Annabel Lee
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Posts posted by Annabel Lee
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I read about "Billys" and "Expedit" bookshelves in the homeschool room organization thread. In the posted pictures, the shelves I saw didn't appear to be sagging (Quit your laughing, I'm trying to ask a serious question here!). I have $30 cheapo pressboard (like Sauder) bookshelves from Walmart that were supposed to tide me over until I built my own of sturdier wood. I picked out plans from the Knock Off Wood site, but then realized I don't actually know what the heck I'm doing with any of that, to include identifying certain types of saws and such. So my cheapo shelves are now sagging badly & I'm afraid they might break. I pile books horizontally on top of the books that are vertically lined up if there is space between the tops of the books & the shelf above. I do this with thick, heavy hardback things like encyclopedias. Would these "Billys" and "Expedits" hold up to that?
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Does the school require her to do practice or MAPS testing? I'd opt out and look for another way to find her reading level & offer appropriately challenging reading material if the school doesn't require it.
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I take it DonQ is the first book on the WEM list? That should tell you how far into WEM I am. :o Like Nan, I've got my hands more than full right now, but things should settle into some semblence of a schedule come fall and I can dig in then.
Amy, that is brilliant. It would be lovely for members to be able to click on whichever book they are one so that we can go at our own pace.
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No only mute the phone, but tell friends when your family is in school and cannot play or come to the phone. And I would not do it secretly. Learning to prioritize what needs to be done and protect one's schedule is itself a learning matter for children. Being polite as to other's schedules is also a learning matter. If they spend their time on the phone, playing, when they first get jobs they would likely be fired. Kids cannot call other kids (usually at least there is cell phones off policy) at B&M schools during class time, nor have them leave classes or special summer programs for phone calls or playdates. Why allow it for your homeschool? Is it happening during the sports programs that the children leave the game to take calls or to go to special activities with friends in the middle of the game? You are apparently under the belief that homeschool is not so important, and that you as mom, teacher, and principal cannot lay down the law of no phone calls etc. during school and have to do it secretly. Change your own attitude about this. Start a doable schedule for this summer, even if only one half hour per day, and practice sticking to it now.
To be clear, I meant our home land-line phone. They don't have cell phones. They don't chat on the phone; it's usually quick invitations from friends or wanting to know if they can play that I feel guilty making them decline since it's summer. The home phone is also the one which calls from the auto & medical insurance companies and doctors come through. There are a lot of medical things going on currently, and when I leave messages with some of these places it can take days to get a call back, so if I let it go to the answering machine it just prolongs the process. I know it sounds like I'm making excuses, but I would need to filter for these particular calls. So yes, you're right, I just need to tell the friends not to call before noon or whatever time I decide we need. I just thought of this, too: While I do need to take calls from the Dr.'s, I can ask the insurance folks if I can call them back at a set time in the afternoon. I'll ask for their direct extensions and reiterate that I'll be returning the call at such-and-such set time. Hopefully it works.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. It has given me much to think about.
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Thanks for the ideas & advice! Love the Dave Ramsey snowball idea!
Well, they're going into 7th & 5th grades by their age-grade level. We're behind in pretty much everything, and while I cringe at letting history & science slide, math & language arts are the most important. It's been a negative snowball effect for years - various reasons including health that aren't on topic. I had imagined doubling - quadrupling lessons in all subjects over the summer. You're right, I didn't add up the actual time.
If I had it all my way, taking no one else's likes, preferences, hopes, ambitions, etc. into account, sports would not be much a part of our lives. But I have a dh who loves it; he introduced the kids to it, and he coaches their teams. I also wouldn't want to squash the thing the kids like doing so much. It just stinks that it takes up so much time. Where we live, the season for each summer sport is very condensed. We have all these activities in the summer, and then barely any (if any at all) in the winter.
Yes, this has made me rethink the plan for next year. I'm approaching it the same way my older would if there were a B&M middle school involved: we can only do so many class periods in a day. We can only accomplish so much in a quarter, semester, & year. So, I wrote things out with 6-7 "classes" in mind (though I feel I "cheated" by lumping all language arts under "English", but that's how they do it in school). The "English" period will probably be just a bit longer and I'll map out how long each thing will likely take so it doesn't get out of hand again.
