Jilly
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Posts posted by Jilly
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No. I'd just be extra impressed that he came that close to pancake mix at 5 and celebrate!
:iagree:
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Argh! I was researching for someone else and now I think I want to change almost everything! The little guy and I need to have a sit down powwow and discuss what he thinks worked and didn't work this year. <sigh> Then, I need to talk to him about all the new stuff I have found. So, back to the drawing board.
Mandy
I have also decided that I want to change almost everything I had planned. My son has recently done some testing and I can see that what I thought would work will most likely not work. I guess it is back to the drawing board for us. Hopefully I will have a working plan before summer. :)
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Some students will never learn the spelling rules no matter what instruction they receive. My oldest son is one of those students, and I stopped his spelling lessons a couple of years ago. Prior to that all spelling lessons resulted in tears and nothing helped. He works primarily on the computer due to physical limitations and luckily this helps with his spelling by correcting most of his mistakes and by making him aware of the mistakes.
I will add that at the time I was struggling with this issue I heard a talk by SWB. She mentioned that there are some kids who will always be terrible spellers and there is no point in making them struggle through a spelling curriculum. That made me feel so much better.
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I know someone on the boards wrote a schedule pairing this with The World in Ancient Times and The Medieval and Early Modern World books from Oxford University Press. That might work although it would mean more reading for your teens. Maybe pairing it with the audio of SWB's The History of the World would work nicely if they like audiobooks.
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The Moon and I by Betsy Byars is a brilliant book. It's a story about a snake that lived near her home. Nothing squeamish in the book at all except a reference or two to the snake eating frogs or lizards. There's one reference to a story about snakes liking mice. My boys love animals so don't really want to hear about that sort of thing, but this was the kind of book that they were begging me to continue reading.
In fact, I'm tired today because we stayed up so late last night.
This brilliant woman wove together a story about "her" snake, a memoir about her childhood and tidbits on writing.
Really worth your time. For all ages.
Will you share your latest read aloud -- if it's really, really good?
Alley
Thanks for posting this. My youngest son loves to read books from writers about their childhood. His favorite book this year has been Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio and I have been looking for another book he might enjoy just as much. I am going to order The Moon and I this weekend so he can begin it once he finishes the book he is on. Thanks again.
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Not that I need any more courses, but they are having a sale on every course right now. I purchased The Life and Death of Stars and Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature. Anyone else?
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He may just be a late bloomer. My oldest son was a very late bloomer and now he is my most academic child. At that age he primarily listened to audiobooks while he jumped on a trampoline, built Legos, made forts, and drew. He did some math and short language art lessons with Time4 Learning and the rest of his days were spent outside. This was his routine until he was 10. Then around 10 and a half, everything clicked for him and school became so much easier. He became a passionate reader and today he loves school. He was late compared to others but for him he was right where he needed to be.
Also worth thinking about is whether the curriculum you have is compatible with your son's learning style. Maybe you should have him evaluated or at the very least try to figure out the best way he learns. Does he like audiobooks? Watching videos? Hands-on projects? School can take many different forms and learning can happen in different ways for different kids. Don't worry too much if he hates school and struggles with the curriculum. It may be that it is not compatible to him and a change might help in a big way.
It can be hard when you feel your child is getting behind but know that all kids learn at their own pace. Some are advanced, some right on target, some are slower to learn. Most kids get there in the end though, and even the ones who get there later end up roughly at the same point as everyone else.
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We have the fist two books. They are definitely not high school level. They even seem light to my 5th grader, but he does love reading them. We are ordering the last two levels soon because he enjoyed the books so much.
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Have you looked at this specialization from Coursera? It is not C++ based but it may work for him.
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My youngest son has a fascination for logos too. We have never used a formal curriculum of any kind but he does spend a good deal of time on the computer drawing. He primarily uses Paint Tool SAI and Scratch. Both of these programs are free to everyone and there should be some tutorials for Paint Tool SAI online.
I would also recommend getting him a book on fonts if he is interested in logos. My son loves fonts and enjoys learning all the font names, and he loves pointing out logos and then telling me what font is used. Maybe your son would also enjoy that?
Hope that helps. :)
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Amazing!! We are huge Scratch lovers here. Thanks for sharing.
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I have one up this week - School is better with a cat
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Edited to Add:
As an example of how insecure I feel about this, I'll say that we somehow went through following these task cards and I completely missed when we were at the Magna Carta. Now I thought this was a HUGE document, not to be missed, pivotal... but somehow we missed it. It's not even listed as something to put on the timeline. What do I make of that? Was it just not a big deal? Did I learn wrong? Or is it an omission to not cover it? I don't have hours to make up for lost study time... how do you handle this type of stuff?
I wouldn't worry too much about it at her age and I would definitely let her follow any rabbit trails that she is interested in. If you miss something important, such as the Magna Carta, you could go back and cover it briefly or just move on. She will get another round of history in high school and at that time she will most likely cover everything and at a deeper level.
