Annabel Lee
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Posts posted by Annabel Lee
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Whenever I've tried to come here for the last month or so, the forums appear in a strange format on my screen. I've attached a screenshot of what it looks like. How can I fix this?
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How are Saxon and Lial's alike for Pre-Agegra, and how are they different? Does one cover more than the other? Is one lacking in way compared to the other? What are the pros & cons of each?
Thanks!
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The main WWS assignments thread said to post here for help, critique, and suggestions on dc's writing, if I understand correcty.
This dc is newly 13, and this assignment is from is Writing With Skill Week 1 Day 3. He had a hard time breaking up some of his ideas for the initial list of 6 or 7 phrases or short sentences. Some of his sentences & phrases for this list included compound sentences. Here was his original list, typed exacty as written:
"*Peter wanted ships for trading, and for a navy. *He needed to capture Azov *for a port. *Azov had ships to give them food and ammunition, while Peter's men were low on them. *Peter built a navy and *stopped the ships from coming and *they took the city."
When I reminded him it was supposed to be 6 or 7 short sentences or phrases, he couldn't come up with anything else. I showed him how he already had them within what he wrote (each short bit marked with a *). Then, I helped him clarify the content. I told him when introducing someone for the first time in writing, he needs be most specific at first and can then reference the person with a pronoun or shorter version of their name after that. I told him it needs to specify something about the Turks, as he didn't mention them. With much hand-holding and guidance (I focused on having him clarify what he was conveying, asking "Who did he want to trade with", "Whose ships?" and such), this is his final product, typed as written:
"Peter the Great of Russia wanted ships for trading with the west, and for a navy. He needed to capture Azov for a port. Turkish ships constantly sailed into Azov with food and ammo, while Peter's men were low on them. Peter built a navy, which stopped the Turkish ships from coming. Peter's men took the port of Azov."It sounds like something is wrong, but I'm not sure how to help him. Technically, the whole thing needs to be completely revised, but he was already spent. How do I help him? Does it appear he needs to put WWS on hold and do something else first? I know how I would write it, but I don't know how to help him get from A to B.
Your help is greatly appreciated. :)
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No, I haven't tried them but have now ordered some & am waiting for them to arrive. Good thoughts; thanks.
Anyone else care to share experience with this from any perspective?
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Google on new young dude!
SWBFR
Susan Wise Bauer for Re-election!
FRAPP
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I'm looking for information on Isagenix, wondering if there is anything I should be aware of before starting. I would only sign up to get the discount but I'm not interested in running it as a business. If that happens naturally because someone asks, I'm open to it, but I don't want to be a pushy salesperson. I just want to use the products for the health benefits. Does anyone here know of any pros or cons about this?
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I second the pay-to-watch-at-my-convenience option. Live streaming to my timezone or a PP from the UK might mean we're trying to grasp your message in the middle of the night. I'd pay for a DVD or for some other pre-recorded option. If live streaming was the only thing available, I would probably set my alarm. ;)
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Have you ever used Elemental Science? I used the logic stage biology before kits for it were offered. I ordered the curriculum early to leave time for ordering supplies. I was happy to find user-friendly lists that made ordering supplies easy. The author lets you know which items you'll need to look for from a specialty science supply company & noted the ones that I'd need to order from Carolina because HST didn't have them.
Ellen McHenry's stuff always looks so fun, though... is it not scheduled out very clearly?
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Michele,
My teenager got a concussion in an auto accident and was at "level 0" for an entire month, no relief. We were told it could take up to 6 months for everything to get back to normal. We were warned over & over to be strict in following Dr.'s orders, and that included very limited TV/screen viewing, and no physical activity. The Dr. told us that the brain is trying to heal but if you use the newly healed parts (for lack of better words) too soon, it will go right back and this can cause long-term problems if you don't rest enough & just let it heal. After that first month without improvement, we saw a chiropractor. The x-rays taken by the chiro showed different views than ones ordered by conventional Dr.'s; they revealed that my child's vertebrae was putting pressure on the brain stem. Within a week of beginning chiropractic treatment, the headaches went from constant pain level 8-9 to 0-2. Symptoms were up & down for another month, and gone completely by the end of month 3. I'm not suggesting your child has the same thing going on & needs chiro, just sharing that it can take a lot of time to heal properly & fully.
ETA: I hope she gets well soon! It really is NO fun limiting activity so much, and worrisome for mom, too. :grouphug:
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Mindy, no, for use as a roots/vocab program, you wouldn't want to start below level F, IIRC. Somewhere in the depths of the logic stage chapters in TWTM it states exactly which level introduces Latin, Greek, and other foriegn roots. You might be able to find this by looking at samples or TOCs on Rainbow Resource or Christian Book Distributors.
