zarabellesmom
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Posts posted by zarabellesmom
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Beast Academy is mastery and starts in 3rd. It's our favorite. :)
If you go with MM, I suggest the grade-level books. The topic books work well as a supplement, but it is work to pull them together into a grade-leveled curriculum.
Well for sure, beast. I'm not sure why I didn't say that too. I was thinking traditional program I guess.
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If you liked the Singapore approach, but wanted something easier to teach, I would definitely go with Math in Focus. For third grade you wouldn't need the TM most likely. I teach straight out of the text and follow up with the workbook. Easy peasy.
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Ticket to Ride Europe is already out. I'm sad about it. :(
Wow, I must have just checked out with the last copy when you looked for it. I'm sorry. :(
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I grabbed Exploding Kittens, Ticket to Ride (Europe), Dixit, Fluxx OZ and Bad Beets. Wow, that was fun but expensive. I know what Santa is bringing us this year. Then I went back and picked up Dominion and an expansion.
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Well!!! Put that kid in public school and he can really go crazy!
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I'll have a 6th grader next year. So far, I'm thinking:
Math: AOPS or Jousting Armadillos. I have both and we'll start one before this school year is out.
Science: GHF Story of Science, Newton at the Center
English: IEW Continuation Course B or one of their themed units. We will also continue to work our way though Apples and Pears for spelling unless there is a miracle between then and now and the child can finally spell. :huh: Literature to be determined.
History: Heck if I know.
Fine Arts: Continue to draw, dance and play piano.
It seems like it should be more complicated than that, but that is pretty much what we do now and it uses up a fair amount of time.
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:grouphug:
Our local libraries and the teen centers are trying to get teens in so that they don't get into gangs. They have game nights and fun stuff like cookie nights, movie nights so teens would "loiter" at the library.
Does your local library need to revenue from fees? Some of my local libraries have vending machines or cafes. Those probably provide decent revenue to the library.
No, they don't have vending or cafes, but I pay a significant amount in library fines. They've said they are almost finished building my wing of the library. ;) You'd think such a big donor could get a room.
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I was told the local public schools open space areas are free to use after the last bell (3:30pm) and on weekends since everything was built and funded with local tax dollars. Many use the playgrounds and outdoor basketball courts there.
My local library does not charge non-profits for use of the community rooms for free classes, performances, lectures and meetings. After people know about it, there are lots more free events at the library like python programming classes for teens, chess club, knitting club, book club, writing club... run by volunteers.
ETA:
The middle school bus and the high school bus stop near to the city library.
Sadly, both of our local libraries charged significant fees as well. This must be a local phenomenon.
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Granted, we aren't coming from Singapore or MM, we will be coming from Beast Academy and we will be coming soon as we are rapidly eating up the BA5A textbook and it was only just published--still, a student who excelled at Singapore/MM should be well prepared for AOPS (having worked through part of the book myself).
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The local libraries have step up on afterschool activities for middle school kids. The teen centers run by the park and recreations dept have afterschool care for teens. The YMCA too but the Y is not on the middle school bus route as it is outside the school district boundaries so someone need to transport the kids.
What I find helpful was to have after school clubs opened to the whole community. My kids chinese class is an afterschool class at a public school. The organisation is a non-profit and fees are low. Parents/caregivers stay around and chat while kids are in class. Builds a sense of community in a way.
ETA:
Some parents help for after school recreational basketball so that helps. Boy scouts is afterschool here, hosted at schools and open to the community. Some schools have afterschool coding clubs run mainly by parent volunteers.
Some school principals are more welcoming of volunteers than others. Having a community garden on school grounds help too. Kids just volunteer after school.
I'm glad to hear that your area schools are welcoming community classes for student participation. Two years ago I was a troop leader for Girl Scouts and every public school in the area wanted to charge us to use their space. This wasn't a token expense either, we're talking $100 per meeting. Most of these girls couldn't afford the $2 semi-weekly dues. How were we going to come up with that kind of money to fund an after school program that mostly catered to low income public school kids.
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I understand the point of this thread, but if we are getting things off our chest about homeschoolers, I would like to contribute the following:
Complaining constantly about public school teachers, policies, common core, etc. I know we all homeschool for our own reasons, and whatever that is, there is probably no need to constantly berate public school kids and their situations to anyone who will listen. I was reading my MIL some of the charming posts off of the "What does your DC want to be when they grow up" thread and she was surprised. She thought the only thing homeschoolers talked about on homeschool forums was about how terrible public schools are because that had been her experience in real life (and she's a retired PS teacher). I tried to explain to her that the forums are not filled with angst about public school but she didn't seem convinced.
