Homeschooling highschoolers for the summer

[Storm Bay]

It looks like it won't be a summer off for me. Aside from ps reading work that dd's have to do (read & do written work for them) & my eldest's pre-AP Calculus summer work, it looks like I'll need to be doing math with my 14 yo who found the one semester math system too fast for her (she won't be taking honours math next year) and some writing.

 

 

Plus Spanish.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for:

 

fun ways to continue with Spanish over the summer (eg Spanish TV, movies, games, music). Both girls are taking it, but my 17 yo is now planning to minor in it or do a double major in it along with math (she has aced Hon Span 1 & 2 with no studying and minimal effort & realizes that it could help her job prospects). My middle one is going to spend a couple of times a week as a mother's helper in exchange for the mother speaking Spanish to her & helping her with it (the mother would do it for nothing, but I want dd to work for things)

 

Something to review/help with Algebra 1 over the summer. She has signed up to redo Algebra 1 next year even though she has a C+ in Hon alg (& it's a legitimately done Hon course that is demanding) at the Academic level, but she needs more time than one semester.

 

Something for writing if the writing tutor doesn't have time. I'm waiting to hear back from her. My eldest needs to learn to write college application essays (any good books on this?) & my middle one needs to learn to learn expository writing well in ways ps doesn't teach. Now I should say that my middle one has done well in Hon English & her Composition teacher was highly complimentary (told me she thinks dd is gifted, and that was good to hear after her math challenges).

[J-rap]

When one of my daughters was 17 she was preparing to go to a French immersion school in the fall (and had a long way to go to BE prepared!). What she found helped her a lot was listening to French radio via her computer. She had it on all day long, constantly playing in the background. She would listen to both news and music.

 

She also got several movies dubbed in French. They were mostly popular children's movies that she had seen many times in English. Movies like Toy Story, etc. They were movies where she had learned many of the lines by heart, so when she heard those same lines in French, she could easily translate them. (We found most of them on eBay, I think.)

 

We also found for her popular novels (again, usually children's novels -- like Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter) that were translated into French. Because she knew the story already, she was able to read them -- and understand them -- more easily, while getting more used to French sentence structure and vocabulary. We got those books at a university book store.

[Storm Bay]

When one of my daughters was 17 she was preparing to go to a French immersion school in the fall (and had a long way to go to BE prepared!). What she found helped her a lot was listening to French radio via her computer. She had it on all day long, constantly playing in the background. She would listen to both news and music.

 

She also got several movies dubbed in French. They were mostly popular children's movies that she had seen many times in English. Movies like Toy Story, etc. They were movies where she had learned many of the lines by heart, so when she heard those same lines in French, she could easily translate them. (We found most of them on eBay, I think.)

 

We also found for her popular novels (again, usually children's novels -- like Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter) that were translated into French. Because she knew the story already, she was able to read them -- and understand them -- more easily, while getting more used to French sentence structure and vocabulary. We got those books at a university book store.

Thanks for the suggestions :)

[Teachin'Mine]

Karin, maybe your daughter could use Khan to cement any pre-algebra concepts. I wouldn't worry about covering algebra as she's going to be doing a full class of that next year. If she's really solid in her pre-algebra, I'd consider just having the time off from math to approach it refreshed in the fall.

[Kareni]

My eldest needs to learn to write college application essays (any good books on this?) ...

 

Here are a couple of older threads in which I posted my favorite book -- Harry Bauld's On Writing the College Application Essay: The Key to Acceptance and the College of your Choice. There are other useful tips in the threads.

 

Application essays

 

sample college essays? -- I didn't recheck all the links so I hope that they still work.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Sebastian (a lady)]

When one of my daughters was 17 she was preparing to go to a French immersion school in the fall (and had a long way to go to BE prepared!). What she found helped her a lot was listening to French radio via her computer. She had it on all day long, constantly playing in the background. She would listen to both news and music.

 

She also got several movies dubbed in French. They were mostly popular children's movies that she had seen many times in English. Movies like Toy Story, etc. They were movies where she had learned many of the lines by heart, so when she heard those same lines in French, she could easily translate them. (We found most of them on eBay, I think.)

 

We also found for her popular novels (again, usually children's novels -- like Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter) that were translated into French. Because she knew the story already, she was able to read them -- and understand them -- more easily, while getting more used to French sentence structure and vocabulary. We got those books at a university book store.

 

This is very similar to what I did when we were living in Germany and I needed to become more fluent in German. I liked to play around with the subtitles too. Sometimes I'd listen in German while reading in English. Then I'd listen and read in German (which helped in deciphering just what they were saying).

 

I read through most of the Harry Potter in German and it was a big helper for absorbing lots of vocabulary. If you are in an area with lots of Spanish speakers, you might find that libraries have stocks of books and/or movies.

 

I also really liked the German version of Sesame Street. It was not only in German, but had segments with German cultural settings and characters. So I was learning the what and why as well as how to express it.

[Storm Bay]

Thanks for the links and the suggestions. There aren't many Spanish speakers right in our town, but I think there are plenty in our virtual catalog. My eldest has read the Harry Potter series twice, so might consider that. Now I'll need to figure out the titles in Spanish, but I could always google that.

 

The reason I'm concerned about Algebra for my 14 yo is because of her learning style & her history with math. For years she kept forgetting how to do fractions. She's currently growing 1/2 inch per month (has been since January & hasn't hit menarche yet; my sister grew 6 inches the year she hit menarche, and I think it affects her concentration in subjects that don't come easily to her because she's always hungry & tired from all of that growing. Unlike my others, she didn't put on her growing weight ahead of time & is 110 lbs at c. 5 ft 7 in (she's at a healthy bmi).

[Jane in NC]

Current events and Spanish rolled into one: Euronews. Ten different languages are available.

[mumto2]

The Khan academy is really good. We also like the Life of Fred series. These are very different but a fun way of learning and reviewing math if they suit your dd's personality. They are math books with a very funny story about this odd little man -- the math all comes from the unusual things that happen to him. My kids love them. We started with geometry and I had to go back to fractions and decimals so they could have the whole story. The early books were done really quickly--DH was in charge so they did LOF while he worked. I was gone for a week and they were done. :001_smile:

[Storm Bay]

Current events and Spanish rolled into one: Euronews. Ten different languages are available.

 

Great link! My 14 yo will watch the news, so this is good because we don't have to wait for it to come on TV. We do have one Spanish channel (we get the cheapest, smallest cable package there is as we're not big TV watchers), but it's often talk shows or soap operas, which they aren't interested in.

 

The Khan academy is really good. We also like the Life of Fred series. These are very different but a fun way of learning and reviewing math if they suit your dd's personality. They are math books with a very funny story about this odd little man -- the math all comes from the unusual things that happen to him. My kids love them. We started with geometry and I had to go back to fractions and decimals so they could have the whole story. The early books were done really quickly--DH was in charge so they did LOF while he worked. I was gone for a week and they were done. :001_smile:

 

Thanks. We have LOF, but that doesn't stick with her, but perhaps if she went through it again after a year in ps. LOF was great for my eldest (she did Geometry, although I had her do some proofs with Dressler so she'd have to name the Algebra postulates), but they do learn differently from each other..