allymom
-
Posts
166 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by allymom
-
-
Has anyone used the Phonetic Zoo spelling program with a child with dyslexia and auditory processing issues. Her first few years of school were a real struggle. But I feel like we've made a lot of breakthroughs in the last 1.5 years. She's now reading at at least a 3rd grade level (she just turned 10) and is doing grammar, writing and math on a 4th grade level and nearly finished with all. She definitely still has some auditory processing issues. And I don't want to overwhelm her and make school too difficult. But I would like to move her toward a more independent program, but can't stand the idea of a workbook based spelling program. I just don't think she would retain anything in that style of program. I wonder if Phonetic Zoo would be helpful in strengthening the auditory processing department, or if it would just be a struggle and overwhelm?
-
Lurking. Totally wondering the same thing.
-
-
That looks fun! Most homemade vegan cheeses are made with nuts and can be very tasty, but I have a dd who is allergic to peanuts an cashews. So we have to be very careful with homemade vegan cheeses. I have 2 children who are also very dairy sensitive, so I've tried my share of vegan cheeses over the last 5+ years.
-
I get it. I have a feeling I will feel the same way when we get to that point. (((Hugs)))
-
Well, he's a military chaplain and email is used a lot in the military and he seems comfortable with it. I've already received 2 emails from him since Sunday (one as a general to the church, and one thanking me for coming, etc.)
Thank you both for your replies. I just am not quite sure of everything as I venture into this, all of these customs that I am so unfamiliar with. So I will keep this in mind for future emails. Thank you!
-
Okay, silly question, but since I do have a priest now and can direct my questions to him instead of to you all...
it crossed my mind after I sent him an email tonight that perhaps there is something I'm suppose to say at the beginning and/or the end of the email? Is there?
And kind of along the same lines...since I only met him on Sunday for the first time, I was not sure what to do when I was leaving and everyone else was kissing his hand. I know that is tradition and proper, but I was not comfortable with that yet. Is it okay if it takes me a few weeks to feel comfortable with that or should I make more effort next week?
-
Would they be open to reading books on the subject? I've mentioned our change to a few select friends, but the majority of our family/friends do not yet know that we are converting. Most of my friends have not said much of anything, something along the lines of "well, you have to do what works for your family" and then the subject was changed. But I have one friend that has asked a few questions and another that has asked a lot of questions and even took a book recommendation from me and seems very open to the Orthodox faith. It's not something I would push at all, but as conversation comes up, you can insert little things here and there and maybe eventually they'll come around, and maybe they won't. My parents are very anti-catholic as well, so I also worry about their reaction. But I will give my dad a book to read, he's a reader and a pastor and a good dad. And he tries to be very open to his children, not just shutting down our ideas. My mom, not so much. But if I can help my dad understand that it's not Catholic and that we aren't turning away from the church, then maybe my mom will be more open.
-
I was having great trouble finding this board and then figuring out how to get permission to post. This is the first time I've been able to post. I wasn't around when you had the social groups previously, so maybe it's partly that?
-
My K'er can't really do her work without me right by her. I do sometimes sit at the table because I'm constantly being called upon for help by one of my children. But my 4th and 2nd grader are independent enough I can do chores in the same area as them, most of the time.
-
It's in the Instructor's Guide. At the back. The book basket is referring to the weekly book suggestions to go along with what you are studying. I can not usually find the books at my libraries, but I think a lot of people have better libraries than I have had. And there are also grade level reading lists that are entirely separate from you what you are studying. They would be for practicing independent reading skills.
-
We've kind of begun K, just taking it at her pace. Nothing official, but in the last month we've moved into more K level work since she turned 5 in November.
-Currently more than halfway through AAR pre-level, AAR Level 1 next year
-Also using ETC, halfway through the 1st "Get Ready" book right now
-ARFH K
-SM book A right now, will just go at her pace
-FIAR
-Will use some of the Sonlight P4/5 books that I have from when my older 2 were this age, no schedule, just as desired.
-She'll join in with the older sibs as she wishes for science, history, Bible and art.
