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ednkirstin

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Everything posted by ednkirstin

  1. I'm glad you figured out a good system. I'm not that organized, but I'm trying! I thought I'd let you know that Homeschool Tracker Plus has a library feature where you just enter the isbn number and all the book's info pops up. You can add categories and such. You can also keep track of books you've loaned out to others. I know your kids are young, but if you think you may ever be interested in a homeschool planner as your kids get older, you may find it useful. If you're happy with Excel that's great!
  2. My kids have been enjoying Mark Kistler's drawing lessons. They've only been doing it a short while, but I've already seen improvement. You can get a year subscription for the whole family through Homeschool Buyer's Co-op for $39.95. I think the offer expires at the end of this month. It is online video based, and doesn't require any instruction from you. There are a few free videos on his website that you can try to see if you like them. My kids love it!
  3. Thanks everyone, you were really helpful! Here's what I think I've decided on: she's going to do Sonlight core F, which seems to incorporate a lot of world geography using the EHE. And I'll have her work on the Knowledge Quest to aid in learning the countries and such. Thank you also for info about PAC World Geography. I had never heard of PAC. That looks good and I may use it in the future, but Sonlight seems like it'll be a better fit for her this year. Thanks again!
  4. This may have been mentioned already (I didn't read all the posts), but I have a suggestion for math. The early years are mostly about learning the math facts. Obviously there are other things to learn, but that's the biggie! Thanks to someone else here on the forums posting about Xtramath, I just started using it for my youngers to practice their math facts, and the results have been WONDERFUL! My 7yo is a math whiz anyway, and she's currently doing Saxon 3. But Xtramath has helped her learn almost all of her multiplication facts in less than 3 weeks! My 5yo is currently working on addition and steadily improving. I love it because 1) It's free, 2) It's automatic - the kids log in and the program tells them when to stop, 3) It keeps records and lets me see their progress 4) My kids love it!
  5. I need ideas for world geography for middle school. I'm looking for something that is thorough, but I don't want to overburden my kids with something too challenging either. Would BJU cultural geography be too difficult for 7th grade? What about Abeka? The Abeka website shows almost no samples for their course, and no one else sells it that I'm aware of. Are there any other programs you have experience with that you love? Thanks! :D
  6. We're going to use BJU science next year, and it looks like they've got lots of experiments to compliment the reading and workbook.
  7. I would be interested in a microscope that takes pictures (if it's not totally out of my price range...lol). If you have experience with one of those, I'd love to hear it!
  8. We're moving into the upper grades, so I'm in the market for a microscope that will take us through high school. I've never bought a microscope before, so I really don't know what to look for. Any recommendations, either for one you love or one I should avoid, would be really appreciated. Thanks!
  9. That reminds me of what one of my dd's did. When she was little, she didn't talk until she was 3. I mean no more than one or two worlds. I was starting to get concerned there was a problem. Then out of the blue, she just started talking in full sentences! She's such a perfectionist, and I'm convinced she wasn't willing to speak until she could do it right! I'm sure it also had something to do with being #5 and having all the older siblings do everything for her...lol.
  10. :iagree:In the past, I tried letting my kids check their own work, as well as simply not grading some work because I was overwhelmed, but it proved to be a major problem. I am now fully committed to checking everything. It enables me to discover areas they're not understanding before they get too far off the beaten path. Also, since my kids do most of their work independently, it helps keep me in tune with what they're learning. I believe it's really important for kids to correct their mistakes. When I was in Nuclear Power School, our instructors corrected every assignment that was turned in in the morning and handed them back in the afternoon. We were required to correct our mistakes and turn them in the next day. The quick feedback stood in such stark contrast to our previous school experiences, and it was amazing how helpful it was. While I don't expect my kids to correct EVERYTHING they get wrong, the principle still applies: quick feedback = better learning. I can relate to you being super busy and feeling overwhelmed, but your perseverance will pay off down the road, IMHO. Now, if you could have an older child correct some of the younger kids' work, that could be helpful. But I still think it would be a good idea to at least take a quick glance at the work to look for misconceptions developing. Hang in there, Mama, you can do this! :grouphug:
  11. I also have an external drive, but I've been told that they can die without forewarning. I've heard burning things to dvd is safer than an external drive. I just got tired of keeping track of what I have and have not backed up. With AVG LiveKive, I don't have to think about it. :)
  12. After recently having my computer die on me TWICE and learning the hard way, I signed up for AVG LiveKive. It automatically backs up all the files on all of our computers. You can choose which files you want it to backup. Thankfully, I didn't lose everything, but I lost enough that I'm not willing to take the chance of it happening again!
  13. We love Easy Grammar, and my kids have always done it independently. Even my first graders could do Daily Grams 2 without much help, except for the first couple of weeks while they got the hang of it. We veered away from EG for a year early on in our homeschooling, but I found that the grammar they were remembering was from EG, so we went back and haven't changed since.
