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brookspr

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Everything posted by brookspr

  1. My soon-to-be 12 yo son is much the same way. We had some gems from this year's history studies where he was really interested and wanted to learn more about certain topics so I've decided for next year to ditch the curriculum and do month-long studies on some of our favorites. We brainstormed together and came up with King Arthur, major world wars, evolution of weaponry, inventions that changed the world, great battles of the ancient world, to start. Yes, my son loves to study fighting and everything that goes along with it :) So I am going to use that to my advantage that he will actually be interested in the topic and want to study it. I will incorporate IEW writing lessons into each topic and we will probably read a classic book each month that corresponds to the time period we are studying so I can introduce literary analysis. After our first year of homeschooling I have decided that it isn't as important to teach history in chronological order, nor is it important to study EVERYTHING about history. Focusing on a few topics in depth that he is actually interested in will work much better for us.
  2. I've read it twice in the last two years and I've decided I need to buy it and the Well Educated Mind to have on the bookshelf instead of just borrowing it from the library.
  3. Any update on when the Medieval World guide will be ready? I am hoping to use it with my freshman daughter in the fall. I LOVE the book, and could probably make a go of it on my own, but a guide would be so helpful.
  4. We are done as well. DS will do an online IEW course this summer and he and DD will be doing Ellen McHenry's Cells. I hope to also start Latin soon. The weather is FINALLY nice here after a VERY long winter in Chicago, so I can't help but let them play outside and enjoy it! I also want time to work in my garden and plant veggies and flowers. Enjoy your summer!!!
  5. I'm always confused when I hear that it's all or nothing with high school. Our high school will let our daughter attend part time and take as many or few classes as she wants. Now, she cannot get a diploma from the high school without fulfilling all of their requirements and they do not take home schooled class credits. But we are just going to submit a home school transcript and one from the high school when she applies to college. Even if she were to stay home for two years and attend full time for two years, we would do the same thing. Do some schools not allow a student to attend if he/she is not planning on earning a diploma?
  6. My dd just made that decision this year, and it was made easier by the high school allowing her to attend part-time. Having been in public school before also helped. At first she wanted to go full time (for social reasons), then not at all. Part-time will be the best of both worlds, she will do band (which is a graded class) and one or two other classes (TBD) and still be able to participate in all of the activities and clubs as if she were a regular student.
  7. If you want an easy read and tips that are really do-able, read Food Rules by Michael Pollan. Anything by Michael Pollan is wonderful, but this is a short book with great, simple tips for healthy eating.
  8. I was searching the internet for classical education podcasts and interviews, my new favorite thing to listen to, and I came across this website called LearnOutLoud.com which is full of audio and video recordings on a wide variety of topics. I was wondering if anyone has used this resource and what they thought about the material. Is it on par with the Great Courses material? There are many free podcasts and audio/video lectures and also ones you can pay to download. There are also free downloads of audiobooks, classics, modern, ancient, etc… Probably more, as I just found it and started browsing a few minutes ago. Wanted to come over to the message boards because I knew someone must be using this resource and can tell us more about it. Passing it along in case anyone else is interested in learning more. www.learnoutloud.com
  9. I personally think that kids should still be playing in kindergarten and not worrying about learning how to read and write. Imaginative play does so much to develop a child's brain! Kids will also pick up reading, writing, and math much faster if you wait a couple of years and introduce it when they are 7-8. I wish I hadn't put my son in preschool when he was 4 and just kept him home with me for a while reading to him and playing.
  10. We used it this year and did the lessons together. We would read the passages and then my kids would find the corrections and mark them on the student copy. The next day they do the re-write and find the dress-ups and sentence openers. We are also using IEW writing programs, which is why we included that part. Then they would do the rest of the work on the third day, which changed from definitions to tricky words, and so on, depending on the lesson. It took no more than 15 minutes a day and was part of our other reading/writing lessons. I am seriously considering getting the new version because of the wonderful updates they have made to the program.