-
I am getting ready to have my 6th in a few weeks, with a deployed husband. Kids ages are 9 (almost 10), 8, 5, 3 and 20 months. In the last month I've worked hard to get my 8 and 9 year old more independent with their school work because I realized quickly after my husband left that it was not working for me to be doing FLL or WWE or RS math with them. I adore these curriculums and think they are superior to many others...but with this many children, I need them to be as independent as possible. So we changed to workbooks for grammar, writing and math (although my 9 year old was already doing MUS, my 8 year old preferred RS and did well with it). We still do science, history, Bible and phonics/spelling together. And we try to do that during naptime as much as possible. The independent bookwork they do in the morning. My 5 year old also have a few workbooks she works through (ARFH, ETC, and Singapore K). Most of them require help every few minutes with reading instructions or figuring out a problem, especially the 5 year old. And my 8 year old requires constant nagging to stay on task. However, I do not have to be 100% focused on teaching a lesson, so I can still pull my monkey 20 mo. old off the counter or get him snacks, or pick up after him as he destroys my house in a matter of minutes. He's kind of at a crazy age. Newborns are easy, so I'm not too concerned. Fall will be much harder when the baby is more awake and active and my 20 mo. old is just a crazy 2 year old still. My 3 year old adores ABC Mouse and Starfall and will spend as long on them as I'll allow (and he's learning a lot too, and can add number under 10!) so I pretty much let him play on the computer for several hours a day, which feels really wrong to me. But it is educational and he's learning and it keeps him from antagonizing his little brother. Another thing I do, if things are getting too nutty, is to send one of my older girls to play with the younger boys, while I work with whoever needs help. Even if they are not done with school, it gives them a nice break and keeps the peace a bit, while I'm able to focus on the child who needs it. Then when that child is finished, they can trade places and the other dd can come back to finish her school work. We don't have a strict schedule, might be easier if we did, but it just doesn't work for me. But we do have a general flow to our day and my kids know what to expect in what order and that works well enough for us. I don't plan to take more than a week off school once the new baby gets here.
-
I saw a very faint line as soon as I looked at it in both pictures. But then I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I think it's a positive, but I'd definitely follow up with another. ;D
-
Dear Allymom,
Your humble mindset is beautiful.
You may have run across this comparison already, regarding icons. I have seen people have an "aha!" moment when I speak of how we (people in general) often pause before a photograph of a beloved, departed grandmother, father, aunt, friend, . . . and hold an interior (even out loud) one-way conversation with that person because we miss him or her so much. We even pick up the photograph and kiss it out of our continuing love. . . . This is how we regard the holy icons. A bow, a kiss, a prayer -- all these pass directly through the years and space, into the dwellingplace of the reposed, to deliver our love and respect, and to signal that these people are not forgotten.
Another insight of yours nailed a concept spot-on. We love God by an act of free will. I remember consulting my priest, many years ago, because I did not have the overflow of feelings toward God that seemed to be expected. I despondently worried that I just did not love God, and would be punished accordingly. He helped me to move toward acceptance that what matters is my intention and my efforts. To use the slang phrase, "to put my money where my mouth is" by serving God willingly and determinedly, never minding if I felt some "spiritual high" or not. To continue asking God to fill me with repentance of my sins, and fill me with love for Him. Something akin to the "Lord, I believe! Help Thou my unbelief!" (. . . and know that God will plug any gaps in the ways He chooses, when He chooses.) . . . This same approach to Orthodox practices that "feel funny" for a while.
Back to care duties. . .
Yes, that makes complete sense! However, I've never been taught about the saints at all, so I don't feel any love/respect/admiration for them. Which is why I'm trying to start learning about them and beginning to teach my children about the saints. Mary has come much easier for me. My dad was always so anti-catholics, he did not believe most were Christian (I don't agree with him, though I don't agree with everything they teach) and he had such a problem with them "worshipping Mary" as he would say. After reading about Mary and the beliefs regarding the ever-virginity of her, I have so much more awe and respect for her. Not that I didn't think she was pretty cool before, but now I have more reverence (I suppose) and awe in regards to Mary. I will begin with icons of Christ and Theotokos.
-
Alisha, yes, it will come in time, but be assured, no one's going to make you venerate or even acknowledge an icon, LOL. Or you can just stand in front of an icon and look at it respectfully without bowing or kissing. It's okay!
I hope your brother, also, will find the fullness of the faith in an Orthodox parish.
If I understood something you said above, I'm not much of a podcast listener either. I've always read or talked with people to learn about the faith.
Well, I'm sure it will take me awhile to become comfortable with all the practices in the church. I printed out a prayer guide and made a point to close my day with prayers last night. I kind of felt silly, especially since I don't really have a designated prayer area, and I don't know the prayers by heart yet. I think I at least want to purchase an icon of Christ to put up so I have a focus when I say daily prayers.
ETA: I'm not really questioning these practices anymore, I believe in them. It's just not comfortable or something that feels compatible with where my heart is yet. However, I think the protestant church is far too focused on feelings (or at least parts of the protestant church, the denominations I've attended most in my life), and as I told my husband, we love each other because we took a vow to do so, not because we always feel like doing it. And so it should be with God. I don't believe I'll always feel like going through all of the Orthodoxy practices, but I believe they show love and respect to God and our Savior and teach us important things as well and, hopefully the loving feelings will follow or be there as well. But if they aren't, that's not a reason to not continue with these practices. For the most part though, I feel so much more excited and and alive with the Orthodox church than I have in the protestant church.
