freelylearned
-
Posts
198 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by freelylearned
-
-
I've used both Trail Guides to Geography (World and US) and I don't think they are religious at all. I don't think there is any mention of religion unless the child is asked to look up what the main religious group of a country is. I would use Cathy Duffy's "Secular, but Christian Friendly" description. No bible verses, no mention of the age of the earth, etc...
-
I just figured out podcasts so I'm working through Circe and IEW podcasts while doing laundry and at the gym.
I'm learning about loop scheduling and morning baskets off and on. I'm also making lists of potential books and resources for our morning basket.
Attending the local homeschooling convention.
I don't have any homeschooling books I really want to read this year, which is very unusual for me. I'm taking it as a sign that I need a break from continually thinking through and reevaluating this homeschooling process. I am enjoying reading books for fun and following my own educational rabbit trails that have nothing to do with educating children.
-
1
-
-
Thank you all sooooo much! I googled easy camping meals hoping to jog my memory and the first few lists had things on the line of grilled Brussel sprouts...which I like but don't fly with my family.
You all jogged my memory about foil dinners and make ahead dinners that we have done, but I couldn't remember for the life of me. And there were a couple intriguing new recipes too.
Thanks redsquirrel :) It has been quite a week. Luckily, my husband is pretty good at making sure we eat out a few times when we camp. I'm so grateful for that.
-
Paper airplane books.
Maybe start him on whittling... He can start with a butter knife and a bar of soap.
Our neighbor boy used to make birdhouses and then sell them with his parents at a little stand on the side of the road when he got to many for $10 a piece. People loved buying from a young entrepreneur!
You could start teaching him to cook. It's not crafty but it is a good hands on activity.
He could build gnome homes (instead of fairy gardens)
Wood burning art.
Ditto on the duct tape art.
Give him a corner of your yard to landscape and tend.
Wind homes from found materials.
-
We just finished VBS--I helped teach a class of 40 3-7 year olds and tragedy after tragedy is striking my community. I can barely think right now. BUT we are going camping next week and I can barely remember what we make besides hot dogs and smores!
I need help. What are your families favorite recipes for camping? What are your easy sides? We like to cook over a fire and we also have a camp stove, hot dog skewers, and a cast iron skillet.
-
This is my first year homeschooling more than one grade, so I really like the idea of seeing how other families use curriculum across grade levels. Here's my lineup for my 6th grader, Kindergartner, and tag-along 3 Year Old:
Together:
Mystery of History 1
Apologia Zoology 1 and maybe part of Science in the Ancient World at the end of the year
Morning Basket: This is new for us, so I'm still planning what read alouds and activities will go into it besides the Bible
6th grade:
Writing and Rhetoric books 5&6
Megawords Book 4
Getty Dubay Italics and Typing
Selected novels and poems
Singapore 5B and 6A
Spanish for Children Primer A and maybe Duolingo
Artistic Pursuits
I also ordered History Odyssey Ancients Level 2 and Focus on Science from our charter school since our history and science selections are Christian
Kindergarten:
Finish The Reading Lesson then move on to All About Reading Level 2
All About Spelling Level 1 (just lightly, our charter requires some spelling)
Saxon 1, but I'm planning to switch to Singapore 1 in first grade.
Song Schol Spanish (probabaly as a part of the morning basket)
Artistic Pursuits
Handwriting Without Tears
Let's Read and Find Out Science and History Odyssey Ancients Level 1 from the Charter. I'm looking forward to the HO book lists
My Kindergarten curriculum seems like a lot, but I'm not planning on doing everything every day
Curriculum I've ditched: Interactive Science, myWorld History, Spelling Power (It works really well, but my son got tired of the format)
Planned Full Day Field Trips:
Train Ride to the Egypt Museum in San Jose
Local American Indian Sites and museums
One of the nearby Zoos
Science Museum and Art Museum Day
-
Book Shark? I haven't used but I know it's a secular boxed curriculum that isn't too worksheety, has a lot of reading, and is scheduled out.
-
1
-
-
If they don't want to go to the park, say something like. "Oh, good! I needed someone to sweep out the garage." They may change their mind. When my oldest doesn't want to go, I tell him we are going anyway. Half of the time, he's happy he did.
Other ideas: DVD and popcorn we have Friday movie nights and Monday matinees in the summer.
Visiting all of the parks in town.
Mixing juices and pureeing fruit to make homemade popsicle "recipes,"
Let the kids host a toy and outgrown clothes yard sale to earn some shopping money.
If they don't want to do anything at all, make them responsible for making their own breakfast and lunch and doing their own laundry, so at least they'll be productive for part of their down time in the mornings.
Challenge them to a board game.
Play audiobooks from the library if they don't want to read.
Send them outside every time they fight. Every time.
Try out different radio stations to expose them to different music as you work in the afternoons.
Best wishes!
-
1
-
-
Shellsand,
These are great tips! Thank you! Do you have any handwriting programs you prefer for either dysgraphia or not? My daughter had naturally good handwriting. So I think that's why I just never really focused on it with him. Now I'm regretting that.
