Jump to content

Menu

give_me_a_latte

Members
  • Posts

    267
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by give_me_a_latte

  1. My son's handwriting is enormous! How do I work on this with him? We use HWT, and completed the last printing book earlier this school year. Since then, he's been writing across the curriculum on HWT paper. I'm hoping to start transitioning into cursive next school year but I feel like I need to get his writing to a more manageable size before then!
  2. Me :-) The crime in Savannah has really escalated in the last few years. It's a shame, really. We think twice about going into the historic district now, which is just horrible. And we definitely stay away after dark. Waaaay too many shootings. That said, we do still go down there, you just have to use common sense and know what areas to stay out of (which obviously is difficult if you're new to the area). Georgetown is a better area of Savannah. Savannah is tricky to buy in when you don't know the area. One block will be old historic mansions, and, literally the next block will be run down boarded up homes taken over by squatters. It's weird. So I'd enlist a good realtor if you're set on Savannah proper. You might also expand your search to the outlying areas....Richmond Hill, Pooler, Rincon, Guyton. Pooler is REALLY growing (an outlet mall is opening in a few months and they're building a water park...tons of new development). These areas will put you anywhere from fifteen minutes to maybe forty minutes from the heart of Savannah. Oh, and the islands....a lot of people love living on the islands, like Whitemarsh Island or Tybee Island. There are a TON Of homeschooling groups here, but mostly all are Christian. There are a few secular groups. But the more established ones are Christian.
  3. Yes, very helpful! Thank you! I think bringing out the "stuff" might help. I generally only use the tiles to introduce the concept, and for the first go round of the word list. Then the rest of the lesson (further rounds of the word list and all the extra words/phrases/sentences) I have him do on paper. I did all of AAS1 using an iPad letter tile app, because he just hates the physical act of writing. But I transitioned him to all paper writing this year. Maybe bringing the tiles out more often will help. Or even having him do more verbal spelling. That's what I do when we review with the box, and he does MUCH better that way. So maybe he's still struggling with combining the act of spelling AND writing at the same time. I talked with him about it this morning and he says he doesn't want to switch programs. He said he really doesn't even want to go back to the ipad app or verbal spelling, but I think it would probably help to at least use those options more often than I am now. I also explained to him more about pronouncing for spelling, and how important it is for him to get used to that!! :-) He seemed to understand and be willing to try again. I wonder if it would help to keep the rules posted somewhere he can easily reference?
  4. We've been camped out at AAS2 Step 4 forEVER. It's the lesson where we move into two syllable words. Suddenly, my son can't apply any of the rules and he's doing tons of madeup spelling. Like doubling i's in the middle of words and other stuff that doesn't even make sense. I've slowed waaaaay down and done tons of review. When I go through the cards, he's got it! He knows the rules. But he doesn't seem to remember how to actually apply them, or he constantly finds words that "break the rule" and he gets all sorts of confused. He also gets super upset when I "pronounce for spelling", but if I pronounce the word the right way he inevitably misspells it. I'm not sure which way to go at this point. Stay camped out or move on with AAS? Move into another curriculum? This is starting to affect his confidence in spelling and he's feeling very bad about how hard spelling has suddenly become for him.
  5. Personally, I don't think it would work. We live in the southeast and most of it doesn't even work for us. We don't really get seasons, and so much of the book is based on seasons. It's a great book, and I can still pull some stuff from it, but a lot of it just doesn't apply to our location.
  6. Somewhere on the vast Internet ;-) I found worksheets to go along with FLL2. They've been helpful....not so much that there is a lot of writing or whatnot to do on them, but instead, they give my son something to look at while we do a lesson. Many of the sentences from the book are printed on the worksheet, so he can follow along as I read. And every so often there is a little bit of work, like writing AV or N or something above the correct words in the sentence, or highlighting the helping verbs.
