Little Women
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Posts posted by Little Women
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I would suspect that this is a person who is very into bureacratic rules and crossing every T. He doesn't want to think of you as a homeschooler, because he has only one box for them. Since you haven't turned in paperwork to him you aren't in that box. If he decided you were a "real" homeschooler and didn't have the proper paperwork, he might feel he has to turn you in for not doing it right. He also may want to save you the huge amount of work and hassle he seems to demand of this other lady. So he may be saying it in order to help you, not as a lack of respect. Given all of that, I'd probably just let it go and not bring it up again. If he brings it up, then you might say, "state law allows for different ways of homeschooling, including doing it through a church group, so that's what I do." But I'd say as little as possible, because he has a little tiny box of what he thinks that term means.
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I think this is one of those issues where your body sets the top of the ladder, but you may be able to affect how far up or down the ladder you personally are, based on how you eat/deal with it.
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We are loving this series! The experiments at the beginning of each lesson are helping my dd get into the content. They are simple to do and fun, so they are good for us. My dd is in 6th grade, so a bit older, and I don't read all the lessons. She has not complained, but enjoys science for the first time.
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Sorry I am chiming in a bit late--didn't see this until now. We've used Sonlight 100 in high school three times now. We love it! The books are very good for early high school, a bit light to do in later high school. But the Instrucotr's Guide has extremely good questions, and carries the discussion much further than the books do. It's basically an additional textbook/spine with several hundred more pages. :) My kids really enjoy having a lot of great books to read, and they appreciate being able to do most of their work orally. (You could also assign any questions in writing if you wanted to, and there are writing assignments in the literature program.) It's been a really good thing for my kids.
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I had good results this year with an open invitation to moms at our co-op. I knew I wouldn't know everybody who might respond, but I figured I would get people who were interested and who had some time. I just put out an email to everyone asking if anybody was interested in having lunch. I had 3 people who responded, and we've gone about every other week, sometimes just 2 of us, sometimes all 4.
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Homeschoolers are usually somewhat above the average on all standardized tests. I wonder if NHERI (Hm, is that the right acronym?) would have info like this.
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I suspect that it's because we play differently with our kids today--there are more shape sorters, things to manipulate and turn around, different ways of playing and different ways of talking to our kids. IQ tests work best when it's something the child has not learned to do, as it can measure how well they figure out new things. But if they've already been exposed to it, then it's not hard any more, though they aren't necessarily smarter in other ways. That's my opinion, at any rate, though it's not a scientific one.
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I have had friends use these for a long time, with both good and bad experiences, but I just started using on myself this year. It does depend a lot on which one you are in and what the requirements are. A few things I've seen:
1. My friend K was in three different ones over the years in CA. The first one was a good place for them. She felt the visits with the teacher were very helpful for her with her special needs child. She was very happy there, until they moved ot a different part of the state. The second one was good for awhile. Eventually, they started saying that she could not mention the Bible at all during their school day. She promptly withdrew from that school. A bit later, she found another that was a good fit for her, and continued there for quite awhile.
2. My sister D has been involved with a couple different ones near her home in CO. They go to class once a week, and have been able to do things like theater and choir, that are hard to do at home. They do have to do the testing, but that hasn't been a problem. It enabled her dd to take a lot of community college courses in high school for free. It's been great for them, with few downsides over many years.
3. Ours has minimal oversight. We get a certain amount of money for each course, and file weekly reports of what they have done. (The kids do this part, and I look over it before they submit it. I think this is good for them as it's a bit of review and it keeps me on track to do something in every course every week.) They are supposed to take tests, but are subject to the same laws that other ps students in my state are--parents are allowed to opt kids out of any test. I am testing one and opting one out, for various reasons. I have been able to use Apologia, by simply saying we would cover "biology" and listing out the topics. I already had the books, so there was no expense there.
It seems to me that as long as parents have the freedom to opt their kids out if they choose, there is little downside. It can provide much needed money for the books and supplies, and can be very helpful.
There are a few downsides I have seen:
1. It does influence my curriculum choices a little, and would a lot more if I hadn't been around for a long time. I choose to buy the dissection kit not labeled Apologia, eg, but if I were just starting out and choosing a math program, I'd be more likely to ask "will they cover this" at the beginning of my search.
