threedogfarm
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Posts posted by threedogfarm
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What do you all do for covers? So far I just use cardstock for covers, but I would like something sturdier. I am just too cheap to buy it.
I use old folders instead of discarding them. I leave them just a little bigger than the paper. I then apply a label to the front to indicate what book it is.
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We look things up in our World Book Encyclopedia (hardcopy!) at least once/day. Questions we have answered over the past couple of days: why were yo-yo's invented? Was Europe mostly in the western or eastern hemisphere (for a geography question--our student atlas did not have this information!!!! I knew the answer but the point of the geography questions was for my children to find the answer!), info on the international date line, questions about different authors, etc. I love the fact that I am no longer pulling out a bunch of different reference books in the hope of finding these answers. And, yes yo-yo was an entry in the encyclopedia (who would have thought????).
I also have bought the Childcraft encyclopedia for my daughter at the recommendation of a poster in a previous thread. Wonderful, wonderful resource for the younger set! I just love their dictionary. There is a history of each letter at the start of that section--I have never seen that before. We have an older edition (early 90's) but purchased it very inexpensively. I am sure that within the next year or two my daughter will be gravitating to the World Book encyclopedia (World Book publishes the Childcraft series BTW) but for now she is loving these books. This series is divided into subjects (such as Once Upon A Time or The Green Kingdom as opposed to alphabetical ordering of entries). If anyone has a pre-K these are definitely a great resource that will be used for several years.
I wish I had gotten our World Book set last year when we started homeschooling. There were so many questions that were left unanswered last year. I avoid using the internet as a research tool for school stuff. Now I feel that we have the equivalent of the internet at our finger tips only it has been sorted and useless information has been discarded for us and there is no time wasted trying to just the right kernel of information.
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I have two to add:
1. Deciding how many days to school. I love the idea of year round schooling with 6 weeks on and 1 week off but it doesn't work with our schedule--we like the time off in the summer (summer is beautiful here and we have a lot of PS friends. We take off from the 2nd week of June until the 1st full week of August to allow for a beach vacation and two weeks of camp) and we like to ski in the winter--and powder days are hard to predict! We school 134 days/year (we typically school 4 days/week so I came up with that number by doing 34 weeks instead of the traditional 36 weeks). I decided since we limited the days, every day had to be a "full" day to count--field trip days, days on the couch spent reading, etc., doing just math and history on one day--these days don't count. I am more accountable and we have gotten far more done than I would have thought in less time and with lots of time for projects, field trips and vacations. It has also made planning much, much easier.
2. Buying a new-to-us 2011 World Book Encyclopedia set. How's that for old school?????? I really don't like using the computer to look up things to add to a lesson when we're in the middle of it because it breaks the rhythm of school and we could easily get sidetracked (and not necessarily in a good way. . .). Our encyclopedia allows us to find out the answers to the questions that come up easily and with minimal interruption. Why did Jessie Wise choose Edgar Allen Poe's poem in FLL to memorize? Well, let's look up Edgar Allen Poe (A: EAP felt a poem's impact was enhanced by its musical quality and versification. The poem "The Bells" demonstrates this well--whether or not this was Wise's intention I do not know but it was very satisfying to learn this and stopped the children's grumbles about memorizing it.). Lots of questions come up when we do school and I was often at a loss for an answer and then they usually fell to the wayside never to be answered. Now we are able to look them up quickly and either move on or we decide we want to know more and make note of that and look up further books in the library. I can't believe that I waited so long to get one!
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I agree with all of this.
I started out loving my kindle, but became less enamored as time went on for the reasons listed above. Now it died on me and I do not currently plan to buy a new one.
This is the reason why I have not bought a Kindle. It is one more thing to "maintain" and upgrade over time. And the books that are bought on it are not useful unless you have the device.