  7. I alternate days. The further we go in the levels, the more copy work and dictation there is to do. My son really hates those, so I thought I'd have better luck splitting them up as best I can. I do AAS with our vocab program one day, and FLL with our Latin program the next. Then repeat. We do WWE for four days one week, then do another (easier) writing program the next week. And repeat.
  8. Has anyone had any luck casting from Discovery Streaming onto the TV? If I cast from the laptop, I get the full web page on my TV, but then I can't really make the video full screen because it gets all blurry and stuff. I can't figure out how to cast it from my iPad. This was the main reason I wanted a Chromecast, so I'm kind of bummed that I'm not finding a good way to accomplish this.
  9. What have you all found to be a good prep for Cambridge? Minimus? Something else? Also, what age/grade are you starting Cambridge?
  10. Have you ruled out the Life of Fred elementary books? It took awhile, but my son eventually warmed up to Fred and enjoys the books.
  11. Thanks for the Spell it! link. I'm going to save that for later. Right now, he's a decent speller, but he doesn't enjoy it. He is a very advanced reader, and I've been looking at the MCT stuff. But I was worried that CE would be too advanced, and the other one before that would be too simple (plus, it just doesn't look meaty enough from the online samples). But I may look again at CE. It looks really good and it seems to get great reviews here on the boards. I've also looked at Vocabulit, but like you, it seems too easy. If I go with that I think I'd have to choose a few grade levels above.
  12. I'm looking for a vocab program for my advanced second grader. We did WW3000 for K and 1st, and it was light years below his level. When I look at most vocab programs for 2nd, they still seem too far below his understanding. Is there anything that would be more appropriate, without being too advanced as far as output (not too much writing or super long reading passages, etc.).
  13. It would be for my 5 and 7.5 year olds. And like I said, I have zero experience with reading music or playing an instrument. Definitely needs to be fun and engaging. Some of these look promising!
  14. I'm looking for something fun to teach us how to play piano/keyboard. None of us has any experience with reading music or playing instruments, so it needs to be very basic. Lots of handholding. Kinderbach used to be very popular on here, but I don't see it mentioned much anymore. Is there something newer and shinier out there?
  15. We spent well over a calendar year in RSA. I'd have to look at my binder to see how long it was, but I know I felt like we'd never finish and I was THRILLED when we were done!!! My son just kept hitting walls in places I didn't expect him to, so we had to camp out several times and just let things marinate. I'm so so so glad we did that, though. He's half way through RSB now and has an amazing grasp of the concepts. He might have been just fine starting in B. Who knows? But I feel that doing A at a pace that suited him gave us a lot to build on this year.
  16. Lots of great suggestions here, thank you. His pencil grip and posture are good. We've used HWT all along, and they really stress fine-tuning those things early on. He does minimal writing in math (we use RS), and since I dropped WWE I've had him do the copy work in FLL (I have the old edition). But I always choose the shortest copy work sentence. I could pull copy work from other subjects, and/or choose longer sentences. Maybe I'll start doing that gradually. It definitely helps to read everyone's experiences, though. Makes me feel better!
  17. I know, I know.....don't compare a homeschool child's writing to a public school child's. I know that most homeschool writing programs (especially WWE) build necessary skills and will pay off later, even if the kids aren't "journaling" or what have you in the early years. But. BUT.... My son is 7.5. He hates handwriting. He can do it, but he loathes it. We were using WWE until the new rec's came out and I felt justified in setting it aside for now ;-) It was another one that he could do, but loathed. When he does a narration, sometimes he'll go on and on and on and I'm scribbling furiously to catch up. I know this counts as writing, especially in the BW mindset. But. BUT.... A friend had her daughter over a few weeks ago and she's about a month or two younger than my son. She wrote a story and gave it to us. It's a no joke story. Fully handwritten. Mostly all spelled correctly. I about died. And then today I'm poking around the Hive, and I'm noticing what kind of writing others are seeing from their 8 year olds....and I'm starting to worry! Am I missing the boat here? I can't even fathom having him write independently for ten minutes or so. At this point, I can't even imagine asking him to write anything independently. He does copy work, but like I said, he hates it. Should I be requiring more?! I keep reminding myself not to compare him with the public school kid. And I keep thinking maybe those in here who are taking about their 8 year olds and writing are actually talking about their almost-9-year-olds!!! Maybe?! In all seriousness....am I being too lax with writing?
