homeschoolmama37
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Everything posted by homeschoolmama37
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Who's going to tackle Monday with me?
homeschoolmama37 replied to Jean in Newcastle's topic in The Chat Board
Monday not so hot here. I didn't sleep well, my stomach was hurting. Finally fall asleep only to be awakened by college son coming in the door at 2am. Husband's alarm went off at 3am and woke me up too. Finally rolled out of bed at 8:30am. Behind on my lesson plans, behind on my biology class, printer not working, still nursing a cup of tea, not showered or dressed. What happened to my weekend? You'd think after 11 years of homeschooling I'd have this down. Monday, you stink. -
Lol!!!!! Oh my... What is diaspora?
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So I just deactivated my facebook account. It is literally driving.me.crazy. I can't control what I want to- nothing in my news feed works the way I want it to. People keep adding me to group parties like LulaRoe, Pampered chef, etc. And I'm sick of all the political non-sense. Everybody complains about everything, the same statuses keep popping up at the top of my news feed over and over and over again even after I change my settings. UGH!!!!! I just simply could not take it anymore. And, I allow it to suck me in, you know? Anyone else NOT using facebook and getting along fine without it? My biggest fear is that I've become so facebook dependent that I'm going to miss out on something. Tell me I did the right thing!! (over here feeling anxious already!!) (I'm still on Instagram and I really like it)
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Any mamas trying to finish their own college degree while homeschooling a child? My daughter is 13 and I'm slowly working toward my BSW with 91 credits afte this summer semester. Anyone else doing colege while homeschooling?
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Come join us on the "Adult College Students" social group! http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/groups/235-well-trained-adult-college-students/
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Grammar for 8th Grade
homeschoolmama37 replied to kristita's topic in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
I would agree also that CLE's grammar is in-depth. Not only that, but having used it for a while in the past, I would also that is very spiral based- each grade builds on what previous grades have been taught. Did you try the placement test to see where your 8th grader would place? This year, I am using Daily Grams and Fix It! Grammar for my 8th grader. She's a terrific writer and above-average reader, but really struggles with remembering parts of speech and usage. For my son we graduated last year, we had used Rod & Staff for many years and loved it. He did great with it. I would start that series with book 5. I always had him read the lesson, then we would do one class exercise together orally, or I would have him do it on paper, then one written exercise each day. I never assigned all the exercises. I always recommend checking Cathy Duffy's website for her reviews for curriculum before I make the decision to purchase. www.cathyduffyreviews.com -
Any moms looking to award credits to the transcript for an 8th grader? And if so, what kinds of credits? I'm looking at biology, writing and possibly ASL.
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Facing the mid-year slump! How do you keep your motivation going when you're ready to be done for the school year??
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We took spring break early. I didn't even think about school. I am also doing all my planning for next year now so that in about nine weeks, we can go on summer break. I am also planning out our summer activities. We have so much to look forward to which makes the goal of finishing easier. Hope this helps.
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Great ideas. Especially taking one day at time. Sometimes I get overwhelmed trying to finish the entire year.
We did take a small spring break- 3 days I think, so that helped.
And yes I'm planning my next year too, which gives me a little motivation and excitement that we are almost done with this year.
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What curriculum are you loving and hating this year?
