JeanM
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Posts posted by JeanM
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Dolciani is an excellent course, too. Having the Dolciani text in hand would be pretty persuasive to me! :)
Karen
Thanks for the reassurance! I hope this works out ok.
Jean
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WHich year of Dolciani were you able to secure from the library?
It was the 1975 "Modern Algebra" book. I just returned it yesterday.
Jean
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I'm obsessing way too much about this algebra business. So I had decided to use Life of Fred and NEM together for my 10 yo. I got the Life of Fred books in, and they look great.
Then I decided that since I could get an old Dolciani algebra book through interlibrary loan, I would just look at it. The funny thing is that I had the book out in the living room when DH came home from work. He took one look at it and said, "where did that come from?" Apparently the one I got from the library is the same book that we used in high school. I actually didn't recognize it, but he remembered it vividly.
Anyway, the chapters in the Dolciani line up pretty nicely with Life of Fred. And the Dolciani is really cheap at Amazon. Also, I remember really liking algebra and I used the Dolciani. NEM is much more expensive, and I think I'd have to get at least NEM1 and 2 in order to match up with Life of Fred.
I'm nervous about dropping NEM, just because I've been happy with the Singapore products so far. And I've heard good things about how rigorous NEM is.
Does Life of Fred plus Dolciani sound like a reasonable plan?
Thanks!
Jean
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You can use the PASS test from Hewitt.
http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/test/tmain.asp
The nice thing about the PASS is that they give a placement test, and then you test. Thus you can get more info about how advanced your child is than if you use an ITBS.
I don't think they have any requirements about needed a college degree or anything. That requirement totally baffles me anyway. Why would you need a college degree to administer the test?
Jean
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Does anyone else find it difficult to keep your expectations of your gifted child realistic for all areas? I struggle thinking he should be as advanced in all areas of his personality as he is academically. How have you combated this? The one of mine I am thinking of is 10 yrs old and a boy.
I do struggle sometimes with keeping my expectations for my sons' behavior in line with their age, but the real problem comes from relatives, friends, and even total strangers.
My oldest (10 yo) is very tall and large for his age, as well as being academically advanced. He has a large vocabulary and likes to talk with adults. My younger son (7 yo almost 8) and my two nephew (both 9 yo) are all about the same size - MUCH smaller than my older ds. All the relatives tend to have unrealistic expectations for the oldest - since he is older and taller than the others. He is not a bad kid, but he behaves like a slightly immature 10 yo.
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I have one child learning flute, one learning piano, one learning clarinet, and my son with a basic knowledge of guitar. We also have singers in the family, and I play the flute as well.
Now, what I'd 'like' to find is some music books whereby we can all play together - kind-of a 'band', but just some old favourites, perhaps sing-a-longs, that include music for all the different instruments I've mentioned above. Sheet music - flute part, clarinet part, piano part, etc. I KNOW these things exist, because I grew up playing in a concert band, where we had all the different parts, so they must be 'out there' - but I can't find any!
Any ideas or suggestions? It's great having all the different instruments in the house, but would be even better if we can all come together with them at times.
Thanks!
It looks like you've found one possible source. I've had similar difficulties finding music for my family (one cello player, one trumpet player and I can play piano). I've been adapting stuff myself. Like my cello player has music for 2 cellos and piano - so I re-write one of the cello parts so that the trumpet can play it. This isn't always easy due to the difference in range, and also trumpet (and clarinet) are transposing instruments so you have to correct for that as well.
Jean
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In the 1960's we only had about 11 shots the first several years of life and I am still here;)
I was born in the 1960's too, and I'm still here too :001_smile:. Using the same logic: we never wore seat belts (never had car seats for kids either), and I'm still here. However, I always use my seat belt and require my kids to use seat belts and/or car seats. I like the fact that fewer children die in car accidents now, even I personally did not die as a child.
I did come close to dying due to secondary infection after a mild childhood illness (chicken pox). I didn't die, but my hospital stay was very traumatic for me and caused my family financial hardship.
I personally don't want to go back to the days before the small pox vaccine was invented. Is anyone actually debating that the small pox vaccine saved lives?
OTOH, I totally agree that diseases like the chicken pox (despite my bad experience) do not come into the same category as small pox.
Just my 2 cents...
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I saw this article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/education/08math.html?_r=1&ref=education
These are two of the parts that really piqued my curiosity:
"Westport’s curriculum overhaul joins other recent critiques of mile-wide, inch-deep instruction in the long-running math wars within American education."
“Schools in Singapore and India spend more time on each topic, and their kids do better. We’re boiling down math to the essentials.â€
I've heard before of the criticism of American math being too broad and not deep enough, but I always thought that was at the K-8 math level. Does anyone know if Singapore math (NEM in particular) covers less topics than American algebra?
I have to say, I think that adding online videos and problems is a great idea to supplement. I think eliminating the textbooks altogether is a very bad idea, but maybe I'm old-fashioned.
