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Thia

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Everything posted by Thia

  1. Thanks! Breakfast sausage is a HUGE hit here, but lately I've been feeling bad about how unhealthy it is for you. So...I will give this a try.
  2. I think it varies from state to state b/c I was talking to an elementary math teacher and I told her what we were doing (Abeka) and she said that is what they are doing at that level in NY anyways.
  3. Take some clear plastic (page protector, laminating page...) and draw some circles on it, the same size. Then you can split them up in the various fractions. You can then stack them to show which ones are bigger/smaller etc.
  4. We've been working in blocks, where I work with one child at a time. The others do seatwork, then play (if there's time). Because I'll be teaching three next year, instead of just 2, I started thinking this might not work and got all in a panic. I started writing out a schedule or half hour intervals. By the time I got it all entered in, I realized that there would end up being a lot of wasted time, times I would interrupt someone doing seatwork or times that lessons would run longer...and our day stretched out endlessly. I started a new schedule based on blocks with each child and it all makes so much more sense and our day will be shorter that way. We'll start our day together with calendar and Bible, then I'll do one hour blocks with each child starting with the one with the most seatwork so she has time to work before lunch break. We will come together again in the afternoon for science or history before some more homework time/catch up time.
  5. I buy cheap notebooks at Wal Mart at "back to school time." Every day (you could do it less often, obviously), I use one page to write some math problems down. She completes that during seatwork time.
  6. I'm looking for a solid biography series that won't break the bank. We're doing a combination of SOTW2 and VP cards (for church history). Biographies are mentioned, but from various authors. Is there a good set out there?
  7. We do our calendar board every day. We have a song for the days of the week and the months of the year. They've memorized the traditional poem for how many days are in a month. Etc. By doing this every day, we've been able to skip the calendar sections of our math curric.
  8. I did not buy them, I have not used them. I purchased simple addition/subtraction flash cards from wal mart. This year I am going to purchase Abeka's regular flashcards because my budget has room for that.
  9. Last year I bought the looseleaf version and I put it right into a binder. The last page has already torn out, I believe that happened around Christmas. After I purchased the looseleaf in Jue or July, they put the pdf's on sale, so I bought the student pages in pdf form to print out. That has worked well. For next year, I am purchasing it bound and then the student pages pdf.
  10. For K we used everything except their Bible stuff. I did not buy every single optional thing, like the felt letters/shapes, or even all the flash cards. We got through just fine. For 1st grade I am still using their LA stuff, but I am not using their readers, I am using live books that I chose from SL/Ambleside. I branched out with science and history b/c I feel their coverage is a bit lighter than what my children can handle. I have no regrets with using the math and LA. We'll be using them again next year. If I feel a child has mastered a skill, then we just skip that part of the worksheet. I do not do every bit of writing they recommend and I've dropped most of the games too. I do think it's a solid program.
  11. Pages for copy/writing work were getting out of hand here too. I've seen the first grade composition journals at Wal Mart, but think that half a page blank for drawing is a waste since that's not what we need. So, I have been ripping pages out of the writing tablet pad and stapling them together to make our own book. I'm getting better at estimating how many pages she will need for a week's worth of work. All her copy/writing work goes into a manila envelope. At the end of the year I will pull samples from through out the year for her portfolio. BTW, whoever suggested scanning everything, THANK YOU! That is a wonderful idea and now part of my plan.
  12. Our water is super hard here. Lemi shine works miracles. I can't be any more enthusiastic about that. As far as pre rinsing...it's such a part of dish care for me, from "back in the day" that I just always do. I'm not crazy about reaching to the back of the dishwasher to clean the grate out anyways.
  13. I checked 2 or more, I really don't know... We had a couple, then my mil didn't want teh ones she had and gave them to us, I think we got another as a gift. Maybe they're reproducing down in storage?
  14. Actually, they offer manuscript in K. They have manuscript Writing With Phonics for 1st. Spellings lists for 1st are in both. Manuscript is not supported in any way after 1st.
  15. I am starting my children out with print because I think everyone should be able to print nicely. I want to start my oldest on cursive next year. Do I just order the second grade writing material or go back to the K or first grade program? I am hoping someone has experience with this. Thank you.
