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KSinNS

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  1. It doesn't surprise me that things are getting difficult. About 1/2 way through book 2 things start to get difficult-especially with technique, and most kids will want to learn notes and not focus on the details, but the details become really necessary in order to progress further on. This frequently results in practice issues, and 8 is often a bit of a turning point for kids developmentally and musically. Some thoughts: I find it important to acknowledge that it's hard work. Practice frequently is not fun, but it is important in order to do the fun stuff-learn new songs, play in ensembles, get better. Sarah Chang and Itzhak Perlman have some great quotes on how much they don't like practicing. It helps to have a list. We work on technique, scales, etudes, new songs, old songs (technique from lesson), then review (working on technical point). I'll intersperse some fiddle stuff in there for a "fun" part. The list can be written or implied (based on child), and some kids enjoy practicing more if they get involved in writing the list. Alternating "fun" and "necessary" is often a good strategy. And what will be fun depends on the kid. Limit practice time, with the teacher if necessary. 1/2 hour is not unreasonable at 8, but don't let it stretch out so long that the kiddo becomes overwhelmed or bored. Some kids can practice more than others. Games-can help, but it depends on the kid. At 8, games can make it easier, but I have noticed that there are kids who only practice because mom or dad makes it fun, which is a lot of work for mom and dad, and that backfire around 10 or 11 (again depending on the kid) when that is no longer enough motivation. I certainly use some, but fade them out as much as possible, and often bring them back when we need to get over a hurdle. You do want your kiddo to eventually take ownership of the violin, and if it's just fun, fun, fun, it can get in the way of that happening, because the kid needs to accept that work is necessary to learn the material, which allows them to get to the fun parts.
  2. Always an interesting topic. So the retired minister's wife in our church (PCA) always covered her head for church. She never made a fuss, just wore a hat. I'm not sure if they ever tried to encourage the congregation to do the same, but no one else does. Conversely, a girlfriend of mine who is a missionary did some studying of this subject when touring Greece. According to her, in Corinth women did not culturally cover their hair, though they did in Jewish society. A significant portion of the women in the Corinthian church were temple slaves (and ex-temple-slaves) who had their heads shaved as part of being a temple-slave. The other women had long hair, and so it became shameful to have a shaved head and a point of pride to have long hair. Anyway, according to her, this became a thing (as it would), so Paul's solution was to reach into his own culture, and get the women to all cover their heads (and then the messenger thing makes sense too, if most of them were Jewish and would find uncovered hair provocative). Then no one really needed to know if you were a temple-slave, ex-slave, or not. My girlfriend saw this as a practical solution to a difficult problem, rather than a universal rule about wearing a hat or scarf to church. And the principle is more about avoiding shaming people, and avoiding exaggerating differences among us. But, obviously, there are lots of ways to look at this, and not everyone agrees.
  3. Novare has an earth science curriculum which I am planning for next year. We really liked their physical science book that my son did this year. We'll see how the Earth Science one goes. I don't think there is any astronomy in it.
  4. We used E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth. It's free on iBooks, so you need a mac or iPad, but if you have one, the price is right. It was a nice book, lots of colour and great diagrams. It was a bit above the grade 6 level (when we used it) so he probably did 5 or 6 chapters. You could pick and choose the units you wanted. The whole book would be way too much for 1 year. There are some projects that are appropriate for middle school/high school age groups. Anyway, we really enjoyed it, and the chapters we did I thought were quite well done.
  5. So I homeschool and work in health care, but I work part-time. We have a nanny for when I'm at work and my husband works full-time, but in a very flexible job, so he helps out some with schooling and a lot with the practical everyday stuff like groceries, dishes, laundry, meal prep. It really would depend on how your work was scheduled. I knew nurses who did 4 on 4 off who were able to home school, but it's pretty tough. With littles, the academics don't take a ton of time, but you do want time to explore and play, and not just leave the fun stuff to whoever does your childcare.
  6. So at least though the end of 4 there is a fair bit of review built in to BA. It just doesn't say review at the top of the page :-}. They put things in here and there in problems, especially towards the end of the chapters. I have supplemented along the way with extra drill using MUS (effective but expensive) and just making up problems on a whiteboard (cheap and efficient, but needs me). I'm probably going to supplement with some MM multiplication work sheets for my next kid when she gets to BA 3. My kids certainly need some more procedural drill than the beast gives them, but once they get it, they get it.
