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SanDiegoMom

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Everything posted by SanDiegoMom

  1. My kids really understood grammar after reading through Grammarland. They loved it and learned it so much better because it was in the context of a story. They did MCT after that but the basics had already been established.
  2. I'm just starting to suspect my graduating senior is/was ADD. It would take her 2 hours to do one work sheet after school (PS) and she has so much trouble with time management even now. She has always been highly gifted and I think she's been compensating all these years. Young elementary school was bad but middle school was by far the worst. Brain fog and hormones.
  3. I had 4 month old twins when my 6 year old got sick. After days she got worse and worse til she was delirious. I have felt such guilt for years- I didn't ever think dehydration. I hope your little guy feels better fast!
  4. This sounds like Hewitt"s Lightning Literature. They have 7th and 8th grade -- you can find samples online. Can be done independently as far as I have heard. We haven't done it but I am looking at it for next year.
  5. Only words of commiseration here... my dd17 is heading off to college in the fall. I have no idea what to expect. She does very poorly with deadlines, she still has trouble getting up in time for school, she procrastinates like crazy on almost everything. She's always been able to pull things off at the last minute but smaller things (reminders to put the AP study guide from the library on hold, reminders to call and make a dentist or haircut appt) are never done. She had to pay rush shipping to get her AP study book from amazon. I think it is a combination of Executive Functioning issues mixed with just the fact that applications, phone calls, deadlines, etc are so MUNDANE. She only likes to do the big stuff that matters, not the little day to day trivial things. She is also creative -- she'll write for hours with extreme focus and discipline. But drink water? Eat on a schedule? Wake up before noon? Nope. She does use her iphone and sets reminders on google calendar. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes.
  6. I didn't read all the responses but I just wanted to add that my husband and I both worked through the SAT and the ACT and greatly disliked the ACT- it was really a test of speed reading- some parts you didn't even have time to read the whole passage but benefited more from just looking at the questions and skimming the passage. It felt much more like a test of speed and working memory. This was for the science and reading sections. The SAT felt more like a test than a test of speed.
  7. Sheppard Software online is a great supplement. We used Draw Europe and when they finished they followed up with Sheppard Software. It is free - just games, but they've gotten really good and memorizing at least the names and capitals. The 10th grader might want Human Geography though -- my oldest took it in ninth grade and LOVED it. She was at PS.
  8. We just bought a new house (fortunately right down the street) and once we closed I realized the former owner and I didn't not share any of the same taste in paint. I would have been ok with the kids bedrooms but the only way to get my kids happy about the move was letting them choose their colors. So I painted the living room, family room, kitchen, two and a half bedrooms (my teenager started it but she really can't reach my level of meticulousness) and the entire basement. They know me very well at Lowes. I will say my bathrooms are fine with the colors they have. But the kitchen! Argh. Cabinets, an overhang that had to be painted on the bottom side...
  9. Thank you! We are doing early Modern and I have a big historical fiction list but this will complement perfectly!
  10. My daughter is neurotypical and is 17 and has hit two cars (going five miles an hour) and has run a red light, has gotten lost countless times even in her own neighborhood, has cut off people twice by accident... she has been driving a year now and is starting finally to get the hang of it. Driving is an automatic skill that needs constant practice to MAKE it automatic, and while kids are still working on it EVERY decision they make while driving has to be thought about because they just don't have the muscle memory yet. It takes a LONG time. That is why car insurance is so much higher for teenagers. They just aren't good at it yet. *She did all these things AFTER the required 45 hours driving with us and 10 hours driving with the instructor.
  11. Beast Academy and Singapore Math are very strong -- Singapore Intensive Practice is what I used with my math advanced son since Beast Academy wasn't out yet. For my dd I plan to have her finish up BA 5 and then move into a Pre-Algebra program by sixth, either Jacob's, Jousting Armadillos or Aops with Alcumus. BA is extremely challenging, teaching algebraic concepts as well as many pre-algebra concepts (pre-algebra being just a solidifying of elementary skills really.) It is great for math lovers, or if you are like my dd, kids who don't necessarily live and breathe math but who need something that is not dry. (it is taught in comic book form and has a lot of variety and challenging puzzles throughout) My son went straight into Art of Problem Solving Pre-Alg after Singapore IP 5A/5B. A friend who used BA went to Jacob's Algebra after. It has a great deal of review which could be considered Pre-A in the beginning of the book. Her dd will be finishing it over the course of sixth and half of seventh. It Just for reference, her dd used Math Mammoth and found it deadly dull, and was much happier when she switched to BA. It is pricey, however. And my dd and I do all the star problems together -- she wouldn't have been able to do them without a buddy. And to be honest, I often struggle with them myself. The curriculum is definitely geared towards kids that live and breathe math. And in the long run, its most important to solidify the earliest Pre-Algebra and Algebra skills. My oldest daughter(in Public School) took Algebra twice and Algebra 2 twice. She took Pre calc in 11th and Calc in 12th. She managed to pull off a near perfect score in the Math section of the SAT, but it was a long road. She plans to get a 4 or 5 on the AP calc exam and never take a math class again. Except stats. Which she has to take for her major. :-) Sorry it's so choppy. Doing three things at once makes my thoughts very stream of consciousness!
  12. DS is Reading The Grapes of Math by Alex Bellos, who wrote Here's Looking at Euclid (his favorite so far). He's also reading Hero's Guide to Saving the Kingdom for light reading. Dd just started Moonbird, a year on the wind with the great survivor B95 after finishing a Scientist in the Field book Saving the Ghost of the Mountain (snow leopards). I am reading Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil. I just finished All the Light You Cannot See and decided I'm not going to read any more novels set in wartime for awhile. :-)
  13. My kids and their friends do it, and their older sister did too. I didn't know there was any other way to play!
  14. When we were looking at Berkeley the traditional dorm rooms were coed floors and they all shared the same bathroom. I was a little weirded out by that - they did it because the building was so old it only had one bathroom per floor and no one wanted to trek to another floor all the time. My friend from Yale shared a coed bathroom as well, back in the 90's. But that was only 10 people as compared to like thirty.