I was very tempted to buy a Kindle when Yesterdays Classics had their sale last summer until I realized that I wanted to make the purchase b/c I liked the "idea" of having all those books available to me--none of them were on my proposed book list for the following year! So for me, the reasoning of having free books available to me via amazon or inexpensive or free classics (that were well formatted) just doesn't cut it. I have enough books on my to-read list for both the children and me that my library owns that I don't need to add to it.
That being said--I really, really like the idea of having my daughter "read" and listen to a book at the same time. She does have problems with comprehension when reading a book vs. listening and I think this would help her. I would consider getting a Kindle for that reason b/c I can't think of another way to accomplish this (except by having her read aloud to me which we do but this would allow her to have this for longer periods of time). The question I would have to consider though would be whether this would become a crutch instead of a help? She does enjoy reading aloud to me but it is more work (for anyone) to read aloud than to read silently. So that is the incentive to improve. . .with a kindle and listening to someone else read. . . hmmmmmm. . ..
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I decided not to keep a timeline (much to my own disappointment). We'll look at ones in books or use the Kingfisher encyclopedia when we want to distinguish one event in time from another but I didn't start one b/c I knew we wouldn't complete it. . .
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If it isn't broken and you don't need to fix it--you'll have more money to spend on the extras and the fun things!
Does that help?
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We are using Trail Guide to Geography and we end up doing geography regularly (practically every day). I like the program because it is open and go especially if you buy the student pages. For me, this is important b/c I wanted to do it on a regular basis.
What I like about this program:
1. questions about the continent/countries you're studying (4 per week)
2. mapping
3. introduction of different cultures, geographical terms, exports of different countries, etc.
What I didn't like about this program
1. It didn't seem intuitive at first. I just wanted to open it up and run with it. Using just the Teacher's Manual I was just a little overwhelmed. The student pages laid it out better. I printed out all of them at the beginner level, doublesided. I skipped what I didn't want to do. The student pages CD didn't let you print just the maps or just the questions. You either had to go through and just print the pages that you wanted or print them all out together.
2. maps were too small to label (I bought the student pages--I've been supplementing these with free maps from the internet which are larger)--annoying!
3. You must use the atlases she recommends only to answer the questions--only she doesn't specify this in her "Additional Recommended Resources". She simply recommends the "Beginner World Atlas". Specifically she wants you to buy the Rand McNally Beginner Atlas. You've been warned!
If you do this program definitely get the student pages so it can seem expensive when you get the student pages and the teacher's manual but when you divide it over the those three separate times it isn't bad. I like the idea of using this again and the second time around I'll tweak it more to my liking. We'll be doing Trail Guide to the United States next year for geography and then come back to this for the intermediate level the following year.
If you want to do a program like this on your own and you're ambitious do the following:
1. use a beginner's atlas and write up four questions per week on the continent or section (i.e. Northern Europe) that you're studying.
2. download free maps on the section you're studying and give mapping instructions (think of the Mapping in SOTW activity guide only more detailed and specific).
3. ask your child to list some animals found in the country(ies), the capitals, the currency, etc.
This will get you to do geography daily:
1. Day one: two questions
2. Day two: mapping
3. Day three: two questions
4. Day four: culture/animals/topography/currency/exports list or commentary--maybe let your child choose it.
If you put it together as a little workbook you'll be able to "assign" it as a filler (that's what I do). When they have a little down time (waiting for you to finish up with one child or while you're preparing lunch) they can do this on their own. You're teaching geography and independent work as well. You can fill this in with videos too if you want or assigned reading. We have a good geography section at our library so I bring home a bunch of books on the continent we're studying and do day four as a "choice" and they write something down in their geography notebook (or draw a picture, etc.) based on one of the books they read.
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We are going into WWE3 by the end of this year (dd 8, ds 9). I am sticking with it b/c:
1. it's easy and straight forward and really doesn't take long each day
2. I am seeing improvements in both my children's writing
3. I like how it holds my hands for narration and increases the expectation of the level of summation gently over the course of the year. My daughter can retell the whole story but needs guidance to actually summarize it. I have been able to help her do this over the course of this year with WWE2.
