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fsunolefan

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  • Website URL
    http://www.rueff.org
  • Location
    Upstate SC
  • Interests
    reading, cooking, and walking
  • Occupation
    mother of 2
  1. I tried Prima Latina with my 2nd and 3rd grader last school year. The 3rd grader loved it, but the 2nd grader hated it. The younger one was fine for the first 5 or 6 lessons and then it became a battle. Mid-year I switched her to Song School Latin and the older daughter continued with Prima Latina. They are now teaching each other their Latin programs, so they are sort of doing both. It's a little bit harder on me, but they are happy. I really don't think a 2nd grader's grammar, unless they are very advanced, will be strong enough for LCI. IMHO.
  2. I'm looking at the meeting book now. I bought the entire set and it was included. IMHO you could definitely skip it. Contents: Blank calendar pages to number for the date and temp. each day, rhyme about how many days in each month and picture using hands to determine, birthday graph pages, number words chart(blank), measurement abbreviations chart(blank) and blank counting strips.
  3. I have the perspective of treaching both Saxon 1 and 2 concurrently. This has made me bold enough to tweak the program. I know where I am going with the 1st grader and can therefore decide when to speed up and when to slow down. My advice, don't be bogged down by the lesson structure and script. I was so weary of reading the scripted lessons to my child. I read them and picked the important points. If they understood something on the first example, I would give them the next one to complete on their own. If they got it, then we moved on. The repetition of a spiral approach reinforces the concepts so I know whether or not they are really getting it. We also practice the couting and such for one week a month. If there is a new skip counting pattern, we practice daily until they are proficient and then drop back to once or twice a week, then only the one week a month. The same with patterning and the coin cup. We also skipped the lessons about drawing trees for the different seasons. That said, I did not start formal lessons at lesson 1. They took tests until there was material they did not know. We have only had to backtrack once with each child to reinforce a concept (it only took a day). We began our school year in July and I will be moving them into the next level of Saxon in January. We have less than 10 lessons left for each child. We will finish out December with math drills and math games. I hope this helps.
  4. Happy Thanksgiving!

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  5. We are at week 15 and I have changed spelling programs for both kids. The only drop occured recently. We finally dropped handwriting as its own subject. Both are doing very well with their handwriting so I just make sure what they write is nice and I don't make them practice its own specific subject. I am really surprised by this:001_huh:. Maybe I should fill up this unexpected time slot?????
  6. We use the Prismacolor Art Stix. The are like a colored pencil without the wood. They are long and square and have held up well to a 6 and 7 year old. They were recommended on an elementary art blog and I can't say enough good things about them. They are a little pricey IMHO, but we are really putting them through a workout and they haven't failed yet. I really love the fact that they don't need to be sharpened. When my girls were using the regular colored pencils I was contemplating an electric pencil sharpener homicide.:001_smile:
  7. I remember reading in the introduction that the focus should be on getting the word family part of the word correct, not the entire word. If he's applying the word families to other words, then he is getting it. If he's not retaining the word families then I would slow down and perhaps even cut the lessons in half. The jump to 20 words was a little sudden for my daughter. If she doesn't seem to be getting a word family, I have repeated the lesson with her (usually later that same day). It helps her build confidence and strengthen a shaky understanding. I usually have her write the words on our white board with the two colors of markers after she has written out her answer. It's a sneaky way to get her write the word twice. She also happens to think writing on the white board is fun. I hope this helps. I just switched to Building Spelling Skills for my younger child since Sequential Spelling 1 is a bit too advanced for a first grader. Spelling Workout just reduced her to tears or was too easy. I definitely feel your spelling frustration.
  8. I try to take photos of just my daughters throughout the year. I then find the best 12 and upload them to a calendar service. It works out to about $30/family with shipping. I've tried buying the kits and printing them at home, but it was even more expensive with all the ink I had to buy(oops!). I have done them for 4 years now and don't see an end in sight. I've also decided to frame (inexpensively) some of the artwork from the kids for some friends and family here in town. Anything made by the grandkids is always a big hit with the grandparents.
  9. We've added to our collection over time, so its hard to remeber what we have paid. We orginally bought the game console plus additional wii remote and nunchuk. It was really nice to have two controllers so the kids could virtually box each other. Wii Sports comes with the console and is enough with the additional remote to get you through a month or so before you start looking for something different. We added the rechargeable battery stand for the two remotes and found that it was a very wise investment. The wii remotes eat through AA batteries if you are using them frequently. We also added another 2 wii remotes with nunchuks (figured out later that the additional nunchuks were a bit of a waste). We love to play a game called Mario Party which all 4 of us can play together. Another favorite game is Big Brain Academy. Our two daughters are young, but can play both of these fine. For my birthday we have recently added Wii Fit. This is a balance board (think game controller that you stand on). These are very fun, but a little harder to find. We do have Dance Dance Revolution which is a mat controller that you dance on. It is a little different from the verison in the video arcade as you hold the wii remote with the nunchuk in your hands and add hand movements to the feet movements. The girls were too young for this one, and mom and dad just don't move like that. Good for a few laughs, but I think this is more for the tween/teen set. Hope that helps....BTW you can order some of the old nintendo games off the internet with your wii. We have Super Mairo Brothers and other classics that my husband and I enjoy. No physical activity involved in those :)
  10. If you are dreading the spelling part of your day, then I would say that is not the program for you. No matter how "beneficial" it might be. If you aren't enjoying it that will come across. Sell it and move on. We changed programs after a few weeks of school and I do not regret allowing myself the freedom to change what wasn't working. We purchased a sequential spelling workbook and notebook for less then $20 and have not looked back. I wanted a curriculum, since I am new at this. If you feel comfortable creating your own program, I would give it a try. A month or so should be enough to know whether or not you need to spend the money. There are lots of online resources for age appropriate spelling lists.
  11. Saw your board name on facebook wtm group! :seeya:

  12. I am currently using this with a 1st and 2nd grader, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to make it more appropriate for 5th. Although, you would definitely need to supplement with outside materials. The focus of this book seems to be on learning the characteristics of each group of animals. I would simply assign additional reasearch topics to the older child, either relating to the characteristics or selecting an animal. Discussing why these chracteristics are helpful to that animal and how it is suited to its environment, etc. For example, while studying birds, your older child could get far more detailed information about the birds body structures (diagrams, models, etc.). I would also add a report on a specific animal, characteristic, habitat, etc. for the older child. This would help build writing and research skills while upping the degree of difficulty. In preparing the material for my younger children I usually find material that offers far more information than they are ready for at this time. It shouldn't be too hard to pull some extra books in from the library without having to buy a new curriculum, but it will be more work for you. I hope this helps.
  13. I is not our decision that the paternal granparents are not involved. We have merely decided to respect their choice not to be involved. My husbands father and stepmother have tons of grandchildren and even great grandchildren that live withing 5 miles of their house. They really have no desire to come visit us and when we are down there (approximately once a year) our kids are just lost in the shuffle. No quality interaction there. They do have a good time, but mostly because they get to see their cousins. My husbands mother and stepfather are a different story. They do not really like children and have stated this very specifically. My husband was not raised by his mother and really has no bond with her (lots of issues there). We encourage realtionships as much as we can, but ultimately it is up to the grandparent, in our opinion, how much of a realtionship they have. The flip side is that my parents are going to be moving up from FL to SC to be closer to their grandchildren in retirement. I see myself being this type of grandparent much more than the other.
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