lotsofpumpkins
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Posts posted by lotsofpumpkins
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We have a schoolroom/playroom. Dd (2nd grade) has a desk of her own, facing the wall. ds6 (1st grade) and ds4 (preK) sit at a long table. ds2 plays or colors. dd (the baby) is in a playpen. I go back and forth between the oldest 3 to help them where needed. Sending all of the "distractions" out of the room when I need to help one of them just isn't an option. They are all handling this arrangement fine. :)
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I'm thinking ahead to 2010-11, when I'll have 3rd, 2nd, and K to plan for. We are currently using HOD, but I am considering switching to something where I can combine them more easily.
I'm looking at Galloping the Globe (which uses Considering God's Creation for science). Then the following year we would probably start ancients, maybe using MFW.
Anyone have opinions on GTG? It looks like fun. If we use it, I would continue "teaching" American history through read-alouds (like the Eggleston books, etc).
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Hello,
Rebecca: I sure am glad to see your post here. After reading most of the others, I was really beginning to worry that I may have made a bad choice in choosing HOD for my son's schooling.
We are new to this and start school next Monday (kindergarten). I want to make sure that I am teaching my son all that he needs to know. I want to make sure the curriculum is complete. I sure don't want to realize later that he is way behind all the other children his age.
I do plan on adding to HOD, but as of right now, I wouldn't even know where to begin with that, especially since this is all so new for us right now.
I know that I have had my fair share of doubts when it comes to homeschooling my son. That is a big responsibility in my opinion.. to educate your own child and do it in the best way possible.
I really researched a lot and really loved what I saw with HOD. I don't mind tweaking or adding a little here and there, but I sure hope I am not changing things up drastically as some have mentioned they have done in this thread.
I guess I will just wait and see how it works for us. I appreciate everyone's input about HOD. I want to know the good and bad so that I understand what I am getting into and what I can do to better educate my son each day.
Have a great day! : )))
I think that when you start with HOD in the beginning with a K-age child it is probably easier to follow the guide without tweaking (if that's what you want). My problem is that I'm trying to add HOD to our homeschool after we are all set with some of our subjects, and I'm not wanting to change those. So, for us, our Beyond guide is pretty much just a schedule for the history/poetry/storytime and Bible readings (Plus we use the Emerging Readers schedule from the appendix). There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but I am thinking ahead and still trying to figure out ways to combine my children for content subjects. Right now the youngers sometimes listen to the readings in Beyond. The decision I have to make is whether to do both Bigger and LHFHG next year, or find something else for all of them.
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My opinion is if you're dumping more than one side, it's probably not worth it. But that's just my opinion :tongue_smilie:.
That's kind of how I've been feeling.... but wondering if I'm just being silly and stick with what we've got for now. I will definitely be thinking long and hard about what to do next year though.
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We are using Beyond too, for my 2nd and 1st graders. We are only using it for the left side of the plans though (plus storytime). We do not use the language arts. We are using Singapore for math, but I'm not following HOD's plans for that. They are in different places, plus I decided to use Singapore's guides to make sure I'm teaching it right. We do not have the music CD suggested in Beyond, so we don't do that either.
I will admit, sometimes when I am reading the history to my children, I think, "I could have just bought these history books and worked through them".
Do I like the idea of an "open and go" curriculum where all the plans are neatly contained on a two-page spread for each day? YES. However, in reality, that just doesn't work for us. Does it bother me each day when I open our guide and have to ignore half the boxes? YES. I don't know why it does. It just does.
One thing I really do like about HOD is the Emerging Reader's set with the schedule and questions. Dd is really enjoying that. R&S 2nd grade reading was too much busywork and she dreaded it each day. We do like the 1st grade Reading though.
I bought LHFHG for my 4.5 year old, hoping to start it half-speed and use it for pre-K and K, but he has no interest whatsoever at this point. He prefers his workbooks and drawing. I'm going to have to spend some time reading through it and decide if it's worth keeping right now. Money is tight so I might have to re-sell it if we aren't going to be using it anytime soon!
I have considered getting all the books suggested in Bigger next year for dd and ds, but not actually following the guide. I'm not sure. I'm having to do so much tweaking to HOD because of wanting to combine some of my children. So, we'll see!
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I've had a chance to look through them some, and the teacher's guides are going to be fine. I am planning on switching to the standards edition once dd gets to 2B (I read that it's okay to go from 2A US Ed to 2B Standards), and I've heard that the Standards HIG's are great, so I'll definitely make sure i have the right books then!