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Well, my DD (almost 7) couldn't figure out the answer to a question yesterday because she had no clue what the word "recess" meant. So, talk about recess. ;)
If I could like this twice, I would. :lol:
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The illustrated copy is beautiful and my DD 7 really enjoyed it. You could still read one a year because they are only releasing one illustrated book a year.
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Another vote for normal. I didn't show mine to my parents and would have felt uncomfortable if they had asked. My oldest is only ten and has a big sister at a Christian dance studio. They send notes back and forth to each other and she doesn't like me to read those either. (I know from sneaking peaks before I was told absolutely not to that they are all innocuous. What's your favorite color/candy, etc.?) I think it's just the next step in independence.
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IEW is having a 50 percent off clearance items sale.
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I think you should go for it. My young second grader will start beast this year too. ;)
My oldest zoomed through MIF 1A through 3A before April of her first grade year. She started out loving math and begging for more. By April, she was bored and irritated at how easy it was. Beast Academy published 3A and we immediately switched. Math became her favorite again.
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My oldest daughter finished 1A through 3A before April her first grade year. Just to say, it really depends on the kid and some are going to zoom through.
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For first grade we did MIF 1A, 1B and part of 2A. We are midway through 2B right now and I think it goes pretty quickly. I'll need 3A by first of February at the latest. When we start that, we will start BA too and that slows things down.
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What instrument? Are you attending lessons? Are you taking notes? Have you talked to your teacher about struggles with practicing? For a young child, I strongly believe that the point of music lessons is to teach the parent how to teach the child at home. How is behavior during lesson? Do you have a consistent practice time early in the day?
I have a five year old playing violin. He has been playing almost two years and at this point practices for half an hour a day. I found the book Helping Parents Practice by Edmund by Edmund Sprunger incredibly valuable and read a section every day. A typical practice session looks like this:
We start it at the beginning of our school day, as playing the violin and reading are by far the hardest work we will do all day.
He will take a bow with his violin.
We have a competition: Can he get his violin in perfect posture before I turn around/count to five/spell his name/etc...?
He plays a scale in the key of his current practice piece. I give him a specific focus piece (in tune first fingers, dropping the elbow far enough when crossing to the E string, good table top fourth fingers, etc...). When he's done, I ask him how that went and how he knows it went well. I do not correct anything outside of the focus point. I may ask him to stop when we get to the focus part to check to see if he's doing it, as he can't always remember by the end of the scale.
We go through the new things we are working on, and I try to make it a game. We both isolate technique (for violin, examples could be circle bows, staccato bows, hooked bows, slurs, etc...) and difficult sections of no more than few measures. We might roll a die or two to see how many repetitions he will do. We might stack a block for each repetition he does until it falls. I might have him start his repetitions at the bottom of the stairs and "level up" for each good repetition. When he was very early in learning to play the violin and couldn't play a song, we'd fill jars with pennies for every perfect bow hold. We played a lot of games like stirring soup with perfect bow holds, playing fast fingers to practice good table top fingers, etc... These are things that the teacher taught me how to play with him at home. Like with the scale, every repetition has a focus that he's supposed to check. I try to find something positive to say about everything he plays, even if he failed to do his focus correctly: I'll complement his bow hold, I'll complement how I can see how he adjusted something to try to play the focus part better, keeping his violin on his shoulder, whatever... We work on new technique/trouble passages/new passages for no longer than ten minutes, and I try to avoid directly correcting him. If he is doing something wrong and then I see him do it in another piece, I make sure to compliment where I saw it go well in that piece. If I hear a wrong note, I will ask him to sing the song and then repeat it: he generally corrects it then. If he cannot sing it, I stop work on the new piece and move to review. If I find my child starting to grow frustrated, we will move onto review. At the end of practice, I will put the song on repeat while we do other school stuff for the day. I might gently readjust his body, though sometimes that can feel intrusive, so I try to do that sparingly. I periodically record myself practicing with him. Out of the moment, I can see how, even though I'm just trying to help, a lot of my instructions can sound overwhelming or critical. The last thing I want to do is make him feel like he's bad at playing or that playing is too hard.
Review: Another thing I do to help keep practice feel overwhelming or that playing the violin is just a struggle is by having more than half our practice every day be focused on review, on playing songs that he already knows well. We still keep focus points, because there's always something to improve in a piece. Since he's in a Suzuki program, all the kids learn the same repertoire and play it every week at his group lessons, so there's also that motivation for playing review pieces well. We always end on a review piece of his choice and a bow. Very occasionally, we end with a violin-related reward, generally watching David Garrett or Lindsey Stirling play violin on Youtube. I always make sure to thank him for playing for me and telling him how much I love to listen to him play.
