4KookieKids
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At one point, my DS4 knew all his letters and sounds, but couldn't quite get the blending... The only thing that fixed that was time.
We had the same experience and I agree with this. So many "reading readiness" sounds and criteria just don't account for a kid not being ready to blend.
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Another vote for Book Samaritan. I think what they do is really cool.
Here's the link to their site: http://www.thebooksamaritan.com/p/how-to-help.html
And the address for donating is:
The Book Samaritan
1715 Grandview Ave
Pawhuska, OK 74056 -
Do you have German school materials to adapt for individual instruction or will you use more regular books that happen to be in German?
I got so caught up in the rest of what I was saying about *what* we do, that I forgot to actually answer the question: No, we don't have squat in the way of German school materials. It's just so hard to find stuff that's suited for homeschooling! I really wish there was more. :P
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Do you have German school materials to adapt for individual instruction or will you use more regular books that happen to be in German?
We're still in the early years, so we're still figuring out exactly what this looks like for us. Basically, I'm trying to do things more or less the way they're outlined in the original well-trained mind book. What it looks like is that we pick a topic/time, and read about it in our German Kinderlexikon, e.g., we read the two page spread on pirates dealing with weapons, boats, clothes, habits, food, famous pirates, etc. Then we go to the library and pick out a bunch of (English) books (mix of fiction and nonfiction) that deal with those topics. Those books get read aloud in a mix of English and German (just translating on the fly), depending on how comfortable I am with the technical and specific vocabulary (because sometimes it takes me a few runs through the Kinderlexikon to pick all of that up -- we started our bilingual journey after me not speaking German for 15 years, so I'm still catching up a little :D).
We re-read subsections from the Kinderlexikon as appropriate during the next week or two, and somewhere during this process, we watch a Was ist Was video (e.g., Seeraüber) about the topic, and listen to an audiobook if we have a relevant one (e.g., Kokosnuss und die Wilden Piraten).
I don't push school for academic purposes right now, since my kids are young enough that I don't think it's at all necessary yet. All of their learning is interest led at this point (in particular, my kids have become really taken with the Magic tree house books, so we just choose our topics based on which of those books are next). I've only started implementing things this way when they want to learn about a topic in order to figure out the kinks of homeschooling in more than one language before we get to the point where we really need to be doing formal academics.
I think I intend to do math in both languages, and just trade off regularly what language we're doing it in.
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Here are some other threads that deal with the same thing.
We plan on doing it with English and German, using German materials as our "main" materials and then supplementing with English library books in history, science, etc. and then doing the two language separately. I'm hoping that having the German materials as the "main" will offset the sheer volume of supplemental materials we'll have in English to give us a language-balanced approach, but so far it still tends to be pretty English-heavy...
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I know some people use SOTW but jump around in order to do things more regionally, like you're discussing here. Are there any free resources online that outline which chapters you would lump together and what order you'd go in if you did it this way? It looked like History Odyssey had this, but it seemed a very small part of History Odyssey (most of it was checklist and this was just one thing on the checklist).
Doing things by region/civilization/empire really appeals to me as well, and I think it will appeal more to my kids. So, before I go and do all the work myself, I just figured I might save myself some time by seeing what (free) resources are out there for doing it this way. :)
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I would also recommend trying to really be aware of any comparing you may do, even if its very subtle. I found that my kids were getting competitive and jealous, and started trying to make it a point to not compare them in anyway... Within a few days, I realized I had been comparing them a ton -- though unintentionally and very subtly! It showed itself in really little things I did: "T, eat your food please. Look at A! (said with an encouraging smile even!) She's almost finished already!" or "Let's race to the door!" or things like that. I was really careful about it for a while, and was pretty impressed with how my kids' relationship with each other really improved.
I certainly don't think this'll fix your problem, but just thought it might be worth monitoring for. I could actually see it (potentially) becoming more of an issue as you try to diffuse the current situation if you inadvertently start saying stuff like "But look at all the things that you can do that she can't!" and thereby encourage even more comparison. Just find ways to praise her and build her up without there being any sort of comparison, if possible.
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I think she can learn a ton by just hearing you speak, but it's going to take a while. When we switched to speaking a second language at home, we transitioned for several months by having me say everything three times: first in the second language, then in English (so they'd know what I was saying), then in the other language again (so they could start connecting things). It took us a solid 3-6 months of doing that to get my kids understanding most of what was said, and even longer to get them speaking.
