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warneral

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Posts posted by warneral

  1. My mistakes were when I went and bought another curriculum when I already had more than we could use!  I typically do this from a sense of fear that we aren't doing "enough"

     

    My first year I purchased Sonlight from a friend and only used it for a few weeks.  That was a learning experience, not a mistake.  I'm pretty sure if I had never tried it, I would be wondering if it would be the answer!

  2. Personally, when we decided to pull the kids from PS to homeschool, I knew I was signing up for appearing strange to some people. I get questions from neighbors often (we live in a "good school district" and most of us moved to this town because of that.

     

    As a Christian, we made this decision from a prompting from the Lord and through lots of prayer and research. I had to come to a point where I had to acknowledge that some of the people in my life would not approve of our new lifestyle. That holds true today. I'm OK with being considered abnormal. This decision really challenged me to consider the importance I had put on our family's appearances, and what others think about me.

     

    I still get questioned and still come up with my defense of all of the wonderful "socialization" opportunities, and details about their education. I suppose I mostly do this to make the questioner feel better, or perhaps I want people to realize that homeschooling can be a positive experience. When questioned "how long will you keep homeschooling?", I answer that we take it year by year.

  3. I don't mind the second chance...but...I have DD redo these on paper. First she watches the lesson and does the work on the computer. Then I go through it and make a list of everything she got incorrect and/or needed a second attempt on. The next morning she has to work through these problems again on paper. If there is a common thread of incorrect problems, we will redo that lesson together at the table using the textbook. All her quizes must be done on paper. This is only our first year using TT, so this is just what works for us right now.

    I really like this approach. I think I read about it here before. Waiting the next day would help distance him from frustration and also test if,he really understands the topic.

  4. We decided to try TT7 with ds after he finished MM5.  He did pretty well but could use some more practice so I thought TT7 would be good as he is ready to have a change in format.

     

    I like that he will be having spiral practice, and that he will get the audio-visual presentation of the lessons.  He could use that right now before we head to pre-Algebra.

     

    What I'm not so sure about is the "second chance".  It seems too easy to make careless mistakes since he has another try.  I'm wondering how the quiz works?  I looked at the gradebook and it says "number of attempts".  Do they grade by giving the kid a second chance on each problem?  I'm not sure I like that because in Math you are either correct or wrong.  Rarely in life (and never in tests) do you get another try and figuring it.

     

    Is there a good reason for the second chance?  How does it work for tests?  Is there a way to work around it?  I am already going to manually grade his quizzes and give him a percentage based on first tries, but would like to hear if there is something I am missing.

     

    I just paid $150 and DS is excited about it, so I am not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Maybe just the bathwater?

    :)

     

     

  5. My ds just finished MM5 and I decided that it is time for him to make a change. He is struggling getting adequate sleep due to 12 hours of headgear while he sleeps each night and he has been tired and not engaged with his math. There are a few topics he is struggling a bit with but I just think it is time for a new approach. I want him to enjoy math again. I decided to buy teaching Textbooks (7) for more review and a different platform of teaching. He is just a few days in, but he finds it refreshing. We will also add in Life of Fred Fractions and then Decimals. I hope it will work for him. I know that some have found TT to be ineffective, so I will closely monitor and work with him to make sure it is a good fit.

  6. We use and enjoy this app for the ipad. Each kid has an ipad mini and they enjoy adding little summaries for each entry. They also like searching the internet for a picture icon. It can be a bit fiddly (if you touch outside the working box you can lose the entry you are creating. Overall, I love it because it gets done, they like doing it, and it is in their little ipad, not our living room :D

     

    http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/TimelineBuilder.html

  7. Internet

    Ipad with the following apps

    Google earth

    Timeline Builder

    Internet on the couch

    Kindle App

    Bible app

    Math Bingo and other math drill apps

    My oneNote App with my school planner

    GoodReader

    Duolingo

    Spellboard

    Geography Drive

     

     

    Rod and staff spelling

    Rod and staff English

    Math Mammoth (though DS is burning out on it now so we are making a change for grade 6)

    Mystery if History

    WWE

  8. oh and you could take the TT pre algebra pre-test and see how she does.  Or, you could have her do several lessons per day so she gets Math 7 and Pre A completed through summer and into next year and even the next summer.  IMO more practice and explanation will only help her when she gets to Algebra.

     

    DS just started TT7 coming from finishing MM5.  He needs a change of pace with some spiral and needs to find enjoyment in math so we are giving it a try.  The first many lessons are very easy.  He did 3 or 4 lessons today LOL.

  9. My two are one grade level apart and two years apart and I have them do the same level together. I find we all get more out of it working together. My younger dd is strong I. Language arts and has no problem being a grade level ahead. You could also go at your younger's level. To be honest grammar is similar from year to year with just a handful of more detailed/abstract concepts as you progress. I like the wwe (summarizing and dictation) approach to writing. R&S writing is fairly light and a more traditional approach to writing (paragraph basics, friendly letter, etc).

  10. My kids like R&S as do,I. If you don't want to do the writing assignments, feel free to skip them. I like R&S tests but would give my kids extra credit on the writing questions on the test.

     

    This year we were doing HAKE at half speed but none of care for it. The lessons aren't articulated very well IMO compared to R&S. We are dropping Hake and back to R&S we go :). We will skip the writing lessons, for the most part. Sometimes, the writing lesson is so useful, we would go ahead and do it.

  11. We love this curriculum! Our church uses the SS curriculum, and my family loves the family devotional book. The OT version shows how the OT stories point to the Gospel! This is the NT version which has your family read scripture and helps show the gospel as well! It also shows how psalms and other prophets point to the scripture you are covering.

     

    The kindle version is available for one cent (for a limited time I'm sure).

     

    We use this as our main bible curriculum because it thoroughly fleshes out the gospel and also has us reading straight from the bible together.

     

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FEZM4FU?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B00FEZM4FU&linkCode=shr&tag=kellquot-20

  12. I bought 1quarter of TOG and felt that it would be too disjointed and switched to MOH with added paper crafts from HOmeschool in the woods, knowledge quest maps and some reading from the various curriculum lists. We also add summaries onto our ipad timeline app and occasionally notebook. I love this because when life gets busy, we can always read our history lesson, add to the timeline and fill out a map. We also use,a,gospel centered devotional which has us reading scripture. When we have time, we add in other stuff, but at the very least, we are moving through the history cycle and getting a picture of how history occurred.

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