Jump to content

Menu

2_girls_mommy

Members
  • Posts

    5,444
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by 2_girls_mommy

  1. We went a few years ago before Covid and did Harvard, the Freedom Trail (over two days, and still didn't go in every stop! There is SOO much!)  and enjoyed lots of what people are saying.  The park with the ducks across from Cheers was good too.  I can't remember if it is on the trail or not.  We went specifically to tour Harvard, and I was going to mention that I got a notice that the art museum on campus is now free to everyone.  When we went it was only free to students, so I didn't go in, but would have liked to.  

  2. So my last one at home is a 4th grader, and I have done almost no planning.  I need to put in time really planning in depth as I will be working part time out of the house and taking up time driving her to babysitters and probably will be enrolled in at least one class myself this year.  But roughly what I have so far: 

    SOTW3 and AG- oral narration only, maps, and a timeline book using a large watercolor pad and the cutout review cards from back of student pages. 

    memorywork: Books of Old and New Testament, states in alphabetical order, presidents in order.  additional mapwork: the Complete Book of Maps and Geography on the days we don't do SOTW3. 

    Science: physics year.  I ordered an activity book with STEM activities that looks very basic to use as a jumping off point.  I am hoping it is not TOO basic for a 4th grader.  I will pull books off the shelf that I have on various topics like Simple Machines, Forces, etc.  I know I have the Tiner book collection, so will see what fits this year.  We have a couple of Thinking Tree journals and also just do definitions and write up labs in composition books.   I have a Classcial Conversations memorywork book and science cards.  I may see if any of their rotations fit and do those too.  She enjoys it when we do. 

    Bible: We started Memoria Press Christian Studies first semester last year.  i would love to continue that if time allows.   If not, Sunday School lessons and memorywork will have to be enough. 

    Art: a class at co-op, reading from Usborne books here, and I want to add some drawing instruction, but haven't picked anything yet. 

    I have a huge collection of Dover books, some of the Jackdaws original source units, bulletin board maps and copies of documents for Am. History and State history that I really need to sort through and get on a rotation to go along with modern studies. That is my goal in the next few weeks. 

    Latin: Latina Christiana and a copywork cursive book to go with it for memorizing the prayers and songs and cursive work. 

    Read alouds???  I need to plan.  I would like at least one Little House book, a Rush Limbaugh book, and who knows what else.  I need to make at least one more choice, then put together a basket of books for her to read on her own. 

     

    • Like 1
  3.  

    For my 3rd grade homeschooler I used Prima Latina and taught it at her homeschool co-op.  I really enjoyed teaching it with them.  I think the first time I taught PL in a co-op many moons ago, I didn't think there was enough material to fill up a class period and to make it interesting, but I have more class experience these days, and I had a lot of fun with it.  We are still doing it in our house with a couple of the families now that co-op is finished for the year because the girls are enjoying it. 

  4. I used the cheap Rod and Staff planners which are in a basic teacher planner style you can buy on the shelf at Mardel other teacher stores too for years with my older kids when they were K-8.  When they hit high school I switched to the Well Planned Day four year planner which had space for recording more things like their volunteer hours, transcripts and stuff in pencil before I typed up the official ones.  It was great to have lists of their volunteer hours, awards, field trips, and everything they did in four years that could come in handy when writing out course descriptions and scholarship applications.  I wouldn't have needed all of that for younger grades and didn't need to buy such an expensive planner before then.  But in case you were looking at high school, I found those very helpful. 

    For my current elementary student, I used the Christian Light Education planner for her K year and really loved its format even though I wasn't using their curriculum either.  I just made it work for me.  It had sections in it that I though other planners didn't have like a journal space for each week where I could write highlights and thoughts and accomplishments and a self reflection/evaluation section for the student for each week.  I would definitely use that one again.  But I came across a Happy Planner homeschool planner super cheap last year that I am using this year instead.  The plus side of using the Happy Planner teacher planner is that it has the calendar spread for every month that most teacher planners don't have.  I like that because I do not have to keep a separate calendar.  I have the one planner that I carry for everything- I manage our appointments, my work schedules, her kid classes and such and record her school all in one book.  That is kind of handy.  Usually I carried a calendar/planner for activities and kept the school planner at home.   But since we do school on the run a lot and dd goes to a babysitter for some of her schoolweek now that I work part time, this is working out for our current yera. 

