Homeschool Chat Part III

[lovethattink]

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[bellebud]

NY's first day for most schools was today. My kids have a form of muscular dystrophy and my ds was weak today because he had an 'attack' the other day. I was so happy he didn't have to go to school in his weakened state! Instead, we all went to the movies! Then we read together and had a great discussion regarding our reading when we got home. That was our first day of school! Couldn't have been better!

Homeschooling is wonderful!!!

 

[MWGreene]

I'm so happy to have found a small homeschool group (see previous post #1074). I'm going to check out a private school tomorrow and if that isn't a fit, I'm pulling my kids out to homeschool. Today was there first day. I looked over what DS is doing in first grade for the entire month. It was sorting, patterns, and counting. Really? No reading/language listed and science was living things. DD4 teacher called me to say she was "defiant" and "uncooperative". Apparently she didn't want to stop mid-task to come sit on the "rug". Well duh. She's 4 in junior kindergarten and it was her first day of class ever. On one hand, I'm glad she called but couldn't she have given her a day or two to settle in?

 

[lovethattink]

I'm so happy to have found a small homeschool group (see previous post #1074). I'm going to check out a private school tomorrow and if that isn't a fit, I'm pulling my kids out to homeschool. Today was there first day. I looked over what DS is doing in first grade for the entire month. It was sorting, patterns, and counting. Really? No reading/language listed and science was living things. DD4 teacher called me to say she was "defiant" and "uncooperative". Apparently she didn't want to stop mid-task to come sit on the "rug". Well duh. She's 4 in junior kindergarten and it was her first day of class ever. On one hand, I'm glad she called but couldn't she have given her a day or two to settle in?

If you decide to homeschool, be sure to check out your state's laws. Some states require a portfolio be kept and what needs to be in the portfolio. I live in Florida and use an umbrella school so we don't need to keep a portfolio, otherwise I would have to. Also the laws differ from state to state on mandatory testing.

My son just started first grade this summer. We started doing half days, 4 days a week. He is almost done with his 2nd 125 page book as part of his reading curriculum. He is doing addition and subtraction in math and counting by 5's and 10's. We are on lesson 35. We are using Abeka for him.

 

[antree]

Hi, anyone doing K12? I have a question, we started it late last Sept. I think it was Sept 20th, so I had the course run the full year. We are coming up to the end of our year but we are not done with all our subjects. We had a rough year with too many unexpected deaths and illness in our family so we fell behind.
So my question is, what happens that we are not going to finish all the course by the 20th? Does anyone know?

Thank You for any help, Maria

 

[Nicolepa]

Hi, anyone doing K12? I have a question, we started it late last Sept. I think it was Sept 20th, so I had the course run the full year. We are coming up to the end of our year but we are not done with all our subjects. We had a rough year with too many unexpected deaths and illness in our family so we fell behind.
So my question is, what happens that we are not going to finish all the course by the 20th? Does anyone know?

Thank You for any help, Maria

I'm assuming you are using K12 privately (vs w/a Virtual Academy). Are you going to use K12 this year? If so you will continue to have access to your classes until you call them and tell them to change them. You can change which classes you have at any time.

If you aren't continuing w/K12 then you will lose access to all of your classes at the end of your year.

Disclaimer - I used K12 until last October, things could be different now. ;-)

 

[antree]

Yes, we are using them privately. So unless I call them they will continue charging me and allowing me access to the lessons plans, so I can continue the lessons?

Another questions does anyone have the website for the Disney books on the countries? I know people were using them for their history on different countries.

Also what good history books are people using for 3rd - 4th grade?


Thanks

 

[shannon006]

We are new to homeschooling. We live in Michigan and will be using the Plato learning system. Our daughter is in grade 5.

 

[EeyoreEma]

Hi -I was just wondering if anyone here has used the progress academy curriculum. We're currently using calvert, and love it but I was interested in hearing more about progress academy. Thanks!

 

[DisneyDreamer04]

Would like to introduce myself... I have been pretty much a lurker of this thread for awhile. Looking @ it, researching, and praying about what to do with my school age child. After many months thinking... we are HOMESCHOOLING!

