FO4UR
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Posts posted by FO4UR
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I agree with not changing things that are working.
Keep in mind, adding more stuff steals time and energy from the good stuff that is working. That alone can derail your year.
That said, what I hear in your post is that you want to give them independent work. Ask yourself why. Is it to keep them busy? Is it to wean them gradually from mommy-lessons? Are you struggling with too many plates spinning?
It is ok to drop a teacher intensive spelling for a workbook. That will give more time for other writing lessons. See. Drop one thing to give time to something else.
Take some time to think on it. Get a blank white piece of paper and pretend you have no curriculum on your shelf, and you have free choice, starting over fresh.
First, write down how you want to structure your day, your week.
Then, start placing appropriate currics to meet their place in the day.
Sometimes, the appeal of a new curric is that what we need for overall family health doesn't mesh well with the ideal in our head. Sacrifices must be made. It will be better in the long run.
Also, independent work can be simple, hands on projects. Logic workbooks are fun. But, if you add them in, set them in a basket (with a variety of dover coloring books) and let the kids do them at their own pace.
Decide what you need to manage, and what you can pass on to the kids.
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The Dover coloring books are excellent. That is my pick.
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Put the suspect in charge of baking the sweets.
Make it one of her family duties, and cheerfully take it seriously. It will be a healthy change in more than one way.
My kids don't sneak food. They do a lot of cooking and baking on their own. Preparing the food is part of enjoying it for them.
Sneaking creates an unhealthy dynamic for the child. I'd curb that asap by assigning more control and responsibility.
Pick a recipe. Make a list. Shop. Bake. Clean up. All on the child. It is satisfying, and the choc chips will stop disappearing.
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i just learned that one woman of my online chat group shared a little bit of her near death experience at age 19. She said she was in hell and begged the devil to give her more years to live. The devil told her she could live to 59. Now she is 50. She has had fear about approaching 59.
Only the group leader and I are Christians. I commented, "He that lives within me is greater than he that is in the world." I do not know how to talk about God to this group and how to discuss about Jesus with this lady in particular. Any suggestions to help her overcome her fear
Thanks!
It sounds like a hallucination, not real. But, it is very real to her.
The problem is that anxiety will rob her of her joy until she turns 60. I would encourage her to mark the time meaningfully.
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I do ab machines at a local gym. Less weight, more reps, and really concentrate on form.
Then I do treadmill. On the treadmill, I switch patterns of walking and running, and every time I switch, I check my core. Tighten tummy, shoulders back and down.
I do leg lifts at home. The big thing is form. Slow and controlled.
And, stretch well.
I am a mom of four, have had diastasis recti and a horrible emergency cs. Aside from needing excess skin removed, my abs are in better shape than they were prebaby.
Wrap for a diastasis recti. Get a corset and wear it religiously until the muscles fuse back together.
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Four, it does seem doable to use this for vocabulary lessons, doesn't it?
This book needs to be reprinted. The current edition is not this book.
Yes, it seems doable to pull out quite a rich LA and content lesson with just the thesaurus.
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I would suggest discarding and stopping all outside influence. This is between you and your husband.
Next, play an open ended "if we..."
If we did homeschool, how would we give our child this or that?
And meet some real older hs families.
I laugh at the worry about toughening up a hs boy. Really. Some of the most masculine 14 boys I have ever know are homeschooled
When you are not at school all day, you have time to work and learn real life skills.
Who needs a bully when you have pigs to feed and fences to mend. Ha!
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You have a talent for finding gems in the rubble, Hunter.
I never ever would have thought a thesaurus more than a synonym finder.
A person could draw quite a lot from that thesaurus though.
I love the simplicity of a single source for a free and deep lesson. I am thinking summer school. My kids would buy "just one word" per day. Ha!
Hmmmm...
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A child with that personality needs to drive, not be driven. That is likely why she rejected piano, rigorous and structured lessons.
Voice lessons would be a good investment, as would a choir. It seems she might be a good all around musician if given some skills.
Not all musicians specialize to the point of the excellence on one instrument. It is healthy to be well rounded with competence in several instruments.
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Use your homeschool budget to shore up your weak spots. So, I'd recommend SOTW for history. Enjoy it as a read aloud time together, and do the coloring and mapwork.
If your oldest is 2nd grade, you are wise to NOT fuss with a writing curric. Copywork. Do daily copywork at their level. Narration. Ask them to orally narrate what you have read to them. Allow that time to morph into discussion. You want them processing aloud, and speaking in coherent sentences.
