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neeko

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Posts posted by neeko

  1. Thank you so much!!  I plan to go through the 2 books over the course of 3 years so that schedule would work well for us.

     

    I have one last question.  Does the TM have the questions from the Student Pages?  It looks as if only the answers are included.  Is that correct?

     

    It does not seem to have questions, only answers, correct.

  2. Thank you!

     

    Would you mind comparing the Student Pages and Teacher's Guide for me?  I have been eyeing the Teacher's Guide, but it is killing me that I cannot find a single sample online.  What type of information is contained in each book?  Is there enough information to reinforce the information in the readings?

     

    Here, I put up pictures of the student and teacher pages from a random lesson:  

    http://holdingstuff.blogspot.com/2014/07/k12-ho-v1-student-and-teacher-pages.html

     

    One thing to note is that the student/teacher pages divides the book into 180 lessons (20 of which are "Your choice" - work on projects or whatever).  After some pondering, I decided to follow their schedule but with only 4 lessons a week.  This means we will go through the 2 books over the course of 2.5 years, and then spend the 2nd semester of 8th grade on US government and civics, I think.  

  3. I got a new copy of the companion "Student Pages" for about $15 on Amazon and am planning on working through those.  I have only glanced through parts of it, but there are reading guides, comprehension questions, guided writing assignments, and some maps skills in there that all seem decent.   It does mention the online activities, but I explained that to my daughter and we'll just skip.  

     

    http://www.amazon.com/Intermediate-World-History-Student-Semesters/dp/B001BKJ6XU/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1405397768&sr=8-3-fkmr2&keywords=k12+human+odyssey+student+pages

     

    I bought the Teacher's Guide, too.  

  4. My 7.5yo is probably-gifted, probably-dyslexic, with a good sprinkling of ADHD, if I had to guess.  I was so burnt out from having the first kid evaluated that we haven't managed it with the second kid quite yet.  

     

    Here are my best/only tips for K/1st grade:

    Brainpop, both Jr and Regular.  It is his no-reading-required encyclopedia.  He can research and follow rabbit trails without asking for my help, which he loves. 

    Audiobooks.  Tons and tons.   He has an old iphone with all the Magic Treehouse books, in addition to a bunch of others, set up on a speaker dock in his room, and can navigate that himself.  

    Rightstart Math.  (He took one look at a Singapore book and melted.)   

     

    I prioritize a little bit of reading instruction (Dancing Bears, here) and the occasional math lesson (RightStart), and then I let him fill his brain with whatever his theme of the day might be.  Sometimes I suggest that he could draw a picture of whatever he's studying, and add words as it becomes appropriate, but I don't do more than a gentle nudge in that department.  Sometimes he'll build a great Lego model of whatever his theme is that day.  There are many, many days when what he is studying is Lego Star Wars, but also many when it is Ancient Rome, cells, or the Civil Rights Movement.   I figure it will balance out eventually.  

     

    (I know my sig says OM.  We use it in a very low key, background sort of way.)  

     

  5. We started by doing 10 minutes a day, but that usually worked out to 2 pages a day.  ~140 pages in the book, if you do it 5x a week = 14 weeks.  Not so bad.  We don't usually manage more than 3x a week, but that's just us.  My 7.5yo went from barely chugging through it and calling himself a non-reader to picking up "Level 4 - Independent Reading" readers at the library about 3/4 of the way through DB A.  He's still randomly dyslexic seeming, but he's *reading* now.  We started with A, so I can't speak to the fast track version.  

     

    We kind of like the goofy stories.

  6. I remember seeing a post that mentioned a book that was good for people to use to get caught up/brushed up on all the elementary+ math skills, possibly in reference to HS level unschoolers, but I cannot find it anywhere.  

    Does anyone have any suggestions for a resource like this?   

     

    Alternatively, does anyone have any suggestions for an adult who would like to return to school and needs to get ready for college level math?  

