My friend is withdrawing her child(ren)

[AimeeM]

She is definitely withdrawing her special needs third grader. Her third grade daughter is mildly autistic with fine motor skill problems. She easily understand math; but is behind in reading and hasn't been taught any grammar to speak of (nouns, verbs, etc).

 

My friend MAY BE withdrawing her very gifted kindergarten son. He is reading independently and for enjoyment.

 

Her sn daughter is an auditory learner. Her son seems to just intuitively pick up on things.

 

Are there subjects that she can combine the children? I was thinking history and science would be fairly simply... perhaps even WWE 1...

 

The other question - secular history. I know that most will recommend SOTW, but it isn't secular and the first book had a few too many bible stories even for my preference (and I am Catholic). My friend is firmly agnostic. Has anyone used the book successfully while not presenting the bible story references as fact?

 

Science... again, needs to be secular. The obvious choice would be something like Real Science 4 Kids, but it is not secular. Any ideas there?

[5Wizards]

Real Science Odyssey by Pandia Press - fun, secular, and she could probably combine the two kids

 

Pandia Press also has History Odyssey, but personally I prefer SOTW and can do it in a secular fashion.

Edited November 7, 2011 by 5Wizards

[TheAutumnOak]

I can't help with the combining question, but what about Elemental Science?

[happycc]

Do you guys know that I nearly flunked British Literature in college because I didn't know any bible references or stories? There are so many great classical literature that have Biblical references ie Canterbury Tales, Poems even songs. I am even thinking some of the elementary books I may have read but didn;t truly get the true gist of it because again there may have been some kind of religious theme or undertone.

 

There were many references to Biblical characters in my college history class as well.

 

I did not go to a religious college either.

 

Mills College in Oakland.

 

I did much better second time around in College AFTER I read and studied the Bible. In fact, after forcing myself to read the Bible my reading skills and comprehension improved enough for me to comprehend scientific and medical writing.

 

One high school I went to required us to read the Bible as literature and guess what? I flunked that class big time. I was utterly completely clueless. I could not read the Bible. The words were too hard and complicated at the time. Everything may have been easier had I been well versed in the Bible or at least know basic Biblical stories.

 

How can anyone even argue against the belief if they have no knowledge of the basic tenets and stories? What about how our country was founded? What about stories that talk about Slavery-again religious references.

 

Please do not do your child a disservice. Educate them on everything!

 

Secular science-again they will run into those who do believe in Creationism. In fact one of my children's 8th grade teacher had an assignment for them to argue one or the other. How is the child going to argue for one if they don;t understand the other? The kids who were not introduced to both had a lot of research to do for just that one paper. Had they had some knowledge it would not have been so painful for some of them. Again the same for stem cell research and abortion.

 

Now if it needs to be secular because she is with a charter school that will only pay for secular materials than that is another thing but still everyone should educate themselves with some basic information about each religion. So they know why they believe what they believe.

 

 

You can also try posting in the special needs forum. But in general you can combine Science and history at that level. However as time goes on, the K child may want and need to move faster than the sn child. I once a upon ago didn;t want to move my younger gifted one ahead for fear of making the older sn child feel worse. That was a wrong move.

Edited November 7, 2011 by happycc

[boscopup]

There are only a few chapters in SOTW that deal with Bible stories, so she could skip them if she wanted, though I do think knowing about major religions is a good thing. There are stories from other religions in there as well, and as Christians, we still read those stories. I just discussed them with my first grader, and it was no problem at all (I also had to discuss some differences in the Bible stories and what the Bible actually says). I do realize that the wording is slightly different between Bible stories and other religion stories (the others are clearly stated to be myths, and the Bible stories aren't introduced with the exact same wording), but if she's reading aloud, she can very easily change the couple words to make those stories sound like the other stories.

 

Alternatives I can think of... RSO (uses SOTW, so may or may not include the Bible stories still?), K12 History, or Usborne Encyclopedia of World History (could use this as the spine, then get library books on the 2-page spread you're studying).

[AimeeM]

That's fine and I understand.

However, I firmly agree (as a Christian) that she has every right to filter what her children learn at this stage of the game. She has an autistic 8 year old and a 5 year old. Both children are very literal. She can introduce Bible stories when she feels they can understand her pov.

Do you guys know that I nearly flunked British Literature in college because I didn't know any bible references or stories? There are so many great classical literature that have Biblical references ie Canterbury Tales, Poems even songs. I am even thinking some of the elementary books I may have read but didn;t truly get the true gist of it because again there may have been some kind of religious theme or undertone.

 

There were many references to Biblical characters in my college history class as well.

 

I did not go to a religious college either.

 

Mills College in Oakland.