  7. So I believe I read the study in question a while go, and if I remember right, they were talking about grammar instruction that was integrated with writing and reading was more meaningful than grammar instruction done in isolation. And that does make sense to me. However, I had almost no grammar instruction in school. The odd teacher tried, periodically, but we had little formal grammar. Run-on sentences confuse me, and I have no idea where to put commas. So, for us, I use Rod and Staff to fill in the gaps in my own knowledge. Charlotte Mason said the same thing 100 years ago. However, it's tough to integrate knowledge you don't have.
  8. Plan for Grade 8 (for now) Math-continue with AOPS Algebra. He is chugging along with this at his own pace. At this rate, he'll probably finish it sometime in Grade 9, which is fine with me. Science-Novare Earth Science (he loves the physical science book, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it) English/LA-Continue R+S 8 (grammar overkill, but he likes it, and I do think the writing exercises are good), probably more progym exercises, and if I have time I may look at starting a bit of the LToW (or not), literature cribbed from the Norms and Nobility Reading List as I think of it/what I can find easily History-History of the English Speaking Peoples (rest of book 2, 3, and 4) French-outsource through our local Alliance Francaise Latin-I will outsource this next year. He likes Latin, and likes the Cambridge books, but the outsourcing options are a bit confusing to me. I'm considering Lukeon, which I think he would like but find very time intensive. PE-swimming Art-I'll find a local art class as they come up Music (oh my): Violin-Grade 8+, Piano-Grade 7+, Theory-History and possibly Harmony (Grade 9), Double Bass, he's hoping to try out for the local youth orchestra, Chamber orchestra, and choir.
  9. We tend to do lots of music, too. My 12 year old practices about 3-4 hours most days. I do take this into account in planning his school, and we let things go if it gets too much in the way of practice (like latin this year). He does have a fairly solid academic load for his age, but he is pretty efficient, and our home-school is definitely geared towards efficiency so he can follow his passions. As he gets further on, he will have to think more carefully about balance, and we are going to start reducing some activities (like Suzuki group) to make more time for school and his other musical activities. I love that he is passionate, but I do expect him to get a solid high-school education so that he could go on in most any field he wanted to. We'll see how that works :-}.
  10. So we've been to a few. We went to the NESI in Maine a few years ago. It was an amazing and eye-opening experience. And I could not recommend it enough. However, we found it was not an easy place to be with a large family. You almost needed one adult per kid to get the most out of it. Our local teacher started an institute the next year, and we have attended the last few years. Our kids were all at the book 1-4 or more range when going. We have not taken our pretwinklers/twinklers, partly because of the money, and partly because I can't ever leave them, making it less useful for the others. However, if you have fewer kids or more adults, most parents I know found the pre twinkler institutes to be fun and worthwhile. Many bigger institutes go up to all the higher levels and have teen programs. But it depends on the institute where they stop. All institutes are not created equal, so it's really worth it to shop around.
  11. I read all of them up to These Happy Golden Years to my dd10 when she was 6. I cried during On the Shores of Silver Lake, and we talked about that. We talked a ton about the racism and such. She is and was a kid that would enjoy that. I would never have read them to the others that young.
  12. I could have written this a few years ago about one of my kids. Things have gotten better, mainly when we started treating her ADD. And as she has gotten older, her strengths are starting to show, though some of her weaknesses remain weak. I said to her then, "in 5 years you will know your math facts, read as well, and do whatever else, as well as your friends. No one will know or care that it took however long to learn it." She seemed to take comfort in that, and I hear her telling her younger sibs and friends the same thing. And it's true. Abraham Lincoln described himself with a mind like a steel plate, it took forever to scratch something on it, but once it was there, it was there. This really describes my dd well. Perhaps your ds too?
  13. You don't need to go back to grade 1 HWT. The grade 2 book also shows letter formations for the lower case letters and patterns for the upper case letters. The pattern for forming the letters should help, over time, with the reversals. My 9 yo is still reversing d and b (and a few others too), but he seems to be more accurate in cursive because he does the letters with the magic c pattern rather than making it up. We shall see if that continues.
  14. I can't believe my third will start Grade 4. Plans: BA finish 3 if it's not done, and do 4 R&S English 4 for grammar and writing A&P we will likely do most of A and start B for spelling HWOT he will need lots of ongoing work with cursive and copybook Lit based reading/history/science Now that we have treated his add I'm hoping I can get him doing some oral narration for me. His sister's grade 4 reading list would be a bit hard, but his brother's should be okay.
