Jump to content

Menu

TKDmom

Members
  • Posts

    3,961
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by TKDmom

  1. Middle school students can take high school classes. They won't let a 9th grader finish an 8th grade class once the school year starts, but there's no problem working ahead.
  2. Have you ever looked at the Growth Mindset philosophy (Carol Dweck)? I think it would be really helpful to talk with her about growth vs. fixed mindset, and really work to find areas where one or both of you might view things with a fixed mindset. <deleted personal info>
  3. I had a friend give me (and my dd) Natural Calm and dd wouldn't drink it! When I told my friend, she told me to mix it with low-sugar lemonade, which made it much more palatable. I just went to Target and got the NatureMade Mg Citrate. That's run out and I got on Amazon and ordered Thorne Magnesium Citramate (citrate and malate). We'll see if there's any difference in effectiveness.
  4. Magnesium also helps us relax at bedtime (I use Mg Citrate). I think Melatonin becomes less effective if taken every night.
  5. :crying:​ This made me tear up a little. Thank you. I keep wondering if there's any reason to test, since he seems to be doing okay. Like I've already missed the boat or something. I finally wrote out an email to his English teacher to request dyslexia and gifted screening for him. I'll find a developmental ophthalmologist when it's time for another eye exam in the summer. We went to one before, but I think he was 4 or 5 the last time I took all the kids to that doctor. And he was so young that she had no concerns about his inability to track properly.
  6. I’m dying!!! You totally made my day. :lol: :lol: I was all ready for these to be the crocheted shorts I keep seeing in my FB feed, but no. These are truly awful. Without even a hint of vintage afghan awesomeness.
  7. I keep worrying about my 12yo. He's so different from my other kids, and I'm not sure if I'm reacting to his differences or if he really does need to be evaluated for a learning disability. He started school this year as a 6th grader (that's middle school here). By age he should be in 7th, but we just didn't feel like he was ready for 7th. He's doing great in all his classes, but he still struggles so much with writing. I was going over homework with him last night, and I still need to remind him to capitalize "I", and the first letter of every sentence, and to put in periods... It's like he doesn't even see these things. He's always struggled with spelling--I'm not sure he can hear the difference between short i and short e. And he had letter and number reversals well past his 8th birthday. His handwriting is still atrocious--I think he still occasionally reverses letters and smashes words together on the page, but he seems to be able to self-correct, and he now does most of his writing on a computer, so it's not as noticeable. He reads fine. He took a little longer to learn to read than my older kids, but not at all outside the range of normal. He won't choose to read unless I take away all electronics, but once he gets engaged in a good book, he'll stay up late and get up early to finish it. At the end of the first quarter, I reached out to his English teacher to discuss his difficulties. She wrote me back saying he's doing great, she doesn't have any concerns, and she's recommending him for Honors English next year. She said she'd call me if I still wanted to talk, but we kept missing each other, and I dropped it. My other 3 kids have been positively identified for gifted programs. They're all strong in language skills. DS12 hasn't been tested, but he's done the CogAt a few times. His age-based scores are consistently 20 -30 points lower than my other kids, and he's performing below average on things like punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. I was talking to a friend the other day, wondering out loud if I'm just looking for ways to be special instead of accepting that he's not as bright as the other kids. She told me he's definitely smart, and compared him to her oldest (whose IQ was tested somewhere above 145, but consistently fails classes that are boring). Does this sound anything like dysgraphia or stealth dyslexia? I feel like I'm grasping at straws. Would you look for an evaluation? Or should I be content with his English teacher's analysis that he's doing fine? I watched a video that SWB had linked about dysgraphia, and all the "red flags" just sounded like normal childhood struggles with writing, so I'm not sure if I should spend the time and money to have him evaluated.
  8. I don’t drink coffee, but I do seem to need a nap almost every day. 😂 Honestly caffeine doesn’t seem to affect me very much. I drink Dr. Pepper when I’m driving long distances, but it’s the bubbles on my tongue that keep me alert. Once the bottle is empty, I don’t notice any lasting affect. I’m also fully capable of going to sleep after taking an excedrin. Does anyone else find that caffeine doesn’t do much for them?
  9. I have heard that Ancestry is not really accurate for close relatives. It has something to do with the short dna segments that they analyze. 23&me is supposed to be better at identifying people in the same nuclear family.
  10. I downloaded a trial version of both of these. Paprika is sooo easy to import recipes into! I'm super impressed. I just wish they had good print support. I hate using my phone to cook (waking up the screen every few minutes when I'm elbow deep in flour or meat or butter...). My ideal program would be easy to import and let me print recipe cards so I can have my go-to box of recipes when I don't feel like planning. I used to use AccuChef for recipes. It did a great job printing, but was a pain to input. Maybe I'll figure out some combination of programs! :lol:
