Jump to content

Menu

FromA2Z

Members
  • Posts

    226
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by FromA2Z

  1. My ds had no trouble whatsoever. I was a bit skeptical starting but have had no issues. He had no problem transitioning to long or broad vowel sounds in words. I really love this program. We started with level A last Jan at 4.75 yo. We are now 1/2 way through C and he has learned about 60 of the 70 phonograms.
  2. Foundations has step by step teacher instructions, boxes with teacher's tips, and lots of suggestions. It is really not necessary to get the teacher training videos. However if you'd like to really nail down "your" own phonics education before you begin to teach, then I'm sure they could be very helpful.
  3. I'm so thoroughly happy w/ LOE foundations. It has lots of activities/suggestions for "wiggly" types, lots of hand-holding, and uses a variety of methods (which you will quickly learn which are a best for your dc).
  4. You do not need the teachers training manual with Foundations. Foundations has lots of handholding and teacher's tips incorporated into it. To the OP: I would seriously look at Writing Road to Reading. (WRTR). It is very similar to LOE. But it is not a step by step teaching curriculum. The book shows you how to teach reading/phonics/spelling. This seems like it would be more up your alley and the price is right. The methodologies used in the LOE videos are VERY similar to how you would teach w/ WRTR. Ellie is the resident WRTR guru on the boards here if you have ?'s. BTW: I love LOE Foundations, but it seems as if WRTR would solve your issue w/ wanting the method used w/out a handholding teacher's manual and is also low cost.
  5. Remember that Essentials was put out before Foundations was written (and I believe before it was even planned). Essentials was written for older students but provided a schedule if a parent wanted to implement it with younger children in the same household. So yes, it will work but you (most likely) will have to skip a lot of the workbook/grammar and take it very slowly. Foundations was written to be pretty open and go for the younger students. It is much more engaging than for youngers than Essentials and gives a bit more hand-holding for the parent as well. Basic punctuation and grammar are taken much slower and reviewed more consistently (in levels C and up). Initially Foundations (A-C) was written to be one program like Essentials, but the author divided up the book into different levels to give parents the option on where to start. My advice (based solely on the fact that you have another child coming up) would be to use Foundations. I would contact LOE as for the appropriate level to start dd5 in. (or look at scope and sequences of the levels). Then later you could get A (or A&B) to start ds in - and you would already have the other levels for him from dd. For myself, I am planning on going through to level F. (Which I believe will take me through 1st.) After that, I may or may not do Essentials for 2nd. I just may do my own spelling using the techniques I have learned from Foundations and add in another writing/grammar curriculum.
  6. Amazon also has an extra 30% off any one book until 12/1. You have to enter BOOKDEAL at checkout.
  7. Last night I broke a 2' regular fluorescent light bulb. I am 37 weeks pregnant. I did pretty much everything wrong. The bulb broke at my feet. Since I was bare foot and standing in the middle of broken glass, I had my husband grab the vacuum and I just vacuumed up the glass around me. (I was on carpet). I was so concerned about getting the glass up I didn't open any windows. I was in a 10x12 bedroom. I was so laser focused on getting this bedroom finished, I stayed working in the room for a few more hours. It didn't dawn on me until the middle of the night - that duh there's mercury in that bulb. What should I do now?
  8. My ds is 5.5. We started Foundations A in January and took a few months off for summer/pregnancy. We are currently 1/3 of the way through C. This is the only Phonics program we have used (fully) so I can't compare. But I have to say that we really love it. My ds did know his initial phonongrams for A-Z, but was not reading or blending CVC words yet. The program is pretty much open and go. The teaching and directions are very straightforward. She does offer lots of (optional) suggestions for enriching the lessons. I use workboxes so I put in whatever phonogram/game cards or special things we may use for the next day. I do look over the lessons at the beginning week so I have a basic idea of what we are doing. The lessons are detailed enough so that you aren't lost but at the same time flexible enough so that they are adaptable to what works best for your child. It did not take me long to find my grove and to instinctively know what parts of the lessons to focus on and what parts to relax on. My ds may be a natural reader but it is so nice to see that he can understand and verbalize why things work the way they do. He is not afraid to try to read new words and uses the skills taught to try and decode them, nor is he afraid of trying to spell new words based on what he knows. He genuinely likes playing the games and doing the worksheets. The program is also good for his ""wiggles" too. I started out on a whim w/ the beta version (I had been planning on something else.) However, I would now pay the full price (plus some) for its ease of use, effectiveness and enjoyment. Really loving it.