  15. However keep in mind if they are over three years past retirement they only get in state tuition where they live.
  16. My kid is exhausted, and I am too. This is my first time and we made a lot of mistakes. We are using the GI bill, a golden ticket, but with it comes the problem of having too many choices and a kid who kept changing her mind about what she wanted. Then she took a late SAT (November!) which raised her score so high we realized our school list could potentially change. And finally our whole plan was to retire to CA from VA in one year but it might change to two, and so potentially she could spend half her college career on the other coast than we are. Oh, and of course the in state tuition change that opened up all state schools to us but didn't get passed until January so we only knew for sure she would get in state tuition this past month! Argh. Then comes March 30, the day she found out that she was rejected by her favorite choice, the one she had researched all the courses she would take, the dorm she would live in, the clubs she would join. It was rough. So, yeah. It's been a long haul. She's bouncing back better than I am. The day after she found out about her rejection, she went away for a debate weekend and I became a blubbery mess from the realization that this is for reals and my kid is going off to college. Oof.
  17. And since I can't quote on my phone, Sebastian I saw on the other thread that your DS got accepted to Stanford (congrats!!) so don't forget about yellow ribbon money (I looked up Stanford and its 3000, which the VA matches) and that the bah for the area is super high compared to living expenses and you get that money sent straight to you, not the school. So it's another way to make up for tuition that is higher than the 22,000 or whatnot that the VA gives for a private school. We were looking into that when my dd was looking at NyU. The tuition is insanely high, but the bah was twice the dorm rate, so we were considering applying the rest to the tuition.
  18. And because we spent hours trying to decode the language, we finally gave up and called one of the school's my dd applied to, out in California. We called their VA office and told them our situation (applying out of state, using GI Bill, sponsor active duty). They said that yes, after July 1st we will be fine, before that, no. We are station in Va, residents of FL, but would get in state CA tuition AFTER July 1st. I admit the language is incredibly confusing, which was why we called and told them our exact situation. I would do that - just call the VA office at the school and verify since they will be the ones handling all the VA paperwork and money.
  19. Here is a link to an article citing the change: scroll to the bottom: http://www.militaryfamily.org/kids-operation-purple/education.html It says: Since 2014, public colleges and universities have been required to grant in-state tuition status to veterans and their dependents using Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits within three years of the service member leaving the military. Effective July 1, 2017, this benefit will be extended to dependents of active duty service members as well. Note that this only applies to students using GI Bill benefits. And to define what a covered individual really is: http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/417.asp To remain approved for VA’s GI Bill programs, schools must charge in-state tuition and fee amounts to “covered individuals.†A covered individual is defined as: 1. A Veteran who lives in the state where the IHL is located (regardless of his/her formal state of residence) and enrolls in the school within three years of discharge from a period of active duty service of 90 days or more. 2.An individual using transferred benefits who lives in the state where the IHL is located (regardless of his/her formal state of residence) and enrolls in the school within three years of the transferor’s discharge from a period of active duty service of 90 days or more. 3.Anyone described above while he or she remains continuously enrolled (other than during regularly scheduled breaks between courses, semesters, or terms) at the same school. The person so described must have enrolled in the school prior to the expiration of the three year period following discharge or release as described above and must be using educational benefits under either chapter 30 or chapter 33, of title 38, United States Code. 4.Anyone using transferred Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits who lives in the state where the IHL is located and the transferor is a member of the uniformed service who is serving on active duty.
  20. This is the link to the bill that just passed. It adds the provision that if a sponsor is still active duty and has successfully transferred their benefits to dependents, the dependent has to receive in state tuition to any state school in the U.S. If the sponsor has retired and the dependent uses the gi bill less than 3 years after retirement, they still get the same in state tuition anywhere. If it is longer than three years, they should have established residency somewhere and they will only get in state tuition in that state. Before the language implied that the military member transferring the benefit HAD to be a veteran (aka retired) so if they were still active duty, the dependent would not get in state tuition anywhere but the state in which they were stationed. If the student attends a private college, the student will receive up to $22,805 towards tuition. If the college offers the yellow ribbon program, the VA will match the amount that the college offers. The housing allowance offered is searchable using BAH rates for the area. It will be an E-5 with dependents rate, which in high col areas can be pretty substantial! (NY is around 3500 per month I think). You get 9 months of BAH per year for four years, and 8 semesters of full time tuition. You also get 1000 per month for books. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/6416 Because the bill did just get signed, not all the information on the internet is up to date. Since we were in the middle of college applications (and they had all gone out already which made it very tricky trying to judge whether it would pass or not) we just called one of the school's VA office on our list and asked them. I can look up more links, but I wanted to send this out to get you started.
  21. I would be tempted to write off a lot of them as lying if we hadn't met kids who actually were doing all these things! And some of them were really nice kids to boot! But they were all extremely stressed their entire four years.
  22. The last time my daughter and I flew, we saw different instructions for what to have out of our bags and what to leave in at the two different airports. We were pretty confused, though we did ask before we put out bags on the scanners. But the information was different in FL compared to CA (regarding liquids and where they should be left - in the bags or out). I am a pretty private person and I would have been devastated to have undergone that search. It really makes me not what to fly anywhere anymore!
  23. My dd texts me frequently, "Get off of CC!!! They are all just stressed, super competitive kids who don't know any more about admissions that we do!". And do I listen to her? No.
  24. In at UNC-CH. One more she's waiting on, and then a tough decision!
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