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Praying for both of you. :grouphug:
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Joining the game late, but I'll play...
Why rant over vampire pirates?
NEIFH
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Thank you, Creekland. I just hope it doesn't last too long. My family is directly affected - forced leave without pay. We'll find out tomorrow if benefits are affected in addition to pay.
ETA: This on the heels of the summer furlough, all on top of the pay freeze that went into effect in 2009. This is wrong. I also keep seeing comments on FB showing ignorance about who government employees are. They are not just in high-ranking positions or cush upper-class jobs, they are very much also the lower working class and everything in between.
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For those that want to make a debate or argument out of this, I did state I wasn't interested in that from the start. I was answering the OP. What you choose to research further and suspect is true or false is up to you. Like I said, I don't care to argue this. I don't have that kind of time. You do & think whatever you want. I put my 2 cents out there b/c the OP asked. Those are some of my reasons for not liking CCS. Some quick internet searches are all I had time for, and below is what I got. No, it doesn't address every point you asked for a link for, but I figure if you really want to know you can look it up.
For starters, a database does exist: https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/privacy-issuesstate-longitudinal-data-systems/
Here's a list of some direct elementary student data:
Multiple sources reported iris scans having already taken place in a Florida school disctrict, and now we have this: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/future-is-now/biometrics-help-teachers-track-students--every-move-165708623.html
ETA:
Interesting, none of the NEDM links (National Education Data Model) will post, but you can look it up in a search. It's a dot gov website & has lists of data to be collected on students, parents, etc. There's an article on the ACA-CCS data connection on Ben Swann's site.The mischaracterization of me as Nazi-video-watching & purposefully misleading is surprising. I'm sorry anyone had to see such as you described, but it is also posted directly on youtube, sans any Nazi weirdness, as I described, and that's where I saw it.
Like I said from the beginning, I'm not here for a debate or an argument, I was giving my answer to the OP's question. You all can continue this however you please.
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None of this even touches on the fact that federal involvement (RttT funds or otherwise) in CCS violates the constitution (see Article 1, Section 8; and the 10th Amendment).
I agree with the recommendation to read the actual standards. Don't forget the appendices, your state's own legislation & budget measures relating to CCS implementation, and commentary by CCS authors themselves. You'll likely have to read outside of the actual standards to learn about the student database plan. That is written elsewhere by the various authors, consortiums, companies, and others involved; not in the standards themselves.
The video I saw the ZB books in showed the covers of the books and close-ups of the pages so you could read them. It was grades 1 & 3 student materials and a teacher assessment handbook from the "Voices Literature & Writing" series, not the "Lit. & Character Ed." series. There was a guy talking to another guy about it in the background. That was it. Expose' of the books' content, period. Look it up on YouTube. It *is* titled "Indoctrination zaner bloser", posted by a "Mary Scheel-Buysse". After seeing that video, I went to a homeschool program resource library and looked through those exact books for myself and what they showed in the video is indeed in the texts. If they are to be used as examples of what not to do or how not to think, that's a whole lot of contrary assignments, esp. for the younger grades. That is not what the teacher assessment handbook suggests, though.
The nonfiction books couldn't have initially been part of a social studies or science booklist, since only math and LA standards have been released. Within LA, as part of Literature, history, science, & technical reading is included. The CCS science standards are soon to be released and are called New Generation Science Standards IIRC (NGS). They are just beginning work on CCS social studies. The Bluest Eye is one of many sexually explicit books w/o any redeeming value on the CCS booklist. If you look at Appendix B on the CCS website, they do refer to their booklists as "grade ___ exemplars". There you will see the other titles I'm referring to, although if you don't know what each book is about it would be hard to recognize any of them as deviant by title alone.
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That common core is more rigorous is a deception, IMO. The changes in the ways children are guided to think actively goes against logic & promotes emotion-based "mob-think", from some of the CCS materials I've seen. I'm thinking of the changes Zaner-Bloser made to their L.A. program to align, specifically.
Many people take issue with CCS not so much because of the dumbed down standards - and if you watch how they are implementing those standards, often it is sadly dumbed down even from what it was before - but because of other requirements written into it. Surely you've heard the reports of student data-mining to include not only their complete school life profile, but anything they say about home or outside activities, parent/guarding religious & political affiliation, and it is written into the AFA (aka Obamacare) that the 2 databases will be linked (the healthcare & educational databases). Data is sent freely to Dept. of Labor and big corporations.