  9. Thanks for posting... I've got a collection going myself. Just So Stories will be here for Christmas.
  10. I have to say that I love this program. It has been very thorough and enjoyable for my ds and he has really thrived. He probably is a "natural" but I appreciate the completeness and ease of it.
  11. My 5 year old changes the selection to Beethoven's 5th or Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture or the like. It seems he has memorized the number of the most boisterous selection on each of my classical cds, so he can play percussion along with it.
  12. I just finished reading the first 6 books to my ds (age: 4-5). I would highly recommend using the Books of Wonder books for all later books in the series as they are so much better than the cheap ones published this year. I have found most in good used condition from Amazon (new ones are a bit pricy.) As for the original Wizard of Oz, I don't think you can go wrong with any of these. We used the one illustrated by Michael Hague (my gm had given it to me as a child). It is beautifully illustrated on nice glossy paper. (looks like this is only available used) The Books of Wonder edition illustrated by Wiliiam Denslow (original illustrator) Sterling Illustrated Classics illustrated by Robert Ingpen are also beautifully illustrated on nice thick paper.
  13. Perhaps someone else will chime in but I will give you a bump. I believe (not sure) that you can purchase the Rhythm of Handwriting books from LOE which will cover just handwriting. Then you could use level B. Or you could just buy A &. B (as you can use A later w/ your younger). Teach level B and add just the handwriting portion of A to it. This way you can also flip through A to see if you may need to cover anything else.
  14. I'm browsing on here while I'm printing out B. :laugh: My initial plan was to do 2 lessons a week with my ds. We started A at 4.5 and ended up doing 4 lessons a week,(one a day) he liked it (and picked it up) so much. We divide the lessons into 3 parts of approx 5-10 minutes each. (Phonics/spelling, handwriting, and reading). I found that the lessons were hard to divide into multiple days. Since they covered these three disciplines that I wanted to spend time on each day and each one of those segments can be hard to split b/w days. Although maybe doing the "lesson" part on one day and play the practice games on the next day would work really well. (sorry if this is two much info.) The long story short is that I may end up going through D this year (his K). much faster than I had anticipated. However, mid-B starts picking up a bit with a lot of spelling/phonics rules so we may slow things down a bit. So hard to tell. If we finish w/ D this year. I will be definitely be doing E&F in 1st. I wouldn't do Essentials until 2nd. If we stretch out D until 1st then I probably still will move on the Essentials in 2nd. Not b/c I wouldn't love E&F but because of the younger TONE of Foundations. But who knows the tone of E&F may be more mature b/c it will obviously be for older ages than A.
  15. Thanks a Lot. I planned on using this curriculum paired w/ our FIAR studies. But cost of the books was prohibitive. So I was just going to wing it with the DVD's. Thanks for posting. Now I got all the books. Just in time for starting next week!
  16. Well tomorrow is my first official day of school for K! But we're keeping it off with an extended field trip as my dh has a business trip to CT/MA this week into next and we'll be tagging along. So we'll be doing a little bit of phonics/math review while we are gone. I'm excited to be doing doing our first official "rows" for FIAR - Make Way for Ducklings and Paul Revere's Ride while we are on the road. We'll be in Boston for a couple of days and will get to go to the Public Garden, ride the swan boats, visit the "Ducklings" Statues, see the Capitol Building, Revere's house and North Church. I've also made plans to go to the aquarium and take a harbor cruise. I got the complete series of Liberty's Kids to watch on the drive there. I'm hoping for a fun and enriching 1st week of school.
  17. Just saw this this morning. Just So Stories coming in November! I hope he keeps putting books out as I love good quality, unabridged, illustrated books. (But my wallet...not exactly.) Just So Stories ill. by Ingpen.