  5. On 11/8/2022 at 10:12 PM, Lovinglife123 said:

    😅wow I am not the only one who LOVES their reading (grade 5&up).  I felt it completed the writing perfectly! I only schedule it 1x a week, and doing grade 5 in 6th.  It has SO much packed in it.  

    So now I want to check it out.  I always did the 1st grade reading and workbooks and then stopped.  Now I think I might have missed out. 🙂

  6. I have only used Rod and Staff for English all of my homeschooling.  I think that yes, for the most part, you can count on 15 min. of your time or less to go over the lesson, at least in the early years.  My kids always did all of the writing in R&S composition exercises, but I do other types of writing over the years too... narration, dictation, journaling, outlining, etc, but not all of the time, every year.  Some years that we were working on outlining I might have added it in once a month or so.  Narration/dictation once a week or so somewhere in there.  There is plenty of copywork daily in R&S.  I have never assigned all of the written exercises.  We might do the oral parts together, then I might assign the odds from one section and go over the next section orally if it is about a skill that is easily demonstrated orally.  I just make the call daily as I scan the day's lesson, no prep needed. 

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  7. I haven't made any super changes on purpose.  Science kind of morphed.  It is technically still a chemistry year for us going by the WTM schedule.  I planned on using Adventures with Atoms and Molecules and pairing it up with funschooling journals we have on hand for notebooking similarly to how I have done 3rd grade in the past with a science fair in there sometime this winter.  But dd8's co-op planned a science course.  They are doing hands on experiments there every week and discussing many of the topics I planned on doing.  Plus she does a once a month science activity class at two different libraries.  One is using a fiction science series that she read and loves as its theme and working in the scientific method teachings.  One is kind of more random "STEAM" topics.  And she has attended three girl scout camps that all so far had science activities and topics for badges.  So we have ended up not needing to do my planned book after all.  So at home, we are just reading random science books as they are of interest and notebooking on them when we want to or have extra time, like when I give her a chance to pick her reading and narrating for a day, and she picks a topic like caves.  I also have picked up library books on the scientific method and other topics she has covered in her outside classes to support that learning vs me having to plan out activities here.  It has worked out fine for this semester. 

    Not changed completely yet, but SOTW and WWE are not going how I had thought.  We are supposed to be in SOTW3, but are still wrapping up SOTW2.  And I wanted to add WWE in and do that. We are doing it, but slowly, only on about week 4 for our week 9 of school.  I think the reason is because we are still doing Rod and Staff English which covers writing.  And the more I think about it, it seems like I am just adding something else in.  I dropped narrating and dictation from SOTW with this dd.  And now as we are doing that skill with random stories from WWE, I think for me personally, I might like to just drop that and add it back in to our SOTW studies to make them more meaningful.  We read a lot of stories from other places like a McGuffey's reader, What Your Second and Third Grader Needs to Know and library books, it seems like now that I have had a taste of WWE that I could just continue the skills with the other books that we are already using.  It would feel like less of another subject and just going a bit deeper in things we are already doing.  So I am considering that. 

    And I am doing Prima Latina with my dd's co-op class.  I have never really liked starting there in co-op because there is so little to it.  I like starting with Latina Christiana.  But my dd was excited to do it.  We had done Spanish with her group last year, and I had put a lot of effort into finding fun songs and books and games and crafts to do with them in Spanish. There is an abundance of Spanish lesson plans online for free, that it was not an effort to plan it.  I do not have access to as many fun things for Latin for littles.  You kind of have to buy a full curriculum or spend on Teachers Pay Teachers mini units to find fun ideas.  I mean I have some go tos that I can adapt, but it is taking more time than I feel like I have right now.  So I haven't changed anything there, just lamenting I guess.  Last week we did charades with the vocab they had learned so far.  They enjoyed it.  I just need more things like that with the very limited vocab that they have so far. Most of my go to games would include so much that I haven't covered and that PL won't cover this year, so it is like reinventing the wheel to come up with activities. 