However, I know plenty of school-aged kids whose parents moved while they were early elementary, and all of a sudden they were immersed in a foreign language in school, and they were speaking fairly fluently within 6-8 weeks of the move.
Sorry I don't have specific Spanish suggestions. Just encouragement. :)
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So I don't know much about specific curriculums, but there's a lot of math that is more art-based. Could you take a break from what you're doing and just focus on some "fun" and art related math, just so she doesn't hate doing it? Things like tilings, tesselations, and fractals (can she maker her own? Like to study Escher? Generalize to 3D?), looking at the golden ratio, Frieze designs/patterns, Möbius bands/Klein bottles/knots are all really fun things to do and there are a ton of directions to go. Also, graph theory can be very interesting to art people.
I've had a lot of success getting artsy kids into math (even ones that previously *hated* math) by doing non-standard math topics like these. They're quite surprised to find they actually like math. :)
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Out of curiosity what did you "use" if anything to teach your son to read? I know my little guy is SOOOO ready because he keeps asking what this says and he is starting to try to memorize books so he can "read" them. We had started (during my second trimester when he was still 3 the Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading by Jessie Wise) and though it helped him with his speech-I don't think he ever KNEW why we were learning the sounds.
We're not doing the ordinary parents guide or the 100 ez lessons or anything like that. We literally just picked up some BOB and HOP books and started sounding our way through the first ones. He already knew his letter sounds so it was just a matter of starting to put them together. Not to make it sound like he's actually reading yet, but he can read most of the first 10 BOB books and probably the first 8 or so HOP books on his own or with very minimal help, and I don't think he's got them memorized since I don't give him the same one too often (though you never can tell!). :)
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I also have a newborn, 2 yo and 4 yo. I very much fall into the camp of "just let them play", even though I sometimes feel like I'm slacking as well. I think that there's not much that we could cover now that they wouldn't pick up a whole lot faster if we just wait, so I see very little reason to drive myself crazy trying to do it right now. :)
Most of our "formal" learning takes place one of two times: in the car, and right before nap/quiet time. In the car, my 4 yo likes to talk about math and numbers, and likes to ask us what certain numbers add up to, so we talk about that. He really surprises me with what he comes up with sometimes; a few months ago he made the observation (after we'd added 1 and 4 and gotten 5) that 5 is 1 and 4, and also 2 and 3, and then he really surprised me when he also noted that it's also 1 and 1 and 3 (I wouldn't have thought he'd be thinking about more than two terms in the sum). We also like to play rhyming games in the car (which he's abysmal at...) He's good at matching first sounds, but doesn't get rhyming at all.
Before nap/quiet time, I usually make ~5 minutes to sit and read a BOB or HOP book with him. We don't do any actual curriculum, but we're just going through the books slowly, and he sounds out the words and I help him as needed. Even that 5 minutes is sometimes hard for me to find (I feel like a bad parent saying it, but the 2 yo and baby are so high maintenance), but I've just stuck to my guns, even if it means putting the other two in their respective beds and just letting them cry for the whole five minutes while I sit with the 4 yo. And then he's often allowed to sit with the books he can read during naptime (rather than napping) and he practices them a ton all on his own.
Writing frustrates him, so I don't bother. He loves being read to and imaginative play, so I encourage that. We also do lots of family music/dance time together, and we go outside a lot, since I can strap the baby into a carrier and then take the other two to a park and let them run off steam. We just make sure to put on snow pants and mittens and the works, because otherwise they get cabin fever. :)
ETA: Even though writing frustrates him (or at least, me having him do it *correctly* frustrates him), he loves to draw, and so we got him drawing books that we do with him (along with read-alouds that the youngers aren't into) after the younger two go to bed at night, and I figure he's still working small motor skills by drawing. He knows *how* to form all the letters correctly, he's just not got the motor skills or patience for it yet.
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This may be a dumb question, but how do you get funding to homeschool?
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I agree with everyone else, but would really encourage you to talk to your school system. In my town, they actually start speech therapy (if you need it) as early as they can diagnose it, rather than waiting until a later grade, and we don't pay a thing because it's part of our taxes that go toward the school system.
Honestly, you'll still be the main teacher, because the therapist will only work with your child a little each week, and then it's up to you to "keep it up" with whatever new techniques the therapist gives you, since it's really the day-to-day that will get speech patterns changed.
