thegirlwhopaintedtrees
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Posts posted by thegirlwhopaintedtrees
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My daughter uses both as well. She hasn't been confused by the differing colors. It's nice to be able to do math in different ways and it allows her the variety she needs as she doesn't care for repetition if she thinks she already knows something.
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I use RS and Miquon. I don't find RS time intensive. I just need to read the lesson the night before. My DD does Miquon as her warm up work or on a day on which we might not do RS.
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For the pre level 1, I'd say the "readers" are just a nice addition. They are more for read-aloud anyway. However, the level 1 readers do coincide with the lessons you do from the teacher's manual.
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I kept hearing about how great RR was and I don't feel the love. Heresy, I know! :lol:
It took 4 months for them to ship a catalog, which I requested multiple times. When it arrived, I was horrified after looking through it. I couldn't find any type of organization that made sense and I found it as exciting as trying to read through the phone book. I wasn't impressed with their website either. When I entered search words, the products I expected to find were never listed.
If I knew what I wanted, but didn't have the specific name of the product, I would probably go insane trying to find it in the catalog or on the website. I felt like I needed a personal guide to navigate my way through the system. I don't have the patience for that.
I agree about the catalog! It is exactly like a phone book! My husband uses it to prop his computer monitor to the right height!
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We joined the C3 forum (or maybe it is called CC connected, I forget). But I think if you aren't part of a community it is more expensive than the CDs. However, they have files that are shared between members and one of those was the hand motions to the Science (some of it), history, and the timeline. You can also access all the resources on the CD but the hand motions are not on them. It is fairly easy to make up your own hand motions though. Maybe by watching the you tube videos you might be able to work out most of them.
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No, they aren't making people buy their new manual, but you will have to "purchase" the new timeline somehow through C3, the new cards, or the memory work CD. That is not included in the free updates.
Beth
However, you could bypass buying the Timeline cards (unless you are a tutor) if you have the audio CD as they will have a song for it. This is what I plan to do. I will use my Veritas cards as a timeline in the classroom for reference purposes.
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We use the SL reader lists for our DD's reading lists.
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I don't see the sale on Maria's website.
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You really need to visit your location. Ours is great. The community is very much a family and our nursery is very well organized and the 2 and 3 year olds even get a letter of the week curriculum at no extra cost (well, aside from the very inexpensive nursery fee) while the older kids are in their classes.
My DD is 4. She enjoys it. Her tutor is very engaging and has them doing various activities. The tutor is only meant to facilitate and show parents ways of presenting the information at home the rest of the week. She isn't meant to be giving background info. If you are looking for a program that teaches this is not the program you are looking for. That's the parents' job throughout the week. We read a lot of books on the science and history topics throughout the week. You have to do that or the info is completely out of context. Depending on the topic of the week, a week is usually enough time for my 4 yr old. I don't see how a week on each topic will be enough later though. We tend to also roll back and revisit topics if I find a good book at the library or if DD asks (which often is the case). I like what on PP said about reading a read aloud BEFORE the class.
As for those who said it is too much for a 4 year old, it really just depends on your 4 year old. My 4 year old does well.
It is a lot of memorization, but for our 4 year old, we don't force the issue. We hear the memory work every day and we see that as exposure. She will rotate through each cycle 3 or 4 times, so she will hear it all again and we will focus more on memorization when she is a bit older. There is no pressure to do Memory Master (when they memorize everything and recite it to the director) at such an early age in our CC community.
Pros:
1. the memory work
2. the friendships and sense of community with others who are studying similar things (but perhaps you have that from another group or from friends you already have)
3. it's only 24 weeks
4. it's only 1 morning a week
5. it's relatively inexpensive in comparison with other things
Cons
1. quality varies depending on the location and group
2. it costs money
3. the memory work sometimes feels extremely out of context and/or hard to find age appropriate material to enhance the learning (as with things like WW1, WW2, and NATO for a 4 year old)
4. it is hard to line up their 3 year cycle with other existing curriculum like SL, HOD, MFW etc.
5. Even one morning out of the house a week can feel disruptive
Julie
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What she likes takes less time to finish (reading and writing and narrating) because she likes it, whereas math, even though she excels at it, is not her preferred choice and ends up taking much more time because of the dawdling to put pen to paper or to tell me the answers if we are working orally.
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I agree that "taught self to read" is somewhat confusing. My dd was taught a sound for each letter as a tot, like most kids. When she was 3 and younger, we used to talk about the structure of some words we saw along our travels. She had a good memory for words so as I read to her, I'd point out words she knew for her to read. One day she realized she could read some books without much help. From then on, we've taken turns reading, and that's been our "reading program."
When I said "the vast majority of the time, she gets [phonics] right despite never being taught," I didn't mean she's never been taught anything. I meant that, for example, she figured out what "ight" and "ar" say without anyone having told her. I feel she has figured / is figuring out phonics. (She is also a fairly good speller without having been "taught" spelling.)
