kye022984
-
Posts
47 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by kye022984
-
-
Sounds like R&S is also a lot of worksheets but it sounds like it's more memorizing and drilling than anything. Thanks for all the input :)
-
What are you doing in Saxon that it takes a long time?
Today for example in Saxon 1 Lesson 2A/2B. It had you counting to 5. I didnt do the Meeting part. I just read through the script in the teachers manual and had her follow the instructions as I went. "Make a tower of 5 cubes", "Lets count from bottom to top". Then we did side 2A together. On the top it had her color in the blocks from 1-5, then on the bottom she had to draw a certain number of animals. She was done in lesson than 15mins. It was review for her, but it was still quick!
Was this the K curriculum? The K is pretty easy. Some lessons take a bunch of material, which I don't like, so I modify it. But usually with the K lessons there is only one worksheet. It's significantly different when you get 3/4 way through the first grade math. Sometimes we have three worksheets per day, with a lesson and we've always skipped the meetings. It just seems like we do math ALL day sometimes.
Some ladies I know only do the worksheets and don't bother with the lesson book.
-
I just started using Saxon math everyday with my K and first grader. Last year I used Right Start but ditched it because it was pretty teacher intensive.
Now, with Saxon, I feel like the lesson are really long... even when we skip the meeting! I'm thinking about switching to Rod and Staff Math.
By moving through these curriculums, I'm beginning to see that we are a "traditional" math family :) If I wanted shorter lesson, more memorization, and less teacher intensive activities... would Rod & Staff fit the bill?
Or, should we stick with Saxon?
-
It's there now I'm pretty sure.
-
The post is up now in the for sale and swap thread :)
-
Yeah for some reason it isn't up yet. I think the moderator has to approve the listing before it goes on the public thread. Do you want some pictures of it?
-
Just posted in the for sale thread. All are still brand new. I think we used the Right Start kit a couple times. Just sayin....
-
Anyone have a good printer recommendation? Ours just bit the dust. We're looking for something that is good on ink, can print, scan, and copy. It needs to be durable too since we print out a lot of homeschool materials.
Any suggestions???
-
Thank you :001_smile:
-
I had a thread a while back with some good ones but can't find it anymore. Can anyone let me know where I can find some good ideas/activities to go with Volume 1?
-
-
Check yard sales and thrift stores. You can often find good books for 10 cents or a quarter.
Abebooks is another online option, but like Marketplace you will have that hefty shipping.
There are dealers that sell on Vegsource. You can get deals if you are buying more than one book, because going back to that shipping problem if you buy just one. The main issue that I have run across with those particular dealers is that what they would consider good, I would consider fair.
There is ebay and it is a shot in the dark, but usually for 1 book you will be looking at $4. It would be nice if you could find someone selling a whole set (book basket, emerging reader, girls interest, core readers etc, for different units) you may be interested in.
I occasionally see someone selling book sets at homeschoolreviews .
I just go to the thrift store almost every single time I go shopping. It only takes a few minutes and I look for books I know we will be using in the next year or two. Saves me a LOT of money. Keep a list in your purse.
The problem you are looking at by buying paperbacks online is that when a seller gets through paying shipping, listing fees, paypal fees and shipping supplies s/he can end up paying to sell! I've been there. When it comes to paper backs of small value, unless I have a set to sell, I will give them away to my local library before selling them online.
There's usually an option for free shipping on the books on Abebooks.com That's where I've been buying all of my books and been saving lots of money. I tried half.com and alibris.com but, yeah, heavy duty shipping cost :(
-
We are starting a small homeschool co-op with only about three other families whom we've been close with since the baby/preschool years. It's a blessing. They are all doing different things but we're all on the same page as far as homeschooling goes. We meet one day a week and, as of right now, that's all we have time for. I've learned that anything over one day a week time from school and other household duties gets taken away from.
-
Do you mean Before FIAR or Beyond FIAR ? (I assume Beyond ..)
I just use the Bare Books w/ spiral for notebooking. THe first two kids are a bit older now that they can decorate their notebook themselves. Sometimes they just write something on the book. SOmetimes they make flap book/minit book from colored paper which they cut themselves. FYI, I'm also kinda winging it in terms of notebooking, but I plan the lesson and assignment, e.g. summarizing, making diagram, drawing a table, compare-contrast - all those things. The lesson planning (the info) itself is easy - I mainly use SOTW and whatever children encyclopedias we have at home. Internet is also used - mainly for videos and weird topics like history of tomato in US. I throw in special-topic books if we have those. But I don't depend on the library for this - too much headache.