Jean
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AMEN!
I coasted all the way through the university... the only reason I had to "work" in the university is because I took 20-22 units per quarter for 6 quarters straight!
Yes, my son needs a challenge and that is a bit of my struggle. I am thinking about foreign language for next year- do you know a good Spanish program? I thought about Latin, but I don't want a Catholic text. I don't mind some scriptural stuff, but I am having a hard time wading through the Latin texts available...
My dh is fluent in Spanish so really my kids should learn Spanish.
I unfortunately have no advice about Spanish- I'm actively looking for a foreign language program for my dc next year. We are still debating what language.
Jean
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We haven't gotten to geometry yet, but I'd go along with the "it depends on the child" idea. I have one ds who was thinking abstractly at age 5 and always got annoyed if I wanted him to use math manipulatives. My other ds had to have manipulatives at that age. I'm guessing the logic/proof business will be similar (but have not yet proved this).
Jean
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I really need to challenge him but he balks at being challenged because everything he has ever done has been easy and required no work.
Sounds like you have quite a talented kid! However, I believe that it is important to find something (not necessarily immediately :001_smile:) that will require him to work hard. Having coasted through school myself (and did very well), I really learned to work hard at music. Piano playing did not come easily to me, and I really had to work. I've seen the same tendency in my dc. They find most schoolwork easy and don't want me to push them to do the hard stuff.
Some ways to do this are through learning a musical instrument, a foreign language, or even through sports or some physical challenge.
Jean
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I'm so sorry, Melinda. Even when it is a long time coming, it still is very hard!
:grouphug:
Jean
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Thanks for everyone's input so far!!
This is what we do. My dd is allowed to read pretty much anything she likes, but I only permit certain things to be entered in the reading log. I use Accelerated Reader's online booklist to check reading level, and I will only let her go so low.This sounds like a reasonable compromise, although I still like the idea of my ds's designing their own reading program.
My dc will read a lot this summer no matter what we do, especially since they go to each others activities a lot (e.g. swim practice is not that exciting to watch).
Now, I just need to convince dh that this is not going to do permanent damage to our dc .:001_huh:
Jean
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My kids have done our public library's summer reading program for many years now. The program requires reading 10 books, with small toys rewarded after books 3 and 6, and a free book when they are done with the 10th book. They can read anything they want. My ds 10 is an avid reader. Ds 7 reads well, but has trouble finding books that really interest him. He would read almost unlimited amounts of comics (mostly Garfield) and graphic novels (mostly Yu Gi Oh), if we let him.
So the bottom line is that I suggested to my kids that we make our own summer reading program instead. You couldn't read comics for this, and it would have a higher goal. The library in a neighboring town uses time instead of number of books, but I told the kids I can't imagine trying to keep track of how much time they read. DS10 suggested that we could set a number of pages as a goal. He was thinking of something like 20,000 for himself. DS 7 even sounded interested, and did some math to figure out how many pages he though he could read (took number of pages he had read that day and multiplied by number of days in the summer). He was pretty excited about thinking about prizes. I said the prizes had to be pretty small, and ds 7 really wants an inexpensive video game (it is used and costs under $10).
I thought our plans were going pretty well, until we talked to DH about this. He doesn't think that we should be rewarding reading, that they should want to read anyway. OTOH, he is totally ok with them signing up for the library's summer reading program. :confused:
He reminded me of the Alfie Kohn book "Punished by Rewards" that *I* read and told him about a year or two ago. This is a link to a Kohn article about reading incentives:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/readingincentives.htm
So now I'm really unsure of what to do. Should I just go back to having them do the library's program? Or just drop the whole idea? Or come up with a compromise that dh will also be happy with?
Any advice?
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I'm new to math abbreviations... what is MEP? My ds9 breezed through Saxon 76 and is begging not to continue with Saxon. We plan to use Jacobs eventually. He has a pretty solid understanding of elementary math, but I was wondering if I should bridge him to Jacobs Algebra with something else first or if I should just go ahead and start Jacobs? What would you all recommend?
I can't really help you, since I haven't used Saxon or Jacobs. I can help you with MEP - here's a link:
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm
I haven't used MEP, but have heard it mentioned on these boards before.
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I've done a little formal logic, and DH has too... so between us I hope we'll be fine. The lessons are extremely short and to the point, so at worst I think I can keep a page ahead of him... Ask me again this time next year! ;)
Thanks! Keep us posted.
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We're using a kind of non-standard approach.... mathematical logic instead of the more argument/fallacy oriented type. But our text is A First Course in Mathematical Logic by Patrick Suppes. We've not started it yet, but I like what I've seen, and I'm hoping it will be a good supplement to the logic aspect of Geometry next year.
I just looked at this at Amazon, and the one review said that their were no solutions. Do you think this is an issue? I did take one formal logic class in college, but that was a looooong time ago.
