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LoveMyBeautifulGift

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Posts posted by LoveMyBeautifulGift

  1. Sounds like maybe the leaders need more help. Could be they need to scale back the amount of time they spend on volunteering. Could be the group has grown and the amount of help they were previously getting just isn't cutting it any more. Could be they're losing important volunteers or those volunteers had to scale back this year. I've had all of the above happen in our troop. I would look at this as them trying to clearly communicate that they need help this year and what kind of help they need. It doesn't mean they don't appreciate the help given previously. 

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  2. Zones! As pp poster mentioned, make categories and store those things together. If you feel like it needs more "structure" or want to eliminate visual clutter, dollar tree baskets are a great option-for example, we have three medium sized (I think these are the newest version of what we got a few years ago) baking goods baskets, 1 of which is mostly chips and bark, 1 has vanilla, dyes and other small jarred items related to baking, and one has various sugars in their boxes. Flour is in an old coffee container right next to them. We have a couple of these larger baskets for holding potatoes and onions-I just dump the bag right into them. Rearrange seasonally and/or as needed to fit what's happening in your life. Right now, the sno cone maker (and all its syrups) are down where DD13 and friends can get to it easily. In the winter, it gets put up out of the way and other things take its place. Right now, I'm rethinking our spice cabinet because it has become a hot mess. The trick is really thinking about how you use things-doesn't make sense to put the flour up with the other baking things that you only use once a month if you use it every morning to make scratch pancakes. I have olive oil in a basket with salt and pepper in a cupboard next to the stove because I use them together so frequently for dinners, but vegetable oil is put up in the pantry with the baking stuff because 99% of the time it gets used for baking, and that just doesn't happen all that often right now. 

     

  3. Thanks for the head's up about Into the Woods-its only on my radar bc one of her friends was talking about it at the last scout meeting, but I will definitely preview it. 

     

    Thanks also for the other great info, especially about ballet. Yes, I plan to include Arabian Nights somehow, if only just that we read and discuss some of the tales.  Wizard of Oz could definitely be fun-its a bit of a Halloween tradition for us to watch it every year, we could easily read it and compare.  Will definitely check out the Brother's Grimm movie as well! 

     

    Sounds super! Lots of great ideas in your list, and lots more in this thread above. :) My only thought would be to preview Into the Woods, as I understand there are some adult relationships and ideas, and you know what your 7th grader is ready for/not ready for. :)

     

    If including a look at ballet, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Coppelia, and The Fire Bird are famous dance versions of fairytales. And The Nutcracker is fairytale-like. Here's a DVD set of performances of some of these.

     

    Not traditional fairytale, but you might have fun reading the book/watching the movie and comparing versions of The Wizard of Oz.

     

    Do the Arabian Nights tales work into your study?

     

    One other movie you might find interesting -- although, again, preview first for intensity -- is The Brothers Grimm (PG-13).

     

    Have fun! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

     

  4. I love the idea of using fairy tales for lit discussion/writing for next year. DD will be in 7th. I've read every thread I could find that was even remotely related to this idea, and have decided that what I'd really love to do is have her pick a topic, read/watch movies/etc., have discussions with her as she goes A La Bravewriter, then help her work through the process of writing an essay on the topic. We did Figuratively Speaking a few years ago & Lively Art of Writing this year.  I have Writing with a Thesis, too. Plan to use those and Purdue's OWL as resources for her for style, etc.

     

    So far, I've come up with a bunch of ideas for topics, some of which may or may not appeal to her

     

    Fractured Fairy Tales:

    Read Rumplestiltskin Problem, A Tale Dark and Grim, The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, Rump, and/or similar fractured tales.  Watch Once Upon a Time and/or Into the Woods.  Discuss why the author made the changes, what fundamentally changed in the tale and why do you think that was. 

    Compare and contrast a classic vs modern version of a fairy tale (Cinderella/Ella Enchanted or Ever After, Little Mermaid/Ponyo, Beauty and the Beast/Edward Scissorhands, Alice in Wonderland/Coraline, Pinocchio/A.I., Mulan/She's the Man, etc-btw, if anyone has any more suggestions, I'd love to hear them!)

    Compare and contrast classic cultural versions (Many Skins, Silver Slipper, etc)

    What are the ramifications of princess culture? 

    What purpose do fairytales/legends/myths/etc. serve? Why are they so popular? 

    Discuss the merits of fanfiction in terms of fairy tales (ie, current remakes are just fanfics of classic fairy tales, etc).

    Discuss archetypes in fairy tales. Give examples of XYZ archetypes from various fairy tales.