For the language art portion of Beyond - we have one for writing techniques and creative writing assignment (their Writing Strands assignments go here too), and another for vocab.
I haven't assigned any non-fiction yet (like science report, bio sketch), but in the future, those kind of assignments and research will go to their subject notebooks.
Sounds good. So doing it by subject rather than by book title seems to give more space to branch out? I'm assuming I'm going to start most of the notebooks but as the kids get older I know they'll get more creative :)
-
I do use a writing program with my K5 along with copy work and grammar. I like both PAL writing from IEW or WriteShop Primary A. You might not need these, but just my suggestions...
Yeah I was wondering if I needed anything for my 5 yo. My 7 yo (boy) is just now beginning to love writing and is getting good enough to start incorporating more basis into it. But my 5 yo doesn't really know much yet....
-
I always use my own LA when doing FIAR. I thought it's meant to be like that :001_huh:. So for me, FIAR is for social studies, science, and art AND a supplement to an already existing math and LA curricula. When used like this, I think it's not light for the grade intended.
As for jumping around ...:), I just recently found the beauty on it. For us, it provides reviews and each time we revisit, we dig deeper . I separate our notebook according to the subject, not by title, so you can actually see that 'eventually' a good amount of topics are taught. E.g. Japan - first time, it's just a basic JApan social study. Next time, some early history of JApan with reviews of Japan as a country. By the time you get to bBeyond, you introduce topics like the politics of isolation, Meiji Restoration, and its involvement in the WW. And we can also introduce more aspects on JApanese cultures if there's interest.
Sure it's not neat and chronological, but as long as you have something to help synthesizing the knowledge (notebook by subject, timeline), then you'll see growth and more importantly, the retention is there for the most part ..:)
Do you do BFIAR with your older children? I'm interested in your method on notebooking. I would like to notebook this year but to be honest, I'm kind of winging it :) I don't really know much about it. Would you mind expanding on your method?
-
"If it matters to know, the books in all four volumes can be done in any order you deem best and there are master indexes online to help with that. You could do all the books with a China theme, or all the books with a bird theme, and so forth."
This is a great idea!
-
Am I missing anything?
After researching and talking with a lot of you the past week, I have finally come up with what we are doing this year! Let me know if you see any holes please:
5 yo K
Math: Saxon/FIAR
L/A: Copybooks from Memoria Press & FLL Vol. 1
Reading: 100 Easy lessons/Realouds
Art: FIAR/our one day homeschool co-op
Science: FIAR/our one day homeschool co-op
Social Studies: FIAR
History: FIAR/CC Memory Work
Latin: (Only if she's ready) Prima Latina
Bible: FIAR/Realouds
CC Memory Work every morning
7 yo 2nd
Math: Saxon/FIAR
L/A: Writing for Excellence (PeaceHill) & FLL Vol. 1
Reading: 100 Easy lessons/Realouds
Art: FIAR/our one day homeschool co-op
Science: FIAR/our one day homeschool co-op
Social Studies: FIAR
History: FIAR/CC Memory Work
Latin: Prima Latina
Bible: FIAR/Realouds
CC Memory Work every morning
Our 3 yo will just be observing and involved when she wants to be :)
-
I used FIAR for about a year and a half. Overall I would say we liked it very much and have good memories of it, and I plan to use it again with my youngest. I was also very impressed with the art lessons.
There were definitely some things about it that bugged me, though.
1) Perhaps I made the mistake of using it with a third grader (although they clearly say it's k-3) ... but it was way too light for third grade, especially the LA activities. I'm almost a little embarrassed I did it with my oldest in third grade -- not because she didn't enjoy it, but it seemed way below third grade level.
2) In general, I thought LA was too weak, except for kindy. No spelling, no grammar, no real writing ("write a good title" or "write a story in first person" is not what I would consider a real writing program). The LA assignments for the entire week might be acting out a scene in a story or discussing examples of compound words. Ten minutes of LA for the week seems awfully weak for a second or third grader.
3) I would probably have not enjoyed FIAR that much (I'm not even sure I would have used it for long) had I not used the HSS resources (especially the lapbook components) and the archives from the FIAR boards. This is what really made it interesting for me -- extra books to read, art projects, etc. The activities in the manual tended to be too vague for me, or just not enough. Discussing something for ten minutes, or pointing to something on a map, while definitely enjoyable, didn't feel tangible or "enough" to be considered a school day.
4) After a year and half, I could not stand the jumping around anymore. One week we discussing Russia, the next week WWII in Germany, the next week the American Civil Right Movement. It was driving me crazy and didn't seem like the best way to learn That's actually when I looked into WTM (amusingly, I was told on the FIAR boards that "WTM is the antithesis of FIAR") and decided to jump ship to SOTW.