  7. I would get the first (more expensive) one.   The big thing for me is that it has a set place to put the slides and then little knobs to adjust the slide position, but on the cheaper one you just scoot the slide around haphazardly.  I like being able to scan the slide methodically and note down where things were sometimes.  Also, it has the 100x oil objective, which can be useful (or, so I've heard...  i haven't actually used ours yet), but that's functionality that the other one is lacking)

     

    As a heads up, I have been underwhelmed by the amscope digital imager thingies.  I think the one we have is 3 megapixel and it makes me want to throw things (hard to set up, display time lags, focus issues...).  We have started just using an iphone adapter and it is much more fun.  http://www.skylightscope.com/ is the one I have - clunky, but works.

     

  8. Timely - we are just starting with RS-E and hit check numbers for the first time yesterday.  My poor dd's head nearly exploded.  We played the check number game (A63?) today before trying them with subtraction and things got a little better.  She's starting to see the point, but it was ugly for awhile there. 

  9. This is our second year homeschooling, and we have used OM from almost the beginning.  Given this thread, I am starting to wonder... what I'm missing, exactly.  For those who don't find OM enough, what more are you hoping for?  What is it lacking for you?

     

    My issues with it so far mostly involve the lackluster science before grade 5, and the lack of scaffolding for writing for 4th and 5th, (well, and we ignore OM math completely) but these have all been pretty easy to fix/overlook for me.  

  10. OM4 Science drove me crazy.  We skipped SO much of it.  There was a trimester, I think, where you're supposed to read old fashioned vet animal stories for science and I just. couldn't. do it.  I'm really liking OM5 Science, though (we inoculated petri dishes with bacteria samples this morning).  I find that I'm supplementing lots and lots of things in OM5, but I still really like having the framework (we add in LofE, IEW, math, and History of US, plus plenty of extra books).  I like the wacky project suggestions - ie build a wooden boat with hand tools when reading about Columbus.  My kids *love* the projects, and I wouldn't think to do many of them otherwise, I'm afraid.  I like the history questions and prompts, and the extra book suggestions.    I do go through at the beginning of the week and fill out my own checklist, because otherwise it is too easy to skip/overlook things.   I guess I view it as the History+ part of our curriculum, and that + makes it worth it to me.  

  11. I might be way off base here, but we were in a similar position last year.  If the gaps are just little areas where she needs to be shown a process, ignore me, but if they are random conceptual gaps that don't seem to be working themselves out over time, I'd like to suggest taking a look at RightStart.  Honestly, I wish I'd just bought RightStart D or E and Transitions at the beginning of last year and gone from there - we spent a year slogging through Saxon, thinking it would be rigorous and balance things out, but... no.  We're getting a nice fresh start with RS, and she's actually enjoying math now, too.  

     

  12. We just started Foundations B today.  I'm doing Essentials with my 10yo, and hoped I could combine lessons for both kids, but nope.  Essentials was making my 6yo freak out, and he thanked me when I told him I ordered him his own English program for younger kids.  I think Foundations will be a good fit, though.  The graphics/colors/built in games (we played phonogram tic-tac-toe today) all appeal to my 6yo.  We skipped A because he was reading CVC words.  

     

    Essentials has been interesting with my 10yo, for the record.  She has had several lightbulb moments about spelling so far, and we're only on lesson 4.  

  13. We just got OM4 in the mail. I will be perusing it this weekend. What are thoughts on OM4 math? We have been using MM and while he doesn't like it, it seems thorough.

     

     

    Last year was our first year hsing, and we used OM4.  I'm not sure what kind of learner OM math works well for, but my dd is not that kind...  We started Saxon 5/4 halfway through the year and had much better luck.  I think it is partially a learning style issue, but the OM math just wasn't enough for my dd.  I didn't bother ordering OM5 math for this year.   

     

    I think it is very different in 1-3rd vs 4th+, too - it is integrated in the curriculum for the early years, then broken out starting in 4th.  I will be doing OM1 with my ds this year, and am curious to see how the math evolves.  We will probably supplement because he is looking forward to doing "lots of real math" this year.  

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