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Jodi-FL

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  1. homeschooling for 19 years here, but my kids have spent a year or two in public school also (in 2 different states). i'm currently homeschooling my 2 youngest (of 7) who are 12 and 10. first, welcome. the homeschooling world is a wonderful community of helpful information. you can do this. second, public schooling often kills love of reading (esp. if they were "grouped" into reading groups by skill level, or had a required reading log, or were made to read from anthologies that often only gave parts of stories.) i was a reading specialist at public school the past 2 years :) my current 4th grader struggles with this currently. what helps him is to read books *below* his level, but at his interest, and the ones on his level, we read together. (he reads a page, I read a page). he's also motivated to do other things by reading for "just 15 minutes more." third, it often takes a good year to decompress from the scheduling of school. getting outside as often as we can, hikes, field trips, museums, anything out of the ordinary that they couldn't do if they were in school is what we focus on. years ago (like 20) someone on this board recommended having an "other place" that you go to on the bad days. for me 20 years ago, that was a mega bookstore. i could get a hot drink, gather all the books or magazines i wanted to peruse, and we headed to the children's area where the kids could peruse their own books or play with the train set. now that they're older, we head to a library that has a cool cafe and used bookstore. you can do this. enjoy your kids, let them know that you do have fun!
  2. Does your child know how to outline? WWS will help with that leading into writing 3-5 paragraphs that are cohesive. My 12 yo has benefited greatly by doing history the old fashioned WTM way, outlining sections of Kingfisher, and writing a 3-5 paragraph paper from that. My 10 yo is using WWE and I agree with the opinion that it would be too easy.
  3. repetitive reading of a favorite book always helps (think Dr. Seuss). once she gains confidence of word recognition, work on inflection. kids don't get tired of reading the same story over and over, then the confidence carries over to other reading.
  4. My rising 7th grader has been in ps for the past 2 years. He is "top tier" in all subjects. He will most likely be returning to ps for high school (dad's wishes). I've used Apologia Gen. Science with my oldest 5 kids (4 graduated from homeschooling, one is currently in 10th in ps-honors classes), but remember it being kind of dry. I want to re-instill his love for learning, engage his curiosity again, but also set him up to be well prepared for public school honors science. What would you recommend? I'll have the rising 4th grader at home also. We do have a limited budget as I resigned my position (reading specialist in ps) and dh is losing his job in the next few months (bank merger/acquisition). thanks for the suggestions- jodi now in pa
  5. The last year my kids have been in public school. I am an approved test administrator through BJU testing services, but it says they are not for public school students. Our school (PA) requires PSSA tests, of which we are opting out. I wanted to give my kids the IoWA because that is what they took as homeschoolers, and we are def returning to homeschooling next year. It would only be for my eyes. Is this allowed? I can't find a clear answer on the website. Thx, Jodi (now in PA, but hubby is job searching, again)
  6. i give dibels at one of our elementary schools (i just became a learning support assistant this year after 17 years of homeschooling because my husband told me to work full time). my 2 youngest attend a different school district (5th and 2nd grade) that also do dibels. they are basically just tied to funding. as a result of the initial dibels, i work with kids in 3-5th grade who tested low in reading ability or fluency. many of them read just fine and just need more practice, not more testing. i was initially appalled by the NSF (non-sense fluency) test, but it's a test of their decoding ability. very confusing for them, and IMO, totally unnecessary. unless you're looking to assess hundreds of kids in a short amount of time in order to get maximum government money for your school. we have good, caring, experienced teachers at our school (where i work) that have high opinions of homeschoolers because they know giving our kids the best education is the priority. their hands are tied. i have a teaching degree from 25 years ago. i am still in shock how much has changed over those years. teachers basically don't teach anymore. they present information given to them i order to assess the testing ability of kids. they have very little control over their own goals, processes or teaching content. it's sad. at my own kids' school, on the other hand, homeschoolers are seen as a threat. they don't think parents could ever do a good job of educating their kids, and treat us like we don't even know how to parent. i got in an unintended confrontation with my 2nd grader's teacher because he's getting early readers sent home as his guided reading (henry and mudge, etc.) and he's reading chapter books at home. he asked me why he has to keep reading them when he sees other kids get chapter books. i asked his teacher. of course it was tied to how he tested. i asked him how he reads at school for his teacher and he said, "at. the. corner. in. a. room.) when i asked him why he reads like that for her, he said it was because that's how he heard the other kids read. she totally spoke down to me until i told her i'm a reading specialist at a neighboring school district. then all the sudden she said we'll talk and reevaluate at the parent teacher conference in november. i hate having my kids in public school. jodi-graduated 3 from homeschooling, one is a senior still being homeschooled, then a freshmen, 5th grader and 2nd grader at the ps
  7. if you were pretty certain you were sending kids to ps next year, would you ask the public school for their curriculum? i'm thinking especially math for my 4th grader. we're using singapore math and he's doing ok...but he struggles with figuring out problems according to the rules. he likes to do everything in his head, and almost always gets them right but if he'll be attending public school for 5th grade, i know they'll want him to understand the processes. my oldest son (now 20) was like this at that age too, and did eventually go to ps his freshman year in h.s. (then homeschooled again the last 3 years). he didn't have any problems, but by that time he had already done algebra and was halfway through geometry, and learned himself that he needed to know the how behind the problems, not just the answer.
  8. i figured it must be something to do with preventing spam, but sheesh. and thanks for the free forums, i'll see if i can get over there
  9. that's exactly the kind of information i was looking for, but didn't find through the search engine. y'all are the best!
  10. is the Instructor Text necessary if you've been following TWTM since 1998 and have done FLL and WWE? I just use the workbooks for WWE but I did read the hardcover book years ago when it first come out (and used it solo with my big kids before there was a workbook...now I don't even look at that one). tia-
  11. I like to get a down pillow and linen (flax colored) pillowcase from ikea (totals about $10, they're cheap, but don't look it!) and get a large monogram for about $20. So for $30 total, they have a neutral, special gift that can go in just about any room of the house. now that i have an engaged daughter, she asked me to get her one too (i had to remind her that we *are* paying for the wedding...) but i think i'll get her one tailored more to her bedroom colors once she decides happy celebrating- jodi
  12. you have a rule of no screen time except on weekends, but you have to work week nights, and the father agrees it's a rule, but gets worn down by the constant requests and ends up giving in to them. every. single. night.? they are so much better behaved without the screens, and dh agrees and yet.... we have talked about this so much, and he'll stay strict for one day and then....
  13. we've always counted trips that include museums as school. even schools that do multiple day trips (i.e. 8th grade trips) count the whole trip as official school days. NYC is awesome, and there is so much to learn even not in the museums! enjoy
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