Homeschool Chat

[mommyof2princesses]

Has anyone used Before 5 in a row before, and what did you think? I want to do something with my daughter (turning 3) and I'm just not sure. We are finishing up with Hands on Homeschooling age 2, which we really loved. I'm just not sure if I want the age 3. I felt I had trouble staying on task with her activities while doing her older brothers lessons and dealing with a newborn. Also, any helpful hints on how to help her not get lost in the hubbub of daily homeschool life? I feel like she gets the short end of the stick sometimes because I'm either helping him with schoolwork, or taking care of the baby, or preparing meals/household chores! So advice on b4fiar and practical how to make this work is appreciated!!

I did 5 in a row with my dd when she was 3 1/2. She enjoyed it. We only used it for a fw weeks before moving on to Kind. work when she turned 4.

 

[anabelle]

How exciting ~ A new thread!

I have started planning for our next school year, and while trying to get an idea of what I am going to use with my oldest, I started considering the idea of switching to a new curriculum for him in math.

I am curious. What math curriculums do you use with your older children (6th grade and up)? My oldest DS12 will be going into the 7th grade, and we currently use Saxon. Most days I really like it, but then there are days when I think it is very boring. My son likes it fine I guess. He never complains about it, but I think he might enjoy a change for the next school year. I am interested in what others are using and how it compares with the style of Saxon.

Thanks so much for your thoughts!

We will be using teaching textbooks. My son seems to like it. It is a bit pricey. But they re-sell well on Ebay

 

[mykidsintow]

Ok, so I've just discovered lapbooking, and my son and daughter are LOVING IT ! But I'm very new at this so how do you go about making a lapbook for books you are reading? I'd love to incorporate lapbooking into our daily book time!

We have done quite a few lapbooks from here:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Lapbooks_at_HSS.php

We have done dolphins, manatee (on a trip to FL), Cinderella, bats, frogs, etc.

IF I luck out I use the book or a subject that fits. If not we wing it! I google the subject matter and click images. I find some reasonable images and print them, cut them out. We use a general vocabulary words pouch and make word cards. We use a mini flapbook with title, subject, main character, best part of the book, etc things on it that I write out. I try to find a coloring page for the front, but sometimes we have just written on the font and drawn a picture to go along with the book. I love it because it can be anything you want and you can be as creative scrapbooky or as straight forward as you want.

Sometimes on lapbook we have created for scratch if they are a bit "bland" we will glue some glitter or beads to spruce it up. My kids *love* it.

 

[disneymom3]

Again, NONE of that is "included" in the box. I have added it on, to have fun activities for my children. You can totally sit and read on days or weeks thats what you want to do.... just not very often with MY kids. The activities are there and suggested in the history, the lapooks are not hard to do, very simple and easy and it keeps busy hands while I am reading.
Good luck! If you would like more info please feel free to contact me!

Thank you! that was very very helpful! With that in mind I think MFW is probably the way for me to go but I know I'll probably want to add in more readers in which case I will just refer to what Sonlight suggests and get them from the library.

 

[Ellester]

Hey you two--you just totally contradicted each other here! This is not helping!

Well, we can't have it be too easy, can we? Like mykidsintow said, none of the crafty stuff is actually included in the Instructor's Guides. The Usbourne books have ideas in them, Living Long Ago did have a bunch. The Book of World History we're using now (Core 1+2) has a few, but not nearly as many. You would have to read ahead and plan some to do the activities. One reason I really like Sonlight is that you don't have to plan ahead, you can just open the IG and go. That works the best for us. If I have to get the things ready for an activity ahead of time we invariably get behind or off track and then I am not a happy mommy!

 

[Ellester]

Thank you! that was very very helpful! With that in mind I think MFW is probably the way for me to go but I know I'll probably want to add in more readers in which case I will just refer to what Sonlight suggests and get them from the library.

We must have been posting at the same time! I do have a friend that used MFW for a few years but then just had too much trouble getting the right books from the library. She would try to plan ahead and get the books held but they never seemed to have what she needed at the right time. She did really like MFW, it was just our mediocre library system here sabotaged her success with it.

 

[disneymom3]

We have done quite a few lapbooks from here:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Lapbooks_at_HSS.php

We have done dolphins, manatee (on a trip to FL), Cinderella, bats, frogs, etc.

