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calihil

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Posts posted by calihil

  1. Gosh, I don't know. I was right there with you and spent a whole lot of time every single night planning how to teach one little lesson (1st grade). It was so stressful for me! It just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me the way it was written out. I never knew what exactly I was supposed to be teaching, or how to explain it so that it made sense to my kid. As you may have guessed, Singapore didn't last around here. I needed more hand holding. We switched to BJU and I've done it every year since. It's completely scripted but I can deviate from that no problem. For me, a rather non-mathy person, it's perfect.

    Yep, same here. Singapore lasted maybe 2 weeks here before I ditched it. I just didn't understand it at all. And the HIG, forget about it... so confusing.

  2. I also agree with Ellie.

     

    I have a 7.5 year old and she just finished 1st grade. Im wondering why you put her in school at the end of the school year, why not just wait and see what you'd have to do to have her caught up to her age level come next school year? I totally get making huge moves and having babies. I had my 4th last summer, moved from CA to NY to TX, and my oldest started 1st grade homeschool. It was a lot but you know what, in these early grades it really doesn't have to take much to do school. And again, if you wanted to put her in school, take a few months to bring her up to where she'd have to be in the fall. Or whenever the UK starts school.

     

    But if it were me, I'd pull her. That's a lot of pressure to put on a little one.

    • Like 1
  3. We knew we would homeschool before we ever had kids. We are Christians who want to bring our children up in a Christian home, teach them the Bible, and teach them from a biblical worldview. We have 4 kids so private Classical Christian school isn't affordable for us but I guess if we could afford it we'd consider it, at least for high school.

  4. I'm going through LLOTG for the second time with my 7, 5, and 3 year olds. It's a great little book on doctrine for little ones, IMO. We also read a Bible story at night, and during Morning Time we learn a hymn, go over our Bible verses, and catechism. The children's catechism we use is along these lines....

     

    http://www.reformed.org/documents/cat_for_young_children.html

     

    We listen to the Ask Me Whooo CD to go along with it. And then we discuss application mostly during daily life. HTH!

  5. We just finished 1st grade. We just worked on learning to read (went through OPGTR), I had her read to me for about 15 minutes from readers that were at or a little below her level. We did math every day, focusing on math facts, telling time, place value, and a little bit about money. We did copywork every day, I'd pick something we were reading and had her copy the sentence perfectly (we did Handwriting in K,so if he doesn't know how to write letters, I'd start there. Pentime was cheap and easy for us). And then we just read a lot of books, picture books, chapter books. I had her narrate a harder reading (we did Ambleside Online Year 1 for a bit, still use some of the books) a few times a week. Played outside a lot. We do Morning Time together which consists of reading a poem every day, memorizing Bible passages, hymns, catechism, and poems. It was a good year, she learned a lot. :)

    • Like 1
  6. An older mom I know homeschooled all 4 of her sons. She told me for history she was very eclectic, they read a lot of historical fiction, watched documentaries, and pretty much did an unschooled approach to history up until 9th grade when she did a "real" curriculum. Her boys were more than fine, one is a Physical Therapist, another is an MD, another is a Nurse Anesthetist, and the other one is doing great in college, all received full rides. And all still love history which maybe is the most important thing. :)

  7. We've used both for 1st grade and they are completely different. Rod and Staff doesn't go over much else than addition and subtraction and it's in the very traditional way. Math Mammoth is what my 1st grader is using and we love it. I feel like it covers math topics from every angle possible. It's mental math so very different from RS.

  8. But if gluttony is a sin, God would never create a person with a strong biological predisposition toward overeating, right? We all need food, but we don't need to eat to excess to survive. Yet there are people who have medical conditions that compel them toward gluttony, sometimes so powerfully that they literally can't resist. If gluttony is a sin, that's not exactly fair.

     

    Or does it not count as sin if a person is born with a biological compulsion to do something?

    Not joining to debate, but I just wanted to clarify a bit....