We also get constant invites from friends or calls for the kids asking if so-and-so can come over to play. I may secretly unplug or mute the phone during the morning hours tomorrow. There's been a recent medical emergency with tons of follow-up appointments & tests, some of which are last minute due to my daughter's condition. That frequently throws a wrench in things as well. This upcoming year, I will make a *doable* schedule and stick to it like white on rice without mentally thinking the summer time is some sort of catch-all safety net for unfinished work.
P.S. - doing all Science during the summer sounds fantastic! It would work well because about 8-9 months out of the year, everything is covered with snow. I think we might knock out at least the lessons that call for "summery" things - bugs, leaves, slugs, plants, etc.
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My intent for the summer was a fairly full schedule in order to get caught up on things we let slide previously. Then Dh had some time off, and it was hard to interrupt "daddy time". Then summer kid's sports started, and sometimes we don't get home until 10:30 at night. After having a snack & getting ready for bed, they get to sleep so late that it's completey impractical to think I can start school at 8 a.m. the next day. Then the ballgames begin again around 5pm the next day. It's so nice outside, and dh got the kids some very nice, major outdoor play equipment and it's just hard to keep them focused after lunch. So we end up with only 1 - 3 hrs. per day, IF we don't have any appointments or other things scheduled. Surely I can't be the only one that watches all my plans go down the drain summer after summer after summer. I'm starting to think I simply shouldn't schedule much for next summer at all.
Does this happen to anyone else?
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Happy Birthday, "Machine Gun Kitty"! :party:
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I use Biology for the Logic Stage. I started out trying to do WTM science all on my own but added ES mid-year to give myself a framework to work from. I was looking for something that was enough all on its own if I didn't have time or energy to add anything, but to which I could easily add extra WTM-style assignments or my children's rabbit-trail interests when possible. My kids & I like it so far.
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loesje22000, it sounds like you might be able to answer a question I've had for a long time about BJU science with or without the videos. People here who use the videos for 5th or 6th grade & up rave about the study skills (outlining, etc.) Mrs. Vicks & the other teachers incorporate. Is this specific to the videos or do the TMs guide you in teaching the same things? In other words, are there things taught in the videos that are *not* in the TM?
Thanks!
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I had a "friend" tell me once that the only reason I homeschooled was so that I did not have to go back to work. :cursing:
...because homeschooling isn't work!? Has she seen anything you've written about science? Maybe she thinks homeschoolers loaf on the couch all day watching soap operas & eating bon-bons while the kids watch educational movies in the next room. :huh:
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Thanks, both of you. I'll have to think on this some more.
Penguin, yes, I meant 22-25 wks. per each time period (ancients, middle ages, etc.).
I'm trying to squish it all in to 2 years, or figure out what to do with the 2 years my middle-schooler has left before HS.
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For those grades, I was mostly in conservative Christian private schools. I heard a lot about it, but wasn't actually taught it. I was told it was wrong and I remember presentations from guest speakers (Ken Ham, perhaps? It was that type of presentation.) Looking back, evolution was presented in an over-simplified manner; never truly taught. I've learned more about evolution from reading Ruth in NZ's posts recently than I did my entire k-12 education. BUT - I did go to public school when I was older and don't remember it being addressed there at all.
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What would you do? How would you do it? Would you cram? Would you eliminate some content altogether? Would you skim some of it by reading a core text only while spending more time (what would normally be the usual time spent) on writing assignments & extra reading for other parts? Would you just skip entire time periods? Imagine the kids you're doing this for have not covered any of the 4 classical history time periods with any thoroughness, 2 will be in 5th and 1 will be in 7th - how would you approach it?
Sorry for too many questions. I'm just trying to figure out how to do this.
TIA!
