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DiannaC

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Posts posted by DiannaC

  1. Spelling by Sound and Structure does not use the term "phonograms." :-)  Generally speaking, only Spalding and its spin-offs use that word.

     

    If I were not going to teach my dc to read and spell with Spalding, I would use one of the many other good phonics-based methods (OPGTR, Explode the Code, AlphaPhonics, Phonics Pathways, for example); I would not start Spelling by Sound and Structure until the dc were 9, with the fourth grade book. The first two are just too simple.

     

    My oldest will be 9 and in 4th grade this year. He is the one who struggles with spelling. My 2nd ds is 7 and in 2nd grade and is a natural speller. I don't want it to be too easy for him, but I want something he can do independently too. 

  2. I have used SWR for 4 years now, but I'm thinking of doing something different as I will be teaching 3 children this year and the time to teach SWR is more than I want to spend on spelling. My oldest is not a natural speller, my 2nd sees a word and knows how to spell it, and my 3rd begins K5 this year. Do you think Rod & Staff would be a good fit for the oldest 2? 

     

    For those who use Rod & Staff what do you use before to teach the phonograms and beginning spelling? I've just always used SWR to teach my boys to read and spell. 

  3. Easywdw.com tells you which days during your trip you should go to each park. Here's the May calendar:

     

    http://www.easywdw.com/easy/calendars/may-2016-walt-disney-world-crowd-calendar/

     

    It also has "cheat sheets" for each park, giving you an idea what to do in what order and which rides you should FP. Use this as a guide.

     

    http://www.easywdw.com/easy/cheat-sheets/disney-world-cheat-sheets-maps-touring-plans-and-wait-times-4/

     

    As far as dining, we just looked at the restaurants and did some sit down lunches and some sit down dinners. We tried to eat in or near the parks we were touring each day.

     

    Have a great time!

    We are going in October and this was super helpful for me. Thanks for sharing! 

  4. My 3rd grade son took the Stanford 10 last week. I received the results back this morning and the only thing he struggled with was Word Study Skills. I'm not sure exactly what that is as we did not practice for the test. I have a feeling he may not have understood what was being asked, but never the less, I want to make sure I'm teaching him all he needs. He has struggled in spelling this year (we use SWR) and seems to have a hard time retaining words from week to week (I always include words from past lists). 

     

    Is there a spelling curriculum anyone would recommend that covers word study skills and helps students to retain spelling words? I've looked at ABeCeDarian Word Study, but I'm not sure. What about AAS? 

     

    My 1st grader is a phenomenal speller because he has a photographic memory and if he has read the word, he can spell the word. The only problem with that is he doesn't want to sound out words for spelling, but just write them down. 

     

    I will also have a K5 student next year so I would like to get something I could use for all of them. 

     

    Should I get something just for Word Study Skills and keep SWR? I've liked the curriculum (we've done since K5 with my oldest) or is there something that would work for both? 

     

    Thanks! 

  5. I'm definitely in the minority on this board, but I love CC. This is our 5th year and my kids have learned so much and so have I. No curriculum, community, or company is perfect because we are sinners and perfection won't be met until we reach eternity. I have never felt pressured at CC and I have seen directors and tutors do everything in their power to help a family who was concerned about paying for it. In full disclosure, I am a director this year and was a tutor for 4 years. I began a new community this year because in our area the other campuses are bursting at the seam. CC doesn't want to turn people away who want to participate. Also, in my time of holding info meetings, I don't pressure families to recruit their friends. I let them know of an upcoming event in case they know of someone who is interested. In fact, I had two moms so excited last week about CC and all their kids are learning that they were telling other moms on a field trip about CC - not because they were pressured, but because they were excited.

     

    Check out CC for yourself; it might be the right fit for your family and it might not. :-)

  6. The way my community does it is that tutors pay half at the beginning when the director gives us our check for the first semester. Then we pay the other half at the beginning of the second semester when the director gives us our check for the second semester. It typically washes out and some people make money depending on the size of your group. Our group is large, so I do make a little something that I put into an education fund to buy books. 