BTW, 1A/1B DOES have HIG's, published by singaporemath.com, as a previous poster stated. Sonlight published the HIG's for 2A and up. The standard edition HIG's are all from singaporemath.com though, I believe. I guess the seller I bought from either misunderstood me or didn't realize that there is actually a HIG for 1A/1B.
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I recently purchased guides for Singapore Primary 1A, 1B, and 2A US Edition. I thought I was getting Home Instructor Guides for all of them (I bought them used), but they arrived today and 1A and 1B are Teacher's Guides published by the Rosenbaum Foundation. 2A is the HIG I expected.
I really don't want to deal with the hassle of sending the teacher's guides back to the seller and trying to find the HIG's for a good price. This was an awesome deal so I'd really like to keep them. Just wondering if there's any particular reason why I shouldn't.
Thanks! :D
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We aren't using a curriculum for cooking, etc, because I'm in the kitchen a LOT (we make most things from scratch and buy very few convenience foods). To make learning more structured for my children, I made a schedule to give them each one-on-one time in the kitchen with me. The oldest 3 each have 2 days per week that they help me. They really have learned a lot this way.
I try to rotate their chores this way too so that they are all learning how to do each thing.
So, if you don't find a curriculum you like, maybe just making a more structured schedule to teach the things you already do around the house would be an option.
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How do you go about choosing quality literature at their level? I found a list online that gives the reading level for children's books, but it's such a long list and doesn't give any descriptions about the books. So, basically it's only good for checking the reading level of books I already know about. I'm wondering where else to look to get some good ideas. (This would also be helpful for this year too, to find more books for dd to read for fun).
ETA: After I posted this reply I saw that another reply came in while I was typing. I'll check out that link. thanks!
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We were using Rod & Staff for Reading, and I like it for 1st grade, but in 2nd grade there is so much work (busywork, in my opinion) in the workbook. So, dd is reading the Emerging Readers set from Heart of Dakota instead (and I ask her the questions from the guide; it's all done orally and she's really enjoying it). I'm thinking ahead to 3rd grade. I'm not sure I want to get HOD's Drawn into the Heart of Reading. It's expensive, plus I've heard quite a few people say that it's overwhelming to implement.
So, what else is there? Do you just get some good literature and tell the child to read it? Do you use study guides, or have the child do some kind of book report? I'm thinking I could use the book suggestions from HOD and have dd read them, but do I need to require some kind of written element?
Just wondering what everyone does. :001_smile:
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I'll be watching this thread, because I've had many of the same thoughts/questions as you. We are using two HOD guides right now, but eventually it'll be 3 if we stick with HOD.
Eventually they are supposed to work more independently with HOD, so at some point things will get easier. Have you read at HOD's site the reasoning behind limiting the age range of each guide, as opposed to combining a wide range of ages? She makes some good points.
All that being said, I'm entertaining the idea of maybe trying out MFW at some point. Who knows. We are only a few weeks into Beyond so I'll have to see what I think several months from now.
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I've used R&S 1st grade phonics and reading with two children now. My dd was already 6 when we started it, so she had no problems with it. I tried to start ds with it when he was an early 5, and he was not able to do the phonics. He was able to memorize the sight words in the reading for a while, until the list got too long, so we dropped it for a while. Suddenly a few months ago, things clicked and he begged to start it back up again (in the meantime we had been using ETC 1). He'll be 6 next month.
I don't think I'd use R&S 1st grade with a 4 year old or a young 5 year old. It starts off easy but gets difficult pretty quickly. It really is worth waiting until you are SURE that they are ready. ETC workbooks are great to use while you wait!
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My ds started R&S 1st grade math about a month or so before he turned 5. He hasn't had any problems with it.
My dd started it when she was 6, and was able to double up lessons for a LONG time because it was so easy for her.
It does start off pretty easy, but just watch your dd and see how she does. Take your time with it so she doesn't get frustrated (those pages of drill can be overwhelming to a child who doesn't quite have those facts down yet!).
The book Games for Math by Peggy Kaye talks about the different milestones children reach in their understanding of math, and has great games for helping them learn. I've found it to be very helpful.
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About fixing reading mistakes- when it comes to fun reading, I don't worry about it. I have dd read aloud to me as part of her school, so we work on issues then. For fun, she just started reading the Cul-de-sac Kids books by Beverly Lewis. She is so excited to be reading chapter books now. Once in a while I ask her what the book is about, and I told her it's fine if she needs to ask me or dh what a word is. But other than that, she's totally on her own and is having a blast. I figure she can re-read them and will pick up more the next time (there's 24 of them, so by the time she's finished with all of them, I'm sure her reading skills will be even better!).
