[project books for upper elementary]

I'm not familiar enough with Van Cleaves book to know where the "base line" is, but here are some books that you might look at.

Sewing School 1
Sewing School 2
DIY Tech -- has some basic hand-sewing in it.

Woodworking for Kids

Make: Electronics

Howtoons: Tools of Mass Construction

 

 

[Leftie handwriting]

I taught The Boys the clock-based handwriting from WRTR because it didn't require workbooks or special stuff. I later taught them the Clock-based cursive. They use both to this day.

Teach letters by grouping/stroke and practice, practice, practice. Then be sure to practice again.

Once they know a letter formation--don't allow anything else. Make sure that they're handwriting is held to a reasonably high standard outside of "handwriting time". They need to write neatly and to the best of their ability at all times if good handwriting is going to become a default for them--ultimately you're training muscle memory, visualization and fine motor skills.

Doing 10 minutes of pencil strokes and letter formation won't mean a thing if they spend the rest of the school day drawing their letters on the page in any and every direction.

 

[b/d confusion]

I taught my kids to use their right hand to form the letter d (use the thumb and index finger to make the circle.)

They traced this shape with their left hand and said "doorknob before the door"

By internalizing the d, they could get b by process of elimination.

By using their hands, they always had their "reference" material ready.

 

[I still have not made a decision about after SM 6B, prealgebra]

As someone who used both Math Mammoth and Keys to Algebra, I recommend that you just use Keys to Algebra.

In 6th/7th grade, the book(s) you use don't need to be the most comprehensive treatment of Algebra that he'll ever receive, it just needs to help him understand and learn to use the core ideas and skills of Algebra. It's October. Let him work through the Keys of Algebra. You already own it.

The books go fast too.

[High School Math Sequence for STEM]

You'll need to do a bit of research, but it's likely that he'll be repeating Calculus at the college level anyway, which isn't a bad thing. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any engineering schools that accept CLEP results, but based on a quick search, it doesn't look like the school that you mentioned accepts CLEP results either.

He needs to know that he'll be in Engineering school with many students who've had very strong preparation--many of the students that I took classes with had taken Calculus in highschool and at the CC before going to Engineering school. All the E-school drop outs that I personally know, dropped (or flunked) out because they couldn't keep up with the courses. Several said that their foundation wasn't strong enough--they could mostly, kinda, pretty much do the work, but not easily.

Students need to understand that their goal should NOT be to "go to Engineering school" but to graduate  from Engineering school and pass the licensing exams with minimal fuss.

I would encourage him to think about what he actually wants to do and where he wants to be in 10 years.
 

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

12 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Just like with Science or Foreign Language or Math, once you have practiced and mastered a concept or type of structure or formula, no need to beat it to death. 😉 

Well, as the unofficial spokes person for the Over Learning Method, we not only beat skills to death, we then resuscitate them and beat them to death  again.

We do Over Learning across the curriculum. 😄

Sorry, @Lori D.,  I'm just nit picking in fun.

Thank you for all that you've contributed to my home school over the years.

[I'm closing up shop. Slight pity party.]

Copy and paste the email. Set it to auto-send at whatever time makes sense for you.

Have a good cry and eat some comfort food. 11 Years is a long time to just set aside with the push of a button, but it sounds like that 11 years was spent preparing you for the next thing.

 

Chin up. You got this.

[AOPS sequence]

Just a note:

If you're interested in a typical US Math education then NT and CP are optional, but helpful topics and I recommend that any student who is not struggling with basic math take time with at least some topics from each subject--just as a horizons-broadening experience.

Also, the AoPS NT and CP books are short so they can be worked simultaneously to Algebra and/or Geometry.

However, I will risk being a Negative Ned, to state that we really disliked the Intro NT book. The book was very boring for our family who really like mathematics and it gave our family a terrible impression of AoPS books as a whole. Definitely one of those "This was completely overhyped" type things. The NT book picks up towards the end, but it just wasn't enough.