I have three little girls age 6,3, and 6 months. My 6yr old is doing well, but gets very mad @ herself if she doesnt get something right @ the first try. Any advice there?? Other than that she loves the flexability, and the "fun" mom trys to bring into it. My other kink I need to work out, is little sis wants to do everything her older does. I have workbooks for her, and some very simple things for her to do, but she likes to trace her letters and numbers and count and circle objects, I hope that is what a 3 year old needs to know right now?? She is also writing her name, not perfect, but she is doing it all by herself. She is my little sponge absorbing everything right now.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know, I bought CLE (christian light education). I just thought my 1st year go around I would be safe with a package sorta deal. I am already excited and looking at changing some things up a bit, but I do like the pace style. And she really likes it, which is VERY important to me.
I do live in a small area, and I am worried about interaction. We are very active in church, but I dont really know what else to do? I think a sport activity at the boys & girls club may just be alittle too much for her. The only thing she could do would be soccer, and it is practice 2 nights a week and then 2 games a week. Any suggestions there?

Ok, now that I have TOTALLY broken out of my lurkdum ( is that a word) I feel like I have spilled my guts. I started out just wanting to say HI..... SO HI!

 

[lovethattink]

Would like to introduce myself... I have been pretty much a lurker of this thread for awhile. Looking @ it, researching, and praying about what to do with my school age child. After many months thinking... we are HOMESCHOOLING!

I have three little girls age 6,3, and 6 months. My 6yr old is doing well, but gets very mad @ herself if she doesnt get something right @ the first try. Any advice there?? Other than that she loves the flexability, and the "fun" mom trys to bring into it. My other kink I need to work out, is little sis wants to do everything her older does. I have workbooks for her, and some very simple things for her to do, but she likes to trace her letters and numbers and count and circle objects, I hope that is what a 3 year old needs to know right now?? She is also writing her name, not perfect, but she is doing it all by herself. She is my little sponge absorbing everything right now.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know, I bought CLE (christian light education). I just thought my 1st year go around I would be safe with a package sorta deal. I am already excited and looking at changing some things up a bit, but I do like the pace style. And she really likes it, which is VERY important to me.
I do live in a small area, and I am worried about interaction. We are very active in church, but I dont really know what else to do? I think a sport activity at the boys & girls club may just be alittle too much for her. The only thing she could do would be soccer, and it is practice 2 nights a week and then 2 games a week. Any suggestions there?

Ok, now that I have TOTALLY broken out of my lurkdum ( is that a word) I feel like I have spilled my guts. I started out just wanting to say HI..... SO HI!

I'm new to the thread too.

Welcome to homeschooling!!

Even in small areas there are often homeschool groups or co-ops. We belong to a homeschooling group that does field trips and socials. There is a church in our town that has homeschool classes one day a week for art, drama, music. There are also a couple co-ops for PE in our town. They were hard to find at first. Not advertised anywhere. I found out about them through word of mouth.

As for making mistakes, my son has ASD and we often use social stories or write social stories to fit a situation. I found this one on you-tube, it might be a little too old for a 6 year old, but it might help.

Social story about making mistakes video

 

[starshine514]

Would like to introduce myself... I have been pretty much a lurker of this thread for awhile. Looking @ it, researching, and praying about what to do with my school age child. After many months thinking... we are HOMESCHOOLING!

I have three little girls age 6,3, and 6 months. My 6yr old is doing well, but gets very mad @ herself if she doesnt get something right @ the first try. Any advice there?? Other than that she loves the flexability, and the "fun" mom trys to bring into it. My other kink I need to work out, is little sis wants to do everything her older does. I have workbooks for her, and some very simple things for her to do, but she likes to trace her letters and numbers and count and circle objects, I hope that is what a 3 year old needs to know right now?? She is also writing her name, not perfect, but she is doing it all by herself. She is my little sponge absorbing everything right now.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know, I bought CLE (christian light education). I just thought my 1st year go around I would be safe with a package sorta deal. I am already excited and looking at changing some things up a bit, but I do like the pace style. And she really likes it, which is VERY important to me.
I do live in a small area, and I am worried about interaction. We are very active in church, but I dont really know what else to do? I think a sport activity at the boys & girls club may just be alittle too much for her. The only thing she could do would be soccer, and it is practice 2 nights a week and then 2 games a week. Any suggestions there?

Ok, now that I have TOTALLY broken out of my lurkdum ( is that a word) I feel like I have spilled my guts. I started out just wanting to say HI..... SO HI!

