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karensk

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Everything posted by karensk

  1. SM: PM 1-6...all the textbooks, workbooks, TG's (and for PM 5 & 6: the Solutions Manuals); for levels 1-6: the IP's, CWP's, Extra Practices, Federal Test Papers; for levels 4-6: My Pals Are Here Tests, plus: even more supplementary materials for levels 1-6 that I forgot the names of. It's pretty much the singaporemath.com store. NEM-1 & 2 (books, solutions manuals, TG's); New Mathematics Counts 1-3 Chalkdust: Basic Math 6 set Pre-algebra set Pre-algebra (older edition) text only Algebra I book set (no DVDs) Geometry set several math textbooks, like Dolciani's algebra, Larson's calculus and probably more that I can't remember
  2. A friend who's been using MFW for several years was recently told by a MFW rep (at a homeschool conference) that she was not allowed to make copies of the Student Pages for use within her own family. With the older editions of MFW, she was allowed to make copies for her children, but now with any current edition of MFW, she must purchase one set of Student Pages for each child. The MFW rep told her that the reason for this changed policy is that parents were tired of making copies for multiple children. If that were truly the case, then MFW would be providing the Student Pages available for purchase separately as an option, not a requirement. There doesn't seem to be anything official on the MFW website about this, so maybe the rep was just trying to get her to buy extra sets of Student Pages.
  3. Hi Jennefer!! How're things going? Just a few ideas that might help you nail down your plan.... For 5th grade math, the final grade consisted only of unit tests and comprehensive finals (something like semester finals), using Singapore Math. I can't remember the exact weighting, but it might've been something like 90% for the tests and 10% for the two finals. I never kept track of homework grades, mostly because I just wanted it to be convenient for me. When ds entered 8th grade at a private school this past year, I liked the way they calculated the homework grades. Points were deducted for any missed problems, but each student had the option to come in ~30-45 min. before school started to check his homework. This meant you could get a 100 homework average if you checked all your homework. So, IMO, your son's grades aren't inflated. Besides, there's a wide range of how teachers set up the grades and weights. 50/50 sounds about right. As he approaches high school, you might want to get him used to taking more comprehensive exams...maybe starting out with a 6-weeks exam, then for the next couple of years have him take semester exams. At ds's (last year's) school, the 5th graders take 9-week exams. By 8th grade, they're taking semester finals in the fall, and comprehensive finals in the spring. HTH!
  4. ...especially at universities I was interested in. Baylor provides a sample high school transcript for homeschoolers, too (here's their blank one, too). The transcript is usually nothing more than a 3-column chart with the column headings "Course," "Grade" and "Credits"; one chart per year. But homeschoolers often opt to provide detailed descriptions of the coursework. I had to make our own 5th-7th grade transcript for ds to enter 8th grade at a private school. So using MS Word, I made a 3-column chart for each grade, then provided course descriptions for most of the academic courses below all the charts. Descriptions included curricula and methods used, book lists, and volunteer activities. HTH!
  5. The Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford's World Classics series). Here's Hamlet, which I own and have enjoyed marking up. They have great footnotes, too.
  6. Even for R&S-5 and -6, we did many of the "Written Exercises" orally. The diagramming is the main thing we did in writing, plus a few things that were spelling/punctuation related. If ds was writing-weary, we'd work through the problems together as I drew the diagrams and filled them out. He'd still need to write out some diagrams on his own paper or white board, but this wasn't everyday. HTH!
  7. We've used the Stanford Achievement Test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, usually alternating them from year to year. Also, in 7th grade, ds took a free full-length practice SAT at Princeton Review. Another great test that is much more competitive in terms of percentiles than the Stanford & Iowa is the ISEE/ERB. Many private schools offer it, and you might be able to find one that will let your child take it there. The ISEE was about $89, I think.
  8. Howdy! This past year was our first year to afterschool, since ds14 went off to private school for 8th grade. Due to their workload and activities, our afterschooling has been somewhat limited. I like to work on grammar, vocabulary and a little math. Plus, he reads extra literature that they won't get to in school. I'd like to add in some logic this year, too. Actually, I'm a hybrid, since I'm still homeschooling dd11, who will be in 6th grade this fall. Ds will go to a different private school for high school in a couple of weeks.
  9. Once in awhile you might try taking a break, something like this: play math games with him related to recent topics, either the ones in the SM HIG's or some RightStart ones, for about 3-4 days, with no other math work. This way, he'll still spend about 30-40 minutes doing math, but none of it will be written. It may actually be a time that he sharpens his mental math skills. When my kids were that young, I found that they didn't need to do a lot of daily written work in order to learn. Plus, having someone to play a game with, even a math game, really makes it more enjoyable. HTH!
  10. ...the list of socratic questions at the back of your Teaching the Classics? You can use them with any lit book you want, instead of a lit guide. Also, WTM has a list of questions that can be used with your lit selections. Maybe try a mix: do some books with the socratic questions and then do a couple of books with lit guides (omitting parts that make it overkill)?