We used a couple of the Intermediate AOPS books and they were okay. Not earth shattering, but ok

 

 

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

In seriousness though, I'd been thinking of doing a Group Reading for Of Mice and Men, since the book is short and our library has 3 copies. I don't judge books by their covers, but by their spines. 📚

When The Boys were younger, I'd check out 3 copies of the same book and we'd read it aloud in real time.

The Boys still do this, but it's been a while since I've participated and they had asked me about "doing" books with them again sometime. 

Lori, what other books are short, stand alone stories?

 

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

3 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Also, it sounds like it's time for you to start reading some fiction together with DSs (either aloud together, or each when it works for each of you, but roughly in the same weeks), so then you can engage in discussion all together as the first stepping stone towards eventually *writing* about the literature. 😉

This is the part where I shudder and contemplate gauging my own eyes out as an "Out" to avoid this.
LOL. At least the poor kids comes by it honestly. 😳

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

What exactly is it you have him write when you say "lit analysis"? Harping on lit analysis essays can destroy the enjoyment of reading. You can have these discussions orally; work together to look into the details of the craft. Talk about how the author achieves a certain goal. What he thinks about the development of a character. You can delve deep into literature by simply having a conversation. 

When I had my kids write papers about literature, I always let them choose the work and the topic they wanted to explore. My philosophy is that it is easier to teach a kid to write by having them write about something they are actually interested in; once established, those skills can then be transferred to topics they don't care about. But it is much, much harder to make writing instruction productive if the kid has to learn the skill on a topic they dislike.

ETA: And whatever you do, PLEASE do not make the poor kid dissect a poem to discern "what the poet wanted to say". That has ruined poetry for generations of students! Signed: a poet

This is the part where I confess I don't think I've ever assigned a Literary Analysis paper. The questions comes from the fact that I was reviewing the lists of skills and abilities that were shared and Lit Analysis stood out as a gaping hole in our "Comm and Comp" class.

It's something that I didn't think to do, and would've never occurred to me.

We kinda have a Separation of Church and State type situation with the boys Reading material.  I assign what nonfiction I want them to read and they read (almost) whatever fiction they want to. We've been doing it this way since early elementary and it just never occurred to me that we needed to change anything.

They have no problem discussing books, video games or shows that they enjoy indepth. But when I mentioned that they'll need to learn to do some Literary Analysis, he started spazzing out indignantly.

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

Follow Up Question--what to do about the child who'd rather gauge their eyes out with a blunted spork, than write literary analysis?

His (most credible) complaint is that Literary Analysis takes the enjoyment out of a story.

He can write LA, but he almost never does. Should I make him write a few more just to ensure that he had the experience and the skill is well developed, or just let it be?

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Why not? My personal plan is to keep providing input on the kids' compositions, while they are interested in hearing it. 

Or do you mean you don't feel like doing any more writing curricula? I'm not sure I quite understand. 

What do you mean "why not"? I literally stated I have neither the desire nor the ability to teach writing "indefinitely".

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

3 minutes ago, EKS said:

I would argue that even a professional writer is never finished learning to write.

I never stopped teaching writing, if by teaching writing you mean talking about how to improve writing, what makes good writing, helping with editing, and so on.  My 25yo son still runs important documents past me, and we talk about them--and this is a person with a minor in writing and rhetoric.

While that is wonderful, in theory, I have neither the desire nor the ability to teach writing "indefinitely".

"Never finished learning" is not an actionable or targetable thing.

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

5 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

After they are good writers,  then they just keep practicing.   A good writer has few grammatical errors and can fix them if plugged into Grammerly.  They can write a 5 paragraph essay quickly on any topic they are familiar with.  They know how to research, cite sources,  and organize a longer paper.  