 

I did much better second time around in College AFTER I read and studied the Bible. In fact, after forcing myself to read the Bible my reading skills and comprehension improved enough for me to comprehend scientific and medical writing.

 

One high school I went to required us to read the Bible as literature and guess what? I flunked that class big time. I was utterly completely clueless. I could not read the Bible. The words were too hard and complicated at the time. Everything may have been easier had I been well versed in the Bible or at least know basic Biblical stories.

 

How can anyone even argue against the belief if they have no knowledge of the basic tenets and stories? What about how our country was founded? What about stories that talk about Slavery-again religious references.

 

Please do not do your child a disservice. Educate them on everything!

 

Secular science-again they will run into those who do believe in Creationism. In fact one of my children's 8th grade teacher had an assignment for them to argue one or the other. How is the child going to argue for one if they don;t understand the other? The kids who were not introduced to both had a lot of research to do for just that one paper. Had they had some knowledge it would not have been so painful for some of them. Again the same for stem cell research and abortion.

 

Now if it needs to be secular because she is with a charter school that will only pay for secular materials than that is another thing but still everyone should educate themselves with some basic information about each religion. So they know why they believe what they believe.

 

 

You can also try posting in the special needs forum. But in general you can combine Science and history at that level. However as time goes on, the K child may want and need to move faster than the sn child. I once a upon ago didn;t want to move my younger gifted one ahead for fear of making the older sn child feel worse. That was a wrong move.

[redsquirrel]

It is so easy to leave out the bible stuff from SOTW. Heck they are part way through the year so they can't cover everything anyway, so a chapter here and there isn't a crisis.

 

I chose to present it as mythology. There are also stories from other cultures such as Egptian myths, Gillgamesh etc. If she doesn't want any cultural references in her history then I am guessing SOTW won't work. But, if she is fine with Egytian myths, then there is no reason she can't also have judeo/christian myths.

 

for science RSO science (pandia press) is great. It is totally secular. One nice thing about RSO is that it has room for flexibility. If you add in the readings etc on the topics (and you get a lot of reading to pick and choose) then it could work for several ages at once.

[sbgrace]

Since she's just starting if I were her friend I'd encourage her to find a good fit with the academic basics for each child first. She could easily read library books for science/history for now if she'd like. Here is a good listing of great science books. She can add those more formally when she's ready.

 

As far as secular history and science she could look at Core Knowledge sequence (free from their website) when she's ready. There are tons of great and free lesson plans online, many linked here on their site. The science, imo, is particularly good. I used the Baltimore Plans linked there as a start point for my science and their sequence as my history. I linked history and science plans on my blog for first grade and will do the same through 2nd. I think their material could be used for both kids at whatever grade level she thinks would fit her goals.

 

I have an auditory kiddo too on the spectrum. He loves audio stories and there are so many free online and via the library.

Edited November 8, 2011 by sbgrace

[black_midori]

I have found that with my 5yo & 7yo there are very few things I can combine - but I do it where I can! The 5yo is actually pretty advanced (only 1 level behind in everything from the 7yo), but it is still just too much of a gap to have them combined for the core things like reading, writing, math, etc.

 

I do combine them for history (read-alouds from Usborne Ency of the World, which we all LOVE & they always want more of), health (Harcourt), journal writing, art/music, and co-ops (PE, art, science experiments). I also sometimes have the older read to the younger.

 

If my 7yo weren't so science gung-ho & my 5yo enjoyed it as much as he did, I'd combine for science - as it is, I have to let the 7yo do his own (ever-changing & growing) stuff for science.

 

I was hoping to combine for Spanish, but the 7yo was just more capable of doing it on his own so we eventually split - he does it himself & then I do it with the 5yo.

 

So - there are definitely some things that I hoped & planned to combine but ended up being unable to do so. Just remind her to be flexible & willing to change as needed!

[LisaKinVA]

At this point, based upon the brief information of the children, you could definitely combine Science, History, and WWE (assuming the Ker is okay with dictation).

 

K12's history (levels K-3 at least) is pretty much SOTW, but in a "flimstrip" style. But, because of their ages, and a desire to combine, SOTW or K12 is what I would use for that subject.

 

Science... you've got a few good alternatives. I would stay away from anything too "textbooky" for those two at this point.

[EKS]

A few things.

 

Mentioning the Bible or Biblical stories doesn't make something not secular. SOTW presents the Bible stories as stories (in the new edition, they, like other myths and legends, are formatted differently). But if she doesn't want to use SOTW, K12's elementary history program is truly excellent.

 

I would be very careful about combining siblings 3 grades apart (regardless of skill level) in any subjects, but particularly skill subjects like writing. I would not put both kids in WWE1. I'd pick which kid it would work best for and use it for that kid. If that happens to be the 3rd grader, then the K'er can wait and use it next year. I have an older child with LDs and a younger one who is gifted and I am thankful every day that there is 6 years between them. Even with that age difference, the younger one has surpassed the older one in spelling and is using the same Latin book the older one did last year.

