RKWAcademy
-
Posts
410 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by RKWAcademy
-
-
we're in AAR 3. My kids would be capable of reading roughly Magic Treehouse Level, but they don't have that stamina or desire yet. My son still flips through (mostly Star Wars) books and reads some Easy Readers, but they'd much rather be read to or listen to an audiobook. I'm just not pushing it yet. Even when they're ready, I'd be surprised if they wanted to read on a kindle this early. They do listen to audiobooks on the kindle. They still get annoyed when I ask them to read from the AAR readers.
-
1
-
-
DD 6 - vet, horse and cow owner, Olympic gymnast
DS 6 - pilot, engineer, maybe a vet so he can share an office with DD 6
-
2
-
-
In the beginning, we took more than one day per most lessons. I never made my kids do the full fluency sheets in one sitting until probably the end of AAR2 or beginning of AAR3. I often skipped the single words, too. Or picked just a few. Often they are repeated in the sentences and the flash cards. I would keep going if after two days or so, my kid is reading the word even if it takes time to sound it out. If they have the sound we're working on, I keep going. Once they've built up stamina for reading, it goes much quicker. I recall it being painfully slow for awhile. But it has worked well for us (we're about 1/3 through AAR 3).
-
1
-
-
Sounds about normal. It can be isolating to go it alone, but it's not my husband's role. He spends as much quality time as possible with our kids on the weekends. He is my son's cub scout den leader. He works very hard. He is supportive of our schooling, and he is immensely proud of their accomplishments. We each took a role, and my role is teacher. I can't change my husband. If my role bothers me, the only thing I can change is how/if we school. Or my attitude.
-
:grouphug: :grouphug:
I could have written your post. I'm right there with you. I'm often overwhelmed with being their parent pretty much all day and night and their teacher. DH works a lot of hours and is not involved in our school except to say he wants them homeschooled. I don't desire to go back to work but I need to for money and for a break from my kids. Unless others are able to hire care or have family nearby, I don't know how people work and homeschool. I just can't figure it our for our situation, either. We are seriously considering put them in school next year so I can go to work and go back to being just mom. And I hate the thought.
My ideal wouldn't even be outsourcing their school. I would hire someone to watch them a few hours per day while I work or just be away from them. I think if I had that break, the school part wouldn't be so overwhelming.
-
You need to get a GOOD realtor out there to talk to you. We're out in the country and it's so much harder to determine value. You're limited on particular people who want your location. Alternatively, could you hire an independent appraiser? They might give you a more realistic number.
As an aside, on your kitchen, have you looked around on Craigslist? We gutted our 1970's kitchen two years ago. I just happened to stumble upon someone in town who also gutted their kitchen and were selling their cabinets and Corian counters for CHEAP. The cabinets were maybe 7 years old and all in great condition. Professionally removed, too. We snapped them up! It took my dad and husband a bit to rearrange and fit to our space, but I now have a beautiful kitchen for very little money (but a lot of work!). It's worth looking into.
Generally, if you have a nice location on/near a lake, you're going to want your house to be in tip-top shape to appeal to more people. I know it is draining, but I'd keep going with fixing it up. FWIW, we've completely overhauled our house and won't be able to get it back out but I'm still glad we did it. The house is actually livable until we can ever get it sold.
-
1
-
-
In my little home experiment - twins, read to the exact same amounts/types, exposed to the same things since day 1 - one kid eats up books and one kid could take them or leave them. My son has always shown so much interest in books. Well before he could read, he'd flip through everything he could get his hands on. He's just one of those kids that loves books. My daughter has attached herself to a very few favorite characters and subjects (Laura Ingalls and gymnastics, that is pretty much it) but I can't remember ever seeing her grab a book to flip through on her own unless it's to stall bedtime. They are only just now taking off with reading but I don't see their patterns changing.
Maybe it's just hit or miss with a kid at any particular age. Maybe a beloved character or subject hasn't sparked anything in your son yet. Maybe he doesn't have stamina or confidence. Maybe he's like my daughter and just isn't book-y - yet. Maybe, like my daughter, he has too much energy to sit still with a book?
No real advice, just keep doing the good things you're doing - model reading, continue to surround him with books he'd find interesting.
-
I think cruises are a really personal thing. In my experience, you either love them or hate them. I despise them. I went once and will NEVER go again. My husband loves cruises. I think it's all what activities you enjoy and how much you want to be confined on a boat. I will admit that the "private" island with the cruise was really nice. We did a jet ski excursion in the Bahamas. That part was nice but not enough to ever get me near a cruise ship again.