When they are older, about 4th grade, you can begin to require written narrations from readings.
Dictation is the other piece. At 2nd grade, I would personally start short and simple dictations, mainly to help them grow accustomed to how it is done. Study a sentence. Turn it over. Copy from memory, with oral repetition from mom as needed.
You won't find a curric superior to these methods. You can find currics that make this easier on you, but you can also do this very well from the books on your shelf.
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I have homeschooled in both plenty and in poverty.
There are levels of poverty. Are we in a homeless shelter or are we in a stable-ish home?
A well designed plan utilizing public domain materials and a supply of paper and ink will go far.
Keep in mind, the most needy will have the most special needs. Trauma effects learning. Mom needs flexibility as much as she needs a solid resource. Resources that give a solid path but allow detours and stagnation are preferable. Strayer-Upton math, a basic phonics primer like Word Mastery, and lots of books.
Most poor moms are better off learning how to use copywork, narrarion, and dictation with raw materials rather than being handed a scheduled LA curric. Reality: child is doing copywork while mom is working, narrating over a meal, and dictation happens in a stolen 15 min before bed. A "nice" LA curric becomes a burden.
I have spent some money some years on nice currics. It did not result in more learning or better learning, with a few exceptions.
One program i would recommend keeping stocked to give, if we are serious about this is Dancing Bears Reading. It works amazingly well, even with my toughest student, it can be done quite well in 15-20 min per day, and it is relatively inexpensive.
Rather than take just cast offs, create a way to stock what will help most. Paper, ink, printers, Dancing Bears Reading, Strayer -Upton math, and a guide on how to do copywork/ narration/dictation. When Children Love to Learn would be a good book to distribute for that.
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SOTW with the AG. That is an easy decision.
For a child who is already reading cvc words, go with the program that gives the most flexibility. PP and ETC will allow you to easily move at his pace without feeling like you are wasting $ skipping lessons he doesn't need in a pricey curric.
I would not purchase Bob Books. Nope. Check your library for early readers.
Spend that money on Happy Phonics.
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I brought a baby home from the nicu this time four years ago.
Do you have a journal to write in? Send hubby to get one if you don't. Your brain turns to mush and you will want to remember some of these things.
Keep pumping! That is truly one thing that can keep your maternal heart going when your sweet bundle cannot be held. I pumped like crazy, and was able to donate over 250 ounces to another child. Overflow of love.
Take care of you too. C/S are no joke, and we are discharged from major surgery like it was nothing. Eat well, do not over do it. Stay in a wheelchair instead of walking for longer than you think you need to. Bind your tummy up very well during the day. Keep binding for several months. Months.
My nicu baby is four years old now, and a walking, talking miracle. Her middle name is Hope, so that is my prayer for your little guy.
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I see this thread was bumped, such a good topic. What we are really asking is if we should allow our children to see different cultures, to ask difficult questions, to compare our family religion next to our neighbor's and see how they measure up. This is scary for some b/c "What if the kids choose differently?"
We must always remember that all children are born persons. Their relationship with God is theirs. It's not ours. We have a responsibility to educate them, but their spiritual health is not under our control (contrary to some popular teachings).
Our family is going through some tough times currently, to put it mildly. And THIS...this opening up of a dialogue has been one of those thin threads that has kept the kids with me mentally/emotionally. I won't share the details, for their privacy, but some of their recent questions would meet with shock and scorn by most people in our culture. But, they ask me. They are talking.
So...my reason #1 for a Christian parent to introduce mythology of other cultures is b/c if Mom can openly discuss the Greek gods and field tough religious questions without shock and scorn, maybe she is a safe person to ask about ________ when they are tweens/teens and coming into contact with cultural things you cannot control. You cannot control their generation's cultural atmosphere or how they choose to fit within it. You can only offer to be safe person to process these things upon.
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What age?
And, don't get too hung up on what constitutes a living book. You'll get lost and waste time and end up losing out on some good things.
The best measure of a living book, ime, is if your child lives the book. For littles, the Read and Find Out series is one that my kids would set down and immediately go outside and see if these things are so. The main thing is timing reading about crickets when crickets are out, and so on.
Burgess animals & birds are an obvious CM choice. And, I will add in that it is a good thing to pair something like Burgess with the encyclopedia-like modern books with photographs. Read the narrative as a story. Let the child browse the photographs in the encyclopedias at their own pace, like a coffee table book.
Both/And.
And for science, I think BFSU is pretty close to CM. Nature study is the biggest chunk of science in a CM elementary education.