  18. This is long from TWO previous posts. I love LOE: 1. Pretty much open and go and spelled out for you. 2. Lots of fun physical activities for an active boy. 3. Includes handwriting and spelling also. (however, these can be taught "loosely" as a kinesthetic method for learning phonograms/reading or more rigidly) Long-winded thoughts: I haven't used both but I have both (already a curriculum junkie). In terms of fun let's just say they are different. LOE focuses on physical movement ("obstacle" races, "basket" shooting, target throwing, etc and card games/bingo for their review games.). This has definitely been very helpful with my studious but active boy. He also loves the card games they use for review. There is a nice variety in activites but you can also choose to use your dc's favorites. there are also workbook activities. AAR focuses more on color, cut and paste types of activities in their workbook - there are "feed the monster" type games. AAR also has the Ziggy file folder games supplement. It really depends on the personality of your dc. You can just figure out some physical activities for your child to do and combine it with AAR. I have to say I love LOE. It has been very solid and fun for us. The scope and sequence is a bit different from AAR. You learn all the sounds of the phonograms up front, you work on encoding and decoding. While learning the phonograms, you start with CVC words, the initial and final blends, then long vowels, multi-letter phonograms, and then multiple syllables. My ds really picked up the transition to long vowels very easily. Last night he read a real picture book of a couple hundred words with all types of words. It took about a half an hour and he needed a bit of help as there were things we hadn't done yet. I think the way LoE mixes up the variety of words and doesn't stick exclusively to word "families" in their teaching helps him to have more confidence in decoding various words. We do use the readers from AAR, which I love. (The reason why I have both - I wanted the readers and it was more economical for me to purchase a whole set used). I also use the word cards and tiles from AAR. LOE uses cut and paste "readers". As far as handwriting, LOE uses "air writing" exercises using gross motor, sensory writing, dry erase board, and worksheet writing. You can mix these up (as the book has them) or use one or two methods based on where your child is at. At 4 years old the exercises are designed to cement the phonograms to sight through kinesthetic movement. Good handwriting does not need to be emphasized until later. All that being said, I MAY start my youngest ds using AAR. He really wanted his own instruction time so I started him with AAR Pre-1 which he will be done w/ at 3.75. I think AAR may be a bit more gentle than LOE. (Except for the fluency pages). Another thing to add: LOE spends the first six lessons on phonological exercises ( and learning strokes used to form letters) then it starts teaching the sounds of the phonograms - one for each lesson. At about lesson 20 you start building words. ( while continuing to learn new phonograms). LOE assumes no previous knowledge of sounds or phonological exercises (isolating beginning, ending & middle sounds, blending and segmenting sounds, rhyming, etc. AAR introduces multiple phonograms per lesson (just the initial sound) and assumes the child knows the sounds but perhaps not to mastery. It starts building words with lesson 1. AAR teaches a blending technique but assumes you've had prior phonological experience. (i.e. AAR Pre-1). LOE starts out slower building a foundation but ramps up quickly. At the end of 50 lessons you are roughly in the same spot in both curricula. I think both programs are very solid and fun, I think it mostly depends on the personality of your child and where he's at now. ETA: At the time I wrote this I was 50 lessons into LOE which translates into Foundations A and the first 1/4 of B. I have the beta test version, which includes all levels - so it is hard for me to think in terms of each level. And if the above isn't enough I also wrote this OTHER long-winded comparison (of mostly scope). - Which is my speculative opinion (& may not be dead accurate) as I have glanced through both. Earlier Previous Post We're just finishing up with Beta LoE foundations lesson 40 (which is Level A). And I just bought a used AAR 1. (I wanted the readers and it was cheaper to get a full version used