Then there is the issue of the money. If you follow the money, the people pushing CCS the most are funding it but in the end stand to reap much more than they sow. Imagine having the money to fund something that sounds so great - educational standards - but your funding comes with the stipulation that all new technology systems must be your brand. Gates is heavily tied to this. The technology upgrade costs for the "adaptive testing" to be done on computer, not paper, and the student databases are in the multi-millions for each state. That's unrealistic. "Adaptive testing" could sound positive, but dig deeper & find out what is meant by it.
I'll have to reply 1 point at a time so not to keep ranting. Yes, the "Singapore" way of doing math is intriguing & beautiful. The problem with CCS lies in how it's executed: the lessons look nothing like SM, MM, RS, or any other "non-traditional" math program commonly known to homeschoolers. Usually, students move on from the tedium of hand-drawing pictures to solve each problem. In SM, they are taught quick mental math strategies. Although it appears similar, CCS is *requiring* students to provide lengthy word or picture explanations for each problem and in some cases children are not learning the traditional algorithms at all. All the beauty is sucked out of it in the way they are doing it.
The reading lists have been changed to include less classic, imaginitve literature useful for teaching literary terms, devices, and analysis and replaced with "real-world, useful" texts such as instructional manuals. The complaints are because good classics are replaced by insulation installation manuals (to name 1 example), not the type of nonfiction most of us here probably assign for school work. Some of the widely reported inappropriate books are on the CCS exemplar book list and the activities & tests are written to those books. I know that when it was left up to the teachers, the schools, the districts, and the states, sometimes questionable material was used. When writing booklists for use by every student in a nation, you'd think the committee that edited & finalized them would have had better foresight. What was their intent with those types of books? An activity I saw claiming to focus on common theme in multiple, unrelated paragraphs actually only had a synonymous word in common (and loosely at that). Then there's the Zaner-Bloser books I mentioned that teach children to persuade using logical fallacies without noting they are fallacies, thus teaching the child to be receptive to those types of arguments as well.
Many common core opponents want higher educational standards without all the other strings attached.
I know this can be sticky topic, and I'm NOT (ETA not) interested in a debate or argument over it. I took you at your word that you're honestly perplexed at why people take issue with CCS, so I am offering a handful of the many, many reasons as food for thought.
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OH yes, I've been googling & finding a lot more, but no concise core text, really. I'm just going to have to stick with the outline of the course & fill it in as I find things. Thanks for the links, Shannon! The 4-H Dog books are one of just a few things that come close to being a core (or "spine"). Alison, yes, that one is in my Netflix queue with quite a few other dog movies.
One person IRL told me about an AgriScience & Technology and Companion Animals textbook by Prentice Hall/Pearson. That's not the exact title, but I know it's close. From the bits I've been able to find online, it's more specific to animal care & animal science than than canines. I get to review it in person on Wed., so we'll see. My son will be doing a regular 7th grade science course and this dog/vet. med. thing is something he chose as an elective, so I'm not concerned with covering as wide a scope as this book does.
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I need help planning my 7th grader's elective. He wants to do "Dog Science"; sort of a Canine Science/Veterinary Medicine course, but on a middle school level. I've got a home-made rough syllabus outline based on the TOC of an Equine Science book I was able to look at, but I'm not sure what to use to flesh it out. I don't mind putting together my own thing or using something wholly or partially pre-made (or multiple things to fulfill multiple points in the syllabus). I'm looking for either canine- or veterinary-specific resources. I have a few bits and pieces - websites, an online game from AMVA, etc. - but that is just "gravy". I need something "meaty" for the spine of this course. Any ideas? I keep finding either very young elementary books or college level texts, but not much in between.
Do you know if there is an open course ware class online for this? Is there something similar to what the American Chem. Society puts out for middle schoolers? Is there a related course offered by The Teaching Co. (Great Courses) that you know of readily? I'll continue researching, but if anyone knows of anything or has any ideas, please let me know.
I'll be calling my local University to ask if they have any programs relating to this. I doubt it, since they don't have medical or veterinary programs at the local campus, but it's worth a try. If there is a week-long (or similar) opportunity elsewhere in the state I'd be willing to travel for a short-term program. I'll also be calling local vets for ideas and also for mentorship opportunities (mini-internship, though that makes it sound like more than what it really is) & to schedule interviews/tours for projects.
Any help is much appreciated; thank you!
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What a blessing; thank you so much! I let my 7th gr. son look through various history texts and he said he likes the K12HO best. He has also mentioned numerous times a desire for "movies" to be part of his history course. He & my other children want to study American history this year, so this is perfect! Thank you for sharing your work so generously. :thumbup:
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I'm not sure how "secret" these are, but Bright Ideas Press has a history/literature-based language arts program called Illuminations and science programs called Christian Kids Explore (Biology, Earth & Space, Chemistry, Physics). Usually people associate BIP with MOH.