-
We're using RSO Bio 1 for my lower elementary kids. We like it. Science makes me cranky, too. Not because I dislike it (I love it, my favorite!) but because I can't stand the disorder of teaching it. I feel like they run over me in science and it's messy and ugh! I want the kids to go away, and I'll just do the science myself! But, RSO works ok for us. I have NOEO, too, because I found it used for very little. I like the supplemental books that go along with it.
-
2
-
-
I use Adventures in America with my 1st graders (started in Kindy). It's good; my kids enjoy it. But, I find it lacking something. We read the extras and my kids love them. But, I still think we are missing a spine. It could just be that my son enjoys early American history so much that I find it hard to keep up. But, the program is good, if a little sparse. I'm glad you started this post. I'm going to look into adding the Child's First Book of American History linked above.
-
I did use my middle name for a long time for all health type things. My most recent health insurance insisted on first name. I think such organizations are more strict now. So, it was getting confusing for the doctor's office. I think my primary still has my middle name since I've been going there so long. My pharmacy wanted to change it to match insurance, so I let them. I don't go often so I never can remember which name to give them! And when the doctor recently referred me somewhere they went with first name. It's a pain. I went through a phase where I used my first initial. It's even on one of my degrees. Looks pretentious, and I wish I'd not done it. I should have made the change twenty years ago when I could.
-
Roku or Roku stick.
-
I've always wanted to remove my first name, since I've always been called by my middle name/nickname for middle name. I never got around to it, and I secretly didn't want to hurt my mother (or sister who supposedly is the one that picked that name - at age 3)! But I do cringe every time it's used, which is only at the doctor and for official paperwork. I do like my middle name, although I'm not a huge fan of the nickname.
-
After watching a lot of tv shows about people buying and renovating houses, I think I'd go for a brand new house if I ever had to buy again. And I hate new houses. :( But it's scary when the repair costs start adding up.
YES! I've poured so much money into various used houses! Not to mention the HOURS I've spent removing wallpaper (fortunately that was the one problem our current house didn't have). Our house may be fixed up now but it's roots are still 1977. Of course, a lot of rooms, all the floors, the roof, the AC, the appliances, the bathrooms.... are all "new". If we ever unload our house, we're building brand new. Supposedly.
-
1
-
-
Mine are wee babies compared to yours, so I can't offer advice. But I will say that each child's body is different with how much sleep they need. My six year olds are twins. They eat the same things and have the same activities and time commitments. One kid jumps out of bed every morning as soon as the sun is up, if not before. The other kid could sleep until 9am most days and be perfectly happy. They have the same bedtime. I'm pretty loosey-goosey with my school times.
As a night owl, I've spent a lifetime trying to wake up in the morning and forcing myself to go to sleep before 2a nightly. This includes when I was a kid. So, as an adult he will have to get used to waking at a normal time, but perhaps he just needs more sleep now and can't force himself to fall asleep earlier.
-
Chalk up the things you've already done as sunk costs. No way around that. I'm in a situation where we hate the area and the house but due to location and lousy market here, we can't get out. We remodeled a few years ago to make it marginally livable, but now we've just sunk even more into this house. My advice is to stop while you're ahead. Make whatever repairs necessary to sell the place and get out.
And I get that you can't practice in your home. I'm an accountant. My people don't understand why I can't just hang out my shingle and earn some money. Start up in fees and insurance and software are high and who will educate/watch my kids? I get it.
-
1
-
-
Mine have never gone so fast as to want two lessons per day! I bet that's nice! In the past, we would often break the lessons into two days (more so with AAR2 than 3). We are on lesson 15-ish in AAR3. I like it much better than AAR2. The lessons seem so much shorter to me. The fluency pages are shorter. They just have sentences listed one time, not re-reading the first part three times, if you know what I mean from previous levels. We tend to skip the single words at the beginning because they are often repeats of the flashcards or games or are in the sentences below. We do some of the challenge words (or whatever they are called after the sentences). Also, the games are easy to skip if your kid doesn't care about them. Mine like them so we do them, but they could easily be skipped (I spend more time cutting than it takes to read the flippers or play the "game"). I like the pace of AAR3 better, too. It seems to be moving on ahead with this reading business!