than to get the readers new). First off I have to say I love LOE foundations (but I'm also sure I would love AAR). I would say foundations Level A-D covers AAR Pre-level 1 (which I did use) and AAR 1 and 2 plus AAS 1 and 2 and possibly level 3. It's a bit hard to compare b/c the scope and pacing is a bit different in that in LOE you are learning to write the phonograms as you learn them and you learn ALL the sounds a phonogram makes up front. When you get to word lessons you are reading and spelling. It also includes a lot of the phonological awareness activities that were covered in AAR Pre-1. So in some respects LOE is going slower and faster than AAR. If your child is young (like 3&4) and doesn't know his letters initial sounds yet, AAR Pre-1 is the slow and gentle approach and fun with Ziggy. LOE ramps up very quickly and there is the writing component (which does not have to be a lot and can be done by gross motor and sensory box writing). If your child is K age and hasn't had the phonological awareness activities yet, LOE van give them to you WHILE you work on reading. For my ds it was a nice easy review as we had previously done AAR Pre-1. LOE takes longer to get to reading words than AAR 1. In AAR, you start reading words in Lesson 1. You won't start reading words in LOE until lesson 20. In the first 19 lessons of LOE you will be learning ALL the sounds of phonograms, how to write them and doing the phonemic exercises. By lesson 40 (Level A) you will have learned and written all the a-z phonograms and will be reading CVC words w/ short vowels in addition to words with initial and final blends such as stump, drop, snap, sink, honk, skunk, truck. With LOE you will be dictating (and have the child dictate to you) three to five words a day for spelling and writing (or using tiles). But you will be reading MORE words than just the spelling words. So the spelling part doesn't really hold you back. In Level B you will start learning some of the spelling rules, words with long vowels, two syllable words, and multi-letter phonograms. By lesson 50 (10th lesson in level B you will have covered roughly what is in AAR 1 (which is 49 lessons). Foundations just covers spelling and writing also and the phonemic exercises that AAR has in Pre-1. I'll just speculate based that Foundations(all four levels) will cover through AAR 3. So monetarily you are looking at 4 (levels) of LOE x 65.00= 260.00. versus 3 (levels of AAR) x 100.00=300.00. (But you need also to add on spelling and handwriting and possibly pre-1 if you want the phonemic exercises before reading). The prices are pretty comparable. The initial price of AAR reading kit versus LoE Game cards is comparable also. However the big price in AAR is the readers, which at least in the first level are real nice to have whether you do AAR or LOE. I think the biggest difference is really in style. Do you want to do something different for writing, hold off on spelling? LOE uses a lot of "physical" games and card games for review. AAr does have games and worksheets but also uses a lot of fluency sheets and has those beautiful readers. I hope that helps anybody who is trying to make a decision.
  19. I would agree to let him do the boxes in any order and for as long as he wants with the ability to go back to a box if he desires. It may be the newness/excitement that is making him rush towards things. (You didn't say how long you were using this system). He may take longer once he is used to it. When he is older and starting to progress to more formal studies you may want to use a timer if his rushing has not improved by then. My ds5 had total reign with workboxes when he was younger. (I didn't incorporate numbers until we introduced K work in phonics and math.) My ds3 hasn't had that luxury because he works on boxes while my eldest does lessons. And we all switch "boxes" at the same time. However, I often put a couple of activities in each box if he works on one or both - I don't care. If he wants to walk away and play on the floor quietly - I don't care. I will also "switch" boxes to something else if he asks. ( I have the IKEA trofast system and have all our activities in boxes - so even if it is not in his lineup/shelf for the day, I can go to my shelves and pull it down and give it to him. So if I gave him pegs and he wants pattern blocks, I can easily switch.) Each box/lesson last about 10 minutes unless it is a project we are working on together.
