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KAM

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Everything posted by KAM

  1. My 4th grader is using Writing Strands and so far it is pretty independent. It is written to the child, though he usually has to ask for some clarification.
  2. Have you read The Well Trained Mind? She lays out a plan that is pretty clear and understandable-especially if you read the summaries at the end of the sections. I would just start with something like that and then you can tweak as you go along, once you have a better idea of what will work for you.
  3. I wish I could remember where I read it, but I remember an article where the author pointed out that while there are many things kids can be involved in that are good, you need to decide not just what is *good* but what is *best* when it comes to your time. The example she gave was your neighbor getting all her kids ready to go to pee wee tennis or whatever while you are making dinner together and feeling bad b/c your kids aren't doing tennis lessons. She points out that while the tennis lessons may be good they are not necessarily the best use of time, when compared to the value of eating together as a family. I try to remember this point when signing them up for stuff and ask myself if the activity would be replacing something of higher value-like free time, time as a family, lazy time on weekends, etc. Our general rule is two per child. DD 11-riding lessons and pottery DS9- tennis and archery (to be replaced with swimming) DS7-rock climbing and archery (to be replaced with swimming) DD4-gymnastics and swimming Everyone-weekly homeschool group I am always tempted to do more, but for now this is crazy enough!
  4. Pie irons are fun. We also do baked potatoes. We just wrap them in foil and stick them right in the fire for about half an hour.
  5. Magic Treehouse books? Mine also loved the Animal Ark books, but I can't remember at exactly what age.
  6. I think it sounds great. She's lucky to get to pick her own topics like that. We also do Nanowrimo instead of writing curriculum in November.
  7. No prep here either for Saxon 3 and 5/6. I can see where it would be helpful though and I have debated setting things up the night before. Somehow though, when the the kids are in bed the last thing I want to do is look at a math book!
  8. We have this issue here too. I have a rule that my younger ones will engage in quiet activities for the period we set as aside for lessons. If they finish early, they can do puzzles, read, spend some time on the computer practicing typing, finish their chores, or keep their little sister busy. For us, it also works better if I give the youngers more work breaks in the middle of the school day rather than having them finish much earlier. I try to slow them down by having them feed the animals, collect the mail, answer the phone, help dd4 with her snacks and her "work" etc. They are "on call" more during our school hours so they usually don't finish much earlier than dd11. This way she doesn't feel overworked- and they think they are getting away with something by getting to go out and refill chicken food instead of doing more math!
  9. I am using it this year with a 6th grader. She is very mature so I figured it would work out well, but she really struggles with it. We are only on Ch. 1 so I don't know if it will get easier over time. We only do one little section a day, reading over the initial information and then going over the exercises together. I don't think she's getting a whole ton out of it. Lots of it seems to go right over her head and the first couple days she was very frustrated with it. I think she is probably not quite ready and am debating holding off one more year.
  10. We do something similiar along our upstairs hall. We find some corresponding clipart for the front of an index card and write a caption below with a date on the back. The cards are all attached with clothespins to a length of string running down the hall.
  11. I get quite a bit of complaining from both dd11 and ds9. It's really hard to take and stresses me out quite a bit....so I have instituted a no complaining policy: Do the work, don't complain to me. Complain inside your head all you want :glare:. I will ignore one small grumble, but if it progresses beyond that the work gets moved to homework status and you can do it with Dad after dinner. Not exactly my most popular rule, but it gets the job done-especially since after dinner is their time to play video games with Dad. I have four kids I'm trying to teach and I find it very demoralizing to listen to a lot of whining, not to mention it's setting a bad example for the younger two. I choose things I think they will enjoy, I do my best to make it enjoyable-that's really all I can do. I have also made a point of saying if there is a legitimate concern over the material or they have a different idea of how to approach a subject, I am all ears, as long as it it broached in a calm and respectful manner.
