Vintage81
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Posts posted by Vintage81
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I'll be using Mystery Science with my 1st and 3rd grade daughters. My plan is to do one mystery per week along with the corresponding experiments and extra reading. If they're really interested in a topic, then I'll expand on it more (videos, library books, lapbooks, etc). The supplies needed for the experiments seem fairly simple, so my goal is to do a lot more experiments than we have in the past.
I don't have any experience with the other two curriculums on your poll, so I can't speak to them. But, after researching a lot of different science curriculums, I decided to use Mystery Science because of how open and go it is. With so many other subjects being teacher intensive, like math, reading and writing, it's nice to have something easy and fun to do that doesn't require much planning.
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Thank you to everyone for your suggestions!
I'm a mathy-type person, so poetry is not really in my wheelhouse (which was why I was thinking comprehension questions might help both me and my girls understand the poems). Even though poetry is not my thing, I still want my girls to acquire an appreciation for it.
All of your suggestions have given me some good ideas on how to start incorporating more poetry into our school time. :)
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We use and love several things for poetry:
1) IEW's Linguist Development Through Poetry Memorization: I have the kids memorize poems from this source. I really, really like their selections. My kids also love these poems.
2) Our language arts program (English Lessons Through Litterature) has a poem a day read for enjoyment. That program also has various poetry topics scheduled. Like rhyming scheme, stanza, rhythm, types of verse, and it even has poetry narration. Children also learn how to copy a poem. So that sort of teaches them about poetry. However, I don't really like her poetry choices. Many of them are over my 3rd graders head. So I don't really think they do as good of a job as fostering a LOVE of poetry as Andrew Pudewa's picks do in IEW's program.
3) Poet study: We also study a poet per term. (See this blog post from SCM for a better explanation of how and why we do this.) The kids memorize a lot of different poems in IEWs program. Whenever I hear them express delight in a specific poet, I will usually pick that poet to study for a term. It isn't an exact science. Sometimes I just pick a poet I think they will like.
We read a biography of the poet and then read poems by the poet every day for a term or until we finish the book. This way they can become very familiar with a poet's style. I keep the book on top of my language arts book so I don't forget to do this each day. I also have them practice reading poetry at this time---because it takes practice to read poetry fluently. I really like the "Poetry for Young People" series for specific poet studies. They are nicely illustrated and have an included biography right in the book. The SCM poetry books are a close second. They have a biography too, but they don't have illustrations. I've also just used a book of poems. (For example, we read Sheil Silverstein for a term. I've noticed that kids this age like funny poems. )
Thank you for all of this great information!
I really like the idea of studying a poet and I've seen the Poetry for Young People books, so I'll have to explore them further.
Question for you regarding the IEW program....do you use the Teacher Manual, Student Book, and CDs, or is the Teacher Manual enough?
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I'm looking for recommendations for either a simple poetry curriculum or just poetry books to read through with my 1st and 3rd grade daughters.
I'm not sure if this exists, but I'd really like something that has suggested poems along with comprehension questions. If that doesn't exist, then any book recommendations would be great.
Thanks!
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I want to clarify that I wasn't saying you shouldn't challenge your daughter, just that it might be best to see if MM provides enough of a challenge before giving more math to someone that already doesn't like it. From your first post it sounded like MIF challenged her enough, the only issue being that you didn't like juggling all the books. It just seemed from your post that adding a 2nd curriculum (with 8 books a year) wouldn't really meet your goal of reducing the number of books to juggle.
I understand, and this gives me some things to think about. It's difficult to know if I'm doing enough, or not enough...definitely a challenge to find the right balance. I foresee a lot of trial and error in my future! :)
Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions!
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We do both. My daughter is in MM4 and she's using BA3. She does 8 pages of BA doing every other problem. She finished MM early so she moved onto BA. My daughter is a very analytical thinker and she does really well with BA type puzzles and we are using it a grade below her so I don't know how it would be using it at grade level. BA is about a grade level above in some of the concepts. 3rd grade covers simplifying fractions, variables, exponents. Some of the stuff it covered was also in my 5th grade daughters MM book.
Good to know. Thank you!
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We use BA as a supplement, but really I just want to commend you for not backing away from challenging math simply because your daughter tends to get frustrated by it. So often I see parents asking about new curricula options sothat they can continue to ensure that every moment of their child's education is sunshine and rainbows. Good for you for stretching her and creating an environment in which she can learn both challenging mathematics and coping skills! :)
Thanks for this!!