4) BTW, even though such a big deal is made about reading the books five days in a row, I get the impression that almost everyone using it does NOT do that, or at least does not do it all the time. It seems like FIAR works best with a mindset/personality that likes to pick and choose and be flexible and do it their own way.
Overall -- although FIAR people hate it when you say this -- I would say it's a fabulous supplement, but I hesitate to call it much more than that, unless you're beefing it up so much that you're practically writing your own lesson plans.
Definitely understand all this. My kids are 3,5, and 7 yo so most of the social studies, history, art, science and math will suffice for now. We are doing saxon math and FFL as well as writing for excellence on the side since the program does say to supplement with math and phonics for older children. We also do a homeschool co-op where we do art, science, presentations and memory work for CC (which we include at home every morning at the table). I think we'll have plenty to beef up the program and really like that some days I can beef it up and others I don't.
Thanks for your feedback. All the points are worth considering. Especially as my children get older. I've noticed that most of the posters say it's great for the youngsters but usually end up doing something different for the older years :)
-
We enjoy FIAR, I think it's the best curriculum out there for this age. We used it from K - 3rd grade using volumes 1-4 as our main curriculum and only adding in math and language arts. Volume 4 is really great as well for the 7 and 8 year olds, you go much more in depth with topics and you spend about two weeks on the literature unit. You don't read the book everyday for two weeks, it is just a bouncing board for studies.
I didn't always read the book 5 days a week with volumes 1-3, sometimes we just read it twice or three times. However, I would open up the book and refer to certain pages with the lessons so there was still a connection to the story and the lesson.
Some weeks we did just the manual and some weeks we added all sorts of stuff like extra books, lapbooking etc... I would get burned out if every week I scheduled and added things to so that is why sometimes I did and when it started to feel too much I would just do the manual for a few weeks and once I felt better we would do a few weeks of adding in extra things. It doesn't have to be either or.
Things I liked to add when my son was older like in 2nd and 3rd grade was lots of extra mapping. I would print off maps from our Uncle Josh's Outline map cd and use an atlas. If the geography lesson was for a state, than we would fill in the capital, large cities, bodies of water and rivers. Basically, just add in surrounding areas to whatever the geography lesson was and color in the map.
We also used Bare Books the hardcover spiral kind to put all our lapbook and print out elements in. We just kept one big book going that had several books in it instead of doing an individual lapbook for each title. Homeschool Share has lots of great print offs that we used.
But again, it would be too much some weeks if I did every FIAR title like that and so some weeks we just went with the manual. Also, if more emphasis needed to be on math and language arts than we would just do the manual as well.
Can you tell me more about Uncle Josh's Outline Map CD and the Care Books? Where I can find them?
I planned to have each child do at least two notebook pages this year (and notebooking is new to us too) but is lapbooking any different?
-
I do think it's a good program, especially if your kids will want to read the same book several days in a row. My son liked to hear some books many times, but not for days in a row.
I still think he benefited from all those wonderful picture books and since the manuals can be sold for a decent price, I don't think you can go wrong trying FIAR.
I love the ideas like looking on a map to locate where the stories are set and vocabulary building while reading and discussing the book. A lot of the math games are really cute too.
Here is a list of which Let's Read and Find Out science books go well with which FIAR books.
Thanks for the reference!
-
I bought the manuals and all (or almost all) the books. I only used a few ideas from the manuals and ended up selling them on half.com (for almost as much as I'd paid for them).
I LOVED the books (well, most of them anyway) and so did my son. One of his very favorites was Warm as Wool.
The cookbook is great, I didn't sell it!
I didn't buy the Bible supplement.
I bought most all of volume 1 books (except for two) on the used book store online. Most were at least 2-4 dollars under the brand new amount so, if it doesn't work I'm confident I will get my money back :) But thankfully, I know my kids will love reading the same book at least three days (we read Toad and Frog almost every night) in a row and since vol1 is only 19 weeks long I figured the three days will stretch it out for me :)
Thank you for the feedback.
-
I'm loving all the feedback on this post! I can't wait to start with FIAR this year.
-
I have heard a lot of people say this, but I have always been very :001_huh:. I found it almost open-and-go. The only planning I ever did was to put books on hold, and we had an absolutely lovely time.
From what I have been reading, FIAR can be as much or as little planning as you want.
Saxon vs. Rod & Staff
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I looked over the sample lessons last night and I really like the lay out. My son needs more of the drills and I really feel like he would soar if he had them more. Although the teacher intensity seems like it is for Saxon, I'm just not satisfied with the layout of Saxon.