Live2Ride
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Posts posted by Live2Ride
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I just paraphrased it when we went to mark the country on our map. I mainly used it like a little fact book, leaving out parts that didn't really matter.
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Congrats! I'm fortunate that my family members on either side don't bother me about homeschooling the kids. They see how much they are learning. The only thing I get questioned occasionally on is our DS handwriting, lol. I just tell them that he's practicing to be a doctor :D. Then I remind them that so and so has terrible handwriting too (their grandpa, their dad, etc). They don't bother me much anymore and I mae sure that he takes a little extra time when writing to them, lol.
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Totally works for us and I alter it to fit our needs, but I like that the main work is done for me-what a load off my back!
The kids love it and only occasionally balk at a book, but sometimes I'll have them work through it (because I know they'll eventually enjoy it and it's important to do so occasionally), or have them pick something that goes along that time period to read instead (when I know that it's not going to interest them at all). They like that, lol.
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I'm sorry it's not working for you! I actually just did my order and found it all to work well. I did have a few hiccups with pictures loading, but would just look on amazon if need be. I did well in the bargain bin as 5 of the things I was wanting were in there, saving me over $20. And the worst item had a bent corner in the cover...big deal :D
Hope it starts working for you!
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We love Artistic Pursuits. I also bought the 'Introduction to Art' by Usborne to go along with it. They love reading through it.
As for spelling...we used Sequential Spelling and liked them, but have since stopped spelling books. If I see a misspelling, we just correct it then, writing the word a few times and I make a note of it, then I review them at the end of the week. I am fortunate though in that I have two natural spellers.
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At that young age, we hit the library and found stuff that interested them, we also checked out books with simple experiments, especially ones that you could make putty with, makes things bubble up, etc. That was good until we started SL cores and then we moved onto using their science.
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hijack - welcome countrygirl
Care to send me a pm about how you have a different schedule for the kids? I'm looking to move from my master plan to their daily one and I'd love to hear how you've modified yours using SL's.
Thanks! Sure.
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I have a ds 12 and dd 13. They are both voracious readers (though ds didn't really get on the reading wagon until he was 8 1/2). Son prefers factual things, but likes fiction. DD loves fiction and some nonfiction ones.
We use sonlight so they read a lot of book during the year, but they also read on their own. We don't have cable television (though we do subscribe to Netflix and we like HULU on occasions) so I think that helps in facilitating more reading time. I don't 'require' them to read books because they read for school. I just make sure we have lots of books around, take them frequently to the library or the bookstore (their favorite place!) or let them know of cool books coming out that they might be interested in.
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If you have experience in any of these or all of these, could you please share. I am particularly interested in the kinds of word problems the program teaches (straightforward or thought provoking), clarity of teacher's guide, and if there is any leap of logic that the program demands of the teacher/student. This is to be used for a newly homeschooled 5th grader, who's pretty good with math, learns easily, but a non-mathy, somewhat math phobic mom. Thanks.
I do not like Abeka...and my kids hated it. I felt that it was overly repititous in some areas and seemed light in word problems (back when I first started homeschooling and was using what the kids used at the private school that we had unenrolled them from). It was also very distracting for both of my kids. I dumped about a month later and went to something else. Abeka never seemed to have enough 'meat' in their curriculum to me. I felt that there were much better options out there for us.
We used Singapore for the next 4 years. Son liked it, but the pictures were distracting for him as he wanted to draw swords and shields for everyone in there (in the workbook as he wasn't allowed to write in the textbook). It would take him too long to finish, lol. He is good at math though and got it relatively quickly, including his sisters math who was two levels ahead, lol). The teachers book is well thought out and gives you problems and text to teach from. Daughter had a harder time with Singapore as she got higher. She needed more practice than what was given (although there are extra books for that if need be and it helped). She liked the program though. They also have a lot of word problems which I loved...the kids not always as much, but they were getting quite good at them.
We switched to Saxon this past year which has been better all around (and many people who finish with singapore 6B, switched to Saxon). Lots of practice and teaching. Each lesson begins with a short mental math warmup, then has 2-4 pages of reading to be done by the student (or with mom if need be), followed by the lesson practice and then another section of work for reviewing previous lessons. They have an ample amount of word problems and many of the problems require multiple steps in the higher grade levels. Our children are in books 7/6 and 8/7. We did buy the DIVE Cd's for our daughter for 8/7 to help facilitate her learning (I'm not a math whiz either) and will continue to do so for the upper leves with our son also being able to use them when he gets to that point (they are like having a teacher in the home and he uses completely different problems in his lecture than in the lesson. There are teacher Cd's too where the lady goes over the lesson itself in it's entirety and there is a section that works every problem in the actual lesson-I don't plan to get that one though). WIth the CD's and book, my daughter has been mostly working on her own now, which never happened before. She feels much more confident with this set up.
I found TT to be a bit 'behind' than what I've used and now using and there were not a lot of word problems. It is uninvolved for you though and they can repeat and repeat a lesson should they need to. I did like the concept and the program, actually buying level 7, but my daughter surpassed half of it fairly quickly within Singapore and then she fell right into the Saxon Math level that we were looking at so we started her there instead. I sold the TT. Now though it seems 'behind', every curriculum has it's own syllabus and it will end up covering all the student needs by the end of highschool, from what I've seen. My friend loves it and I liked it as well, but it didn't fit us at the time.
Hope this helps!
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I like the Apologia series for elemetary levels, but I also used one not too long ago called "Real Science for Kids- Biology". The kids really enjoyed that book.
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I too don't feel burnout with SL. The nice thing is, it's all scheduled-that's the part that totally burns me out. BUT, you can drop books and add in others if you want. The schedule can be as involved or uninvolved as you want to make it. My kids have been mostly self led since they were younger, but it took a little while for them to get it down well. (they are 12 and 13 now and though I have the master copy of the schedule, they also have their own copies tailored to them). We've been doing SL for 5 years now. I drop books I don't like (preplanning as I won't buy them if I plan on not using them) and add in ones that we like better. I've even been know to let the kids just pick out some fun ones instead :D. We don't even use their bible program and we've been known to drop some science books in favor of others. I also have dropped some of the missionary books and replaced them with some of that time period or ones that are about our church history instead. You can always order a three week sample of any of their cores and look it over and see what you think.
Good luck choosing!
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Saon teacher DVD's go through the lesson in the book as it is written. Like having a teacher teach the actual lesson. It also works all of the problems in each lesson.
The Dive CD teaches the lesson, but uses different example problems related to the lesson. I like this one better as my daughter needs many examples. She also likes the guy who does the DIVE Cd
YOu can go to the Saxon website and see the differences for yourself. They have actual lessons from each CD that you can watch.
Xpost: My Apologia General Science/Physical Science class website for you
in K-8 Curriculum Board
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Thanks for sharing! We're doing General Science this year and Physical Science next year.