LynnG in Arizona
-
Posts
1,178 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by LynnG in Arizona
-
-
Well, I've had my annual debate as to whether or not to continue with RightStart for my rising 2nd grader (we're about 2/3rds through RS Level C), and I just can't bring myself to stick with it. It seemed like I enjoyed teaching Level C much less than Levels A and B, though it's hard to put my finger on why. I look ahead to the Tables of Contents for Levels D and E, and there just seems to be SO many tangents (no pun intended) and strange topics.
So I'm pushing on and giving Math in Focus a try. I actually did Singapore Primary Math (all levels) with two students previously, so I have a reasonably good idea of what we're getting. I've researched Math in Focus quite a bit and think it might be an even better fit (for me) than the original Singapore we did about 10 years ago.
My problem is that my poor daughter really wants to continue with RS Math - because she loves the constant interaction and the occasional games.
I think the obvious answer is to do Math in Focus in an interactive way and make sure I add in RS games regularly. Any tips on how to do that?
Do any of you have a schedule on which RS games best supplement Math in Focus?
I understand that Math in Focus also features games, though some of them are geared more toward classroom groups. Have you found any of those games particularly helpful and/or fun?
I'm thinking that it would be smart of me to pre-schedule the games, if I'm adding in RS games, because I know that once our busy school year gets going, it will be all too easy to forget about them. I'm a bit of a box checker at heart, and sometimes it's nice to just get that reminder to actually stop for a bit and play a game. Otherwise, my good intentions about playing math games fall by the wayside.
Anyway, any tips or advice from others who have made a similar transition would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!
-
I have a 5 and a 7 year old, and I would heartily recommend:
The Trumpet of the Swan
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Tumtum and Nutmeg.
We loved Charlotte's Web and My Father's Dragon too, but you have already read these.
Based on what you have said, I really think you will be super pleased with these. Extremely high quality and gentle. HTH.
-
Jim Weiss has a nice audiobook on a Henty novel set during the French Revolution. We all enjoyed it. I believe my older girls were about 12 and 14 at the time. HTH!
-
My very favorite app is called QatQi. It is basically akin to solitaire Scrabble - and a ton of fun! I bet your mom would love it. :)
-
I guess I can add my name to the list of people who have a love/hate relationship with RS Math. Well, hate is too strong of a word, but there are definitely aspects of the curriculum that frustrate me, some of which I find difficult to articulate.
I think so many aspects of RS are absolutely brilliant, and my children have responded very well to the hands on/Montessori-like approach. I think that approach is particularly helpful, effective, and appealing to the younger grades (for many kids, anyway).
I am similar to Soror in that I have gone through about 2/3rds of Level C with one child, and just completed Level A with my youngest. I am having my annual debate as to whether or not to continue RS with the older one. We're working on Math Mammoth right now, which is some ways is a welcome change. In other ways, I am already missing the more interactive, hands-on approach of RS. And the games. Yes, I know I can and should add them in to whatever else we are using for math, but I never seem to actually do it.
My youngest will definitely go through RS B next year, as I do think it's a particularly strong year that lays a super solid foundation. But I am also mentally bracing myself for the very full year. And I am absolutely planning to skip a very select number of topics when appropriate . . . like the calendar, and the counting to 100 household objects, etc.
-
Posted in a recent thread on the Logic Stage & Middle Grade Forum...
ETA: I posted one of my little man's multivides on our blog... http://huntclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/
Thank you!
-
Try Evan Moor's "Daily Reading Comprehension". You can use it as is, as a workbook, but there are also 1-paragraph daily lesson plans for the teacher that contain a bit of direct instruction.
HTH. :)
-
Lurking, as we are 2/3rds through Level C.
But I have to ask . . . what is a "multivide"?
-
Except for fairy tales these books are probably above your kids age level, but I'm posting the books I've bookmarked on Tales2Go.
Fairy Tales read by Jim Weis
Pippi Longstocking
The Railway Children
Black Beauty
The Jungle Books
Pinnocchio
Lewis and Clark
Harriet Tubman
The Wind and the Willows
Treasure Island
The Story of George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Five Children an dIt
Davy Crockett
Heidi
How To Tame Your Dragon
How To Speak Dragonese
Amos Fortune Free Man
Kidnapped
Robin Hood
Wizzard of Oz
Thank you, Timberly! And welcome to the forums!! :)
-
Bumping. Anyone?
-
We have enjoyed:
Wings
123 Color HD
DoReMi 1-2-3
Barefoot Atlas
Reading Rainbow
Mystery Math
Magic Matrix
-
Hello,
I am trying to figure out whether or not to renew our (trial) subscription to Tales2Go, and was wondering if any of you had some great, specific recommendations on story and book titles from them that you have particularly enjoyed.