  11. I was also a scientist in my former working life and, for me, labs were what really got me interested in science, even as far back as elementary school. I am definitely a hands-on learner, in college I had a harder time in the book-only classes but eased through my labs. IMO, science labs are invaluable to truly understanding how things work.
  12. Any suggestions on how I can convince my hubby to continue with Saxon for our two kids? He is solely in charge of math because he is so much better at explaining it in a way they understand than I am. I also wanted him to be fully vested in homeschooling and responsible for part of their education. This was our first year homeschooling DD 13 (8th grade) and DS 11 (6th grade). DD used Algebra 1 and DS did Saxon 7/6. Both have done well with the material but neither one of them likes the program. I honestly believe that any math program would be met with the same dislike, neither of my kids has ever enjoyed doing math even though they are both good at it. Saxon is really boring to them because there is so much review in each lesson, they feel it is a waste of their time. I get that, but they fly through the lessons so fast I kind of feel like telling them to just suck it up and deal with it. Hubby wants to change it up for next year with a non-spiraling curriculum. I don't think he has done any research on what's out there, so I can't say what he would rather use, but I think the Saxon approach will be good for both of them long term when it comes to remembering and executing the material. Having said that, I don't think DD will be going into any type of STEM program, she is heavily interested in music and possibly literature/writing of some kind. DS may need that math for some kind of science field, but it's really too early to tell. I don't want to make it sound like I don't care about math, I was a scientist in my previous working life, but even I did not use much higher math in my job. I think they need to do math and get into a good college program but not necessarily need to know how to solve an integral when they are 30 :) I guess I'm looking for some info on long term success of Saxon or recommendations for other programs that don't have so much review in each lesson.
  13. I'm just lurking here getting ideas for 10th grade studies but thought I'd respond sine we have used a couple of lessons in the EIL guides this year. DD is in 8th grade and loves to read and write. We chose two books that went along with her history studies at the end of this year to see if she would like the program, I bought the whole bundle used so I was hoping it would be a hit! It is a well designed program that doesn't just jump into reading the book right away. Each lesson is done over four weeks and the first week is usually reading background info on the author and the time period. They read the book over the next week or two and do several writing assignments along the way. There is also a final writing assignment at the end. While they are reading the book, they also encourage them to watch the movie (if there is one) and look at other resources to help them further understand the book. The first lesson my daughter did was Julius Caesar, so she did some research on Shakespeare, wrote a brief author profile, read the book, re-wrote Brutus' speech, translated part of the book into modern English, and did a position paper on whether Brutus was selfless or not. She also watched the play on DVD and the Great Courses lesson on Julius Caesar. All in all it went very well, she enjoyed working independently and also did very well on the written assignments. One thing I would like to add for next year is more discussion about the book, so I'm hoping to get ahead and read some of the books over the summer. My hubby has read many of them as well, and can fill in where I might slack :) The last lesson she is doing before the end of our year is Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. She's not enjoying the book very much, in her words he does too much character development and the story isn't going anywhere. She keeps saying it's got to get better soon. We are not going to do the books in order of the curriculum, but assign books that go with her history studies, which next year will be the Medieval and Renaissance. There is also an "honors" track which assigns a second book in addition to the first, usually written by the same author, which could be a nice option if they don't enjoy the first book much. I hope this helps!
  14. You can still get in on the Critical Thinking Company 40% off coupon. https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/the-critical-thinking-co-groupbuy/?source=132212 The coupon is good on one purchase and expires mid-June.
  15. My daughter will be going to high school part-time next year, taking band and one or two other classes. If she wanted to get a diploma from the high school, she would have to make up required classes she did not take there and have enough credits in order to graduate. We are just going to get a transcript from our school for the classes taken there and add it to a transcript we make of her homeschool classes when she applies to college.
