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fralala

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Everything posted by fralala

  1. I agree with complete immersion, and also think you have a good idea, although maybe it would be a little too involved for me...I think I would end up just shoving 80% of our toys in the closet and setting out the remaining 20% in a few different stations at most, but trying to get set up for a craft each week (even if only involving paper plates and markers) might be beyond me. The main question I have is whether the problem might be with K...I have found (because my husband's family speaks an Indian language that I would like my kids to learn) that the whole "helping kids learn a language" process is not intuitive to many people. Although we have many children's books and puzzles in my in-laws' language, they just do not do the whole point-say the word slowly- repeat- repeat in a sentence- use the word repeatedly in different contexts thing that really helps with language learning. And they are so eager to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of (some) English words that they will quickly reinforce the children's knowledge of English. When you observe K, does she seem to be doing the things that can help children learn language through immersion? BIG gestures, exaggerated facial expressions, and so forth? I clearly come from my own place of frustration in writing this, but especially with kids who can communicate with each other well in one language, an adult who is not able to hold her own introducing a new language and being the Language Leader is going to have a hard time teaching them.
  2. Oh, I am glad you posted this, as someone with a baby who thinks the sound of talking is a challenge (can he be louder?) and a preschooler who seems to find such questions as "What room is on top of us right now?" more urgent than finding out what happens next in a story. I have a strong visceral reaction to this-- stories are to be respected! And I'm afraid it gets them in the habit (which is absolutely aggravating and a scary mommy trigger) of talking over me about something unrelated when I am reading a story, as if they weren't even listening. My kids also fight over the noise if one of them is enjoying the story ("SHH! I'm trying to listen! You're too loud! Oh, you're so BAD!" which is just as successful at quieting everyone down as you would imagine). The solution we've come up with is to allow my oldest, who is 6, to stay up latest listening to audiobooks while I put her siblings to bed, and that seems to work for now.
  3. My 6 year old daughter really likes the Cobble Street Cousins series by Cynthia Rylant. They are simple chapter books with small illustrations on every page, and I think the writing is good enough to make them enjoyable read-alouds, too. They also fulfill just about every fantasy a girly girl could ever have and are very sweet.
  4. Well, don't give up on DP just because there's a (convincing!) contingent of people who did not like it. Give it a try. I actually walked away with a different point of view of what the authors were trying to suggest and my kids (who are still quite young!) and I love talking about books like this.I did appreciate reading the comments of those who were turned off by the book, though.
  5. I took Phonics Pathways out of the library when I was trying to figure out how to teach my daughter to read. At the same time, someone recommended Reading Eggs to me and I would let her do two lessons a day (because they are really brief). She learned to read from Reading Eggs before I could even begin to tackle Phonics Pathways with her (which looked straightforward and great). She loves to read now, and had no desire to continue with Reading Eggs once she figured out how to decode, so I am considering taking that easy way out with my second daughter, too!
  6. Thank you! Just got it (and this has probably already been posted-- I'm new around here-- but I was thrilled to also get a summer subscription for Meet the Masters while over on HS Buyers Coop downloading this).
  7. I don't have any advice, but wanted to say that I have had a similar issue with my 6 year old daughter. She has always been sensitive, but it seems like her ability to control her negative emotions has suddenly eroded, and then she feels rotten about herself because she doesn't like her crying, falling-apart self either. ("Why did I do that? WAAAAH! I hate myself!") I talked to her about it and asked her for ideas about how she might control herself in the moment, and she suggested that every time she could potentially cry about something and doesn't, perhaps I should give her some candy, and then she would put it in a bowl, and at the end of the week, she could choose any piece she wants. Ha. No. I pointed out that if she can stop herself for candy, it is within her control to stop herself, period. But she did have a point, which is that for her, rewards work very well, even if the only reward is my noticing every time she doesn't dissolve into tears, and giving her a high five. For some, it might be coddling, but when I stepped up the punishments for awhile it seemed to make things worse.
  8. Interesting! I also heard that kids in Singapore generally don't start math until first grade, and perhaps that is because it is easier for many kids to make the jump from concrete and pictorial to abstract once they are 6-7? I know I didn't want to do any memorization of facts until I was confident my daughter (in Singapore 1a/b) could understand and compute the problems, because that would be skipping a crucial step in comprehension. But we do lots of mental math drills now that she has caught on! We spent a lot of time playing with different kinds of manipulatives and making our own bean counters, though, first!
  9. We're almost finished with Singapore 1B. I use the Home Instructor's Guide, Textbook, and Workbook and find it very quick and easy to teach-- about 5-10 minutes a lesson. I intentionally move really slowly, so I might do a lesson one day and save the corresponding textbook/workbook pages for the next day. It seems inexpensive to me-- we've been able to use common household objects as manipulatives or make our own. For this level, it has been perfect for us.
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