 

As for science, I thought K12's science courses for grades 1-4 were fairly good. Science got done. We supplemented with library books.

[AimeeM]

Thanks. I seem to remember being vaguely annoyed with how MANY Bible stories I read in SOTW 1. Perhaps it's just me though.

 

Can you elaborate as to why you wouldn't combine the two ages at first? I do realize, of course, that at some point they will not be on the same level (as I'm sure my friend realizes), but she has three children and needs a jumping off point. Isn't it recommended that you start at WWE 1 if the B child is completely inexperienced with narration?

A few things.

 

Mentioning the Bible or Biblical stories doesn't make something not secular. SOTW presents the Bible stories as stories (in the new edition, they, like other myths and legends, are formatted differently). But if she doesn't want to use SOTW, K12's elementary history program is truly excellent.

 

I would be very careful about combining siblings 3 grades apart (regardless of skill level) in any subjects, but particularly skill subjects like writing. I would not put both kids in WWE1. I'd pick which kid it would work best for and use it for that kid. If that happens to be the 3rd grader, then the K'er can wait and use it next year. I have an older child with LDs and a younger one who is gifted and I am thankful every day that there is 6 years between them. Even with that age difference, the younger one has surpassed the older one in spelling and is using the same Latin book the older one did last year.

 

As for science, I thought K12's science courses for grades 1-4 were fairly good. Science got done. We supplemented with library books.

[foxbridgeacademy]

I would say I'm firmly agnostic and I use SOTW 1 with my DD who's in 3rd grade. It's very simple to present bible stories as just that, stories. We first start by discussing the culture and religion of the time. Then after reading the story whether it be Greek/Egyptian/Hebrew we discussed why it could or couldn't be true and why they might believe it, what purpose did this kind of story, behaviour, serve in that particular culture. Lots more fun and interesting this way. The author makes it easy to twist her writing the way the reader prefers to go with it. I assume she has done this on purpose, to make her books usable to a large spectrum of people.

 

Other then SOTW I would suggest "living" books. Some he can read to himself with lots of pics, others she can do as a read aloud.

[NotSoObvious]

Oh, please don't dismiss SOTW!!!

 

We are NOT Christian and SOTW is not only my girls' favorite subject, but it has brought so muhc joy to our learning! We are very open about the bible, what Christians believe, etc. because we actually use CLE for math. I fully expected to have all kinds of conversations and interventions with SOTW, but it was interesting how my girls just take the bible stories and group them together with all of the myths and other ancient beliefs and stories SWB writes about. They equate the belief in the divinity of Jesus with the belief in Zeus. I thought it was an interesting perspective to take away from SOTW.

 

For any minor religious interjections, SOTW as a whole is an amazing program. We use the activity guides, too, and are on Book 2 this year. Also, there is a LOT of supplemental reading recommended in the activity guides and we do much of it. Many times we've found varying accounts and descriptions from different points of view. SWB does not have an agenda to indoctrinate your kids. She encourages multiple sources and I SO appreciate that!

 

No program is perfect and I've used lots of secular things that I hate. I'd just encourage you to give it a try. It is one of our favorite resources.

[boscopup]

If the child isn't ready for Bible stories and religious stories from other cultures, I'd probably just go with American history at this point.

 

As far as SOTW goes, there are 3 chapters in the entire book (42 chapters total) that have Bible stories. So yes, very easy to skip, though again, if those need to be skipped due to the child not being ready, then the stories about gods of Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Africa, the Greeks, the Romans, and others would also need to be skipped. There are a LOT of religious stories in the book, most of them not from the Bible.

[AimeeM]

Since you're using book 2, I do have a question for you; is it any better than book 1. I'll admit, part of me has a hard time recommending this series to my friend because, on top of finding it too heavy on the Bible stories (even for a Catholic like myself), my daughter found it to be like torture and hated it. It lead to tears every time I brought it down (yes, we used the AG and supplemental reading as suggested). Is number 2 any more... interesting for children who enjoy guts, war, royalty, etc?

Oh, please don't dismiss SOTW!!!

 

We are NOT Christian and SOTW is not only my girls' favorite subject, but it has brought so muhc joy to our learning! We are very open about the bible, what Christians believe, etc. because we actually use CLE for math. I fully expected to have all kinds of conversations and interventions with SOTW, but it was interesting how my girls just take the bible stories and group them together with all of the myths and other ancient beliefs and stories SWB writes about. They equate the belief in the divinity of Jesus with the belief in Zeus. I thought it was an interesting perspective to take away from SOTW.

