My4arrows
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Posts posted by My4arrows
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Mine likes the Eureka Crate (from kiwi co) and Mel's Chemistry subs. Owl Crate and The Land of Storybooks are book subs geared towards an older age group.
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20 hours ago, goldenecho said:
I think their Homophones book is something new that they didn't used to have. You buy it separately from their regular spelling program.
It’s older and yes separate. It’s really just worksheets with two homophones and a few problems for using them. Imo not worth the $$. I got it years ago as a freebie, so it may have changed since then, but unless it’s one which is difficult for your child not something I’d add in. Making a list of common ones or troublesome ones would be more helpful.
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I aim for 170 official school days, but we end up with more days when counting field trips, co-op and interest led learning.
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2 hours ago, Ottakee said:
For those looking for community, this is one reason I did go with public school for my kids starting in 7th grade. It gave them a peer group of sorts in Special Education.
Special Olympics is also a great program even if they aren't really athletic. Things like bowling are a lot of fun for any skill level.
This is what we ended up doing too and it has helped my DS drastically. Unfortunately, he couldn't find his place in the hs or church community, but we have been blessed with a wonderful community for him in the ps.
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Hmmm....thanks for all the thoughts. I’m still deciding if it will be a good fit. I want something open and go so I can easily fit it in as well as it being helpful for both hs and ps.
it sounds great but I had my doubts before read responses. Especially for the cost.
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I’m considering using them for my 8th grade ps DS and 7th grade hs DS this summer. Has anyone used this or something else to help with study skills and time management? Is the teachers manual needed or could I skip buying that?
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When do you begin learning foreign language? It’s not my strength but my kids, mainly 10 and 12 year olds have some interest. I’m not sure if it’s beneficial to begin now or wait until high school focusing on expanding math, writing and grammar skills now.
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I do like my proclick as well, but honestly don't think it's worth the current cost. I bought mine a few years ago for $50 and it's been well used. I also prefer using the spiral binding vs theirs. For us theirs began to break, open, etc. Maybe I was doing something wrong. BUT it is SO much better than comb binding which I had used for years prior to a proclick. With that said, my kids requested binders for next year so it could all be in one place. So we are moving to that instead with the good ole normal hole punch.
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We've had a diet very similar to this for awhile. At first it was difficult and overwhelming, but after time, it becomes second nature. I'd suggest the book Keto Green. Many, if not most of the recipes would suit her needs. There are just a few which have egg (I don't eat breakfast, so I'm not sure about those), but they can be made taken out.
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Has anyone used Trello for planning purposes or for this DC to use as a checklist of daily and weekly work? I'm curious how it worked out, does the appeal end and does it help with independent work transition?
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15 hours ago, Matt Layman said:
I'm curious... if your students get behind in their tasks, how do you manage that? What techniques do you use? I'd imagine that it could be a source of guilt or stress when falling behind so I'm wondering how folks cope with that.
Similar to the PP. for elementary we work off of a task list and go at our pace and often add in interests along the way. Plans for these years are more of a record keeping than anything else.
in middle school I have more defined due dates even when the younger ones and I go off track. I expect my middles schooler to work independently on specific subjects with those due dates.
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10 hours ago, PeterPan said:
it. I only have heard the online sample, but that's really interesting that for your peeps it was slow,
I am using this for a soggily above average 9 yo and an average 11 yo for reference. My 7.5 yo with APD can’t follow so I can see what you are thinking. When I read the lesson with the boys we do stop along the way to discuss and break it into chucks as some can be longer.
10 hours ago, PeterPan said:you mean you read together the first lesson in each unit? And then the rest of the lessons in the unit are independent? Interesting
The weekly units are broken into types of lessons- World biography, our World Story, Gods Wonder, World Landmark and Daily Life.
I misspoke saying the first lesson but rather we do the World Story together. For us that is our focus. IMO it’s that section and the Daily Life that are more focused on the History whereas the others give a focus of specifics in the era. They more easily do those on their own. We also grab books from the library for sections they are more interested in for extra details.
and America the Beautiful is geared towards the lower age group from my understanding vs Adam to Us
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We are using From Adam to Us this year as I wanted an overview of World History before we jump into American next year.