  11. I've gotten a couple pairs of the shredded memory foam pillows from Costco--Bamboo Life is the brand. It was $50 for a pair of pillows. They are a little odd to sleep on--the pieces of memory foam can be lumpy. And you need to fluff up the memory foam every night to get it back into a normal shape. But once you fall asleep they are super comfortable.
  12. I did Ancestry last summer. I discovered that one of my cousins has a son that was given up for adoption. Cousin doesn't want to know anything about it. He refuses to acknowledge that he could have a son. All the other cousins I've talked to (including his brother) agree that it must be him. It's been an interesting experience.
  13. I'm ready to create a new recipe card box. i'm planning to collect up our favorite recipes from 15 different cookbooks and consolidate them into one box. Then my cookbooks can go live on the bookshelf instead of all over the kitchen counter. What's your favorite program for organizing and printing recipes?
  14. I made myself a pacing guide before I started Town level. More to organize my thoughts and make sure I wasn’t trying to do it all at once. If you do use it, don’t be a slave to the schedule. I looked for natural breaks in Grammar Town when I scheduled it, but go at a pace that’s comfortable to you. I wish I’d let us go a little faster at the beginning, because there’s all this momentum and excitement with a new book that you don’t have after about week 10. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_zKb3BIbuwcMERfLV9sUmNRTkd3Y18zZGlObWU5UQ/view?usp=drivesdk&resourcekey=0-HTpXw_AunfcAbeOOxiR4xQ ETA: Google changed their security settings and I’ve had a few requests for access. This is the new link, but if it you aren’t able to access it, feel free to request access.
  15. Narnia was our last cross-country car trip. :wub: My older kids were just discussing how they equate The Magician's Nephew with Nebraska. I think the Last Battle is Wyoming. :laugh:
  16. We were just discussing how dd8 doesn't know all of our HP references. I think she'd be ok with the first 3 books, at least. I downloaded #1 for this weekend.
  17. I’ve got 5 Audible credits I need to use before I put my account on hold, and I’ve got a long Thanksgiving car trip planned. What are your favorite audiobooks for a family with kids 8-16? The older kids often put in earbuds and listen to their own thing, but I need books that will engage the drivers and be appropriate for my 8yo.
  18. In our district, it's common for kids to take high school level (math and language) courses in middle school. If the student scores well, their grades will be included on the high school transcript (with weighting for honors). If they don't do well, they can ask to have the grades removed and retake the course in high school with no penalty. When my oldest enrolled at a ps here, I didn't even hesitate to put her high school-level spanish and algebra (from 8th grade) on her transcript. She needs those credits to fill the boxes for graduation and they'll be counted towards her GPA. I've always thought the weighted scales were ridiculous, but now I just wish I'd made a note of honors-level courses, because her GPA will be lower than her peers for some of those really tough classes she took.
  19. Yeah, he doesn’t quite fit the classic signs of dyslexia, but some things are close. He can’t hear the difference between short e and short i. Speech therapy helped some, but sometimes he still asks me about them. He does occasionally misspell his name. My dh is appalled by his spelling, but it’s improved a lot since he started typing more and using spell check. He can’t seem to figure out rules for capitalization or punctuation—I still have to remind him to capitalize his name and the first letter of every sentence. He had letter reversals till about age 10... Some of these things, I could attribute to poor teaching, or maybe a kid who needs more explicit teaching than I gave. My oldest just picked up all these things naturally, though. She came home the other day and handed me a form to give my permission to move up to honors English. The last straw for her was that they’d gone over comma rules in class that day (this is 11th grade!). DS piped up that he wished someone would teach him how to use commas. It’s both ends of the spectrum here! He’s in school now, so I’ll reach out to his English teacher.
  20. If you already have MCT, I would try out Grammar Island with him, and keep going with WWE for copywork. I'm not a fan of the narration in the WWE workbooks. I found myself trying to coax my kids into giving the "right" answer. I did much better with CM-style narration on our read-alouds. Or even just asking one kid to refresh everyone's memory on where we were in the story before we start the day's reading. If you love CAP, but don't think he's ready for it yet, you can wait. It won't be the end of the world to start in 4th grade. I used Narrative I and II with my 5th grader last year, because that's where he needed to be. To me, you as a teacher have to love what you're teaching. If you want to poke your eyes out, your ds will pick up on that. If you are having fun, he will do better with it, even if he doesn't quite get it all. I really love CAP too. The progression and scaffolding are great. I can't see a dryer program like R&S being a good fit for you. It's a good program, and it gets the job done, but so much repetition and not enough allowing kids to spread their wings and have fun with writing, IMO.