  11. Thank you! I was planning to go to Michael's tomorrow anyway, so this is perfect!
  12. If you decide to use SM, then you'd want to have your son take the SM placement test to figure out which level to get. The HIGs are written for homeschool parents who aren't trained math teachers, so they have a lot of helps and step-by-step solutions worked out for you. Ultimately, you should get a math program that works for you and your child. Some programs (e.g., SM, BJU, most traditional math textbooks) are arranged topically, as in one topic per chapter. And other programs are arranged spirally (e.g., Horizons, Saxon), so each daily lesson covers multiple topics, many which have been previously taught. So there's not a chapter on fractions or decimals or area, but rather the fraction problems are interspersed throughout the text. And whichever program you end up using, you might want to have your child every now and then work through some similar-level problems from a different math program to make sure he's learning the math, not just accustomed to a certain publisher's format. (SWB suggested this at a HS conference recently.) So, for example, if you decide to use Saxon as your math program, you could buy a Singapore math book of approximately the same level for about $10 and have your son work a few problems from it, maybe once a week. The Intensive Practice series would be my top pick, if you had to get only one. HTH!
  13. It's about the same price as outsourcing the class at a homeschool co-op, except that I can reuse Chalkdust with the younger child. Someone else presents the lessons, explaining all the details so that I don't have to! Love that! It's saving me a lot of time since I don't have to prepare the lessons. I only have to quickly preview the topic, decide on how much work to assign and then grade the homework. HTH!
  14. Well, we didn't use anything for punctuation when ds did Winston Grammar in 4th grade. For 5th grade, we switched to R&S-5, which includes punctuation. Seems to have turned out fine. HTH!
  15. PM-5B (& the coordinating IP-5B and CWP-5). We skipped two chapters of CD Basic Math 6, then went back to SM to do PM-6A & 6B.
  16. Black Ships Before Troy by Sutcliff The Wanderings of Odysseus by Sutcliff The Children's Homer by Colum Greek Myths by Coolidge
  17. you're welcome! Now that you mention it, I remember BF letting me omit from my order a few books I already had, too. I really like BF -- hope y'all have fun!
  18. From what I remember, PLL simply said something like, "have your student do a narration," along with the accompanying passage. There was no instruction on how to go about doing it; I guess the assumption was that the teacher knew how to teach narration. FLL totally holds your hand and gives you the script for the narration lessons, which I appreciate. So, if you already know how to do it, then either will work. Both FLL and PLL have a good mix of topics, like poetry memorization, letter writing, punctuation, copywork, narration. FLL has a lot of built-in review, whereas PLL has none. PLL is slightly more old-fashioned (compared to the more modern-feel of FLL), which could be a plus, or not, depending on your style. Also, there were some questions that I needed the answers to. E.g., in an observation lesson, the student must answer the following questions: What seeds are scattered by the wind? What seeds are scattered by clinging to an animal's fur or to people's clothing? What seeds are carried by birds? What seeds have shells? What seeds grow in pods? What seeds have husks around them? I've kept my copy of PLL and use some of the poems. Overall, FLL has a lot more grammar content and doesn't assume you're a trained English teacher. For grades 1-2, it's probably not too big a deal which one you choose. But for grades 3 and up, I have a very strong preference for FLL over the PLL/ILL series. Starting with FLL-3, the student will learn diagraming. HTH!
  19. We went throught most of the program....I ended up not using America's Providential History. I used the BF lit guide for the discussion questions. I don't think we did the history notebook at all, but we really enjoyed the books and audio CD's! HTH!
  20. (haven't read all the other posts) The two arrangements have something in common: at least 5 books and at least 5 magazines. Set up both bar diagrams with a segment for the 5 books and a segment for the 5 magazines on the left, to coordinate them: BBBBBMMMMM MMMM = 156 BBBBBMMMMM BBBB = 180 (When drawing the bar diagrams, I'd make the second arrangement have a longer bar, since its amount of 180 is greater than 156; difficult to show here.) Looking at the above, we realize since that the second arrangement (with the extra BBBB) costs more than the first arrangement (with the extra MMMM), then the BBBB must cost more than the MMMM (since the first parts of the two bar diagrams are identical: BBBBBMMMMM). So, the difference between the BBBB and MMMM is 180-156, which is 24. Since there are exactly 4 B's and 4 M's, we can divide 24 by 4 to arrive at the difference between one B and one M, which is 6. I hope that's right!
