Gwenny
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Posts posted by Gwenny
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Spalding is too complicated for me. I tried it last year, but we really struggled.
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Is it possible to teach AAS using only the teacher's manual? I'm on a tight budget and am trying to cut costs where I can. My son will likely hate the letter tiles anyway, but I'm willing to make my own if need be. Is there anything else in the starter pack that must be purchased?
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Thank you 3andme! I've been on the CLE website many times looking at math, but never realized they had the skill development books. They have one for Geometry and one for Algebra. And they sound like they cover exactly the kind of problems we have yet to cover in SU. I think I might have her work through those and the rest of SU book 2 and then take the placement test for CLE.
What is the typical grade for a child to start Algebra now? When I was in high school, we did Algebra in 9th. Now, my nephew took it in 7th with a few taking it in 6th.
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mama25angels, I originally had planned to work through all 3 SU books before moving her on to something else. The problem is that she is going so slowly that by the time she gets to a review section, she has forgotten how to do the problems. That makes her feel dumb, and then she doesn't even attempt to solve it.
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I need to find a math program for my dd that will be starting 7th grade next year. She is currently working through Strayer-Upton Practical Arithmethics book 2 (about half-way through). So that would mean she is currently finishing up what is intended to be their 5th grade year. I'd like her to work through the remainder of the book during the summer and start a new program in the fall, but have no idea where to start. I don't want to ditch the book yet, as it really seems to focus on basic arithmetic so well. I somehow reached adulthood (always graduating with honors, mind you) with no knowledge of how to do basic arithmetic and I hate for her to be hindered in the same way.
I have the third book in the series, but my dd really needs more review. She'll completely forget something if not reviewed enough. My son is doing CLE for second grade, and does great with it. He is far less able in math, but still can grasp concepts on grade level. My dd is very bright and understands concepts easily, but is working a year behind in math. I feel like if I had her in CLE from the start, she would be doing so much better. Instead, she is frustrated in math and hates it. I'm thinking of switching DD to CLE next year, but am unsure whether it is a good choice to continue into high school. I'd rather pick a math program and stick with it through high school.
Looking through the CLE placement tests was extremely discouraging. Practical Arithmetics does not cover many of the concepts tested at all. For instance, in my son's second grade CLE, they discuss basic geometry, but my dd knows very little of it. She would miss nearly all of the geometry and pre-algebra questions. It's not she couldn't easily learn it or grasp it if had been introduced, but it's completely new to her.
Should I start her in CLE 600 (or lower) for her 7th grade year? Are their Algebra and Geometry for high school good choices? It seems everyone switches over to something else at that point.
I feel like I've really failed her. If she were a public school kid, she'd likely be advanced in academics, but instead, she feels like a failure (especially in math).
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Maybe it's the common practice of the area? The school buses come down the street and there are swing sets in yards here, but I've never seen any other kids outside except for the previously mentioned neighbors. It seems the people in the area don't let them go outside. One of our neighbors even seemed alarmed that I let my kids play in the woods because there could be snakes. Yes, I know there are snakes, but it seems a sad childhood to never play in the woods, climb trees, or ride your bike. As a kid, I played outside, all day, completely unattended. We played in the woods, rode our bikes (no helmets even), and walked across a major road to 7-eleven. I'm sure we did plenty of dumb things, but I don't think the risk was too great. Children die in car accidents and we don't stop driving them around with us. The get hurt in sports and countless other activities but we still enroll them. Surely abduction has lower rates?
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The police came because they received a call from a neighbor. There are no known pedophiles or anything, but he mentioned that farm equipment goes down the road. It's true that trucks carrying hay and the occasional tractor or horse goes down the road.
During our first week here, a neighbor from down the road came by to tell me my kids were in the street. My son was on scooter, and my daughter (11), was on foot beside him. My kids are the skittish, scared type, and ran to the side of the road when she passed and were not in the way of her car. She told us then that the police have had to be called out several times for the family across the street because they let their kids ride and play near the road and in the ditches. It's likely she is the one who calls, as it would be difficult for her to know about police activity at the home when she lives a mile down the road. Her reason for not wanting them walking or riding on the road was the farm equipment, which makes me think it was her that called this time as well. The police came out recently for the family across the street because the children were walking down the street "unattended". One of the "children" was their 18 year old sister. She's old enough to have children of her own and as the oldest of a family of 9, I'd say she was qualified to walk them down the street.
I don't think that it helped that my son was with 2 of the kids (8 and 11) from across the street when the police came. When I asked if my son was in the street when he drove past, it said "no, he rode into the ditch". He then stated that one of the neighbor's kids didn't and could have been hit.
