Calvert?

[christine in al]

I'm very interested in someone else grading my kids work. We are in a sabbitical from homeschooling and they are in a small Montesorri school. We are all loving mom not judging work.

Calvert is appealing because someone else can grade the work.

( after private school, the cost is doable)

 

I love my current curriculum choices, but the mom/kid relationship will be so much happier if mom is not the grader.

And I don't have any idea of external folks to grade current curriculum.

 

I have been using and loving:

RS MATH ( moving to Chalkdust )

MUS ( 8 yr old does NOT want to talk about math, just do it)

FLL

WWE

SWR ( and a little AAS)

Latin Prep ( we'd keep that up)

MCT Town Level

History Odessy for older

SOTW for younger

kids are 8 and 10

 

Thanks in advance for any insights, and experience y;all share. ( I'm leaving town so might not reply , but really appreciate your time to repsond,

Thanks.

Christine in al

Edited February 15, 2011 by christine in al
crummy spelling,

[Just Robyn]

Are you giving them actual letter grades? If so, is there a reason you need or want to do that?

 

My children are 5, 7, and 9. I don't grade anyone's work. I do sometimes ask for more from my oldest for written narrations. "What else can you remember? I would like to see two more complete sentences." I also sometimes ask him to improve certain aspects of something he's written. "I don't see a topic sentence here. What is this paragraph about?" If a math problem is wrong I tell whichever ds it is wrong and he corrects it. But no one receives a poor grade (or any grade); they are asked to improve where it is needed.

 

Is that an option?

[Tylianna]

I used Calvert for a year, but didn't finish it. I didn't have the one where they grade it for me. Too expensive. We didn't care for Calvert, but if you do, there is a coupon code for 30% off. Use the code HOMESCHOOL

[christine in al]

crstarlette:

 

good question about letter grades. We did use them for TaeKwonDo academic acheiver designation, but no I don't need to give them letter grades. but they tend to want them. I hear alot of " What would you grade that".

Easy in Maths, and Selling, but writing is tricky.

I think ds connects corrections with him doing something " wrong" and my disapproval. profectionism strikes again.

 

Tylianna,

other than the outrageous cost, what did not work for you with Calvert? If it's not private. thanks.

 

~christine

[MerryAtHope]

crstarlette:

 

good question about letter grades. We did use them for TaeKwonDo academic acheiver designation, but no I don't need to give them letter grades. but they tend to want them. I hear alot of " What would you grade that".

Easy in Maths, and Selling, but writing is tricky.

I think ds connects corrections with him doing something " wrong" and my disapproval. profectionism strikes again.

 

Tylianna,

other than the outrageous cost, what did not work for you with Calvert? If it's not private. thanks.

 

~christine

 

This can be tricky. I had to work with both kids, but especially my son, on the issues of perfectionism, what a correction actually means, etc... Not just once, but many, many times, over years, as he grows. Correction is something all of us have to face, and sometimes it is harder to hear from someone we love and care about.

 

There may be ways for you to change how you do corrections. You mentioned writing is tricky--at this age I would mainly point out what's good about their writing--find something to encourage. Writing is HARD for this age. If you do need to correct, make sure you start and finish with encouragement and positive things, and don't try to correct everything--choose just one or maybe 2 things. Try to make the time that you go over work with your kids a positive, uplifting time--for a child who can't stand to get even one math problem wrong, talk about something where you've occasionally made a mistake and had to correct it--you just do it and move on. Praise for all that he did WELL. For grades--I wouldn't grade writing, and I'd tell them I don't grade writing until high school. I tell them what they are doing well and to keep doing that, and if they insist on a grade, if they completed the assignment and followed directions, say, "it's an A." Sometimes the tricky thing about writing is that our expectations are not clear enough (or an assignment given isn't clear enough). That's not the child's fault--that is either the curriculum or the instructor's fault. If they don't meet the expectations, let the curriculum take the blame. "Oh, they didn't make it clear that this should be in complete sentences," or whatever. Or just note that next time you want complete sentences, to say that up front, etc...

 

For my son's part, we talked a lot about a self-control toolbox. What can he do when frustrated besides melt down? We walked through options.

 

Try serving a snack with or after corrections. "You worked so hard on this, time for a snack!"

 

For perfectionist kids it's especially important to emphasize the process--the hard work they do etc... rather than the result. Perfectionist kids tend to think it should be "easy," and if it's not easy for them that they are "bad" or something. I tell my kids up front, this might be hard. It might be very hard. It might make you have to spend extra time thinking. That's ok. If you get stuck, I expect us to discuss it together. I don't expect you to know this on your own. (Can you tell I've been having to hammer this home with my 8th grader lately! But today, some success--he came to me with a math problem that wasn't working out, showed great self-control, great attitude--it's a lot of work and tears getting to this point!)

 

Let your kids know how proud you are of them when they wrestle through something that's hard and don't give up. Put the emphasis on the EFFORT and not on the RESULT (grade). Smile and encourage as much as possible.

 

(((Hugs))) and I hope you find what will work out well for you and your precious children! Merry :-)

[TracyR]

I used Calvert for 1,2,3,4and 5th grades. The two grades I enjoyed the most were 1st and 2nd.

After that the curriculum got really dry and my girls began to really not like it anymore. I didn't either. I really don't care for their math at any level.

I began to find that I had to piece meal it because the history is horribly dry and borning for grades 1,2,3and 5. The only time we enjoyed history was grade 4 because they used CHOW. We didn't like the science at all for any grade. Dry and boring. The writing instruction is bare bones. Unless you are extremely confident in teaching your child how to write , their instruction is poor. Unless you have a child that is a natural writter they won't take to it. This is for grades 3 and up. The writing instruction started off well for grades 1 and 2 because it included dictation. After that it just strayed to the dark side. LOL.

I did like their reading. It worked well for us and my daughters. I do like Calvert's literature selections. Those are excellent. Their reading program is excellent.

[christine in al]

Tracy, exactly what I wanted to know about Calvert.

 

And Merry thank you so very much for your insights on perfectionism and how to help ds with options. ....uhm so what are some?

 

I'll make us a cup of camomile for the next batch of corrections.

 

I've been on holiday and just came back to the cool new writer's workshop. groovy.

 

~c in al

[unity]

This is a lot different than what you've been using, but OM also has an enrollment option where you send in your child's work to a teacher. I like OM a lot, although I don't use their math and I use the whole thing as a sort of spine to build on. I really, really like the 6th grade program we're using and OM 3 is not bad either. A lot more writing than I was expecting in both programs, and overall more academic than it looked when I was perusing it. (Some of those little comments like, "have your child write a few paragraphs 3 mornings a week on the story from the night before" actually turn into major writing projects!)

 

Anyway, I like it.

 

We used Calvert for PreK and K but I didn't like K much at all and have never been tempted by their programs since.

[christine in al]

I'll check it out.

cheers.

~c.