This would be for a 7 yo girl and an almost 6 yo boy. Thanks so much!
-
I haven't even uploaded it to my blog yet, but I did get our overview for the year done. I have picture books, readers, and read alouds lined up with The Complete Book of US History broken down in 36 weeks. I have most of the SL readers and read alouds from Core D, plus the Maestro books, D'Aulaire biographies, a few others, and some American Girl books. I am in the middle of planning them in a SL style template. I am about 1/3 of the way through and should be done within the next few weeks.
ETA: I plan to cover it in two years, so this is US History to 1860.
I just wanted to chime in and say thank you as well! We too are planning on doing roughly the same thing, and already have most of the same readers. Your plan looks great, and I also would be most grateful if you share future revisions.
Thanks so much!!
-
I've found it interesting that I've seen Level C listed often now as one that takes 1.5 yrs. We did B first and I found it to be much longer and harder to complete in a year than B. Level C we easily finished. However, we did start with Level B so we could not skip the first lessons. After much debate I'm moving ahead w/ RS. Dd is doing RSA now and will be moving to RSB next year and I will be taking it slower w/ her than I did w/ ds. He is moving on as well and will be doing RSE next year. We did BA full time for a while this year but I've moved it back to a supplement.
Soror, can I ask how RS Level D has been?
I'm doing my annual debate on whether to continue with RS or not. I haven't enjoyed Level C quite as much as Levels A and B; we're about 2/3rds of the way finished with it now.
Any insight?
-
I never really thought of that. Most of the lessons don't seem to have a good "splitting in half" point. I know that on most of the lessons where they suggest to take 2-3 days, that we don't usually take that long (the one time we sort of did were the two lessons that covered 4-digit addition). It is good to know for RS C (which we will most likely do even though I get kind of twitchy over it). Behavior-wise, DD is fine w/the lessons. Playing on the coat closet bar whenever there is mental math helps immensely.
Dr. Cotter does mention in her introduction of several of the books that the lessons are designed to be split into two. Not that it's *required* to split each lesson, but that you should feel free to break them up. I just pointed it out because you mentioned that the lessons seemed a little long and hard to finish, especially with littles running around. Very understandable. :)
I agree that there is no super obvious place to break every lesson in two, but I've been able to do it pretty easily over the past several years. It often works out to doing all of the warm up plus a little of the new teaching on one day, and then finishing up the new teaching on the second day. When there is a clear variety of topics contained in one lesson, it's even easier to make the break.
-
We're finishing up RS B, and even though I do dread doing the lessons (teacher intensive, need to gather the supplies, have to deal w/two littles...), DD enjoys it, and more importantly, she retains it. She'll randomly spout out math facts at me. I'm on the fence about continuing w/RS C next year b/c of the level of involvement on my part, but a lot of the dread is b/c it can be time consuming to do a lesson. We average between 30-45 minutes. That can be a long time with two little distractions running around.
Other things (I don't know an easy way to put this into paragraph form):
*lessons take anywhere from 30-45 min on avg
*I've found that DD retains more when I let her use the bar in the coat closet as a jungle gym
*the hands-on parts of lessons also help her to retain what is taught
*I don't always follow the lessons to a tee, esp on ones that are listed as taking multiple days (we'll take less time than suggested)
*I like that RS math is more advanced than MM (we use both)
*I like that each lesson opens with mental math exercises
*both of us like the games (though we don't play them as often as we should0
Just to make sure . . . you do know that the author of Right Start doesn't intend that you necessarily do a lesson each day, right?
I have one child in Level C now, and the other in Level A, and I have found that it works best to split up each lesson into two days. Much, much better for little attention spans, at least around here!
Even taking two days to do each lesson, you can complete both Levels A and B in one school year. Now, C is a longer book and a different story; many people take about 1-1.5 years to do that level.
You'll hear from many people that they do in fact complete an entire RS lesson in one day. But for my moderately bright kids, they do much better doing a half lesson at a time. Makes it all a lot more feasible to actually DO, know what I mean? :)
-
How good is RS for a very physical, doing boy? How much does it assume the child knows before starting? He's very good at analogies, creative thinking, puzzles, geometry etc. He's more of a right brained learner, and learns from Audio-Visual/Musical and lots of manipulatives. Its a lot of $$$ and we are currently on a tight budget.
Right Start A has been great for my physical little 5 year old boy. He loves being able to TOUCH the manipulatives and COMPETE in the games!
Also, you mentioned geometry . . . RS has a LOT of geometry. I'd guess it probably has more geometry than the vast majority of elementary math programs. There is only a touch of it in Level A, but it shows up more and more in later levels, particularly in C.
HTH! :)
-
We use AAS, and my 4th grader really struggles with spelling. We started using Spelling City about a month ago, & he spends far more time reviewing now than ever before. His spelling is improving--at least now there's a element of fun to it. :)
That sounds great. Did you put the AAS words in yourself, or did you use one of the lists that are already made?
