nature girl
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Posts posted by nature girl
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So I do recognize some names here, it's been awhile! I had my daughter home for K and 1st, she was in public school till 4th grade and then we brought her back home for 5th. She wanted to return to school for 6th, so we let her...She's struggled a bit behaviorally, and the school did thorough testing, both there and through a neuropsych to see if we should add ASD-1 to her ADHD. (It was inconclusive...Anyone who looked back on my old posts would see we've been struggling to figure this out for so long, I think she's just right on the edge.)
Anyway, they did a WISC, and these were her scores. I'm trying to understand what they mean...I guess I understand most of the spikiness, except for the relatively low digit-span (although I guess that means she's more visuospatial?) And does anyone know if the relatively low PSI and WMI (especially digit span) mean that her meds aren't optimized? Does the relatively low processing speed show her mind was wandering?
Also, do ASD-1 kids typically have high fluid reasoning? And...maybe a weird question, but any idea what I might do to nurture this? I want to boost her self-esteem, after a tough year at school, so for the summer I'd like to find puzzles or something similar that will make her feel proud of her skills. A lot of questions, I'm sorry! But thanks so much for any thoughts you might have!
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There are a number of threads here on WTM. Just doing a quick search, I found this. I'd take a look at the comment left by Lori D. here, because she gives so much information.
In general, though, if college is the goal, it will be incredibly hard to ensure you have the right credits and documentation without the help of an adult, unless you're far more resourceful than most 16/17 year olds. I agree with KSera that it would make sense to contact your high school and give them your concerns. Someone there will be able to help you or direct you to the help you need. And if your mother is concerned, she really needs to consider this one of her MOST important jobs, because your future depends on it.
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Can I ask which state you're in? Your parents are required by law to provide you with an education equivalent to a public school education, and although they can define that (which is a good thing) not getting involved at all in obviously unacceptable. What does your mother say when you bring her your concerns? Can you talk to any other family members?
This may help, with information on how social services can get involved. Each state has a way to address this, and protect children who aren't receiving a proper education.
https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/advocacy/kids/how-to-report-state-by-state/
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So my 11 year old daughter loves to write. I'd brought her back home this year, after some public schooling, and her teachers never said much about her writing ability...But she started writing novels at 7, using her free time to write after finishing regular classwork, and since coming home her writing seems to have blossomed and matured. I don't have anything to compare her with, though, so I'm not sure if this is unusual, and I'd love input. (In general, she's reasonably bright, and scored high on Cogat, but I wouldn't call her gifted.) Feel free to tell me this is nothing special, though! It really won't hurt my feelings. 🙂
Regardless, how can I nurture this? Should I just let her write unimpeded? (I'm a published author myself, but that doesn't help much in teaching writing.) We’ve used IEW, WriteShop and now Cover Story, but she doesn’t enjoy them, and I don’t want to destroy her enjoyment of writing by pushing the curricula.
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We've been using HQ this year with my 5th grader, and will have gone through both Ancient and Early Modern within the year. It's perfect for her age, I don't think kids under 10 would get as much from it, but the language isn't complex so they'd at least understand it. I like the curriculum quite a bit, especially Early Modern--Ancient didn't have as many interesting stories, IMO, and battle after battle seemed to run together--my daughter is just so-so about it all, but she's not a history fan in general. We're not using the study guide, I just do separate map work with her and find the corresponding pages and links in the Usborne Encyclopedia. Much of the guide seemed like busy work to me (coloring pages, cooking, crafts) which is great if you like that stuff, I just don't think we'd ever do it here.
The History Hops are really the highlight for us, and the Hygge weeks have been much enjoyed, and really add texture to the curriculum.
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18 hours ago, keirin said:
I bought and used Plague! Problem Stories for One last year. 🙂 You can see my thoughts and flip through here.
Thank you! That was so helpful, and I loved seeing the flip-through! I think I'll go for it, although I'll probably choose ferrets instead, since my kiddo is more into science (and animals) than history, and the plague may hit too close to home right now.
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Have any of you used anything in RFP's PBL series? I'm looking at the Ferret Ecology and Black Plague units, I'd love to hear how they work with one child, and whether your kids had fun with them! They look so interesting, but I haven't been able to find any reviews.
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AoPS offers self-paced online learning, as well as their regular classes. There's also Alcumus, which is free, although I'm not sure how much is teaching vs. presenting problems to solve.
