74Heaven
-
Posts
981 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by 74Heaven
-
-
8th gr Book 1A; 9th grade Book 1B
10th grade, Book 2A; 11th grade Book 2B
It has worked very well basically covering a chapter every 2 weeks. I have been impressed with the teacher's use of classroom time [i assist at every class, mostly correcting papers. I have only a high school Spanish [1 yr] experience and I have basically enjoyed a very good review of my Spanish and the 2A/B covers new material for me.] The teacher basically does 5 min in class oral participation; almost every week there is a quiz on vocab; then she teaches a new grammar concept, does Q and A and assigns homework. The kids are making grammar and verb charts throughout the year and she is constantly stressing verb form review, etc. Some weeks, she is able to review for the whole period before a semester test. Most tests are to be done at home, closed book and given to the moms to administer at home.
The teacher heavily ups the conversational aspect in the 2nd and 3rd years, lots of oral resports assigned, written reports to be read aloud, etc. I have been very impressed.
HTH, lisaj
-
Just to add, I understand that govt school PE is more varied and different - tho our local public high school also has specific classes for credit such as weight training and dance for PE credit.
We also will be teaching 'health' at our homeschool and including that with a PE credit because I think it is important and that is part of the public school freshman PE class/credit .
Also, we are only 'counting' swim hours to award PE credits but we do other PE activities as well, we just don't keep track of those hours since we have lots of PE credits thru swimming.
lisaj
-
Do you give your child a letter grade [and of course average in that grade to their transcript] OR just given them Pass/Fail for Physical Education...
And please, if you happen to know what your local public and/or private schools do, I'd be interested in that too.
My daughter's P.E. is competitive swimming. Although she just started at 16yo [and thus is slower than her age-level classmates] she works very hard, is improving steadily, swims 4-6 hours a week minimum and just passed her lifeguard test, in which she earned 2-3 adult-level first aid/CPR/lifesaving official certificates. IOW, her P.E. is structured, strenuous and well-documented.
In addition to her swimming, she spent about 40 hours this spring earning her lifeguard certificates and will prob. train a few hours a week most of the summer - probably getting up to a total of 70-80-90 hours total of lifeguard training - should I make a new class and add another half a credit. lifeguarding/Red Cross.. This is -not- counting her hours actually lifeguarding - just the staff training, etc. [i want it to be legitimate, but how much P.E. should an athlete have... Is 3 years of P.E. silly to put on a transcript that is also strong academically.
I was planning to give a grade and it would benefit her GPA to give her a P.E. grade.
BTW, I highly recommend swimming for anyone who wants their children to pick up a lifelong sport with great exercise and skill improvemen. It is a bit expensive but it has been wonderful to see the improvement in skill level and physical fitness.
Thanks for any input.
Lisa
---
-
We have used the Curriculum Lesson Plan guides all the way through. They are excellent for teaching full understanding and complete concepts. I think many people use A beka w/o the Curric/Lesson plan books and then just teach from the student text/teacher answer key combo. This is not completely wise imho unless the parent is very clear on adding info and problem solving skill work that is included in the Curric/Lesson plans.
I am using A beka for my 5th child [Ker] and have stuck with it after several detours with my firstborn always brought me back to A beka.
I will say that I make sure math is a huge priority in our homeschool and we spend a minimum of 40minutes most days for math in the early grades even an hour [sometimes needs to be broken down into smaller time periods ] when we are hauling out those manips. [we used Cuisinaire rods in grades 1-4 as our manipulatives].
We have been thrilled, two of our five are solid A students in math and two others are in the B-plus range usually. My Ker has no grades -smile. Btw I don't use the K math book, we just take the grade one book slowly with the Ker over 1.5 to 2 years. I just started doing this with my two youngest [both boys] and have found they are ending up 1/2 to 1 year ahead of grade level without me really meaning for them to be ahead.
One caveat, I abandon A beka in the algebra stage after 8th grade because I found I needed more teacher help that is not available in the older grades. We do Videotext Alg 1 and 2; followed by BJU DVDs for Geometry.
A second caveat, I have never used BJU for math so have no opinion on that. We started with Chalkdust Geometry and dtr was just not getting it/enjoying it so we switched to BJU because I had bought the grade-level package and I had it on the shelf. IT has worked well and I have no complaints.