-
2
-
-
We bought ours at Lowes years ago. It was well before Christmas but the store was almost sold out. We bought a floor model. I don't actually remember if we paid full price. Doubtful but Christmas does tend to make me lose my financial mind.
-
1
-
-
We're in a tough situation, too. My husband's employer offers him (alone) a great plan but the family plans are a third of his pay. So, we are stuck going to an insurance plan for the kids and me. It's outrageously expensive but it's still much cheaper than the family plan through my husband's job. We don't qualify for any subsidy if we went with obamacare because my husband's job does offer a plan to him. As a SAHM, I don't count. Huge financial burden on our lowish income. The plan we buy straight from Blue Cross is a high deductible plan for which we would never come close to meeting the deductible (except for last year's neck surgery - score!). So on top of our very high premiums that keep going up by double digit percentages, we pay out of pocket for every check up, pap smear, speech therapy (!), etc. Trust me that speech therapy out of pocket adds up! If the insurance keeps going up, we're probably going to have to consider kids to school and me back to work. We've talked about doing that starting next school year. Sad that it's that big of a share of our income but it is.
-
The wipes and sanitizer! That's me.
-
We like Costco more than BJs. BJs is good for some things but they tend to have more processed foods and not so great prices. We had a membership but let it lapse since we go to Costco more often. They do tend to have more organic produce where we are. And my kids would tell you their samples pale in comparison to Costco.
-
My husband had both hands done, at different times. The recovery was very quick and pain was minimal. He's in LE, and he was able to go back on duty in (I can't remember exactly but approximately) 4-6 weeks with full use of his hand (he was in office the very next Monday after surgery on Friday, though). The interesting thing to me is that the surgery was so very fast and he was up and awake talking to the doctor the entire time. I get the impression it was not bad at all. I think the very last thing he was able to do during recovery was grip things and turn, as in turning a jar. But after a few months he was so very glad he had it done since his hands were falling asleep when he was sleeping and that tingling would wake him up at night, repeatedly. The showering part was difficult since it had to stay dry. The doctor told him to take those umbrellas bags at the front of the hospital and wrap that around his hand and and secure at the top (we used a hair tie). Made showering easy.
-
1
-
-
Even in jest, that was a tacky thing for the person to say. I may read more into the comment but if directed toward me, I'd feel it was more than just my looks. I'd feel as if I were perceived as vapid or a lesser person. Which would make me very angry, and I'd hop on some soapbox about how I'm just as educated and intelligent as my husband and my staying home is what works for our family. Unfortunately, I'm shy so my husband's the only poor thing subjected to my soapbox. So, tacky comment, but she shouldn't change a thing about herself.
ETA - like you commented above that she's probably a little sensitive about not working, I think I'm overly sensitive in this regard, too.
-
I would go if free, assuming it was required in some manner. However, we've just used boy scout material. I did it with my girl, too. I just elaborated a bit and covered what I thought was needed for my first graders. I probably should have done this sooner, but I also showed them how to call their grandparents and aunt (their trusted adults) and told them they could do so at any time for any reason. It all took maybe thirty minutes, including the kids drawing their hand and writing adult names, and I would absolutely feel comfortable saying I taught them about "child abuse".
ETA - I agree with Farrar above! An interview would be a great assignment.
Spelling and Speech Delay/Apraxia of Speech Advice
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
Can anyone share their experiences with beginning spelling for lower elementary kids with speech delays?
For background, my six year old son has been in speech therapy for over three years. In total, he's doing very well. He is still working on his R controlled vowels. He occasionally still says /f/ in place of /th/. He has really struggled with /r/. He was diagnosed with Apraxia of Speech. It must be a fairly minor presentation because from the therapists: first he had it, then he didn't, then maybe he did but it doesn't matter for therapy.
He is doing well with reading (we do All About Reading level 3 right now). We've just begun spelling this fall using Apples and Pears. He struggles with "hearing" the sounds /w/ vs /r/ and /th/ vs /f/ for use in spelling. His vowels are iffy, too, but the /r/ and /th/ seems to be more problematic in spelling. Our speech therapist is pretty good but doesn't seem to favor homeschooling. When I asked her about his misspelling of words like 'run' and 'the' she basically just said, keep correcting and if he were in public school, he'd have a IEP for just such a problem.
Does anyone have any experience with similar speech delays impacting spelling but not so much reading? I'd appreciate hearing what you used successfully for spelling.