I would also recommend Spelling City. They have an iPad app but you might have to have the paid membership to use it (we do).
Thank you! Do your kids use it on the iPad or the PC?
Thanks so much for the replies!
-
Not specifically tied to it, but I'm really impressed with Simplex Spelling on the ipad.
Terabith,
Thanks for posting. I went and looked this up, and it does look very good; the reviews are impressive as well. Can you tell me more about this app? It's hard to see too much from the iTunes App store.
-
My two students will both be in AAS next year, probably levels 1 and 3, and I'm looking for an easy way to review the AAS rules and words. I would prefer to use the Ipad for portability reasons, but will also happily use something on the PC if I need to.
I find that my daughter (the one going into Level 3 next year) needs a lot of review, and it's typically the first thing I drop with her. :( Ideally, I should be reviewing 5-10 old words from the review pile (which is depressingly large, by the way) every day, but if I do that, neither one of us really has the mental energy to keep going with spelling. What I really need is a way for her to independently review her old AAS spelling words, while I use our one-on-one time in new teaching and dictation.
So . . . I'm looking for a good spelling game/app that will be consistent with AAS. Ideally, it would already have the AAS words in there . . . or I could customize the lists.
I think Spelling City has that capability, right? How does that work on the Ipad? Or is there another good app that you would recommend?
Thanks in advance!!
-
We moved straight into 2. It goes over all the phonograms and sounds in the first lesson. The level 2 lessons have fluency sheets, so it has that review as well.
I agree completely.
The only time I might recommend a review between the two levels is in the case of a long break, e.g., over the summer. And then I might recommend that you pick up the AAR Level 1 readers and periodically reread the stories with your child - say, twice a week or so, just to keep things somewhat fresh. :)
HTH.
-
Usually anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on the lesson. I'm sure it will get longer once we get to higher grade levels. The lectures are pretty short, mostly 5 minutes or less.
Ok, thanks!
-
And any updates? Did they catch the guy?
I have searched for updates and cannot find any. Just went on some Arizona/Tucson news websites, etc., and found no update beyond when the all clear was given on Friday night.
I really, really hope they catch this guy before a tragedy occurs . . . assuming that the multiple accounts are true, and that there was indeed a guy walking around with a gun strapped to his body. Really sad situation all around.
-
We just started it maybe 2 months ago. The basic setup is great. My ds watches a lecture on DVD, and then does the corresponding worksheets. Each lecture is a nice "bite" of some aspect of the writing process and then the child works through it. So for example, we just did "friendly letters". The first lecture was about what a letter was and the parts of the letter. Then the next lectures were about each part and what it entailed (heading, greeting, and closing). He had to both correct incorrect forms of these as well as practice writing his own. The final lecture in the letter topic was about the body of the letter, what it should contain, how to format it, etc. That culminated in my son writing a friendly letter. We actually expanded on it and had him write a couple, and he evaluated them with the checklist to make sure he had all the components and then I also read over it to help correct spelling errors, etc. We're moving on next to writing paragraphs. If I remember right, teh 2nd grade year began with defining sentences, parts of a sentence, punctuation, etc. The exercises progress from correcting sentences, to copying them in correct form, to formulating original sentences. So the basics are addressed, and it builds upon itself. From looking ahead, it seems that each year does some review and builds on what was taught the previous.
The way we structure it, is ds does part of EIW every day (4 days a week). We do AAS teaching 2 days a week, and then the last day we do the spelling words and I dictate a few sentences to him. We still do narration too (which WWE teaches) 1x/week with our history reading (we do history most days, but I only make him narrate/summarize 1 time). So we do, for the most part, still do the basic skills worked on in WWE, but we also go beyond to some original composition.
EIW also has grammar in it. I'm skipping most of it this year to get ds through the writing parts, because we already did most of FLL2 prior to starting EIW. But I will use it next year.
I hope that helps. Feel free to ask more specific questions (either her or PM) if you have them.
The customer service at EIW is also excellent!
Dahliarw, thank you SO much for taking the time to write all that out. I truly appreciate it! :)
The only specific question I can think of as a follow up is: on average, roughly how much time per day does your son spend on the program? I'm sure it will vary from day to day, but even a rough average would be helpful to me for planning purposes.
Thanks again!
Please help me use Spelling City to review AAS
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I will have two students doing AAS next year and could really, really use an independent (yet fun) way for my kids to review their spelling words.
I have joined Spelling City (premium) but am a little overwhelmed as to the game and activity choices.
If you have used Spelling City for this purpose, can you please walk me through what I need to do? What games/activities have your children particularly enjoyed?
Thanks very much for any help you can offer! :)