  14. While I don't have any experience with kids learning in this order, it seems to me that she's (most likely) still struggling with blending sounds. One little thing I like to do with my kids to help them understand blending is to demonstrate what their name sounds like when it's broken up. For example, do we say "L-i-l-y" (say the sounds distinctly) or do we say "Lily" (blended). They get a kick out of hearing their name spoken all chopped up. :) I usually focus on teaching the blending skill first. I use 100EZ lessons to teach reading, and we just practice the first few lessons over and over until they understand how to blend. It usually takes a week or two, sometimes less. The lessons go pretty quickly after that. At least that's been my experience with my 6.
  15. We've pretty much always done first grade work in K, and it still only takes 1-2 hours max. I wouldn't stress at all over K. That's one of the beauties of homeschooling, especially the younger years. They don't have to be stuck in a classroom all day when they really only need a small bit of formal instruction. Kids are free to be kids. :)
  16. Another small (but could be significant) idea here. I just heard about Xtramath recently from browsing around WTM. I can't believe I've been HS'ing this long and hadn't heard of this before! Anyway, for those not familiar, it's a free website for learning the basic math facts. DH and I are both math people, and are serious about the kids learning their math facts REALLY, REALLY well. Anyway, I like Xtramath because it focuses on speed. I've seen too many programs that are big on games and not big on improving speed. It also keeps track of what the kids need to work on and breaks each session up into small (about 10 minute) chunks. Did I mention that it's FREE??? I have added Xtramath as a daily assignment in HST, along with the link to the website (which you can put in the assignment) and we have automated math facts practice. :D Check another "to do" off my list...thank you very much!
  17. I can SO relate to where you're at. I've used Homeschool Tracker for several years to plan out our school year, and it has been a wonderful help to me. However, my biggest thrill about it being available online now is that each of my kids can log into their own account to see their schoolwork and mark it off when it's complete. It's a student mark, so it lets me know I need to check their work (when necessary). I love that they don't have to use MY computer, which is a big deal to me. It's definitely helping my kids to be more independent, which they are enjoying as well. You could also check out other planners that are similar, like Homeschool Skedtrack, Homeschool, Inc, and My Homeschool Plan. One of the biggest helps to me is to plan out the entire year, because I have found that during the busyness of the year, I won't get around to it.
  18. I haven't used Atelier, but my kids are LOVING Mark Kistler. We haven't used it long, but already my children's drawing has improved greatly. DH is an artist, and said Mark Kistler was very inspirational when he was a kid (through his PBS series).
  19. I used 100EZ lessons with all 6 of my kids and it has made them FANTASTIC readers, every one of them well above grade level. I agree with you on the phonics for spelling issue. I have found that I love AAS as a follow up to 100EZ lessons. My advice: don't ditch 100EZ lessons. It's great for teaching reading. Just realize you're still gonna need to work on spelling.
  20. I've been looking for the same type of thing and came across Bookrags. I haven't signed up yet, so I can't tell you my personal opinion, but I think it looks pretty good. I'll probably get a short term membership and download study guides for several books at once, then cancel til I may need it again. They also offer teacher lesson plans, though they look pretty pricey to me. You may also want to check out Edhelper. I found they had a lot of literature units which will help me add in some "fun" activities to go along with the books the kids read. I'm sure you can find some of these things free online, but I simply don't have the time to scour the internet for the wide variety of literature my kids read. It's so helpful to find places that have a lot in one place. HTH
  21. We never needed a phonics program to aid in reading beyond 100EZ lessons, either. They just seem to take off after finishing 100EZ lessons. My 5yo can read the Bible fluently. As long as you use some kind of spelling program to be sure they learn the phonics for spelling, you should be okay. :D
  22. My 6yo wanted to learn cursive earlier than my older kids, too. She's very artistic and was determined...lol. When I discovered her writing "cursive" by copying the letters from a chart, I knew I'd better just teach it to her right! She's had great success with Carson Dellosa's Traditional Cursive workbook. I've used it for all my kids. I like it because I still prefer the look of traditional cursive.
  23. I used 100EZ with all 6 of my kids and didn't do anything else (formally) until it was done. I follow up with AAS and think it's fantastic! I suppose you could do AAS concurrent with 100EZ if you wanted to. The reason I didn't do anything else until my kids were reading was because I found that everything (even math) came so much easier if they knew how to read. For grammar, we always start Easy Grammar 2 in 1st grade.
  24. For all my preschoolers, the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD was essential for learning their basic phonics. With this as a base, I began "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" between the ages of 3 1/2 and 4, depending upon the child (if they showed an interest/readiness to read). One of my kids wasn't ready to read until a little later, so I didn't push her. I did NOT teach handwriting at the same time (like the book recommends), because most of my kids were ready to read long before their writing skills could keep up.
  25. I think AAS is the best, but my kids have also enjoyed Spelling City.
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