-
I struggle with the icons and talking/praying/veneration of and to the saints. I've read enough on it to understand the "why" behind it. It's just such a foreign concept to me, it's hard to really accept, if that makes any sense. And maybe once we begin attending services, my heart will follow. My husband and I were talking and he said "well, I'd be surprised if you didn't struggle with it" with how I was raised and even with just being a westerner. I did buy a book of saints and am becoming more familiar with them and am making a point to teach my children about various saints, especially on saint related holidays. And I listened to a podcast on the "one-story church" idea, which again, was a totally foreign concept to me. I'm really trying to internalize these ideas, but they aren't coming easy to me.
-
Part of "the package" is Orthodox music. I'm now going to submit a totally shameless, blatant plug for the music CDs available from St. Symeon's Orthodox Church in Birmingham, AL. That is not our parish, but we have friends there.) Their performance quality reminds me of those programs by Vladimir Morosan ("Icons in Sound").
Shifting over to Internet radio, I turn on "The Rudder" often, for it is exclusively Orthodox music. I don't benefit from "talking" broadcasts, although "Ancient Faith" is excellent ( ! ) for that purpose. (ADHD rendered me hopelessly "print-bound", rather than an aural learner.)
Thank you! My head was swimming the first few days I was exploring Orthodoxy several weeks ago. I totally missed this. I've had trouble following the podcasts and have kind of given up. But I have worked through reading a couple of the book suggestions. And I love this music! Music I can do with noisy kids in the background.
I'm so ready to make the leap, I'm really struggling to continue going to my regular protestant church now. But my husband wants me to wait for him to return so we can attend together the first time, so I will. My heart is still working on accepting a few things after 32 years of being protestant. But my head has accepted it all and my heart has accepted most of the Orthodoxy traditions. And I'm just so excited because it's the first time in SO many years, maybe ever, that I feel like this is really right! My brother has turned away from the church completely and has explored every other religion under the sun (after being raised with our dad as a pastor in a non-denomination church). I haven't really started telling people that we will be making this leap yet, I'd like to attend a service first. But part of me really wants to call and tell my brother because I wonder if this is what he's been missing. He's the type that if he thinks somethings off or fake, he just throws it all off, even if it's not all bad, kwim. The difference was that I held onto God, knowing he was still real even if I never agreed with all of the practices in the various churches I've attended. I can't wait to share this with my brother, I hope he is able to find peace in Orthodoxy.
-
I went with Alpha. She's nowhere near ready for Beta, and I'm fairly certain Primer would be too easy.
It's definitely very different from Singapore. Just in the content alone. Like I mentioned above, Singapore has them learning the concepts of multiplication and division in 1B. Double digit addition and subtraction were already touched upon. You don't see double digit addition and subtraction until Beta, and Multiplication and division in the level after that.
I guess that kind of answers my question on keeping DS and DD in the same math curriculum. DS would be bored stiff if I had to spend an entire school term on single digit addition and subtraction.
Oh, and I popped the DVD in tonight...DH firmly requested that I put something in that wasn't "way too much like school". LOL!
My oldest has done very well with MUS (dyslexic, probably dyscalculic), the mastery approach in very small incremental steps is just what she needed with her LD's. Along with the blocks. But my 2nd grader is hating MUS so much and I'm probably going to switch her to something else. I'm not thrilled about the idea of having them in different curriculums, but I think it's best to match your child's learning style/needs if you can.
-
Crimson Wife, she's 8 now, I just haven't updated my signature. ;D She turned 8 at the beginning of November. Sure, I get that I need to stay on her to get it done and pop in and out and help her with problems/concepts that she can't get. But with Rightstart, you sit with them and teach the entire lesson and it takes us nearly 45 min. most lessons to get through a lesson (one per day). And then she still has a worksheet at least half the time to complete after that, that will take anywhere from 10-20 min. Mind you, she enjoys RS, but I can't give her my undivided attention for 45 min. With MUS, she is able to do the lesson pretty much on her own (she watches the video, then works independently). She, of course, is very distractable and would rather doodle in her workbook. So I do remind her to get back to work every few minutes and check in with her very frequently. But in between that I can change a diaper, start a load of laundry, throw a few dishes in the dishwasher, get my climbing toddler off the counter, etc. And she can continue to work, whereas with RS, she would just have to sit there and wait for me to get back if it was something that couldn't wait (i.e., crying child, poopy diaper, doorbell, etc.) I wish I could make RS work, I just don't see how it's possible. And so, it's not that I'm necessarily looking for a curriculum that is 100% student led, I don't mind working with her for 10-20 min. and assisting off and on throughout her worksheets, or reminding her to stay on task. I just do not have the time for the entire lesson to be parent-directed like Saxon or RS would be at this age/level. And I do already have a fairly independent curriculum *I* like, I'm not just looking for a curriculum that is independent either. But I want something she won't hate (even if she doesn't love it) and that might appeal to her more visual side and her need for variety. And she has picked up a fair amount of mental math skills from the small amount of RS we have done. I don't think Singapore would be a huge shift like it might be if we had only done a very traditional math approach up to this point.
