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Really struggling this year - not sure why. We have been consistent with working through the Mathtacular 4 word problems mystery and working through harder type fraction problems and that has been good. Spelling U See is going great. Science is okay. Writing is a struggle some days and some days it is great. But history - man, the bane of my existence. I don't want it to be this way but truly can not figure out what way to go and hence I'm going no where fast. My youngest, RB/VSL learner needs/enjoys the hands-on craft stuff but can't seem to find something that would fit the bill that isn't inclusive of every other subject. Sheesh!!!

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Really struggling this year - not sure why.  We have been consistent with working through the Mathtacular 4 word problems mystery and working through harder type fraction problems and that has been good.  Spelling U See is going great.  Science is okay.  Writing is a struggle some days and some days it is great.  But history - man, the bane of my existence.  I don't want it to be this way but truly can not figure out what way to go and hence I'm going no where fast.  My youngest, RB/VSL learner needs/enjoys the hands-on craft stuff but can't seem to find something that would fit the bill that isn't inclusive of every other subject.  Sheesh!!!

 

We've used Great Pioneer Projects for something like this. It's just history, but it has hands-on stuff. http://www.amazon.com/GREAT-PIONEER-PROJECTS-YOURSELF-Yourself/dp/0978503767

 

There are others out there like this--I think that publisher has a lot of hands-on books. Sometimes the libraries here have books like this if you want to try before you buy.

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Thank you for the suggestions.  I guess I'm concerned that I'm going to miss something - what that something is I have no idea because we're never going to cover every single topic in history!  This particular kiddo has never done American history - just come along for the ride and listened in over the years.  He loves graphic novels and read Amazing Tales World War I (or something like that) and suddenly was an expert.  He's currently reading Guts and Glory about the Civil War and I found him recreating battle scenes on his own with the gazillion plastic soldiers we have collected over the many years.  So guessing I'd better be served with unit-type studies?  I'm so not good at thinking outside the box or being creative.  He actually enjoys the "crafts" that HOD uses but skill-wise (as in writing which is delayed with VSL/RB learners) he is at the Preparing level and not the one for American history. He's also not particularly strong in reading chapter books that don't have a lot of "animation."  With him I'm just wanting to engage and inspire him in learning (he's definitely gifted but with that comes the challenges - emotional maturity).  I guess my best bet is just to work with my Truthquest book and travel the timeline and stop along the ways when things are of interest.  Hard for me to do because I'm so linear in thinking but don't mind rabbit trails but never quite sure where to go when we venture on them.   :huh:   

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Thank you for the suggestions.  I guess I'm concerned that I'm going to miss something - what that something is I have no idea because we're never going to cover every single topic in history!  This particular kiddo has never done American history - just come along for the ride and listened in over the years.  He loves graphic novels and read Amazing Tales World War I (or something like that) and suddenly was an expert.  He's currently reading Guts and Glory about the Civil War and I found him recreating battle scenes on his own with the gazillion plastic soldiers we have collected over the many years.  So guessing I'd better be served with unit-type studies?  I'm so not good at thinking outside the box or being creative.  He actually enjoys the "crafts" that HOD uses but skill-wise (as in writing which is delayed with VSL/RB learners) he is at the Preparing level and not the one for American history. He's also not particularly strong in reading chapter books that don't have a lot of "animation."  With him I'm just wanting to engage and inspire him in learning (he's definitely gifted but with that comes the challenges - emotional maturity).  I guess my best bet is just to work with my Truthquest book and travel the timeline and stop along the ways when things are of interest.  Hard for me to do because I'm so linear in thinking but don't mind rabbit trails but never quite sure where to go when we venture on them.   :huh:   

 

Hi!  A few other suggestions.... Lessons from History: The Art Part  by Sybil Wickstrom.  These books would go perfect with Truthquest and your timeline.  They were created to go with the Lessons from History guides.  I believe there are five books (without running to check our library).  The books Art Part books have correlating arts and crafts activities for History topics and time periods and are very teacher/user friendly (spiral-bound).  I'm sure you could find them used (not sure if they're out of print?).  Rainbow Res. have a few left. 

 

Another idea...not sure how you stand on tv....but the book, Learning with the Movies by Beth Holland is an excellent resource.  It has historical movies chronologically categorized beginning with Bible/ancient Egypt and going at least to the Vietnam War. There are also movies under sub-categories such as Music/Arts, Science/Nature, Medicine, Holidays, Horses, Sports, etc.  The author also "rates" each film according to her own opinions to give you a sort of "heads-up" on what to expect.  This is a helpful page for the same idea: 

http://heartofwisdom.com/blog/learning-american-history-through-movies-free-timeline/

And another:  http://astore.amazon.com/amercian_history_movies-20

 

One last suggestion on the audio stories idea would be the Adventures in Odyssey Adventures in American History...8 hrs, of stories compiled chronologically from 1620-1975....23 stories in all.  Included is a simple timeline and episode guide.  I also have the Liberty's Kids DVD's...not sure about them as I haven't seen them yet.  Those are just the Revolutionary War.

