2_girls_mommy
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Posts posted by 2_girls_mommy
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I actually did, yes. It was just easier for me to stick with what worked and to keep my two years younger child on the same cycles than to separate them out. So we just continued WTM style through high school, especially in how we did great books/history/literature. We did the four year schedule. Several years I used the exact resources from WTM as I found our groove and made changes where needed for us. I did assignments as laid out, set up the notebooks as laid out. I've always embraced the flexibility of hsing. I didn't attempt to churn out one paper a week, week after week, in the same format as WTM might seem to suggest at first glance. But I most definitely had my kids do research on an author and context of a book before starting. Then they read Well Educated Mind and took notes on their actual book after reviewing the Well Educated Mind relevant section. Then after we chose some type of writing assignment on the book. We definitely did not hit the number of great books a year that WTM suggests, but we did a reasonable amount, and went less deep on some than others. As a homeschool mom, I went back and forth. I couldn't be 'on' in all subjects all the time. So we might have as a group been reading several books on a variety of subjects, but we we could only be focused as a group on one or two. So we might be focused on a specific science-y topics and activities and projects for awhile. Girls are still reading literature, but I may not be reading aling with them on those at the time. Once we wrap up that science topic and book and projects, I'll then do the next literature book as a family and we'll have more discussion on it than others they did on their own. Etc.
We also did some co-op classes and a DE class and some online math along the way. Mostly our co-ops were enrichment and part of my overall curriculum. We did very few that I was completely out of and relied on for the whole of their education on the subject and just accepted their grade. It was difficult for me when my DD ended up applying to selective school to write up course descriptions at first. But I kept detailed notes along the way of our out of the box WTM style 'courses.' My one DD that has graduated did very well (ACT scores, a national Questbridge College Match finalist, President's honor roll at the community college for the semester she did part time there, waitlisted at a top school currently, but going almost completely free to honors college in classics at our State University.) So I'm glad I stuck with the format I was most comfortable with. WTM history/lit was the most important for me not to give up because we were so good at it. We kept up the art projects around history SOTW style, but for bigger people, all the way through, maps and readalouds and timeline books, etc.
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I always liked the idea of Mapping the World with Art, but I never saw but one sample, so I can't really say how it works.
What we did- The Complete Book of Maps and Geography. Seems like a boring workbook. But it is colorful, cut/paste, starts super easy, progresses but still not to a lot of writing. My kids liked it. It was fun to them. We didn't usually do bright colored workbooks with cartoony type characters, so it was more fun than creating notebooks from scratch with composition books like we usually did, coloring things ourselves, and than the non colorful Rod and Staff books we used for core subjects. That might be why they liked them.
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Schoolhouseteachers is a subscription site to classes of all kinds. Many are PDFs to print. But you can't buy individual classes. It's a subscription. And many are video or a combination of both print and video courses.
Thinking Tree / Dyslexia Games has a lot if their material and journals in PDF.
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12 hours ago, Plum said:
Well I’m planning a Natural Hazards course based around a college textbook I found which uses some of the actual requirements from the college course. It’s an entry level geology course. I’m including FEMA emergency planning along with some of their free courses, CPR training, bleed control, and first aid certification. So not your average 9th grade science course.
Some other options I’ve come up with since I have one squeamish and one that wants to be a nurse is field studies for him rather than labs. Tracking data and statistics over time while mastering excel is another option.
If you Google “fields of biology” or any other generic science, you’ll find some really interesting topics that the kids might want to deep dive in and enjoy their science year. It can still be categorized as biology. They can learn the basics along the way. I mean, if colleges can get hi of remedial courses and place kids straight into entry courses with the expectation they will learn along the way, why can’t you expect to be able to do that as well? KWIM?
Yes, yes, yes! My DD did a biology year this year. She did use a course that had videos and readings assigned, but we did our own labs and fieldwork on things that followed our other interests and studies ( some year long gitl scout badges, co-op's year long focus and activities, etc., Things that also went with our history.) Lots of art and notebooking included in her research and daily work. We did her labwork and fieldwork and research on topics we chose to go deep on.