I will also add that having frequent performance opportunities also makes a huge difference. My middle child loves loves loves the attention of recitals, festivals, etc... and I try to make sure he has a performance opportunity at least every two months. I think having music lessons in the context of a community is important: my son loves to play with others, and the more he works hard at his instrument, the more he can participate in his group class. I also think that playing recordings of the pieces every day is very important.
That said, I do think it's partly temperamental. My eight year old has a very low frustration thresh hold for everything, and this extends to piano. I first read Helping Parents Practice when struggling with her when she was seven, and if I hadn't we'd probably have quit. For my oldest, I really needed to let go of the idea that practice should always look like her happily playing piano. Playing an instrument is hard. It involves a certain amount of frustration. For her especially, it's important to spend time during practice time acknowledging that frustration and working through it. I spend a lot of time acknowledging the feelings and trying to fulfill my eldest's wish for things to be easy right away in fantasy: "You seem discouraged. Wouldn't it be great if I had a magic wand and could make you be able to play this perfectly without practicing?" I make sure to praise a lot for hanging in there when she's in a tricky spot. As she's gotten older, I've encouraged her to tell me what she doesn't like about a specific passage or technique after we finish practicing, but initially, giving time for it during practice time was actually time well spent. For her, focusing on building on previous success and giving as much feeling of autonomy as possible was especially important. I will also say that learning to manage my frustration and not get sucked into her frustration was really important. I find having my morning coffee during her practice and having my knitting has helped with that for me.
Sorry for the novel. I hope this is helpful. Music has been such a wonderful part of our family life, but there have also been points where I found it a struggle. I really think it's unfortunate that if it were math or reading, there'd be a lot more support with trying to find a way to help teach a child, but with music, people are so quick to advise to let it go. I hope you find some of my experience useful.
This is very much what my husband does with my daughter. He attends her lessons with her and each practice at home is a mini lesson. There's a lot of good advice here.
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My oldest is ten and plays about 20 minutes a day. My youngest is seven, but started when she was 5. Her practice routine hasn't really changed since she started. She actually practices longer than the older. Since she weasels out of practice so frequently, she agrees to practice longer when we finally convince her to drag her instrument out. Both are very motivated to play over FaceTime for grandparents. We've used a sticker chart for my youngest. She also likes to play a song and have you guess what she is playing. Sometimes she makes up random stuff and tries to trick us.
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My second grader has a late August birthday so she is on the young side of second grade.
If you have a second grader:
-How strong of a reader are they? (Eldest is not a great reader. He can read, but we are talking Cat in the Hat level. He would drown if I handed him Magic Tree House.)
She's not at the level of reading Magic Tree House yet. She can comfortably read Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, and others along those lines.
-What are you using? and could you label what level of independence (teacher intensive the whole time, quick lesson but work done independently, can read the lesson and does it all by themselves, etc) each one is?
I read from our science book and a book of short animal stories every morning. She then draws a picture to do with either of these and writes a few sentences for narration. The drawing and writing are independent. I correct for spelling and grammar when she is done. 50% independent.
We do science demonstrations and exploration together. 0% independent.
Math fact practice is Reflex Math. I log her in and then she's independently involved for 15ish minutes. 100% independent.
Math in Focus. I teach the lesson and then sit beside her while she works in the workbook. I help her read the word problems (she can do this herself, but doesn't think she can). I would say she about 30% independent here.
ELTL 2 for handwriting, writing, grammar. She does the copywork independently. The rest we do together. I'd call this about 20% independent.
Apples and Pears for spelling. 0% independent.
Typing is Keyboarding without Tears. 100% independent.
She reads to me and I read our history book to her. 0%
Most of our work is together. I pretty much expect that. My oldest is in 5th grade this year and she's probably 50% independent. I could probably find more independent work for both of them, but I really like being involved.
-And if they had two hours to do whatever they wanted what would they do? (Mine would play video games: Minecraft or Wii U. If I make screen time not an option he'd build something probably with Legos or draw something.
She'd spend the entire time watching videos on Youtube Kids or playing games on her iPad. When those are out, she likes to create with stuff out of the recycle. Paint. Play outside. Cartwheel and handstand her way through the living room. Hang upside down from the arms of the couch. Cuddle the pets. Play whatever she can talk her sister into playing.
