to use up 25 of them. I'll have 300 now. :lol: But I will have 3 kids schooling, so I'm sure I'll use them all in the next 12 years. :tongue_smilie:
Haha, yeah after I ordered I realized I'd have 300 spines...lol. I got a little excited and clicked buy pretty quickly. :)
What are your 2nd grade plans?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
BJU Math 2
Phonics Road 2
MFW Adventures