New Homeschooler

[Lecka]

We start on Tuesday!  My daughter is a 7th grader who has been in public school to date.

She is going to start out with three subjects:  math, history, and English.

Math will be Saxon 8/7.  Because of afterschooling with Saxon — she is on Lesson 59.  She has done some lessons since deciding to homeschool, and it is going well.  
 

History will be Ancient History.  I have ordered 3 books, and she will take notes in a spiral notebook.  She (or we) will come up with a writing assignment related to what she learns.   She will also work on geography in some way, along with this.  
 

English will be reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexis.  She picked this from choices I provided, and she has read enough to say she likes it.  Probably no output from this.

 

I don’t know how long this will take, and I don’t know if I will want her to do a writing program or not.  If it’s going well for her to do some kind of written response, I think it will be good enough.  
 

I’m planning to take this semester off of science, with plans to do something next year.

 

I ordered 3 books for history, but only one one has arrived.  She looked at the beginning of History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer, and thinks it looks good to her tread and take notes from it.  I also got the K12 History Odyssey Ancient History, and the first book about the history of science by Joy Hakim.  They will not arrive for a week or two, but when they come, she can see which book she prefers. 
 

I think this will work as a start, and then over time we can see how it’s going.  
 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Lecka

[Porridge]

How exciting— Best wishes! May I ask - Why the mid year change?

[Lecka]

She is not happy at school.  
 

She is only engaged when she really likes the teacher.  This year she doesn’t like her Language Arts teacher.  Last year that was her favorite class and she loved the teacher, and they did some really cool stuff.  
 

Last year vice versa to this year — last year she thought her Social Studies teacher was horrible.  This year she loves her Geography teacher and is doing cool stuff in that class.

 

The main reason though is related to her peers, but I do not know the whole story.  At minimum her best friend had a disgusting bullying incident.  She is just totally disillusioned with 99% of the kids at her school.  She is showing some very immature behavior.  It’s not a good environment for her anymore.  
 

I think it’s very related to the pandemic, a lot of kids are struggling, a lot of school is just done on the laptop even though they are in-person, and my daughter is not doing well with so much time spent on the laptop.

 

She wants to do homeschool, also.  
 

We got called to see the school counselor, and he recommended we get a private counselor.  The private counselor is in favor of homeschool for her — basically because she says she wants to do it, and I say I can make it happen.  Since we have said she can homeschool, she is in a lot better mood and is more cooperative.  She had the second counselor appointment this week, and he thought it was a good sign that she had a good week after knowing she would be homeschooling.  
 

She is also just not enjoying the things I know to be good, and then she just isn’t getting anything out of it.  She was down to liking Band and Geography, which are very good to like, but that is just not enough to make school worthwhile for her.  And I don’t know the whole story with the social issues but something was very wrong for her.

 

I also have a special needs child who gets a lot of attention in our family, and he will be at school, so she will be the center of attention for once in her life.  The counselor thought that would be good for her, too.  

[Lecka]

I would also say she has been going downhill and she just can’t go downhill anymore.  
 

 

[Lecka]

At the meeting with the school counselor she would not say anything, the school counselor seemed good to me and my daughter said she liked him.  But she does not want to need help from adults so that makes it seem like nothing will get resolved.  I think that is not a great choice for her but it is not something I can control.

Plus I do think she will like homeschooling.  

[Lecka]

It is hard to explain, but she has just lost engagement in most of her classes, and one of those I know to be a good class with a good teacher — but what good does it do if my daughter is someone who isn’t engaged and doesn’t want to be there.  

[seemesew]

8 hours ago, Lecka said:

She is not happy at school.  
 

She is only engaged when she really likes the teacher.  This year she doesn’t like her Language Arts teacher.  Last year that was her favorite class and she loved the teacher, and they did some really cool stuff.  
 

Last year vice versa to this year — last year she thought her Social Studies teacher was horrible.  This year she loves her Geography teacher and is doing cool stuff in that class.

 

The main reason though is related to her peers, but I do not know the whole story.  At minimum her best friend had a disgusting bullying incident.  She is just totally disillusioned with 99% of the kids at her school.  She is showing some very immature behavior.  It’s not a good environment for her anymore.  
 

I think it’s very related to the pandemic, a lot of kids are struggling, a lot of school is just done on the laptop even though they are in-person, and my daughter is not doing well with so much time spent on the laptop.

 

She wants to do homeschool, also.  
 

We got called to see the school counselor, and he recommended we get a private counselor.  The private counselor is in favor of homeschool for her — basically because she says she wants to do it, and I say I can make it happen.  Since we have said she can homeschool, she is in a lot better mood and is more cooperative.  She had the second counselor appointment this week, and he thought it was a good sign that she had a good week after knowing she would be homeschooling.  
 

She is also just not enjoying the things I know to be good, and then she just isn’t getting anything out of it.  She was down to liking Band and Geography, which are very good to like, but that is just not enough to make school worthwhile for her.  And I don’t know the whole story with the social issues but something was very wrong for her.

 

I also have a special needs child who gets a lot of attention in our family, and he will be at school, so she will be the center of attention for once in her life.  The counselor thought that would be good for her, too.  

It sounds like you made a wise choice! Your options sound great and you seem to have it all planned out :0)

[lmrich]

You are so wise to listen. 

Some other gentle suggestions that she or you might like - geography games and puzzles. My dd said she learned more geography by playing the Ten Days Games and working on puzzles. And audio books or Ted Talks... that the two you could listen to while in the kitchen or just lounging about.  

