Observations after 1st week of school . . .

[Michelle in MO]

It's been one week since our three girls started at a private high school, and we've noted a few things so far as a family:

 

1.) Oldest dd mentioned yesterday that I assigned them far more schoolwork/written work while homeschooling. She felt that the lecture format, in which the teacher lectures the entire hour and then gives an assignment, was rather inefficient. She said, "They lecture for the whole hour on something that would take me 15 minutes to read in the book!" However, all of my college classes were done this way, except there were fewer of them.

 

2.) I feel that the oldest two especially are well-prepared for high school---so far! The dual-enrollment U.S. History course isn't overwhelming for my oldest. The teacher assigns 2-5 essay-type questions per week. Thankfully my oldest has a study hall, so she's able to complete almost everything during that time. This class will include a longer research paper (10-12 pp.) due at the end of each semester, so it'll be interesting to see how she manages that. They've done a number of shorter papers (2-4 pp.) but nothing this lengthy.

 

3.) Youngest dd had a fairly simple complete subject/complete predicate worksheet, which was covered in grammar some time ago.

 

4.) Overall, the books at this school seem pretty solid: Larson for Algebra 1 and 2; Campbell for Advanced Biology.

 

5.) My grad. school plans are on a temporary hiatus. I applied to the state u. primarily because it was the closest school. I found out belatedly that most of their grad. school classes are at night; neither dh nor I felt comfortable with that state of affairs. It would take 1-1/2 hours, driving home late on country roads, to get home. My school of choice has more stringent requirements, and even though it's slightly farther away, its schedule of many day classes would coincide better with the kids being at school. Plus, there is the natural desire to be at home with my kids in the evening!

 

6.) It's strange, getting used to the kids being gone during the day! We miss them!

 

Overall, though, the transition seems to be going fairly smoothly. There's the typical things kids run into, which is good for them in many ways: that one teacher who thinks their class is the only class and assigns too much homework; learning to hustle in between classes instead of being more "leisurely", as they tend to do here at home :) ; and probably a few other things which I can't think of at the moment.

 

At any rate, I thought I'd report in with a few brief observations!

[Gwen in VA]

I am glad that the school is working out for your duaghters! Congrats on doing such a good job preparing them!

 

I hope that your grad school plans all work out.

[Melinda]

It sounds like they are adjusting well overall. Way to prepare them, Mama!

[Jane in NC]

Thanks first to Michelle for posting her update and inspiring me to post as well.

 

Background: my 11th grade son is taking two courses (Western Civ and Chem I) at our nearby CC, courses that began last week.

 

1) My son loves his Western Civ course which is lecture based. He says that it is like a Teaching Company lecture, only longer (90 minutes). His grade in this course will be primarily based on exams--essay questions not multiple choice. Let's see what he thinks after the first exam.

 

2) He is not impressed with the disorganization of some of his fellow students. Some have not yet purchased their chemistry texts or lab manuals; not having these materials put them at a distinct disadvantage when performing their lab yesterday. (I'm trying to figure this one out. The text and lab manual cost about $250 so it could be that students want to convince themselves that they are not dropping the course before making this investment.)

 

3) My son has been thoroughly annoyed at his chemistry instructor's need to explain scientific notation and the metric system in excruciating detail. He fails to realize that not everyone has grown up in the home of a mathematical tyrant who demanded mastery of these things a long time ago. (But this does make me wonder if instructors in university chemistry courses do background math earlier on as well. Does the CC water down their courses?)

 

4) My sewing machine is seeing the light of day! I now have time to tackle some other projects.

 

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the weeks ahead.

 

Best regards,

Jane

[Michelle in MO]

1) My son loves his Western Civ course which is lecture based. He says that it is like a Teaching Company lecture, only longer (90 minutes). His grade in this course will be primarily based on exams--essay questions not multiple choice. Let's see what he thinks after the first exam.

 

I would love this, too! My oldest doesn't mind the lectures, and she finds her English teacher especially amusing (although the reading in English so far doesn't seem as rigorous as what we were doing for Omnibus II). I think she would just rather hit the books; she really dislikes evening homework!

 

3) My son has been thoroughly annoyed at his chemistry instructor's need to explain scientific notation and the metric system in excruciating detail. He fails to realize that not everyone has grown up in the home of a mathematical tyrant who demanded mastery of these things a long time ago. (But this does make me wonder if instructors in university chemistry courses do background math earlier on as well. Does the CC water down their courses?)