  16. This is also our first year of homeschooling, with an 11yo boy and 13yo girl. When we made the decision as a family to home school, it was with the understanding that we would continue as long as everyone was still happy with the arrangement. If one of the kids wants to go back to public school, we will have that discussion. If not, we are committed to homeschooling thru high school. My daughter is actually going to go to the public high school part time next year to take band and one other class. The rest we will do at home. At first she wanted to go full time, then not at all, and after we found out part time would be an option that is what we all decided would be best. If things go well and she wants to take more classes there next year, she can. If it doesn't go well and she wants to stay home full time, that's fine, too. My son thinks he wants to go to the public high school, but he was always young for his grade because of a move and difference in cut-offs for kindergarten, so he wants to take an extra year at home and enter high school with kids his age. He may change his mind about that in the next two years, but that's his plan for now and we support it.
  17. Here is a link if anyone is interested in the HSBC coupon. https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/the-critical-thinking-co-groupbuy/?source=132212
  18. The Homeschool Buyers Co-op website has an offer for a coupon up to 40% off of a future Critical Thinking Company order. They charge $1 service fee to sign up for the offer. The more people that sign up for the coupon, the higher the discount with a maximum of 40%. The coupon code will be good through June 30, 2014. This offer is only good in the US and Canada. The coupon will become active 5 days after the deepest discount (40%) is reached or the end of the offer (5/31). https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/the-critical-thinking-co-groupbuy/?source=132212 My kids have enjoyed the Building Thinking Skills Verbal and Figural books, so I will be stocking up for next year with the coupon. Feel free to pass it around.
  19. I have personally used sodium metal many times during and after getting a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and would not want to have any significant amount of the stuff in my home. WAY too many things can go wrong. It is EXTREMELY dangerous and should only be used under protective conditions like a ventilated hood with a safety shield. I would, as another poster suggested, contact a local high school or community college/university science department and ask if they would be willing to do a demo for your child. Perhaps you could make a field trip out of it for other home schooled families. There is no way I would ever do an experiment like this inside my home (softball sized hole in the ceiling as EndOfOrdinary mentioned anyone???) and outside is not any safer. Please find a well controlled, safe laboratory to do the experiment for you.
  20. The Multum non Multa talk was by Christopher Perrin. Here is a link to it on YouTube. Multum non Multa - YouTube
  21. I've only been homeschooling for a year and have recently read the WTM and the Well Educated Mind. For my dd13 next year we will be doing history and literature together. We will be using both of Susan Wise Bauer's History of the World Medieval and Renaissance books (1 each semester) along with a little of Speilvogel's World History. I also have the full Excellence in Literature program, so I will be picking books that correspond to the history she is studying instead of going thru the program as written for each year. We have been trying it out for the last two months and it has worked out well. The Excellence in Lit book study is one month per book. We haven't been spending one month on each history lesson, more like 2 weeks, but next year we will be going deeper into the Medieval and Renaissance periods, so I think it will work well. For example, when she was studying ancient Rome and Greece (2 weeks each), she did the lit lesson on Julius Caesar. Her last subject of the year is the early Medieval period so she is reading Sir Walter Scott's book, Ivanhoe. Each month of lit study includes several written assignments, author studies, and time period studies. We also discuss the book after she has read it. This was motivated by many of the Circe forum posts and listening to many classical education podcasts lately :) It's another reason we won't be covering many time periods in history, I listed to the "Multum Non Multa" podcast and really liked the much not many approach to learning. In addition to the writing from the Excellence in Lit program, dd will be doing more IEW writing, finishing SWI-C. We may also incorporate some Windows to the World lit/writing outside of the history lessons as she loves to read and write. There will be a little grammar thrown in here and there as well. Her plan is to work on history and literature three days a week for 3-4 hours a day and then do math and Latin the rest of the day. The other two days she will focus on biology and do math, Latin and logic.
