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pwicks

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  1. Hi!! Welcome to afterschooling!! My daughter is in 3rd and my son is in 2nd... I have always afterschooled. Your current situation sounds a lot like mine!!! First let me say that as my kids are now older it is much more difficult to afterschool. They have afterschool activities, homework and need time to just be kids. Here is my current approach: 1) I homeschool during week long breaks and summer.... I do a lot of the heavy duty stuff that I want to get done during the summer. I don't homeschool for hours on end on these days. And they may not get through the entire curriculum in a year but its ok. It also keeps my kids out of the summer slump and its still a more relaxing day than public school for 6 hours a day. 2)I use the school provided resources- My school provides a lot of internet resources, wherever possible I use their resources to replace things I would do at home. For example, I use Raz kids for reading comprehension. My daughters school uses reflex math to learn math drills. I have a problem with math because their school provides ST math and controls the grade level, I use dreambox and my kids are a year ahead... in this case I don't make the kids use ST math and they have to do dreambox. I ran into trouble because last year my daughters teacher made her do ST math weekly so now she's behind indreambox at home. But i don't sweat it beause she's still a year ahead in dreambox and this year her teacher doesn't require it so we are able to catch up. 3) I use parent-teacher conferences to refocus my afterschooling- this is probably the best reason to afterschool. As much as I'd like to keep pushing my kids ahead in math (my kids started multiplication at home while they were in the 1st grade) they need to focus on writing. I am going to hold off on math for the summer (which is really hard for me because its easy for me to get them to do math but getting them to write is a huge challenge). If my kids have a writing assigment for homework I take a little bit more time and go through it with them... do more one on one. They are more willing to put in the time with me because I am helping them get their homework done. 4) Social studies and science .... this is a deficiency in the current standards (in my opinion). Teachers don't have the time. I am still working on incorporating this more.... one way I do this is to do these topics on the random days off or the week long breaks that the kids have. It becomes the only thing I will do on those days. The other thing is that I try and throw in some science and social studies related non fiction in their weekly reading. OUr school mandates reading 20 minutes a day my kids are voracious readers and I try and get in one of these non fiction books once in a while and when I can I read SOTW to them. (I like the perspective SOTW has).
  2. I do the intense afterschooling on the weekends and holidays. I focus mostly on reading and language arts and keep science and social studies for long summer breaks. I have certain online programs that they can do independantly such as dreambox and Raz kids (Raz kids is provided by the school). I try and get them to do these during school days after school but with their other actvities its hard. I try for 1-2 times a week 15 minutes or so. When they were younger (in kindergarten) I could get them to do the online programs 1/2 hour a day 5 days but as they are older and more activities its tougher. The thing to keep in mind is that 1/2 hr of focused one on one time with your child is worth so more than an hour of classroom time. So don't stress out about it.
  3. Dreambox!!!! Love it. Great for mathy kids.
  4. I am typing this from my phone and realize therected are grammar errors I will try and edit it from computer later.
  5. I've used critical thinking companies mathematical reasoning, dreambox, maths seeds, mammoth math, and now their school is providing st math. I didn't like mathematical reasoning. Yes having color was nice but it was nothing special as far as math books went. I have k through 2nd books I needed to sell (minimal marking as I made my kids use a dry erase marker and sheat protector on the pages). I switched to mammoth math for my spine curriculum after my kindergartner finished the kg book my 1st grader almost finished hers. I didn't feel it was very tough, it seemed watered down. Mammoth math is more dense material and for me more economical as I bought k through 6. Mammoth math is more challenging. Word problems are better. Also mammoth math at least addressed the issue of common core where I don't see CTC-MR having done this (they don't have to but at least be more challenging for my mathy kids ... they are nowin 1st and 2nd). I supplements with dreambox (which is great!!!! Not a full curriculum though so I need mammoth math to fill in gaps) And I keep math seeds going bc kids still enjoy it. My daughter is in a pilot program at school for St math.... that seems great too. Not sure if that's full curriculum though.
  6. I use dreambox and mammoth math. Dream box works out well on school nights. I do not worry about the curriculum being paralell to school. I would rather them be exposed to several different ways of approaching math. We are implementing common core in our schools and last year there was one lesson where the teacher sent us all a message about not worrying about their test scores, most of the class did bad.... my daughter got a perfect score. She had learned the concept using 3 different curriculums I use at home (I have one other that I use at home but not sure I recommend it for kids older than 7Years old... math seeds) -Prachi
  7. Our school offers RAZkid so I will use that to do extra guided reading with the kids. (they do have to read for 15-30 minutes as part of their homework so not sure if it counts as afterschooling but my goal is that once a week I will try to little more hands on with this and do some "guided reading" with them ) Math we do Dreambox and Math seeds during the school week and over the holidays we will do Mammoth math. Hoping to teach my daughter (she is going into 2nd) her times tables as I am not sure they do that anymore CTC's Language Smarts more to reinforce the grammar they are learning in school, make sure they understand. My goal is once a week but it may end up being once ever other week as I hate grammar. Spelling- we were using reading eggs skills bank over the summer but school spelling is so intense I may just reserve this for holidays. history- I read aloud SOTW whenever I can. which unfortunately is not all that frequent (I usually do it at bedtimes, but I often have to finish my own work at bedtime so this doesn't always work out).