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15 minutes ago, Lori D. said:
For my experiences with the 1st edition (no experience with the 2nd edition):
re: teacher guide
I never used the teacher guide, as it wasn't hard to schedule a "bite" at a time, however much/little worked for DS#2. However, DS#2 had LDs in writing, and by the time we used Jump In, I had years of experience in adapting material, and in scheduling for *his* needs/speed. And rather than using a rubric, we just worked on a piece of writing until we were satisfied (without me overkilling and making him re-work it too much).
- 300 Fun Writing Prompts for Kids: Story Starters, Journal Prompts, and Ideas
- 501 Prompts - persuasive, expository, narrative, literaryOh wow, thank you SO MUCH! Saving all these links, and then I'm off to order. Thanks again, Lori. You've been so kind to take the time to respond!
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12 hours ago, Lori D. said:
Actually, I've used Jump In, not Cover Story -- Cover Story came out after our DSs graduated, so I have no experience with it. But I have read a number of very positive reviews/experiences from other posters on these boards. 🙂
Hi Lori, sorry one more question. Do you think the teacher guide is helpful for Jump In? It looks like it's mainly for scheduling and rubric, but are the tips for teaching, and the "Writing Plunges" helpful?
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9 hours ago, Lori D. said:
Actually, I've used Jump In, not Cover Story -- Cover Story came out after our DSs graduated, so I have no experience with it. But I have read a number of very positive reviews/experiences from other posters on these boards. 🙂
re: Christian content in Jump In
There is now a 2nd edition of the program, and we used the original 1st edition, so there may be changes that I don't know about, in either direction (i.e., more or less Christian content). Amazingly, the WTM search engine actually WORKED tonight and I was able to find an OLD post of mine (from this old thread: "Is there something like Jump In?"), with info about the Christian content of the 1st edition of Jump In. (And, hopefully someone with experience with the 2nd edition can comment on Christian content for you, too).Hope that helps! Warmest regards, Lori D.
_________________________Thanks so much, Lori, that's been very helpful!
I've done some more reading on Cover Story, I was on the verge of purchasing, but while the format looks fantastic, I read several reviews saying that it contains some violent content that I just don't want my daughter exposed to...Really a shame, because I think otherwise she'd love it. I'm now reading more reviews for Jump In, and it does look like it might work well for us (although I've seen some say it didn't actually improve their children's writing. That may be a "Your mileage might vary" thing, though!)
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6 hours ago, Masers said:
Well, my rising fourth grader is barely willing to write a sentence. And when he does, it’s something like, “the cat ran up the tree. The boy got the cat.” so that looks pretty amazing to me. Why not just stick with what works? I’d say she is ready for middle school curriculum. Usborne has a bunch of creative writing books that would probably be fun for her. Or maybe she could take a class on brave writer? Or Outschool? Looks like she has a talent for writing...that’s great!
Well she wasn't much further along in 3rd grade either! A lot of development happened in a year and a half, especially this year since I've brought her back home. Thanks so much for directing me to the Usborne books, I hadn't seen those before, so thank you. They look like so much fun! I just bought her the Fantasy and SciFi book, which I think will be right up her alley.
5 hours ago, Lori D. said:If she is enjoying creative writing, then this is a great time to explore that.
Cover Story would be a great option. You could spread it out over 1.5 years -- so start it this year when finished with Write Shop, and then continue and finish in 6th grade. Cover Story is a complete program with video lessons, so not much to have to figure out as the parent/teacher. 😉 It includes writing instruction in sentence and paragraph structure, grammar as it pertains specifically to writing. It has a very nice variety of writing assignments -- journalism articles and blog posts, essays, letters, and creative writing of both poetry and short stories.
Two other possibilities might be:
- Jump In
- Writing and Rhetoric
- book 4 (expository essays (factual writing) with narrative, descriptive, and persuasive elements)
- book 5 (persuasive essays (opinion writing) with narrative, descriptive, and persuasive elements)Thanks so much, Lori. I'd looked at Jump In at the beginning of the year, and I absolutely love the conversational style, and that it's so self-directed with concrete steps to follow, which I think she'd like. The samples look great. But I'm worried it may have too much Christian content. I don't have an issue with some (I realize Cover Story also has a little) but, for example, I've read that it mentions abortion more than once, and I'm just not ready to discuss that with my 10 year old. How closely incorporated is that content?
I know W&R is excellent, and probably covers everything I'm looking for, but I'm worried might be too dry for her...I'd like writing to be as fun as possible, which is why I was looking at the more creative options.