I just graduated my odd. She did do textbooky courses and typical labwork in co-op classes because our co-op had it available, and it was a good match for her.
But I preferred science a different way, and she participated in almost double science because she did what we did at home too- read alouds, fieldwork, nature study, girl scout badge work and clubs, doing projects on topics of interest over a year that were sometimes science topics. With my current DD we've decided to do science at home so that we can do it our way completely. And she'll meet all requirements for her graduation. (We only have one required science year for her left, actually.)
ETA- and I meant to say that this kid never did a "general science" year before high school. Lots of fun co-op activities. Her classes in co-op were around a theme but were much more hands on, not graded textbook work. I much preferred them to the Apologia style classes that my first did in middle school. We could choose our own work and books for home.
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On 4/22/2020 at 7:58 PM, Paradox5 said:
Not elementary but claiming the John Tiner science books are high school level gives me pause.
I never bothered looking at anything else. Too light and fluffy for my family.
Yeah, I picked up a catalog at convention and saw this too, but I noticed it was using like four of them together as a general history of science or a general science class. It definitely wasn't a lab science or a college bound class. But I decided for ax quick get we done science credit for a kid with a different focus, like a kid doing votech training, not college bound, or standard diploma track, not university bound, it really might be ok. I actually did keep the Timer books as read alouds in my stack for review purposes when my odd was in high school. (But of course she did actual high school level lab courses too.)
OP I actually like the looks of the elementary science vs putting together random books like I do for WTM style elem. science. I've looked at videos on YouTube. But I have enough resources on shelf and available at the library that I can't justify a new purchase.
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We enjoyed that one too. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything similar. I was going to suggest the Pandia Press free Pandemic unit study though. It has some research projects with some good articles specifically on the Spanish Flu and others, plus some hands on science labs. It kind of goes along with the general theme of the History of Medicine.
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On 6/9/2020 at 7:54 PM, 8FillTheHeart said:
The best support groups I have found have moms from all stages (meaning experienced and new homeschooling moms) and homeschooling with a wide variety philosophies/approaches. Groups where all the moms are in the same place (all new or all experienced) or all using the same thing are more cliquey/group think than great support and friendships.
Yes, yes, yes. So true.
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I do not have a large family, but I have a large age range. This past year my odd was a 17 yr old senior and my ydd was a five year old ker with one in between. We have followed WTM to a t at times or for certain subjects, while also enjoying the flexibility that hsing allows to follow our interests, make it our own, adjust to each kid's specific needs, and to embrace what is available at the time in the community that may not line up with WTM schedules or PS scope and sequence, but was too good to miss out on.
I love the above advice about applied biology. That is the type of thing that WTM and designing your own curriculum allows you to do, and it works quite well. So many homeschoolers think they have to do a textbook or online class or a class that looks like PS to "count." So not the case. We have done school all along like that and my odd was very successful in college testing, applications, interviews, and the most important part- getting scholarships, lol!
I wanted to point out if you aren't familiar with the company, Memoria Press, that you should look into getting on the mailiing list for their magalogs (catalogs with educational articles.) They have one aimed at special needs called Simply Classical. I believe they have a full curriculum plan for special needs that embraces classical content. It might be worth looking into for you.
I have one in between my older and younger that has dyslexic symptoms, and we have dealt with therapies for her and have to take things much more slowly in general in all subjects that WTM would have you. But hsing gives us the opportunity to still focus on poetry, plays, good literature, and to study latin, even if she never becomes a latin master scholar. She gets a specialized education that leaves lots of room for her art projects, but doesn't leave anything out because she needs more focused attention on her daily math than other kids or longer time to read and digest what she reads. And like PP pointed out, we are doing biology this year, and have been quite unconventional in her field and lab work. And it has been wonderful. She has grown potatoes, learned to can, participated in citizen science projects, done a couple of related girl scout badges with field trips, volunteer, learning botany to complete the projects, and a pandemic study of bacteria and virus with microscope work and other projects to round out the year with everything going on now.