[cintinative]

2 hours ago, lmrich said:

 

Some other gentle suggestions that she or you might like - geography games and puzzles. My dd said she learned more geography by playing the Ten Days Games and working on puzzles. 

I taught a co-op class that was all geography games. We played the 10 days games, GeoBingo, some continent Bingo cards I made, Flag Frenzy (it's fun!), did GeoPuzzles, etc.  We also did some map tracing and listened to Geography songs.  It was a fun way to learn! I have been trying to sell my stuff but the  shipping is ridiculous. If you are near Cincinnati and looking for stuff, PM me.  😃

[Lecka]

Thanks for the geography suggestions 🙂  

I hadn’t thought of TED talks!  
 

Thanks for the encouragement!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

[lmrich]

2 hours ago, cintinative said:

I taught a co-op class that was all geography games. We played the 10 days games, GeoBingo, some continent Bingo cards I made, Flag Frenzy (it's fun!), did GeoPuzzles, etc.  We also did some map tracing and listened to Geography songs.  It was a fun way to learn! I have been trying to sell my stuff but the  shipping is ridiculous. If you are near Cincinnati and looking for stuff, PM me.  😃

Oh my goodness! I have a proposal for this exact class. I wanted to offer it last year but it does not work with social distancing.. Let me know some of your other favorites. Sorry for interrupting your thread.

[Miss Tick]

You might also check the podcast from the BBC called In Our Time by Melvin Bragg. He and his guests do a deep dive into a topic, usually history or science related, and I find them very interesting. Occasionally we have listened to history related ones over the past few years.

I like your plan of starting with three subjects.

[cintinative]

14 minutes ago, lmrich said:

Oh my goodness! I have a proposal for this exact class. I wanted to offer it last year but it does not work with social distancing.. Let me know some of your other favorites. Sorry for interrupting your thread.

Really, that's about it. I chose to focus on one continent at a time. When we did Africa, we did the songs, map tracing, played 10 days in Africa and played an Africa bingo game I made, Plus we did the Africa puzzles.  The kids would split up and do different games sometimes.  We did the map tracing while we listened to the songs.  I gave them folders with all the lyrics so they could find each country on the map and trace it. 

Oh, I do have a game called MapTangle which is like Twister but with a giant map. Unfortunately, I found out after I bought it (used) that the orange color contains lead, so we did it with a plastic sheeting over it (think painters draping). It sort of worked?  It really is a fun game. There were countries and major landmarks on it.  

The 10 days games can be hard to come by since they are out of print. I have all of them. So at the end of the year we put them all together and did 20 days in the world (there are directions online). That could easily take multiple weeks.

I did buy the Europe GeoCards but we didn't use those very much.

I also had a few games in this line: Asian Realm, etc. that I bought used somewhere. I have already sold them again. They were just okay.  https://www.amazon.com/Asian-Realm-World-Geography-games/dp/0783429436

My schedule is attached.

geography games and songs 2016-2017.xlsxgeography games and songs 2016-2017.xlsx

I have a bunch of Bingo games I created like this: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/African-Flag-Bingo-12-cards-2781455  

Edited December 31, 2021 by cintinative

[lmrich]

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

Really, that's about it. I chose to focus on one continent at a time. When we did Africa, we did the songs, map tracing, played 10 days in Africa and played an Africa bingo game I made, Plus we did the Africa puzzles.  The kids would split up and do different games sometimes.  We did the map tracing while we listened to the songs.  I gave them folders with all the lyrics so they could find each country on the map and trace it. 

Oh, I do have a game called MapTangle which is like Twister but with a giant map. Unfortunately, I found out after I bought it (used) that the orange color contains lead, so we did it with a plastic sheeting over it (think painters draping). It sort of worked?  It really is a fun game. There were countries and major landmarks on it.  

The 10 days games can be hard to come by since they are out of print. I have all of them. So at the end of the year we put them all together and did 20 days in the world (there are directions online). That could easily take multiple weeks.

I did buy the Europe GeoCards but we didn't use those very much.

I also had a few games in this line: Asian Realm, etc. that I bought used somewhere. I have already sold them again. They were just okay.  https://www.amazon.com/Asian-Realm-World-Geography-games/dp/0783429436

My schedule is attached.

geography games and songs 2016-2017.xlsxgeography games and songs 2016-2017.xlsx 12.12 kB · 0 downloads

I have a bunch of Bingo games I created like this: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/African-Flag-Bingo-12-cards-2781455  

Thanks so much!! 

 

[Lecka]

Thanks for the podcast suggestion 🙂
 

Edit:  I just looked and the episode titles are intriguing!!!!!

Edited December 31, 2021 by Lecka

[Zoo Keeper]

5 hours ago, SusanC said:

You might also check the podcast from the BBC called In Our Time by Melvin Bragg. He and his guests do a deep dive into a topic, usually history or science related, and I find them very interesting. Occasionally we have listened to history related ones over the past few years.

I like your plan of starting with three subjects.

^ just seconding this-- it's very well done.

[kiwik]

On 1/1/2022 at 8:07 AM, SusanC said:

You might also check the podcast from the BBC called In Our Time by Melvin Bragg. He and his guests do a deep dive into a topic, usually history or science related, and I find them very interesting. Occasionally we have listened to history related ones over the past few years.

I like your plan of starting with three subjects.

Thanks for reminding me.  I was listening to those while I worked and then forgot about them.