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For our next school year I'm switching to Math Mammoth 3A/3B for my soon-to-be 3rd grade daughter. (We're using Math in Focus right now, but I'm switching because I want less books to deal with.)
My daughter doesn't really like to do math, but she's pretty good at it. She loves it when things come to her easily, but when there's a challenge, she gets frustrated. Sometimes she struggles with word problems because she doesn't really want to take the time to read them and understand what's being asked.
I don't want to take challenge problems out of math for her, because I don't think that will help her, but I would like to give her "fun" math challenge problems. I was looking around different threads on this forum and saw that many people like Beast Academy.
For those of you who use MM and BA, how do you use them together? Do you find BA a helpful addition to MM, when it comes to word problems? Any advice or suggestions are much appreciated!
Thanks!
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Reporting back with the response from Mystery Science:
"We plan to add new content continuously to address all Next Generation Science Standards. Right now, we are focusing on 2-5, but will begin to add K-1 in the upcoming year. After that, we'll move on to middle school, but we don't have a set timeline for this yet. We add a new unit roughly every 6 weeks, so you and your kids will continue to see new content."
Kind of wish they'd head right to middle school as that's the direction we're heading....oh well.
Thanks for reporting back!
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I've been using Math in Focus for the past two years. I like the mastery style curriculum, but Math in Focus is expensive for what you get. Plus, there's a teacher's manual, 2 textbooks, and 2 workbooks. I don't really use the manual anymore, and I only briefly reference the textbooks. Because of all of that, I decided to make a switch.
I'm going to be using Math Mammoth for both my 1st grader and 3rd grader. Math Mammoth still utilizes the mastery style I like, but there's no teacher manual and no textbooks. It's a work text which really appealed to me. Plus, the cost was awesome. I purchased the downloadable version, so I can print what I need. Tests and review questions are included, which is nice if you need them.
Their website also has a comparison with several other curriculums. It doesn't include Rod & Staff, but it may have some helpful information:
http://www.mathmammoth.com/comparisons.php
I've never used Rod & Staff, so I can't speak to it. I'm not sure this information helped much, but I thought I'd share some of the things that made me switch to Math Mammoth.
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Ah, this is good to know. I'm happy that you are happy! Thanks for your post. :)
It seems that other people are signing up except for me. lol
Okay, I confess I haven't gone through a whole entire mystery yet. I will tonight and I hope I'm as excited about it as you are!
The first mystery my kids and I went through was "Where do clouds come from?" - it was a big hit, so just a suggestion. :001_smile:
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I just went through an entire Mystery, and wow-I'm impressed. The video clips, enthusiastic narration, pictures and overall quality really surprised me. I LOVE how he talks to the child. I just learned a whole lot about pollination that I may have...forgotten (or never really learned?)
So I could see sitting all of my kids down to watch the very engaging lesson, and doing the experiments together. I'm not sure I would do both on the same day though-I might even have them watch it twice to really cement it. Then doing extra reading, activities on the other days as time allows. I don't know, I'm pretty darn excited about this. Of course, it saddens me that it's new and looks like it would only last a year. I would probably adore it and then have to stop, but I did email and ask their long-term plans. I've been searching for science forever and this seems fresh and engaging. I'm happy!
Would you mind sharing what you find out regarding their long-term plans? I'm so excited to go through all of the mysteries, so I'm curious to know if there's a chance that enough material will be added for us to continue using this curriculum.
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I’m planning on using Mystery Science during our next school year (my daughters will be in 1st and 3rd grade). I have only viewed a few mysteries, so I haven’t used it for an entire school year. But, here’s what I know so far:
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There are currently 12 units available, each unit having anywhere from 3 to 6 mysteries, so there are a total of 48 mysteries available.
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5 additional units are listed on their website as “upcoming†and I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that they try and add new stuff every 6 weeks.
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The units build on each other, so they recommend going in order. However, I think you could skip around with the units, depending on what you’re interested in (the mysteries in each unit need to go in order though).
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There are age ranges recommended for each unit, but my 5 year old watched a mystery recommended for ages 7-10 and understood everything.
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There is a free trial going on right now through June 30th.
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The yearly membership price for homeschoolers is typically $129, but you can get it through Homeschool Buyers Co-op right now for $89 (expires 5/31). After I signed up for the free trial, the price was $99, so you may see a discounted price after you sign up for the free trial.
For each mystery:
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There is an Exploration Video, Activity/Experiment, and Extras
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Before you start the video, a list of supplies is given so that you can have everything ready. The supplies needed seem like simple, everyday supplies (e.g. paper towel, paper plate, lunch bag, aluminum foil, string, rubber band).