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Well if you have finished WWE, the obvious follow up would seem to me to be WWS. You can download the first few lessons to get a feel for it. I really liked the look of it, but my fifth grader wasn't quite ready for it, so it's on hold.
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I've got two littles. They both have summer birthdays and they both started kindergarten at approximately five at our local private Montessori school. My oldest turned 5 on June 19 so was five when school started. My youngest turned 5 on August 25th and so was four when school started in early August. The cut off date for enrollment in Georgia currently is September 1. Both of my children were among the very youngest in their class. I never really considered red-shirting because I knew I would be homeschooling first grade. I knew I would teach to whatever their level was and I knew the Montessori school would do the same. In GA, I only have to declare the age of my student and not pick a grade, which is nice. I do, however, have to administer a standardized test at the end of 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th grades. To that point, I guess I have until the end of third grade to determine what grade my child is in. Even then, I don't have to submit the results of the test to anyone, so I suppose that in my own little bubble, it doesn't really count until I announce we've begun high school and a 9th grade standardized test is taken and a transcript is kept.
To the point of the article, my thoughts are that of course the older children have an advantage. How can it not be true that,
“We found that delaying kindergarten for one year reduced inattention and hyperactivity by 73% for an average child at age 11,†Thomas Dee, one of the co-authors and a Stanford Graduate School of Education professor, said in a release.
It seems obvious to me that young kindergartners aren't prepared for the type of seatwork that we currently expect for kindergarten now that kindergarten is the new first grade. On the other hand, I do want to make one comment specifically about ADHD. I do believe that a young child in kindergarten would be more likely misdiagnosed with ADHD when compared to the older kindergartners in the same class. On the other hand, I do believe that ADHD is a "real" thing and it doesn't go away with age. So while a young kindergartner might be misdiagnosed because he is the youngest in the class, some small percentage of kids in the same class will actually have ADHD and that will NOT go away regardless whether they start kindergarten at five or six.
My oldest has ADHD. She started Montessori kindergarten at a young age five and her (very experienced) teacher noted that she had some different learning needs. She never once ever ever said ADHD. It wasn't until I brought her home that I though wow, this is what ADHD (inattentive) must look like. She is and always has been advanced in several areas of learning, especially math and science. She lags in writing and spelling. If I were to try to place her in public school, I would be in a difficult position. Placing he in 4th grade math and science because her writing and spelling skills lag behind would be a disservice to her. At the same time, she wouldn't really be served in a 5th grade classroom because of her writing and spelling skills. Truly, she wouldn't be served in either classroom because she couldn't pay attention and it wouldn't matter if the classroom was labeled 4th, 5th or even Kindergarten. Starting a child too early doesn't cause ADHD. Having unreasonable expectations for young children certainly makes them appear to have ADHD when maturity might make a big difference. I'm so glad I homeschool because that's a hard decision I don't have to make.
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I planned to homeschool before I had children for academic reasons. Around the time the oldest would have started school, we had some family issues. I was suffering from postpartum depression and then the death of my mother. I was an absolute wreck and my oldest was a really really really difficult child to be around. (I know that seems like an awful thing to say, but she wasn't a pleasant person.) I ended up sending her to a private Montessori school for a year and half. It was an amazing experience for both of us. (Though I felt guilty at first, go figure.) Anyway, when she finished kindergarten, I was at a different place in my life and so was she. I brought her home and have never looked back.
I guess to answer your question, initially I homeschooled for academic reasons. After bringing her home and talking to my friends with kids in public school, it reconfirmed that brick and mortar wasn't for us. I really enjoy keeping to our own schedule. Following our own interest and having the freedom to travel when we want. Now that I have two that are school age, I can say that my youngest might do pretty well in school. She's a good student, attentive, eager to please. My oldest, on the other hand, would be a problem. She's 2e. She's gifted but also ADHD. She would be absolutely bored in regular school with math and science and unable to keep up in language arts.
ETA: Researching curriculum is a hobby of mine. :)
S/O planning. How are your plans for THIS year holding?
in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
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I sometimes look at other's plans and feel completely discombobulated and overwhelmed. I tend to plan light and then add things over the course of the year if I feel we have time. That said, my plan for this year for my youngest is nothing at all like what we are actually doing. We completely crashed and burned with Oak Meadow. We have since readjusted and are using, with great success, the things in my signature. Sometimes I feel like I am constantly readjusting. This is my fifth year and I finally feel like I've mostly found my rhythm. Hope I didn't jinx myself just now.