2. There is a bit of work because the kids have to do their weekly summaries.
I do think there is a big downside for major, religious based curriculum companies, as beginning homeschoolers without years and resources are more likely to go with secular companies. For the individual using the programs, though, I haven't seen many downsides.
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We looked at the requirements for the schools dd was interested in. Of her 2 top choices, one said we had to have their school listed first, the other didn't. So we put that school first. :)
Wrt to timing of choosing a school--you only have to choose them early if you want the report to be free. The free reports have to be done before you get the results (maybe by the end of the day you take the test, I can't remember for sure). Other reports are not extremely expensive, though, so if you might take it again later, you might want to not send the results until you see if you like them.
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I dislike the phrasing of "he passed." I wind up thinking, "he passed what?" It always takes me a minute to figure that they mean he passed away. I would never criticize someone for using it, though--grief is grief, and the grieving person gets to say what they want about it. It just annoys me.
I also hate the phrase "love on" someone. What does that even mean? "Show love to," I get. "Love on"???
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I'm trying to think of what was written then and popular. Jane Austen would have been around by 1836, I think. I have heard of kids reading and enjoying Robinson Crusoe. Ivanhoe, I think. Dh says the Waverly novels. Shakespeare, of course.
Pilgrim's Progress would have still been just about everywhere. Thomas Paine's Common Sense had sold hundreds of thousands of copies, so it would probably have still been around fairly commonly.
I found this, though it's mostly pictures: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/vintage-childrens-books_n_4459860.html
Googling "what did people read in the 1800s" yielded me this from Yahoo: Translations of the classics, such as The Odyssey, and also Renaissance literature like Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton etc. But people also read novels and poetry that were contemporary to their time - otherwise those books wouldn't have been written and made popular. So, someone in Austen's day might have read Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson etc, and someone in the Brontes' day might have read other Victorian writers like Dickens, Eliot and so on.
Since Jane Austen satirised the Gothic novel in Northanger Abbey, I think we can assume she must have read some examples of the Gothic genre that were available at the time, like 'The Monk' by Lewis, The Castle Of Otranto by Walpole and The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe - whether or not she enjoyed them is another matter! But they were very popular during her lifetime.This page has some interesting info: https://learn.maricopa.edu/courses/826470/pages/history-of-childrens-literature-early-1800s-to-twentieth-century
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I'm an SAT tutor and have been talking to a lot of families about this issue - especially those with rising juniors.
My advice to rising juniors (graduating in 2017) - Skip the SAT entirely next year and just focus on the ACT. All colleges accept either SAT or ACT score with no bias.
If your kid is in the top 5% of students and you think he or she has a shot at National Merit status, study for the new PSAT this summer and take the new PSAT in the fall. Wait until the scores back over Christmas. If they qualify, they'll need to take an SAT to confirm those high scores - so study for the new SAT and take it in March and (possibly) again in May or June.
If they are going for National Merit, they can only take the PSAT the fall of their junior year. I've read that that PSAT will change the year before the SAT changes. Then they have to take the SAT in the fall of their senior year--spring ones don't count, or at least, they didn't count last year when my 18yo did it. It could only be Oct, Nov, or Dec of their senior year, to count for NM purposes. That puts my current 14yo directly into the mess, no matter how we cut it. The only way I could see her getting out of it would be to bump her up a year and graduate her early. I don't mind doing that, but it puts her at a disadvantage compared to the other also-advanced kids who are competing for NM but aren't moving up. I think we'll just have to take our chances.
Tbh, I think the main effect of the new SAT is going to be shortening the ruler that they measure by. It has always been a pretty decent way to separate the very top students from the also-good students. If they make it easier, then all the upper students will wind up in the same group.
What do y'all plan on doing about the essay, since it's now optional? The reasoning I'd heard colleges was that they wanted the ACT with essay to compare apples to apples to the SAT, since it was mandatory. Wonder whether colleges will still want the essays? All new research. :(
None of my kids' colleges cared about the essays. They took off the essay scores and judged based on the other ones.
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I would ask what is his "one end," and does he feel that the schools available to your family would adequately meet that "one end"?