     

    ETA, I just read my siggie.  I am paying for piano lessons so dropped the music theory course I was going to do from SHT.  She is also in two Christmas plays, one at church and one at co-op, so she is singing and performing in those on top of songs for Latin and at Sunday School.  So we aren't doing anything specific for music at home either.  I will need to add in other types of music and songs next semester.  But for this semester, she is well covered. 

    • Like 1
  8. A lot!  Always have.  

    DD8 has two dance classes a week. She for the next 8 weeks she also has physical therapy appointments twice a week (She is still in recovery from a major surgery last winter.)  So luckily that won't be all year, but hopefully it will help with her issues.  She is a scout, but we are not doing regular scout meetings.  We are just doing council activities, troop field trips, and fundraising this year.  That still equals 2-3 activities a month.  She is in a once a week half day co-op.  And we attend 1-2 library classes a week.  Sometimes co-op has an extra field trip, but that isn't even every month. 

    With just one kiddo this is an easy schedule to keep up as long as we stay on track.  I am now working part time out of the house daily as well.  That is a first for me since I am now down to one homeschooler at home.  Dh and I have worked out a schedule that works for us for this year. 

  9. On 9/15/2022 at 8:15 PM, JazzyMom said:

    This is good to know. I was wondering how everything will work once he gets into college. Did you do special testing or evaluation for her when she was young or wait until she got into the high school/college level?  

    We had testing and therapies starting in middle school when I knew for sure there was a real issue. We went back for evals her junior year to qualify for accomodations on the ACT test. Then with all of that documentation she qualified for accomodations in college. It's really easy, and there is a lot available there to help her succeed. She's in month two and very happy at college so far. 

    • Like 1
  10. 1. Together- one year my oldest was a senior and my youngest was a kindergartener, and we were still in the same cycle. (We did the WTM cycles all the way through!) They weren't studying together, obviously. Everyone had their own resources, but our house was in an ancient year. 

    2. Yes, we start a binder a year in 1st grade with SOTW1 with oldest, then whenever next kid is in 1st, they get their binder for wherever we are. 

    3. I started a timeline in 4th grade with the picture review cards from SOTW.  In 5th I got each child a blank timeline book and they wrote into it over the next few years through each time period. 

     

     

  11. Yes,I have a dd with similar issues, now in college. She gets accomodations. For her, in your situation, those accomodations could have been me helping her spell her answers. So after she'd written them I would have edited and had her correct. Or like others said, letting her do it with spell check, anything of that sort. And yes, I'd give her teacher a heads up in case any issues come up. 

    In college she has several things available like she gets longer to turn in some written assignments. The extra day gives her time to have it looked over in the writing center or with a tutor to help her catch anything spellcheck misses. 

    • Like 2
  12. I am not sure what study group is?  Its  sounds like a co-op type of thing where they are getting subjects that you don't want to teach?  If that is so, it is kind of like school and if you are getting the core subjects done on your schedule and you prefer it that way, then stick to it.  I always preferred one co-op a week that all kids could attend at the same time.  But if the academics are getting done, and that is the way you want to do them then that is ok.  Life might be less stressful to keep them home and do those subjects without getting everyone out of the house and having more time to do the core subjects on those days too.  