DK makes teacher's materials in a binder w/ a CD-Rom; I have one titled "Earth".
HHMI (Howard Hughes Med. Inst.) puts out DVDs & CD-Roms for review - free of charge. I have 3 that I got just for agreeing to review them.
Instructional Fair (now Frank Schaffer or Carson-Dellosa) has some good materials in their 100+ series (Physical Science, Life Science, Human Body, etc.).
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How could I use JUST SOTW for 11 year olds??
Beef it up per the instructions in the logic stage of TWTM. Somewhere in there, it says if you still have grammar age students using SOTW, just have the logic stage students join in the main lesson and then do the WTM logic stage history assignments on the SOTW chapter topic. You could also use it in addition to another program (scheduled alongside it, such as Hakim's History of US, MOH, etc.) or use a program that schedules SOTW such as Biblioplan or Sonlight. I think History Odyssey uses SOTW as well. Some of these programs rearrange the order of the SOTW chapters for various reasons.
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I'm doing what Wendy did - sticking it out w/ Abeka through 6th grade. That was my plan all along, but it's been so long now that I can't remember the reason. If you do decide on Saxon, I think it was Swimmermom (Lisa) on these boards who made an extremely helpful post detailing points in the lessons where you might need to step in and give the child the big picture since Saxon inches forward in tiny increments. Some kids need to understand that what they are doing now is part of a bigger process. If her post doesn't list the level(s) you're looking at, you could simply look ahead in the book about 20-30 lessons at a time to see the big picture for yourself & share it w/ dc as needed. When I used Saxon in middle & high school, I was lost. I'd learn something one way only to have it changed on me (as it seemed at the time) a couple lessons later. Having the information presented as Lisa described in her post would have made a world of difference. Then again, many, many kids thrive with Saxon just as it is, and hopefully your dc falls into this category & you can disregard my post altogether!
Other options I'd look into are VideoText, Horizons, and Lial's.
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I know the WTM book seems to tie grade levels to certain historical periods, but please don't overlook the chapter about starting in the middle. I have been & still am in a similar situation with children being behind in some subjects (per WTM standards). Mentally separate history into 2 categories: Content and Skills. As you read through the WTM 5th - 8th gr. history sections, you'll notice that not only are different historical periods recommended for ea. grade level, the skills build up as well. There is grade-level skill work that can be done on any content. I took notes from TWTM to make a reusable weekly assignment page for history which lists WTM assignments for all the grade levels I'm teaching for the year. It could be applied to any of the historical periods, but I have to update it whenever one of my children moves on to the next WTM skill level for history (overall or even for specific types of assignments but not others). It's the level of work you're requiring, how much, and what kind that makes up the skills. Off the top of my head (so, this is not comprehensive & may not line up accurately w/ WTM) I put it in a format somewhat like this:
Day 1:
Read main encyclopedia page(s)
Make fact list, list ___ (however many) facts that are most important or most interesting
Choose 1 or 2 facts to read more about
Day 2:
Outline encyclopedia pages or most interesting resource from further reading on day 1 (list specific type of outline for the WTM grade level you're teaching - might not match your dc's age-grade correlated level & that's OK. As soon as it's mastered, you can bump it up and try adding the skills from the next level up. For ex., learn basic 1-level outlines 1st semester or 1st Qtr., then 2-level when the child is ready, & so on.)
Mapwork
Prepare a summary of the reading from day 1
Etc.
By the way, you can divide up the assignments into however many days you like, and you can do the assignments in whatever order makes sense for you.
Hope that helps & isn't too confusing; it's very late here & I wonder if I'm coming across clearly, if at all, lol. :)
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Thanks for the ideas! I'm not near an IKEA or a Target, and I don't know if they'd ship here, but it's worth a try. I *REALLY* like those solid wood ready-to-finish ones posted in one of the links, because I enjoy painting. I can cut a 1x1 & tack it underneath the shelves - do you mean run it horizontally underneath, or vertically to prop it up in the middle? It might not look pretty, but it might make things safer until I settle on a permanent solution.
WTM forums look abnormal on my computer for last month or so
in Site News & Discussions
Posted
Hi John,
No, I had not tried using a different browser or computer. Most pages but not all looked that way, from what I remember. This is the first I've checked back in here since posting that question, and like the PP, it has strangely resolved on its own. If you fixed it, thank you! Either way, I'm happy to be able to use the site again. :hurray: