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Raifta

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Everything posted by Raifta

  1. We have squirrels in the roof. Again. It sure does ruin a nice relaxing bath when they start to scamper across the bathroom ceiling. Although it does entertain the cats. I feel your pain.
  2. We use the CWP and IP about half a year behind and usually about once a week they will go through one whole section in it but I don't assign all the problems (this way I can use it the first go around for child one and then a second time for child two). We are mostly using it as review.
  3. On the Beach by Nevil Shute? An adult book that is often read in high school classes and probably not suitable if your DD has any fears about the nuclear apocalypse but definitely depressing - everyone dies and the world ends with a whimper not a bang. If she still wants depressing in a couple of years that might be a better time to introduce this one.
  4. My kids are a bit younger but I've found that having a real variety of types of books - eg. some fiction chapter books in different genres, some non-fiction, some graphic novels, some comic book compilations has worked. We also go to the library quite often but we alternate between 3 weeks at the 'small' local library where their choices in books are more restricted (and hence they sometimes branch out and select books that I would not have thought to have chosen for them) and then one week at the much larger main library which has so many options that they tend to stick to their tried and true loves. Sometimes I have to 'advertise' a book that I think would be fun reading for them. By talking about how their friend so-and-so enjoyed it and I know that they and so-and-so have similar tastes as evidenced by their enjoyment of books x,y and z and with a brief description of what the book is about. Usually they will pick it up and give it a chance. Sometimes it fails but it often works out for them.
  5. Yes, TC is something you purchase and then download and print off yourself. W & R is only 10-12 lessons IIRC. We completed FLL 1 & 2 and moved on to TC and W & R Fable and Narrative 1. Although the first part was a repeat that was OK as DD, almost 10, breezed through it (we usually did 2 lessons per day, so finished a week in 2 days) and felt confident when she got to the sections that were new to her. DS8, who is technically 1 grade younger than DD but almost 2 years younger, has just moved on to TC and is moving at a slower pace but he needs the repetition more so it is useful to him. We alternated weeks for TC and W & R. I found that W & R was fine for DD as she loves to write but had she needed more explicit instruction, I would have only stuck with TC. For DS we will likely finish TC which is more explicit and also requires less writing overall (he has only recently been willing to pick up a pen and write things down but prefers to keep it short and sweet) before we even contemplate W & R and even then I might skip it for him and stick with Bravewriter instead. DD is in grade 4 and having finished TC and Narrative I is now doing BW Partnership Writing and Narrative II. Next year I think we'll continue with BW and possibly something else, but I haven't made up my mind about that.
  6. When the hour at which you wake up your children keeps on creeping later and later (10:30 am today) so that you can cherish your precious quiet time in the morning. And then you feel bad about trying to cram everything in during the short afternoon and find yourself skimping on certain areas. (Outside time? No one needs to go outside. Especially when it's minus 30. Except that, well, they should.)
  7. I'll second Jackie's games idea. DS at 7 learned to play Catan Junior, Battle Sheep, Dragonwood and King of Tokyo, all of which required him to figure out a strategy to maximize his potential for winning whilst still keeping me from winning. Sadly, he was very successful at this!
  8. DS is in 3rd by age but would be very much at the younger end of the age spectrum for his grade. He just now started doing grade 3 work for math (I try not to think about LA - he reads fine but pretty much refuses to write himself). He has never asked/complained but one thing I have done is to pull out the pages from his math books and just hand him the pages he has to work on that day. We use one book with the grade listed on it and we also use Miquon which doesn't list grades on the cover. I also have always had both him and DD (who is not behind in math) work on the SM Challenging Word Problems/Intensive Problems workbook a year behind the grade in math they are working on as a refresher, so he realizes that people work on all sorts of different books for different reasons.
  9. This year DD9 is in her second year of cursive and we have started doing a two to five minute free writing exercise on Mondays in cursive. During this time she can write whatever she wants - a letter, a poem, an instruction manual, a novel. She also just finished her first cursive workbook which towards the end had them doing copywork that was printed but writing it in cursive. I imagine there will be more of this in her second copywork book. So I would say that you might try gently giving him some short assignments using cursive without having a copy to model but don't expect anything too long at first. It will come. DD now voluntarily writes things in cursive on occasion and is busy trying to convince DS8 that it really is faster than printing (he is not a believer thus far).
  10. I think there's some very solid advice above, but just wanted to add in that for the books that he reads solo that are at/below his reading level, having him read them to his younger siblings (and choosing short and funny ones so he can really emphasize the fun aspect) is something that worked well here. I noticed a dramatic improvement in my daughter's reading when she started to read books to her younger brother - she wanted to impress him and to make sure he understood so she actually took her time, followed the punctuation and used much better intonation and characterization when reading than when she was reading to me (knowing full well that I could read it just as easily as she could was not as motivating as reading to her non-reading sibling).
  11. I would add FLL (might seem parent intensive but I found that it only took 5-10 minutes a day and not every day either) and Bravewriter's Jot It Down and think that was absolutely all you would need for 2nd grade LA.
  12. The Homemade Rice a Roni recipe from The Tightwad Gazette has pulled us through on a few occasions. No tomatoes, pretty quick and definitely easy. Bonus for no weird ingredients. http://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-rice-a-roni-with-ground-beef-231163
  13. We are currently reading a book called The Mystery of Life by Jan Paul Schutten and I think it would fit that criteria. Very little dinosaurs. The subtitle is "How Nothing Became Everything" if that gives you any idea. Although I am reading it to grades 3-4 kids, I think it could easily be for older kids as some of it is a bit above their heads. In conjunction with that we are watching some videos from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which offers free videos. See link at bottom of page http://www.hhmi.org/educational-materials to order them. So far Your Inner Fish is the one we have that is most closely aligned with what you are looking for.
  14. We don't have a homeschool group and my kids (3rd and 4th) have never asked to have one even though they are very social. They prefer lots of one on one time with their friends rather than big groups of people. Also, although my kids have never been to school, their best friends (from a group of 12 families who met every Monday evening for potluck dinner when the kids were babies to age 5) have all been in school for 5 years. We have maintained the friendships by inviting letting them know that any time their kids have an in-service/PD day, we are happy to have them over for the day. I will even go pick them up. We also try to make sure that we do things together like trick or treating or camping in the summer. So, we've made a special effort to maintain the friendships they already had even once some (most really) went to school.
  15. We use the IP and CWP but we use them after we finish the textbook and workbook for that grade level. I have her pick one problem per page to complete and she does these over the summer (or whenever the 2 - 3 months are that follow the completion of the grade level). This way I'll be able to use them with her brother in a year or two and he'll still have a choice of problems on most pages. We are also doing Miquon and Fred and possibly starting Beast next year, so we'll see if that continues but so far it has worked well.
  16. I figured it out this year because I was curious how much time my illness last fall/winter had taken away. We did 195 days and that was the right amount. It let's me know how many weeks we can take off (approximately) throughout the year for future reference if we want to travel or really focus on something in particular (market gardening project for eg.).
  17. Hi out there, After 3 years of lurking and HSing, I am actually registering and posting! Probably not too frequently, but hopefully I now have the occasional useful tidbit to contribute. Haven't been on a forum for about 5 years so I'll have to relearn how to make a siggie and all that fun stuff too. Cheers, Raifta
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