SoCal_Bear
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Everything posted by SoCal_Bear
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Shannon, This is helpful...actually. I am thinking ahead. I am committed to running Jr. FLL for this year and probably the next. It's beyond that I am thinking about what to do. Switch gears and go with DI/OM or stay with FLL? If I can build in open ended problem solving practices a la DI/OM then I can imagine that would be really enriching and stretching kids to think beyond Legos/robotics. Problem solving + creativity + collaboration is important to me. Legos in itself is a huge draw and seller so to speak to kids in general. I already have enough parents/kids committed to field at least two teams at my homeschool co-op. I just don't know if OM/DI will have as much of a response from parents or kids. Decisions...decisions.... ETA: I keep being drawn toward OM/DI because it seems broader in developing skills outside a STEM focus which seems like a good thing as well. I just can't seem to make up my mind. ETA 2: And now you guys have me thinking about Science Olympiad as a viable option.
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Now, the dilemma...I live in Legoland's backyard so to speak, so the league competitions are actually at Legoland. Plenty of local teams are fielded to compete there. So, the question I am weighing the merits between FLL or OM//DI? I am intrigued about the idea mentioned up thread of using IC from DI as part of FLL prep.
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Veritas Press self paced history - sale??
SoCal_Bear replied to lgliser's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
Thanks for posting. I bit the bullet and got NTGR and playing catch up to where we are in SOTW1. I also got the MA one to start in the fall. My LO is loving it and finished 7 lessons in the last 3 days. -
Hmmm...that's interesting. I am am copying what Wanda Sanseri writes in Spell to Write and Read about this specific rule: "Fickle phonics teachs useless ideas like the cute sounding rule, “When two vowels go walking the first one does the talking.†In other words, if we see two vowels together, the first one will say the name of the letter and the second one will be silent. (OA = /O/). Back in the ‘70s, I had my students mark page after page of words that illustrated this principle. The concept worked on screened worksheets, but in real life it failed repeatedly. I discovered why. The “two vowels going walking†rule is reliable only 27% of the time! It only works consistently with aigh, ee, oa, oe. It commonly works with ay, ai. It possibly works with ea, ae. It usually does not work with ei, ey, ie, oo, ou. It never works with au, augh, ear, eau, eu, oi, oy, ui."
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Seriously, the best was Papermate Arrowhead erasers. Sure, I have a lifetime box, but these things are awesome. They actually erase well and don't rip up paper. They actually grip and stay on the pencil. They don't collapse when a young child tries to erase with them. They don't crack either. Love them! http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Mate-Arrowhead-Erasers-73015/dp/B00006IFAV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1422581676&sr=8-3&keywords=erasers
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Observations about kids at the camp
SoCal_Bear replied to lewelma's topic in Accelerated Learner Board
lol Arcadia. I used to live in Fremont. I knew Caucasian families that lived in the more Asian/Asian Indian dominated schools who didn't want to be that way. Since they were so many kids whose families were that way, their kids felt pressure via osmosis from their schoolmates. There are quite a lot of schools I can think of in the Bay Area that have a significant Asian population that are high pressure and competitive. I live in a certain area in SD that is increasingly headed in that direction because the same population group is hitting above 30% now. I saw pictures of the UCSD Math Circle. The team pictured at the top has a Chinese coach. Of the 11 members. there were 9 boys and 2 girls. The ethnic breakdown, 1 Asian Indian, 2 mixed Asian, 1 Caucasian, 8 Asian. I just started a Math Circle for home school kids, it is blessed very mixed. Nearly even with girls and boys. Asians were no more than 20% of the group if that. I actually saw several Hispanic family names on my sign in sheet. Refreshing. -
For our co-op, we have about 200 families in our support group. For our class day, about 140 families. I believe about 60 of those families have high schoolers. For our events for middle and high school, we do a lot of activities: Speech and debate, spelling bee, geography bee (depends on the year), dances, laser tag, bunco, ice skating, indoor sky diving...We have a upper grade rep on our board who tries to get at least one social/mixer type event on the calendar each month. We have other activities like older student field trips but we don't use the word field trip like going to see theater performances or amusement parks. Depending on the We have a lot of classes for upper graders. Almost too many to choose from for each time slot sometimes. Covering just about everything you can think of academically, and also dance, singing, art and sometimes theater/drama.
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Observations about kids at the camp
SoCal_Bear replied to lewelma's topic in Accelerated Learner Board
Jumping in on this conversation...to just add that if you have not read Ch. 8 of Malcolm Gladwell's outliers, he tackles the question about Asians and math ability. It is a fascinating theory as to what is going on culturally, historically and by extension values that are carried forward. I am first generation Chinese born in the US even though my family has in here for 5 generations. I am completely aware that I work hard with my son and have high expectations. I am nowhere near as hard (tiger mom) as some immigrant families that I know. I do know that I push and require more of my son than the average but not really that much more than what is commonly seen around here on the WTM boards. Among my Asian friends from Cal, I know that I work my son much harder than they do with their kids, but I do also know they work their kids much harder than their Caucasian peers. -
Language Arts for 2nd grade
SoCal_Bear replied to mamabear2three's topic in Accelerated Learner Board
If she loves grammar...maybe MCT is worth a look? Grammar Island is part of Island level of MCT. -
Actually, the new International Version of My Pals are Here is much better and friendlier to homeschoolers if you are willing to pony up for the rather expensive Teacher's Guide which has lots of teaching notes, objectives, and activities to guide you through. I am hoping to sell these later as only the Activity Book is consumable. They seem to have addressed the critiques that I have seen of the older version of MPH.
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Math program before Beast Academy?
SoCal_Bear replied to mrhmhy's topic in Accelerated Learner Board
Hmmm...I use SM, there seems to be plenty of mental math if you are using the HIG. If you only go with the TB/WB, you will not see it as much. We are almost done with 3A. I do not plan to pick up BA until after he finishes SM 3A/3B as I believe he will have a more enriching, deeper experience taking these concepts to a deeper level. I plan to use it behind SM to go deeper on covered concepts. I know that the AOPS folks think highly of SM as a good lead into AOPS. I don't plan to use BA as a stand alone and will continue on with SM. -
Black Friday homeschool sales
SoCal_Bear replied to happypamama's topic in General Education Discussion Board
Just saw that Barefoot Ragamuffin has RLTL and ELTL textbooks on sale for 20% off on lulu today. -
Can someone doing ELTL2 tell me if the workbook is really necessary? I have not had any problem doing WWE1 without using student pages. I have ELTL2 on hand and flipping through it seems like there brief grammar exercises, copy work and some picture studies. It looks like I can easily just use a composition notebook for that. TIA, Lucinda
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I really like the Early Reading Comprehension series by Jane Ervin. I saw someone recommend those on WTM forums. You may want to start at the beginning since the reading passages are shorter. Each lesson is only two pages and takes my son about 10 minutes max. I am pretty happy with this series and plan to continue. The passages are about lots of different subjects so it was interesting to read and learn about things he didn't know about. Yesterday's lesson was about "Driving in England." That lead to a fascinating discussion of how that actually works, what the cars look like, what crossing the street would be like.
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I use CWP actually a section or two behind when I do it in the TB/WB sort of like an application test of skills acquired and review. Then I use IP a book behind, so I used IP 1A while I was using TB/WB 1B. It works for us to solidify skills and ensure there wasn't skill erosion because sometimes that did happen. Those Challenge sections in the IP are pretty challenging, and those we puzzled through together.
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How often does Mod Design come up at HSBC?
SoCal_Bear replied to travelgirlut's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
i've seen it at least twice this year. Or maybe there and on plum district I think. You can post on HSBC's FB page about it. I asked about a deal I missed out on once, and they were kind enough to tell me they were trying to get another up later in the year. -
Big List of Student Competitions - let's start one
SoCal_Bear replied to SoCal_Bear's topic in Accelerated Learner Board
Thanks, Crimson Wife. I wanted to create a list of ones that were tried and true. Well organized, thoughtfully put together and worth the time to consider doing. -
Maybe I missed it, but is there a master thread with students competitions listed anywhere especially ones that people thought were good? I would love to be able to find that all in one place. I was thinking that this format/layout would be good. Eventually, I can compile it into some sort of spreadsheet. Name / Subject / Age or Grade Range / Individual or Team / open to Homeschoolers / Cost / Registration date / Competition Date / website link I don't have a child that is really competition age yet, but I thought this would be useful information to put together and have as a resource. These are the other ones that I do know about so I will eventually look up and compile that information eventually and put it together. So, if you post a competition, please help me out and post the particulars listed above or if you have the information for any of these, please post it as it will help me out in putting this info together. Mathnasium Trimathon Math, Kangaroo Math, Talent Search Testing, World Education Games, Continental Math League, Noetic Math League, Exploratory Latin Exam, National Mythology Exam, National Classical Etymology Exam, Math Counts, AMC 8, AMC 10/12, National History Bee, National Geography Bee, National Spelling Bee, Bible Bee, Odyssey of the mind (team), Lego Frist League (team), Science Olympiad (team)
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Interested in thoughts about how to sequence the following programs because I like something in each and right now can't fathom thinkiing about skipping any of them because there is so much good stuff! Plus TC has now caught my eye from what everyone is saying. I am thinking that perhaps interspersing sections in between some of what I want to do Right now, we are halfway through WWE1 with plans to follow up with ELtL2. Which order would you do the following? WWE2 and 3 IEW - SWI A (I am the least married to this one except I think my kiddo is one of those that will need this as a interim step before becoming comfortable enough to do other writing programs.) MCT Island and Town Killgallon Sentance Composing, Story Grammar and Paragraph for Elementary CAP Writing & Rhetoric series I don't really have plans to continue on with ELtL at this point since I was looking for something to do before WWE2 and MCT.