We can embrace all of the free online things into our own curriculum and rewrite our origial plans for the year with the new opportunities that have presented themselves lately. And I can outsource resources for my odd when she needs more than I can focus on if I want to. I still have time to work with my dd6 little by little on reading and math and do things together like nature study and read alouds and videos as a family for all of us.
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23 hours ago, Ellie said:
There are other words which have a no-job e: house, horse, engine, promise, release, senate, nonsense, to name a few.
That's true. It's been awhile since I had one in phonics with our ten year gap between the olders and the younger. I've forgotten a lot of it. I'll be coming across these again and see how R&S handles it soon. The friend of v and g always stuck with me. 🙂 I know I was impressed with how thorough R&S phonics is during my last times through.
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I don't know what literature packs are either, sorry. I just tried to get library books for most chapters. It was just part of my routine. Once a week I picked up my reserves from the week before, and sat down with the next week or twos' literature lists from the AG to see what our library carried and to put them on reserve.
I guess if you consider the Activity Guide an extra, you need that. We had a 3 ring binder for each child to put their maps, coloring sheets, and narrations from each chapter into. I found it easiest to print the student pages for each kid in advance, for the whole year, and have them 3 hole punched and in the binder all at once, ready to go, like a workbook.
Art stapies, standard stuff like crayons, markers, and paint, plus extras like dress up, clay, keeping some recyclables around like toilet paper rolls, styrofoam, show boxes around for art projects. Homeschooling makes you a bit of a hoarder, lol. I don't throw away many fast food plastic containers because I know they'll be used to start seeds for a garden science experiment or as a tray for paint mixing or something. I just have an area where I keep a few of these types of things on hand.
We never did the tests or the CDs.
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I don't remember R&S addressing the silent e here in the word, are. But I know when they explain the rule of silent 'e' after the 'v' or 'g' it's explained as a a friend of 'v' and 'g,' that they need a friend to end a word. I might be included to just say that 'e' is actung as a friend to the 'ar' here, and that it's very rare.
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For my 6 yr old we are doing the online summer reading program. We mostly read at night at bedtime. She's doing a lot of crafting. Twice a week we are doing the Michael's online free zoom craft classes. We've also broken out different art supplies, rotating through. The past few days she's been doing the perler beads that you iron. Last week she and my teen each made a miniature room out if a show box. She's doing a lot of swimming in the blow up.pool. And each day I encourage some creative play with toys, something she hasn't played in awhile. She has two dance classes out if the house a week again which gives her sone outings too.
My dd15 works 2 days a week, has the summer reading program to read for, and is doing three online summer camp classes- 2 through Varsitytutors and one from Ford's Theater this summer, plus she has dance classes again as well. We are working on Algebra ongoing on days she is home.
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My high schooler just finished it. I am having her do the personal finance one in the series next. We are giving her an .5 economics credit, but she has had to do other things too (girl scout badgework that we picked with steps on the topics, manage her bank accounts, watch current events, learn budgeting, etc.) Ours is more of a personal business or general business course to be more descriptive. We did it alongside several books that we were doing for government, so it all kind of overlapped in the end. I just bought the Thinking Tree economics funschooling journal to use as the spine for my dd15 who is about to start the Penny Candy book this coming semester. But we are working our way through some of it as a spine with both of them together, finishing up dd17's economics credit.
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All of our classes are so different. Reading ahead- textbooks- I don't usually read too much of their actual texts. But I usually am reading something along the same lines to be able to go deep at least on some of the topics. Other times, I just ask what they read about that day, and discuss what we can about it. Strategies for reading ahead? I love to read, so that's not an issue. I carry a big tote bag with me everywhere with books and magazines that I am reading through. I take it to their dance classes and read while they're in class. I read in my chair in the backyard while little dd plays in the wading pool with the neighbors. I read for a few minutes here and there throughout the day while they are doing math problems (along with playing on here and chatting...) I have several books going at once. RIght now I am rereading a favorite book of mine because dd15 is doing a summer lit course online about it. I have read this one multiple times, but am enjoying it again to go over her lessons with her. But I also am reading a history book, an art curriculum for next year, and several magazines that I can just pick an article for, and some encouraging homeschool mom books that I like to read a bit from here and there. I need to add Well Trained Mind to the stack to reread the grammar stage soon. But I do not read everything they read. I go deep on a couple books a year with them. Other times, they just read and tell me about it or do a report of some kind. Sometimes I use Cliff's Notes as PP said.