  16. I have not read all the replies here, so if I am repeating, forgive me. My kids are 1.5, 3, 5, 7. We start the morning with calendar stuff. I even gave my three year old a binder w/ the sheets in it. She scribbles and does whatever, but she's happy. The baby will sit at the table and scribble in a coloring book or blank paper. When she was younger, she was in the sling/backpack for all school time, she even napped there. Then we move onto Bible. They all get coloring sheets while I read and we discuss. The baby might go play for a bit. The baby goes into the back pack. I hand the 5 year old his writing work. The three year old gets some too because she wants it. When they are done with their writing, they go play. During this time I do math and reading/phonics with my 7yr. We then go over what seatwork she needs to do for those topics. She gets to work. The 5 and 3 year old come over for their phonics/math. The three year old participates in counting, alphabet recitation and the like. Otherwise, I hand her worksheets I have accumulated through the last few years (confessions of a homeschooler is a biggie). I also have a few workbooks from wal mart. Everything goes into plastic page protectors and they use the markers/crayons, so she can reuse the same stuff. Then I give my 5 yr old his seatwork. I help my 7yr old on anything she needs help with. We start between 9 and 10 and finish by lunch. Baby gets down, we have lunch. After lunch we have science or history. I have them on a loop schedule. Every 5th day we do art/music from What Your 2nd Grader should know instead. The baby may go play or may go back to backpack. The 3 year old sits and colors. I try to do read a loud after we finish, but it doesn't always happen if the lesson took longer than an hour. By 2:00 we're done (usually) and I'm into housework etc. I honestly have some reservations about next year b/c everyone will have an increase in work, but I think we'll figure it out.
  17. I started my daughter on print last year (K). This year we're still printing. Plan to start her next year on script. It's easy to switch for K, but there are no teacher's guides for print for first grade. You buy the workbook which also has the tests, then just do it. You can't even really pretend to follow the script lesson plans because the lessons that have tests are different for script/print.
  18. I have used Abeka K and 1 and we love it. It does seem to skip around on the worksheets, but that is part of reviewing. There are questions to practice what was learned in the lesson, there are questions to review what was learned in the last few lessons, then often a question or two about older material. The pictures do not bother my children because I do give them a minute or two to look at them and/or color. I started Abeka math thinking I could switch after K if we didn't care for it, but I have not looked back at all!
  19. I pull the pages out and put them in page protectors and they use dry erase markers/crayons. If there's stuff I want to keep, I rewrite it into a notebook. I buy cheap handwriting tablets at wal mart for handwriting.
  20. Speed Queen. It's one of the few out there that is the old style and not these new "green" machines. The green machines have a huge list of problems, don't get clothes clean, and generally do not last very long. They have very small load sizes...so you need to do more loads (that's supposed to save water/energy?). Many now will not start running water until you close the lid and then it locks, so you have to dump your soap into a dry tub and can't come back to add just one more thing etc. They don't have an extra rinse cycle. ETC. We just bought a new one about a month ago, a speed queen. It's a bit more than we wanted to spend, but it's exactly what we want. I love it!
  21. Love our Suburban! Never nice to see the total at the gas station, but it's totally worth it when I can climb inside to buckle car seats on a rainy day! Or haul a month's worth of groceries/paper goods (including diapers) home.
  22. I'm looking at Volume two of both products. Looking for btdt experiences.
  23. I bought Abeka art K. We did a couple of the projects, but when I ran into things like using doilies...we stopped b/c I could never remember to put those things onto my shopping list.
  24. Thanks for all the great feedback. You guys mentioned some of the hesitations I have as well. I think it would work out okay now, while the kids are younger, but as they get older, maybe not so much. But by then, maybe I won't have to worry about crowd control during school time. Right now, with a toddler, every crayon has to be accounted for, iykwim. In the future, hopefully no one will be inclined to draw on the walls and I won't really care where they do their school work. Our kitchen space is SO TINY that I only have room for 2 small shelves. Everything else is in his room and I spend time running back and forth b/c I always forget something. SIGH. If I were a rich (wo)man....I'd have a real school room.
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