    I have read through these, and it sounds like this is  dissatisfaction in how your life is going more than a homeschool issue.  If you put the kids in school, those things aren't going to change.  You will be driving the olders to school and activities dragging the littles along non stop. You might get more laundry done during the day.  That part is always nice.  But you can keep that laundry going all day now if you make it part of your routine.  You can make sure everyone loads their dishes as soon as they use them and unload the dishwasher in the morning when you are getting breakfast out.  Everyone should be doing all of that together as part of the daily routine.  Even if I don't need help, I have my 8 year helping me with chores.  If I am picking up, I call her to come help.  If I am unloading the dishwaher I have her come unload and put away the silverware.  As she finishes meals, I remind her to pick up her dishes and rinse them, etc.  As we finish with a subject, we put the book back on the bookshelf.  Nothing is perfect by all means.  But we keep the basics going as we go.  

    I have always homeschooled, but it was because it was what I thought was best for my kids' educations.  There wasn't another option for me.  We have always had a lot of extra curriculars.  I wanted my kids to have opportunities I didn't have. I have always had no help.  My dh doesn't work M-F he worked S- S when mine were little.  He works until after we are in bed.  I did kids day and night myself, with no relatives in state either.  It is hard.  But since homeschool is what I wanted to do, I did it.  I often did school with the Ker at the big kids' late night dance classes.  After doing school with them all day and after dinner, I could do reading and some school with the little one, one on one, while they had evening extra curriculars.  I had a school bag wherever we went, and a schedule to the hour of a perfect week around our schedule to try to get it all done.  We didn't always hit the goals, but we had a plan we were aiming at, moving forward.  I had to plan meals and grocery trips meticulously to make sure I had the fast meals or crockpot meals for nights out of the house and sandwich meals for lunch packing days.  

    It was a super busy season, but we did it.  I taught SOTW to a 9 year complete with coloring projects and such  while 11 year old did Robotics club.  When my kids were in dance classes when little on the same day, I would pull up, drop one off, pick up the little siblings and her class and run them all to the park for an hour and push the baby around in the stroller when they played.  Then I ran them all back to the studio and switched... older sibling and her class who was free to play went to park with me while little sis and her crew went to their class.  Substitute the library in the winter for the park.  Backpacks packed with schoolwork, water bottles, and snacks.  

    Now that I only have one at home, I have taken on more part time work out of the house, juggling time with her dad way more than he ever did when the olders were little.  So my wish for him to be home more and help more are finally here with one left at home!  Life is not less busy with me working more, but schoolwork is easier and there is less cooking and dishes.  

    This is a season.  You get to decide what to do with it!  Just know it is not forever.  It is busy and stressful, and one day they will all be leaving, and your house will be quiet and cleaner. 🙂  And you will miss this time and wonder how you ever did it!

  13. In 7th grade, I had one of mine do a  Berean Builders on her own.  I think she did the Age of Reason that year because that is what our co-op did for middle school science that year.  Since the book was mostly aimed at grades through 6th I think, so she was completely able to do it and all of the experiments and journal assignments on her own that year. Mine was always a bit on the slower side with reading and comprehension, so doing a year behind was perfect for her.  If the next level isn't much of a jump, and the format is simllar then I would feel fine giving it to a 7th grader to read on their own.  But I will admit I haven't actually seen it. 

    • Like 1
  14. yes, I loved it all through my older two daughter's 16 years of homeschooling, and was sad when it was over and time for them to go to college.  I was sad when I went from a home of 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 at home homeschooling each year, but I have also loved each new stage and developing the new plans for each year.   (I had 3 homeschoolers, but also had a niece for a couple of years, so it was like having four!)  This is my first year with one, so I took on another part time job. I juggle her with dh now, which is something we have never done.  I am enjoying working out of the house more.  DD is enjoying spending time with her dh on her own.  And with just one I can get her schooling done quite quickly.  We are still very involved in lots of things- co-op, church, a good friend group with bday parties and such, scouts, etc. that I do not feel she is lacking at all for friends.  I have known lots of homeschoolers who finished with just their one at home and found a good co-op group and jobs and such that kept them busy.  I am sure her journey will look different that my others' did.  But I do still love homeschooling. 