May I ask where you got some of your resources for the bats lapbook? DSs are working on them right now. One of the boys is doing ants and we are finding a ton of resources, but the other is doing bats and I am having trouble finding things for him to work with. he is in K but is really beyond K and more like a first grader. We got a book off of Enchanted Learning which I read to him and then he answered the quiz at the end, we have a bat dot to dot and a page where we wrote "What do bats eat?" and he cut pictures out of magazines of all the different things bats eat. But now I am stuck. I have combed the web and am just not hitting on anything else and I would like to do a bit more. I am thinking maybe reading a book to him and having him draw a picture and dictate a summary to me would be good, but he is a "just the facts ma'am" kind of a kid and he wants it to be about real bats and not a story about bats.

I am thrilled to have stumbled upon this idea just recently. It really perked up our school for the end of the year. We were getting pretty darn bored there.

 

[disneymom3]

We must have been posting at the same time! I do have a friend that used MFW for a few years but then just had too much trouble getting the right books from the library. She would try to plan ahead and get the books held but they never seemed to have what she needed at the right time. She did really like MFW, it was just our mediocre library system here sabotaged her success with it.

Yeah, I am very blessed that we are able to access three library systems all within about a 15 minute drive from our home. Two of them are excellent, one is so-so but does have a lot of older books that are hard to find in more updated systems so it is handy for that. I know several people using MFW including my best friend and she hasn't mentioned having trouble with that. I know she uses a lot of them for her kids' silent reading time each day so hopefully that won't be a holdup.

 

[teacups]

Did anyone else request the free Earth Day Magic School Bus books?
Mine arrived today!

 

[PA Princess]

Thank you! that was very very helpful! With that in mind I think MFW is probably the way for me to go but I know I'll probably want to add in more readers in which case I will just refer to what Sonlight suggests and get them from the library.

I have done this also...the books from SL are very good (good quality and kids enjoy them). We have been doing ancient history the last two years (using a unit study called Learning Adventures) and adding in SL books. I was an English teacher before kids, so I am choosy when it comes to books.

Another curriculum I have been intrigued by is Winter's Promise. They are literature based like SL, but much more hands on. I am seriously considering this curriculum for us next year when we move to American history.

Happy hunting!

 

[PA Princess]

am curious. What math curriculums do you use with your older children (6th grade and up)? My oldest DS12 will be going into the 7th grade, and we currently use Saxon.

I have two boys finishing sixth grade math and 8th grade math (7th grade working a year ahead). They both are using ABeka math and they like it...course it is all they have ever used. I have contemplated switching, but they both prefer to stay with what they know.

 

[disneymom3]

I have done this also...the books from SL are very good (good quality and kids enjoy them). We have been doing ancient history the last two years (using a unit study called Learning Adventures) and adding in SL books. I was an English teacher before kids, so I am choosy when it comes to books.

Another curriculum I have been intrigued by is Winter's Promise. They are literature based like SL, but much more hands on. I am seriously considering this curriculum for us next year when we move to American history.

Happy hunting!

Overall I think WinterPromise has some awesome ideas BUT they are very expensive IMO.

Night all! Have a good homeschooling day tomorrow!

 

[DawnM]

My boys love lapbooking.

It really depends on what we are studying as to how to lapbook. I will pick those things I want them to really learn and concentrate on and they will make pop outs with drawings and writings.

For example:

We did a lapbook while studying Egypt. They folded an 8x11 paper into a triangle and made the front look like a pyramid, but when you opened it up, they had listed facts about pyramids inside.

They also made a mummy and then listed how to make a mummy under it.

Another section was the timeline, how they lived in that time period, etc....

Dawn

Ok, so I've just discovered lapbooking, and my son and daughter are LOVING IT ! But I'm very new at this so how do you go about making a lapbook for books you are reading? I'd love to incorporate lapbooking into our daily book time!

 

[Momvic5]

Don't feel guilty about not getting much school work done this week. We all have bad or busy weeks. This has been one for me too. You have done more school work this week than I have. I try not to worry when life gets crazy. The school work can always get caught up. Homeschooling is great because we get to take care of our family whenever we need to.

I hope you have a great time with your mom and grandmother. The birthday party will be fun, and taking the kids to Six Flags will be great. It sounds like you need to have this break not just to check on your mom, but also for the kids and you. Maybe after this break you will be recharged and ready to go full force with the school work.

By the way.... I posted on the thread you started about the rude comment made to you and your son and that whole situation. You were absolutely, positively okay in what you did. The terrible experience I posted about with my two DS was awful and very traumatizing. I can never change what happened to them. What if something worse happened to my boys, like they were actually taken. You know what... I would have never forgiven myself for letting them go to the bathroom by themselves. Please know you did what was right. We have to do what we think is best for our children, and you did just that.