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Hmmm.. Since the original poster said it was their "semi-annual" sale, I'm guessing it'll come around again this year! :)
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So many good thoughts! Thank you all. It's really interesting and helpful to hear how different people handle this sort of thing. And I really appreciate that the thread has stayed so positive and respectful. (I confess I was a little concerned when I first started the thread that it was going to degenerate into a not so pretty conversation... Maybe I've had one too many of those when asking people questions in other places! :D)
I think I was maybe trying to simplify things too much for my 4 yo, when he could probably easily understand that people believe different things about this stuff. My husband always says I overthink things, and this is probably one of those times. It's just that one of my mantras through my career as a math teacher is to never teach something that's incorrect; teach it incompletely, if necessary, but never incorrectly. And I think reading something out loud to my kids that I might not agree with felt dangerously close to teaching them something incorrectly. But I'm feeling much better about how to deal with this now when it comes up.
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Thanks for all the extra ideas! We have a xylophone, but it's just a cheap-o from the store and the intervals make me cringe! Maybe I'll look into something a little higher quality. :)
First of all, do not underestimate the importance of singing! Most of these programs like Kindermusik or Music Together just emphasize learning how to sing in tune and keeping a steady beat (albeit in a group setting to encourage Moms).
We do sing a lot! But how do you teach a child to sing in tune? I'm trying to teach them to keep a beat by both modeling and also helping by actually holding their hands sometimes to "feel" it. But I've no idea how to teach them to match pitch/sing in tune. My 2 yo has been putting her ear right up to (and even touching!) my mouth when we sing sometimes, and she is then sometimes able to match my pitch, but not very frequently.
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Hmmm. Thanks for the ideas. We are Christian, but I tend to fall in the camp of "we don't really know exactly what happened" / Amish way of dealing with it that Hunter mentioned.
In a way, I think that's one of the things that makes me most nervous about this topic, because I feel like I "should" have answers for my kids when they ask. I don't think I realized I felt that before thinking about the responses to this thread, but I think now that I realize it, I'm also more at peace with sharing with my children that I just don't know.
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So I know there are lots of different theories relating to the beginning of the world and pre-history (big bang, evolution, intelligent design, young earth, etc.) *Without* getting into an argument about which ones are correct, please, how do you address a book with a young child (K through 2nd or 3rd maybe) that assumes a position you don't take, while still taking away the majority of the book content?
Ex: Say a child wants to read about dinosaurs and you're a young earth person -- how do you read books about it? Or say you do believe in the old earth, but don't believe that everything (including humans) developed from a puddle of primordial ooze, how do you approach books that assume this sort of evolutionary stance? Or, if you do believe in evolution, and your child picks out a book that assumes creationism, what do you do?
I feel like a kid at this age doesn't want to hear a bunch of different theories and technicalities and corrections; they just want to learn and absorb everything. And my kids, in particular, like to just pick library books about topics that interest them, so carefully choosing books isn't really the answer either. I'm inclined to to let them read anything they want, and just wait until they're older to discuss/compare/contrast theories, but I'm interested in hearing from others.
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Have you read the Read Aloud Handbook? They have some tips for dealing with this sort of behavior. The author talks about his kids when they were teens and how to draw them in so that it still grabs their attention.
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Most of her mistakes are due to not knowing her math facts really well or forgetting to add what she carried - careless mistakes that I've seen all of my children do.
Not knowing math facts really well is actually the single biggest issue I think younger students struggle with. I'm amazed at the students who struggle at trig or even calculus in college because they continually forget distributive rules, can't manipulate fractions, can't add/subtract/multiply simple numbers without a calculator, or some other such thing that they should've learned earlier. (Yes, I have seen far too many "advanced" students reach for a calculator to compute something like "16+9".) I would definitely "drill" whatever math facts she's weak on, but only in five minute increments (or something that feels "very short" to her) and in anyway you can think of to lift the monotony.
If she does well at reading problems, she's ahead of two thirds of the college students I taught. :)
I know that I hated having to do a long list of problems (unless it was a competition with other students, because I was just really competitive like that, unfortunately). When I'm tutoring, I usually encourage students to do 2-3 problems from each different "kind" of problem we talked about on a particular day. If they struggle with one "kind" or feel they need more practice, then review the material and do a few more problems of that "kind" and repeat this until they're comfortable with the material.