Thanks,
Jean
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We used "Art of the Argument" this year, and I can't say that I really recommend it. DS liked it, but I had several arguments with it. First of all, there were a lot of times when I had to explain things to ds that I wasn't quite prepared to do yet (he is 10). For instance, I don't think it it was necessary to have discussions about abortion. For another, there are way too many dated and slanted political reference.
There was way too much writing involved too, so we did most of it orally.
Jean
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Do I need a strong algebra background before hitting Statistics?
I just bought the Life of Fred Statistics book myself. It says in the section about what background you need that, "It would be nice to have a little algebra so that the x^2 and absolute values and square roots don't mystify you. But that's about it. I can't think of anywhere in the book where you'll need to solve any equations or do any algebra word problems."
I have no idea whether the LOF Statistics will prepare you to take an exam to get college credit for inferential statistics.
If you have any questions about this, you could probably ask the Life of Fred author, Stanley Schmidt. He is very responsive to emails.
Jean
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You don't mention if you are using SM Challenging Word Problems. If you aren't, that would be my first suggestion. I haven't seen any other program with Singapore-like word problems. We are using Life of Fred because my dd loves reading far more than math. It doesn't have the same type of word problems, but it is good at using real-life problems. My dd's strong point is word problems, so I haven't had to struggle in that area.
Personally, I wouldn't add a lot more math tests right now. He might be feeling like he has let you down too. It's okay to keep it fun!
:iagree:
My ds recently finished 6a and 6b, and I personally haven't seen any problems like some of the ones in there in any other program. I haven't actually looked at that many programs, but they are unusual.
I think taking a break and trying again sounds like a good plan. I would work through one or two of the problems with my ds, and then have him do the others on his own. I haven't actually given my ds any math tests. Now I'm thinking maybe I need to do so! :001_huh:
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I've been going through the same decision recently. You might want to check out this thread for more discussion:
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100121
I've decided to do both Life of Fred and NEM. That is what we've been doing for the last year or so- switching back and forth between Life of Fred and Singapore Primary Math.
I really don't know how Life of Fred compares to NEM in rigor. My feeling, from reading about both of them, is that they are very different. I think if you go with just Life of Fred, you definitely need the home companion, or whatever it is called, to add additional practice.
Hope this helps.
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I'm really enjoying seeing everyone's plans. Unfortunately, this makes me realize that I need to get going on planning. I'm having a hard time planning, mostly because of money issues. DH is theoretically job hunting. If he finds a new job, we may be moving (again! we've moved twice in the last year), and we probably will have more money. If he doesn't find a new job, I probably need to find a way to earn more money. That would mean both less money for curricula, and I'd need to find stuff that the kids could do more independently.
That being said, these are my thoughts so far:
DS10 (Grade 5, 10 yo)
Math - LOF Algebra and NEM
Language arts: All about spelling, growing with grammar, maybe MCT poetry (expensive), maybe lightning lit?, some kind of writing
Art - ?? ideally ceramics class (very expensive) and art appreciation
Music - trumpet, piano, homeschool band, maybe chorus too, theory??
History/Literature - ?? not sure, ancients of some type
Science - biology of some kind
Foreign language - ???
Other - swim team?, maybe hockey, cub scouts
DS7 (Grade 3, will be 8 in Fall)
Math - Singapore (finish 3a, 3b, maybe starting 4a)
language arts- Spelling Power, GWG 3,
Art - ??
History/Literature - SOTW 2
Music - Piano, cello, homeschool orchestra, maybe chorus too
Science - Ellen McHenry's Elements and maybe more
Other - karate, Cub Scouts
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Congratulations! Have a great trip to Ireland. I hope the new teacher works out, although that sounds like a lot of driving.
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I understand what you are going through, and you've already gotten a lot of good advice. I've actually tried not to have my kids in all the same activities, but it does make life more complex. My two are very competitive and it works well for them each to have their own "niche", although they do overlap somewhat in activities.
I'm definitely an introvert and it really, really helps me to have a better outlook on life if I get a chance to "recharge" on a regular basis. To get a chance to recharge, I encourage dh to take the kids out and do something without me once in a while. This evening they went to a minor league baseball game. I also encourage the kids to ride their bikes around the neighborhood after lunch every day.
When I first stopped working outside the home to be with the kids, I had a work-at-home job. That worked well for me because I felt I was still connected to my career, and it really forced dh to take over when I had to work. When I lost that job because the work got sent out to India, I was very depressed for a long time. I started tutoring online this year, which is not related at all to my former career, but it helps me to contribute financially and I enjoy it.
Do you use the Singapore textbooks?
in Accelerated Learner Board
Posted
It sounds like you have a good plan. I think the textbook helps a lot, especially if you aren't familiar with "the Singapore way." I must admit that I was working without the text for my younger ds for the last month or so that we were doing school this spring. I knew that we had the text, but couldn't find it in the sea of book boxes in our basement (we've moved twice in the last year).
Jean