He said the next time I could be fined, so I suppose I need to look into if bike riding is truly illegal here or neglectful on my part. My suspicion is that the neighbor is a busybody and should mind her own business.
My kids are devastated. They are angry that we moved them out here to the country and now that can't even ride bikes.
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The police came by my house today because my son (age 8) was riding his bike down the side of the road. He was less than 3 minutes from home, wearing a helmet, and riding along the edge of the road. We've just moved to this county and I really didn't think it too dangerous. The road is 35 mph (of course cars go faster), but he pulls over to the ditch or grassy area when he hears a car. After riding with the kids 2 miles 3x/week to speech at the neighborhood school over the last 3 years, I felt he would be okay and understood the "rules of the road".
So I what I'm wondering is, when can I let my kids (11 and 8) to ride down the road alone? The road is a 2 mile dead end country road and we live about halfway down the road. There are no sidewalks, but much less traffic than a suburban neighborhood as the houses are all on many acres each. There is no yellow dividing line down the middle of the road if that helps you understand the type of road it is.
I asked the police officer where they can ride their bikes and he said parking lots. I'm sure he meant empty ones, but then the police would come to tell me the church or whatever complained.
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In the past, we have ordered the CAT through seton testing services. This year, the test for 1st grade is unavailable. Where else can I get it for $25? I found a website called Christian Liberty, but it said to order the grade the child is going into, not the one just completed. From Seton, I've always ordered the test for the year just completed.
I'm moving in less than a month, so the ability to print out the scores would be helpful if the turn around time is slow. But, taking an online test would be traumatic for my kids. Especially my daughter with EXTREME test anxiety.
Also, I only have an associate's degree.
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We are moving 2 hours away in a month and I need diy moving ideas. My first thought was renting a U-Haul and driving our stuff up there. Since then I've realized that we need to be out of this house a few days before we could close on the next house and move in. What do I do with our belongs for the few days between? Can you rent storage units for such a short time?
The house we are moving into is vacant. Is it ever possible to move your belongings in a few days before closing? Not unpacking, just getting them in.
Also, we are on a tight budget. I like the idea of pods, but that seems expensive.
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Tomorrow, the potential buyers of my home are having a mold and moisture test done. I can't stop worrying about this. I haven't seen mold, but I'm afraid they will find some and I'll never sell this house.
If there was mold in my walls, how would it enter the home? Can it penetrate plaster walls? Wouldn't you see it if it did? Wouldn't the plaster crumble or appear moist or soft? Would we feel sick if we did have mold? Or maybe my daily kale/vegetable juice just makes me immune.
Should I start cleaning like crazy? Maybe that would give me something to do other than look up mold on the internet and worry.
The realtor said they will spray my 26 year old windows and 56 year old house with a hose, and then use a meter to check for moisture entering the house. This doesn't leave me optimistic at all.
I'm never moving again as long as I live. People need to stop expecting perfection from a low-end 56 year old house.
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One of the main reasons I don't want to let them do this is that if they find mold, they won't buy it. I'd then have to disclose the fact that there is mold to all other buyers. No one will want to buy a house with mold. It's an old starter home and I think the chances of finding mold are pretty high. I know the door frame will be hard to return to original condition, because I had to do a lot of patching on it. There was a screen door attached to it previously. The screen door blew off in a hurricane and we decided not to replace it. The metal frame the screen door was attached to left areas I had to fill in with wood filler.
The buyers must be pretty serious, because they are willing to pay for this. In addition, they are here out of state and really seem to want this wrapped up quickly. They had the inspection the day after we signed the offer.
In this price range, we have one of the nicest homes, so I hope that will help encourage them to continue despite my refusing to let them do their inspection. They can walk away, but they may have to settle for a less renovated/updated home.
Thanks for the suggestion of an air quality test. I think that would be more valuable to them anyway. Even if mold was present in the wall below the window, I couldn't understand how it would get into the air. It would have to penetrate the plaster walls, wouldn't it? The fact that the plaster is intact suggest to me that there couldn't be too much moisture entering through the window flashing. Plaster is famous for crumbling and falling apart when wet.
