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smootwater

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Posts posted by smootwater

  1. I grew up multilingual, I am Hungarian who grew up in Romania. From first grade I had 3 languages, Hungarian, Romanian and German taken in school. Hungarian and Romanian every day, German 3 x a week.  We had only 4 hours of school a day, 50 min long classes with 10 -15 min recess.  

     

    In middle school, from 5th grade, I had to take Russian too, twice per week and Latin in 7 and 8th grades.  In middle school we had 5 or 6 classes per day, same format with 50 min class and 10-15 min recess.  

     

    In high school the school dropped Latin, but all the other 4 languages stayed till the end.  During high school we had usually 6 classes , if we had 7 classes it was ART or PE class that day and we schooled 6 days a week.

     

    Since I attended a Hungarian school all the classes were taught by  native Hungarian teachers, the Romanian by a native Romanian, but the German and Russian languages were not native teachers, but were excellent professors without any accent.  All classes were conducted only in that corresponding language, rarely did the teachers instruct us in our native language.

     

    All the languages had, phonetic instruction in elementary, lots of reading, poetry memorization, grammar, literature, copy work, narration, talking in class, outside in the real world, lots of translations in German and Russian,  essays...  We were also tested orally and in writing, but not multiple choice questions :)

     

    After high school I traveled a lot, and living in Spain I picked up Spanish in a month.   I learned English when I came to the USA  but I still have a strong accent!

    4 Year college here was easy, it corresponded to a high school level education back home only in English.

     

    When I went to Indonesia several years ago,  I met several tour guides;  one in Borobudur had excellent English accent.  I asked him where did he learned to speak so well?  He said he never left Indonesia, or his hometown, he learned it watching BBC and other TV channels that he had access to. Amazing, what people can achieve if they want it.  

     

    My son, 10 yo, currently learns 3 languages, English, Hungarian, Latin.  He wants to start French (that I do not speak at all:) and Spanish too.  

     

     

    • Like 1
  2. Here are some that I can think of, there are thousands more of course:)

     

    Peter Pan

    Princess and Goblin

    Princess and Curdie

    At the back of the North Wind

    Men of Iron

    Swallows and Amazons

    The Saturdays

    Alice's Adventures n Wonderland

    Through he looking glass

    Roald Dahl book

    Black Beauty

    Pollyanna

    The Secret Garden

    The Moffatts

    The Borrowers

    Gone Away Lake

    Robinson Crusoe

    The Peterkin Papers

    Rip Van Winkle

    Oliver Twist

    Kim

    Adventures of Tom Sawyer

    The Prince and the Pauper

    Captains Courageous

    Treasure Island

    Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • Like 3
  3. Retention is pretty low at this age.  We did FLL 1& 2 previous years with my now 8 yo son, and always struggled with parts of speech. He chose Abeka LA this year over R&S because it is colorful.   What we did is used some Montessori grammar materials over the summer, that is color coded and pretty simple.  It helped him understanding the content better.  You can download Montessori Grammar manuals from the internet for free.

  4. We are using Intermediate 4 now and the only difference from Saxon 54 is that Intermediate 4 has a separate workbook with the lesson problems.  Otherwise no difference whatsoever.  Intermediate 4 is for younger students who get tired easily from writing or copying the exercises from the textbook. 

  5. My son is 7 yo going into third grade this fall, completed Saxon 3 last year.  He is no way ready for the copying and writing in Saxon 54.  So last month one of Saxon's rep at a homeschool conference advised to use Saxon Intermediate 4 instead of Saxon 54  or Saxon Intermediate 5 for Saxon 65 respectively.  She said Intermediate is exactly the same as regular Saxon but with a workbook that has the problems already in it. 

    Anyone has any experience with it? 

     

     

    Katalin

  6. We are using Saxon3 Currently with my son.  The Daily Meeting and Calendar is like a math circle time.  You fill in the corresponding month's calendar days, you have a number of the day where he has to write three number sentences for that number, you have to record today's temperature, skip counting - which is very helpful, currently we skip counting by 1/4 up till 5 and backwards.  You have a today's pattern - where he fills out the given pattern, clock - where he practices to tell and write down clock time, problem of the day where he has to solve the given problem, coin cup where he has to figure out the value of the given coins or if the value is given then the number and types of coins used.  It is 10 minutes, but very helpful in reviewing the facts.

  7. We did WRTR with my first grader last year. I was skeptical in the beginning but it worked. It does not take 3 hours, since you are homeschooling. You also start teaching the handwriting. What we did is: start the phonics, review them everY day. Then start teaching the ayers words list, 30 a week. You also show with your hand as you spell the word the phonograms. When we finished writing the word we underlined what we had to, discussed the rules and noted the rule numbers next to the word. Last year my son rarely told me what rules applied. This year however, he is the one telling me the rules (most of the time). Big change. I am amazed. So the programm really worked. We got from level 0 to 3.2 grade level spelling by the end of the year. I also had the teacher's book but it is not necessary if you are not following it. We did different grammar and writing programs. Good luck to you.

  8. I had the same problem with my DS5, so I did phonemic awareness activities with him: rhyming words, syllable segmentation, beginning sound substitution, sound isolation, phonemic segmentation. Then we started to use ABeka's blending ladder activities. It helped a lot. Here is a very helpful site http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/phonics-printables

    It doesn't mean your son is not ready, he might need a different approach to teach him.

  9. My DS now 5 started Suzuki Piano couple months before he turned 5. He loves it. He has good sense of rhythm... Suzuki teaches by ear at young age, you have to listen to the accompanying musical CD. If your son is very musical, he will enjoy playing on instruments.

    Music uses both sides of the brain, a fact that makes it valuable in all areas of development and trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. Music also affects the growth of a child’s brain academically, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

  10. I love the phonics way. There are lots of free phonics programs.

    But phonemic awareness is very important that improves word reading and comprehension. Such as: rhyming word activities, syllable segmentation, beginning sound - ending sound activities, sound isolation activities, phonemic segmentation.

    If you google phonemic awareness you will find tons of activities and ideas.

    Read lots of Mother Goose verses, rhymes...

    You are not missing on anything but you can make life easier by doing all these activities playfully.

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