 

I've been somewhat of a tyrant on these finer details, too. Finally, under the tutelage of someone else, eldest dd (who tends to be rather stubborn) is finally learning to comply with annoying things like units in math, etc.

 

) My sewing machine is seeing the light of day! I now have time to tackle some other projects.

 

LOL! Dh has noted that my meals have improved. Once grad. school really starts, though, that'll probably take a downward plunge again!

 

Thanks for posting these updates, Jane! It's a strange new world we've entered, isn't it? :)

[Miss Marple]

Michelle, it sounds like your daughters are going to do great. Doesn't it feel good when they find classes taken from others to be easier than those at home? Shows that you gave them a good background.

 

Jane, I had to LOL about the chemistry class! My ds just called from OU to complain about his chemistry class. He had a pre-lab lab yesterday (*we* never had a special class to go over labs when I was in college) and discovered that his instructor was a sweet Asian girl, but he could hardly understand her English. I told him to get used to it. That's the way of big university freshman sciences courses. I proceeded to tell him about my experience in freshman chemistry in trying to keep my bum out of my TA's hands :ack2: Looking back, it was sorta like being chased all over chemistry lab. Back then, one didn't say anything for fear of getting a bad grade; today he would have been fired at the very least - but, oh, well.

 

He met a young man who is a senior (taking freshman chemistry :001_unsure:) and planning to go to medical school and was simply taking chem 101 because he had taken it AP in highschool and tested out at OU. My ds immediately said, "that's who I want for my lab partner". He said all the other kids were...freshmen (go figure!). So I thought that showed some good thinking on my son's part :-)

 

It's fun getting daily updates about his classes and life there.

[LisaNY]

So glad to hear things are going well, Michelle! Good job, Mom! :D

[Michelle in AL]

Michelle I'm so glad things are going well for your girls! It has to be reassuring to see them do well for others and become their own people.

I hope you can get your classes straightened out. I would love to go back to school when this journey is over.

[Beth in SW WA]

Michelle & Jane,

Wow, this is so exciting for you ladies (and us to hear about it).

 

Please keep us posted and share what might seem trivial to you -- but worth its weight in gold to us :)

 

Thanks again for the updates...

[ChemMommy]

3) My son has been thoroughly annoyed at his chemistry instructor's need to explain scientific notation and the metric system in excruciating detail. He fails to realize that not everyone has grown up in the home of a mathematical tyrant who demanded mastery of these things a long time ago. (But this does make me wonder if instructors in university chemistry courses do background math earlier on as well. Does the CC water down their courses?)

 

 

 

...scheduled in the first week of class and I teach at a private college! I go over them in detail (hopefully, not excruciating detail :001_smile:) and, yes, my better students are dying of boredom. But, believe me, the vast majority of my students have not mastered those concepts prior to the class, and a good 25% of the class will not have mastered them by the first exam. Sigh!!

 

And, don't get me started on how few students can solve for "x" when it is in the denominator, as in: 22 = 7/x.

[Kareni]

It's been one week since our three girls started at a private high school, and we've noted a few things so far as a family:

 

... I feel that the oldest two especially are well-prepared for high school

 

... the transition seems to be going fairly smoothly.

 

Sounds like good news!

 

... my 11th grade son is taking two courses (Western Civ and Chem I) at our nearby CC, courses that began last week.

 

... My sewing machine is seeing the light of day! I now have time to tackle some other projects.

 

Glad to hear that things are going fairly smoothly for your son. Enjoy those projects, Jane!

 

I proceeded to tell him about my experience in freshman chemistry in trying to keep my bum out of my TA's hands

 

EGADS!

 

... But, believe me, the vast majority of my students have not mastered those concepts [the metric system and scientific notation] prior to the class, and a good 25% of the class will not have mastered them by the first exam. Sigh!! ...

 

My husband teaches Chemistry and Physics to homeschoolers. He'd add that a sad percentage of the students will not have mastered the concepts by the FINAL exam either. He finds very few homeschooled students to have a solid math background.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Miss Marple]

One of the perks, IMO, of Singapore math is that they *know* the metric system very well by the time they finish the Primary math series. My boys are actually more adept at conversions within the metric system than in our English measurement system. I never wanted to change to the "American" version of Singapore simply because I loved the metric exposure.