Lisaj
-
but wants to be a nurse or teacher and actually does 'okay' in math after some practice....
She has done Alg 1 in 9th; Alg 2 in 10th; Geometry in 11th. I think our goal is for her to be introduced to higher math/precalculus concepts before tackling said subject in college. [if our goal is missing the mark, please let us know.]
I am mathy, and capable of 'helping' but not totally teaching due to time issue as I am hsing 5 kids. So we will be doing something with a video component. I am considering BJU DVDs, Chalkdust PreCalc or TT PreCalc. [i'm not a TT fan as we tried Alg. 2 with TT and I ended up holding her hand just as much as ever. She doesn't want to do BJU DVDs again but this year's BJU Geom has been the best year so far in terms of her learning independently.]
Ok, thanks for any feedback.
\lisaj
-
I can recommend what 'not to do' because we just did it for several months. We tried to keep track of the teen's mileage and then she paid the price of a gallon of gas per 20 miles she drove. So if she drove 40 miles that week, she owed 6 dollars or 3 a gallon/price of gas/maintenance. It was ridiculous because this teen is disorganized and it turned into a big chore when it wasn't becoming an argument. She started driving in the 4 per gallon summertime.
I KNOW I was a teen once but I had forgotten how much teens take for granted. Here you are giving them a car to drive, paying room, board, clothing - and everything else and then they balk because you accidentally charged them for an 'errand' gas charge. gee whiz
We had originally set this up so there would be 'real world' consequences/costs. but it was too much trouble by far... My second born would likely be a good recordkeeper and she would log the miles faithfully and keep track. But not firstborn...
Soooo, what we have found easiest - by far - is to just have that teen put gas in the car that they drive - and pay the 70 a month insurance for same 'beater' car - which is almost the same cost as just adding a teen to the regular policies. When the teen wasn't working - thru most of the school year - we just paid everything as I wanted the teen to save as much as possible for future college expenses...... The teen does have a debit card btw for her own checking/savings account.
We have also been quick to hand over the debit card when we use her car unexpectedly or when she wasn't working - which meant she wasn't driving much so there. We also had the car break down in Nov/Dec and we had - I think it was over 11 feet of snow over last winter so driving was minimal for the new teen driver.
lisaj, mom to 5
-
for the June 6 SAT for my dtr's registration to put in the homeschool code. They said if I log into the site it will have the corrected info. (I haven't done that yet.)
The current ticket does just say "Test Center" and gives the local high school name and address. I haven't printed out the new ticket yet.
thanks to the poster for reminding me about the homeschool code.
I wanted to get back on the site and look into the subject test info but not sure if I should try that online with dial up.
lisaj, new to all this SAT stuff
-
is it on the page where we register? I have dial up and the site didn't work very well but I did finally get her signed up.
thanks for any info
lisa
-
and truthfully, this is my favorite BJU DVD course thus far in terms of the good instruction and that my nonmathy 11th gr dtr "gets" it. (She did VT Alg 1 and Math Relief Alg 2).
My gf told me at the beginning of the year, "I just had to sit down next to my daughter all the way through geometry". This helped my *mindset*. IOW, I understood that I would be required to help a lot. As it turns out, I haven't had to help as much. Out of 12 chapters, there have been 2-3 where my dtr required a lot of hand holding.
But for the most part, she has been more independent then I thought she would be. My second younger 9th gr "mathy" dtr has just started the BJU geometry and the only chapter that she has needed help on so far is chapter 4, constructions.
I have a couple of criticisms of BJU DVDs/Geometry, but they are primarily organizational.
#1 - Dr. Conn doesn't give homework every day; prob just 3-4 days a week - this is the first math class we *ever* took that didn't give homework every day?
#2 - Dr. Conn is often not following the sked provided by BJU; he gets behind and so the printed sked (from 2003) doesn't match the assignment he gives on the DVD orally. This means in order for my dtr and I to write down/plan out her coming week, we have to "guess" which assignments will be assigned with ea DVD based on guessing if he is 1-2 or 3 days behind. (Since these DVDs were made in 2003 and the lease of the taped class costs $400, I would have expected BJU could have printed a schedule that matched the DVDs....)