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Sibling jealousy can be a source of sabotage. Juggling it all for multiple kids can be too much. Careful delegation of tasks is required. Boundaries have to be enforced.
The non-teacher spouse can also be a source of sabotage. The need to put the teaching parent down in order to feel like a good parent themselves is a problem for some. Even the unspoken idea that mom teaches the boring school subjects, but dad comes home to play can be severely damaging, not only to the homeschool but to the overall dynamics of the home.
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Thank you, 4blessingmom, for that thoughtful reply. I've been studying spelling for days.
I also wanted to add 3 things for anyone who reads the thread in the future.
1. AAS seemed to be working. He was 9 and finished level 1 and 2. He hated the tiles, hated spelling, couldn't remember the rules, but did learn words. I was bored, frustrated with lack of progress, and had another son to teach that was quickly catching up to his older brother. Now I know that ADHD and other such things cause inconsistency in learning. It was probably working more than I thought at the time. We probably could have dropped it for a while and returned and progressed.
2. A&P did show progress, probably more than AAS, but he was older. Why didn't I continue? Even doing a modified 1/2 lesson a day, it was taking all his writing strength/tolerance he had. I need him to start writing/copying his own sentences (like in WWE 3 and 4), so he can write a paragraph. I can't use all his writing time on spelling.
3. My husband (and others) thought if he learned to read well, he would spell well. It didn't work. I guess he got my spelling ability instead of dad's!
Thanks for all the help.
I'm nodding my head in familiarity and agreement from this side of the internet. :grouphug:
It's not you. He's going to be a bad speller, but it will be OK.
We did A&P for a while too. My 2nd child went through Book C before I decided she didn't need spelling lessons anymore. She does improve spelling through reading like most people. My oldest/dyslexic went through Book A more than once...sigh...
He does improve with the program I reformatted, but even with that I am tweaking spelling to take up the least amount of time as possible. It's simply never going to be a strength for him. And, if he's going to do the things he wants to do in life, he's got to focus on his strengths. (My 3rd child, also a dyslexic, does very well with my spelling program. My oldest is just an unusually tough nut to crack.)
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So your kiddo has ADHD, probably dysgraphic, still can't spell basic words. I'll get raked on the coals for this one, but hey, I'm a good sport.
Could your kiddo rhyme when he was in preschool?
Could he do his times tables normally?
Did he struggle tying his shoes?
Who did the dyslexia testing?
I'd aim for an OG based program.
I agree with everything, except I'd add a caveat to the OG based program thing. For kids who primarily have an auditory glitch, I think OG is wonderful. For kids who struggle primarily with a visual glitch, I don't think OG does enough.
Now, I am putting on my flame retardant suit. :lol: (Yes, I've used enough Spalding and OG to know. SWR and Recipe for Reading...Great programs! They are just not magic. I've bought, borrowed and studied others (including WRTR) b/c as I worked with my oldest I thought I must be missing something about the process. Nope. It just didn't work for my kid.)
Spelling is largely a visual skill. The rules and phonograms apply, but there are so many cases where you simply have to memorize which rule/phonogram applies to which word....I mean, why "which" and not "witch?" And...word...wird...werd...weard...I mean wierd...no, I mean weird! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Good spellers are good at holding the mental picture of the word in their head. So when remediating spelling, teach them how to take (and keep) mental pictures in their head.
This is why copywork and dictation work so well for spelling. They force a person to hold a visual memory of the words.
No coal raking from me. He can rhyme now, but not then. Knows half of all his tables, counts on his fingers, etc. Still struggles to tie his shoes. That's why we did the testing; I always expected dyslexia (and ADHD). The same person did all the testing (a psychiatrist). Her actual reply was that with his ADD so high, the test could not indicate dyslexia. If we wanted, we could retest him medicated to see if it was really there.
Do you have an OG program that you like better than others?
If it were me and mine, I would simply move forward teaching him as if he is dyslexic in regards to spelling.
In other subjects, accommodate.
Don't spend too much time on spelling. Focus your time spelling on building the skills needed to learn HOW to spell. (Heck, even I use google when I'm at the computer. Type in what it sounds like, search for the correct definition, boom! There is the spelling.)
I've got a 13yo dyslexic who will not get to college on a spelling scholarship. :hat: Math is his meal ticket. And, he was visibly and joyfully relieved when I explained that the content of his writing is more important than the mechanics. (I might be editing his writing for him for years to come. That's OK.) He has a good mind. He has important thoughts and ideas. He has put in so much time on learning how to read and how to spell that it's a shame he doesn't get some sort of award. (He knows more phonics than most elementary school teachers!) He still cannot spell.