 

For any minor religious interjections, SOTW as a whole is an amazing program. We use the activity guides, too, and are on Book 2 this year. Also, there is a LOT of supplemental reading recommended in the activity guides and we do much of it. Many times we've found varying accounts and descriptions from different points of view. SWB does not have an agenda to indoctrinate your kids. She encourages multiple sources and I SO appreciate that!

 

No program is perfect and I've used lots of secular things that I hate. I'd just encourage you to give it a try. It is one of our favorite resources.

[AimeeM]

She isn't yet sure what her end goal is. She may send the children back to school next year when they move to a better district; or she may continue to homeschool. Part of me wants to suggest just doing an overview of world history from CHOW if she isn't wanting to do American.

If the child isn't ready for Bible stories and religious stories from other cultures, I'd probably just go with American history at this point.

 

As far as SOTW goes, there are 3 chapters in the entire book (42 chapters total) that have Bible stories. So yes, very easy to skip, though again, if those need to be skipped due to the child not being ready, then the stories about gods of Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Africa, the Greeks, the Romans, and others would also need to be skipped. There are a LOT of religious stories in the book, most of them not from the Bible.

[EKS]

Can you elaborate as to why you wouldn't combine the two ages at first? I do realize, of course, that at some point they will not be on the same level (as I'm sure my friend realizes), but she has three children and needs a jumping off point. Isn't it recommended that you start at WWE 1 if the B child is completely inexperienced with narration?

 

I wouldn't combine them out of respect for the older child's feelings. The combination of an older child with special needs and a younger one who is gifted can be very difficult when the younger one begins to pass up the older one. While I wouldn't slow down the younger one, I would put the children in different programs from the start so that if/when the younger one passes up the older one, it won't be quite so obvious.

[Walking-Iris]

My children haven't ever been to ps but my oldest ds is on the spectrum(PDD-NOS) which fits your description of mildly autistic. My 4 year old is a typical 4 year old.

 

Now about SOTW. We use it and as others have said I wouldn't consider it overly religious. A big part of studying a culture or period in history is studying that culture's myths and folklore. That's how I have presented Bible stories in our home---no different than the Egyptian or Greek myths. And no matter your religious preferences, it does put children at an intellectual disadvantage to not know the stories and customs of other cultures. Someone mentioned that an autistic child wouldn't need those stories because of taking them literally??? As a mother of an ASD child I take real big objection to that---my ds loves folktale and myth of all kinds and has no problem at all distinguishing between reality, fact, and fantasy. Also a lot of the stories aren't presented as fact but only the stories from that culture, there's myths from various cultures in SOTW.

 

Now combining---I do combine my 8 year old ASD ds with my 4 year old "typical" ds for a lot of things. They usually do science together (with me adjusting things for my 4 year old) and the SOTW activities are done together. My 4 year old actually helps my older son a lot because sometimes he can help him put into words what he knows and really adds to discussions. One of my main reasons for homeschooling is so siblings weren't separated because of grade or age---so again as a mother with a ASD child---combining or working together hasn't shown any problems.

 

Also the OP says her friend's child is mildly autistic---my son doesn't have any issues cognitively--only motor skills and some social and behavioral challenges--it's really strange to me to think a younger child will pass an older up just because he's "mildly autistic"---not going to happen. I find that my kids just learn from each other. Not all autistic kiddos have learning problems.

Edited November 8, 2011 by Walking-Iris

[EKS]

 

Also the OP says her friend's child is mildly autistic---my son doesn't have any issues cognitively--only motor skills and some social and behavioral challenges--it's really strange to me to think a younger child will pass an older up just because he's "mildly autistic"---not going to happen. Not all autistic kiddos have learning problems.

 

The OP specifically stated that the older child was behind in reading. That was what prompted my caution about teaching them together (especially for reading and, by extension, writing)--not the autism.

[black_midori]

I started using WWE this year & jumped right into WWE2 with my 2nd grader - we haven't had any real problems with this. I understand WWE3 is more difficult, so I wouldn't skip 2 - but I would definitely skip 1 with no problem. My 1st grader is in WWE1, so I am doing both for the first time now. If I had used WWE1 for the 2nd grader, I think I wouldn't be out of sorts about it (not babyish or useless for older kids by any means) - but the 1st grader comfortably uses it at the same general ability level that the 2nd grader comfortably uses WWE2...

[lailasmum]

We are atheists and use SOTW, there aren't that many chapters with Bible stories in them. I have reworded the odd thing as I've read it, can't remember specific examples but just added things like he believed so it didn't sound factual any more. I can't really see it is any different to reading the religious stories of any of the other cultures. May be different if you were using it for a child to read themselves as obviously it removes that filter but even so I would let my dd read it by her self because she can understand that different people believe different things.