Grammarly? That would assume I like my kids enough to allow them assistive technology. Compositions that I'll grade, they get wide-ruled paper, a nice ink pen and a topic. If the paper is "just an assignment", they use their 5 subject "Composition" notebook.

 

[What is "The End" of Learning to Write?]

In hindsight, I should've thought to ask this a few years ago but oh well.

When do you know that your student has "finished" learning to write?
What markers signal to you that you can stop teaching writing?

By now, in my estimation, The Boys are both competent writers. I'm no expert, but they write speeches, essays and stories that usually get my approval, though sometimes I make them do it again (and again).

I think that they've reached the level of "good writers" though, I'm clueless as to how to help them progress beyond "good writing".

[expectations for 9yo 4th grade boy]

First and foremost: I have single-parented 9yo boys before. They're a handful, I know. If you have a co-parent, get on the same page with any and all co-parents so that there is no playing sides against each other. Every parent in his life needs to be checking up on him and holding him accountable.
Whatever his currency is Reward and Punish behavior as needed.

Once the Adults are in place, look into making the family routines more beneficial and sustainable. As a single parent, I could change my family routine on a dime and didn't need to coordinate that with another autonomous adult.

1st: Start each day with making his bed followed by plenty of physical exertion.
If he needs to wake up 60-90 minutes earlier, then wake him up earlier.
Take him outside: have him stretch and then jog up and down the driveway or around the block. Jump rope, do push ups, army crawl and run some more, do a cool down.

2nd: Have him take a 3 minute shower, brush his teeth and eat a good breakfast and wash up the dishes that he used.

3rd: Start his academic schedule.

 

On 9/22/2021 at 9:03 PM, EmilyGF said:

Hi all,

What subjects and how much time would you spend on them with a 9-yo 4th grader?

 

What is your educational priority? We eschewed a lot of Traditional Subjects. I chose a few subjects that were important to me and only did those.

Pick 3 or 4 subjects that are important and do them. Every.Single.Day

The subjects will change as he masters fundamentals and goes from learning a skill--such as handwriting or reading--to simply using the skill in his studies. Once a child can read, they can read. So apply their ability to read to something else.

 

I don't know what you mean by his fine motor skills are difficult for him, but I'd start with 10 minutes of focused fine motor skills work. Whether it was clay, pencil skills, or whatever type of work is appropriate for his physical ability. I'd put 3 sessions of focused fine motor skills into his day.

Fine Motor 1/3 -- 10 minutes. After Fine Motor, do a run in place break.

Handwriting 15 minutes. Use a method of your choice. I used WRTR because you didn't need workbooks, but you can use whatever you want.

Math 45 minutes -- Start with quick oral quiz of math concepts and facts that he should know well, then go into his daily lesson. After the lesson, do a jumping jack break, and have him do lesson practice. Require that he write neatly during math.

Reading 45 minutes A chance to rest his hands. Frankly, I though that fiction was highly over rated, so I leaned very heavily towards nonfiction reading for The Boys, so I recommend a steady diet of nonfiction. Have him read for several minutes a loud, then several minutes silently, then several more minutes aloud. Have him go outside and run up and down the drive way 5 times or around the block or whatever makes sense for your residences.

Fine Motor 2/3 -- 10 minutes of FM work, read aloud to him or listen to an audiobook while working on his Fine Motor skills.

Geography - 30 minutes. Blobbing maps, IDing countries on the map, reciting geographical knowledge, reading an article about a country, continent, etc. After geography do another round of handwriting.

Handwriting 15 minutes -- have him review his written work of the day and ID and fix the worst of his written work. Have him go outside and run up and down the drive way 5 times or around the block or whatever makes sense for your residences.

Fine Motor 3/3 -- 10 minutes should be done in evening, near dinner time.

So,  you have done Handwriting (30 min) , Geography (30 min), Reading (45 min) and Math (45 min) and it's taken you 2.5 hours of your day. 3 hours in you count the 30 minutes of Fine Motor work, but that's something he should be working on anyway.

