atozmom
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Posts posted by atozmom
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A friend is wanting to get reading eggs for her youngest. He has been using the free trial and doing well with it. I received an email from them with a great promo but it expired on the 17th. Does anyone have a promo code that I could pass on to her? Money is tight and I am trying to help her save on the cost. I so wish I would have talked to her before the 17th!
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I'm doing it on my own. I have several friends all involved in different groups, and some are from nearby towns. We live on the southside of Atlanta in an area that never has a sale.
Sorry I am just now getting back to this. I worked a 12 hour day yesterday on 4 hours sleep. I went to bed shortly after my post.
You have already had several posts so I may be repeating some things as I haven't had time to read them all, but here is how we (my homeschool group) do it.....
We usually hold our sale at a local church that has a big enough room for us to set up many tables. We give a donation to the church at the end of the year. Our sale is run by our board members and a couple of other l. So usually about 8 or 9 ladies.
We have a 2 hour window where sellers can drop off their books first thing in the morning. They must sign a waiver stating they know all the rules....we are not responsible for lost or damaged books, that members of our group pay a 10% selling fee and non-members pay a 20% selling fee, and any books not picked up by the specified time at the end of the sale will be donated to a charitable location of our choice. They must also turn in a self addressed stamped envelope so we can mail them their money they made for their books that sold. They must price their books themselves. Each book must have a sticker (removable kind preferred) stating their seller number, grade level of the book and price. If the book is part of a set that they must all be rubber-banded together, with a sticker on each with all of the above information and stating 1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3. We provide seller numbers for anyone putting their books in the sale. We make a list for our current members and post it on our website. For anyone that is a non-member, they email us and we assign them a number. That way this step does not have to be done the day of the sale.
We have our room set up with tables according to grade level and other categories for ungraded material. Our other tables are usually: science, history, readers, foreign language, homeschool helps, faith, planners, games, videos and computer related items. Once we have all of our tables set up, we start sorting books as they are brought in and place them on the tables. At the end of the first two hours of collecting books, we go through each able making sure everything is in its place and organized. After this step is complete, we take a lunch break and then everyone that is volunteering gets to shop before we open the doors. This is the fun part!!!
Then we open the doors for our sale. We have 4 different tables set up for check out. At three of the tables we have people recording the books that each buyer is buying. We have 2 people working together, at each table. First they sort the books by number and then they record the sellers number and next to it the price of the book. We have special forms made up for this. They add everything together, write the total on the bottom of the sheet, and then the seller moves down to the final table which is the cash table. We have 2 people at the cash table collecting money. At this point the buyers must exit the room. They can come back in, but only after they have put all of their purchased books in their car.
At the end of the sale, we close the doors and sort all of the books by their seller numbers so the sellers can take them home. Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention....sellers provide their own boxes to being their books into the sale and home. When a seller drops off a box of books, we make sure we write their seller number on the box so we can load their books back in it at the end of the sale.
After the sale, our treasurer has a spread sheet that records of the sold items by seller's number. She will tally up the sales for each person, take 10-20% off the total and then write them a check for the amount they made. Then it goes in the self-addressed envelope that they brought in and mailed to them. It's really a lot easier than what it sounds. LOL
So, there you go. Clear as mud right. LOL Best of luck to you. Used curriculum sales are such a huge benefit to both the buyers and sellers. I have found lots of treasurers at ours.
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Are you doing this on your own or through a group? For the last two years I have organized the one our homeschool group has at the end of every year. I've turned it over to someone else this year. :) I'd be happy to help with any questions you have.
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Where is everyone purchasing Vocabulary Workshop?
Wondering the same thing. I see Kolbe academy has been the only suggestion so far. Are there others? I would like to find the orange level. It's a little confusing looking at all of the editions on Amazon.
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From Jay Wile's blog........
Even though there are 15 lessons for each creative day, you don’t need to do them all. There are three “challenge lessons†that you can skip or complete, depending on your schedule. If you want to finish the entire book in a year, you will need to do science every other day to cover all the lessons. However, if you skip the challenge lessons, you will only need to do science twice a week. -
I like the looks of vocabulary workshop. Is the only place you can buy it from the publisher? When I google, that's the only place it's coming up new.