This sounds a lot like my DD4. She's reading 3rd and 4th grade books and the only reading instruction I've done is as I read to her, pointing out maybe that, "look, this is the word "light". See the letters they used to show the "ite" sound?" Then she would retain that and be able to read it herself later. She's figured out some sounds by herself intuitively as well. We've never had to use a program. I choose Sonlight readers at her level (about 3rd and 4th) and we read through those, more so I can have a baseline for where she's at and can help her with reading strategies if she needs (like breaking long words into syllables - she has no patience for that and invents her own words at times.)
Julie
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We love our CC group and feel truly blessed by it. It helps get the children excited to work on the memorization the rest of the week. Since CC is 1/2 day at those ages, you would have time to do a light day in the afternoon. Also, CC is only 24 weeks so you still have those extra weeks within your own school year to have full five days.
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Do you think I can just apply the same techniques we used in Rightstart to teach the math (instead of getting the HIGs)? Base ten blocks, the abacus, number balance, etc?
:iagree:
I do.
And we write in the textbook and if she doesn't get it, I use the corresponding pages in the workbook. She likes the textbook better because it is colorful and gets tired of repetition, especially if she gets it. For 1a, we used only the workbook and it was like pulling teeth and she didn't like math anymore. Now, she enjoys math again. We also play a lot of the RS games to supplement. I have the 1b HIG and have never looked at it.
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How fun!
I am planning to start MFW K with my daughter this Fall. Right now, I am in the process of switiching my oldest son to MFW 1st, after trying SL Core A.
What didn't work for you from SL Core A? Asking b/c I am considering SL for next year. Thanks.
Julie
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I'm considering Core B for the Fall. Why wasn't it worth it for you, Ibakos?
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I do some of what pp said. Bible and scripture at breakfast. Memory CD in the car. We also print out the two page week pages of the memory work (I forget what they are really called on the CC connected forum file sharing site) and I have taped those to the pantry door which is across from where DD sits. She reads them to herself each meal and that is helping her retention too. She's only 4 and I haven't been much motivated to do the timeline cards this year.
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I'm also interested in what core A is like.
I got to borrow Core A for a month to peruse and see if I liked the style of SL. The reading selections I loved and we read a few over that month w/o using the IG. It would work well for your youngest. But I don't know that it would be challenging enough for your middle.
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John Bowman's ebook is actually much cheaper than that. I think it is less than $10. It is great for ideas, but nothing is planned out.
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Maybe it's not every 3 minutes. I'll give you a summary of a lesson in the middle of the book - Lesson 40.
Warmup
- discuss name of current month & next month
- ask child to say days of week & play the Comes After Game with the days
- ask the child to enter various quantites on the abacus, such as 23, 46, 51, 80
- play the Comes After Game with numbers up to 10
Activities
- review reading quantities on the abacus
- review partitioning ten (drawing part-whole circle set)
- "the teddy bear problem" (10 teddy bears total, if one kid has x, how many does other kid have - use abacus) - find all combos
- handshaking game - showing that 5s are only number not repeated in partitioning 10
- variation on handshaking game using toys
- worksheet 12-2
Lessons can be taught over 2 days.
I have one of those wicker bins from Target that is maybe 18x12x12 to hold all the manipulatives, so it is a lot, but I do have 4 abacuses, 4 clocks, etc. Maybe it's not so much with just one.
For what it's worth - I usually skip a whole bunch of the beginning warm up stuff (especially if I know she knows it down pat) and just go to the main lesson - that keeps it from seeming like the topics change around so much. I bought it because my daughter was despising Singapore and was refusing to do math. She loves the games aspect of RS. We are using level B though, not A.
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If you are just starting out homeschooling, you will probably love MFW K as it is all prepared for you. I use it with my 2.5 year old and advanced 4 yr old. (I needed something already prepared for me even though I am very capable of coming up with all these activities myself.) The 4 yr old already writes and reads very well, but she loves the science aspect of it and gets more out of the science component than my 2 yr old. However, the 2 yr old benefits from the read alouds I do from books for the theme and with my 2.5 yr old I focus on the letter sounds and the activities and worksheets for that. He likes the cut and paste activities a lot. I usually give the 4 yr old the handwriting sheets though. You'll find you can tweak it easily for your child's abilities and that if you want to you can add handwriting worksheets. We finish the calendar portion, reading and the prescribed activities in less than an hour (depends on how many books, fiction and nonfiction, that we read on the topic).
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Thank you for your response. That was helpful to me. Makes me question what to do next year now. I was going to use ctg, bit maybe I'll look at SL again.
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Kind of off topic wrt your question, but can I ask why you go from MFW to SL? I am having a hard time choosing between the two, but am leaning more toward MFW b/c it appears to be easier to combine using that. Since you already use MFW, I'm curious as to why you switched to SL after MFW1.
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Like everyone stated, it depends on the child. My daughter despises worksheets and was refusing to do Singapore (1) because of it. I got the games kit from RS and she loved it, so I bought level B. We're flying through it because she already knows to count and already knows her numbers to 10 as 5+ a number. I don't find it as teacher intensive as everyone said. I like the script, but am not afraid to deviate. I like having everything done for me.
Montessori Homeschoolers Chime in Please
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I did a lot of Montessori with my daughter last year and the year before and blogged about it at The Adventures of Bear. We do less Montessori with her now, but her 2.5 yr old brother still does Montessori.