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My experience, after teaching math at a uni for many years and tutoring even more, is that for *most* people, math brain shuts down right around 45-60 minutes. That's my experience with adults, however, and I'd expect it to be more than what kids can generally do. I flat out refuse to tutor students (adults) for longer than 60 minute sessions because I feel the extra time is so completely counterproductive. Once you get frustrated and feel like you're not getting it (even if you are) or are bored, far less learning takes place. I'd even venture to say that it can hurt the learning that's already taken place...
Note that I am not referring to kids who love math and really want to spend more tim on it. I'm referring to the "average" person who's on the fence with math: doesn't hate it but doesn't love it.
I have very limited experience tutoring elementary and middle school aged students, but my gut (and experience with older students) says that 60 minutes a day is too much if she doesn't like doing it for that long. I'd see if she can get the content done with less reading, less practice, less review, or all of the above. If not, then I'd just split lessons up among days and go through the material at a slower pace.
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Do you have a Kindle or other reader? I normally don't read to my kids with one, but it is one way to get German books cheaply. Amazon has decently priced ebooks: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_3?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A%21133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cp_20%3AGerman%2Cn%3A155009011&bbn=154606011&ie=UTF8&qid=1389035483&rnid=154606011
I got some ebooks for free through Project Gutenberg too. Often libraries have ebooks in other languages too.
Does there happen to be a German Saturday School anywhere near you? They have good lending libraries, but the teachers and other parents have also let my daughter borrow books.
And I got some cheap books from a thread someone posted a few weeks ago. ABC Kinderladen has books marked 50% off right now, and shipping was really cheap since it could go Media Mail. http://www.abckinderladen.com/
We don't have an ereader. The nearest Saturday school is about an hour away, which sounds close, but just doesn't work for us right now (not with a 2 year old and an infant as well as my 4 year old), and last time I went there were very few kids who were actually bilingual (most of them were just learning German).
I somehow had forgotten about ABC Kinderladen and gotten in the habit of ordering from bookdepository, so thanks for the reminder! Our "extras" budget is pretty limited right now, even so. It's hard for me to be patient when we can only buy one or two books a month! I think some times I'm worse than the kids... lol. I just love having such a variety of books from the library, and wish we could get that variety in German too. :) But I suppose I'm digressing from the original issue of reading in the "wrong" language.
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Maybe when you read to him, even when reading in German, you could tell him "This book is in English, but I am translating it into German" then proceed to read it in German" and vice versa "This book is in German, see [read the title in German], I don't even have to translate it" Thats what I do when translating on the fly Spanish into English.
We do often mention the language of the book... He just doesn't seem to remember it! :)
I would teach him to look for "the". If you immediately see the then the book is in English. If you scan a few sentences and don't see the then the book is in German.
I may try this! Since "the" is normally taught as a sight word, he'd hopefully find it rather quickly.
If it were me, I would skip the translating if possible. My hubby used to translate English books to German all the time, until my daughter finally complained that it made learning to read in German harder for her since she couldn't follow along. She was young at the time, and I didn't even realize that she was following along! Even though he's not interested in reading it yet, could it be that he's attempting to follow along and isn't seeing the words that match up with the German? Just another thought. :)
This is really interesting! I'd never considered this, but I definitely will! It's just hard because we have access to so many more English books than German (e.g., library, where you don't have to *buy* every single one!) that I'm not sure we'd have much variety in our reading if I only read German books.
Could you separate the books? German on one bookshelf, English on the other? That way you can let him know ahead of time, but you don't need to label each book individually. That's what we do with our Dutch/English books, but our kids are still too young for it to matter.
I did try this -- and it worked until the kids were old enough to put their own books away... But they don't separate them when they put them away (they all just end up in a stack), and with three little ones, I just don't have it in me to go through and sort books every day when they're already put away! :)
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Hmmm... I didn't want to label *all* of our books, was my thought, but he tries to read certain words from all his books. He doesn't limit himself to books that he can read through, and just randomly picks pages to try to read. I do have a separate place for the books that he can read completely independently, but he rarely chooses to read those, save for before naptime.
First audiobook?
in PreK and K
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My 4 yo also loves audio books. We didn't get him into them by finding the "right" audio book, we made the transition by ripping the audio off of his favorite movies and putting them on CD in the car. Once he got used to that (and they were familiar because he loved them so much), the transition to real audiobooks was seamless.