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There are also worksheets for the Activity/Experiment provided, so you can print those before you start.
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The Extras include End of Mystery Assessment questions, additional readings (via readworks.org), and additional activity suggestions.
We do school 4 days per week, but I don’t think we’ll do Science everyday. So, I plan on doing 1 mystery per week, something like this:
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Day 1 - Watch exploration video and do activity/experiment
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Day 2 - Go thru assessment (if needed), read through additional readings, and do any additional activities
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Day 3 - I would like to do some sort of lapbooking/notebooking and checkout library books on the topic
I’m really excited about using it because it seems so much more engaging than just reading textbooks. The other part that intrigues me is how we can expand on each mystery by doing additional experiments, getting library books, and lapbooking. I’m not very good at coming up with stuff myself, so having the lessons/experiments planned out for me is so nice. That way I can concentrate on the extra stuff we might want to do.
The only thing I'm disappointed about is, as of right now, they won’t have enough mysteries to last us another year. Hopefully they’ll continue to add material so that we can continue using this curriculum.
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There are currently 12 units available, each unit having anywhere from 3 to 6 mysteries, so there are a total of 48 mysteries available.
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Owl Diaries (there are 3 books, a fourth coming soon)
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Mystery Science - free trial right now
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Mystery Science - aimed for kids ages 6-12, all online, no lesson planning required. Supplies for experiments are needed, but it's nothing too complicated. The videos are engaging and they could be watched by many different age groups (my kindergartner enjoyed them). How you expand on each mystery, whether it's through additional reading, lapbooking, additional experiments or whatever else is fun, is where you can customize based on age/grade. They have a free trial going on now through the end of June.
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We're currently in the middle of IEW Bible Heroes for my 2nd grade daughter. We started the curriculum really late in our school year, but the curriculum we were using was not working at all. My daughter enjoys writing on her own, but she didn't like to do writing during our school time.
I read a lot of good things about IEW, so I contacted them because their website was kind of confusing (I wasn't sure where to start or what path to take). They responded with lots of good information and gave me some ideas of where to start. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to invest in the TWSS, but they informed me that I could do Bible Heroes without it. So, I decided to test it and see if we liked their approach.
We just finished lesson 12, doing one lesson per week, and things are going really well. We've been working through each lesson together and she doesn't complain anymore! She enjoys the games and is learning a lot. After today's lesson I could tell that she was really proud of her writing, so I feel like we're on the right path now.
For 3rd grade we'll finish Bible Heroes, then move into SWI-A. Assuming that goes well, we'll either move to SICC-A or a Level A theme-based book.
I'm still new to IEW, but I can tell you that they have excellent customer service. If you are confused or have questions, they'll be able to steer you in the right direction.
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I've been using an all-in-one curriculum for the past 4 school years (preK-2nd grade), but it's no longer working for me and my girls (Kinder and 2nd grade) are not really having much fun. So, I decided to switch things up and change everything for our next school year.
For my soon-to-be 1st grader, I'm going to do AAR Level 1. They recommend to complete AAR 1 before you begin AAS 1, so that's my plan. To round out language arts for her, I'm going to do IEW PALS Writing. It covers handwriting, basic grammar, copywork, and then composition. The PALS Writing package comes with AAS 1, but I'll save it for after we get through AAR 1. (I'm actually switching my 2nd grader to AAR and AAS too, so I'll use the AAS 1 with her over the summer and then AAS 2&3 during her 3rd grade school year.)
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One thing I found that REALLY helped me was changing how I planned our school stuff. I used to sit down every Sunday evening and plan out each day for the week. I rarely would get everything done in a day that I wanted to, and by the end of the week we hadn't done any History or Science and seemed to barely scrape by with Math and Language Arts stuff. Not to mention those weekends where we were really busy and I didn't even have time to sit down and plan anything out.
So, what I did, for the last half of our school year, was plan everything out by the week (not by each day) for the rest of the school year. There's lots of stuff on Pinterest about planning out entire homeschool years, so I took some of those ideas and made them work for us. For each child, they have a folder for each week. In the folder is a checklist, by subject, of what needs to be done that week, along with any applicable worksheets or activities. The folders are stored in hanging files in a crate.
It took me a while to get all of this organized, but it has been well worth it! I have found that we are completing our week's worth of work in about 3 days, only doing school in the morning. Each day, we look over the checklist and pick and choose what we want to work on. If something doesn't get completed that week, I just move the old checklist (along with the applicable worksheet) to the next week's folder.
I realize this may not work for everyone, but I thrive on being organized, so this really helped me.