 

Anyway..........hope you find what works for you and your family! :001_smile:

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I'm just popping back to say that I really am pleased with Just Write. We just finished week seven and I really have seen improvement in dd's writing. So far she has nearly completed the paragraph section of book 1. So in another week we will be starting book 2. I hope I continue to see good progress.

 

The sentence combining in Daily Grams is also working out well. 

 

Her stamina for writing has definitely improved and I see it carrying over. I limit her writing in the work I assign but she's had to do some writing for her CCD class and the improvement is noticeable there.

 

Her handwriting is still definitely quirky, with words running together in print and even connected now that she has started to use cursive (thanks to HWOT). And how many times do I have to say, indent the first line and start at the margin after the first line, before it's going to click?!! 

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Our one constant has been CLE Math.  We just started using CLE Language Arts and that seems to be a winner also.  My daughter desperately needs the repetition that this curriculum provides.  Logic of Handwriting is going well also but I do believe she would thrive with any cursive program as she has an artistic bent and her handwriting has always been beautiful.

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  • 3 months later...

We're doing pretty well...I think the biggest change has been DD's attitude. I don't know if it's supplements, the work I've been doing with her (Zones, mindfulness and a change in how we "discipline") or just maturity, but she's a lot more compliant than she was a few months ago. Although there are still hard moments/harder days, life overall is so much easier.

 

Her handwriting has improved quite a bit over the last month, although she still doesn't like writing. We're both loving Jot It Down though, so I'm hoping that will translate eventually into wanting to actually write her stories rather than having me scribe. Reading has exploded, although she still would rather be read to, and can't read more than a page at a time without protesting. (We alternate pages, which is fine for now.) She can now read almost anything I put in front of her.

 

With math, we've finally gotten through most of RS-B (I'm using the concepts from RS but developing stories around the lessons.) I'm trying to figure out what to do next, since I don't think I want to continue with RS-C...Leaning toward Singapore, but I wish BA-2 was coming out soon, because I think she'd love it. For now we're just doing the RS games, family math and LOF, and looking online for fun ideas to teach new concepts, while I try to make up my mind.

And that's about it. I incorporate interest-led science and history, mostly through reading although we do some labs through BFSU. This is pretty sporadic though, because she only has tolerance for 1 to (rarely) 2 hours a day, with many breaks.

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Things that are working still... Barton (at least for DD).  

 

Wanted to mention that DD was writing a couple of passages in a story she has been working on for quite a while.  She had me proofread it.  Although there were a few words misspelled and some punctuation errors, there were honestly very few compared to the number of pages she wrote.  The ones she missed were almost exclusively ones that use spelling rules we have not yet covered in Barton.  This from a child that couldn't even really spell "dog" correctly at the end of 5th grade.  She turned to me afterwards and said she was so grateful to Barton for helping her read and spell.  Me too, babe, me too.  

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That is really great to hear, OneStep!

 

My LC kid is doing well with this academic line-up - two online classes and two co-op classes, with history bumped to the summer, in addition to a heavy schedule of competitive basketball.  He is willing to put in the time and effort to do well, which is a benefit of the ASD rigidity.  He thinks it is foolish to take a class and not do your best.  He doesn't understand why anyone would do that.  It is one time that the rigid thinking really works in his favor.

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That is really great to hear, OneStep!

 

My LC kid is doing well with this academic line-up - two online classes and two co-op classes, with history bumped to the summer, in addition to a heavy schedule of competitive basketball.  He is willing to put in the time and effort to do well, which is a benefit of the ASD rigidity.  He thinks it is foolish to take a class and not do your best.  He doesn't understand why anyone would do that.  It is one time that the rigid thinking really works in his favor.

This is one of my nephews.  He doesn't get not wanting to do your best and finish something in full.  Actually, that is why he got kicked out of 4 day schools when he was in 3k/4k/kinder.  He was very rigid.  Once they set him on a task he didn't want to just "sample" the task and move on when the teacher told him to.  He wanted to gain all he could from it, work to the best of his ability, and produce a quality product.  He was very articulate and would try to explain his reasoning.  Teachers didn't appreciate his inflexibility.  He would have done better as a homeschooler.  PS was such a struggle for him.