    What makes a fairy tale? 

    Discuss disneyfication. Why did it first happen? What are the ramifications of disneyfication? How is disneyfication a reflection of a wider cultural problem? Is Disney doing enough to diversify its characters/update their versions?

    Ballet as fairy tale

    Is sci fi the future of the fairy tale?

     

    Basically, we will read/watch fairy tales and discuss. Then she will write about it, and I will help her revise and edit as needed.

     

    As you can see, some topics are a bit further developed than the rest. Would love to hear any suggestions anyone has about these topics, suggestions for other topics or from anyone that wound up doing a fairy tale study.  

  5. I will definitely try this. Makes a lot more sense than trying to guess and check, lol. 

     

    Rather than try to use arbitrary numbers, maybe you can time her (surreptitiously) on a good day when you're helping her focus, and allow 10-20% more time than that.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

     

    I try not to leave her alone with things she still needs help with. We don't start our day until baby's morning nap (pretty early) so I can sit and work with her during math. I will definitely pull the timer back out, to remind myself to check in on her, and to give her a limit. Hopefully that will help. 

     

    I do the activity and then double my time. Then, I make sure said child can do the activity on his/her own - which usually requires a lot of scaffolding and hand-holding in the earlier years or in the early part of the year.

    You might think about implementing a timer for both of you with what is left of this year. Set it for half the total time you want her to be done with the activity or no more than 30 minutes. Try to get your baby and house stuff done in that time. Then, sit with her and help her refocus and finish during the rest of the time (with timer). She gets a break with the time that is left before moving onto the next activity. This will be good practice, help you understand what she can do on her own, and you can still get some other things done.

     

    This is what I want to avoid! I feel like if I just make what's left homework, I'm just going to push the problem off to night time and we probably still won't get finished, lol. Thanks for the insight and commiseration, glad to hear moving on helps, even if just a bit. 

     

    I am no help. I have one so much like this. I have found a very detailed schedule helps, but she doesn't stick to it well. But it helps. I usually do the time is up, put it up and move on to the next thing, finish later routine. She is expected to do one lesson of a subject in a given time. If it isn't done, it is considered homework. But she never finishes anything. And she truly can't do it all up in her room all night every night after the day's work is done for everyone else. So I am constantly adjusting workloads and checking on her, and choosing what is most important unfortunately. My other one self regulates pretty well. I mean I am involved, and she has better days and worse days, but in general, she knows what she needs to do, and works to the best of her ability in that time period. If consistently she isn't finishing something in her time period, it usually is because she can't, and we need to readjust expectations. With the other, that isn't the case. Even though in general she is a great student as far as what she does output, trying to get anything done is like pulling teeth, from getting out of bed to getting dressed to taking a shower. You can just pretty much quadruple the time it would take anybody else on the planet to do it for her average time. 

     

    But the switching things up does help. If she has been staring at math for 3 hours, it isn't getting done even if I giver her another 3 hours. I put it up, and she usually adjusts her brain, gets going on the next things pretty well, then goes back to the math later. She just wastes a lot of time doing I don't know what.  

     

  6. I know every child is different/our home environment will effect outcomes/flexibility is key/etc., etc. etc. I promise to account for my child's abilities and give her some grace time. 

     

    BUT. I have a dawdler. Seriously, if given the opportunity, DD12 will spend the entire day completing one math worksheet (and probably not finish). She has NO sense of time. In the past, it hasn't been as much of an issue during school time, as I have been able to prompt her to move along as she works (because I sit with her ;), and we've mostly gotten through things (though we are down to bare bones this year-math first, then reading/discussion, science/history/Lively Art of Writing on rotation). But we have a new baby in the house, and I am finding that I am losing track of time, which in turn lets her lose track of time, lol. Its not as big a deal this year (I planned in extra time to finish the year/planned a simpler year than usual/we worked harder at the beginning of the year so we could have wiggle room at the end of the year).

     

    Next year, though, I would like to start implementing some time limits for finishing things, so we can move on and she can do the rest as homework, after dinner (when she would typically be free to play on the computer/video games/etc. for a bit before shower/reading/bed time). This will probably go hand in hand with our first attempts at grading (want to get her used to the idea that effort and time are needed to get good grades before high school, when it will count and I might not be doing the grading). I'm tempted to just give her an hour for each subject each day, but I'm not sure what is reasonable to expect to be completed in that amount of time.

     

    So, hive mind, what do you think is a reasonable amount of time for a 7th grader to complete:  

     

    A chapter outline from a science text?

    A sheet of math practice (we use MM)?

    Reading a chapter from a history text?