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No, we don't drill.
Knowing math facts is important. But for some learners drilling is not effective. I love what it says in the RughtStart teacher book about the only people who like flash cards are the ones who don't need them.
We teach conceptual math and lots of mental strategies. We then get facility with the facts by using them in meaningful problem solving. We also play games. My kids get a multiplication chart to use at their discretion. They eventually have looked things up and used the facts so much the just stop using the chart.
I know that strategy isn't for everyone, and drill is actually better for some. I just wanted to testify that there's more than one way to get the job done.
Different children have needed different strategies here. I've used....
-a simple flashcard app for the iPad - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
-skip counting and filling out blank multiplication tables
-using Ray's Intellectual Arithmetic for oral drills
-giving more practice with word problems that reinforce facts
-playing games such as Maria Miller's "last math card game you'll ever need" and yahtzee
I agree with Targhee that it can be important to figure out how a particular student needs to learn. You can waste a lot of time on flashcard styles, and cause a lot of needless frustration, if that's just not how their mind works. On the other hand, if that is what they need, then you need to make the time for the drills.
I definitely plan on taking some time over our summer break to figure out what might work best for each of them. I agree that what might work for one may not work for the other, so there's probably going to be some trial and error.
I'm not too concerned about my kindergartner yet, since she's only just starting basic addition and subtraction. With my 2nd grader, I never even thought about doing drills or any additional math facts practice beyond the math curriculum we're using (Math in Focus 2A/2B). Her biggest struggle is with word problems, so I'm hoping by implementing one (or more) of these ideas will help with that.
Thanks again for all of your thoughts and ideas!
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Thank you for all of the replies! You've given me a lot of food for thought.
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I'm going to be using AAR for my 1st grader, and then eventually AAS. We'll also be doing IEW PALS Writing. It includes handwriting practice, introductory grammar, and writing. The package also includes AAS 1, but I'm pretty sure you can order it without that if you already have.
http://iew.com/shop/products/primary-arts-language-writing-complete-package
IEW also has Fix It Grammar available. I'll be using that for my soon-to-be 3rd grader.
http://iew.com/shop/products/fix-it-grammar-complete-package-6-teacher’s-manuals
I haven't used Fix It yet, but I've read good things about it. Plus, the lessons are pretty quick, 10-15 minutes, which was appealing.
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I've been looking for a program like this FOR.EV.ER. Thank you soon much! I'll gladly pay the 100 bucks for a year's subscription, LOL. We never do Science because I can't seem to get my act together for it. Thank you so much!
You're welcome! I actually found out about Mystery Sxience through past posts on this forum. After I checked it out, I'm so excited to mention it whenever I can. 😊
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We've been using Math in Focus (a Singapore style program) for the past two years and while I like it, I'm switching to Math Mammoth next year. My girls are kinder and 2nd grade right now.
My 2nd grader does not like math, but she does really well with it. Her biggest struggle is word problems and I mainly think she struggles because she doesn't want to take the time to think about it. She'd rather be drawing or talking about Science, not thinking about how to solve word problems. It's also hard for me because I love math....I have a math degree, so to hear her say she hates it creates a bit of a battle between us. My kindergartner loves math so far, but we'll see what happens when she starts doing multiplication and the dreaded long division!!
I'm sticking with a mastery approach because I prefer it. I'm switching to Math Mammoth for a few reasons...price and because it's a worktext format. No more teacher manuals and textbooks. I'm sort of thinking that at this point I can't make my daughter love math the way I do, but seeing her enthusiasm when she finally gets a concept still gives me hope. I'm just not ready to abandon the mastery style yet.
Math Mammoth has a section on their website comparing it to other curriculums. While it's obviously geared to make you like Math Mammoth, I think it still provides some good info. Here you go:
http://www.mathmammoth.com/comparisons.php
P.S. Based on what you wrote, I don't think you made any mistakes. This will not be the first time you question the curriculum you're using! :)
Would it be crazy to start a 4th grader with SWI-B?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
IEW has some information in their FAQs regarding which level to use for multiple grade levels. Here's a link (checkout #7):
http://iew.com/help-support/faq
Based on their information, the pacing in Level A and B are similar, so it would make sense to do level B for both of your children. You only need to do the Student Writing Intensive once, so it's helpful to be able to do it with multiple children.
I'm new to IEW myself, but in the short time we've been using it, I've seen lots of progress in my 2nd grader's writing. When I was first getting started, it was confusing to know where to start. I emailed IEW and they got back to me with lots of helpful information. So, if you ever have any questions, their customer service is excellent!
Good luck!