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My dd has the same problem. I have learned to tell myself, "act like she's 2 years younger." She's 18 now, and if I expect her to act like a 16yo, we do pretty well. Of course, that's hard to do when she's a freshman in college..... Thankfully, she still lives at home and I can still cover some areas for her. She is growing, and she will get there, she's just slower than some kids.
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My "guinea pig year" child is advanced, and has actually already taken the ACT once in a talent search. I am planning to have her go ahead and take the older SAT the previous year, as well as the PSAT, which will presumably be like the new SAT. If she does significantly better on one than on the other, I will choose which one is sent to the colleges. If it's not possible for me to choose one, I will expect that the colleges will be able to interpret the discrepancy reasonably on their own. Since you can take the SAT in either the 11th or 12th grade year, but most kids do it in 12th grade, I think this is a reasonable course of action. We might still get burned on the National Merit stuff (her big sister is a National Merit Scholar, so this is not out of reach for us), but I think it will help with the "first year of new SAT" problem.
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I've been going to the Sound Clinic in Denver. They have a very solid reputation, and everyone I've known of who has gone there has been very happy with it. It was recommended to me by a friend, because I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for many years. There is a big overlap of symptoms, and they suggested that I get looked at to see if there could be Lyme involved. The treatment given there is very alternative, but it does seem to be helping me a lot.
I don't live in the Denver area, but my sister does. When I told her I was going there to see a Lyme dr, she said, "Oh, that's good. Even if you don't have Lyme, he will be able to help you!" I pointed out that I had not even told her yet who I was going to see! She replied, "If you are coming to Denver to see a Lyme dr, there is only one dr you are coming to see. He's helped 3 of my friends a lot!" She had to check with her friends to see what his name was, and sure enough, it was the same one!
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I think it's because of the change in reading. Most 3rd graders are still working on learning to read, or at least learning to read longer books. In 4th grade, they switch over to reading to learn. In other words, a 4th grader will probably be expected to read his own science book and pull out relevant information. Before that, they usually are told what it says, instead of having to find it themselves. Their hands are held a little more in the earlier years, but in 4th grade, the expectations get higher. I don't think there's anything specific about 4th grade that requires this, it's just how it's generally done.
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I would call being 3 or more years ahead in just about every subject "gifted." It's common for it to go in families, too, so it doesn't seem unusual, and it's very common for kids to still act their own age in many ways. It's also common to be both gifted in some areas and have a learning disability in others! But it's not very common for kids to be 3 years ahead, even if they've gotten solid nurturing along the way. Their minds have to also be ready to take in the information, and that's a lot less common.
What to do with it is a harder question. I found with my kids that working orally was better than writing a lot. They usually got the concepts quickly but their fine motor skills were one thing that lagged. Doing things orally meant that they could tell me the long story and have me write it down, learn 14 vocabulary words in a day, and retain the science or history we were covering. (You can call me slow if you want, but this was brought forcibly to mind when my oldest was in 1st grade, and I found myself writing down grammar rules for her notebook, according to the method in the 1st edition of WTM--not sure if that's changed in later editions, because she wasn't ready to do that much writing herself, but she ALREADY KNEW the grammar concept! :) I can laugh at myself now, but at the time, it was hard to know what to do. I finally figured out that if I told her the rule, she would learn it and not forget, and we dropped the writing it all out part.)
Sonlight is a GREAT program, especially for gifted kids. They have a level of questions I haven't seen anywhere else, with the possible exception of Tapestry of Grace, especially in the older years. They also have books that really draw you in to the history you are learning. However, that said, I would not try to do core D with a child younger than 7, even a gifted one. There is a lot to process in SL's cores (eg, what was Columbus's true motive? how did the British colonies treat slaves compared to the Spanish colonies? or was it even legal for them to write the Constitution?) Because of the way SL has parents read things to the kids, they use books considerably harder than most programs use. Eg, the books in their preK program are labeled by the publisher as being for 4-8yos or for 6-10yos. Most of the books in cores A-C are labeled by the publishers as being for 8-12yos. By core D, many are for 10-14yos, and one was even written by a historian for adults! Because of this, their cores tend to really push kids, and are hard to use for kids below the lowest levels they recommend. A lot of people, even parents of gifted kids, choose to use cores near the top of the age range instead of the bottom. There are a few people who do them far ahead with gifted kids, but they are very few and far between. I have found with my own gifted kids that the lower age given is a very good fit. I wouldn't do core D with a child under 8yo, and for a non-gifted child, I'd wait until 9 or 10.