Yes, I tend to overload at the beginning and then we get a flow going. I have a stack of lit books I 'd like them to get to. They pick and choose and we work our way through them- one or two a semester aloud together, one or two a semester on their own is how it usually works out, plus one or two over the summer.
For record keeping I use the Well Planned Day's High School Four Year Plan books. I have always preferred pencil and paper planners. I use the day to day spaces to record what actually gets done. If I have one subject that I am truly tracking like read one chapter a week or whatever, I write those plans out on the monthly calendar spread so on Sunday, it's like a checklist for the week: Read chp. 1 of Spanish (and they know what else is included in that, like which exercises they are to do or whatever,) Turn in summary of >>>latest lit book>> and start >>> next lit book>>> and so forth. For our more Great Books style classes, I don't put anything there. We just have allotted time frames during the day and we jot down in the planner what got accomplished. I sometimes have a plan for output like one history presentation and one short research paper first semester that they know about at the beginning of the semester that they are working on as we go that they can be thinking about which topics they want to research more deeply for on top of what they are reading, what we are reading aloud together, and films we are watching, and field trips we are taking.
And yes, I have learned to add catch up weeks to our schedule here and there, especially in the courses in which we really are trying to work through a specific textbook. (A lot of our classes aren't necessarily textbook, but for the ones that are, this gives some breathing room.)
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I have a 6 yr old so currently: the ABCs in capital and lowercase, a poster showing place value that goes with our math curriculum, a 100s chart, Dr. Seuss preschool calendar, a small bulletin board over her desk with a chore chart, a pretty sign about homeschooling, her current Bible verse for memorization, and her latest paper from her curriculum. We hang each day's paper, then put the one we took down into a folder.
For my high schooler: a chart showing what a prepositional phrase is and a poster of the parts of speech. On our changing bulletin board currently is a map of the battles of the Civil War and the other half has photos from early statehood from our state- flyers handed out to encourage settlers to come here, a copy of our newspaper on the day we became a state, a newspaper from a few years later telling about a time capsule that was buried (that we got to see dug up! when it happened a few years ago, and now the items are in our state history musuem.) This board varies. Sometimes I do it definitely for the preschooler and seasonal. Sometimes I do it up with our current art projects, and often I do it to go with our current studies, like now: state history.
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If I FBed, that would be one I would hang out on. But I have always just come here for that. 🙂
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I just want to say you don't need to look for unit studies. You've picked a curriculum that's done all the planning for you. I've never done that one, but I think it kind of acts like a unit study- tying your topics together, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
And FYI, all kids are different. I'm raising three beautiful, extremely intelligent girls. One is educationally gifted which comes with great things like fantastic curiosity, self led learning often, great standardized test scores, etc. Motivation to do things that she's interested in. But giftedness can come with some really really tough issues to deal with that I won't discuss for my dd's privacy.
My next one, raised in the same atmosphere didn't care to learn to read and write and was later found to have dyslexic symptoms. She's an amazing, artistic kid who keeps busy on self-directed art projects that I would have never thought of. So much fun. But she definitely didn't start Algebra in middle school. She struggles with tests. Academics take a lot of repetition. It's not because we've neglected her as I am sure you haven't yours!
And my next is still tiny, and seems to progress pretty much within the average ranges of things do far. So I've had them all across the spectrum. Homeschooling lets me work with each as needed individualizing their curriculum. But it also means that my student that needs more help with math or therapy for reading can still get exposed to Latin and master some if I want to put in the time. She gets as much art as she craves- museum visits, nice art supplies for every holiday gift, all the YouTube tutorials she wants, encouragement to use her gifts for creating in new areas like cooking or other things to expand her exposures.