I'm glad I could be helpful. I'm not a handwriting expert, but I was a high school teacher once. After having one diagnosed spatial dysgraphic student in one of my classes and researching it, I realized that I had a whole lot of undiagnosed dysgraphics in my classes, too. (You should have heard the knuckle cracking every time my students had to write!) If cursive is the way you want to go, I think any cursive program is appropriate for a 6th grade student. Cursive is a challenge to learn at any age. A good challenge, but still a challenge. That being said, the Getty Dubay Italic program is the only program I know of that is appropriate for middle school students that also teaches print. Instead of teaching print or cursive, it teaches print at the beginning of each book, and then it teaches Italic-Cursive, which reminds me of cursive without the extra loops. Getty Dubay also teaches self-checking and planning ahead within the program. My son also thought the workbooks were interesting because the writing exercises center around things like the history of writing, palindromes, and tongue twisters .
Getty Dubay also has an adult program called Write Now to teach adults with poor handwriting to write efficiently and clearly (They even market it at doctor conventions! Ha!) My son has both spatial dysgraphia and fine motor dysgraphia. He works through a book or two a year and I work in hand strengthening with gifts of Crazy Aron's Thinking Putty and specific exercises during PE (monkey bars, crab walks, bear walks, and push ups). We saw some progress at the end of fourth grade and the beginning of fifth grade, so I know it works, but then he had a huge growth spurt and his handwriting deteriorated again. I've read that's not unusual for dysgraphics to lose all of their progress during growth spurts, but is is frustrating nonetheless.
Right now, because my son is very dysgraphic, we are resigned to handwriting through 12th grade and we are OK with it. Part of homeschooling is making sure he gets what he needs when he needs it. I also tell him that it is part of being a life long learner--we learn as we go. Oddly, one thing I did recently was to hand my son a piece of graph paper for a writing assignment. I was getting tired of highlighting the lower half of each line of notebook paper to assist him with the spatial side of his dysgaraphia. I told him to write in all caps and to make sure each letter fit in a square. It turned out amazingly legible! Since he keeps talking about a STEM career and all of the engineer and architecture students I knew in college wrote in all caps anyway...I might encourage him to switch over to all caps and buy him a lifetime supply of graph paper notebooks with our charter school stipend money. Joking aside, you may need to experiment with writing programs. He may not take to cursive, but love italics. He may be inspired by modern calligraphy or just prefer to write in all caps...who knows? Or, you may just need to find a park with monkey bars.
-
REAL Science Odyssey works for 1-5...but not 8th.
-
You can tell a lot by watching him write. When he is writing, if he has a tendency to crack his knuckles, stretch out his hands, shake out his hands, or roll his shoulders often while he is writing, he could have a dysgraphia related to uneven muscle development. This is very common among preteens and teen boys because their hands get more muscular during growth spurts while girl hands tend to stay "delicate." Working on hand muscle strength + handwriting practice is helpful.
If you ask him to write neatly and he has a hard time staying on the line, keeping his letters consistent sizes, or if he is constantly going back and erasing letters because he did something like write an "a" but it ended up looking like a "u" or he accidentally inserted a capital letter in the wrong spot, it could be spatial dysgraphia. Also, if his writing has been messy, but acceptable, and then in a short amount of time it regresses to being really, really bad, it could also be spatial dysgraphia.
If you suspect his handwriting is because he hasn't had much focused practice in handwriting, add handwriting to the beginning of the day and tell him it will be a regular part of the curriculum until his writing improves across the board. His writing should straighten up pretty quickly.
-
I have the homeschool Saxon 1 and my son used Saxon 1 in 1st grade in public school. I don't have access to the teacher's edition, but from what i remember the actual work the kids do and pattern of lessons in the hs and classroom versions seems almost identical. They both have a morning meeting, a worksheet with two sides (one side done with the teacher and one side done independently), and fact practice. The homeschool book also schedules in things like calendar, counting by 2s, 5s, etc, temperature and other things I remember my son learning in school. I hope that helps.
-
You may want to look into if he has dysgraphia too. It usually becomes more evident during the middle years. There is a whole set of strategies for dealing with dysgraphia if that happens to be the case.
-
3
-
-
I've used the first for books of Writing and Rhetoric and have ordered the next two for fall. My son breezed through Fable and Narrative I's writing assignments, but he is naturally a strong writer. He enjoyed the variety in the Writing Time exercises and the interesting reading selections and discussion in both of those books.
In Narrative II and Chriea, the writing assignments became more challenging. Narrative II ended with a long creative writing assignment Chriea had about seven essays that were six paragraphs long. I liked that the Chriea essays incorporated summarizing, comparing and contrasting, and restating a quote in everyday language within a single essay. It wasn't a typical five paragraph essay but it was a very good structure and my son produced some interesting essays that we were both proud of.