I know you are looking at US history, but if you like the Sonlight idea, you might look into starting with their world history, such as core A--it's very good.
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Part of Remembering God's Awesome Acts do this. It's a full year's Bible program, but it has some pretty cool stuff in it!
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I think it's an important and valid question. It doesn't really impact the homeschool-or-not question, as being in a ps or even a church school doesn't really solve the problem. But it's one a lot of us have had to deal with. As a mom with older kids (20, 18, 14, and 11), I've had to deal with it a lot. Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order.
1. Some years are easier than others. A 6th grader in a 6th-8th grade class is far better off than an 8th grader in a 6th-8th class. Even worse is when they are the ONLY 8th grader in a 6th-8th class! At that point, there wasn't much my oldest could do but accept that it was one hour per week. I have never forced my kids to go to youth group, in part for this reason.
2. My kids have always known that they could ask any question to their dad or to me. Most of their real spiritual formation came in this way, not though youth group. It was just a fact of life.
3. We had really good results with Awana, for the most part. However, one group they were in was really bad for my 2nd, in jr high. You might have to look around a bit to find a group that will be a good fit. (If your area has teen Awana groups, that is.) The same might hold true for youth groups, as well--you might have to find a youth group somewhere different from your own church. It's not ideal, but if the kids and the teaching are a better fit for your kids, it might be worth it.
4. This is just what I've seen in my experience, but around me, the churches that are better able to handle this are the Reformed ones or Orthodox ones. (Some are better than others, of course, but I seem to see more thoughtful discussions taking place there.)
5. One thing that has helped us is that our church is somewhat flexible about some things. I have been able to bring my kids to adult Sunday school occasionally, eg, when there was a topic I thought they'd be interested in, and the year they were seniors (and the only senior in their class, too), I just let them go to adult classes. Nobody said anything. Some churches let kids do things like help teach Sunday school, too. The year my oldest was a junior, she taught kids second hour (was the primary teacher, though she did have a very solid helper) second hour. She was able to put up with not much benefit from first hour Sunday school because she knew that 2nd hour, she'd be challenged and be able to really serve.
6. I'm not a homeschool snob, but we did consistently find that the homeschooled kids around us were more serious about Christian things and more willing to discuss them in more depth than most of the other kids around us. When we did Awana and such, one of the things I looked for was how many homeschooled kids were in the group. It was a better fit for intellectual and spiritual reasons, not just social ones, for us if there were about 10% or more in a group.
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bumping :)
I don't know all the materials you are using. We like Horizons and Jay Wile's new series. (My 5th grader has just been doing it this year--good stuff!) Your plan looks like a good mix of subjects.
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The ortho consultations we've had did not involve many questions. They took a lot of pictures from different angles, and sometimes did a full x-ray panel (the kind that goes around your head). Then the orthodontist came in and looked at her mouth and at all the pictures. Then he talked to me about what he saw being needed, both at that time and in the future.
The only one of my kids who started things that early was my dd who had a tiny mouth, who needed a couple of baby teeth pulled here and there so that the previous set of permanent teeth would come in straighter. The orthodontist told the dentist what to do, and the dentist did it.
I'm not sure if all dentists and orthodontists work in this way, but for us, the dentist wanted the orthodontist to give instructions, because "he will be responsible for how they look in the end." And the orthodontist did not want to do the tooth pulling. So they worked together, even though they had never met. I think some dentists do more, and some orthodontists are willing to do more of it as well. But it worked well for us the way it was.
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If you have tried it 4 times, I'm thinking it's not the thing for you. (Personally, I love AP, but you don't.) You've given it a good try, a bunch of them, in fact. You can recoup some of your investment reselling them.
WWYD in this situation? Update in OP
in The Chat Board
Posted
A few times, I have just called the police department and said, "Here is the situation. What should we do?" More than likely, given the amount of money involved, they will send someone to investigate. Victims of a crime don't usually file charges--that's the job of the prosecutor, with the help of the police department.