So... go have a wonderful time. I hope you all have a really great time!!!

Thank you for being so kind. We had a very nice stay with my mom and grandmother, and though Fiesta Texas is definitely not WDW, we had a great time there too. We are home now and are tryng to focus back on school. Everything is beginning to wind down, and we can see an end in sight. We will be working on science and history through the summer, but that should be a piece of cake in comparison to everything else.

Thanks for your encouragement!

 

[emh1129]

We lost a baby due to miscarriage in Feb, in March the whole family came down with Influenza, and most recently, we are expecting baby #6 in November, this seems to be a healthy pregnancy, we had a sonogram last week and all is well!!

I'm sorry about your miscarriage, but wanted to congratulate you on your pregnancy! That's exciting news

 

[SavannahBetsy]

Hi everyone, My daughter is currently in PreK and I have to say I hate the school system here it has been terrible! I was wanting to look into homeschooling my daughter but I have no idea where to start or what to check out Im completly clueless, if anyone has any helpful sites/advice please pm me! thanks!

 

[PA Princess]

Overall I think WinterPromise has some awesome ideas BUT they are very expensive IMO.

Night all! Have a good homeschooling day tomorrow!

Ah, yes, there is the rub and why I am still only considering WP instead of actually purchasing at this point. But I do love the look of some of their books and activities.

 

[DisneyMaMato8]

My 15 yr old is really struggling in Indy public school. Too much drama and today she came upset because a teacher argured with her that there was no heaven and that she along with everyone else came from a monkey. She stated that he did not want to discuss his beliefs but that he was right and everyone else was wrong. A heated discussion with another student was there is only a hell and that is where everyone was going. She has had trouble with other students and threats. Is it too late to switch her to homeschooling now. She is failing most of her subjects (she has problems taking tests but does great with hands on projects). I want to move her from the public system but am not sure I can afford private schools and there is a waiting list for charter schools. I would like to hear from other parents who have switched their children to HS during their high school years.

 

[NHWX]

My ds14 came back to homeschooling after a semester at the public high school. We'd always intended them to go to that school but it just didn't work out.

My 15 yr old is really struggling in Indy public school. Too much drama and today she came upset because a teacher argured with her that there was no heaven and that she along with everyone else came from a monkey. She stated that he did not want to discuss his beliefs but that he was right and everyone else was wrong. A heated discussion with another student was there is only a hell and that is where everyone was going. She has had trouble with other students and threats. Is it too late to switch her to homeschooling now. She is failing most of her subjects (she has problems taking tests but does great with hands on projects). I want to move her from the public system but am not sure I can afford private schools and there is a waiting list for charter schools. I would like to hear from other parents who have switched their children to HS during their high school years.

The short answer is, no, it's not too late to switch.

I'm a planner by nature (works well with Disney trips!) so I felt that deciding at Christmas left me very little time to plan a second semester for him. We do have some bumps and getting used to things but he's not depressed, and he's not in that soul-sucking atmosphere. (Really an appropriate description. No respect for anyone, the language made a truck driver look polite, fights, drugs, way too much of the three B's showing, etc.)

We're using NARHS for tracking of courses and providing a transcript. A lot of people don't something like this and are content to create their own transcript. I still like the outside accountability idea and it helps motivate my son.

What sort of thing do you need to know? There are probably as many answers as there are people on this board!

NHWX

 

[DisneyMaMato8]

My ds14 came back to homeschooling after a semester at the public high school. We'd always intended them to go to that school but it just didn't work out.



The short answer is, no, it's not too late to switch.

I'm a planner by nature (works well with Disney trips!) so I felt that deciding at Christmas left me very little time to plan a second semester for him. We do have some bumps and getting used to things but he's not depressed, and he's not in that soul-sucking atmosphere. (Really an appropriate description. No respect for anyone, the language made a truck driver look polite, fights, drugs, way too much of the three B's showing, etc.)

We're using NARHS for tracking of courses and providing a transcript. A lot of people don't something like this and are content to create their own transcript. I still like the outside accountability idea and it helps motivate my son.

What sort of thing do you need to know? There are probably as many answers as there are people on this board!

NHWX

Where do I start. What are good sites to research to find out what is required and what are the best materials to teach from. Indy does have a virtual school here but I not even sure this would work. I teach adults so I know I can work with her but sometimes we do butt heads. I wonder where that stubbon streak comes from.