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Jodi-FL

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Everything posted by Jodi-FL

  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
  14. my kids just blessed me with my first macbook pro for my birthday (i was SO surprised!) now i need to lesson plan, but what do you use for a spreadsheet? also, they bought it on monday night, but did not know about the student/teacher discount/promo (i did, but it was a surprise and they didn't ask me! heh heh). any chance they could get it retro?
  15. my now 18yo son had a hard time when we moved from florida to pennsylvania 3 years ago. it wasn't because he couldn't get friends, he's just the kind of kid who only wants friends that he enjoys being around (one of my other kids will have friends just to have friends). he got a job at our local CFA, and has the most wonderful group/circle of friends, and has gotten more polite to others his age (at church, etc.) that he didn't want to be friends with before, but now sees the value in more friendly interaction.
  16. we got the director of the homeschool program to sign, and PHEAA granted him an award of $3,852 for the year. THANK YOU so much for your encouragement to not drop it! and I won't be going with a diploma program for the remaining kids as our school district said they are just "working out the kinks" and didn't mean to say they wouldn't sign it :) thanks again so much!
  17. thanks for that- my evaluator is an "approved" evaluator for a state approved diploma program and she doesn't think we need to bother with it either (she's graduated 7 of 9 with a parent issued diploma too). i don't like hoops. no matter who's making me jump through them :)
  18. it turns out, our superintendent didn't sign because she doesn't handle any of the homeschool stuff anymore. (apparently, our school district is in transition, trying to establish a homeschool department of sorts) so, the head of that department agreed to sign the PHEAA form, based on a "senior summary" we submitted at their request (they did not want a portfolio), they could see he has been in the system the last 3 years (since we've lived here). now, the email we got from PHEAA said they needed the amended paperwork (the signed form) by april 1, 2013, but the form itself says they will not accept any paperwork after april 1, 2012. we are hoping it's just a typo on their part, since the latest email we got from them asking us to amend our information was may 24. thanks for the encouragement to pursue it more- i think i'll still sign my younger ones up for erie diploma program jodi in pa
  19. We have followed all the rules we know about. We did not use a PA diploma program approved evaluator, just a regular state approved one. We didnt know there was a difference. We have done all the portfolios/evaluations/testing that is required. Our school district is in dealings with lawyers right now due to the extra requirements they put on us last year (like transcripts submitted for the high schoolers portfolios). As far as calling the diplomas accredited, I always figured PA was just using "accredited" to mean a diploma program they've approved of
  20. I've been in PA the past 3 years, and while my 2 oldest have graduated and gone on to college (oldest will graduate in August) or a FT job (my 2nd is a very-well-paid nanny), our 3rd who graduated this year was just disqualified for a $3652 PHEAA grant because we didn't go through one of their approved diploma programs. How did you get around that? Our local school superintendent won't sign the form (even though my son attended her school for one semester when we first moved here and had very good grades. she's very anti-homeschooling). so, now i will try to get my rising 11th grader into a PHEAA state approved diploma program before it's too late, and will follow suit for our youngest three. as far as needing a high school diploma to homeschool your own kids, the PA law actually says "or equivalent" and a college diploma will suffice. i have a friend who went to high school overseas and had lost her diploma, so she just used her college diploma. my advice is to find out what state financial aid requires in your state. even though we asked when we moved here about the benefits of a diploma program, we were assured a "homemade" diploma and SAt scores would be fine. of course, we were all thinking college acceptance and not financial aid. it did not affect his PELL grant. and thankfully, since he's attending our alma mater, they made up almost what we lost in additional scholarships, so he'll be attending a 4yr private school for less than my daughter paid for her baking/pastry arts degree at the cc.
  21. Yes, all our FAFSA was complete back in January, and he did get a PELL grant as well. Thanks so much for your input.
  22. because we didn't know you had to have a diploma through an accredited service. we moved here 1/2 way through his high school years and he actually attended the public school for 1 semester in the south and 1 semester here. i asked our evaluator here when we resumed homeschoooling if we would need anything, and she said no, just that all the high school requirements be met. i contacted the college in march and they told us our award was just over 3600. today, we went to the college to pre-register and they told us about the problem. i'm just sick. and now i don't know what to do. we have really encouraged our kids (he is our 3rd grad) to go to college debt free. we cannot/will not co-sign a loan. it's worked so far for our 2 oldest. this child chose my alma mater so he gets an alumni discount and a hefty academic scholarship. which would have covered all but what he can make at his job this summer (and he chose to commute not be a resident). now this changes everything. should he clep out of some classes? (like i wanted him to, but our evaluator said she's never had a homeschool not pass and he was afraid he'd be the first to fail, so he doesn't want to try). should he just take a class or two and work the rest of the time? he only wanted to go there a year anyway, then transfer to a college in TN where my brother is on staff (and he could go and live with his cousin as a resident student, but that cousin doesn't graduate til next year). advice? i'm so upset.
  23. that's what i'm actually going to do next year. I *think* i've decided to do one lesson of CKE two days a week (usually they suggest breaking up one lesson over two days, but there's not much reading and the hands on experiments are easy) and the following week do one lesson of apologia (again, they suggest splitting it into two weeks). we've done two apologia books in one year in the past *(before they had the notebooks going along with it) and honestly, we tried one last year with a notebook and my kids got tired of that. i'd rather require them to do less and have them choose to do extra on their own, than require more and have them find it tedious, kwim? but my reason for doing the above is because their older siblings are doing classical astronomy, and they covered a good deal of what's in the beginning of CKE last year, so we may skim over or completely leave them out. hth- jodi
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