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After you've checked your state's requirements and settled on what *you* will require based on how you want to prepare her, here's some food for thought: My high school dd is currently in AP Bio. as a Jr. but never did physical science. The science program in the school she went to for 7th & 8th was pretty weak, actually. She went straight into Biology in 9th because she did Alg. 1 in 8th. Math is the driving factor behind what science you can or cannot do, even more than what science has been done previously.
So, don't despair! Your dd doesn't have to do physical science, or can do it in 9th without worry. Plenty of kids still do that. Or she could skip it altogether like my dd did, and just go straight into Biology, or do a year of Earth/Space/Geology like you mentioned.
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Genscharm, my advice would absolutely be the same for my closest friends, for the most popular posters on this forum, for anyone at all in this situation. That is because my feelings about it are so incredibly strong, having lived it. My advice has nothing, NOTHING, to do with hypocrisy.
I've edited out the rest of this post because it was TMI for public internet.
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I agree with what has already been said, esp. the need for outside professional help. I'm familiar with this sort of situation so I don't give this advice arbitrarily.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned (forgive me if I missed it, I'm tired right now) is what is going on in a child's brain when they are that scared. Our brains burn new neuro-pathways, and the more a specific one is repeated the "deeper" the path; that path is more easily traversed. Our brains, esp. children's, can freeze up to everything else except that familiar pathway to fear when frightened or even anxious about a scary thing possibly happening. The more this happens, the more it reinforces that fear/anxiety neuro-pathway. This brain activity blocks learning, and you say you get frustrated at that. Trying to learn in this kind of environment would be immensely difficult even for a neuro-typical child. There are entire books written on the topic of the learning difficulties due to anxiety/fear.
You say you worked in a sort of group home/RTF, so I don't mean to sound like I assume you don't know these things; chances are you do with that background. I say them for the off-chance you don't, because you don't seem to see that continuing in this situation is worse than her attending an academically terrible public school. As long as she won't encounter this sort of verbal abuse there, the ps isn't worse. Your own healing process for this likely won't happen overnight, but her mind won't open to learning until she isn't on edge or afraid. That makes for a bad cycle.
Your situation weighs on my heart. Please reach out for help. Please don't isolate in this problem in your off-screen life. Please forgive yourself and reach out to begin your own journey out of this. Someone else wrote something about you not allowing yourself to "go there" with other people in your life yet doing so with her. Is there intense stress in your life that is out of your control, outside of this situation, by chance? You don't have to answer that, but just realize that if you do, even if it seems unrelated, it can play a part. I've heard it referred to as the "pecking order". Stresses from the highest authority get passed down to the person with no authority, through a chain of stressed-out people in between. I think someone in your life, a professional, a clergy member, anyone to get the ball rolling, would serve you & your daughter far better than strangers on a screen.
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I'm not sure if it's specifically a "parenting" book, but although I found many of the above titles very helpful (HtTsKWL, for ex.), if I knew someone was only ever going to read a single one, I'd recommend Protecting the Gift.
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I tried out BJU Reading 3 & 5 for about a week. There is phonics reinforcement/review all the way through 5th gr., which I love. I also love the literary elements & devices they teach. I stopped after a week because it took an hour per lesson per child, and we just didn't have room for that on our schedule. I went with CLE Reading for that reason at the time, and would go w/ them if I ever chose a textbook reading program again. I like their scope equally as well, but I think BJU has a lot more built-in discussion in the form of Q & A in the TM (probably too much, actually - you're supposed to pick & choose how much and which type to use with each child per their needs, and the TM guides you in determining that).
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I am thinking I need to start setting money asside in case I need to get my car fixed. I drive a 1995 Buick Regal. I really like the car and can't afford a new one, but it isn't exactly new at 18 years of age. Anyone else driving an older vehicle or am I the only "lucky" one?
Right there with you! A little budgeting tip I learned early on is to make a regular "car payment" to yourself every month to build up a cushion for car repairs & maintenance. There's not much room in the budget for that anymore, but I need to start doing it again because a surprise large repair bill could really make life hard.
My immediate family has vehicles ranging from '92 - '08. My parents still own vehicles from when I was little - old '70's trucks.