#3 - Dr Conn doesn't assign the chapter reviews or the 5-6 lesson exercises that are "cumulative review". I know for my dtr these are important and we do the review questions on every assignment and every chapter review.
Some of the above annoyances are because I am keeping track of 5 kids. All in all, I have been very happy with the BJU DVDs because dtr has not required the hand-holding I feared!
One caveat, I would have prob. used VT Geometry as I loved VT Alg. However, dtr did not like VT. Also, we tried Chalkdust Geometry for a few weeks but dtr was at my side, lost, and I think Mosely's lessons were too brief (tho CD did start with a more complicated (to us) concept (transformations and symmetry) and it just seemed like the 45min lesson of BJU gave her a little more hand-holding then Chalkdust did? (We didn't stay with Chalkdust long because we had decided we might as well try BJU since I had bought some other classes from BJU DVDs.)
HTH - more info then you asked for.
lisaj
-
I am on my fourth child, using the above sequence. IT has proven perfect for us. A Beka is simple, straightforward, and Shurley is more fun and cements the deeper grammar concepts.
Lisaj, mom to 5
-
We attend a co op that does Latin for Children B (they may start "C" at the end of the year) thru 6th grade and changes to Henle for 7-8th. The co op used MP Units 1-2, for 7th and 3-5 for 8th. We are just finishing Units 3-5 this May.
The LfC B (and esp the "C" are just as rigorous as the Henle).
We did LC 1 & 2 at home before Henle at the co op and found a lot of repetition and a lot of going deeper with Henle - and a great teacher helped a lot. Henle Yr 1, Units 1-2 deal almost strictly with nouns. Units 3-5 deal almost strictly with verbs. We had combined noun/verb study of the other Latin currics we used, so approx 20% of henle vocab was new to us.
Also, I would guess the MP guides would be a slow enough pace for you. We spend about 1/2 hr a day or less on Latin this year and last in Henle. I think most people on these boards talk about a faster pace then we are using - but we keep our time to a minimum poss. because we have had so many years of Latin (in our 5th year). I like the MP pace because we can still do Latin but keep the time/energy requirements to a minimum.
lisaj, mom to 5
-
I understand not being able to afford a microscope and such. We have not been able to afford those things either. That being said:
1. It is best if you can afford the microscope and dissection kit,
BUT
2. It is still a good course if you can not afford it.
As homeschoolers we always need to keep in mind that it is OK to skip, or tweak, or revise ANYTHING to fit our needs at the present time.
I have a funny (Sad?) story. We did not opt to purchase the microscope because I felt it was over our budget. So I arranged to meet with a friend's son and we drove 40mi RT 12X (for every microscope experiment: we met once for ea module and did both experiments at the same time) all year. I packed up 5 kids, brought activities for the 3 littles and was gone for 3-4 hours every Thurs aft.
Cost in gas alone (van, 20mpg; gas $4gal (2007-08)$8 RT gas X 12 = $96.
Cost in stress/Time: Priceless.
Then in March or April, my friend's driveway was a muddy mess - we got stuck.
Cost for tow truck (who also got stuck) $100.
=
Amt spent for microscope experiments at friend's: $200 minimum
Price of Lesson Learned: Priceless
Lisaj, who does *not* have a m/scope to show for it :()
-
I am trying to decide what to use for nonmathy senior next year. I was wondering about CD SAT math prep with some TTC videos or maybe a semester of TT Pre-Calc. (she has taken Alg 1, Geom, Alg 2 (Math Relief on the last one which I know MRelief doesn't cover all the concepts in VT Alg 2 which another dtr used). (This is the girl who forgets all her math every summer - and the next fall needs quite the review before being ready for the next "higher" math course.
Math takes 1.5-3 hours a day around here and requires a lot of hand holding despite the video programs we use. So I was hoping to keep math closer to 1-1.5 hrs next year.
I supp we'd start Chalkdust SAT review, (along with a SAT Test Prep book) in mid August to be ready for the Oct SATs. Then we could pick up another semester course to finish out our math year???
Her career thoughts are nursing or translator?
Ideas, thoughts, comments? (and what would such a course be called)
Thanks!