  21. Tangent...but how did you find out she was dyslexic? My 6th grader writes worse than my 3rd grader, but I'm not sure if that's because he's a boy, or because I slacked on teaching him spelling and handwriting, or maybe he's actually a smart kid with dyslexia. :confused1:
  22. I have to add one...high ability, but who really hates math: quick run through the text with WB and finish as quickly as possible so you can get to more interesting things like literature and art. :lol: I love how flexible Singapore is. You really can use it with all types of students. Unfortunately my math-hater was my oldest so I kept looking for the perfect curriculum. If I had known what I know now, I would have let her do the bare minimum on math and stuck with Singapore.
  23. I can’t imagine the authors intended for students to use all the books. That would have made my kids and I crazy. This is how I used Singapore: Textbook and Workbook are the bare minimum. Preferably with the HIG for extra guidance on how to introduce and extend lessons. If you need more challenge, add CWP. If the workbook is mind-numbingly easy, substitute the IP for the workbook. If a child is struggling to learn the material and needs more practice, add Extra Practice.
  24. Your post really struck me. I've been kicking it around in my brain for the last couple days. I'm of the camp that it shouldn't matter whether or not the mother is highly educated when comes to her decision of staying at home with kids or not. But you know, my education and my interests are tightly linked to my identity. I've never quite verbalized that before. I was studying for a master's in organic chemistry when my oldest was born and I dropped out. I realized that I didn't love working in the lab to synthesize organic compounds, and I wasn't willing to work long hours on something that I didn't love while caring for a newborn. I'm still slightly bitter that a member of my committee blocked me from getting a course-based masters. He didn't want to set a precedent of allowing people to get a degree without furthering research in the department. Looking back, I can see that neurochemistry is really what interests me. I'm fascinated every time I find out a little piece of how the brain works. Anyway, that first year after she was born was so, so hard. I was angry and depressed. I felt like I'd lost a part of myself. I felt selfish for not embracing motherhood. I live in a religious subculture where many women look forward to being moms and love what they do, even if they struggle with PPD. But I was never one of them. It took me seven years to embrace motherhood. Even then, it was mostly because I needed to start homeschooling, and homeschooling was an intellectual challenge. I enjoyed researching and learning new things. I'll stop before I babble too much more, but I'm glad you posted. Maybe it shouldn't matter what a SAHM's educational level is, but I can see how I'm one of those women for whom staying at home has been a huge sacrifice. It's one that I'm willing to make--my kids' well-being is important to me, and I don't think I'd change anything. My youngest has some health issues that would make it life harder for both of us if I were working outside the home and didn't have the flexibility that I do. But still, it's good to recognize that I'm not alone, and maybe I could pursue an education again, I know I'm a happier, more energetic mom when I'm engaged in something bigger than myself.
  25. I'm at home without kids for the first time this school year. My kids are now in 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 11th grades, and they are all enrolled in school right now. This is actually hard for me emotionally. Not that I miss them, but that I don't have a compelling reason to be staying at home. I'm feeling a little worthless. BUT, I'm still fairly busy. My youngest leaves for school at 7:30, my middle schoolers leave at 8:30, and my high schooler at 8:45, So I spend about two hours in the morning making sure everyone makes it out the door. Cleaning the house usually takes all day on Mondays, after the kids have been home all weekend trashing the place. 2:30, and the elementary school bus, comes all too soon. Most other days, I can easily spend an hour or so cleaning up after they leave. I go shopping. Today, I discovered a new store, and spent 2 hours wandering around. Then I discovered the Asian supermarket and spent another hour there trying to decipher labels on chinese convenience food. This is perhaps the biggest luxury of having kids at school--I can go to the store by myself, and take my time without worrying whether or not the kids are doing their schoolwork or if they are fighting. I'm starting to tutor ESOL at the library tomorrow. I'm finally able to keep up with all the random paperwork and bills that come through the house. My evenings are still full of supervising math homework and trying to teach kids how to write an essay. Last night I was up till midnight talking with my teen about some things that she's struggling with. This morning I was able to take a nap, without feeling guilty about what I was neglecting to get a full night's sleep. Anyway, I haven't found my groove yet. I still feel like I'm wasting half my day, but I'm also telling myself that I'm in the "deschooling" phase (decompressing from all that time as a homeschool mom). :tongue_smilie: Hopefully, I'll find something that I'm passionate about and get engaged with it.
×
×
  • Create New...