  8. The only way I got this to work was to use online programs that my kids could do independantly. Specifically we used reading eggs and math seeds. The nanny had the password to let them in and they would work on it by themselves... this worked for my 3-4 year old (at the time she was 3-4). For my son she would do some basic games but nothing as intense as what I did with him.
  9. Thanks actually I didn't realize reading a -z is separate from Raz kids.... this may be a good fit for us... I do think I'll need spelling and handwriting but LOE may fit.
  10. ooooh writing a to Z.... I'll take a look at it .... Reading AZ (i.e. RAZ) goes over very well here.
  11. My DD is 7.5 and will be entering 2nd in the fall. My DS is 6 and entering 1st in the fall. Let me preface all this by saying that I am in general a mathy person. English was not my favorite. I like to read, but grammar spelling etc etc not my favorite. Both of my kids finished the main phonics portion of reading eggs by the age of 6. It has really served us well, both kids read one year ahead of their grade level and as a result do well in writing and other aspects of language arts. I have been trying to figure out where to go to next.... while school was in session I used CTC Language Smarts (which covers some phonics and grammar), Raz kids for reading comprehension ( our PS provide this to all kids), and I tried AAS for spelling but I kids and I both got bored of it. Some of the stuff was too simple, especially since kids were learning this in school. So now that school will be letting out in a few weeks its a great time to jump into some new curriculum. Any suggestions... I really wish Reading eggs had a better program after reading eggs. The colors, songs and fun games really kept my kids engaged. I am contemplating switching from AAS to LOE and using CTC Language smarts as a supplement. We will continue with Raz kids and of course summer means frequent trips to the library. However do you guys have any other suggestions for language arts.
  12. I have young kids... 1st and kindergarten (soon to be 2nd and 1st grader)... Math I use three different programs: Mathseeds: is "lighthearted" lots of colors and songs and is online based... my kids easily do this as a "afterschool" math. It is not rigorous but covers a lot of topics and teaches them in a very easy engaging way. It is a complete curriculum. Dreambox: is more intense and focused on arithmatic. It is also online based (which my kids are more likely to do "afterschool"). Sometimes my kids find this too intense for afterschool but they will do a little bit at a time which is fine by me. Mammoth math: This is reserved for school holidays, weekends and winter/summer breaks. I do this to tie everything together and make sure they are getting everything. I do this because it is affordable and since my kids do the other two programs, they can do this one relatively independantly. Reading: For pre-K and Kindergarten I used Reading eggs... its online... and LOVED it. My kids are both one year ahead of their age in reading because of this program. Like mathseeds... lots of colors, songs, games it can get pretty rigorous. If it got to hard for them I would walk them through the hard parts or let them take a break. Now that they are older I am looking for a good language arts program.... I am using Language smarts book by Critical thinking company... its good but it is slow going and we only do it on weekends, holidays breaks. etc.. History SOTW... I read this to they they like that I am reading to them (since now days they are the ones who read to us) Geography/Social Studies: http://www.macmillanmh.com/socialstudies/2003-5/teacher/workbooks.html Science: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1561895016?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00 I same Geography/Socialstudies and Science for holidays and winter/summer break.
  13. 1) To give my kids a challenge 2) Children excel when given one on one guidance tailored specifically for them. (And I work so I can't 100% homeschool). 3) I am not good at everything so its helpful to have a teacher teach those things (like writing, language arts, etc). I often learn how to teach them better from their teachers. 4) with all the changes in curriculum due to common core I make sure my kids get consistent learning
  14. Seems a bit much to have all the kids yelling out times... in our school they have a certain number of problems and are given 60 seconds to finish them. 1st grade its 20 problems, 2nd grade it will be 40 problems. Not sure if this helps this is just what we do (we use Rocket math in our schools).
  15. Yes both of mine were at least a DRA 3 by their first DRA assessement of their kindergarten year (which is done in october shortly after school starts)... our district wants kindergarteners to be ~DRA 4 when they leave (so mine had already met reading milestones for kindergarten within the first month of kindergarten). It helps a lot because now they can focus on reading comprehension without having the a lot of pressure on decoding. Now because my kids (kindergarten and 1st grade) are advanced readers their writing skills are ahead of the game. FYI I used reading eggs with both kids no later than 4 years old (I started earlier with my daughter because she could do it). My kids are very motivated to read all sorts of things... because they like that they can read... so I also get feedback recently that my daughter (who is the 1st grader) comes out with all these facts and 95% of the time she is correct (I assume this was in their science and social studies lessons).
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