lillybell
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Posts posted by lillybell
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We homeschool year round as well but try to keep busy. I was pretty slack when it came to structure back in the day. Wasn't until about a year ago that I got myself together and put some structure in my household. It is not rigid though but it definitely helps to get some sort of structure to their day.
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Wanted to give an update on this PE curriculum. Mind you, I have only tried the 2 day trial. Both my 12 and 13 year old really enjoyed it. We did the first lesson outdoors and the second lesson indoors as it was raining but nontheless, it was equally enjoyable. I did all the same exercises with them and I was sore afterwards so the workout seems to be just as good for adults. It is a very simple get up and go curriculum.
It starts out with a few warm up exercises. Then moves on to some more rigorous activites. Then finally a cool down period of stretch type exercises. Has instructions for each one and a video to accompany it. I really didn't need to look at the videos but if you don't understand the instructions, the videos will show you each activity. Took us about 45 minutes to an hour to run through the lesson.
The kids especially enjoyed the musical statues activity. We put music on and I had to call out different things for them to do like crawl, shuffle, hop, and walk like a crab. When the music stops, they have to freeze. I added some additional ones of my own, like play air guitar, air drums, and dance. They had a blast.
I will probably move forward and get the entire program just have to fit it into the budget.
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I have a 12, 13, and 17 year old. My oldest works part time so she gets some socialization there. We meet up once a week with other homeschoolers. We also attend most of our homeschool group events so they each have atleast one event a month to attend. We also do co-op once a week but that won't be starting for a while again. My oldest has some friends that she sometimes goes to the mall or movies with.
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Snap Circuits is a good tool to have. I have a nice set that we use to incorporate into our lessons. We are currently using Mr. Q science and they are really fun for my 5th grader and not too many materials. Most of the materials needed so far I have been able to have around the house.
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Not sure if this is what you were looking for but I know about
middleschoolchemistry.com
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My Faves are Teaching Textbooks, Spelling Power, Mapping the World with Art, Easy Grammar, Winning with Writing, In the Hands of a Child lapbooks, Eequalsmcq science, and middleschoolchemistry.com. For Art, I am loving Ateliar Art.
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I think if you have a natural speller, you will know. I have one daughter who is a natural speller. I started her on spelling power when she was 12 and when I did the placement test she tested at 10 1/2 grade level. She is almost done with spelling power and she very rarely gets any words wrong. My younger daughter struggles some with spelling but she is right at grade level in her placement test. So she is not a natural speller, however, she is progressing well. I think my natural speller is actually a better speller than I am. Guess that is how I know she is a natural.
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I have a teen with adhd and a 12 year old with adhd. My 13 year old has the inattentive adhd so she is much more mellowed out when doing schoolwork and can sit still. However, with all of them, it was a struggle keeping them focused. My inattentive daughter, would start daydreaming while my hyperactive daughters just couldn't sit still. I had to come up with methods to help all of them. They each are different in what works for them. My inattentive daughter works very well with list so for her, I schedule her work out with Homeschool tracker online and print out the weeks schedule. Knowing what she has to work on she checks mark the work as she completes it. My youngest daughter who can't sit still, I struggled with but so far we are doing the workbox method and has been working very well. She is also very visual so we do lapbooks together for history along with Story of the USA, which pretty much keeps her attention. I try to make work fun for her and not to repetitive adding games and activities along the way. I find that helps a lot. My oldest was the exact same way but we struggled through it since she was the first one I homeschooled and I really didn't get the hang of it until she was older and I was trying to teach them all in the same manner. Curriculum is also a challenge because it has to be pretty custom for each child's style of learning. I went subject by subject doing a ton of research to make sure it would keep their attention. For Math, I do use Teaching Textbooks and that has worked out for my all my daughters. I do have to spend more time with my youngest with activities but only when her workboxes tell her to ask for mom's help. Also giving her breaks between workboxes helps.
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I use spelling power.
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I have this bulky one by GBC that I bought on craigslist for $25. It does the job and I like that I can reopen the binding and add to it. I started off buying the binder covers but found they look so boring and not much to customize on them so now I just make a custom cover on the computer then I laminate it and use that for my binder cover. Also a lot cheaper than the binder covers.
So far this one has done the job pretty good. Had my daughter put together a binder for her Mapping with Art. We used stock paper and a customer cover and she adds her maps in there and sticks pictures of some of the activities. The binders are pretty handy just wish I had some colorful spines instead of the black.