    Reading 2-4 chapters of a novel/chapter book?

    Etc.

     

     

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  7. You can also use pipettes to drop alcohol on the shirt after coloring with Sharpie to creat a tie-dye effect. We did it with our scout troop as Daisies-they had a flower design on the shirt that they mostly colored with sharpies, then added the alcohol and let the colors bleed into each other...some wound up outside the flowers, but the girls loved them.

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  8. I do once a month dinner planning combined with weekly shopping. So once a month I make a menu and shop and prep (as much as possible) all the freezer/pantry items for dinners. Each week, I look over the menu to see if adjustments need to be made and what fresh items are needed, add whatever breakfast/lunch/snack stuff is needed and then go shopping. I usually deep clean the kitchen/make the list 1 day and shop the next. Clean, organized space to bring it all home to and I know what we're running low on, etc.

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  9. We have a Shutterfly Share group that is mostly for sharing pics, keeping a calendar and occasional messages. I use it less frequently than I originally did, as I realized parents rarely logged on or read the emails sent from it. Now, I mostly use Remind to send group messages and keep a parent station set up at meetings (paper calendar,reminders sheet, clipboards with sign up sheets, file box for parents to turn in checks/permisssion forms or pick up the rare thing I send home). As pp mentioned, I have learned to put responsibility on the parents and they (mostly) keep up. I am a "mean leader"-I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Parents have learned that if a deadline is Friday at 3 pm, their daughter is going to miss out if they wait til Saturday to call me. Instead of a parent survey, I do an end of year survey with the girls-we have floats or sundaes, look at pics from the year, talk about what was great, what we want to do again, what we didn't get to do that we want to next year...much more productive than the parent survey I sent out the 1st year...

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  10. For the younger:

    Spring's Sprung---love all the books in this series

    It's Raining, Its Pouring and The Aunts Go Marching were always "spring" faves of DD when she was younger 

     

    For the older-

    E Aster Bunnymund

     

    We just put in a request for this from the library:

    Handsprings: Poems and Paintings  (we've enjoyed Autumblings in the past and just discovered the spring one)

     

    HTH!

     

     

  11. Hmmm...not sure if this is GS or another scout group, but my .02.  Girl scouts is about progression (just google Girl Scout Outdoor progression for a dozen different takes on it, each council seems to have their own).  Not sure what badge the girls are trying to earn, but older girl badges assume the girls have built on skills in the past  (ie, that they've been scouts since they were Daisies or Brownies, and that their troop earned the related badges in the past).  In my troop, the progression for hiking was walk to park up the street, short hike at local nature center, longer hike at localish camp, night hike at slightly further out camp (shorter hike than day hikes, but girls had to really think about what to pack in their "day packs"), long hike at National Park, and the girls are currently discussing whether we should do camping backpacking style next year (hike in with all our gear) or to another council camp that has some great trails that we could take a full day hike on.  (We have also been progressing through our camping and cooking skills through the years).  They've had other nature walks/hikes in between, various camp skills days where we practiced packing skills (even short hikes take some packing skills---some of our girls want to bring their bedroom with them everywhere, and some still need me to double check that they packed a water bottle, lol).  We have a brand new girl this year.  To prepare her, we have added some local hikes to our plans between now and camp.  She won't have nearly as much experience as the other girls, but she will know the difference between a day pack and overnight bag, about layering clothes, etc. and will have built up some progression.  She will get some overnight experience at a local camporee.  

     

    All that being said, if the girls are bridging up, it could be that the leader really wants the girls to be able to earn the badge (especially if they have expressed interest in wanting to earn it) and now the deadline is looming.  As a leader, I can tell you that the reality rarely matches the idealistic plans from the beginning of the year (much like HSing, lol).  The fact that she is asking for 1 parent/girl tells me she realizes there may be some issues, but that she's trying to make it happen for the girls.  If its an easy hike (not mountain climbing or hiking out into the desert for 8 hours or anything of the sort), I would offer to help however I could and enjoy the day out.  Our family frequently goes on day trips that require lots of walking, which is something we have done since I was just a kid.  8 hours sounds like a long time, but really you will have more stops than you can imagine (girl A has a rock in her shoe, girl B is DYING of starvation! and so on), plus lunch and stopping to look at flowers and bugs and enjoying being in nature (and if they are older girls, stopping for selfies every 5 feet, lol)....it will be time to head back to the cars before you know it....

     

    ETA-Sorry for the book, lol...