  22. Welcome to the boards! I am a first time home schooler this year with an 11 and 13yo. The 13yo would have been in 8th grade this year. I can tell you what eventually worked for us, but I think that each child is different and you might need to let your son figure out what kind of schedule works best for him. We started rather slowly, adding things in as we went along. We didn't start math until October and science soon after. We are just about to start Latin now and will continue lessons over the summer. When the school year started, I gave my daughter a checklist of what she was to do for the next two weeks, since the curriculum we chose together was organized in two week units. I wanted her to figure out what worked for her in terms of planning each week. At first it was hard for her, she kept asking me what to do. She was so used to having a teacher tell her what to read and how much and then do this or that assignment that it was hard for her at first to take control of her lessons. Eventually she figured it out with a little help from me and started making her own weekly schedule, working around any outside activities we had planned during the day. We are still working in two week units, although we have moved to WTM-based lessons using SWB history books and great literature, conceptual science, math and music. She kind of follows a block schedule, working on some subjects only 2-3 times a week but for 2-3 hour at a time. She feels comfortable doing this with history and literature and we will probably continue that with science and Latin next year when she is a freshman. My 11yo likes to have each day's assignments written on a white board so he can cross them out as he does them. He is not as motivated to finish his work as my daughter, he would do all of the easy work at the beginning of the week and save all of the hard stuff for Thursday and Friday if I let him. An assignment is an assignment to him, he doesn't see one as any more important or time consuming than another. I help him make a daily schedule from the weekly assignments I give. Next year we will also be working toward a block schedule and instead of weekly assignments, we will be working on monthly units like King Arthur or great world wars for history and literature, or plant and animal cells for science. We may try to work off of a weekly schedule and give him more responsibility for making sure everything gets done each week. We will have to see how it goes. I guess my advice is to be flexible and change things up if they are not working. There is no one right way, it's whatever works for you and your child.
  23. Same here. My daughter didn't return to middle school this year after being in public school thru 7th grade. The middle school was very supportive and allowed her to continue in the band program, which meets outside of school hours. She goes to the school for any in-school performances like pep rallies and she goes on all of the band field trips. Next year she will go to the high school part time, mostly to participate in band. Band is a credited class during the school day and they were very receptive to her attending for as many or few classes as she wanted. I was kind of surprised when they so easily agreed. When I talked to her counselor he was not very hopeful ("I've never heard of anyone doing that in my 20+ years here…") so we were very happy that the assistant principal said it would be no problem. Can't hurt to ask! If that's not an option and your child is of high school age, we have several community bands that accept high school or older musicians. The local community college concert band also takes high school aged kids. My daughter was going to be in one or the other of those if the high school wasn't receptive to part time attendance.
  24. We live in northern IL and my dd will be attending the local public HS part time next year for band and one or two elective classes that we cannot do at home, such as speech and debate or music theory. This HS will not count any homeschool classes towards a diploma so we will have to either make our own transcript for homeschooled classes or dd would have to make up classes missed in summer school if, for some reason, we would want her to get her diploma from the HS. I don't see this happening, so we will just make up our own transcript and also get one from the school for classes taken there. I am not sure if other high schools would accept homeschooled classes or not or if it is a state thing, but I would talk to the school and see what your options are.
  25. My husband is very supportive of homeschooling, we wouldn't be doing it if both of us weren't 100% invested in the process. He does all of the math instruction with the kids and also many science-y projects like building a reverb pedal for my daughter's bass or working on the Lego Mindstorms robot with our son. We both have science degrees, so it's not like I couldn't do science or math, but I told him from the beginning I can't do it all by myself so you can do math :) I do most of the curriculum choosing but do pass it by him to make sure he is on board. He also leads discussions with both kids on the history and literature they are studying. If I ask him to do something, like take the kids to a class on a Friday since he gets out of work early, he always does. He drives my daughter to dance class or takes her to her flute lesson during the week. He is also involved with my son's boy scout troop as camping coordinator. Basically, if I ask, he will do it. He doesn't always think about doing it himself (especially chores around the house!) but he will gladly help out if asked.
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