4. I do this every day because it is so well laid out for me.
5. Variety of literature presented--I wouldn't have chosen some of these passages.
6. Open and go and inexpensive--one less thing for me to plan.
I do not use the actual workbook pages, though. Each of my children use a composition book with the dotted lines, etc. All the work is then kept in one place and I didn't have to do any photocopying or printing or destroy the workbook. I also don't have to file either! If there is some extra work in grammar it also goes in this comp book. I do have to copy out the copywork but it only takes me a couple of minutes once/week.
Added bonus: I love listening to my children talk to other children. They are very good at asking questions that can get other children talking in a very gentle way ("Oh, you like to play soccer?" then "What do you like best about playing soccer?" then "Who is your favorite person on the team?" then "Oh, he moved? Did the person who replaced him as good as a soccer player?" etc. I know they are getting this from our work with WWE and SOTW. By answering detailed questions regularly they have learned how to ask those questions get the whole story (or more details in this case). I know this skill will serve them so well in the future. This would not have happened if I asked them to "retell" the passage each time.
Good luck with your decision!
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How about paper airplanes? There are some great books out there--just start simple!
Also consider making a simple plane out of balsam wood. Easy to cut with scissors. You could start with an inexpensive premade one (by inexpensive I mean under $4.00) and then get him some balsam wood to design his own. Then there are soooo many things he can do with it (and the wood--make boats, etc.).
Yesterday we made candles in milk weed pods. Of course my son wanted to see if they would float with the wax in them (and they did) so we had a huge bowl of water with floating milk weed pod candles in it at dinner time. I will admit he really wanted to sink them and he ended up doing that at the end!
Of course that was not my intention--I just wanted to make nice candles--but I have learned that I can present the work and then let them run in the direction they want with it.
Another thought for handiwork--how about letting your son design his own legos--as in give him a book with pictures on what you're studying and let him design his own plane, boat, car, house, etc. based on the picture. That takes a lot of concentration and playing around with how things come together, strength of the creation, etc. My son always likes to take out t his WWII plane books and tries to make a "replica". He's been doing that since he was six.
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Also consider Red Rocks. I think it's close to the Dinosaur foot prints. We went there last time we went to visit my inlaws. It is so beautiful there. There are short little hikes around it's just really, really interesting. Great place to bring lunch.
I also second the zoo. We really like that zoo. There's even a carousel which is a lot of fun if you have young ones.
Pearl St. in Boulder is nice b/c it is blocked off from traffic except for some cross streets and there are rocks for the kids to climb on, etc. but it is really just a street with lots of stores on both sides. But if you're into the shopping, REI has great places for the kids to play inside the store (climbing, etc.).
There's also a train museum in Golden that my son absolutely loved when he was younger.
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If you're concerned about not having any history, you could always just listen to the SOTW CD's in the car or at home to go though the history cycle through the year. That way you are "reviewing" history without formally covering it.
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My advice: keep it simple. Make things easy to take out and put away. Try to avoid any daily filing if possible (at least that's my mission!)
If you liked using the composition books--find a way to keep using them. We use them for spelling, WWE, and history narration. I bound the maps from SOTW and those are pulled out when we do the history reading so they can do the map work at the same time. If we also did the coloring pages I would have done the same thing as well. My children are in charge of pulling their books out at the beginning of the school day and putting them away afterwards. My books (TM's, read aloud book, etc.) are kept on a shelf on a bookcase in the kitchen (which is where we do school). I drag the pile of them out at the beginning of each school day and I put my own away. Our pencils, glue sticks, tape, etc. is kept in a bamboo utensil holder that sits on top of the shelf. They come out and go away each day.