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We are going to be using HOD's Beyond for 1st/2nd graders because I wanted to cover American History and it was cheaper than MFW Adventures. I'm considering switching to MFW for the following year though, to do ECC. I have 5 children, so I'm still debating this some (one MFW program for everyone vs. multiple HOD programs). But for this year I've decided on HOD and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes with my children. We are doing our own thing for most of the math and LA suggestions in HOD, so it wouldn't matter if we switched to MFW a year from now anyway.
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My dd is in R&S Math 2 right now, about halfway through the first unit. She is very solid on her math facts, and I considered skipping that first unit since it's all review (especially since we haven't had a long break since she finished R&S Math 1), BUT, she wanted to do the review unit since it's easy! Right now she does the R&S math a couple of days a week, and Singapore 1B a couple of days. She is enjoying her schoolwork, so there's really no reason to rush through it and skip things.
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The book Games for Math by Peggy Kaye has lots of ideas which we've enjoyed.
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We school 4 days a week year-round, but as I approached my due date last year, there were many weeks where we only did school 2 or 3 days. About a month before I had the baby we cut out everything except for the 3R's (but were still busy with gardening, canning, etc, so they were still learning!). We took off about 2 1/2 weeks completely when the baby was born, then started back up with 2 or 3 days a week. It took a couple of months to get back to doing school 4 days a week consistently, and also to add back in science/history/etc.
My children are pretty young, so they need help with most of their work. If they were older and working more independently, then we probably wouldn't have had so many days off! Regardless, we accomplished everything that I wanted to get done this year, and are looking forward to starting our new school year later on this month. :)
ETA: I also totally agree that it gets harder when they are toddlers. My 2 year old has been a much bigger challenge to our homeschooling than the baby has!
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We are using Apologia Zoology 1 right now and we are loving it. My oldest two are expected to listen when I read (I keep our sessions short since they are young), and I have my oldest do some copywork (a sentence or two from each section). We are doing all of the activities and experiments, which the younger children are enjoying as well. Right now we are working on finding everything in the scavenger hunt, and they keep begging me to let them stay outside when it is getting dark so we can hopefully see some bats, since that's on the list.
Since your son is old enough to have an opinion on this, you could ask him which Apologia book looks the most interesting to him.
ETA: I do think it is important for elementary students to learn about the scientific method. I recently judged a middle school science fair, and the students had very little exposure to the scientific method before this school year. It definitely showed. Very few projects stood out. Most of the students (7th and 8th graders) were pretty lacking in their understanding of a hypothesis, variables, control, etc. Even if they aren't intending to go into a science field, I do think it is important to learn.
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Forgive the rush of memory, but I have a distinct recollection of being in my second-grade class-room (we'd just made real butter from shaking cream, that was cool) and I started pondering the idea that if I could somehow keep getting half-way to the broom-closet from my position on my chair, that no matter how long I was at it (theoretically speaking) I'd never fully get there.
And that kind of blew my mind :D
Bill
:lol:
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To further confound you, Strayer Upton is the math series that was mentioned in this article, by children who had no formal math until at least 3rd grade.
That's a very interesting article!
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Is HOD considered Classical? Still kinda new at this!:001_smile:
Angie
It's pretty CM (Charlotte Mason) but there is a 4-year chronological history starting with the newest guide.
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:iagree: Or, if you really want to put him in Bigger because of better placement, then you could just get the history books that Beyond uses and read those as extras.
Or, you could get the Abeka history book(s) that cover what you want and just have him read them. This year for my dd's 1st grade, I got the Abeka 1st grade history reader and we just read it. I got an older edition really cheap off of ebay. I didn't get a TM or anything. I just wanted her to have some familiarity, and I needed to keep things simple since we had a new baby last Sept. I do know that Abeka 3rd grade has a lot of biographies of people throughout American history, so it might be more of the same (as HOD's Bigger). But, you could see what 2nd and 4th cover.
Or, you could not worry about it. He'll get to it again eventually! :)
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I guess you could, but like the others have said, everything is so well related to each other. I'm wondering if it would get confusing, or be too much, to try to do HOD but then something different for history. On the HOD site it addresses the history cycle; you might want to go read about it.
The bottom line is, you want to make sure the 3R's are being covered well when they are young. History is a lower priority.
Anyone doing HOD and not in love with parts of it?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
About the math being light- I think that is in reference to LHFHG, where it uses Singapore Earlybird, but there are many days where there are just activities and the workbook isn't used (at least from what I noticed flipping through it).
Singapore math definitely isn't light, but I made sure that I'm teaching it properly by getting the instructor guides and using those instead of the HOD activities.