Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

hmsch4me

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    160

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by hmsch4me

    8th grade dd having "Math Stalls"... need advice!

    in High School and Self-Education Board

    Posted

    I've been homeschooling my dd (age 13) since she was in 3rd grade. One of the reasons was due to her math. She just wasn't getting it. We used MUS with good results for 3 years. She grew tired of the format and style so we switched to something else for one year then went to TT Math 7 last year (which seemed a great fit). This year she is doing the TT Pre-Algebra and moving along.

     

    Here is the problem. She's not a big fan of math and I really am beginning to think she processes math very slowly. She can be in the middle of a simple multiplication problem and suddenly stop, stare at the problem, and forget where's she's at. Clearly distracted as this doesn't come up in any other areas. She also STILL struggles to pull the multiplication facts up quickly. We've done these for years and she is just slow on getting the answer - not on all, but some. She can blank out on 9x2 sometimes. All this hasn't kept her from learning new topics, etc. - she's a whiz on fractions, percents, decimals, reducing, etc. I also think she struggles with making connections. We've been working on negative numbers these past two weeks. She just learned about multiplying negatives today. My dh asked her what a (-)(-) was, etc. and she did fine, until he asked her what (-2)(0) was. She was stumped. He told her to think about it and let him know. WHAT? I don't get this. What am I missing here?

     

    This all concerns me for many reasons. I know some are better at math than others and all that, but this can scare me sometimes. I need to know what you all think and what you would do? Do I continue multiplication drills, etc?

    Thinking I made a huge mistake on my son's science this year (long rant)

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    When I first started homeschooling my kids I thought I needed to stay on the public schools schedule - until I found out that what they teach changes from state to state and school to school! So, decided I'd do my own thing. My goal in elementary science was to simply get them exposed to the different sciences. Learning about life science is fun at a younger age and can be very hands-on. Kids can change in their abilities - even mid-year, so though you can change what you are doing, I would keep at it - unless your older child is bored silly.

     

    You have a lot of time to get in all this good science, so don't worry about it all right now. Believe me, there's not much you can do to damage future learning at this age - especially in science. I have two teenagers now and sometimes they remember what we did in 3rd grade and other times it's like new information! One thing they do retain is when any learning is linked with activities. They will never forget learning about ancient history with SOTW and the activities we did. They also remember their science with Apologia Elem. science and the activities. I would stress lots of hands-on stuff. You can find so many resources for this when they are younger, but not so much as they get older.

     

    Enjoy and remember that TWTM is meant to be digested over many years and tailored to fit your family. If it helps, I remember reading an article SWB wrote about writing her book and how she never wanted to put schedules in the book - something the editor had her do. She reminded us that even she would have a hard time doing everything listed in their schedules. You'll learn what works for you and what you need to change. I've always used the WTM as a guide - I read it at the start of every year (the appropriate chapters) and keep it all in mind as I make my own schedule and pick curriculum.

    How do you study current events with your logic stage child?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    My son attends a homeschool high school 2 days per a week and one of his classes is Geography. At the beginning of the year he had to choose 5 countries - not the U.S. to do CE on. Each week he has to choose from one of those countries.

     

    He has to find the event on any media of his choice - usually the internet. He has to print out the article and glue/tape it to another sheet of paper. On the paper he needs to have a heading (Name of source, date of article, and type of news (political, economic, social). He then has to circle 12 key words from the article (words that are repeated often - NOT and, but, etc.). Then, write a summary paragraph topic sentence and summary paragraph. He has to write out an "Ah Ha" moment (one sentence) - something he learned about that he didn't know before. Finally he writes a reflective response in the form of a poem - you can use any criteria for this.

    Thank You notes : is this what they have become?

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    is a lost art. I think there should have been more written especially since you were members of the family.

     

    We actually flew to another state to see my niece's high school graduation and party, gave her a very generous gift and not a word was spoken. No thank you either verbally or written. We just sent this same child a birthday gift, as we do every year, and no thank you for that either. Throughout the years she has written thank you's so I know she is capable. My heart sure isn't into Christmas gifts for her this year. It's tough. I think it's rude and I just try to live by another example in my own life and stress to my children how important that expression of gratitude is.

×
×
  • Create New...