I do not use binders (though I tried to WTM style) b/c I didn't like to file daily and they didn't fit on our bookshelves well (too tall and thick). The composition books worked well. Also if you print out PDF's of workbooks, just have use half the book. We do this for FLL and I use a pocket folder (left side for finished lessons and the right side for future lessons). You can also do this for workbooks too (my kids did not like keeping their math in a workbook so this worked well. When they finished the half year I just kept samples of the work for their portfolio and then recycled the rest).
Also, think outside the box. The RightStart Math games were in the HUGE box. Finally (!) I put them in a small shoe box. So much easier and more efficient.
I agree with the poster who suggested just starting with a couple of subjects and see how it works.
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I think the key to simplicity when it comes to anything is making it work for you. Look at the space where you're going to be keeping the games. How much will fit there? Put the favorites in first and then go from there. Keep in mind that if it's difficult to take out, it probably won't go back in (i.e. if it fits one spot but three things have to be removed first to get it back there or if it will be a tight fit, a child will not put it back readily). I, too, keep small card games and the like in a basket. Oh, and we have an old mayo jar that holds all our dice. That way if I find one around the house somewhere (where do all these dice come from) they're easy to put in the jar as opposed to finding the game they belong to. Make sure you leave room for the inevitable additions to your collection.
If you're unsure of what to keep: have some fun and play each game. You'll know what's a keeper and what isn't for you and your family.
And my all time favorite game is Risk. I prefer the older editions' rules.
We like puzzles here too. I love the suggestion of rotating them among friends. Definitely keep them in plastic bags so the pieced don't slip out of the boxes!
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I have a recipe box. Old fashion for sure but it works. Every time I made a recipe that wasn't on the cards but was a keeper, I took the time to type them up on a recipe card template and print them up. Search around for some templates that you like. You'll find free ones and some will let you type on them and save them on your computer as well. I save them all in a recipe folder on my computer based on the name of the item. Another option is to put it in a binder but I HATE dragging out something that big, but that's just me. Also, the binder won't fit height-wise on the shelf that I keep my cookbooks on (I don't like using binders for homeschooling either).
Here's a link to a blog entry (not by me) on this very topic that you might find informative--there are lots of comments as well so you might get some other great ideas. http://smallnotebook.org/2010/01/13/organizing-recipes-kickin-it-old-school/
I am one of those people who like to keep it simple. Saving it on the computer is like a back up for me and it makes it easy to print out something for a friend who might want it.
Here's also something else to keep in mind--you need fewer recipes than you think! Also, do you need the list from the recipe when you go to the grocery store?
Good luck with the whole process!
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I like Dansko clogs too but they can be very slippery on ice so they might not be a good choice if she lives in a wintery climate. They also may not be stable enough for her.
The most comfortable shoes I have ever owned are my patagonia drifter hiking shoes. They're low top, lace up. Worth every single penny I paid for them.
Your mom might not care but they come in a gore-tex version and that's what I have. They are very stable, great on the ice, they do not slide on my foot and they are what I reach for when I am heading out to the barn to do chores or out to hike or even out to the store. These will last years.
When it comes to shoe choice, it really depends on what kind of work she does and whether the shoes have to meet any requirements.
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I also use Donna Young's documents http://donnayoung.org/forms/ She goes through how to create a planner and the documents to use with it. I keep mine in a folder that has folder pockets in the front and back and a space for three-hole punched paper in the middle. The middle is where I keep my "attendance sheet". I check off the subjects that were done on each day. Back pocket holds my blank lesson plan sheets and the front holds the completed ones with the current week's lesson plan sheet in front. Works great.
Good luck.
BTW--I fill in my lesson plans AS WE DO THEM, I don't plan ahead on those sheets. I followed DY's advice about planning each subject for the year and then filling in the lessons plan sheets as they are completed. It leaves a lot of flexibility and I'm not rewriting things if our math focus shifts. I also do not plan the year out completely. My planning consists more of "goals" and "topics to cover" rather than 134 lessons of history for the year.
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I just went to our library shelf to pull out what my son took out yesterday. He loves nonfiction too. Here they are:
US War Birds by K. Munson chronicles war planes form World War I to Vietnam
Fly! by Barry Moser which is described as a brief history of flight--it's a thinner book but very interesting. It would be easy to get him to jump off into biographies from here (which are more novel-like but nonfiction. . .)
Bomb by Steve Sheinkin which tells the history of the race to build-and-steal the world's most dangerous weapon. This is thick and is very interesting. No pictures. I am reading it as well. This author also wrote The Notorious Benedict Arnold which won many awards. Not sure if you'll let your son read this one but I approved it for my son. Fascinating story.
Into the Unknown. Love, love, love this books. Follows us along in history.
Submarines and Ships by Richard Humble.
I agree with everyone else who said to wonder the library shelves. I picked up a set of Time/Life books for free and he really enjoyed going through those. Try a used book store as well and look in the adult and kid's section. You might find some great, older books that are inexpensive.
My son also liked the Warrior series, Redwall, etc but he really prefers nonfiction.
Good luck!
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My children started cursive last year, our first year homeschooling (grade 2,3). They have continued with their workbooks this year. It is becoming more natural for them, though they still have to think about letter formation at times. They prefer to print. The way I started to get them to do more cursive with no complaints is to say, "If you do your copywork (which is in manuscript BTW) in cursive then you don't have to do handwriting today." Of course, they choose to do the work in cursive. And then I do that with spelling as well. We'll be adding narration soon. I have waited to do narration last because they are just at the stage where they are starting to do their narration on their own without me writing it first. To add cursive to this step would be too overwhelming in my opinion (I think SWB's philosphy about writing is right on and I don't want to add yet another hurdle for writing. If I am writing out their narration then I don't mind giving them the option to do that in cursive too). In this way I am slowly transitioning them from doing all printing to cursive writing without any fights or tears. It might seem that they are doing less "practicing" but it actually seems harder for them to do the copywork/spelling in cursive than doing the cursive workbook because they are not following a cursive example. And over time their practice time is going up by including more and more of their work in cursive.
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While reading ch 22 in SOTW2 about the Ming Dynasty my children became fascinated by the fact that rice and egg white mortar lasted centuries and they want to make some of their own for both using outside and making miniature buildings inside. Has anyone found a reliable recipe? It doesn't have to last centuries but durable is good. I am going to have them experiment and see what they come up with but I'd also like to have a back up if necessary. . .
I checked the SOTW2 activity book and it wasn't one of the activities for that chapter. If one of the "additional readings" has info could you let me know which book it is?
Thanks in advance.
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He will need help from somewhere, either a class, a book, or you. There is a good intro book if he is more of an autodiadect, otherwise someone will have to show him how to program. There are a few models in the original instructions, lots more in some books, and tons online, but he will have to learn how to use the programming. It is drag and drop, but they need to know things like loops.
What book should we get? Thanks in advance!
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I like How To Teach Spelling. There's a teacher's manual and then 4 workbooks. My children are pretty natural spellers but I still wanted to continue with a spelling program with them. It is pretty inexpensive. My children are considered to be in 3rd and 4th grade and I have workbooks 3 and 4. I use these workbooks as reference only since it is easy to create your own lessons (the teacher's manual shows you how). I have my children use a composition book as their spelling book. This sometimes involves me writing words on the white board but that's quick and easy to do. Our lessons last about 5 minutes/day and my children are retaining the information. It takes all the "busy work" out of spelling workbooks. Sometimes I'll incorporate our handwriting into spelling. I'll print the words and ask them to write them in cursive and if they do a good job they'll be no handwriting that day. There's also the opportunity to do dictation as well with HTTS (it's encouraged as part of the program).
It also teaches the different types of syllables which also helps in the "why" of pronunciation and spelling.