In looking at reviews here, I see you've used Cover Story. Do you think it would work with a 5th grader? I'd extend it into next year, but don't want to discourage her at this point. The samples (a chapter on show vs. tell (concept writing vs. "movie" writing) looked fine for her age/level, and the humor interspersed in the videos is perfect for her, but it's hard to tell if further lessons might go over her head, or how customizable it is. I also am curious about how much actual writing there is, if we didn't do the free writing (which I think she'd balk at after the first month or two.) I'd love her to have more experience in research and essay creation, and it's hard to tell if this program would give that to her.
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We're on the verge of completing WriteShop Level F (their last elementary level), and I'm torn on what to look at next. My 5th grade daughter liked the gamification of WriteShop, and I thought it did a good job of strengthening her style, so I'm looking for something similar. I don't know that she's ready to sit through the next WriteShop level, it feels too dry to me...So I've looked for something more creative (her own creativity is through the roof) including Cover Story (hard for me to quite wrap my head around) and Faltering Ownership (I'm not sure it'll give her what I'm looking for.) I'd ideally like her to get better at taking notes, and improve her voice/stylistic techniques. But most of all, I want her to have fun...Before this year she HATED writing, and to improve report writing skills I did IEW with her this summer, which made her hate writing even more. But now she's actually writing a novel in her free time, and has improved tremendously from where we'd started. I want to nurture that enjoyment as much as possible!
Here are short samples of her writing: the first is the beginning of a 10 page short story, and the second is the first chapter of a sort of field guide she wrote about ocean creatures. (I realize there are minor errors...She's very sensitive to editing, so at this point to keep her enthusiastic I try not to correct her.) I'm pretty sure her writing is on track for her age, but would love feedback on whether she might be ready to move on to middle school level curricula (pared down if necessary), or if we should spend more time on the basics. And I'd love suggestions on a curriculum she might find engaging.
Thanks so much!
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We're on the verge of completing WriteShop Level F (their last elementary level), and I'm torn on what to look at next. My 5th grade daughter liked the gamification of WriteShop, and I thought it did a good job of strengthening her style, so I'm looking for something similar. I don't know that she's ready to sit through the next WriteShop level, it feels too dry to me...So I've looked for something more creative (her own creativity is through the roof) including CoverStory (hard for me to quite wrap my head around) and Faltering Ownership (I'm not sure it'll give her what I'm looking for.) I'd ideally like her to get better at taking notes, and improve her voice/stylistic techniques. But most of all, I want her to have fun...Before this year she HATED writing, and to improve report writing skills I did IEW with her this summer, which made her hate writing even more. But now she's actually writing a novel in her free time, and has improved tremendously from where we'd started. I want to nurture that enjoyment as much as possible!Here are short samples of her writing: the first is the beginning of a 10 page short story, and the second is the first chapter of a book she wrote about ocean creatures. (I realize there are minor errors...She's very sensitive to editing, so at this point to keep her enthusiastic I try not to correct her.) I'm pretty sure her writing is on track for her age, but would love feedback on whether she might be ready to move on to middle school level curricula (pared down if necessary), or if we should spend more time on the basics. And I'd love suggestions on a curriculum she might find engaging.
Thanks so much!
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25 minutes ago, OKBud said:
Since you pulled this out, you obviously recognize this kind of thing, even if you don't "feel" awesome at LA (not that you said that you don't, just even if that's the case, you're already on the right track!) all you have to do is turn around and talk with her about it. I would read it aloud in a stunted robot-voice and say something like, "These sentences are all very short and simple, but we want a good mix of sentence length and complexity. You rewrite it and I'll rewrite it, and we'll compare notes."
Then if you do that here and there, she doesn't even need to fix it in the original paper or whatever it was. She'll just, over time, start to have some taste about what sounds good and what doesn't.
I'm not saying don't buy something helpful 🙂. But even if you do, you'll probably end up needing to just talk about and rework basic stuff like this, so you might as well get a jump on it now.
If you want a thing, in case it hasn't been mentioned I will plug Easy Writing. It comes in PDF too. I love it that way so that we can use it here and there.
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense, I'll try it! 🙂
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2 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:
It's not a curriculum but are you familiar with the Writing Revolution? You could make up your own assignments using its advice. I read it last year so I probably don't remember it that well but I recall building sentences using "and" and "but." Of course those are very simplistic contractions but it's a good place to start. It recommends exercises like combining sentences. Maybe that's from Killgallon? You start out with 3 sentences and have the child make 2 sentences. Then have the child make 1 sentence.
Those seem like fantastic resources, thank you so much! I'm digging through your links now.