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Can anyone weigh in on Edu-tracker? Found a CDrom with it at our local blessings bash, and I've been looking for something as I can't find anything else I like.
I'm curious about Edu-tracker (or is it Edu-track?) as well. I saw it in person years ago at a friend's house and liked that she could print each child's daily or weekly assignments from what she had put in for the year.
Sarah CB, do you have to have an apple computer to do that?
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I agree that if your kids love SOTW, do that and beef it up with WTM logic-stage history instructions for your 7th grader. The 3rd ed. WTM talks about doing this - using SOTW for everyone, and adding the other assignments for the older kids. I also agree about dropping MBtP units since your kids burn out on them. You can still use extra books from TOG's list to augment this plan for kids that loved all the historical reading.
Over-scheduling is a tough habit to break. It's easy to stop buying, once you finally make yourself stop. But it's entirely different to get out of the "I chose ea. thing for a good reason which still needs to be fulfilled!" mentality. There are only so many hours in a day. There are only so many days in childhood. Doing schoolwork isn't a bad thing, but you have to ask yourself at some point what kind of homeschool you're creating and really weigh out priorities, making sure not to crowd out regular non-school time.
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It just hit me today as I trudged through the entire Sonlight/Slavery thread.
This quote from John Holzman is what prompted this thread:
I expect that the person who is writing the history text we use would have made it their goal TO be as accurate as possible and using well documented sources. I don't want one lens of history, I want to see it from many perspectives. That's how history becomes part of the story of humans. - ALL humans, not just the one that matches your own personal world view.
What I am trying to avoid is a history text that tries to CHANGE history. Historical events (ie what happened) doesn't change over time, but sometimes it IS changed to fit a particular ideology or political/religious agenda. I browsed through my friend's daughter's history book and I can't believe how much more it's taught as a lesson in social studies, not fact.
To me, history is WHAT HAPPENED and should be separate from Social Studies, which to me is the thoughts and culture of the PEOPLE of the time. They are different animals and I see SS being taught AS history - and that bugs me.
So, in some ways, I am the product of the schooling I don't agree with and home schooling to avoid. :crying:
I had watered down history. I had "Social Studies" instead of History. I didn't have critical thinking classes. I grew up on the IOWA Standard Tests and "fill in the bubble completely" mindset. We were the test kids for "new math". I was lucky that we still had science daily.
So, if I was schooled the way I don't want MY daughter schooled, then how can I know when I've been taught something incorrectly or untrue?? All of the sudden I just got this fear that somehow I will continue to perpetuate the downslide of critical thinking in our society because I might miss something.
How do you SEE your blind spots??
Or do I just need to go back to bed and start the day over and forget about it all? LOL
Yes, I've done a lot of thinking since reading that thread. I've even wondered if that was really Holzman or if someone else created an account in his name, perhaps. (I don't know him or his work - I've not used SL - so I wouldn't recognize his writing/style.) I agree with your desire for a history curriculum that is accurate. I think it should already be vetted & corroborated before asserting itself as fact (as much as possible).
That doesn't mean it will cover every little thing under the sun - we'll always find more information to fill gaps we didn't know existed in curriculum. That doesn't mean we wouldn't practice the work of corroborating, reading sources with a different POV, checking primary sources, learning about bias & propoganda using other texts as examples, etc. I only have a high school education, very "blue chip" at that, and I do not have the time to properly educate myself on everything in history while homeschooling. I can learn alongside my child, and I do take Susan's advice from her lectures & from TWTM in doing the work I described above. I do NOT want to have to double check every little thing in the text or curriculum I choose for the core of our history course. As the core of our studies, it should be one of my most trusted sources (i.e., most unbiased). I also don't have time to use texts from every possible POV for each topic. We do it sometimes, for some things, but I don't want to second-guess the whole thing, kwim?
Is this really too much to ask?
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I don't have it figured out yet. I'm just typing to visualize my thoughts, lol. Everything is still in the research phase. This will eventually be trimmed down a LOT.