     

    It was not all easy at all.  There were times of financial struggles to make it work when you are on one income long term, especially during layoffs.  There was trying to teach through illness and deaths and births that took a toll on me. But in the end I was glad we were doing that life together, and that they didn't have to grieve on anyone else's schedules.  I was happy to do without vacations and any extras during the recession in return for staying home with my kids and working hard to help make ends meet wherever we could. I am happy now that we can take some little vacations and such too, lol. 🙂  But it was all worth it. 

    • Like 7
  15. 2 hours ago, Clarita said:

    You know they wouldn't get that in a real school. I mean in real school a teacher would have 20-30 kids in a class. They are not giving as much attention to each/all their students as much as you are for your kids. They assign homework, independent work, assessment and busywork. That's why some kids fall through the cracks.

    I was thinking the same thing.

    Yes, kids can teach themselves or at least work independently on some days in a subject that you explicitly teach other days.  For example... I do not do the full teaching lesson orally for the every skills subject every day.  I may spend a long time on math one day a week then the others, just open the book and work one or two of the first problems with kiddo and set them to work.  (and I only ever assign a couple of rows of math in the early grades.  I just want to practice daily and to make sure they understand.) I will spend one day a week going over the whole lesson that includes review of past concepts and intro of new, etc.  The same with other subjects.  I taught Latin in co-op for years (and will start again this year with my 3rd grader,) I teach the lesson on Friday at co-op then assign workbook pages and flashcard practice to do throughout the week on their own.  I check in with them, do their cards or whatever a little.  But I don't teach new info.  They practice the skills they learned at the co-op lesson throughout the week.  I model home subjects around that same model.   

    And the last two times I had kindergarteners with older kids to teach, ( one a niece and one my last one,) I did not necessarily teach them their subjects every day.  Yes, I taught from a math curriculum, and yes, I taught explicit phonics.  I had other fun k units that I did occasionally too, or just folded them into the older kids' stuff by getting library books on their level for whatever the olders were learning and read all of the books from all levels during read aloud times,  But I didn't overly focus on K.  I had some little Rod and Staff preschool ABC workbooks for daily work.  We worked on the alphabet.  I had a handwriting book and handwriting without tears materials  But we didn't do that stuff everyday.  The little ABC workbooks could be done by the kids without much help while I was busy with the other kids.  Then reading books including books on number topics and playing games when possible could be enough with library classes, co-op classes, field trips and such to round out a great education.  We talked about letters in everyday ways in the bathtub and on the go and while playing outside to reinforce things we were working on in everyday life.  When my older kids were getting more independent, like maybe in January or February and they knew the routine of their curriculum and were working on papers or math, I could spend a little more time doing daily lessons.  One semester of K light, then jumping in for a few weeks of intense phonics/reading training was enough for my kers.  They didn't need a curriculum day in and day out to learn the basics.  Just a rich environment daily with meaningful things to do. 

    • Like 3
  16. My dd with spelling issues really liked Dyslexia Games and Funschooling Spelling books.  They look childish as in they are like adult coloring books, but that is what actually appealed to her.  I do not know if the spelling exercises actually helped her or not, but she did enjoy them and the dyslexia games drawing type exercises as at least anxiety reducers.  We learned some spelling exercises around 7th grade from a special ed teacher that helped that we paired with these books.  

  17. So I have always used Rod and Staff LA in 2nd grade.  It does have a separate reading, phonics, spelling, and English.  And we do something for handwriting, though I haven't used R&S handwriting in a long time.  I do them all in 2nd grade.  But I do not do them all simultaneously.  Therefore, we never actually finish all of the programs.  I never thought about it before.  But we do the English like 2-3 times a week, the handwriting a few times, spelling daily, and phonics pretty daily.   I have never worried that we don't finish a curric as written in a year.  Most of the English gets repeated, so we just get where we get.  Phonics, if we don't finish in a year, we keep moving forward in from where we are the next year, just picking up from the year before.  Spelling usually gets completed.  And handwriting just gets practiced with no specific goals of finishing any particular program. So I guess I agree in a sense- don't do it all at the same time. 

