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Shelly in the Country

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Everything posted by Shelly in the Country

  1. I just did a board search to see if anyone had done this. My dd is finishing up PM 4B and has begun LoF Fractions. She loves Singapore Math, has fallen in love with Fred and is very "mathy". In the spirit of sticking with what works... I do like to plan ahead. :001_smile: Bumping this :lurk5:
  2. To anyone in the know: I have a glass/ceramic....a flat top stove. I don't know exactly what the material is... Anyway, I have always wanted to try a cast iron skillet. My current nonstick skillet's lining has bit the dust, so this looks like the perfect time to get one. My problem is that I remember LOONNNG ago when I first got my stove, the owner's manual said not to use cast iron on the stovetop. It did not say why. I have since Googled it and found that some folks say it's because the cast iron is so heavy and rough that if you drop it on the cooktop, the glass will crack. If you drag the pan across the top, it will scratch it. Now, I already use heavy-bottomed Calphalon pans on a daily basis and I manage not to drop them so as to crack the top. I also use unglazed stoneware in the oven that I am careful not to drag across the glass when I let it cool on the stovetop. However, in a few places, I read some folks claim there is something inherently different about the cast iron that will harm my cooktop if I use it even if I don't drop or drag it. Does anyone actually know why my owner's manual warned me off of cast iron? In an ideal universe I would like to find someone here who either has worked in the engineering department of an appliance manufacturer, or knows someone who does :001_smile:. Barring that, I'll settle for testimonials from anyone who has used cast iron on their flat-top stove without incident for several years. I do dearly love my stove and I wouldn't want anything to happen to it. (I already have a dishwasher on the fritz, thank you.) TIA
  3. Another vote for R&S Spelling. My dd9 had much trouble with Spelling Power and Spelling Workout. She was constantly frustrated and never seemed to be able to retain the correct spellings over time no matter how many times she'd practice the word. She would remember the phonetic rules for spelling things, but would swap alternative spelling "rules" so to speak. Like the "ight" "ite" example. I tried R&S out of sheer frustration since it was inexpensive and we used R&S for English and Science already. Something in its presentation must have clicked with her because her spelling is much improved. I still use the worksheets from Spelling Power...those checklists for practicing a mispelled word with her when she does get one wrong on a test or quiz. They seem to help her.
  4. Kiana, Do you happen to know of a good Statistics text that is Algebra-based? I'm afraid I don't know the difference. I had Statistics as part of my psychology coursework in college and I assume that was Calc based since Calculus was a prerequisite. Also, while I was good at it back in the day, four pregnancies have fried my brain and I don't know how much of it I honestly remember. I saw recently that Life of Fred has a Stats course. My daughter loves the LoF fractions book. She has been reading it for fun. My dh and I have been laughing through it as well :lol:. We were actually talking about doing some programming with the kids in high school also. Unfortunately we are both out of our element there as well. I only ever learned old school BASIC and dh has had a smattering of BASIC, Visual basic, C and Fortran. Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations? I guess I am really only concerned about math and science since one can always read more literature, dive deeper into history, study more languages, etc. Math and science get so technical that I begin to fear I will fail her (and her siblings). I could try to learn ahead of them or with them, but I don't have enough spare time to do so.
  5. I guess my anal retentive need to schedule everything could be causing my issues... My daughter will work ahead in a subject, look at her assignment sheet the next day and skip that subject for the day since she sees she already completed it. I didn't schedule her assignments when she was little so that is how she ended up 1-3 years ahead in some subjects. Once the number of subjects increased though, I began using HST and giving her assignment sheets. This has effectively slooowed everything down because of the nature of the scheduling beast. Now my husband (who is also "gifted" btw...and he was homeschooled :)) thinks there is no need to continue accelerating her because he wants to know what the end goal would be to letting her complete everything earlier. We don't live near any decent colleges. Thinking ahead: If she were to complete all of her high school coursework by the time she turned 14, where would we go from there? She is too young to send off on her own to college somewhere, and all the local colleges would be....well, she would have a better future if she attended a more prestigious college. Now to complicate matters further, DS 5 is doing school as well and is flying through the material. This is a recurring problem for me. I only began school with my eldest dd because she begged when she was 4. I only began school with my 5yo ds when he turned 4 because he was teaching himself to read by sight and I wanted to get the phonics instruction in before he learned how to read (and I was too late btw, yet we continue with phonics anyway). Now my 3yo dd walks around the house telling me "the T says tuh", and believe me, I didn't teach her that....I don't have time! I hope that was all coherent. I wrote my original post last night after all the monkeys were in bed...that is not the case now :001_smile:. What do you plan to do when your children complete the necessary high school subjects early? Do you plan to continue with college-level math at home in high school? Send them to community college? If I continue at the same slowed-down pace we are working at now, my daughter will be beginning Algebra in the 6th grade (actually a smidge earlier most likely). She could be doing Calculus in the 10th grade....I was a liberal arts major. I am out of my element beyond Calculus and Statistics. DH could handle it, but he has a full time job to worry about. She's "scheduled" to complete R&S's 6th grade science program by the end of this fall. I had always planned on going to Apologia after R&S. That would put her in Biology in the 6th grade if I remember their sequence correctly. Do colleges let you submit transcripts with middle school work on them?
  6. Hi, long time lurker, first time poster :001_smile:. That is not entirely accurate since I did post a few times long, long ago on the old WTM boards. Moving on though... I have never had my children tested or anything so I don't know whether they are gifted or not. I am curious to know from those who have gone before me in this homeschooling journey how to pace subjects for my children. I don't want to push them ruthlessly, nor do I want to hold them back. As an example, I use Singapore Primary Math with my 9yo DD. I am scheduling her coursework for next year as we finish up 4B. I have been using the Instructor's Guide as my template for scheduling, but have been second guessing myself. If she is capable of moving through the material faster than it is being presented should I facilitate that? Is it more important that she get a firm foundation in whatever she is doing even if I am going too slow? What does allowing her to work at her own pace look like? I worry about her rushing through material and not mastering it. I also worry about holding her back from her full potential by not letting her go at her own pace. We have never hit a "wall" where she didn't understand the material being presented to her. I worry about moving too fast and hitting a wall. Sigh. I know I am overanalyzing this. To sum up, I think she may be "gifted". I tested "gifted" as a child/teen and would have LOVED to have been homeschooled to work at my own pace. That would have been academic heaven. I don't want to artificially hold her back or push her too hard. How do you pace your children? TIA :bigear:
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