You sound a lot like me! I have 2 girls - ages 4 & 6. The 6-yr-old is in first grade (our second year homeschooling we're using the A Beka curriculum - I'm not a SAHM, and I found I couldn't seem to pull a curriculum together on my own in the time I had to devote to it. I love having preset lesson plans) and my younger daughter wanted to work on school as well last year. I printed out some worksheets for her from here: http://www.starfall.com/ so she could work along some, but I totally let her set the pace. This year, she wanted to do real school, so we went ahead and started her in the kindergarten curriculum. We're two weeks in and she's doing great!

For her stressing out, I would just try to keep encouraging her. My DD4 doesn't like to make mistakes, and because of that, she doesn't like to take chances. We're working on it w/ lots of encouragement and praise, focusing on the positive aspects of her work (with writing) and working through other things (like her phonics) together until she gets them correct.

As for socialization, the girls have some general friends that we get together with for play dates, they take various lessons (swimming, gymnastics, dance - usually only one at a time, though), they attend Sunday school and we have just started attending the AWANA club at a nearby church as well. From what I've observed, they interact pretty well with other kids, so I'm not too concerned about the socialization aspects.

Oh yeah, hi!

 

[bumbershoot]

I looked over what DS is doing in first grade for the entire month. It was sorting, patterns, and counting. Really? No reading/language listed and science was living things.

Just FWIW, we use Oak Meadow, which is based on Waldorf, and DS's 1st grade work was very much like that. And he did just fine, he learned quite a bit of math by the end of the year, he started to read (his dad was a late reader and was tortured by teachers and parents to learn, so we were NOT going to push it with DS), he's doing great!

I'm sure there are many more reasons you're considering this, but that, on its own, isn't something awful, IMO. It might just be the way they teach in the early stages at that school (is it Waldorf-based?).

My other kink I need to work out, is little sis wants to do everything her older does. I have workbooks for her, and some very simple things for her to do, but she likes to trace her letters and numbers and count and circle objects, I hope that is what a 3 year old needs to know right now?? She is also writing her name, not perfect, but she is doing it all by herself. She is my little sponge absorbing everything right now.

Oh those little second kids...they get all the advantages! My brother was 2 years and 3 grades younger than me, he helped me study for classes, and then he'd REMEMBER it all and do WAY better than me! Lucky duck. Being the oldest is great, but oooh those second kids...

I'd just let her do what she wants to do...might be less work in the future with her!



*******
We're rounding home base here...last year was our first with Oak Meadow (or any official curriculum) and it took us awhile to really figure it all out. We finished the academic (the knitting and recorder was pushed aside b/c it requires ME to figure it out first and I can't do it yet!) work by June, but this summer we were doing some extra stuff to keep him from forgetting everything (and what else were we going to do, just stare at each other?), and we're trying to finish that up before our vacation. We'll start 2nd grade work after vacation. But I don't want to have anything (other than that knitting and recorder, apparently) hanging over our heads for vacation. So the next two days are going to be big! Wish us luck.

 

[polkadotsuitcase]

Would like to introduce myself... I have been pretty much a lurker of this thread for awhile. Looking @ it, researching, and praying about what to do with my school age child. After many months thinking... we are HOMESCHOOLING!

I have three little girls age 6,3, and 6 months. My 6yr old is doing well, but gets very mad @ herself if she doesnt get something right @ the first try. Any advice there?? Other than that she loves the flexability, and the "fun" mom trys to bring into it. My other kink I need to work out, is little sis wants to do everything her older does. I have workbooks for her, and some very simple things for her to do, but she likes to trace her letters and numbers and count and circle objects, I hope that is what a 3 year old needs to know right now?? She is also writing her name, not perfect, but she is doing it all by herself. She is my little sponge absorbing everything right now.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know, I bought CLE (christian light education). I just thought my 1st year go around I would be safe with a package sorta deal. I am already excited and looking at changing some things up a bit, but I do like the pace style. And she really likes it, which is VERY important to me.
I do live in a small area, and I am worried about interaction. We are very active in church, but I dont really know what else to do? I think a sport activity at the boys & girls club may just be alittle too much for her. The only thing she could do would be soccer, and it is practice 2 nights a week and then 2 games a week. Any suggestions there?

Ok, now that I have TOTALLY broken out of my lurkdum ( is that a word) I feel like I have spilled my guts. I started out just wanting to say HI..... SO HI!