  18. I used MP Latina Christiana- fourth form in grades 4-9.  My dd took the ELEs until around 7th grade when she switched to the intro level of NLEs then took levels 1-4 in 8-11th grades .  After 9th grade she used Henle 1-3.    I did however always supplement MP with lots of culture.  I started a Latin club at co-op using the NLE syllabi from their website and did history stories from Famous Men of Rome, had them do timelines, learn mythology, do mapwork, wrote a play about Julius Caesar in modern speak which was hilarious and they performed it twice at different co-ops,) played games with the other vocab words like "I spy" for the colors, Mother, May I? for the numbers, and sung songs like Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes with different body parts.   We did all of that as fun with a group which prepared them for the parts of NLE that weren't in MP. 

    • Like 1
  19. We will be very similar to above!  I have a sign to fill in for the first day of school about me info that we will fill in and take pics with.  Then we will start some schoolwork!  

    I have to wait until dd18 gets moved into the dorms and I start a new job before I can even think about our school.  It is all set up and ready, but my mind space isn't ready, so we will be starting a little later in the month than we usually do in August this year.  But I am not starting new units and curriculum until September anyway, so it will be more setting up routines, expectations, and whatever else gets done before then is getting a jump start on September! 

  20. games are always good here and useful.  

    The others are all great like a membership to a zoo or membership or something as well as a laser printer if you don't have one and it's in your budget.  

    But those are big purchases, lol.  We don't need anything new, not even supplies this year.  My dd is getting a new water bottle from 5 Below to take to co-op, lol!  That is all she needs and will feel like she is getting something new! 

  21. If they like to draw, color, or anything artistic like that the funschooling journals made a HUGE difference in our schooling for my one dd that struggles with spelling and school a bit. We designed her science around what interested her with a journal.  She just did one page of her journal a day.  One page says to watch a documentary.  So we had a series picked out for those days.  She would watch an episode and draw pictures about what she saw.  The next day it says to copy an interesting diagram from your book.  The next day it says to read from your book, etc.   So each day she would get to start her day with her journal.  Might be worth looking into.  They have them do a little writing. 

    • Like 1
  22. Mine both.dod really well with mrd, but one of mine works better one on one with me whether we outsourced or not- she just needs me to work through problems with her, so I was still very involved in her maths. The other was like an above podter's child who was always angry with me over teaching math. I wish I would have started with her earlier on outsourcing than I did. She did fantastic with the format 

     

     

  23. I forgot handwriting.  Mine will work on cursive using the A Reason for Handwriting transition book that she already has.  After that, copywork into her journals from an old Memoria Press copybook I have and a partly used cursive book I picked up at a giveaway table at a used curric sale. 

    I need to make a memorywork list.  I want to include some poetry on top of whatever history lists we do.   I'll read stories and poetry and songs from What Your Third Grader Needs to Know.  I'll let her pick poems from there to memorize. 

    I am going to start some Addition FActs that stick games this summer, so we will do that alongside R&S when the school year continues moving into Subtraction and then Multiplication books. 

    I dug out my Memoria Press kindergarten art cards.  We will probably put those in our morning basket for looking at during memorywork time. 

    And I decided to keep the animal Thinking Tree journal for another year.  I have the Dino Doodle one that is a better fit for a 3rd grader, so we will use that as her core journal for the year, probably writing a schedule that includes journal time as part of morning time each day.  

    I  don't know if I put spelling on the above list, but I picked up Rod and Staff 3rd grade spelling this weekend. 

    And lastly I think I forgot Bible.  I will use the Golden Children's Bible and the Memoria Press Christian Studies loosely.  I am teaching her Sunday School class this year, so I can also work some of my goals there into her whole class and then follow up at home. 

    So we have a lot going on.  I need to make some type of schedule to figure out where in each week we will get all of this done.  But this is our first week off of school, and I am crafting and plotting housework goals first!

     

     

×
×
  • Create New...