     

    If you do CC, I would encourage you to look for the curriculum online. I saw on homeschool classifieds the Foundation Guide, 4th edition (the newest one), for $38 with shipping. You can find everything much cheaper if you search for it. 

  7. I would say don't do it. As a tutor that had a new director last year, it was very difficult because she had never been through a cycle & she wasn't much help to the tutors. She had been in CC for one year & hadn't tutored that year. My director the year before was a seasoned CC tutor & she was so helpful to me. I really feel that to be a director, you need to go through at least 2 cycles & have been a tutor. That's just my two cents!

  8. I'm trying to decide when to start school. Last year we began the first full week of August and were finished a week before Memorial Day. This year, my husband and I are going to a conference July 31st-Aug 2 and then we are taking our family vacation Aug 10-17. My husband says wait until Aug 19th to begin school, but that doesn't give us much wiggle room throughout the fall. Plus, that would be a full 3 months off and I don't know if it's good to take that big of a break. I'm considering beginning on July 15th to give us more breaks through the year.

     

    When do you like to start school? July? August? September?

  9. Which does beg the question....

     

    Sooooo.

     

    If I were to PM someone and say hey, I'm interested in X you are selling, but can't afford that price. Would you accept Y instead? ---- would it tick y'all off?

     

    It wouldn't me. I might still say no, but it wouldn't tick me off.

     

     

    I did this with a seller last week. They asked $30 for the materials and I offered to pay $25 and she said yes. I do think it is fair to bargain and I'm not offended if someone wants to bargain with me.

  10. A simply wonderful place to donate used curriculum is the Book Samaritan. They help out homeschooling families in need by sending them FREE used curriculum that has been donated to them. It is all stamped so it cannot be sold. Yes, you do have to pay to ship it to them, but you know that you are doing aa good thing and getting a tax write-off.

     

     

    Thanks for sharing this ministry. I've never heard of it and it is a great option. People are right that you really don't make much by the time you pay for an envelope to ship the materials and the shipping, not to mention Paypal fees. This seems like a much better option. Thanks!

  11. I'm getting ready to place an order with RR, but before I do I wanted to know do they have a big sale in the summer? Or free shipping? I'm buying Saxon math for the first time, so that is a larger purchase. I've never purchased from them before and wanted to know if I should wait before placing my order.

  12. I have tutored the little ones for 2 years now. I typically spend an hour preparing every week. You don't have to memorize everything, because you can look at what is on your board or in your book. Because I listen to the songs with my kids, I memorized most of it, but it isn't required. The tutor trainer at our practicum said it shouldn't take you that long to prepare because you aren't teaching, but drilling. Once you find what your kids like (silly voices, songs, motions, drawing) then you use those things. It should be fairly simple because you are modeling for moms. You need to be able to replicate what you are doing at home & so do they. I think some tutors make it way more complicated & elaborate than CC wants it to be.

  13.  

     

    He convinced me too!!!! I am going to start Latin next year in second grade and follow the Memoria Press timeline for Latin. I will also do Jr. Analytical Grammar or something like that in late elementary and then Analytical Gramma in middle school.

     

    I am currently reading The War Against Grammar. I highly recommend it!

     

    Thanks for the recommendation. From what I've seen online, I think we will start Prima Latina next year in 2nd. We have Latin memory work with CC and that will suffice this year. In SWR, your child writes sentences based on his spelling words, and I've already had the opportunity to talk about capitalization at the beginning of a sentence and proper nouns. I think I'll just use the grammar SWR introduces and do more formal grammar as ds gets older.

  14. I attended the homeschool conference in Greenville a couple of months ago & heard Andrew Pudewa speak. In his discussion about teaching English grammar to grammar age students, he was emphatically against it. He said it was better to teach Latin because it was easier for them to recognize the parts of speech and as they got older, you introduce the study of English grammar & they learn it much quicker. By the way, I went to this talk right after I bought FLL!

     

    This is what he said at the conference: http://blog.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/2012/06/12/3590/

     

    We are using Spell to Write & Read for spelling & phonics, but there are also grammar rules taught as well.

     

    What are your thoughts on teaching Latin instead of English grammar? Is 1st grade too young to begin Latin?

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