Lisaj
-
There is one very similar by the same company that is not for high school, earlier poster mentioned it. I get it at Rainbow.
However, I would really like a planner with boxes to check off.
I don't want one for a trad. classroom teacher tho, those have too many categories that I don't use.
Any one have ideas? I give ea of my dtr's the above planner and then I just use my computer for my own.
Thanks!
Lisaj
-
disclaimer (fwiw) and let it go. I felt your POV was yours and needed no further note from me.
First, Expelled is *not* about the Holocaust; it is a footnote in the movie; a sidetrack designed to show that evolution has invaded societal influences, from teh political to the medical, etc.
Expelled does not assert that belief in Darwinism led the the Holocaust.
The movie does assert that Darwinism overall, and eventually over generations slowly influences a worldview that devalues life. Certainly not the only factor, but one of many factors, hate being the key ingredient of the horrors of the holocaust.
The footage of the Berlin Wall (there was a lot of it) have nothing to do with Nazi Germany. The wall is a metaphor for the barrier between ID and science education.
I just now asked my 14yo dtr why the wall was shown in the movie (and while she was mopping the kitchen floor (bless her) w/o stopping to think, she said (I quote) "to show that just like the people in the Communist countries were shut out from freedom, people who believe in Intelligent Design are shut out of the freedom to talk about what theya believe with scientists." (that is all the wall was about - the barrier that is stopping ID people from being part of the debate.) She said it perfectly.
Here is a quote from, Arthur Caplan: Expelled "lay(s) the blame of the holocaust on Charles Darwin". [/b] Darwinism as a contributing factor, sure, it does say that. And then your quote: <<From what I have read, the film, repeatedly and with extensive ar chival footage, asserted that belief in Darwinian evolution led to the Holocaust.>>
The MOVIE doesn't say that at all, or lead to any version of that conclusion.
I don't take Expelled as straight science - it reminded me of the Michael Moore type of "exploitive" documentary.
But... Expelled is thought-provoking and I talked about it with my teens extensively so they could separate the fact from the hyperbole.
I also believe the basic tenets of Darwinism have contributed to a worldview that devalues human life. If life is not the *supreme* gift of God (or the supreme gift from some source),, then you do get racism and anti-semitism, abortion and eugenics and physician-assisted suicide. And imho, capital punishment.
I suggest people see the movie OR read extensively about it from *both* sides. I don't think Caplan's one-sided angry tirade contributes much to the dialogue.
HTH.
Lisaj
-
I was absolutely floored by how prescient this novel was, and what it had to say about our society.
Brilliant.
yes, I agree. I do think the adults were more amazed at the author's foresight then the kids were. but the kids liked the book too.
Lisa
-
in Writing?
Thanks for any insight. We used SWI "C" very successfully for about 25 weeks last year - but the writing didn't really "stick" with the girls this year. Need to jump in again with the high schoolers and refresh the youngers as well.
Lisaj
-
I have a very busy schedule and summer is more "down time" for me because I am hsing my 5 during the trad. school year. Because of this, I have taught my last three preschoolers how to read during the summer before kindergarten - it was much nicer to get that out of the way before fall (and I love teaching reading one on one with my youngers) when I had all the other teaching/mothering/AWANA responsibilities. Of course all I was doing was 20-30min a day or reading but it was a great plan to get it done over the summer and free up my fall duties.
lisaj, mom to 5
-
It touches on the holocaust and also is a great teen/evolution/science discussion movie. The holocaust portion shows a lot of links to other subjects (i.e. euthanasia, eugenics, planned parenthood's founder) that helps teens to link past events to current social issues and topics.
I can not remember is it by Ben Stiller (Stein?) I have those names confused
Lisaj
-
As an assistant in 3 co op classes for the past 2 years; I have noticed very different teaching styles and very different class behavior. Both are wonderful teachers with very different teaching styles and very different approaches to conflict.
I think unless the children are very difficult behavior problems, any teacher who is confident and takes command and is loving and encouraging - can win the day and set the tone for their class that fits their teaching styles, goals and the classroom demeanor. I think the love alongside the discipline (even just a stern "sentence reprimand") is the key!
lisaj
-
I was hoping the online option would be cheaper and more flexible, because ideally, we'd like to use BJU for some classes and not others, and that's not an option at the 4th/5th grade level.