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  12. Thanks for the reply!  I'm glad to hear you've had a positive experience with them.  For some reason I've had this niggling idea that keeps popping up in the back of my mind that we will somehow find ourselves chafing at the bit in middle school...that sticking with them will mean more restrictions and hoop jumping, simply because we're moving into middle school.  This hasn't been my experience at all with them (our CT is awesome and I've never felt restricted by the school or our CT)...if anything, using the charter has enabled us to do things we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise, and I've loved having the CT to bounce ideas off of and for having an outsiders p.o.v. on DD's work...maybe its my subconscious mind's way of panicking about middle school, even though I feel I have a handle on it, lol.

  13. How long did it take for you to receive it?  Did you get a shipping notice/tracking number?  I caved and purchased last weekend (since I saw it still available at HSBC).  We will be out of town for a couple days next week and I'm wondering if it will just arrive out of the blue (in which case, I can ask the neighbor to keep an eye out) or if we will get a shipping notice (haven't yet).  

  14. We are with Visions in Education.  DD works ahead in some areas (and behind in others).  The written policy at Visions does state that material more than a year ahead will need approval (if ordering through them), but I have yet to experience any issues with ordering advanced material.  Also, anything I order on my own is fine-the only concern for materials ordered on our own is that if we are going to use it as a sample that it not contain religious material (we don't use religious materials, so non-issue for us).  

     

    Hello. I'm in the greater Sacramento area. My oldest just turned four and I'm planning on enrolling him in a charter with stipends next year for TK. I'm thinking South Sutter.

    Does anyone know how flexible the charters are with accelerated kids? I asked a local group and they said any curriculum the charter pays for must be within one grade level of your kid's grade. I don't mind paying for the curriculum myself as I intend to use the charter funds for music and sports anyway. Should I be documenting my son's work this year to "prove" he's at the level he should be when we enroll next year?

     

  15. Just finished The Fringe Hours, which is about just this topic.  What I particularly liked was that it didn't read like another mommy blog (ie, it wasn't full of "insights" and affirmations about "mama" hood), which so many books I've found on the topic lately to be. This week, I am tracking my time (well, doing my best to, anyway) and then I will consider what to do next.  After reading it, I've really been thinking about carving out some me time in the morning for a cuppa and some more reading. Tomorrow's library trip, I plan to browse outside of my usual stacks and pick up whatever catches my attention-maybe I'll find something to get into, maybe all I will accomplish is to read some books next week, but at least I will get to read (which is something I enjoy but rarely make time to do).    

     

    ETA: re-reading that-I enjoy many mommy blogs and have nothing against them, I just found the tone refreshing after a stack of books that all felt like so much of the same and didn't really give me the sense of direction I needed. 

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  16. What Kate said above could describe my DD, down to the Touch Math learned at PS undermining her math facts. On top of not understanding math, she had convinced herself she was "stupid" at math. Our first year of HS (last year, 3rd grade) I backed off of math as she knew it. We read Life of Fred, which she was very hesitant to do at first, because it was math. But she found herself enjoying it (she's always been a voracious reader) and I didn't press her to do anything else math-wise. Mid-year, I pulled out some math games, Beast Academy and some cheap math workbooks (do the problems and get the answer to a riddle types). She enjoyed Beast Academy, and we worked through a couple of those slowly until about mid-year this year. She hit a wall with multiplication, so we've pulled out Life of Fred again, along with Murderous Maths and games, and are currently taking it easy again. I did have her take an ADAM test this spring. I found it very useful to pinpoint where we need to shore up (for example, I knew she needed to work on multiplication facts, but didn't realize she was also struggling with place value in numbers over 1,000). My plan for the summer is to get those multiplication facts down and then take the ADAM again, so I can map out a plan for next year using Math Mammoth blue series (supplementing with a lot of the fun math she enjoys).

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  17. Aside from putting her is PS K-2nd?

     

    -Not taking enough time off to transition. We really only took the summer off, and jumped right in to school in the fall-looking back, I wish we had just unschooled/not focused so much on the school part of HSing our first year.

     

    -Focusing too much on meeting outside standards/expectations. Though I swore I didn't want to school at home, i found myself doing just that our first year, and even this year have caught myself falling back on bad habits and wonky thinking at times.

     

    -Looking back as we near the end of our 2nd year, I would say overal the biggest mistake was rushing into it-feeling like I had to pick the perfect curricula, start the perfect schedule, do ALL THE THINGS. I should've just listened to the part of me that pulled her out of school in the first place-the part that said she was burned out on school and needed to go back to the way we did things before I sent her off to school (no curricula, a daily routine (but not a rigid/frantic schedule), lots of trips to the library and parks, reading, reading and more reading).

    • Like 1
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