     

    As a Reformed Christian, we believe we are all born into sin, so it's not really an issue of God never creating people with a certain propensity to sin. We are all born with all kinds of sin in our hearts, that's why we need Jesus. Sin has to do with the heart. Simply being overweight doesn't mean one is a glutton, just like being thin doesn't mean one is NOT a glutton. Gluttony is a sin because the heart idolizes food instead of finding its joy and comfort in God. That's not to say we can't enjoy food and fellowship because we can and are encouraged to. I've never been a member of a church where gluttony is encouraged, but on the contrary is discouraged.

  9. I'm right there with you. I have 4 ages 7 and under and getting any kind of order is just hard right now. So I usually try to do Morning Time in the playroom where they can play quietly and the baby can crawl around. It isn't much right now.... I read a poem or two, we sing our hymn of the month, go over our Bible passage, recite our poem of the month, and then look at our artist prints. We do catechism with our kids so I'll put the catechism set to music on my Spotify app and we'll sing along for that for about 5-10 minutes. But that's about it. Sometimes I'll read a picture book but usually I'll leave that until later. I figure as they all get older it will get a bit easier but I'm just trying to start a routine of it now.

  10. I have one in the somewhat similar boat...I posted about him a month or so ago. Those 300-500 words they're supposed to know at the end of 1st grade...he had maybe 15 and the rest he had to sound out every time. I started using Abecedarian with him two weeks ago and have been really impressed with it. Now he has another 20 or so words he can read without sounding out. It doesn't sound like much, but that's more than he'd picked up in nearly two years of reading instruction up until now. I've realized that he is most likely dyslexic so that may not be what's going on with your child. Anyway, there's a list of dyslexia symptoms that was helpful to me at www.dys-add.com. Also if you google for how to build reading fluency you can find more ways to increase fluency...I can't remember the ones that haven't been suggested already off the top of my head but I know there are more.

    Thank you for that link. I just looked up the symptoms and she does many of those things. :( :(

     

    Can someone tell me how I can get her evaluated? We're in the Houston area, if that helps any....

    • Like 1
  11. I was under the impression that OPGTR was a phonics book? We did over 200 lessons and she could sound out those words at the end that are really long... So I *think* her phonics is OK, but she's just very slow and choppy. It seems like in the last 6 months she's gotten a bit better, but I had just hoped it would have clicked by now. Of course we try not to compare but just about every other 1st grader we know is reading chapter books and it's like pulling teeth to get her to read 4 pages from a reader. Oh, and we don't only read from Pathways, we've used all kinds of books, mostly level 2 or 3 readers. I think right now she has no interest in books because she frustrates herself because she's slow. But then.... I just started AAR 1 with my 5.5 year old and she's just flying through it. Very different than her sister. Which is fine, but.... How will I know if there's a problem? I'm hoping that she just needs more practice....

    • Like 1
  12. My daughter is almost 7.5 and we're almost at the end of 1st grade. I feel like I've been working on learning to read with her for 2 years now, or more. I don't even remember when we started. But she's still very slow, not very fluent, and because she's slow, she doesn't want to read at all by herself. We've gone through OPGTR and I've had her read aloud to me (almost) every day for about 15 minutes from a Pathways reader (she finished the two 1st grade readers and is now on the first 2nd grade reader) for the past year or so. Her comprehension seems ok. Her eyes checked out ok. I read aloud to her (good picture books and chapter books, both on her level and a bit above) every day.

     

    What else should I be doing? Is this when I just wait for things to "click"? I was just hoping that by the end of this year she'd be reading fluently and well.... Is this all normal?

     

    #nervousfirsttimehomeschoolmom :)

  13. I also like All About Reading. I'm using it with my 5 year old now after trying several other things with my now 7 year old when she was younger. At the time I just didn't want to spend the money but now I wish I had. It really is SO easy to do and lessons are fast and my dd is learning a lot and loves to do it every day. Is definitely recommend it and plan on using it with my other 2 kids when they're older.

    • Like 1
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