I haven't been able to hang out on forums as much as I used to, but I'd like to say welcome -- both to the thread and to homeschooling! I'm almost envious that you're starting out with young kids. My guys have always homeschooled, and now they're in 6th and 8th -- and I miss those early education years! They're such a blast, and there are SO, SO many things you can do. (Only so many ways you can make algebra fun, you know?!)

Have a great time, and enjoy it. It's totally cliche and everyone says it, but those years really do go so darn fast.

 

[C&G'sMama]

Well, as of this past Thursday, we have officially and finally joined the ranks of home schoolers. I've posted in here in the past as we were searching and the support has been great. Our DD is in 6th grade and we feel just isn't getting what she needs. HS is something that's always been in the back of our heads and at the end of last year we were ready to HS our son. But in the end we thought spending at least another year in school would be good for him and that it's DD that's really struggling. So we talked all summer with her about it and she was pretty much on board but wanted to go to school the first week (for us it started September 7) She went the first day and that night declared she didn't want to go back. We were fine with that and had already decided that she would be home schooled starting on the 12th no matter what.

DP will be the main teacher but of course it will involve all of us. DD is less stressed already. We knew the mix of kids made life stressful as did she but none of us realized how bad it was until she stayed home that first day and it was like a cloud had lifted. We think she's beginning to realize that most of her friends aren't from school, that the stuff that gives her joy doesn't have to do with school and she'll have more time to enjoy those things.

Let the adventure begin!

 

[MWGreene]

I'm starting to dive into curriculum research. I want to have everything straight before I pull the kids from school. Any thoughts on Singapore math? It caught my eye because it seems to be more for visual learners. As a former public school teacher, I know how awful some math programs are. I want to find one that incorporates more critical thinking and higher order thinking skills. Any opinions?

 

[lovethattink]

I'm starting to dive into curriculum research. I want to have everything straight before I pull the kids from school. Any thoughts on Singapore math? It caught my eye because it seems to be more for visual learners. As a former public school teacher, I know how awful some math programs are. I want to find one that incorporates more critical thinking and higher order thinking skills. Any opinions?

What age and what kind of math are you looking at? I like Saxon. My son did that through Algebra 2 and geometry. He did teaching text books for pre-calculus and Switched-on for Trig. Teaching text books is not approved in all states, so if considering something like that you need to know your state's stance on that curriculum. Switched-on is self-taught for the upper level maths.

 

[MWGreene]

What age and what kind of math are you looking at? I like Saxon. My son did that through Algebra 2 and geometry. He did teaching text books for pre-calculus and Switched-on for Trig. Teaching text books is not approved in all states, so if considering something like that you need to know your state's stance on that curriculum. Switched-on is self-taught for the upper level maths.

My son is 6. I am a US citizen living temporarily living in Canada so my situation is a little different. I have been in touch with a homeschool group and also I have been reading over Ontario's homeschool education site to figure out what I need to do. Apparently, all I need to do is notify the school in writing each year that we will be homeschooling and that's about it!

 

[MWGreene]

Also, What is everyone's favorite homeschool site/forum? I'm looking for a site where I can find different resources that isn't backed by a curriculum publisher.

 

[dis-happy]

I'm starting to dive into curriculum research. I want to have everything straight before I pull the kids from school. Any thoughts on Singapore math? It caught my eye because it seems to be more for visual learners. As a former public school teacher, I know how awful some math programs are. I want to find one that incorporates more critical thinking and higher order thinking skills. Any opinions?

Singapore math tends to be a more advanced math program. It's a good one if your child is good at math in general. The kids I know who are math genius level (truly) have used Singapore Math.

Saxon is good for students who need repitition. I like it (and use it) because my child really learns his math facts. It encompasses different forms of learning (visual, auditory, some hands-on in the elementary years, mental math).

Math-U-See is very hands on and also has a good following among homeschoolers.

Another well liked option for early elementary is Horizons Math. It's more colorful than Saxon.

For upper level math you can incorporate DVD lessons. For Saxon there are the DIVE cd's as well as (new) Saxon's version. We also used Teaching Textbooks for Geometry. My ds is currently doing calculus at community college via dual enrollment (high school credit and college credit at once) and has a 98 average. Other than the one year of TT he used Saxon.