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Hilary in MI

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Posts posted by Hilary in MI

    What have you done to make homeschooled high school doable for your dyslexic teen?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    My son uses the Ginger spellchecker program (we were able to get it through the Homeschool Buyers Coop at a discount). It is fantastic.

     

    http://www.gingersoftware.com/

     

    Ginger also has a text-to-speech reader.

     

    Many textbooks come with a program, either online or on disc, which reads the text aloud to the student. And, recorded books are great as well (free from the library or internet, or purchased). The student can just listen or listen and follow along in the book.

     

    For composition/writing, you can modify assignments to help your dd grow as a writer. I'd suggest not comparing her to where she "should" be, but starting at where she is now. So, for example, if she needs to dictate her thoughts now, and work up to writing independently, that is just fine. If she needs to write five sentences now and build up to an essay, that's great, too.

     

    Here's my bottom line: if she is working every day on English and making good progress . . . that is her course. That is enough. Decide what your goals are--love of books? more fluency as a writer? able to construct a logical argument?--and go from there, rather than from a checklist of "must read" books or "must do" essays.

    Scheduling around CC classes

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    My older son also is taking CC classes next year. He's taking one class first semester and two second. He's thinking about staying at CC after class, finding a quiet spot and knocking off his homework right away.

     

    A homeschool friend who just completed CC always did her homework and studying during the hour or so gap between classes. It's a pretty efficient system.

     

    It's great that your classes are in the morning, so you have afternoons free for the rest of your subjects.

     

    Good luck!

    Need Biology course that includes digital labs (dissections)

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    Here are a couple more virtual dissection links (both free):

    McGraw-Hill Virtual Frog Dissection: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/BL_16/BL_16.html

     

    Miller and Levine's virtual dissections (look at lower right side of page for the links): http://www.millerandlevine.com/intro.html

     

    And I thought I'd throw in this link to McGraw-Hill's virtual labs: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/

     

    Hilary

    Really good history and English programs that aren't expensive?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    You may already have these resources, but here are some free online classes:

     

    The Western Tradition (and other courses) at www.learner.org

     

    List of free online homeschool classes, by subject at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/online_hs.htm#science

     

    Yale Open Course (check under Classics, English, History) http://oyc.yale.edu/

     

    MIT OpenCourseWare Link for High Schoolers:

    http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm

     

    NROC National Repository of Online Courses:

    http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos.html

     

    NROC Easy link to courses: Hippocampus site:

    http://www.hippocampus.org/

     

    A to Z Home's Cool Free Resources links page:

    http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/materials/FreeResources.htm

    Early college?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted · Edited by Hilary in MI
    typo

    I hope your husband-teacher understands that sometimes it isn't the student's fault for being in his class even if he doesn't want them there.

     

    Absolutely! I am so sorry that happened to you. It wasn't right and was terribly hurtful. Completely unacceptable.

     

    My husband welcomes every student and makes each student a part of the classroom community. He does not tolerate any put-downs of any kind. Ever.

     

    I think I should explain my comment. What I meant was that there is a huge age gap, and that the older students relate to each other in a very different way than kids four years younger relate to each other. In a class with much older students, the younger one is more like a younger sibling than a peer. This may be different in a CC class.

     

    It is rare that younger students are eligible for AP physics, because they have to pass the prerequisite, the freshman physics final.

     

    For these two reasons, when my husband meets with parents and students for planning, he advises waiting (he told me that "opposed" was too strong a word for his advice).

     

    It sounds like you have some very nice options for your son. Good luck!

    One Year Adventure Novel

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I am not anti-Christian (I am actually Christian myself, but married to an atheist), but I don't want a curriculum to tell my student that there is no meaningful literature without underlying religious conviction.

    Too bad, it sounded really cool.

     

    Yep. :iagree:

     

    Secular does not equal "anti-Christian" (or anti-religion).

    One Year Adventure Novel

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    Kiana, that was the lesson I was going to post. It really killed the course for my son. After that lessson, he decided to work on the novel on his own.

     

    I hadn't seen that sample lesson when we bought the course, although I spent a great deal of time on the website. Perhaps it was posted more recently, and perhaps I missed it. In any event, the course is Christian. Definitely not secular or neutral.

     

    So, it's a program that fits students who agree with the author's viewpoint, expressed in the sample lesson Kiana posted.

    Early college?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I know there have been discussions on the board about college classes for much younger kids. You might want to search "community college" on the board search (or maybe somebody else has a link to the discussions?).

     

    Many community colleges only allow kids 16 and up to enroll, and some classes aren't appropriate for younger kids (depending on subject matter, which can be too advanced socially, and the composition of the class, ditto).

     

    Just FYI, my husband teaches AP physics (college level class) to high school seniors, and he's opposed to having ninth graders in the classes, as they are too young academically and socially to really get everything out of the class that they can. If they wait even until junior year, their greater maturity allows them to have a much richer experience.

    Can I take a small break from geometry for now?

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    My advice would be to finish geometry, since you're almost done, and then do the rest of Algebra I. If you take a break from geometry, you'll probably have to spend time reviewing to get back up to speed, so it'll be more efficient to just power through.

     

    I've been really impressed with your motivation and organization. Your great attitude really comes across in your posts. Good luck!

    Thinkwell chemistry

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    We also used Thinkwell Chemistry as a supplement. You are correct that it is college level. So, we chose lectures that supplemented our high school level text (Prentice Hall Chemistry with Oak Meadow--FYI we found Oak Meadow's workload too light for retention, so we supplemented a lot).

     

    For ds2, we will probably use Conceptual Chemistry 3rd ed. and the online lectures. We'll continue to use TW as a supplement.

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