 

If he's an amazing reader, you might not need to spend time on reading, perhaps instead you'll swap it out for a subject that's important to your family.

 

 

 

 

[Which dictionary and thesaurus?]

The physical size/tiny print is a negative, but each of The Boys have a MW Every Day Reference set. I love the Vocabulary Builder in that set. We used it extensively.

 

[What do you do when your kids are failing math?]

The reason that math teachers often don't grade home work for accuracy is because of the massive amount of homework a class of students produce in a day. By middle school, most teachers have 100+ students a day. That type of logistics-barrier does not exist in a home school. In school, teachers can't grade it all and hand it back in a timely manner. It's logistically not possible. The best that they can realistically do is check that the HW is done or not.

Now a days, with the online math homework portals such as WebAssign and MyMathLab or whatever they're called now, the HW assignments are automaticallly graded, HW is graded for accuracy, because the logistics barrier of determining if the HW  is right or wrong has been removed.

 

 

[What do you do when your kids are failing math?]

Focus on good work habits and teaching them to show their work.

If their math needs to be color-coded to prevent errors, then have them color code it to cut down on errors.

For example, color coding parenthesis so that they make sure that they are distributing completely through them and not just to the first term.

I would cut back the amount of work that I assign in one session and have them be more explicit in solving the problems so that they have a lower-error rate.

 

When you're grading, you need to examine the type of error being made: Are they mis-writing things, or are they misunderstanding the math? Do they consistently make the same types of errors?

Create an error-log for each child and have them track their errors.

A lot of errors may began to evaporate as they simply become aware of and personally invested in checking their work.
 

 

[Does your child know they are smart?]

On 9/13/2021 at 6:24 PM, mckittre said:

It seems like original questions of this thread could be summarized like this:

1) Does your kid know their achievements/abilities are above average?

2) If so, what does the kid attribute that to?

3) What does the parent attribute that to?

1) Yes, they absolutely do know that they are able to do work well above what most kids their ages can do.

2) They mostly attribute it to me and my very non-traditional homeschool method and opinions. I have never had a problem making my young children do things that they didn't want to do, when I wanted them to do it and how I wanted them to do it.

3) I attribute it to the fact that I have an astronomically low opinion of schools in the US and traditional education expectations. To the best of my understanding, the edcuation system is designed to hobble if not outright fail children. I didn't want any parts of that for my own kids and so I took  the matter into my own hands.

There is a huge amount of gimmick and psuedo-science involved in a lot of educational practices done in classrooms and they treat the schools like laboratores--always experimenting instead of using the methods that we know work for the majority of NT children, the majority of the time. It's stupid and cruel, to be frank. Rather than whine about the cruelty or stupidity, I design my teaching to not use cruelty or stupidity and just teach my own kids.

It doesn't take a lot to beat the PS standards by a mile.

But, I'm bitter so I was interested in blowing the local PS out of the water and dancing over its waterlogged corpse.

[Does your child know they are smart?]

As a product of the PS system, I was inspired to set my own standards for my kids.

The Boys are accelerated, not gifted. The Boys do not attribute their abilities to anything besides the work that we do in the home. This has been reinforced time and time again for them. I have told them openly that they are gifted--their "gift" is a father who is able to and willing to invest his time and efforts directly into them.

We talk about the importance of not blindly working hard. You can work yourself to death that way and still not receive maximum gain.
We talk about how Diligently Working Smart allows you to seem "Smart"--but it's actually the decision to exercise diligence and work smart that is "smart"--not the ability to read/write in three languages or do calculus.

When they began at the PS as fluent readers, able to write by hand neatly and already skilled at arithmetic of whole and rational numbers, they were on a different track than the majority of students in the state. The school promptly started telling them how special and advanced they were but I assured them that they weren't. They'd had a few years of private tutoring from an expert.

