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JamieInChocolate

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Everything posted by JamieInChocolate

  1. Well Kate, Good Luck. It seems like they are willing to work with you, but you are just in totally uncharted territory, blazing the trail for the rest of us. At least the dean and the profs are willing, so worst case scenario, your son could just show up & sit in if for some reason they can't work it out. Once you've figured it all out, which I am sure you will, it would be really helpful if you could give us a brief on the steps you took, and what tactics you found most helpful when dealing with the university and helping them figure out how to handle it. Like you said, the policy is there, it's just that no one has ever needed it before so the employees just don't know quite how to handle it.
  2. Just wondering if how this project is going. Were you able to get him in to the course? We are in Kuwait now, and experience the same things vis-a-vis non-Westerners knowledge of / attitudes towards homeschooling. I am considering doing the exact same thing for my son next year. He is starting 9th grade now, but I'm already trying to figure out how to get him into courses at one of the local universities for next year, particularly the lab sciences. So as usual, I am looking to your experience & all of the preparation you have done on homeschooling high-school in the Middle East. So please, keep us updated. :001_smile:
  3. I like the idea you've got going here. My son is the same age and beginning to read and discuss on topics where these terms and concepts are coming up as well. I hadn't thought of presenting the "isms" as a whole and comparing & contrasting their basic precepts. I would add in a few additional isms as well: Feminism Transcendentalism Fundamentalism (as a broad concept as well as specific movements) Secular Humanism As for what to call it as a subject? They could be grouped as a discussion of historical social movements and their implications. It folds into history neatly, with literary implications.
  4. Wow, could have written that post myself, My13yo son is in the same boat. He's bright, but kind of lazy. As in he will do the minimum necessary and without complaint to get through it so he can lay around reading, putz around in the garage, or play video games. He catches on to the concepts quickly, but tends to forget the details of how to work the problems after a while. We were using Singapore until this year, he liked the lack of "busy work", but would often have a hard time recalling material we covered months before. I felt he needed a litt le more drill and review, plus I knew I would max out my ability to explain the concepts past Algebra 1, so we're working through Saxon 8/7 with Pre-Algebra including the Saxon Teacher CDs now. I've managed to trick him into doing 2 lessons per day by telling him if he does 2, he can do the lesson practice for both, but the review set for just the second. This suits his desire to cut out the busy work, but fulfills my desire to make sure he gets enough repetition that it sticks. Plus, since he is a little behind, it will help us catch up to do Algebra 1 next year. Don't know if Saxon would work for you, but it seems to be a good solid program for us. I toyed with the idea of AoPS because I love the concept, but I just don't know if my son is willing to do it & I don't want to mess with what's working for us. He still has no idea what field he would like to pursue for higher education, but I figure even if he does want to do something mathy, as long as he has a good foundation in the basics he can dive in deeper conceptually when HE needs it.
  5. Hi Kate, Any chance you still have the list of resources you used for Medieval period? I recenctly decided to switch my 8th grader to the same history cycle as my 4th grader, so now need to find all new literature resources for his level. ugh! I really love to research and plan, but just do. not. have. the. time. You've done such a great job, thought I might pick your brain a bit. :drool: It seems like some of those listed above would be useable for the time period and easy enough for me to find here, any other suggestions? And thanks again for taking the t to pimeost so much of your hard work.
  6. I used the TRISMS History's Masterminds program last year for my then 7th grader. It was OK. I was intending to take 2 years to do it, but we decided to abandon it after we got throught 1600s. Not because it's a bad program, it just didn't work for us. What we did like: Lots of independent research, (which unfortunately my son was not 100% ready for at the time) Integrated across LA & Sciences Quizzes and tests already done for you. It is very well organized and gives a great grid setup of all the elements of each lesson. What we did not like: You have to put a lot of effort into pulling things together. ( My husband & I both work fulltime outside the home & as mush as I would like to, I just don't have the time to put everything for every content area together for all 3 kids) Not all the materials included in the student edition are in the teacher edition, I guess this saves paper, but was confusing for me. It was not a great fit for us because you need to bring in alot of outside sources. We do not have a great library with books in English where we live, so I have to buy most of our books, which I have to pay more for here than I would in the US or have them shipped, which takes time & is EXPENSIVE. I have to pick and choose very carefully which "specialty" books I buy. So unfortunately most of our research revolves around our history encyclopedias and the internet, which does not give enough depth to make it meaningul. A little too much focus on personalities and not enough on the general time periods. The time periods they give for each lesson seemed a little random to me. It was not as "open & go" as I would have liked. If I think about it, I still think the TRISMS program is good, it just wasn't a good fit for our family circumstances. It is also a bit pricey considering you have to bring in so many outside resources to make it worthwhile. I think I am going to look into MBTP now, I had never heard of it before. We'll see if it will be a good fit for us.