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Could she perhaps study a specific artist instead? The history of jazz is such a broad topic that it may help by having a specific focus. I remember when I was in sixth grade I wrote a little research paper on Louis Armstrong. Through his life I learned a good deal about the history of jazz. Plus there were many kid-friendly resources to be found on the topic.
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HOWEVER, I wanted to let you know that the kit didn't work out for us. We didn't quite figure this out by the careful review we made of the manual, but we found every lab we tried--and we tried seven or eight of them--to be, well, just way above our heads. And I consider myself to have a pretty decent science background. I didn't major in science in college, but I took AP bio and chem in high school and I am not at all afraid of math and science. I love them. And I read well. But these labs....I couldn't understand at least 50% of what the manual was saying about why we were doing each lab, what we were supposed to get out of it, how it deepened our understanding of chemistry. I am convinced that, with the right guidance or knowledge, the labs were in fact very appropriate and should have/could have deepened our understanding, but with lab after lab we found ourselves barely managing to just follow the steps without any bigger understanding. Then we'd get done and say something like, "Well, we got a precipitate of the right color, as we were supposed to, so I suppose we succeeded, but so what? What does it mean? Why did it happen? How do we now understand more chemistry than we did?" It was all we could do to mechanically follow each step without understanding what we were doing. I think the lab manual actually probably does explain all this, but again, I think it just presupposes way more science knowledge than a non-science-major has. Which I hadn't expected. And last, a big issue was that every single lab took a minimum of twice the amount of time the manual said it would.
So unfortunately, this ended up being an expensive mistake for us. I have to take responsibility for the mistake since I feel the price was fair, the seller's responsiveness was excellent, and we had total access to the manual before we bought. But I just wanted to share our experience in case it turned out to be helpful for anyone else.
:iagree: We tried the Biology one this year and although I loved the manual and the supplies it did not work for us. I am glad to know that I wasn't the only who had this experience.
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If that is what they will be reading in one class I would say 8th and up. Some of the books would be ok for someone younger but taken as a whole I believe someone in 8th grade or higher would get more out of it.
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This is my very tentative plan. I am sure it will change many times before fall. :)
Math - MUS pre-algebra
Literature - LLLOTR
Grammar - Cozy Grammar
Science - RSO Biology - We have already begun this and he will most likely finish around December. I am not sure what we will do after this.
History - ??? This is where I am stuck. Unlike my older two, this son does not like history. I need to find something very engaging that he will enjoy.
In addition to this he will continue to make games and animations on Scratch as this is his passion. He will also write throughout the year. He has written at least 5 full-length novels this year and I am sure he will continue doing so. He will also continue with piano which he tolerates but does not love.
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I've taken the kids numerous times to Vegas. We always stay at the Palazzo and have always been able to make it work for us. I have a post about one of our kid-friendly trips that you might want to look at. If you do go I highly recommend the National Atomic Testing museum. My kids loved it!
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Did you ever figure out what's going on? That sounds rough!
Not yet but we switched doctors and our new doctor is being very aggressive in trying to find an answer. He is leaning towards an autoimmune disorder which I hope it isn't, but at this point we would be happy with a firm diagnosis so we can move forward with a treatment plan.
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My daughter has been very sick this year, and we have spent most of our time trying to figure out what is wrong with her. She is tired most days (although she does have a good week every once in a while) and most of my energy has gone to helping her physically and mentally and to finding a doctor who can help us. Because of this our school has transformed from me teaching almost all of the courses to the twins working on their school almost completely independent, which includes many online courses.
This works great for them and my daughter, even when she is tired, can cuddle up in bed and still participate in online classes without exerting too much energy. On days that she is wiped out she will sleep and watch the lectures later. It has been hard for me to adjust to this new schooling, but I am happy that we have all these online classes available to us now as it has helped us out so much.
The other benefit is that I have more time for my youngest. Before I felt like more of my energy was being directed at the twins and their schooling, but this year he has been my focus and that has been very enjoyable for the two of us. Also I have had time to create an interesting elective on mysteries (analysis and creative writing) for the twins and we all have been having fun with that.
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DS
AP Human GeographyAP Computer SciencePre-Calculus (I am not sure what we are using for this)English (???)French 2 onlineMuseum Studies (Elective that I am in the middle of planning)Chemistry (again I am not sure what resource we will be using)DDAP Human GeographyHonors English 2 - Blue TentGeometry - Teaching TextbooksFrench 2Museum StudiesChemistryMusic Theory (maybe AP not sure yet) -
My daughter loves Anthropologie. She also shops at Johnnie B and ModCloth (both online stores).
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I have one up this week, self portraits. :)
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All of Steve Sheinkin's books are wonderful! We LOVE him here. I constantly wish he would produce a narrative American history for elementary.
:iagree: We are huge fans of Steve Sheinkin. My kids love all his books especially The Notorious Benedict Arnold. His latest book, The Port Chicago 50, is also a fascinating read.
Elective ???s--Movie Making & Video Editing Credit
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I know of this online course from Compass although my kids have never taken it. There is also a great little book, Filmmaking for Teens, that might be enough to structure a course around.