 

They ended up pulling him out of his classes in High School and doing early enrollment at college.  He loves college.  As soon as he gets an assignment he tackles it to the best of his ability and polishes until he is fully satisfied with the result.  It drives him nuts that classmates wait until the last minute then slap something together the night before.  He loves that there isn't a lot of wasted time in his classes and very little, if any, busy work.  He also loves that he can spend as much time as he wants on assignments without getting dissed for it.  :)

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That is really great to hear, OneStep!

 

My LC kid is doing well with this academic line-up - two online classes and two co-op classes, with history bumped to the summer, in addition to a heavy schedule of competitive basketball.  He is willing to put in the time and effort to do well, which is a benefit of the ASD rigidity.  He thinks it is foolish to take a class and not do your best.  He doesn't understand why anyone would do that.  It is one time that the rigid thinking really works in his favor.

 

That's how my 12 yo thinks about her dance class.  I think the behavior of the other kids (not paying attention, goofing off)  is kind of confusing for her, to be honest.  She's told me that she's there because she wants to learn dance.  What's the point in messing around?

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That's how my 12 yo thinks about her dance class.  I think the behavior of the other kids (not paying attention, goofing off)  is kind of confusing for her, to be honest.  She's told me that she's there because she wants to learn dance.  What's the point in messing around?

DD and DS are like this in many ways.  DD was frustrated last week because there were several kids in her drama class that kept wandering off to just visit instead of practicing their lines then complained that they hadn't had enough time to practice when they were called to the stage and couldn't remember what they were saying.

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Okay so update.

 

Regarding curriculum: Meh.  Nothing much to report.  We've had an inconsistent winter, with a ton of interruptions, illnesses, etc.  So frustrating :(  But, we're ready to get back on track now, so it's all good.  What they don't know is that with our funky winter we'll have to work well into June to make up for lost time.  "I think I'll let DH break the news to them," says the cowardly mom  :leaving:

 

Regarding the subjective stuff:  DD's attitude toward schoolwork is MUCH, much, much better.  Her willingness to try new things has really improved.  We do not have meltdowns about academics anymore.  And, by the way, I just realized that as I was writing the previous sentence.  Wow!!!!!!  That's HUGE!!!! 

 

She said she used to feel like a llama in the ocean (great analogy, I mean you automatically think "confused, out of my element, can't succeed") and now she feels like a llama on the beach. (Seriously, how cute is that analogy?  I love it!)  

 

Vision therapy has been really powerful.  Ironically, her vision hasn't improved that much, relative to other skills.  But her general attitude toward herself, toward life, toward academics has improved.  She no longer has depression (yay!!!!!).

 

I've discovered prayer as the best way for me to manage stress and issues that pop up with  both of my girls.   God is kind to me.  When I find myself getting frustrated or someone's being a pain or I just don't know how to explain something or how to proceed, I stop everything, bow my head, and quietly pray... and keep praying until I feel peaceful and have a sense of what the next step should be (sometimes it's "drop it for today," sometimes it's "here's a different way to explain it," etc.)  It just takes a minute or so, but it's been really powerful.  It was weird for the girls at first.  I'd say, "Hang on, I need to pray."  And they looked at me like I had three heads.  They're used to my weirdness now, though :)

 

 

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DD and DS are like this in many ways.  DD was frustrated last week because there were several kids in her drama class that kept wandering off to just visit instead of practicing their lines then complained that they hadn't had enough time to practice when they were called to the stage and couldn't remember what they were saying.

 

I wonder if it's a homeschool thing.  My younger DD is in theater and she runs into the same problem at rehearsal.  It's really frustrating for her.  Maybe the kids who are in regular school are just really tired and need to decompress, which makes it harder to focus during classes/rehearsals.

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Okay so update.

 

Regarding curriculum: Meh.  Nothing much to report.  We've had an inconsistent winter, with a ton of interruptions, illnesses, etc.  So frustrating :(  But, we're ready to get back on track now, so it's all good.  What they don't know is that with our funky winter we'll have to work well into June to make up for lost time.  "I think I'll let DH break the news to them," says the cowardly mom  :leaving:

 

Regarding the subjective stuff:  DD's attitude toward schoolwork is MUCH, much, much better.  Her willingness to try new things has really improved.  We do not have meltdowns about academics anymore.  And, by the way, I just realized that as I was writing the previous sentence.  Wow!!!!!!  That's HUGE!!!! 

 

She said she used to feel like a llama in the ocean (great analogy, I mean you automatically think "confused, out of my element, can't succeed") and now she feels like a llama on the beach. (Seriously, how cute is that analogy?  I love it!)  

 

Vision therapy has been really powerful.  Ironically, her vision hasn't improved that much, relative to other skills.  But her general attitude toward herself, toward life, toward academics has improved.  She no longer has depression (yay!!!!!).