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Thanks again! I think I will be going with this one. :001_smile:
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Weekly Studies Florida State History (it's the first one).
Thank you!
I like the Florida Then & Now resource mentioned above. The entries are short, readable, accurate (as far as I can tell), and cover a wide range of topics. Plus they are free!
I might be leaning towards these. Free is really nice. :001_smile:
eh, watch something about the everglades on netflix, pbs has a documentary about Henry Flager that is excellent, then read about the barefoot mailman and call it done :)
I have seriously thought about doing something like this. However then I start feeling guilty like I would be cheating him out of something. :tongue_smilie:
Intelligo has a FL unit
Thank you, I will look into it.
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I've been using it for a couple of months. We're not quite finished with the light unit (so it's still early in the book), but I'm bad about getting science done regularly.
I LOVE the experiments. They are easy to do, and explain the concepts quite clearly. Honestly, I almost feel like we could do the experiments and stop there. I am impressed with how clearly he explains complex topics. I didn't study optics until my 3rd semester of college physics, and Dr. Wile has chosen activities that teach optics in a way that my 8yo can easily understand. Plus, the text is beautiful, and I smile every time I see it.
My only complaint is -- I'm finding myself annoyed my the wordiness and repetition of the text. But I'm a scientist and have very science-oriented boys (using it with 5th and 3rd graders). Maybe the repetition would help younger/less science-y kids understand the concepts?
For instance (and I hope this isn't a confusing example), we did an experiment where we put a fork in a clear glass bowl filled with water. We set the bowl on the edge of the counter, looked at the fork from above, and then sat down, looked up at the bowl from below, and saw the fork reflected in the surface of the water. It was pretty cool. I was excited when I saw the fork's reflection. The point of this lesson was that sometimes light can pass through transparent materials (like water) and at the same time they reflect light. So, here's an explanation of what happened from the book:
Whew, does anyone else get tired reading that paragraph aloud? To be fair, he is detailing each step in order to be completely clear about what the light does. Maybe that's necessary, but I find myself wanting to skip explanations like that. I usually ask my kids what happened in the experiment as soon as we finish. To read a paragraph like that after they've clearly demonstrated understanding is redundant. So I will probably start to skim through explanations, and explain only the things dc don't see for themselves. In the assignment, older dc have the opportunity to draw arrows showing how the light was reflected and transmitted, and then if they are confused, I think going back to read that paragraph on their would be helpful. I just don't want to read it out loud. ;)
So far, I've only had one experiment that failed. We were supposed to use a magnifying glass to focus sunlight and catch a piece of paper on fire. But I attempted the experiment on a clear, winter day. We had the sunlight, but it was too cold and the sun was at too low of an angle to focus well. DC got the point (and ds10 has actually started fires this way before) so it wasn't a total loss.
It's really important to me that elementary science experiments work well and so far I've been pleased with this book. I want kids to have good feelings about science. When I studied physics with my (then 4th grade) dd, every single experiment had to be tweaked to get it to work, and sometimes they never did. After 3 months of frustrating experiments, dd declared that she hated physics and we dropped the program for something more enjoyable. :glare: I'll find her a better physics program for 8th grade.
I actually love how detailed he gets on his explanations of the experiments. That way if were aren't able to get to one for whatever reason the day I have it scheduled, DS can still picture in his mind exactly what it would have looked like.
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What about this?
http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/lessons.htm
I seem to remember DH using some of these last year.
Thank you. I like the first one. I will check into that more. I don't know how I missed that one when I did a google search.
Weekly Studies has a Florida state history for 4th grade (could use it for a different grade).
Do you have a link? Thanks.
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Calvert School has something like that as an enrichment.
Thanks, but definitely more $$ than what I am wanting to spend.
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I received my copy this weekend! I love it so much we are going to finish our year with the unit on Light.