You get to help her become the person she's meant to be. Try your curric, see if you like it. Work however is needed with her, not focused on getting through the lessons but on helping her really learn them. Get to know her and what might help her find her gifts as you go!
On the TV, you'll have to work on helping her learn things to do at home. Believe me, my six year would love to watch animal.youtube videos or Netflix cartoons all day! But I have to put up with the crying when I tell her no, even though she knows there is no TV during weekdays most of the time. I set up activities. I make sure we've got fun things to do and come up with activities for her to do. I don't make her do my things if she wants to sit and draw thirty million paper butterflies and cut them out and leave them all over my table. But I have ideas of things to do to help her if she needs them. And I embrace the craftiness and mess. Clean up is just always ongoing.
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I just signed my kids up for some free classes at varsitytutors dot com. We haven't started ours yet. They start tomorrow, but they sound good. And there were lots of topics for different age groups, so you might look there.
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I didn't bother with PowerPoint til high school. It's easy enough to learn the basics. I started them doing basic Word typed assignments occasionally by 4th or 5th grade.
My current senior took a computer application course as a dual enrollment class this year for more detailed lessons in common programs.
My sophomore is doing a unit study that includes detailed function assignments in Word this year. I think I'll have her do a DE on applications at some point too.
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For anybody that's interested- Amazon Prime has the Great Courses Black Death course until the end of June. Teens and I are watching now.
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2 hours ago, knitgrl said:
In my fantasy world, I would like to do 5 days a week in August, but after six years homeschooling, it finally dawned on me that we never do 5 days a week in August. Because most of the kids' friends go to ps, everyone is trying to fit in August playdates before school starts up again. In planning out the calendar for next school year, I ONLY counted 3 days a week, and anything over that is gravy. It is remarkable how long it can take to give up one's planning fantasies, and take into account what actually happens in real life.
You know, our public schools went to year round schedules the year odd started k. They began every year on Aug. 1st. They switched back to a traditional year this year, so won't start that early anymore. We may run into this soon, especially if the public pool stays open. With year round school, they went to weekends only in August. This along with the virtual schooling everyone is doing may really throw us off. (Because we go to the zoos and campgrounds and museums when they're all in school... Now we don't know anybody schedules.)
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3 hours ago, knitgrl said:
We taper off through June, and don't do much in July. Usually we are camping and so fort. Then we start back up the first of August. We try to do at least three days a week in August and then are back to the full schedule in September. I need a month's break, though this year, the two younger ones will be keeping their own garden, so we'll probably do some schooly things with that. The first year we homeschooled, we took the whole summer off like the ps, and dd lost so much, especially with spelling. The one month break hasn't given us too many problems as far as summer slide goes.
This is how it usually goes for us too, though I try to get some solid 5 day weeks in in August to kick start the year before outside activities start up and slow us down a little. We also often do a lasy camping trip in August after our ps starts. Campgrounds are usually pretty empty then.
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We just slow down and work on days that we're here and not busy with other projects or summer fun, continuing a lesson here and there in anything that we didn't finish and that I want to keep up on. Dd6 did a phonics and math lesson tonight. We hadn't done one in about four week days, doing lots of fun online freebie things, science experiments, and art lately. Those days she just practices her reading at bedtime from easy readers.
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11 hours ago, Servant4Christ said:
I'm so glad to hear the Aldi laminator works. I've debated on buying one every year for like 3 years now. Maybe I'll actually do it this year. The Pro Click is something I've only recently heard of and really really want one. Those two items could very well be my extras (anything beyond actual curriculum) for our homeschool this year.
I've had my Aldi one for years. I don't give it heavy use, but it's holding on whenever I need it.
Well Trained Mind high school (history, rhetoric, great books): does anyone follow (more or less) The Plan?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I did use my own resources within the structure of the four year rotation, especially as I got more comfortable with high school and designing our curriculum or as I found material and lesson plans that fit the same purpose, but that I liked better for each subject.