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28 minutes ago, perkybunch said:
She's in fifth grade. I'm not sure it is developmentally appropriate for her to write with much style. Of course she writes like an amateur. She's in fifth grade.
Ha. I mean yes of course, I worded my OP really badly. But comparing her writing to samples I've found online, I think by 5th grade writing should be a bit more complex.
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So we've been using IEW, and it's a fantastic program, has definitely improved my daughter's ability to take notes and summarize without plagiarizing, but she absolutely hates it, it's a struggle for her to finish every day because she finds the selections she needs to write on so dry.
So now that we're done with the first level of Structure & Style, I'm ready to move on to something new. My biggest issue is that her sentence structure is still very amateur. For example, when writing for Peace Day yesterday she wrote:
"Peace is good because nobody likes war. War can lead to death. Nobody likes death. This is why we all want peace."
I realize she was probably uninspired by the topic 😂 but all her writing is like this. She just doesn't seem to have an ear that notices disjointedness and repeated words, and never tries to write compound sentences.
So I'm looking for a program to help her finesse her writing, but it needs to be at least somewhat fun and engaging. I love the Bravewriter playfulness and think she would too, but I don't think it'll give us what we need in improving her actual style. So I'm looking now at WWE Level 4 (I like that it doesn't include grammar...Her grammar is pretty solid, and I think learning more would bore her and make her protest, but the program seems pretty dry, with no creative writing), at WordSmith Apprentice (mainly because it looks fun, but it probably has too much grammar), and WriteShop Level F (which I like because it seems to help with brainstorming and organizing ideas, which she definitely needs.)
Will any of these give us what we need to advance her writing skills? Is there anything else I haven't looked at that's engaging enough to keep her from rebelling? Also, we've never done dictation, but I'm wondering if dictation of complex sentences might eventually help her absorb complex structure.
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15 hours ago, umsami said:
I used Torchlight kind of a few years ago. I bought Level 2, I think...the Middle Ages one. As somebody else said, a very expensive book list. The one thing we did consistently was the history....https://www.curiositychronicles.org/
I actually used it with a 3rd grader, 6th grader, and 8th grader. Kids would role play reading it. Still remember my 3rd grader not knowing what a colon was, so he'd say, "Mona dot dot..." and then read her lines. 😄The older kids would then look up the person in one of the encyclopedias we had, draw a picture of them, and write a summary. We had a timeline....and a world map....and it worked well for us.
That sounds like a fantastic way to approach the text! I looked through Curiosity Chronicles, and...I have to admit I didn't love the format. It seemed like a kind of weird choppy way to present information. Unique, for sure, and maybe it's more interesting for a child laid out in dialogue? I guess role playing it could be fun, I just don't know how well it would stick in my daughter's brain that way. But you think it worked for your kids?
Maybe the issue is that all this time I've been looking forward to doing SOtW with her (in which case I guess I should probably be looking at a different curriculum! But the rest of the books used look so good...)
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Have any of you used Torchlight? I was thinking of using BYL for 5th grade, but I don't think the books they cover will be engaging for my 10yo. I was looking for something similar, and the Torchlight books (I'm looking at level 3, but would use level 4 when comes out next month) are more modern, and seem like they'd interest her more. But I don't have a good feel for what the curriculum gives you. From the sample, it just seems like a list of what to read each day, without associated discussion points and activities. What am I missing?
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First year home schooling since my daughter was in 1st grade! We did remote learning with her school last spring, and it was awful. They have full-time remote schooling this year, but I decided we should just go off on our own.
It's great to be back...although we wouldn't have done this if circumstances were different. She loves our PS so much. But I've seen real issues in her foundational writing and literature analysis skills, so along with the danger factor I know this is the right move for us, at least for this year.
Anyway...I only firmed up my decision last weekend, and now I'm looking at all the possibilities she wasn't old enough for last time I was curriculum shopping! She has a hard time focusing unless she's fully engaged, so I think as the year goes on I'm going to have to give her a lot more freedom in planning, and we may move away from formal curriculum for writing and history most days. Tentative plans are:
Writing: IEW S&S (This is where she needs the most help, so I want her to have a solid curriculum that builds slowly.
Math: BA Online 5 (She's finishing 4 online now.)
Reading: Interest driven, but with a lot of discussion, hopefully project based learning stemming from her reading, if I can swing it.
Science: I'm debating between Mr. Q and RSO
History: I have no idea...She has no interest in it, so I'll need to find something that's actually fun and engaging or she'll balk. I may end up just doing videos and discussions.
She does crafts/building etc. almost daily, so that will count for art.