homeschoolmama37 replied to mommyoffive's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
I'll chime in here and give a few opinions are what we are doing. It's great to read everyone's feelings on so many different things. Math- Rod & Staff- the jury is still out on this one though it is working well for now. English- We LOVE EFRTU, but are not loving Building Spelling Skills. LOVE The Exciting World of Creative Writing. My girl is eating that one up. Bridge to the Latin Road- again the jury is still out on that one. Spanish- Mango. When we get to it we do really like it. Science- Exploration Education. Not loving it at all and right now it's getting the job done and that's it. History, Bible, Geography- Heart of Dakota Revival to Revolution and that's a big win here. The only thing I struggle with is checking off the boxes every day. Sometimes more of a task list than an enjoyment, but we love the books and activities. That's it for us! -
Thanks all for your comments. Yes, I've noticed everything has to be built correctly in order for it work right. I think the biggest issue has turned out to be that my daughter is not a physical science lover. We did this topic a couple of years ago with Jeannie Fulbright's Physics & Chemistry and the topics are exactly the same, just different format. I think that's where the real struggle is- it feels repetitive. Part of the issue was the car not staying together properly. Hopefully we have fixed it again. Yesterday she did lesson 7.2 with the fulcrums and she really enjoyed it. ???? I don't know. Maybe just getting into a groove was difficult? The other issue is the math- math is not her strong point and she is really struggling with understanding the formulas presented. Math in science is a new thing for her. I am definitely going to call the company and talk to them about it. Thanks everyone!
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Has anyone used this? I'm at my wit's end with the first project, the racer. We are not succeeding with many of the experiments/projects and I'm looking for some tips. Basically, the racer doesn't do most of what it needs to do in the experiments to give the intended result for the lesson. I can't find any reviews of it online. It seems not many are using it. And I know why- it isn't very user-friendly for us and I'm just wondering if anyone else used it and had a hard time, what did you do? TIA!
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Starting week 7 of 7th grade here. Everything is going rather well except for science. I'm looking for other parents who have used it. I'm off to the forums!
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Maybe check National Geographic for some resources. I would also check the library and see what you can find. Maybe some online resources as well. Most of the geography courses I have seen are workbook based and use mostly maps. Maybe what you are looking for is a topography/cartography course. It sounds like this might be something you could design yourself if you had the right library/online resources.
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I used them and I did not like them at all. Are you talking about the ones from Joanne Calderwood? Here's what I didn't like- odd bulky size, blank black and white pages with boxes that didn't have a good amount of space. I did fill them in for my daughter, and for my son who was in 9th grade at the time. Honestly, it really was the size and horizontal orientation that did it for me, and the size of the boxes on the pages were not ideal to fit in what I needed to write.
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Changing curriculum already?
homeschoolmama37 replied to bethben's topic in General Education Discussion Board
If you can find an older copy of Biblioplan (I used for elementary and middle with my son which was about 6-8 years ago, it has a great schedule that uses MOH and SOTW, plus maps, questions, and timeline pieces and we really enjoyed it. It was 3 days a week and I only used the parent companion from time to time. I've had a friend tell me that she also left BP because of the choppy companion especially in the high school years. I wouldn't recommend it for that age, but I didn't use it for that age. But I really liked it for elementary and middle school. -
Awesome! I'm sure you'll have a great first week too!
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I have "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease and it has great suggestions in it for reading lists. You might be able to check it out of your library. Also, my daughter loves the Little House on the Prairie series. I think the first few- Little House in the Big Woods, On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake would be about that reading level. Also Farmer Boy is that reading level as well. While they are more than 150 pages, the language is very simple and they are quite engaging. You might give one of the books a try just to see. As for graphic novels, my daughter absolutely loves the TinTin series by Herge. There's also a movie called "The Adventures of TinTin". We loved it. She loves mysteries so this was a fun series for her.
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Anybody else do a four day week, not year round?
homeschoolmama37 replied to knitgrl's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
We do a four day week here not year-round. On Fridays, we have a co-op, so no school that day. But, I also use Heart of Dakota which is scheduled only four days a week so this makes it easy to do. For subjects not in the HOD guide, I just do a little extra every week to make sure we are done M-Th. It's actually quite nice and I've found it to be helpful to have one day a week that we focus on something other than core academics. Previously for a number of years, we did a co-op on Monday afternoons and that was harder because I was using different curriculum and felt like I was cramming a lot in those other four days. But with HOD, it makes it very simple. You can copy this model by just scheduling four days a week instead of five by doing just a little bit more in each subject throughout the week. -
Starting Fresh After 2 Hectic Homeschool Years
homeschoolmama37 replied to M4me's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
You sound like you are feeling positive and fresh and ready to face a new school year! I was thinking maybe some lapbooks? Maybe some unit studies you could do together with all the kids and then just have them separate for math and language arts? Amanda Bennett has some fun unit studies that might be enjoyable. She has some that are "Download n Go" and they are fairly open and go. I would suggest some family read alouds too. Maybe Narnia, Little House on the Prairie or Harry Potter or something else that your family enjoys. I would implement some learning games and possibly plenty of fields trips that your kids would be excited about. -
Take a break from math to learn math facts?