  18. Would you share what they tell you about placement? I love the idea of the program, but I'm not sure if you'd have to start at the beginning or not.
  19. I love all these suggestions. Thank you all! Keep them coming if there are more!
  20. I don't see these on Netflix. Not even to order as DVDs. Is "Fabric of the Cosmos" the correct title?
  21. Thanks for all the suggestions! He's seven, so some of these are still a little much for him. The George books and Uncle Albert books might be a good place to start, though.
  22. My son has become interested in these things. I don't even know the right words for them. From a google search it seems it may be relativity? He watches YouTube videos of scientists discussing worm holes, and space time, and things of that nature. I was hoping to find a simple (ha!) book that might appeal to him, but obviously I'm just finding books written for intro high school or college students. Any suggestions? I could handle his dinosaur fascination and his Titanic phase, but I'm out of my league on this one!
  23. We are HUGE PLAYMOBIL people over here. I mean, our house is quite literally overrun with them. The pyramid is currently on my dining room table ;-) When my son was younger, I thought I had all the time in the world to buy the cool history sets. Then I sadly realized one day that the Egypt and Roman sets were gone from the website. So, lesson learned. I bought all that I could as they cleared off the Egypt line, but I had to get the pyramid off EBay. I still haven't found any of the Roman stuff.... So, point being, if I see a line I want, I buy it up as soon as it comes out. Then I stockpile it away for Christmas and birthdays. We recently did this with the dinosaurs, and my Mom ended up getting him the prehistoric/cavemen sets. I LOVE how they make history come alive for him. He mixes the sets, too. So he comes up with some great ideas about Blackbeard and Johnny Appleseed discovering the pyramid, etc. so even if you can only get ahold of some of the extras from the history sets, they will still get used!
  24. This is exactly where my concern lies. I think the activities in The Wand may not be appropriate for his level. But I also think the activities in the higher levels would be too writing intensive. Like your daughter, my son HATES copywork. He also hates handwriting work. It's not that he struggles with it....he can do it just fine. He just HATES it. So I'm thinking if I go with the higher BW levels I may be shooting myself in the foot. Right now I think I'm leaning towards trying Jot it Down first. If all goes well, I can try to figure out whether Wand or Arrow would be better for him. And heck, if Wand ends up being a bad fit, it might work for my youngest in a year or so. I've read where others say you could implement Jot it Down without utilizing other aspects of BW, so maybe that's a great starting point.... I just wish I could have all the pieces in front of me and flip around, back and forth.
  25. Okay, "placement" was the wrong word. I know levels are a fluid thing in homeschooling ;-) I just figured that was the quickest way to verbalize what I was trying to ask. So it seems like The Arrow is definitely not going to work for us now. My son already gets dramatic with the short copywork in WWE, so longer copywork/dictation isn't going to happen! I've read in several places that The Wand ramps up and that the sample (yes, Hop on Pop!) isn't really representative. So hmm. I think I'm pretty much sold on getting Jot it Down. I think that will help him see that writing isn't just a neverending series of monotonous copywork and narrations. Bless his heart, I fear he'll be so turned off to writing by WWE and I don't want that to happen. BUT I really don't want to stop using WWE. So Jot it Down may just work for us. I kind of think I'm not going to really "get it" until I have the books in my hands. Which is why I asked what level would be most appropriate. I don't want to over buy or under buy at this point. And I don't want to dismiss a program that could work for us because I bought the wrong level to look through, KWIM?
×
×
  • Create New...