It was driven home for them how normal they are some years ago when I tutored a mixed-age group of boys from the neighborhood in my home. Daily sessions of intensive work for a group of boys who were all remedial cases--some of them more extreme than others. Some days the group had class twice.

One of them was a 10.5yo going back into 3rd grade. He could barely read at the beginning of summer and had been retained twice already. He attended "Gil School" 5-7 days a week, most times 2 times a day. We did intensive phonics and vocabulary work 75% of the time. He had to read aloud and he had to read 5 times every day. To hold him accountable, he had to call me and read on VoiceMail for me. When he went back to school in the fall, he tested as reading at a mid-6th grade level and was put up 1 grade.

I'm not a wizard. I don't do anything magical that can't be replicated in a local classroom.
We just don't have any local classrooms where it's expected in this county because of how poor the majority of the families are.

 

[preparing for calculus?]

On 8/10/2021 at 2:06 PM, calbear said:

This is why I am hesitant to hand over a graphing calculator too early. Trying to decide when to make that available.

If you're doing math 100% at home, then never. The Boys made it through Multivariate Calculus (Calculus 3 at university) without using a  calculator. We simply skipped the few questions in each chapter that were designed to be solved with a graphing calculator in the texts.

We got around using a graphing calculator by front-loading the ability to graph fluently.

They can look at most functions and visualize it immediately. They can do a rough sketch of most functions in under 30 seconds and an accurate sketch in under a minute.

[Logistics of adding a 2nd langauge]

German (Aleman)
So far, we've been very slow and steady--our victory is that we've maintained consistency.
We've focused a lot of  audio resources to try and front load some German sounds. We've managed to watch a couple of German movies, but only in about 10 minute increments. Again, our victory is the consistency.

We've just started learning a bit about German verbs. We're just going to keep on, keeping on. Right now, the most important thing is remaining consistent.

 

Japanese
Their tutor is running this course. They're able to converse, watch anime and are improving in reading. I had them do a few online language practices with native speaker and they and have consistently been complimented for good accent and receptive language skills. They're still working through a textbook with the tutor.

 

Spanish
They have a couple Spanish-language friendships and that helps to reward them for years of having worked very hard to learn and develop their Spanish. They're in a space where they  voluntarily do a lot of creative writing in Spanish, which is great. A significant portion of their academic work is in Spanish. The real prize is that they speak Spanish around the house a lot.

**********

Of course, there is no telling what COVID will have changed by the time it's all over, but I do hope that they're able to travel and will be able to take greater advantage of oppurtunties for having learned languages as a part of their basic education.

 

 

 

 

 

[AAR vs Abeka vs ACE]

Just so that I understand what you're saying: Your small child struggled with learning to read (and possibly other academic things) for over a year.

This summer you began using a program is designed to enable kids--even struggling learners--to successfully learn to read in a timely fashion and even though it's working very well for your child you want to switch? Why?

You are looking to switch from a program that's

1. designed for use with kids whose profile is like your daughter
2. working for your daughter and
3. helping your daughter to experience success with something that she's struggled with in the past

but you want to switch her to some other program? Why?

 

This is kind of like asking: My child is in physical therapy for gross motor issues that effect their balance and prevent them from walking normally--I'm thinking of switching from the PT that's been working really well and is helping my child walk and move to a recreational sport for typically-developing kids-should I go with gymnastics, swimming or ballet?

 

Out of respect to your daughter, I think that you should finish Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. You have it and it's working for your struggling reader. 

You're not the one who is struggling--she is! Do what's most beneficial and enabling for her! That program is designed to allow struggling readers to learn how to read proficiently. Don't go with shinier, newer, more colorful. 

The reading program that they used with her from PreK to now were likely colorful, shiny and had a bunch of activities for "learning styles". They all failed. 

For the love of common sense and respect for your childs needs: Stay with what's working for her. When she's finished with 100EZ, then you can start on any of these 3 programs that you like.