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My house is only 56 years old, but I can think of many "joys" of owning an older house:
No three pronged outlets
Plaster walls that crumble when you look at them hard and are hard to repair
pink tub
1 bathroom
fogged windows
fireplace that I used for 14 years is now deemed dangerous because of the fake brick surround
rats in attic (that chewed through everything in sight)
termite damage that happened many homeowners ago
lights blow for no apparent reason
nothing's grounded properly
just had home inspection and the repair list is WAY too long and silly
small closets
incredibly small bedroom (barely legal)
uneven walls
nothing's level
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The potential buyers of our house just did a home inspection. They think the windows may have let water seep into the wall and want to take the window wrap (think that's what they called it) off and poke around inside the wall to look for mold. They also said my side door lacks z flashing (no clue what that is), and they want to take the molding and frame apart to look for mold. The say they will return it to original condition after they are done. I doubt they will because I just caulked, patched, and painted that door frame weeks ago. I can't imagine the inspector re-caulking and re-painting it for me after he replaces it. Plus, at 56 years old, I doubt he's even going to get the frame off in one piece.
Doesn't this seem excessive? The buyer has bad lungs, and truthfully, I think she'd be better off buying new construction. You can't expect mold and rat free perfection from an old house.
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After moping around feeling like my house would never sell, we did have another showing this evening. Another couple sat out front for 5 minutes and took pictures with their phones.
TranquilMind, there really isn't a sensible place for another bathroom. The house is a simple rectangle and taking any space from a bedroom would make them tiny. One neighbor with the same house did put a toilet in the utility room, but it looked really out of place sitting beside the water heater, washer/dryer, and heat/AC unit. The houses in my neighborhood were built around 1960 and 1 bathroom must of been the norm for back then.
I'm hoping the large yards in my neighborhood will help sell it. In our area, if you want a 3 bedroom house for our $169,000 asking price, your only options are a condo, townhouse, or something in an older neighborhood like mine. I need a single man who needs a nice sized yard for his dog. I don't know anyone else that would only want 1 bathroom.
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Thanks! I guess I may be panicking a little too soon. I really think it's priced right. 2 houses in my neighborhood have sold for the same price recently and mine has a few more updates and a detached garage. When I checked just a few minutes ago, my house is on Zillow and it's listed as a "featured" home on the websites that do that.
Looks like I need to ask my realtor about when he plans to do a realtors open house.
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Our house just went on the market Thursday night, and I'm starting to worry that we aren't getting enough showings. I realize that the listing takes a little time to show up on all the websites, but I feel like we should've had more than the 1 showing we had today. Our realtor had told us that we should expect a lot of traffic today and tomorrow, but nothing is scheduled for tomorrow and we just had 1 showing today.
The pictures were done by a professional, and look good. We rented a storage unit and stored more than half of everything we own. We have fresh paint, new carpet, new roof, new gutters, new light fixtures, an updated kitchen and bathroom, and it's super clean. Yard is neat and full of flowers.
I think the main deterrent is that we have only 1 bathroom in a 3 bedroom, 1250 sq. ft home. I don't think anyone searching online would ever put down that they want only 1 bathroom in the search criteria. Do you think that might be preventing people from even seeing my home when they search? Since there is no way to add a second bath, I don't know what to do.
Or is it possible that I'm just starting to worry about too early in the game.
I hear about people getting offers within days of listing. I can't even get someone in to look and I've put SO much effort into making it look nice. If this drags on, I may lose my sanity. Especially if I'm this antsy after a couple of days.
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I wouldn't worry about it yet.
My daughter aspires to drop out as soon as legally possible and become a "crazy cat lady." Sadly, I can totally picture her in a filthy house full of cats and hoarded junk.
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Like I said, I wouldn't send them to public school, but I do fantasize about it. In my fantasy, they would hate school and beg to return home. After their return, they would be model students who can't wait to start their day. Sort of like when your dishwasher or washing machine breaks and you have to wash everything by hand. When the dishwasher is finally fixed a year later, you really appreciate all the work it's doing for you.
It's definitely a discipline problem, but I need a plan and I need to stick to it. My son gets 1/2 hr of video games/day, and I take that away for whining about school work. That helps, but every day he wakes to whine again. My daughter is harder as I can't think of anything to take away except time with friends. The way she behaves, she'll never leave the house.
I often see it written that a behavior will not be tolerated. What exactly do you do when the intolerable behavior is done? I can say that I won't tolerate the tears, but I can't stop them from flowing. For example, my daughter is reviewing long division, she understands it completely, but simply hates it. As soon as I pull out the book, she starts crying. What exactly do I say and do? I could tell her that she won't get to play outside today because of her behavior, but that won't stop the tears and whining.
When I first started homeschooling, I was always trying to find the right curriculum, but I've long since given up. I've never found a single subject that my kids enjoy. They truly hate any type of work. My daughter loves to read, but that's all. My son doesn't like anything. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have a kid ask to do schoolwork. Are there really kids that want to do long division or outline a paragraph?