So hard not having our community, she's an only, and misses other kids so much. That will be the most difficult part of this, I know.
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19 hours ago, Ktgrok said:
Just to do something for math, but not drill and kill, what about Khan Academy? They have grade level "missions" where they level up based on their understanding, so she won't be stuck doing things a million times if she already knows them, etc.
Thanks! They actually assigned the kids Khan sections for tomorrow and Friday. What I remember from looking at Khan a while ago is that it's very well done, but also as boring as watching a teacher write equations on a board, so I was looking for something a bit different. I'll try it tomorrow, though, and see how engaged she is. At least I can be pretty sure they'd teach in the same way I would.
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Thanks so much, Ellie. I think my fear is that she's missing 3.5 months of school (they've been out since mid-March and their school continues through June 25.) So the other kids (not all, I realize) will be progressing, while by the time she returns after Labor Day she'll have been out of school for 6 months. I don't think we can let math go that long, and expect her to recover the time next year...I just don't want her to go through the frustration in Sept. of feeling like she's behind, hating math even more.
(So yes, deschooling was the wrong term. But I obviously don't want her doing pages of rote problems...I just don't know what to do that will help her to enjoy math again.)
She's incredibly creative and I want to take advantage of that, something she doesn't get to express in PS. She's artistic and she loves to invent, but she's NOT a self-starter, so I have to find ways to jumpstart that creativity, but I'm at a loss.
I think I mentioned MCT because I was drooling over it years ago, looking forward to her being old enough...Maybe it doesn't make sense, but I do want her to learn how to research and write effectively on topics she likes. That's why I was considering unit studies, or project based learning, but I have no real idea how to put a unit study together for a child this age.
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I'm sure there are several in this position now! I had my daughter home till she was seven, then made the difficult decision to try PS on a trial basis. Well she enjoyed school, for the most part, so we kept her there. Now she's now newly 10, in 4th grade, and will probably be home till the end of the year.
I was actually thinking that, if this works well for us, we might transition completely and finish out her elementary years at home. Well, she told me today that she hates home schooling. 😑
I've been trying to make it as fun as possible, outside whenever possible, a lot of play and silliness, discussions and read-alouds and Tinman Press books. But at the same time, the school is asking a lot of the kids...Math especially is ridiculous, iXL math facts, long division, multi-digit multiplication, it's incredibly boring. They're also supposed to be reading these dry articles about the American Revolution (it was while reading that she said she hates hs), and ELA really looks like hamster wheel work. So I'm done with their busywork, it's not giving her what she needs and I want to be able to find something good about this awful time in history. I want to enrich her, get her away from that darned Chromebook, find things that will deepen her life and are FUN for both of us.
At the same time, I don't want her to lose skills. This is my dilemma.
So here we are...I'll have lots of time with her outside, taking walks, collecting, studying nature. We'll read a lot, of course. That's all good. For math I'd like to deschool a bit, through games. We have Prime Climb, but she's somewhat beyond that...I'm not sure what else might work well.
For LA, I've always loved the look of MCT, but can you just start in the middle at a 4th grade level, or should I start at the beginning?
Would that be enough? Any fun ideas for writing? Or unit studies? Project-based learning that would work for a 10 year old? Just sweet, enriching activities we can do together? This seemed so much easier when she was younger, she wanted to swallow the world and was open to everything. I want to bring that girl back...
WISC questions for an ADHD kiddo
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
She really is! Thank you, Lecka.
I'm hesitant to post on Accelerated Learners since I think most of those kids' scores are far above hers. I don't think the higher scores are affecting her learning in any way, or at least not as much as her ADHD is.
The school wanted further testing because of some of her behaviors in class, social issues, what seems like possible TOM issues, and somewhat black and white thinking. She also was doing things they consider unacceptable, like pretending to be book characters and insisting she be called by their names, or wearing wings or masks she'd made while she walked through the hallways. 🙄 They did note some pragmatic issues in her testing, and in teacher scores as well. (The score labeled her as "at risk" for pragmatics.) They also said they sense anxiety, which mostly manifests as her perfectionism (which they thought brought down some of her scores, because she got upset and refused to answer if she wasn't 100% sure.)
But she doesn't really have sensory issues, other than some sensitivity to clothes, she doesn't mind changes to schedule, no stims, etc. She may be masking well, I don't know. And maybe I shouldn't even care, it probably doesn't matter at this level, except that I think she'd get more understanding from teachers if she had that label. I also would love to understand her better, be able to parse out which of her brain differences might be causing which behaviors, which might be under her control, and which we can work on.