BIBLE/CHARACTER: ??? (Apologia? Honorable Boy? Discover 4 Yourself by Precept Ministries? Explorers Quest? Proverbs study?) If our history program has built-in Bible that I like, I'll just keep it simple and use that. Character/Purity: ???
MATH: most likely Lial's BCM, possibly w/ LOF for fun. -or- Still researching Dolciani, Foerster, Jacob's, Zaccaro (is this meant only as a supplement?), Derek Owens, VideoText, and a few others.
ENGLISH: WWS1; R&S 6 or 7, dep. on how far we get in the meantime; finish up SWO/AAS (if that's too much, just focus on AAS); practice penmanship with Donna Young's DIY plan & Presidential Penmanship (since I have it & he needs the practice).
LATIN/VOCAB: Memoria Press, probably First Form. Finish up EftRU for vocab/reinforcement, then begin VfCR A.
LITERATURE: Either Teaching the Classics with my own booklist; -or- LL7; -or- LLfLotR; -or- straight WTM lit. w/ Figuratively Speaking, possibly with CHOLL; -or- a mix of pre-made guides to go with my own booklist; -or- a Narnia study; -or- CLE Reading for the terms/devices with a list of books to read & discuss.
HISTORY: I'm not even sure whether to only continue with world history or to begin a separate U.S. history study. Winter Promise American Crossings & Cultures look so fun... but it's very different from our usual WTM history. I want to keep the WTM logic stage assignments no matter what. Notgrass? Just do WTM world history + SOTW (since this is our first go-round with it) and MOH audios? MOH as the main curric. + SOTW audios? Textbooks + a few projects & added reading? My list goes on...
GEOGRAPHY: I'm hoping to tie this in to history using Uncle Josh's maps & Knowledge Quest (I have an old CD-Rom of maps from them, too), and the Geography Coloring Book, and just add mapwork a la WTM. Runkle's or Mapping the World with Art (McHenry) both look so good, but I think this schedule is too full for them.
SCIENCE: BJU Life, -or- Apologia General, -or- Chem/Physics using Ellen McHenry/ACS free middle school/???, -or- Earth/Space using God's Design from AIG (since I have it) beefed up with Tiner, How the Earth Works, & other WTM logic-stage rec's. I'd like to look at Tarbuck for E/S.
ART: Atelier and/or outside class or some art kits we have on drawing, watercolor, & sculpting; maybe some of the free Donna Young lessons; study artists chronologically as they come up in history & add to timeline. (Not all of this is at the same time. We would be picking & choosing 1 at a time, doing 1 - 2 lessons per week; perhaps only for 1 semester).
MUSIC: homemade composer study which includes correlation w/ history; learn the recorder and/or tin whistle at home?; -or- perhaps I can inspire him to want to play an instrument? (Only 1 of these at a time; perhaps only for a semester overall.)
*maybe* CIVICS/ECON: Civics: Notgrass Uncle Sam & You; Econ: Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? or other intro. to Mises/Austrian economics
PE/HEALTH: Exercise (his sport of interest, going to gym, playing & working outside, swimming); Horizons -or- Abeka -or- Total Health -or- Nourishing Traditions
LOGIC: I'm still researching our options.
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I know of plenty of 4-yr. history curricula, but I'm in a bind. I've got 2 yrs. left until high school with one of my children, so I've got to decide how to fit in history and what to focus on. I'd love to hear what titles or curricula you know of for the following:
1) One-year world history (I already know of SL CoreW/Alt7, but not much about it)
2) Two-year world history (I already know of SL 2-yr. world hist. for middle school, but not much about it)
3) One-year U.S. history (I already know of Notgrass ATB & BJU's 8th gr. text, but not much about either)
4) Two-year U.S. history (I already know of All American History, but not much about it)
Can you tell me more about the curricula I listed above that I've heard of but don't know much about? Do you know of any other ones?
Thanks!
Look what I found on a practice test site for MAPS- for my 9 year old!!
in General Education Discussion Board
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You might need to contact your school district & legislators as well. Unfortunately, they might have more control over which tests are taken than the principal. I doubt they know the fine details of every problem on each test, but they are usually the ones who bless off on which brand of test to use.