Jump to content

Menu

Susan in Central Texas

Members
  • Posts

    139
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Susan in Central Texas

  1. My dd in 9th/10th is currently in Apologia Chemistry. She has completed Apol. Bio, Physical, and Gen Science. She loved all of those texts so much that I decided to start my younger kids in the Apologia texts developed by Jeanie Fullbright (sp?). My son (6th) has now completed Botany, Zoology-Land Animals of the Sixth Day, and is working his way through his third text- Anatomy/Physiology. My youngest (4th) is working through that text alongside him. If I had only known how wonderful these texts were when DD1 was their age, I would have started her in them also. They are easy to implement at home, and the "wordiness" referred to by some (and I acknowledge that this is true to some extent) is one of the things that makes the science accessible to my more linguistically-oriented family. I feel that they are thorough, colorful with excellent illustrations, and have easy-to-follow experiments with commonly available household items. We do vocabulary, What Do You Remember questions, experiments, and lab reports for all of our work. We have a test at the end of each unit. This provides a multi-sensory approach to the science as the kids see, touch, write, hear (when I read or they read aloud), and talk during discussion and oral review. I cannot say that this curriculum is the best of all curricula for science, because we are not using everything. I also do not believe that any curriculum is best for all people in any subject since all learners and teachers are different. I can say that it works well for our family and for its variety of learners. :001_smile: When DS enters 7th and 8th next year, we plan to continue in Apologia with General and Physical Sciences. HTH.
  2. Thanks for all the food for thought, everyone. As I was reading these compelling posts, some of the same thoughts came to me that Garden Mom expressed. If a student has stayed in high school doing intensive, advanced academics, thoroughly learning an area of study, then why not take a CLEP test? Does she really need to repeat what she has already learned in a classroom with other CC or 1st/2nd year undergrads, if she has already thoroughly mastered the material? She could possibly even be in class with students below her level of understanding, if this is the case. That seems to place an artificial stricture on the student. We have every hope/intention of sending our kids through a traditional college, but I cannot understand why there would be any problem with putting behind oneself and getting credit for work already acheived. Not all students taking a CLEP test are just cramming for and a taking a test. They might be demonstrating mastery of a content area learned at home. For now, we are planning to choose this route and keep our kids learning at home and through virtual live classrooms online rather than accelerate them through CC with the view of taking AP and CLEP tests once done. I know that like many of you, I went through a traditional high school (with more than enough "social interaction"), took no CC courses, but entered my first year of college with 30 hours from tests required by my university for incoming freshmen. I don't think that I lost out on anything socially or academically by doing that. Those tests were just a reflection of what I'd learned in high school and didn't need to repeat in college. Why should entering homeschoolers need to do anything differently? Thanks for any input. I'm honestly still formulating my thoughts on this. I overheard (with permission) a conversation between a friend with kids going through a traditional public school route and a friend who is a university behavioral development expert saying that incoming students should have no more than about 6 hours of credit, because they aren't "socially" mature enough to handle more and need some time as underclassmen before they interact with upperclassmen. Interesting conversation to have overheard. The friend with the public school student's husband is also a university professor, and she claimed that he held similar beliefs. I'm mulling over it all, but I did tell them that I disagreed- depending, I supose, upon the student.:tongue_smilie:
  3. wondering why i couldn't post a minute ago, so test, test, test. :)
  4. Hi. For my DD, we met with a very small group of classical educators and studied Fallacy Detectives in 6th grade. Although she is an older child for her grade, at the beginning of the year, it was a little of a stretch for her. By mid-semester, it came much more naturally to her. She really loved the content. Knowing what I know now, I would recommend starting this no earlier than 7th grade for a typical student. In 7th grade, my DD worked with the same group and did Traditional Logic I. They used the DVD set, read and completed their assignments at home, discussed the material following week, and then took quizzes when they met. Although this is considered to be a one-semester course, our group took a year roughly following our co-op schedule. At the same time, they studied Paul E. Little's "Know Why You Believe". They worked on study questions for this apologetic and discussed it during class. This book had great influence over my daughter's reasoning and understanding of her faith. Next year, my DD will be in 8th grade and will be doing the Memoria Press Classical On-Line Academy for Traditional Logic II for one semester. She will follow that with Material Logic in the spring. We've been very pleased with the quality/content of the MP material. Hope that helps.
  5. I'm so glad that you are Becoming (a) Jane (ite). Welcome to the club! This was an interesting movie....IMHO....but it really didn't have that much to do with Jane Austen. It seemed highly fictionalized (as is often the case with movies) to me. Even reading Becoming Jane didn't really convey all that the movie more than implied. Maybe I am too much of a stickler. I've read every JA biography that I am aware of having been written. So much of what was in that movie was conspicuously missing from those erudite tomes.:tongue_smilie: It was fun to watch, but it took many liberties, I thought. If you'd like to know more about JA, you could visit www.pemberley.com. (I hope we are allowed to post web-site links on here. This isn't an ad!) Also, I recommend a daily dose of reading her writing! Finally, try some of the fantastic movie adaptations of her works. Some of them are pretty faithful to the original works. Enjoy. That is one of summer's greatest pleasures for me....breaking from teaching, and reading Jane!
  6. No wonder I use this and it usually works great, but I FRIED myself to a CRISP at the waterpark last year with repeated applications!:tongue_smilie:Arghhh!
  7. As I'm discovering, you are correct. He's remembering the pictures and the facts, but it takes a while to call them up. On the other hand, before this program, he would have to skip count or add to COMPUTE the multiplication fact as he COULD NOT remember them from drilling! It DOES take a while, but at least now he has a tool to use in remembering them.:iagree:
  8. This doesn't seem "screwy" to me....it seems like a grace message. Thanks for articulating your position so well.
  9. To me, these suits are cute (especially on the littlest girls) while being modest, but....honestly, I think that they might draw my attention more than a more conventional, (yet still modest...ala Land's End swim shirt and shorts/skirts) would...and in that way...sort of in a reverse way....would be less modest, simply because it would "make me look".:glare:
  10. Okay, this is a little bit of a rant that I mean kindly, and that I don't mean to be preachy....but I thought about it for a couple of days, and I couldn't resist saying it...and it is after all, just my opinion meant to be helpful...:tongue_smilie: We all blow it sometimes, but have grace/mercy over yourself. If you are too restrictive and legalistic about everything that you eat, you are really giving too much "power" to food, and you will find yourself defeated again and again just by the sheer amount of energy you give to thinking about food! So....IMHO...you do the best you can by eating the way you know is right...and if you blow it a little from time to time, then let it go and move on, and just do better in the future without self-recrimination. A little give in the daily plan (unless you have special medical reasons to severely restrict and/or perfect a certain kind of diet) gives you the freedom you need to breathe and LIVE a lifestyle of healthy eating rather than constantly being on a DIET. So, give yourself a break! :001_smile:
  11. I just researched this, and frankly, I didn't find it cheaper anywhere else. I purchased a student text for each of the students in my little private "co-op" of 6 students, and purchased the teacher book for myself. While you COULD write everything out on paper, the stories that the students use are actually printed in the worktext for the students to read, and you do things to the stories such as mark with a green color the first words in each sentence, and mark with a red color the end punctuation. Additionally, the students have editting checklists, etc throughout the week along with daily assignments. Peacehill Press for SOTW allows copying of their activity guide within a family. You might ask Amy Olson (or is it Olsen?) what her copyright requirements are for use within a family for WT. If she does permit copying of the worktext, then you could write out the spelling and vocab very easily, for example, on paper, and just copy the pages you would NEED for each child. Hope that this info helps. Happy trails with Writing Tales. We LOVE it!:thumbup1:
  12. First kiss at the wedding....You are sooooo cool! "That's it"...Anne Elliot replied, "They fell in love over poetry!"
  13. Have a great day in sunny Texas!:001_tt2::001_tt2:
  14. Count me in, Profmom. Hopefully, I will also be able to keep up with my other book club at the same time! And...there's the Pemberley group reading that I hoped to start....
  15. Okay, so I ammmmm a piano teacher, but I also studied several instruments, including voice, as I was growing up. the question that occurs to me now as I contemplate the future for my own children (musically) is....what instrument, realistically, might they actually enjoy for a lifetime. I no longer play handbells, the organ, the clarinet (and yes, I was FIRST CHAIR throughout school), etc., but I still enjoy playing the piano and singing at church, for the enjoyment of others, but especially when I am alone....even the classical stuff.:tongue_smilie: So, while I dooooo plan to have those of my children who are interested in doing so continue to pursue a variety of instruments, if my resources were limited (time, interest, or money), I would think long-term thoughts. Just don't give up studying music altogether. The benefits of brain development, etc. are so great
  16. LOL I grew up with two brothers....I used my cousin's hand-me-downs until it was a desperate situation....my mother just didn't seem to notice.
  17. My DD is 12 now, but she developed earlier than most of her friends. Whatever you do, please don't take siblings along the first time, especially brothers!
  18. DS has trouble holding things (like math facts) in temporary memory. Learning these facts through all traditional means has failed. We read a review on a product called Rhymes Tables in a homeschooling magazine, and thought that we'd give it a try. I had a few problems actually ordering the materials...they had trouble getting my shipping info via Paypal, and then after having it verified lost the order entirely. When I called a 3rd time and brought it to their attention, they were VERY apologetic, promised to ship immediately and include a refund for postage. 5 or 6 days later, we finally got it, but there was no refund check.... BUT....it really works!:tongue_smilie: It has a little flipchart book that puts a sort of picture story and rhyme to every math fact. My DS had no trouble mentally hearing/visualizing the rest of each rhyme as I covered 1/2 of it...from the rhymes, he derives the math fact. If you do not suffer from the problem that he has, it seems impossible to learn the facts from the little rhyme/pictures, but he DOES have the problem,and it DOES work for him!!! You can look at it yourself if you simply google rhymes tables.