It is definitely an overview and doesn’t get very detailed nor rigorous. It’s very straight forward with information. The way they set up the units is predictable for a student. My kids have liked how it has sections more focused on countries around the world, people during the time period and architecture. The pictures are a nice addition although their placement doesn’t always make sense. For example we were reading the section on the Hundreds Year War and they referred to pictures on different pages than the text so there was flipping that needed to be done. They do tell you what page but it wasn’t something my kids would necessarily look back on their own. I also agree with the PP about the flow- it’s different. But for us this year it worked well as I didn’t feel I needed to teach every lesson and we couldn’t skip some all together.
I grabbed the audios so my dyslexic child could do it independently. They are nice to have.
We typically read and discuss the first lesson together (so I read aloud to all the kids), then I’ll assign the rest for them to read/listen to on their own. We still discuss together vs written answers. They do the map work, Timeline and the student activity book on their own.
we also have enjoyed all the literature read alouds. I was surprised they liked some so much!
ETA: the audios are Mrs Notgrass, so an older woman reading which my kids loved. She reads at a slower pace (or I felt she did) and we felt was calming.
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On 4/12/2021 at 3:23 PM, Emily ZL said:
Thanks for these ideas! Can I ask, though, how do you schedule it all? Is it like Bible on Monday and Wed, catechism Tuesday, etc, or do you do one day per week Bible, one day Catechism, one day saints, one day liturgical year, etc? Or just get to it when you can on a loop?
We're not Catholic, so I can't offer any curriculum specific to that. But we do extensive Bible as a part of our learning. We begin our daily with Morning time together and then this is when I fit it in. I choose a base that we do daily. Right now for us that is reading and discussing the book of the Bible we are reading (or Bible Study) and Apologia's Who is God (worldview). We also do Bible Memory daily. Then the rest of the things we do (another 3-4 Bible related studies) are cycled through. Monday and Wednesday we do our missionary book, Wednesday we do Answers for Kids and Friday we read another Bible based book. So not the same resources, but you can do something like that to include everything. I devote about an hour to this type of learning.
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We used the History/Bible/literature last year. There are a lot of great books in it which are quite enjoyable. For us it was too much reading to juggle since I had other kids to teach (Some with SN and a toddler) and we also had science, writing, etc. I ended up taking the books and intertwining then with my other kids around the world studies and sing Notgrass as their base for individual work. Although I love Sonlight it was a lot for me personally to keep up on with them at this point. We began the first few years of our homeschooling going through SL.
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My current 3rd grader does a lot of writing on his own. He loves writing short stories and has a series going on right now that he "publishes". He also writes comics, magazine, brochures (for businesses he wants to start) and recipes. Occasionally he will write letters to friends and family too. We also get to view many skits he and his older brother write together...which typically ends up in them giggling the entire time.
I have not done any formal writing lessons with him, it's all be through freewriting and his own questions about how to improve. He began before being able to write by drawing out stories and has definitely been progressing in skill and technique. For my kids, I do think it's slightly personality/interest, a bit of something they all do together, but also just a result of their enjoyment of reading. Most of my kids, even my non-reader/writer take great pride in what they've written and publish them. Because of the enjoyment and progression in their writing, I haven't pushed more formal writing yet. If I try to help without a request, it is taken as criticism.
Then I have my ASD ODS who is completely different. He rarely writes on his own. Maybe every once in awhile he will journal, but there is a lack of creativity. When he does write, it is required or a list of books he wants to read. For more formal writing, I allow him to dictate everything to me and I will write it for him (he types it up later).
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6 hours ago, JessinTX said:
Yeah... after you guys saying that I downloaded the free week for both and went through them page by page like I was teaching it, and found the same thing. The reading didn't line up well with the notebooking pages. It was annoying.
My impression as well.
I do like the idea - maybe I'll take a crack at making my own.
