What does the second half of the school year look like for you?

[rafiki]

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[TechWife]

I'm trying to decide how much to do, how hard to push. I need ds to pick up the pace some, but he doesn't need to, so I have to cool my jets. I just don't even know how to proceed most days.

[AimeeM]

We are keeping on with Singapore math.

 

Keeping I Speak Latin (Andrew Campbell)

 

We are picking up Ellen McHenry's Elements for my science loving daughter.

 

We are going to try something rogue and unheard of for the other subjects...

textbooks! Seton and Catholic Textbook Project (All Ye Lands) for all other subjects (reading comprehension, English, Religion, etc).

 

Spelling is up in the air. It's her weakest area.

[Jennifer-72]

I am planning to ramp things up a bit. Not so much with the academics, but more with increasing enrichment and social activities. Our outside actvities are currently weekly music, swimming and karate lessons. We will be doing climbing wall lessons for a couple of months and I am hoping to add a speech arts and drama class as well as skating or gymnastics classes. Ds has been making good gains with his motor skills and I really want to see if we can maximize those gains with further exposure to more structured physical activity. I think the speech arts and drama class will give ds a different insight about being an effective communicator.

 

I also have to come up with another couple of life skill goals to work on as we have accomplished the latest ones we have been working on. I have a couple of books on order about language and social development, hopefully they will have some helpful ideas I can implement in our day.

[Renee in NC]

We're going to hit it even harder than we have so far. We've gotten a lot accomplished the first half of the year. However, with the probability that they are going to ps again next year, we have to get things moving.

 

The 9yo can finally sound out CVC words and knows some sight words. I think we are going to switch to the 100 Easy Lessons book to see if we can move faster than CLE - I'll still let him do some of it because he enjoys it (and it won't hurt), but to really get him reading this year is going to take something a little different.

 

The 5yo is doing 100 Easy Lessons, learning to write, etc. Her attention span is about nil, so it is SLOW going. She can write her name (finally!) and knows more letter names and numbers than she did before. I've got a checklist of what she needs to know by the end of the year and we WILL accomplish it!

 

The 7yo is doing fine. It's unfortunate that I can't spend more time with her, but it is a struggle meeting the needs of 5 hs students. I plan to make sure to spend more time with her working on Language Arts for no other reason than she wants me to.;)

 

My 10yo is going to be the biggest push - he is so close to being on grade level in most subjects! He'll be a 5th grader next year (we held him back a year last year) and the only major problems are likely to be spelling and writing. Some of it is just confidence, most of it is his LD. Writing is the biggie for him - he at least needs to be able to "write" with a scribe, so we will work on paragraph construction and other writing conventions.

 

The 13yo? Well, we'll just keep plugging along and see where we end up. He needs to write more, learn to take notes, etc. It's hard with an unwilling student, though, so we'll see. He'll be going into the 8th grade next year, so he'll at least have one more year before high school.

 

All of them will be using Study Island in the next couple of months. It will "fill in" the topics in ps that our programs don't cover.

[suzziesnowflake]

We are going to step it up around here. There is a fine line of how hard to push so it will be a challenge for me.

 

My DS13

Were keeping SOTW Modern, Verticy Writing, Winston Grammar,books on tape, and Jamestown litature.

Were changing-Science?, Spelling?, and adding reading horizons

 

My DS10

Were keeping CLE math, Verticy Writing, Winston Grammar, Sonlight Intro to American History and Homeschool in the Woods history series, Abeka 5th grade science, AAS

Were adding Rosetta Stone Spanish and reading horizons

 

Spelling around here continues to be a problem around here. I am also going to have to figure out how to get the oldest one to take notes. His writing is awful, his IEP allows for him to get notes from a teacher but I still feel it is important for him to beable to get the info for himself. Maybe by using a recorder, not sure yet. He also needs to learn better study skills.

For fun we are adding the Y Swim and Gym and more field trips with our hs group!!!:D

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Tarreymere]

Things are going well for us. One child kept zipping through curriculum so fast it was causing a financial issue to keep up with her using the materials we had chosen. I had a brainstorm one day and checked out Rod and Staff and Pathways. I ended up ordering Pathways reading and Climbing to Good English, and Rod and Staff for most everything else. I got most of it used, which made it even cheaper. It is really 'workbooky' but it is working, I think the way the workbooks are laid out appeals to the kids, not really sure.