  20. I have a K'er and and Preschooler - I work with them both and have found that I need to "interchange" them consistently through our "school" time for it to be effective. So our basic routine is for me to work with both, then my K, while PK works independently, then switch, rinse and repeat. I use a semi-workbox format. Each boy has an individual box numbered 1-4 and they have together boxes lettered A-E. I have what they (I need) in each box for each activity. It takes a little time the night before but it is so worth it to me to make our school time run. Each box contains about 10-15 minutes of work/activity. Some things about us: we are later risers than most, and my boys like snuggle/mommy time most in the morning. If they had their way (and sometimes they do) they would snuggle with mom in bed for the 1st 2 hours of the day. So we start off with reading/content stuff. Breakfast: Bible (read a section of the Golden's Children's Bible) and Memory work Morning Chores - Put dishes in sink - Help Mom empty dishwasher, put clothes in washer Read FIAR books and any go along books - (approx 10-15 min) Box A : FIAR activity to go with book (science activity, map work, acting, language etc - this is rarely seat work). (approx 10-30 min.) Box 1: K - Phonics/Spelling (I use LOE and split the lesson into 2 parts); PK - Fine Motor Skills box - Lacing, cutting, pasting, legos, etc (Approx 10-15 min.) Box 2: K - Fine Motor skills box or maze books , PK - AAR Pre-Level 1 (approx 10 min) Box B - Snack Box (yes I put snacks in the box - the kids love it) I usually read a poem/rhymes/short stories from the My Book House Books. Box C - Building Box - Usually blocks, legos, gears, marble runs, puzzles, etc (approx 15 -30 min or longer if they are really into it w/o fighting) I sometimes build along with them but also do laundry at this time. Box 3: K - Handwriting/Reading (LOE); PK - Usually some kind of Maze/drawing book (approx 10-15 min) Exercise Time - Alternate b/w our backyard, the playground, nature walk at the nature center, bounce house place (winter time), etc. ( 2 -2 1/2 hrs) Lunch Quiet Time in their room (approx 1 hr) - they do not enjoy this - but it gives me a break and when "released" they are plenty ready to do anything (inc. Math). Box 4 - K - Math (RS), PK - Manipulative box (C-rods, pegs, pattern blocks, geoboard, etc) approx 10-15 min. Box D - Science Box (ES - Intro to science and MSB dvd's) (approx 10-30 min) Box E - Art - (free art - water color, collage, fingerpaint, painting, play dough, 1x week a lesson from AP - The Way They See It - (as long as they want). After Dinner (on some nights)- we play the RS games, Uno, or the LOE card games. Bed Time - K - reads one or two "stories" from AAR readers. Each boy picks a picture book to read and I read one (or two) chapters of a chapter book. Our Morning school time works out to be 1 1/2 - 2 hrs long. (But only 30 - 45 minutes of that is real "seat work" time for my K) Followed by about 4 hrs break (lunch, exercise and quiet time) Afternoon school time is about 1 hr - 1 1/2. (Again 15-30 minutes of "seat work" time) Our total "structured" time is about 9-4. This is a lot for some people, but for us, it really helps me to keep their fighting/whining down. When we don't have school - things can get crazy for two active boys. They are also night owls and no matter how early we start bedtime - they are rarely asleep before 11. So they have plenty of "free time" - Too much free time and they're clamoring for TV.
  21. I haven't used them as of yet, but wanted to mention that I was just over on the FIAR website a few days ago and they were offering ALL their fold-n-learn downloads for free if you signed up for their newsletter.
  22. For "school time" - we've been doing BFIAR/FIAR books - so we read one book for a week. - I pick For snack time - We read My Book House selections (nursery rhymes, fables, poems, etc). I pick these but my boys often want to re-read old ones - which I do. (they're not long) For bed time - The boys each pick one picture book from a book basket of about 10-15 books (they can pick the same book over and over again, however, we have lots of books, so I do switch the book basket out every 1-2 months.) Then I read 1-2 chapters of a chapter book. (Which I usually pick). During the day - if they want to read a picture book - I read it.
  23. 500.00 I started buying things a while ago so far: RSA (used) - 85.00 LoE Foundations (beta testing) - 50.00 FIAR 1-3 + books & bible supplement (mostly used) - approx 150.00 Elemental Science - Intro to science + kit & used books - 95.00 My 1st Piano Adv. - $20.00 Homeschool Classes at Zoo - 70.00 Artistic Pursuits - The Way They See It (used) 25.00 The good thing is that most everything is completely reusable for my next ones. Only reprinting cost & minor workbook replacement costs(under $25.00). This doesn't include bed-time read alouds and art supplies, etc.
×
×
  • Create New...