  19. I even heard a woman once laughingly referring to my children as "clear"...she said that would have to be the only category she could think of to describe what to her was simply beyond white. I can't help thinking that if they really understood how hurtful those comments were, (and scientifically just WRONG, IMHO) they would avoid making them. So.....we just have to assume that they stem from ignorance, hope they will refrain from making such personal comments altogether in the future, and just choose to forgive... In the meantime, my dark-complexioned husband is more than happy to appreciate the differences between us. I am too. I tell my children that just as God made many beautiful colors of flowers, so He made many beautiful colors of people. Long live variety! Since I am new to this site, I hope that I haven't offended or hurt anyone, or said anything inappropriate. These are just my opinions, for what they are worth.
  20. We've delighted ourselves in produce to the exclusion of convenience foods. We purchase almost no pre-packaged goods such as crackers, cookies, etc. Instead, we purchase whole grains, and make our own foods. We've been eating fresh foods almost exclusively, and we've found that by elimated convenience/snack foods, our grocery bills are lower, our health is better, and we eat out less often (since we plan ahead more now). Rising costs have done us a favor in that way...strangely... It's helped us focus on what we really NEED instead of what is convenient, so we've really cut back to simpler dishes with fewer ingredients. They are really more delicious! And we've enjoyed a little surge of creativity along the way....homemade granola...spinach salads with avocado, walnuts, and fruit...balsamic vinegar and olive oil instead of "ranch" dressing....Yummy!!!:thumbup:
  21. I could not agree more....but then, I had my first skin cancer at 38, and have had it twice now. I am very fair, take all of the precautions, and have always taken them thanks to my fair-skinned mother, and yet.... I live in Texas....One cannot completely avoid exposure in this sunny clime. You might try Neutrogena sunscreen. It receives great reveiws for UVA and UVB protection. I have personally found that it is very effective and yet it does not give that chemical burn that most of the others give. Also, I use Neutrogena oil-free moisturizer with SPF 15 DAILY as soon as I wash my face in the morning. It is light, does not sport a strong odor, and goes nicely under make-up (or I often use it instead of makeup). Burt's Bees sunscreen is supposed to be natural, but has a tacky feeling and a very strong (and may I say strange, even) scent. I love the other Burt's Bees products, but not this one, IMHO. But little note of warning...In order to protect your scalp, you must wear a hat. My most recent round with SC was right on top of my blond head...an area to which I have not routinely applied sunscreen, although I admit that I actually HAVE TRIED! So....I have been warned to wear a hat year round. Hope this helps. A friendly note to encourage others not to compliment their other friends' "fabulously healthy" tans in front of their really fair-skinned buddies. To those of us who are truly fair-skinned, no tan is a healthy tan, and those sorts of compliments seem to imply a lack of health and beauty to those of us who must abstain from sun-worshipping!:blush5:
  22. When I noticed that he (DH) kept staring :blink:at me! I asked his friend while we were sitting on the sofa watching the NY Mets work their way to the penant in 1986, "Why does ___ keep looking at me,:001_cool: and smiling like that?" He just hugged me close and said, "Does he? I didn't notice. That's just his way. That's why the guys all call him Smiley." So.....I thought that was just his way....but he was looking at me because I was the ONE!!!:001_wub: After several years of marriage (and his friend was an attendant in our wedding), I discovered that he went home and told his parents that he had met his future wife, and her name was Susan....he failed to mention that I was dating his best friend, and that we had never been out on a single date. When his friend graduated from college :seeya:that year and moved back home 1/2 a continent away,:auto: DH started to call me on a regular basis. I thought that he was looking out for his buddy's gal,:glare: but he was getting to know me better, and letting me get to know him. It didn't take long for me to realize that DH was the ONE for me as well.:iagree: This June will make 20 years of wedded bliss.:party:
  23. Why do we begin teaching history before the logic or rhetoric stages? Children may not be able to conceptualize or grasp fully the events about which they are learning, but they are establishing pegs on which to hang future study. In the same way, Apologia Physical (and even General Science) in 6th, 7th, or 8th will lay a foundation for the future. My DD is just completing Apologia Physical Science this year (6th grade). 7th grade math was a pre-requisite for this course (but she was fine there). What this course did for her is that it brought together science and math for the first time. Additionally, she learned the format of reading, studying, thinking about science, completing experiments, and writing the lab reports, etc. on a pretty rapid schedule (for 6th grade). She also had to complete the unit summaries to be really prepared for her unit tests. The content of Physical Science was also excellent in that it put down a groundwork of terminology for physics (circuitry, motion, laws of physics), chemistry (periodic table, protons, neutrons, etc.), the scientific method, weather and earth science. Additionally, it introduced these and other topics into their minds for thought. I believe that this course will have an impact on high school science in many ways. I think that it will be an excellent preparation for further study in a number of areas, and will allow my DD to begin studying them more in depth in high school (and beyond) with a basic understanding or framework already in place. This is just my opinion, and we have to each make choices according to our individual children and their needs. For these reasons, I do not plan to skip science in 7th or 8th grades.:glare: Further note: Biology could be studied at any point after Algebra I has been learned (or possibly concurrently). If your child completes Algebra I in 7th, he/she COULD begin biology in 8th (if he/she is a precocious scientist)....or he could complete Algebra I in 8th and go on to Biology in 9th....:tongue_smilie:
×
×
  • Create New...