QUOTE]
Briefly, I don't think BJU or A Beka seems to care if their offerings are a good option for homeschoolers. After using BJU for some 11th grade classes this year, I feel that the general motive of BJU is that "we (BJU) have this great program/class, etc and we might as well sell it to homeschoolers since we have it already taped/taught... etc.".
I don't think BJU or A Beka is interested in being a viable option for homeschoolers. The $3-$400 price per class if you don't want the whole grade level makes it obvious that they want you to buy everything to up their profit and they will "let" you pay a steep price to use their products if they can't talk you into the $1100-$1200 per class price. Even that option is only good for 7th grade on up.
I truly think both companies are in it for the money. Now, that is their decision, of course. Many homeschool curriculum companies truly want to come alongside homeschoolers and make a profit at the same time. Not BJU. Not A Beka.
It really is too bad. These companies could make even greater profits if they geared their programs to homeschoolers' needs - but I think they are interested in an "easier buck". It is much simpler to sell their programs by the grade level with each customer in for $1100 or so then to sell to thousands more customers who are only in for a couple hundred bucks each. (in order to let homeschoolers pick and choose what they want.)
And truly, it would speak volumes - and be a truely powerful advocate for homeschooling if these private colleges/companies wanted to be homeschooling supporters and suppliers. But I think even offering the products is far from their true mission as colleges and curriculum suppliers to traditional private schools.
Lisaj, too bad...
-
I think Prima Latina is fine if you just want your child to learn a few prayers or songs.
But if it were me, I'd either just do LC 1 (1 lesson a week) or at half speed and skip PL.
To do LC 1 at half speed, just do 5-10min of the chants, songs, vocab 4-5x a week and do the LC 1 "half a lesson" 2-3 days a week. Latin would be 20min a day and you'd be thru LC 1 in 2 years instead of 1.
I just found PL too easy for a 3rd grader and just right for a Ker or 1st grader. If all else fails, master the LC 1 vocab in 3rd grade and do the rest of the book in grade 4. Just some alternatives.
Lisaj
***
-
Ds14 is a competative swimmer. Ds is tall, but very thin. His physical developement is behind his fellow swimmers of the same age. Because of this he struggles to keep up in his time and age group. He is in the highest level group on a very competitive team (one of the best in the state), because of this the difference is more obvious. Swim meets are broken into age groups, not levels, so you move up, whether you are at the higher level or not. And if you 'age up' before you met a goal, like a state meet qualifying time, your goals just got harder.
Swimming costs us $6,000 a year, requires huge time commitments, 20+ hours a week, and takes up every other weekend for 7 months a year. I work to pay for his swimming so it is a big time commitment for me too.
I know you didn't ask this, but could you cut back and still participate. I imagine some of the money is travel to swim meets. Could you cut back on the meets by 20% or something? I am just wondering if you can support your son's interest/commitment and yet, balance that with family and time and money commitments. It is possible too that if he was swimming less and had other interests, he might find something he also likes and that might pull his interest/commitment to swimming.
Initially this may look impossible, but if you decide what your priorities are (i.e. only one swim meet a month in Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb or something that can be realistic for your team's schedule), you might be able to carve some much needed down time into your family's life.
Lisaj, who has kids on a less competitive level of swim team
-
Besides the NLE, we're interested in doing some latin in the college board testing, too. I'm just not sure where to go....
Our Latin teacher was just telling me the best prep is to go and practice the exams on the NLE past exams on the NLE website and then figure out what you don't know (from the old tests) and find information on those areas. If it helps, she directs us to quality Roman/Greek gods, history books, (we just do child's level) myth books, geography, household rooms, city center terms (ie. aquaduct, forum, bath-house) of the Roman (Greek) empire era and vocabulary.
I was at the college board website yesterday trying to download their SAT Latin subject test info. I was unsuccessful (dial up -grrr) but it looked like that was hte best place to start.
HTH.
Lisa
We just took the Latin 1 test after taking Intro to Latin NLE last year.
How old are you?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
From now on, I am going to be pulling the 'give me some respect, I'm an older [think Titus 2] woman...
Lisaj, who had no idea this board was so full of youngsters