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UPDATE: I believe I will be going with this site that umsami mentioned. http://fcit.usf.edu/...ons/lessons.htm
I have a few weeks at the end of this year that I had set aside to study Florida state history with DS. However, I don't want to use what I have (State History from a Christian perspective and Abeka). There's nothing wrong with either, both are just more than I want right now.
What I don't want -- I do NOT want notebooking! If I decide to add something written to it, fine, but I don't want it to be the core of our few weeks. I don't want to bounce back and forth between different books or online sites to pull it all together. I simply do not have the time or the energy right now. I also don't want something that I am going to have to break down and summarize because it is way above his grade level. (again, just don't have the time right now) I had found a couple of state history sites, but reading straight from those would have just been over his head.What I would like -- I would love to have just one source to read from, two would be ok. A free resource would be great!! However, very inexpensive would be doable as well. Something that's not really dry and boring so I don't lose DS within 5 minutes. I need something elementary level.
I am headed to the library within the next couple of weeks to see if they have that one wonderful book that would be a perfect fit and meet our needs, but not holding my breath.
Am I asking for too much here? Quite possibly. LOL Any suggestions welcome. TIA :001_smile:
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Following this thread as this is something I would love to start up too.
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I had one a while back, before December I believe. However, they don't send them out like they used to. Most that I see now are when you order over $100.
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How about just reading through volume 1 over the summer? You don't have to do all if the extras, just read each lesson. You could easily have that done over the summer and then start volume 2 at the beginning of the school year. You should be able to find a first edition of volume 1 pretty inexpensive.
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Ok, I caved and went ahead and made the purchase. :lol: I can't wait to get it in my hands!!
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Not curriculum that we have hated, but those that definitely DID NOT work for us.....
Teaching Textbooks - no retention
Sonlight - It's waaay tooo much money to spend for me to tweak and redo the entire schedule (honestly it would probably be like this with any other curriculum that is scheduled like SL, it's just that SL was the only one like this we tried. I love the idea, just didn't work for us)
Apologia General Science and Rainbow Science
Winning with Writing, Growing with Grammar, Sequential Spelling, Writing Strands, Easy Grammar, Brave Writer Help for High School and Analytical Grammar. (AG worked well while we were doing it, but DD didn't seem to retain anything after we stopped using it)
Wow, a lot more Language Arts programs than anything else...lol. And I didn't even list everything that we've tried. :blush:
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Why is it that when I have a free shipping code for Christianbook.com I don't need anything! Now when I need to buy something, all I can find is one for free shipping when you spend $100!! I only need to spend $40!! :banghead:
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CLE. Yes, it's Christian, but there isn't much Christian content in it. It's very much straightforward, plenty of review, fact drill built in, etc.
Exactly what I was going to say.
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Would a 5th grader be too old for Science in the Beginning? I know the text is geared toward elementary, but I'm trying to figure out if it leans toward upper or lower elementary. I have next year mapped out already so if we were to try Science in the Beginning it would be for dd's 5th grade year.
My plan is to use it for DS in 5th next year. :001_smile:
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Atozmom - I'm sorry I didn't see your message before! We meet once a week and I have 30 minutes. It depends on the experiment but with met I have time to do two lessons and experiments in our time. I have the book and read the lesson aloud ti the kids then we work through the lesson experiment. Only sometimes do I send them home with an experiment to do (need a kitchen, night sky, bath tub etc). In those rare occurrences I make a copy of only the experiment page for them. (I have permission from Berean Builders). If it were the case of having the kids read before class then yes they would at least need a book per family. Our co-op is scheduled for 12weeks until the end of May and I plan to go through Light.
No worries!! Thank you for the explanation about how you use it. It's also great to know that Berean was willing to give you permission to make the few copies you might need.
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IEW.
I shouldn't have resisted it for so long. It was exactly what my DS needed at the time, worked beautifully for him.
Yes, this exactly! I really wish we would have started it sooner.
I need to do Mystery of History in 3 years
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Each week has a "What do you know"pretest, quiz, memory cards, timeline activity and mapping activity. Each lesson usually has some sort of extra activity/project ideas. The back of the book has some suggestions about additional reading to go along with many of the lessons.