  12. Congrats! We love our chickens. We are up to 18 now-one being an accidental rooster. Pretty much food, water, and a safe coop covers it. We have lost chickens to fox and coyote and have heard of others losing them to racoons and bear. Lots of things like a chicken dinner! We give ours oyster shell free choice as well. And if you aren't going to let them out to free range, they should have grit free choice. Mine aren't laying great right now because they are molting and it's super hot.
  13. We are on our 3rd year using SL science. I've used B, C, and now D. The jumpiness is really only in the earlier years, I think. In fact, for C and D I remember wishing we would switch topics already! My kids love it. I don't love doing experiments, but in general I am happy with the Sonlight ones-minus the battery experiments in Core C which just never seemed to work for us. In the past, we didn't do the worksheets, just discussed the questions. This year, for Core D, I am having them do the sheets. I never get complaints and most of the reading has been easy enough that the kids can do it themselves, which is nice. We are big fans of SL science!
  14. We have been easing in for a couple weeks, gradually increasing the time spent. By next week I hope to be up to full speed.
  15. SL is open and go for us, but that's b/c I don't supplement it with much of anything. Actually I can't think of anything I supplement it with. I use lots of other things for other subjects, but I don't try to add to what is already there for lit, history, or science. I bought the tip CD's but never use them. My kids don't like worksheets though and I can't handle a lot of projects, so that works for us. I won't buy any future tips CD's b/c I agree they are a black hole- it takes too much time to look at the links and figure out what to add in.
  16. :bigear: I wish I had an answer-hope someone does b/c this drives me batty too. I thought this was supposed to be something that was fixed with the newer IG, but not having a newer IG on hand, I don't know for sure. All I do for a map activity is send the kids to the wall map to look up the places we just read about so we just do that right after the reading. We have been timeline slackers lately.
  17. It's definitely the advertising. I cannot help but imagine that if I have SL LA my children will be just as happy to sit down and do grammar, writing, etc. as the ones in those photos. And having everything neatly scheduled out was a big draw. I've tried it twice and failed. I *really* just don't like it. And I don't like the fact that I am forced to buy it along with my next core!
  18. We bought online only, and that included the videos. We didn't start watching them until partway through the year, but they are quite good and really helped us understand the material better.
  19. We're going to use Zaner Bloser this year. I posted a little about it on my blog. I think they were $10 each and they look pretty fun (for a handwriting book!).
  20. My ds9 and ds7 both hate writing anything. We tried italics too, but it was like torture and their handwriting was terrible. We're switching this year to Zaner Bloser, and I'm hoping it will go better. The books are much more interesting and colorful than the italics book- so I think that will help.
  21. I can't really review it, since we haven't used it yet, but I was in the same boat (needing something cheap) and decided to go with Writing Strands. I got level 3 for my dd11 and ds9 to share. I haven't been able to really look it over yet, so who knows if it will work for us! But the price was right. I plan to use WJ suggestions to tweak the exercises.
  22. I let the kids take turns picking an artist from Discovering Great Artists. Then, when are done with an artist we do the related project in the book. Right now we are doing Picasso, and the kids very much like his work. We have also done Monet, Mary Cassat, Van Gogh, and Norman Rockwell. We don't go in any particular order.
  23. I just recieved the whole MCT Town level and will be using it with 6th and 4th graders. I had the same concern as you, but after looking over everything I am very impressed with it. The whole program seems like just the right level of challenge. It may even be a bit much for my 9 y.o., but it doesn't feel too easy or fluffy for my 11 y.o..
  24. We are doing a very simple one (on my blog here). I pretty much just checked out books, tossed them in a basket for whoever felt like reading them, had the kids pick a few events to follow, and set up the DVR. We have also done a few simple crafts and will have a little Olympics party on opening night.
  25. It varies town to town. Here, I have to report the year they turn 6. I send in an ed plan each June for the next school year along with work samples from the year we just finished and complete a simple application. MHLA is a good place to get more info.
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