homeschoolmama37 replied to mykidsrmyjoy's topic in K-8 Curriculum Board
Are you making sure you do the flashcards with the program? They really do help. Even though my daughter has math struggles, we used CLE for a short time and I always believed it was the consistent use of the flash cards that kept her up to speed with the program. I know some kids don't do well with flash cards, so if that's her, obviously that won't work. But, the repetition does help. We are adding in Mad Dog Math as a supplement this year to keep her math facts fresh. Mad Dog Math -
My planner finally came. Now I can get my plans going. A little late I know, but better late than never!
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Right now we've got four on the list- Amos Fortune, Free Man; Crispin Cross of Lead; Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and we will use Progeny Press with all three of these. Then I have The Giver with Total Language Plus guide. I'm hoping to add in maybe one or two more with the TLP guides if we like it. If not, we will use Progreny Press. I'd like to add in The Bronze Bow as well.
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Interesting discussion on several other forums I've seen over the last few years. What's your position on kids and smart phones?
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Before we started homeschooling, our son learned to read at a small private Christian school with letter people (I don't know if that's a curriculum or not) and Saxon phonics. When we switched schools for 1st and 2nd, it was all Abeka. He was an excellent reader and always has been. With my daughter, who I taught to read because we were exclusively homeschooling at that point, we found the most success with CLE's Learning to Read program. We used their Language Arts 1 to go with it, and I also used All About Spelling. We read through the Abeka readers as well and I checked out a lot of leveled readers from the library. She is also an excellent reader and loves to read. I think the trick is just finding what works best for your child. I tried a couple of different methods/books with my daughter before we settled on CLE and then she just flew with it. If I was teaching a child to read now, I would still choose CLE's Learning to Read, and my 2nd choice would be All About Reading/Spelling.
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Waiting for my book order to get here so I can get busy getting our school year planned!!
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2016-2017 7th grade plan
homeschoolmama37 replied to Heidi's topic in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
I just started posting on the boards here and am enjoying it immensely. So I thought I'd share our 7th grade plan for dd who is 12 and our only child left homeschooling. So here it is: History: Heart of Dakota Revival to Revolution Science: Heart of Dakota- Exploration Education physical science, inventors study Language Arts: Bridge to the Latin Road, Englsh from the Roots Up (we just memorize the roots and their meanings), Building Spelling Skills 7 (CLA), The Exciting World of Creative Writing, Progeny Press & TLP for literature. Marie's Words if I can work it in because I think the concept is very fun! Bible: Heart of Dakota- Apologia Who is God?, Heroes of Faith Hebrews Math: This is our biggest struggle! (see thread here- http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/613504-math-for-struggling-6th-grader/?do=findComment&comment=7063124 I've decided to do remedial work first with Miquon. We'll work through all the workbooks, then I will give placement tests for my top picks- RightStart or Teaching Textbooks. I'm also looking into Ronit Bird which has been recommended. We will also use Mad Dog Math and Times Tales. I also bought Grocery Cart Math for practical, life lessons. Extras: Spanish with Mango languages, Italian Cooking & Knitting with our local co-op, character studies for girls with Polished Cornerstones, and I'm still deciding on music and art. I'm excited and looking forward to the year though it will be different since we graduated our son last spring. Onward and upward!! ;)