I'm interested in Miquon, but I've heard of it used mostly as a supplement. Can it be used as a stand-alone curriculum? What about Math Mammoth? I have a friend who really likes it. I don't know much about it though.
Also, if I did go with Singapore, what would I need? The choices seem overwhelming.
-
Thanks for the replies on Singapore. I think you've convinced me that it might be the best option for my daughter. To be clear, MUS is very open and go and not parent-intensive at all. If it worked for her, I'd stay with it. I just need something that will engage her more and not make her hate math quite so much. Abeka is colorful and might be that...but I've had a lot of friends who were less than thrilled with Abeka, so I'm not sure I'd really look into it too much.
-
I have looked at CLE several times and I want to like it. But, I'm not sure if she'd like it any better really, and I don't see any point in changing curriculums just to change . She's very visual, probably ADHD, gets bored easily.
What does HIG stand for in regards to the Singapore curriculum?
-
What curriculum have you tried with her so far? My only experience with SM has been 1A/B, and no, I would not use it with a child like you describe. I say this because her twin resides in my house. :D What works for my daughter is MUS. The blocks give her a visual and kinesthetic representation of number values and prevent her from needing to count in order to add/subtract (she had trouble counting accurately as well). Before we started with MUS this past fall, like your daughter she could follow a procedure to solve a problem but had no idea conceptually what she was doing. Somehow Mr. Demme's explanations have been able to teach her the concepts that I could not. If you have not tried it, I highly recommend it. For this type of learner it works exceptionally well.
Yes to this! My daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia/reading disorder at age 6 and the developmental pediatrician would not give her a diagnosis of dyscalculic because she was too young or because it all falls under the same category as dyslexia or something, but she did not say she definitely didn't have it. I was certain she did at the time. We have used MUS and it has been great for her! i won't say it's always been easy, nothing is easy for a child with learning disabilities. But it's been a really good fit. She has relied heavily on the blocks and cheat sheets. The first two years she had a sheet copied out of the primer (or the teacher's guide, don't remember for sure) that had pictures of the blocks in ascending order. She colored them in the right colors and wrote the numbers underneath and it helped her a lot in remembering the numbers and figuring out the problems. Only my daughter never had too much trouble with the process, she just couldn't keep her numbers straight. Now that we are getting into more complicated math (area of triangles, rectangles, etc., and long multiplication and division) she is struggling greatly to remember all of her processes and keep it all straight. It's been challenging. But with the mastery approach of MUS, it helps. And she has cheat sheets for those processes as well. Eventually she's able to let go of them...but it takes her a lot more time to get it than it would take the average student.
-
My daughter is in 2nd grade and really detests doing math. She is a bit of a whiner/complainer and somewhat lazy anyway. We're working on that. But in particular, she hates math more than other subjects. We've used Math-u-See from the start as it works really well for my oldest and I like the program. And I'm familiar with it. I think it works. And I will say that even though my 2nd grader says she hates math, she does very well in it. She's right on target, more than 2/3'rds through Beta.
Now, I've dabbled with Rightstart math; I love the philosophy and think it's a great program. My daughter asks for Rightstart, she prefers it. And we did use it off and on for several months this school year and last. But it's just too parent-intensive for me. I'm getting ready to have my 6th child, my husband is deployed, I have to do all of our baking from scratch because of food allergies. I simply don't have time to sit and do math with her for 45 min. every day. Which is why we always come back to MUS. And she's usually able to skip through many lesson quickly when we do come back, so she's never gotten behind by us doing multiple programs. I would love to make Rightstart work, but it just won't.
I've looked into other programs, I think she would benefit from something more spiral based, but those programs kind of drive me nuts. I'm not really opposed to either method, mastery, spiral, or other, so I'm open to any suggestions. I just think she gets bored with the repetition of MUS. And I do not make her do all the pages, I move her along if she knows it. I think Rightstart challenged her more though, which she kind of whined about, but I think she really did like the challenge. I was thinking that I've heard that Singapore is somewhat similar to Rightstart math. I know nothing about the program though and would not be sure what to even buy. Can anyone tell me more about the program? Is it fairly self-directed? I don't mind assisting a little, but I can't fully devote myself to her for 45 min. like with Rightstart.
Any other programs I should look into?
Phonetic Zoo and Auditory Processing
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
*Bump* Anyone?