OG programs take a ton of time out of the school day. Take that into consideration. At a certain age, they are better off focusing on those things that will be used to build their future. We all know at least one quirky adult who, although intelligent and successful, cannot spell to save their lives.
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I plunked out the cash for BW and was not impressed. jmho.
I've studied CM for a few years though, so I was hoping for more...more of something...but I was just very much disappointed that I wasted $ on it. I had heard such rave reviews, but I think those reviews must come from people who haven't read CM.
CM's books are free online.
Another Lynn, I think you've already read CM irc. I think spreading writing out through the content subjects might be the ticket.
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:lurk5:
Great topic!
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I haven't had my kids read her exact words, but I have given the kids a general idea of what happened and what the victim said. They will hear about this story in the near future. It's better if they hear about it from me first.
Cutesy talk about this sort of thing is dangerous, imho. I think I will print off the victim's entire statement to save in my binder for future talks. She worded everything so vividly, and she hit all of the important points. My kids will read it all, but just not right now.
Honestly, at the ages of mine (13/11/10), we focused on the fact that Brock had no right whatsoever to harm her in any way. We focused on the ideas expressed by the judge when he gave him 6mo in jail for such a violent act. And then I talked a lot about the 2 men on their bikes who saved her. If you see or hear something that seems wrong, something is probably wrong. Grab a friend to go with you and do what good you can do.
I went through several real scenarios in their lives that could be potentially dangerous, and what they could do to avoid danger, and what to do in case of danger. Friends don't let friends get eaten by the Big Bad Wolf...most of their friends are not likely having this sort of talk with their parents. Don't let a buddy go off alone with someone you get the creeper vibe from.
Don't partake in even a joke that treats women like trash! That is not a joke. That is your sister, your mother...
I talked to my 13yo about getting older and how he can be respectful to others (not just females) by not invading personal space or speaking about intrusive topics. Kids get away with stuff that teenage boys and young men cannot. He needs to start being aware that a female might have a real fear of being isolated. He needs to learn to recognize rape-mentality within his peer group, and shut it down when he can...and be a genuine friend to those who might be vulnerable as he can.
I have shared with them before of a few near-misses of my own. It's important that they realize that these news stories are real people, not fiction. That girl is someone's daughter, someone's sister, and she is really real and she's struggling to move on. The rapist is a real person too. He didn't look like a rapist before that night, I'm sure. But he probably made comments and jokes, and had a disrespectful attitude towards women that could have served as a warning to those who knew him...but the victim did not know him. It was not her responsibility to check to see who is a rapist and who is not before attending a party. It was his responsibility to not be a rapist.
As they get older, we will talk more about the other aspects of partying too...and other situations where these things happen with more frequency.
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I reformatted an old program for my dyslexic, struggling speller. I combine cursive with spelling b/c it's 2 birds with one stone AND a hiccup in one leads to stagnation in the other. Getting both penmanship and spelling off the ground together is critical, ime. Cursive is better for many kids who struggle. It's ergonomic. Reversals are fewer. Whole words are a connected unit. There are just many details that seem to fix with cursive.
I'd start at Grade 2 regardless of age if he's struggling with handwriting and the most common words seen on the sight word lists. (This program uses the Ayer's list.)
I add phonogram work, so the AAS will not all be lost. I also use visualization techniques like in A&P. My oldest couldn't keep pace with A&P after book 1. I had to do something.
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Giving away the discovery style of Miquon would be a huge loss IMO.
Bill
Suppose Orange is One...
Those four words are powerful.
Let the rods do their work. Lore Rasmussen, author of Miquon, was a wise woman. Read the First Grade Diary and the Teacher's Notes before rejecting Miquon.
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I think it's normal at that stage of reading. Try the index card first.
Where does CLE math fall when compared to public school?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
When it comes to math, they are where they are. It is vital to master the material where they are.
We have used CLE among other things. My 4th grader was the one using CLE before entering public school this fall, and he slid right into the ps math routine easily, earning an A on math every progress report.
That said, his start was in Miquon and we took breaks from CLE now and then for lessons with the cuisenaire rods. One of the first things I noticed in August when visiting his classroom was a math station that featured bar models with plenty of manipulatives, cuisenaire rods central.
If ps comparison is a concern, it isn't so much how far you get in CLE, but how much exposure they have to conceptual math. Miquon, Singapore, MEP.