I need a book that will tell me exactly what to say and how to respond to their behavior. And I know that to those reading this, my kids sound really rotten, but they are actually great kids otherwise.
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I know I'd never do it, but I am incredibly tempted to put my 2 kids into public school. I feel like they need at least a 3 month "sentence" to straighten them out. The amount of whining they do is astonishing! Every single subject (no matter how easy it is) is met with protest. After simply opening the grammar book and looking at the lesson, my daughter started to cry! And we hadn't even started it! She cries and whines at EVERY subject. She even cried today because I wanted her to read. This is a girl who reads for HOURS every day; even while eating and brushing teeth. I'd blame it on puberty, but my 7 year old son is no happier. We only school for a few hours/day so they really do far less work than a public school kid. I wish I had the guts to send them to school for the rest of the year so they'd realize how good they have it made.
If you had a kid that cried and fussed over everything subject (and chore), how would you respond? What do you say? I've no clue and it just makes me angry. I know getting angry isn't the answer, but I don't know what sort of punishments to try. I've tried to be calm and walk away, but then the work isn't getting done. I really stink at "fostering a love for learning" and all that.
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Thanks for all of your replies! From what many of you advise, I think I'll find realtors to interview after Thanksgiving. I kinda hate for them to see the house in its cluttered state, but I hate to waste time and money on updates that don't need to be done.
I've seen it mentioned a couple of times to offer allowances for carpet. I know it's not the "in" flooring right now and that some will just rip it out. But ours is in a pretty sad state and the bedrooms/den carpet are over 15 years old. Will the average home owner be able to see past that and be able to envision the house with new carpet? When we had the living room and hallway replaced years ago (from a 30ish year old carpet), I was amazed at how much better it made the whole house look. It seemed to make everything look cleaner.
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Blondeviolin, we too have a lot of foreclosures in our area. My neighborhood isn't a slum, but it's definitely on the lower end of the spectrum. But on the other hand, so many of the houses are being renovated or flipped that it really seems to be improving. Looking online through the other houses in my area, I'm surprised by how many of them have granite counters and tiled showers. I'd never expect such small, modest starter homes to have that. Does everyone expect granite now, regardless of income?
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Lolly, I agree. The houses in my area seem to start out a bit overpriced and then they keep cutting the price repeatedly over the next several months. I'd much rather price it right to start with and have it sell quickly. At least I don't have to worry about taking a loss as we bought so long ago and we are only a couple of years from paying it off.
The house 2 doors down is identical to mine and went on the market a month ago and now they are offering it for sale or rent. This really worries me. It's very similar to mine but with an extra half bath added. I was hoping that if it would sell quickly, then it would be a good sign mine would sell quickly too. Evidently not. At least by spring when ours is on the market, the daffodils and irises will be blooming and the garden and landscaping will look good. The garden has a cottage garden feel that's at its best in spring. But then on the other hand, some will be turned off by the upkeep of the flower beds.
I know I can't please every buyer, but I'd like to appeal to the majority.
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So, not too early to get a Realtor? How do I pick one? I'm afraid I'm super-picky when it comes to what I want in a Realtor. In addition to being a wonderful Realtor, I need them to be a woman, a photographer, and a home stager. How do I do that when there are so many to choose from? I've seen plenty I don't want, though.
Spelling - Charlotte Mason memory box style?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I'm trying to work through how to implement spelling this year. I considered AAS, but I really shouldn't spend the money on another spelling program when I already have several. Plus, my son just wants to be done with schoolwork quickly and then head into the woods. Fiddling with letter tiles is probably not for him.
I currently own The Writing Road to Reading, the How to Teach Spelling manual, and Natural Speller. I'd love to use TWTR, but I'm just not that clever. Same goes for How to Teach Spelling.
The idea I'm toying with now is to use Charlotte Mason's memory box with our spelling words. We use a memory box for memorizing poems, skip counting, and other things and have had great success with it. The kids can recite countless poems and facts and with little work or either of our parts. My 12 year old can still recite every poem we've learned since she was 5. Why not pick one of the books I already have, use their lists, then put the words into a new spelling memory box as we go? I can then progress them through daily, every other day, weekly, and then monthly.
Anyone done something like this? Any suggestions on how to study the new words. When we do our usual memory work, I just read the new poem 3 times/day and have them repeat what they can each day. After they have it memorized, I move it along the progression to once/month. But with spelling, I feel I need to do some kind of activity with each word set first.