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My daughter's writing was anything but neat. We have been using Handwriting without tears. We used the Can do Print and the Can do Cursive. Her writing did improve some and it was much more legible than before. About a month ago, she asked me to get her a calligraphy pen for her lapbook projects she does from time to time. I caved and got it for her. I had no idea it would be a learning tool. I was looking at some of her lapbook work and I was really impressed with her writing. Not only did it improve with the pen writing, but I noticed a huge improvement in her everyday writing. Not sure why it helped but seems she isn't rushing through words anymore.
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My 5th grader uses Easy Grammar pretty independently. I assign the pages and she works on them. I usually check her work at night. If it seems like she is struggling with a certain section, I will go over it with her before her next assignment. Doesn't take very long though to review if she needs it. She was doing capitization recently and she seemed to struggle through the review so what I had her do was make a lift the flap sheet with all the capitalization rules. She put the rule on the top flap and then under the flap, she put an example. After she did the flap sheet and studied it, she did awesome on the actual capitalization test. Easy grammar really isn't time consuming at all, just have to keep an eye and see if they struggle. If they struggle through a part, you can just review for a few minutes or assign an independent worksheet or project.
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I saw this at the homeschool buyers co-op also and was thinking about buying it. So really would love to hear if it worked for others. I downloaded the 2 day free trial so will try it out as well.
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Thank you. I downloaded it. Looks like it covers a lot but after looking at it, might not be for me. I had been thinking of trying the trail guides so this really helped to see how it works. I have inattentive ADHD and when I looked at it, kind of overwhelmed me. I will have to look at it more in detail, have to see it closely to put it in perspective and see if it is something I can put into play. So thanks again for the info on the freebie. :)
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Wow Carol, your daughter did an awesome job on the contour line lesson. That was a fun lesson. I updated my pics to show their art on frames. I am going to hang them on the wall soon but for now they are on a desk.
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I love Atelier Art. We are doing level 5 at the moment. We will be working on lesson 5 this weekend. The kids love the program and they have produced some great art. I even had to buy a special frame by lil davinci to store the work in. It is great. We add there new art every week and it stores 50 in each frame. Makes there work look professional. I am hoping the groupbuy will hit 40, am purchasing next 2 levels.
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I have 2 ADHD daughters and I used to have the same issue with writing. They hated writing but they had great writing skills just trouble putting it on paper. If I sat them down and gave them a topic to write, they would get frustrated and take forever to get it done. Something that would typically take 30 minutes to an hour, they could drag on for days. I searched and searched and tried many different curriculum until I finally saw what was going on.
The trouble for them was not knowing where to start and not having clear directions. They have a hard time organizing their thoughts. One of my daughters loves to bake and she is great at following directions but if you tell her to go do something without clear direction, she will not know where to begin.
What finally worked for us was a combination of Easy Grammar and Winning with writing. The easy grammar is pretty clear and the Winning with Writing is done in small daily steps every day. This has really helped. For spelling we do Spelling Power. None of these are time consuming on my part so it has worked so far.
Structure with clear direction has been the key in my situation.
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I used it last year. It really did help a lot. Doesn't cover all the multiplication like others have said but those were easily taught. We used the book and cards. The 9's I taught with the finger trick.
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We use 5th grade and 7th grade TT. Both my daughters enjoy it very much. I have them review the questions they get wrong and ask them to explain to me why it was wrong. This way I get to see if they understood the problems. So far my daughters deliver 90's and above the practice and quiz questions. We don't use the book, unless I want to review something with them but that would require they get below a 75 and so far that hasn't happened. They seem to have a good understanding of the lessons.
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Wow Trish, saw your post and looked up Mapping the World with Art. Looks really fun and interesting. Might just add it to our Geography lessons. That is if I can work it into our schedule somewhere.
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I am using Evan-Moor Daily Geography Practice. I didn't really want it to be too difficult so just using that workbook. It has 36 weeks of lessons. Each week it has a 1-2 page write up to cover with vocabulary word, then it has daily questions. It has plenty of map questions where they use the maps from the book to respond to the questions. Haven't found anything with hands on activites, that would be fun but we do get plenty of hands on activities using scholastic books for history supplements.
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I have only used them for supplement as well. We use the daily books for Geography, paragraph editing, writing, and language review. They are good review work. The only one that I don't use as supplement is the Geography. I do not have a Geography curriculum for this year so just using this book.
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Thanks, was looking to get the Hands on History Explorers. Can't beat $1. Also ended up buying 6 more titles.
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Thanks these are great. Just printed them out and will definitely be laminating them as well.
hands on history suggestions
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Might want to try Time Travelers by homeschool in the woods. We are using Story of the USA and Hands of a child lapbooks. We have used history pockets before and they are enjoyable but they are pretty much cut and paste. I haven't used Time Travelers units but they look very good and I might try them after we finish our next lapbook just for a change.