  21. I'd start with ancient history, with a focus on the cultures of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome. I might do some Bible history concurrently, too....the stories of Joseph & Moses take place in Egypt, for example. I actually did teach my kids a year of Bible history before we started ancient history, spending a year on Genesis (Sept-May) and the book of Mark (the summer). But I made my own curriculum; though it was a ton of fun, it was a LOT of work! History would go something like this: Read aloud SOTW-1 two or three times a week, do the discussion questions & narration exercises in the Activity Book, do the map activities, and read extra stuff on some (not all) of the topics, spending extra time on Egypt, Greece & Rome. If I could fit it in, I'd try to do some hands-on activities (in SOTW-1 AG), too, maybe once a week or every two weeks. Both kids would independently read some history material, but the 4th grader would do more. Also, I would read aloud the retellings of the Greek myths, Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid, about 20-30 min./day, 4-5 days/wk. A very basic shopping list for history (not including Bible history): SOTW-1 text SOTW-1 activity guide Usborne Internet-Linked Ancient World by Fiona Chandler optional: SOTW-1 tests (for the 4th grader) optional: Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (if you want more in-depth info on ancient Egypt/Greece/Rome) Ancient Greece: D'Aulaires' Greek Myths Aesop's Fables Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of The Iliad by Rosemary Sutcliff The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of The Odyssey by Rosemary Sutcliff Or, instead of the Sutcliff retellings, an alternate retelling of The Iliad and The Odyssey by Padraic Colum...here Ancient Rome: In Search of a Homeland: The Story of The Aeneid by Penelope Lively Plus: extra books from the library (see the booklists in WTM and the SOTW-1 AG) So the Usborne books would provide the non-fiction part...how the people lived back then, etc. The Greek myths, fables and the Iliad/Odyssey/Aeneid retellings would provide the literature part that corresponds to the cultures you're studying. There are a ton of other fun books and materials for ancient history, but this is my super-pared down list of what I consider to be the essentials for this age group (and their first time to study this time period). The Greek myths and Iliad/Odyssey are pretty foundational to a lot of literature you'll encounter later, so I like to have our own copy of these. HTH!
  22. I was taught grammar with diagramming with Warriner's in my public school. A few yeasrs ago, I bought an older edition of Warriner's Third Course with the answer key from Emmanuel Books. I had planned to use it for ds's 8th or 9th grade grammar, but we never got to it, as he went off to school last year. I've come across newer editions of the English course from the publisher -- it no longer has "Warriner's" in the title, but he's still listed as one of the authors. But the many of the newer editions have completely dropped diagramming. I may still use the Warriner's Third Course for afterschooling ds, since his school probably won't teach diagramming.
  23. The IP books are arranged topically...e.g., there's a unit on fractions, one on decimals, one on area & perimeter. These topics match up pretty well with the PM books of the corresponding level, though a few topics might be out of order. I don't remember it ever being a problem due to topics building on each other (we've used Singapore math for K thru 7th grades). In any given unit in IP, the first groups of problems are usually about the same level of difficulty as the PM Textbook & Workbook. Then the problems are more difficult and complex...what I consider honors or accelerated level. I'll usually assign most or all of the first groups of problems. On the advanced/complex problems, we'll work through some together and then I'll assign some based on what I think my child can do. I'll leave many of these problems unassigned to come back for later review. So, for example, we may do about 2/3 of the unit on fractions and call it done. We might come back to the remaining third several months later, or not. HTH!
  24. This is the course description I made for his transcript (note: he's a strong reader, and I probably won't do quite as much for dd's 7th grade lit): Western Literature – 7th grade Course description: In this course, the student will read an assortment of literary works from western civilizations, including American, British, French, and Spanish literature. Works studied include whole books, abridgements, short stories and tales, poetry, and non-fiction. The time period ranges from the renaissance through modern times. Curriculum: Lightning Lit & Comp: 7th Grade Literature by Elizabeth Kamath (Hewitt Homeschooling Resources) Plus: Custom lessons Book list: Whole books: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The Story of My Life by Helen Keller All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Roverandom by J. R. R. Tolkien The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain The Time Machine by H. G. Wells The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald The Chronicles of Prydian (five-volume series) by Lloyd Alexander Retellings, abridgements, short stories, and collections of tales: Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, retold by Judge Parry Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, abridgement by Robin Waterfield “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky†by Stephen Crane Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault, translated by A. E. Johnson et al Scottish Folk-tales and Legends (“Oxford Myths and Legends “series) by Barbara Ker Wilson German Hero-sagas and Folk-tales (“Oxford Myths and Legends†series) by Barbara Leonie Picard Poetry: “A Musical Instrument†by Elizabeth Barrett Browning “This Is the Key of the Kingdom†(anonymous) “My Cat Jeoffry†(from Jubilate Agno) by Christopher Smart “The Lion of Winter†by William Shakespeare “Snow-Flakes†by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Eagle†by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “The Jumblies†by Edward Lear “The Dong with a Luminous Nose†by Edward Lear “Night†by William Blake Non-fiction: Along Came Galileo by Jeanne Bendick The Story of Science: Newton at the Center by Joy Hakim
  25. Some of the Famous Men series are available online, too! Baldwin Project has some (here).
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