 

I've discovered prayer as the best way for me to manage stress and issues that pop up with  both of my girls.   God is kind to me.  When I find myself getting frustrated or someone's being a pain or I just don't know how to explain something or how to proceed, I stop everything, bow my head, and quietly pray... and keep praying until I feel peaceful and have a sense of what the next step should be (sometimes it's "drop it for today," sometimes it's "here's a different way to explain it," etc.)  It just takes a minute or so, but it's been really powerful.  It was weird for the girls at first.  I'd say, "Hang on, I need to pray."  And they looked at me like I had three heads.  They're used to my weirdness now, though :)

Oh that is great!!  Attitude, motivation, belief in self are all HUGE, HUGE important things, more so than specific academics IMHO.  Getting even one of those areas stronger can really have a big impact.  And I love that analogy, too.  Really fits!

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That's how my 12 yo thinks about her dance class.  I think the behavior of the other kids (not paying attention, goofing off)  is kind of confusing for her, to be honest.  She's told me that she's there because she wants to learn dance.  What's the point in messing around?

It's like that with music too.  When doing group work, other kids show up (pubbies and homeschoolers) and it is screaming obvious that no students are prepared except mine.

 

ETA:  WIth music, it has been obvious when my kids were not prepared too.  We certainly don't corner the market on preparedness.

Edited by Heathermomster
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Okay so update.

 

Regarding curriculum: Meh.  Nothing much to report.  We've had an inconsistent winter, with a ton of interruptions, illnesses, etc.  So frustrating :(  But, we're ready to get back on track now, so it's all good.  What they don't know is that with our funky winter we'll have to work well into June to make up for lost time.  "I think I'll let DH break the news to them," says the cowardly mom  :leaving:

 

Regarding the subjective stuff:  DD's attitude toward schoolwork is MUCH, much, much better.  Her willingness to try new things has really improved.  We do not have meltdowns about academics anymore.  And, by the way, I just realized that as I was writing the previous sentence.  Wow!!!!!!  That's HUGE!!!! 

 

She said she used to feel like a llama in the ocean (great analogy, I mean you automatically think "confused, out of my element, can't succeed") and now she feels like a llama on the beach. (Seriously, how cute is that analogy?  I love it!)  

 

Vision therapy has been really powerful.  Ironically, her vision hasn't improved that much, relative to other skills.  But her general attitude toward herself, toward life, toward academics has improved.  She no longer has depression (yay!!!!!).

 

I've discovered prayer as the best way for me to manage stress and issues that pop up with  both of my girls.   God is kind to me.  When I find myself getting frustrated or someone's being a pain or I just don't know how to explain something or how to proceed, I stop everything, bow my head, and quietly pray... and keep praying until I feel peaceful and have a sense of what the next step should be (sometimes it's "drop it for today," sometimes it's "here's a different way to explain it," etc.)  It just takes a minute or so, but it's been really powerful.  It was weird for the girls at first.  I'd say, "Hang on, I need to pray."  And they looked at me like I had three heads.  They're used to my weirdness now, though :)

 

Are you talking about your 10 yo dd? If so, I wish I could get her together with my 10 yo. She is llama crazy.

 

She also showed EXACTLY the same improvements with VT that my dd did, down to the mood and attitude toward work. It's been so amazing.

 

I think you are setting the very best example for your girls but turning to prayer in front of them. You are awesome! :grouphug:

 

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We started having my 6th grader take his meds before breakfast, and our life is renewed. The sheer volume of work he's completing with this change is astonishing, and the kids aren't in each other's faces half the morning. 

 

VT has helped little dude a lot. We no longer have crying every time some kind of handwriting is required. He's writing a word lists daily for Sequential Spelling, and he's doing the majority of the writing for all of his subjects. He's even picked up cursive again on his own. He still doesn't want to do cursive as copywork, but if he's writing his thoughts down, he doesn't mind. 

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That's how my 12 yo thinks about her dance class.  I think the behavior of the other kids (not paying attention, goofing off)  is kind of confusing for her, to be honest.  She's told me that she's there because she wants to learn dance.  What's the point in messing around?

Ds is like this with basketball, too.  He gives his personal best every single time.  Our point guard has a lot of talent but is a thoroughbred and flighty.  If he thinks he's going to lose, he used to fake injury to leave the game so it is not "his fault".  Ds will stay in the game giving 100% when it is clear they are going to lose no matter what. He doesn't understand giving up.

 

I recently looked at his Geometry quizzes that were scattered on a table, and he had gone through them and marked what he needed to study more before taking the chapter test.  He has learned some good study skills.  He made a 97 on his last Geometry test, which was much better than he thought he would make.  I asked him what he did, and he said he reread the instructions carefully and realized he didn't need to do something, which guided him to a better answer.  Good stuff.

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