  7. I have used both Saxon & Singapore. I like Singapore better, but switched back to Saxon for 1 reason only... My inability to teach higher Math. I have pretty much maxed out my ability to explain the math for anything higher than pre-algebra. With Saxon you have the option of getting the Saxon teacher CDs/DVDs, which I did, and there is also online support for kids to ask the experts directlly. As far as I know, nothing similar exists for Singapore. So unless you are mathy, it may be hard to continue Singapore beyond 6B or Discovering Mathemetics 1. I was looking for a program you could continue all the way through Advanced Mathematics which is why I narrowed in on these two programs. As we get higher up I think it is important to throw some different materials in there so students can learn to solve problems in more than one way, and understand different ways of presenting the material.
  8. OK, just answered my own questions. Apparently my painfully slow internet connection was not showing all of the options in the My Settings section. Now that it's after midnight and traffic is lower, the whole page loaded. Sorry for the false alarm.
  9. Ok, I have read through a load of posts about changing settings for signature, etc. in the forum, but for some reason when I go to the My Profile area all I can change is my email address or Display Name. Why can't I change any of the other fun stuff like age, gender, etc. or see a place for adding a signature. Now I admit my tech skills are pretty limited and I mostly just lurk around forums, I swear I have looked everywhere in the Profile section and can't find anything! In the top left corner over the WTM logo there is abutton that says ModeratorCP. Am I missing something obvious? Is there a user CP somewhere? Help, getting really frustrated.
  10. Interestingly enough, I tend to count in Arabic, but calculate in English. English is my first language, and I am fluent in Arabic, but I did not learn it until I was an adult. However, at work I speak mostly Arabic, I shop in Arabic, I give instructions to employees in Arabic, and most of this involves numbers and counting. This summer when I was back in the U.S., and most definitely living in English I still caught myself counting in Arabic sometimes. Unfortunately my children are still only numerate in English :sad: I've been thinking of getting a native speaker to go over some of their other subjects in Arabic so they can get used to discussing things academically in Arabic. We'll see if I actually get around to it.
  11. BA in International Relations. Graduate study in Survey Methodology/Sociology, which I do not intend to complete. Later obtained pastry/chocolate certifications. Now a working chocolatier/business owner.
  12. Kate, Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your posts have been so helpful to us. We recently came back to homeschooling after a 2 1/2 year "adventure" in our local schools and I have been struggling to pull together resources for my boys that was more inclusive of world lit, especially Middle Eastern/Islamic world. With both my husband & I working full time away from home, getting decent curricula in general in this part of the world, and planning out our other subjects I was completely overwhelmed. Along came your posts and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to spend as much time researching this subject as I feared. I'll be looking at your posts on the bilingual education board & high school boards too. Keep it up, you are doing a great job of crafting curricula. You should really consider publishing some of your curricula in a comprehensive form. I for one know many families (homeschoolers and afterschoolers) who would willingly pay good money for it. On another topic, any suggestions for Arabic language teaching materials that would be easy to use for a fluent, but non-native speaker of Arabic? My boys are orally proficient in the colloquial language, but are very far behind in reading and writing MSA. We live in Lebanon and do have access to plenty of Arabic language material, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. Any suggestions on easy reader stories that my guys might find interesting? Ages 13, 10, & 4. 13 & 10 year old are both reading on about a 2nd grade level in Arabic. We could do read alouds too. Have you ever come across audio books of true literary interest in Arabic? Again thanks for sharing your work with us. Jamie
  13. I agree these statements. As someone who is currently in the unique position of living in Lebanon and seeing daily some of the 100s of thousands Syrian refugees currently in this country, I can tell you that the suffering has cut across all sectarian and regional lines within Syria. We live in a small village in Southern Lebanon and have refugees who come from many backgrounds who have fled the fighting. There are formerly well-to-do professionals renting a house down the street from us, illiterate farm workers living with relatives who came to our village before the conflict started, and a myriad of those in between. There are Shi'a, Sunni, Alawi and Christians. My sister-in-law is a teacher at the local school and has had refugee children break down in tears when she asked them their names because they were afraid that if someone found out they were from a certain sect they would be in danger. The important thing to remember is the mention of the power vacuum combined with the likely candidates to fill that vacuum in the event that the Asaad regime falls. As we saw in Egypt and Tunisia the only opposition groups organized enough to fill the vacuum left in these formerly authoritarian societies are the Islamic groups. This in itself would not be a problem, except that the major groups most active in Syria are of a very extreme Taliban/Al-Qaeda bent. Many of those fighting against the Asaad regime are foreign fighters from across the world who have come in as mujahideen much as we have seen in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and Chechnya and funded by extremists mainly from the Arab Gulf States. These people have no interest in the long term well being of the Syrian people and have been involved in committing very serious atrocities against the Syrian people. Asaad's forces have also been brutal in their attempts to suppress these groups and many innocent civilians have been killed. The feedback we seem to be getting from the majority of the refugees and those in Syria vis-a-vis regime change is that they prefer the devil they know (Asaad) vs. the devil they don't know and very much fear a power vacuum. It seems now that even the validity of the chemical weapons claim may be in question. This is just ringing too many WMDs in Iraq bells for my taste. We need to seriously question the true motives behind the U.S. Administration's desire to attack the Syrian regime.
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