I actually ended up doing that for the most part. I liked it much better.
For Around the World I’d suggest checking out Guest Hollow. Im pretty sure she has a curriculum either free or paid (and it’s super affordable) It’s more of a loose plan with books from the library, video suggestions hands on and such.
Also I used Beautiful Feet’s Around the World with Picture Books to plan our Around the world study the past two years. It was a good beginning for us and then I made my own notebooking pages, grabbed extra resources, hands on, etc. I’ve found for me personally there is no perfect open and go for our family. -
I don’t give my kids the end date that I have in mind since it is always changing based upon opportunities we can take during the year. For our family homeschooling gives s the flexibility to change things around. For us if grandparents whom we don’t see often want to come visit I’d rearrange to the best of my ability. If there isn’t anything that requires you to be done by the date you set Id take the time off.
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We tried Sea and Sky a few years back when my kids were at the low end of the age range and it was way too much for them (mainly the reading). So we shelved it a that point. I pulled it out again this year and while they enjoyed it, like others said it was all over the place.
it lacks editing. They would assign a page out of their student workbook and it was incorrect page. The student notebook wasn’t in order of what was assigned either which baffled me as they created both the lesson plan and the student books. The reading levels were all over the place from the different material.
We did enjoy what we completed but again ended up shelving it for Different reasons. They are great at the idea behind the curriculum but lack in the execution. I think they would have been better off spending more time fine tuning their student books and lesson plans vs rewriting other people books to make it their own exclusive book.
ETA: customer service was good for me and quick in response even years later when I lost a file they resent it. At the same time it was odd that there were some files which had expired with downloads and others which I had unlimited downloads available.
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I've been working through Barton with one of my DSs whom needed remediation. He did well with is, completing about a lesson a day through level 3. I plan on going through level 4 with him as I have it and have seen him grow in both his reading and spelling since beginning. While he will still have skills he'll need to work on after level 4, I don't think I want to continue with Barton. So with that said, other than doing the placement test, does anyone know where he'd best fit in AAR/AAS at that point.
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IMO the Home Art Studio resembles a traditional grade school art. It's definitely more cut, paste, paint crafty type of stuff that my kids of all ages found fun, but didn't learn from like with Artistic Pursuits. So if they enjoy doing crafts it would be fun for them to do along with but they don't require much skill or instruction.
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My 8 year old is quite creative with his writing, often writing stories and such on his own. We have postponed formal writing and he just requested using WriteShop. I have been using it with an older child and he loved the look of it. The projects have been enjoyable for him and it does focus on creative writing. We modify where needed to suit us better. I wouldn't say that it teachers formatting paragraphs or sentences, but does help guide in writing creatively.
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I’d suggest using Give Your Child the World by Jamie Martin. It lists literature from around the world by country and age. I used it along with Beautiful Feets Around the World like the PP suggested to add literature for my older kids (6/7th).
Before we went to Europe we studied more specifically about the countries we were going to. We read a lot of literature, my history buff dove in more to the history and we also learned about the culture. It was interesting for them to compare what we read to their actual experience.
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I know I can do these on my own bum it currently I need something open and go. I’m looking for something similar to a the Good and the Beautiful. Shorter units that I could do 2-3 during a year. Preferably Christian and covering geology, weather and dinosaurs (3 separate studies). The topics are flexible But I’d need them for a 2nd and 4th grader.
Learning about the 50 States
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Notgrass has a curriculum the 50 States. I’m using that along with America the beautiful next year. 50 states will be a family subject (geared towards grades 1-4). I’m adding in a state information sheet my older ones fill out and they will also be planning a fictional trip across the us. They will research places to visit, cost of the trip, etc while we learn about the state. We will also be adding Trail Guide to US Geography for my older ones to map. And lots of games- Top Trumps, professor noggins and a few more we have on hands. They will also be learning about the national parks (which I believe is a small, part of the curriculum) using additional books. To culminate it, we will be doing a state project on our state, hopefully visiting places and my oldest writing a report about our towns history.