I do have to say that I found the program confusing to figure out at first. Others have commented about that as well--there are reviews of this program on the boards. I found that I just had to start it and figure it out as I went along. This is where I used the workbooks as references--how to present the lessons, what order to introduce the topics, different ways to reinforce the information. It looks more difficult and confusing on paper than it is to actually implement. But I do like it and I won't have to buy another spelling curriculum, just more composition books.
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I bought the hardcopy b/c I do not have tablet/ipad to read off of for FLL3. I am doing two children at once with FLL3 so I debated buying two student books or the PDF. I ended up going with the PDF for the student worksheets because: 1. I have a laser write that can duplex. 2. my children don't like writing in thick workbooks so I would have bind the workbooks into smaller sections.
With the student workbooks I keep them in a two pocket folder--1 side for completed lessons, one side for new lessons. I actually had to divide them into two folders each b/c they were so thick. I used filexec folders becase they were so durable. There is a place for three hole punched paper in the middle (where an actual report would go through). When we come up to the memory work I three hole punch that and put it in there with the most recent in front. That way it is easy to do it everyday before our lessons. This has worked out great. Originally I was going to bind the worksheets but I really like this method better.
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I do WWE with my 3rd and 4th grader combined. I have them use a comp book to write their narrations, copywork, etc in. I left the book whole since I am only reading from it. I like the fact that I am not filing anything into a three ring binder.
I did, however, take apart the Activity Book for SOTW (they get really big in the later volumes!). I made copies of the maps to make a spiral bound map book for my children and divided the teacher's portion into two thin volumes and used them that way. Old folders were used for the covers and the book covers were re-used as well. Worked great and they have held up without a problem so fart this year.
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We are reviewing our parts of speech with Grammarland (we use FLL and thought that this would be a nice way to review--thank you http://farrarwilliam...-grade-grammar/ for the suggestion! It's a nice break/review of FLL).
Anyways when we reviewed articles "an" came up as being used before the vowels a, e, i. o, and u as well as the mute h. However when my daughter suggested "univalve" as a noun for the "u" example we all agreed that it sounded better saying "a univalve" instead of "an univalve". Obviously this is an exception but is there a hard and fast rule for this exception?
Thank you in advance!
Michelle
How much would you charge for before care?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Maybe looking at it objectively from an hourly rate might give you a different perspective:
45 min/day x 5 days equals 3.75 hours per week. If there are 20 school days in a month that would be 15 hours. If you are just doing before care (and the time you have them is really 45 minutes from the time they arrive to the time they get on the bus in the morning) then you are getting $6.60/hour.
If you add in 4 hours (from 3-7 on Thursday--I'm just estimating here) for 4 weeks per month, that's an additional 16 hours (I'm not counting your gas here either) you're making $3.23/hour (which is your rate/hour right now).
When you're watching both children for $50 per day when they're out of school and if that's for about 9 hours then you're making $5.50/hour (this is your best rate yet).
How much do you feel you should make per hour? What does the average babysitter make per hour where you live? Do you offer more than the average babysitter (on Thursdays you do--you're picking up and dropping off at ballet). You're also providing a convenience for the mom and dad--close to their house and only contracted for the time that they need you.
I'm sure you have not contract with this family so I think it is within your rights to change the fee for April. This way you can see if it's going to work out between you and them and whether you want to look into finding another family to do this next year (if you are doing this not just as a favor but for the money as well). You can look at the school calendar (usually posted online--I know our public school's calendar is online) and figure out what the next month's bill will be and tell them payment is due 7 days prior to the start of the next month.
Also, something that we don't know based on your post is how this whole arrangement came to be. . .are your children friends with her children? Do you two go way back? Or is this more of a business arrangement? That might totally change how you should handle this. Let's use $10/hour charge for example. If you did that you would be raising the monthly rate from $100 to $310 for a 20-day month. That's a huge jump (don't get me wrong, it is still reasonable when you look at it from an hourly standpoint) and if this person was a close friend I might just finish out the year at the current rate and then just call it quits so there are no hurt feelings all around.