  15. In a later edition of her Thinking in Pictures book, she discusses this issue. It's true she, and many ASD folks think this way, and many don't. She discusses some of these other ways of thinking. My Ds is not a visual thinker, but very symbolic and mathematical. He learned receptive language from reading, expressive language from writing, music from score study. He is very good at math, but not geometry. Another person on the spectrum I know well is very verbal. Her language is extraordinarily strong, and she was an early speaker. She loves language and is very creative with it. She writes beautifully. I have never seen her draw. There are a few other categories as well.
  16. We had a school room, but don't in our new house. I don't miss it all that much, partly because it ended up cluttered much of the time. We do have lots of storage in the dining room for books, and I need the routine of having to clean up before meals. The kids always schooled all over the place anyway. We will be turning a basement room into an office, so that will likely function more like our old school room. But try it. See what works for you.
  17. Hugs. I wasn't thinking of my little Miss T, who in PS kindergarten (where they journaled and read books and did math) walked out of K knowing less than when she started. We took our time, worked on the basics, restarted math and reading a few times, sorted out her ADHD, and now she is a great student. She reads at a very high level, and is doing very well with math, and she loves school. Don't panic. Kids at 5 are all very different. Take your time, build the foundation.
  18. Smart but scattered is a great resource. It explains the steps for all these complex tasks and helps you figure out how to teach them.
  19. I believe some of the bowings are different, but mostly in book 2 and on. The recordings are older so may not be as good a quality. If you have a CD player on your computer, you can buy the cd and download it. Check with your teacher. Some Suzuki teachers will care a lot, some not so much.
  20. We live like this now, sort of, by choice. We have Internet. But I only use it a couple of times a day for email for 10 mins or so. I do Facebook every couple of days and wtm once or twice/ week. I would miss Netflix, but would go back to my old standby of downloading podcasts to listen to offline. Until the last month or two, we always had a radio on (in our new house we do stream radio, but that is a space issue.) We have a cell that just does talk and text, and are perfectly happy with that. It is rarely with me. I like getting away from it all! Too many years tied to a pager. I mostly call people or email or text when I need something. I chat on the phone sometimes, but it would be rare to go over 500 minutes/month. The kids do all their stuff on paper. If we lost all tech, they would miss tv, then move on. Paper maps are critical. Seeing people IRL is hard in our fast moving world, so I pay close attention to my social needs and meeting them. I find my life is richer and happier with less tech, not more, so I intentionally limit it. I'm sorry things are not great right now for you. Your wisdom has really strengthened and supported me during some difficult times in the last couple of years, so thank you for all of that. You are so important to so many of us here.
  21. In a similar situation I used Grubes method for teaching arithmetic. And we started at the beginning, and took our time integrating numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions and such. You can google it. It's available as a pdf on the internet archive. Best thing we ever did. Took us 6 months to get to 10 but totally worth it. She now is doing BA 4 and loving it, and has very strong arithmetic skills (not advanced for her age, but solid). IMHO with math it is all about the foundation, so do whatever you need to do to build that foundation. Kitchen table math is a great resource too.
  22. And yes, the chaos and negative energy are gross. A tight routine can really help, but it takes time for it to become a routine, if you know what I mean. Hang in there. There are really tough days with this, especially during transitional times, for both you and the kids. I'm a big believer in ice cream on those days.
  23. I find it works better with those ages to work with one then the other on the things you can't combine. Let the other have a playtime break while you are working with one. (You will have to teach them not to interrupt which is always tough.) Chunks or alternate, whatever is easier. This is also an opportunity to work on beginning some independence with your 8 year old (my 6 yos are never independent.) Maybe try with some copy work or math problems after you have prepared them for the assignment. Don't expect perfection at first, but in school they would be expected to do some work alone, so it is a good skill to develop. However, it really will not be as good as what they can do with you, especially at first.
  24. You might find Barkley's Taking charge of ADHD helpful. I really did. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/378324.Taking_Charge_of_ADHD
  25. Other then that you have to write in a notebook, R+S is really very do the next thing, do the exercise, fill in the blanks. I believe R+S 5 does a pretty significant review of parts of speech and such. It's pretty thorough and easy to use. My oldest kid did it completely independently, though I am finding I need to teach it to my second kiddo.
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