 

I even ditched Saxon Phonics I for my youngest in favor of Pathway reading and not only is it much less expensive it is easier for both of us and the drawings are beautiful. Amazon bought back my teacher's guide and I plan to use the money along with swagbucks to save up for another kindle since I practically have to arm wrestle a kid to get a hold of mine now.

 

I'd like to get some CLE stuff after the New Year, language arts and reading are big here and the kids tend to move through it quickly. I like that the CLE can be ordered by unit and even new is not that expensive. DD is humoring me now, but she did read her whole Pathways reader almost as soon as she got it and is just doing the assignments as I give them to her. I know that I need to get some better science soon also, but the basic stuff in R&S is doing the job right now for DD 8 and DS 4.

 

DD12 and DS15 are in a public school still. I can't get them out without their agreement per my agreement with my ex. At least we have been able to work together to get them enrolled in a better district than the one I live in. I tried afterschooling but they are pretty caught up in the whole anti-intellectual pop culture thing and won't cooperate at all. It is so frustrating. Both of them plan on college but my fear is that they aren't going to be as prepared as they seem to think they will be. DD12 thinks she is a math genius and is in the top math group for her grade (7) but she failed a fifth grade end of year math test I had her take for diagnostic purposes.

<sigh>

[rafiki]

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[PeterPan]

My biggest change 2nd semester is going to be making more effort to take care of myself, so I feel well enough to keep up with all the things we want to do, whew. If I can take care of myself, we'll be fine. She's become pro-active enough about most of her subjects (and the rest are independently structured enough) that our only bugaboos are math and theraplay type stuff (puzzles, vestibular, EF, etc.), as those require me.

[happycc]

I was just told that my 2.5 yrs old will be having his ABA/PRT hours decreased because he has been progressing so quickly. In a few months he is pretty much developmentally appropriate. PHEW!

He responded to that ABA/PRT pretty well.

 

So the amount of therapist coming through during the day here will slow down. I am not sure what that will be like. I was just starting to get use to them here but hey I am glad that he is doing well. But now I have to figure out how to entertain him while I homeschool the other kids.

 

Any ideas? I will have to fill a bucket of homeschool toys just for him to take out when I am homeschooling. Of course this will probably distract the rest of the other kids. Sigh! He requires me to interact with him constantly. He never plays alone and quietly.

 

I revamped my schedule and moved things around and set times with them. We will see how long that will last ;)

 

I bought one of those timers that the kids can see when time is running out and let's see how that goes.

 

I am moving forward more quickly with the two older kids (more challenging stuff for writing, math,Really focusing on AAS and spelling everyday) but needing to play more games and more therapy like stuff for the 8yrs old-adding Brainware in her day as well as sentence tracking.

 

She eats her clothes a lot. Chews on her pants and shirts. Any ideas?

Sensory issues? She takes regular vitamins so I don;t think she has picca.

She needs to scream and "eek" and makes animal noises a lot during the day and annoys the heck out of everyone. She has to touch and kick people. Again annoying. Tourettes?:confused:

She is easily distracted and has poor working memory. She has no muscle tone whatsoever. She is like a mushy whoop of mashed potato. She can't hear the words to songs. She makes words up to songs a lot.

She has no sense of a sentence. She speaks in phrases-in complete sentences. Kind of like she doesn;t have the energy to even say a sentence-out breath or something. Of course if she doesn;t speak in sentences she doesn;t write in sentences. Her sense of punctuation and capitals ---:eek: She still talks baby talk and it drives me batty and she cries a lot with school work. :ack2:

 

I think she will be in grammar stage forever. Sometimes I don;t even think we have started grammar stage...feels like preschool level with her inability to learn the names of the shapes. :crying:

 

Oh a biggie...I am adding and 1.5 hours of quiet time a day during the school day. I couldn't do the 2 hours like SWB does--we will work up to it perhaps. I am just wondering how to do this when all the kids share one room. Do I just keep them on their beds with books and toys and no talking because talking will occur I can assure you that one. Maybe books on tape...ideas anyone?