1st 9 weeks down, how'd it go?

[aly9712]

Thought we could share how our afterschooling efforts went the first nine weeks of school.

 

DD8 managed to do 10 Epgy language sessions & 19 Epgy math sessions. She also attended Mathnasium 2-3X week and did a 5 week (1x a week) kids creative writing workshop. On Achieve3000 (it's reading comprehension with a mostly science focus)- she read and answered questions for 15 articles). Additional activities included 2 trips to the science museum, and 2 book club meetings (monthly). Speech therapy weekly. I should say that DD attends a school with a no-homework policy, which is the ONLY way we're able to delve deeper into the subjects she enjoys.

 

DD4 preschool- Did lots of montessori practical life activities at home to strengthen her hands for writing. Mastered 100 board. She has a somewhat "legible" version of her name in cursive (first letter J is often backwards). (school teaches cursive first). Biggest achievement- Can now pump her legs on the swing :)

 

DD2- Totschool. Can count to 5. Can count to 10 about 75%. Can identify first 11 letters 100%. Created habit of using Please and Thank you after all requests.

 

Aly.

[DoppeltGemoppelt]

My older DSS (14) is a freshman in High School now. I'm not afterschooling him anymore. He's having a hard time to adjust, and doesn't quite realize that he NEEDS to do his homework in order to not receive an F :-(

Other than that, he Loved marching band and is definitely sticking with it throughout the schoolyear.

 

My twin boys (5) have been doing wonderful in Kindergarten. After much pushing (I hate to be that parent) their teacher finally got their reading level tested, but will not assess them higher than DRA 8 (exiting Kindergarten). According to her, their comprehension is lacking. I know that Twin B will always answer "I don't know" to any questions and will then later on proceed to tell me all the details of anything he reads...! She further states that their writing needs to match their reading. I don't know; I have never written a novel, but I've certainly read thousands of them. So for now they are stuck reading books with one sentence per page / 8 pages per book. At home they will happily pick up any of the "Strange Museum" chapter books by HOP and we've made it through the blue level. We really all love this curriculum; it's sparked many interesting conversations!

 

In math my kids' school uses Everyday Math. I have actually been surprised how much the twins have learned by doing all the little homework assignments! We are supplementing at home with Math u See and both the boys have a really good grasp of numbers now. They even argued with one of their classmates that negative numbers actually DO exist :-)

 

The only thing that doesn't get done around here is German. We've been doing games from Planetino, and they both really like it. I do notice that my German is getting worse and worse though, and I always slip back into talking English!

 

So much for our progress lately. I'm so happy to have found a forum with like-minded people!

[DoppeltGemoppelt]

I had to edit my previous post a few times. All set now!

[Uff Da!]

nm

[Mabelen]

My 16 yo dd has a heavy academic load this year. 4 AP classes and one Honors do not leave a lot of free time. We still do some Spanish work, mostly I will send her a link to a news article I found interesting and then we will discuss informally. She took AP Spanish last year and has expressed an interest in taking AP Spanish Literature Senior year but I don't know yet if she will have room in her schedule or whether she will still be interested when the time comes. She is also supposed to fit in SAT prep time during school breaks. I still have not figured out when to fit in driving lessons. Her only extracurriculars other than a couple of clubs at school are piano, Spanish dance and volunteering.

 

My 8 yo dd is doing daily problem solving math with Bedtime Math and the weekly free worksheets from Beestar. During the break I am planning on restarting multiplication drill. She had it down by the end of second grade but we did not keep up with the practice during the summer and we pretty much have to go back to square one. She is in a very high performing school and there are a lot of super advanced kids in math, lots of parent engineers in the neighborhood. I lead a formal Spanish Language Arts group that meets every other week and we still do a lot of reading at home. Other than that she is in a ton of extracurricular activities, she is my busy child.

[windmillmarie]

We did not get as much done as I'd hoped, but I am thinking about changing things around. Since I know it will be crazy in December with all our commitments, I have decided I am going to put together a unit study of some sort and just do that. Now I'm not sure what I want to do!

[SKL]

We have not had success in coming up with a workable routine, really. The girls have the following constraints:

 

• School homework, re-work, test review, spelling drill, memory work - 0.5-1.5 hour per day.
  
• Piano practice - 15 minutes per child about 3-4 days per week.
  
• Little Gym and swimming - total 4-5 hours per week, plus travel.
  
• Therapy (one kid only) - about 10-20 minutes per evening.
  
• After-school care (mostly chill time, but it includes weekly piano lesson and bell choir) - 1.5-3 hrs per afternoon.
  

 

So. Besides the above, we try to do the flexible stuff that I call "afterschooling":

• Reading - usually 1-3 grade-level books (or equivalent) per day per child.
  
• Math practice - Singapore worksheets / computer games or flashcards or real-life problems - average maybe 10mins per day.
  
• Math concepts - math storybook readalouds, practicing real-life skills. A few times a week.
  
• Foreign language - they do a little immersion with their nanny on Saturdays. Other than that, just a little playing around - nothing formal yet this year.
  
• Science, social studies - some reading, occasional map/globe study as applicable to what's going on. Biographies were big for a while. Was hoping to do museums appx weekly, but I think we only did that once so far this fall.
  

 

I was hoping to do more, but I guess we're doing OK, considering. If I ever get time, I'd like to add some creative writing. We did just a tad of this so far, but I'd like to do it at least once a week.

[Just Kate]

The first nine weeks went very well! I am so proud of my 8 year old, who has never been in "school" before. He got 6 A's and one B on his report card, and his teacher has had some very nice things to say about him. As a matter of fact, just the other day she commented to me about how he seems to have an aptitude toward math and reading. I know that he is great at math, and I believe that is partly due to the mental math that I used with him at home during his K-2 years. As for reading, he just loves books. Makes my heart happy. :)