I like that CAPs writing program is not formulaic, but I also know that some people hate it. I feel like my son's writing has matured during this program. He has started adding more variety to his writing across the board and he can express his ideas clearly and in an interesting way.
That being said, he is not easily or skillfully composing long compositions outside of W&R yet. If he had been learning using a more formulaic program, it would probably be easy for him to plug information into the right spot and have an acceptable composition. W&R is a solid program that my son and I both enjoy and I believe it has the potential to help my son move towards mastering the art of writing.
-
4
-
-
I would place her anytime Narrative II and after. Narrative II ends with a long creative writing assignment but I don't remember there being a lot of longer assignments in it otherwise. If you want to go straight to essay writing, skip to Chriea which has six or seven essays. Fable and Narrative I are probably too elementary. Narrative II reviews a lot of the first two books anyway.
-
1
-
-
I'm looking at a typing without tears subscription. Did I mention printer ink? ;)
-
Printer ink and good quality art supplies.
-
Caillou, Daniel Tiger, Clifford, and Curious George are all PBS shows. Handy Manny, Doc McStuffins, and Gaspard and Lisa on Disney Junior.
-
I used to teach freshman English, and that essay would have been pretty typical of a lot of my students for a beginning of the year essay. I usually saw more run on sentences when they tried to achieve a more advanced writing style. For a typical 14 year old, it is HARD to write a longer, cohesive essay and remember to use correct spelling, strong vocabulary, correct grammar, and sentence variety. That's what the revision process is for.
Overall, he hit the major points of the assignment, though his critique wasn't strong. He also demonstrated solid grammar and spelling, even though his word choices and sentence structure were simple. It was a safe essay, and he wouldn't have done poorly if he was graded on a typical rubic. It's a good jumping off point
The best thing to do is to address ONE thing at a time. Because you are right, showing your son all of the errors will be discouraging. You can address the simplicity of the writing style now and choose one strategy to work on for this essay and the next, until he gets that hang of it. Either get a thesaurus and work on advanced vocabulary or work on including advanced sentence styles and structures. Don't do both. If you want to work on the fact that he wrote more of a summary than a critique, work on discussing the book and the assignment with him more in detail on the NEXT assignment. Having a dysgraphic start over completely would be discouraging.
A few other questions, since he is dysgraphic:
Did he handwrite or type the first draft of the essay?
Have you considered having him compose the essay out loud while recording it, then transcribing it? You may start off with a more advanced composition out of the gate.
-
2
-
-
It looks like you have the basics covered. The only thing that I can think of is an elective (but you may have that covered with extracurriculars and didn't mention). Let him pick something that he's really interested in and would gladly do on his own: coding, art, woodshop, robotics, cartooning, videography, foreign language, music, etc...
-
2
-
-
If you want to start each unit out with a hands on, discovery type activity, you need the Home Instructor's Guide. The HIG also lists the manipulatives that you will need for the lessons, has the mental math lessons and practice pages, and it has the answers for the Workbook and Teacher's Guide.
The textbook explains each problem with visual aids and it has cartoon kids thinking through the problems. The text also has practice problems to work through together and extra review practice.
After going through the lesson in the HIG and TB, my son does the WB independently, usually with no problems. If I just used the WB without the HIG and TB, it would just be a math workbook. You need all three to really implement the world-class Singapore math program.
I have never gotten the challenging word problem books, since they are supposed to be supplemental. I occasionally pull word problems and math puzzles from other sources, like MEP math, when I feel like stretching his mind.
-
1
-
-
We did RSO Chemistry this past year and it was scheduled two times per week. Each lesson took us 20-40 minutes to complete the reading, lab, and lab sheet. There's no reason you couldn't couldn't combine two lessons or just do a lesson per week and stretch the curriculum over two years.
I also like the Let's Read And Find Out series for those ages from the library.
-
Here's our plan. Some materials aren't my first choice, but they were loaned to me by our charter school, which is why there are 2-3 curriculum choices per subject. I am planning on doing no more than 2 worksheets a day with a lot of hands on learning opportunities.
Reading: The Reading Lesson, BOB Books, and Easy Readers from the Library (The Charter gave me Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson...but we are not in love with it.)
Spelling: AAS (from our Charter, but I don't know if we'll use it until first grade.) I'm mostly planning on teaching her to spell words as she asks for them...this is kindergarten after all!
Math: Pick and choose activities from MEP 1 and Saxon 1 (From the Charter) Planning to start with Singapore 1 in first grade.
History: MOH 1 with big brother and selections from History Odyssey Ancients 1 (from the Charter.) Library books.
Science: Apologia Zoology 1 with big brother and Let's Read and Find Out and Magic School Bus Science books from the library
Handwriting: HWOT
Lots of Art and Crafts
-
My family lives for the tacky taco salad from the 70s.
We also make bruschetta.
Watermelon.
Corn on the cob.
Chicago style dogs after church.
-
1
-
Where have your kids traveled to?
in The Chat Board
Posted
DC, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, and California.