Momto4inSoCal
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Posts posted by Momto4inSoCal
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I can't find the schedule :/ It had them reading around 25 pages a day.
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There's a list that schedules the vp reading books. I found it on here. I'll see if I can dig it up again.
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I plan on using Logic of English foundation for my wiggly twin boys. I've looked at quite a few programs and I like that LOE has a lot of games and has great reviews.
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What's the name of the creepy book where the son (a man) is rocking the mom (an old lady) in the end. I only read that one once and thought it was odd and never read it again. We like the hungry caterpillar, brown bear and goodnight moon. I tried to read beatrix potter but my boys weren't very interested :( Actually if it's up to them any book about monster trucks or dinosaurs would win out.
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I think it's more of our culture in general. It really bugs me and I have a hard time dealing with people who are consistently late, skip things without calling etc. To me it sends a message of my time is more valuable than yours and its rude. I understand things come up but I feel like some people will drop things if they don't feel like going or if something that sounds more fun pops up. No one really honors their commitments. The only way to get them to honor their commitment is to attach money to it, either they get paid for going or they have to pay before going. Maybe it's just personality differences but for me if I say I'm going to be somewhere I show up and I show up on time. I think it sends a bad message to kids if you are constantly late or flaky. Even with my twins as infants I still showed up places on time. You just have to plan more and give yourself extra time to get out the door.
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My boys turn 4 the end of sept
We will be doing
MEP Reception
The Reading Lessons
Rod and Staff preschool books (when they want I won't push these)
Tagging along with activities my older girls do in:
Layers of Learning Science and History
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I initially was interested in homeschooling but dh wasn't. We lived in an area with very good public schools and he couldn't see a reason to keep them home. He also had a friend who had homeschooled and his kids weren't able to place in college level classes and had to take remedial classes so in his view homeschooled kids were not at the same level as public schooled kids. We put our daughters in the local school. My first daughter did great. She was very quiet and her teachers loved her because she didn't ask questions and always did her work. My second daughter was very active. From day 1 in kinder she had trouble. She would spend her recesses in class finishing work she hadn't completed and spend lunch in the office because she was getting up in class and not doing what she was supposed to. In first grade her teacher told me she was behind in every subject and was dead last in her class. Frustrated I took her to get a phyc evaluation. The psychiatrist diagnosed her with ADHD but told me she was very bright and had done well on the iq test so he wasn't sure why her teacher was complaining that she was slow. I really wanted to pull her out but I knew my husband was against it so I just started praying. That was around jan. The last half of that school year every concern dh had about homeschool was addressed by different people. He kept meeting people that homeschooled their kids and had such good stories to tell him. The tipping point was when he met a principle of a high scoring local elementary school. He told dh he would never put his kids in public school after spending the last 20 years working in one. After that dh agreed we should pull our daughters out. That Sept I began homeschooling. Within a year I was able to bring my younger daughter up to her grade level. This year was our second year homeschooling and she has advanced above her grade level. Also my oldest daughter, who was good quiet student, actually had catching up to do. I think because she was so quiet her teacher never bothered with her. There were so many things that she has scored well on in her report cards but she didn't know at all. It's been a journey to get here but both dh and I are on the same page now and really happy with homeschooling.
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Well that sort of cements my idea of painting the smaller wall in our homeschool room with whiteboard paint. I had been considering the idea off and on the whole year.
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I wanted to add that one of my daughters that I pulled out of school was, according to her teacher, at the bottom of her class. She was behind in every area - writing, math, spelling, grammar. I had her evaluated and was told she has adhd. I don't know what her IQ was but the Physiologist that tested her said he she was very smart and had tested high on IQ. After pulling her out and working with her for 1 year she had caught up to her grade level. Now she is ahead of her grade level. She needs to be able to move, tap, stand at her desk, hum etc. She also needs me to remind her to keep going when she starts to daydream. Conversations about history or science topics stick much better than having her read. Watching my daughter who I kept hearing was so behind, slow and a problem in class bloom and excel in every area of school has blessed us beyond words. Classical is just something that resonates with me but really tweaking how I teach and molding things to fit HER is what has helped us the most.
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I'm exited to start beast academy next year and we are going to do poetry tea. I'm going to take my girls out to pick out a cute tea set and trays. They are super exited also.
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Classical style teaching can be done with a wide spectrum of students. The basic idea is you teach in three stages. Grammar stage, when they do copy work, dictation, memorization. Logic stage (around 5/6th grade) when you start having deep conversation with your child and start introducing them to how to look at things logically. Some people actually start logic as a subject. Rhetoric is high school and is when they can debate topics and effectively communicate. Stages are not set in stone and you can slow down or speed up. Your child might be ready for socratic discussion at 7 or not till 11. Also most people pull things from different approaches. Blending traditional, charlotte mason, unit studies or other teaching style. In fact many people don't even agree on what true classical education is. I pulled my daughter's out of public school and I feel like my first year was a lot of on the job learning. A lot of it is figuring out what works for you and your specific child. Good luck!!
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I usually print at home and do spiral binding at staples. I think it is around 3-5 to do spiral binding and it comes with a plastic back cover and see through front cover. I've looked into printing at staples and office depot but it was cheaper to print it at home. I was thinking of comparing lulu and a few other sites I've seen mentioned here but have yet to do that.
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Peter has a March birthday, so I'm pretty sure by all state cut-offs he would be classified as a rising first grader.
In the fall he will be using a handwriting book with a K on the front. SOTW will say 1, but that is more to show it is the first in the series than to indicate that it "should" be used in first grade. The geography book says 2, math says 3 and science has no number at all.
Knowing what grade level the state would officially label him has no bearing on our curriculum choices.
Wendy
I guess I'm thinking more about english and math. History and science most people following TWTM will do topically. Either way you know you started x number of years ago and follow a path year by year. Most people won't jump from math 2 to math 4 or anything like that. State cut off isn't really a big deal since we homeschool ::shrug:: I don't think people would second guess you if you said a different grade than what they should be in. Most people don't even seem to know when the state cutoffs are. Ours have been changing for the last 3 years.
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It's really not that hard to keep track of it, IMO. What parent doesn't know when their child would have started kindergarten?
I do understand when children are born close to the cut-off for their district, but when asked that's still easy enough to answer with, "Well, Junior has a July birthday, so if he was in school he could be a young 2nd grader or an older 1st grader."
I never ask a fellow homeschooler what grade their child is in (loaded question!), but I do find myself asking new acquaintances what grade their child would be in IF they were in school, yet I'm still a little surprised and maybe even a little annoyed when the answer is something like, "Oh, I don't know! I've never paid attention!" Seriously? At some point Junior's same aged neighborhood pals, Sunday school classmates, peers in dance class or baseball start school and you made the conscious decision NOT to send Junior to school, right? I just don't understand.
I always wonder how you buy curriculum if you don't know their grade level since a lot of companies go by grade level. I know some like MUS go by skill but those companies are definitely in the minority.
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I change my answer to Lori D.s lol. I really haven't put much thought into it but her response makes a lot of sense to me.
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I pulled my girls out of school so they were easy. We just keep them at the same grade they would have been in if they had stayed in school. Actually my younger daughter is working a grade higher now but I still say what her grade would have been in by state standards. My twins have a birthday just past the cutoff date so they would start K at 5 turning 6 a month after they start but we might start them a year ahead. I will most likely for activities put them in the grade according to state guidelines. I don't think its a big deal either way. In fact if they had more friends in the higher or lower grade I would probably go by that. For people asking I would just go by state guidelines.
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Our community has a lot of cool classes for really cheap but you have to search for them. We have a roller hockey team that is free, we are part if a free Christian competition dance team (we pay competition fees, entrance and buy costumes). There was a science program recently at our library that was free. I won't pay a lot for a class if my kids are just starting. I have always figured if they end up liking it and have already gained the basic skills we can look into the more expensive teams. We have done soccer, gymnastics, ballet, cheer and softball. All through parks and rec or cheaper community sports. I see no reason to spend a lot on something they might not even like.
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I was thinking of using this web site http://www.classicalhouseoflearning.com/I like the books suggestions to go with SOTW. It matches up the books with SOTW and gives you lesson plans for both.
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I have 3yo twins that are very active. We still have another year and a half before kinder but I'm thinking we will use right start, logic of english and konos. I agree with the poster above though. If you give them breaks and let them move they will be fine. I started homeschooling because my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD and I was hoping homeschooling would help her (she was falling behind in school). She often stands, drums her pencil, hums and just fidgets. I'm ok with it as long as she gets her work done. We take breaks and I make her go outside to play and get some energy out. She now test above her grade level so homeschooling has helped her so much.
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We are using it next year with the suggested literature books. There's a lot of books to go with it. To me it would be better to teach history side by side with your child if possible. We are taking on a lot next year and I need something to be "outsourced" . I do have some history activities planned and I also have famous men of greece that we will do along with veritas. I've had to realize with 3yo twins and homeschooling my two girls I can only do so much side by side work. We are adding spanish next year and I will have to sit and teach it so I switched history to VPSP to balance that. From everything I've read people have had a lot of success and retention from this program so I'm not really worried about it.
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With regard to switching to Singapore or Math In Focus, I highly recommend also going back to the basic level test and moving forward. Singapore and Math In Focus ( MiF is based on Singapore, by the way) are programs based on a VERY different approach to math than Saxon. He may need to start back a bit to have success with this type of switch. I found these for Math In Focus:
We switched from saxon to MIF and it was really, really hard for us. We ended up dropping MIF and going to MM which was still hard but it wasn't crying daily hard. I agree with the above quote. Starting a little bit behind might have helped us with MIF. We weren't used to it and dd found it much harder. She was used to just plugging in numbers to an algorithm but not really having to know why she did it.
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Really good article. I like this - New brain science tells us that no one is born with a math gift or a math brain and that all students can achieve in math with the right teaching and messages
I had sort of pegged my older daughter as not being "mathy" but after watching her this year she really has blossomed and gets it way more than I ever thought. The article also solidified that I need to give my girls more time to work out a problem on their own rather than jumping in when they get stuck.
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Oh my gosh. Right now, I'm having a moment where I'm so thankful that I'm getting out of CC. I was asked to volunteer for our local 3 day practicum. Volunteers have to pay for their kids to go to their "camps." I now have 3 kids, PLUS the cost of each camp has gone up by $6 since last year. It's $42 each. That would be $126!!!!!! And this is just to help out. I wouldn't do it otherwise. No way! I turned to my husband and said, "Do you realize how much curriculum I could buy for $126?" He sees my point. I turned it down. I feel bad that I'm letting them down, but I feel so good about saving money!
I have 4 kids the camp is going to cost us $168. It's going to put us behind with school also so I will have to add on another 3 days of school for my kids when they should be on summer break. They aren't very happy about it.
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This year was so much better than last year. Last year was our first year and everything I thought would work, flopped.
Saxon math, FLL, VL and Treasured Conversations all worked really well for us this year.
Our big flop this year, Building Thinking Skills. I don't know why because it's easy. I think maybe it was just too boring.
Building thinking skills was a flop here too. It was very easy and felt like busy work. We dropped it after a month.
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Science in the Ancient World reviews
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I really want to use SiTAW but I'm having a hard time finding good reviews :( I'm thinking maybe we'll go with beautiful feets science curriculum instead since it also goes along with ancient history.
ETA: I just looked at beautiful feet again and it doesn't go along with ancient :/