*** Homeschool List ***

[campbellus]

I would be interested in joining the list. I am a public school teacher-5th grade mostly but can help with most upper elementary topics.
I would be willing to help with whatever and just see what is going on with homeschooling.
Amy Campbell

 

[disneymom3]

Hey guys--here is my update.

I talked to my sis who I should have talked to long ago as she is a teacher, a former homeschooling mom and has almost completed a master's in gifted education. Little embarrassed to admit that I didn't talk to her before.....All I can say is I am the youngest of 8 and well, if you've been there, you don't need any further explanation.

Anyway, she suggests giving it another week and if there is no improvement pulling her out. If there is minor improvement, then reevaluating in like three weeks and seeing what we think. That was a lot less time than I had been figuring. DD in the meantime keeps saying, "When I get to be done going there, then....." or "I really want to be done by mid October because then I can go to the co-op Halloween party." I re-explained tonight that the point of going longer was to give it an honest chance to see if it was going to work out, not just put in time until we were done. I am not sure she gets that idea and am not sure what the point of this trial period is. Do I honestly WANT this to work? Well, no, I don't. I LIKE homeschooling!

So, the confusion reigns.....She is spending the weekend with her grandparents this weekend and DH and I have talked about that we are not taking her out before then or even telling her if we decide she is not going back next week. Don't want to deal with MIL. Which does tell me that a big part of why she is still there is so I don't feel foolish.

The good thing is, I am using this time to get organized and really set some new goals and routines for how I want to do this whole thing.

 

[thinkpinktink]

I was in the same situation when my DS was in 6th grade. He is now in 9th. I thought he needed to go to ps because he might grow up and resent the fact of HSing. I pushed him into school, orginally I wanted him to go till Christmas break to see if he liked it and get adjusted to it. He refused to even listen so eventually we went to school and talked with the teachers of his grade level. They said a couple of weeks to a month would be long enough to see. He agreed to go for 2 weeks to see what the other kids did all day. His only reason for going to ps was curiosity. He was not impressed with the academics either but he did love being around his friends. In the end he stayed 3 weeks (we talked him into one more week) and we pulled him out. His teachers told us we were doing the best thing for him because he was bored in school and he was social enough that that was not an issue. We live in a rural area of only 3500 people. He thought about going back to school for High School but in the end changed his mind because he wants a great education. He is in several extra curricular activities and excels in school. Good luck with your decision. I know God has a different path for all of us and we need to stay in His will not that of other people.

 

[meandtheguys2]

Apology for change of subject...Julie you and your daughter continue in my prayers!


But...was wondering how many use Winston Grammar? OMgoodness! My boys love doing sentences with those silly cards! We pulled it out a couple of days ago and all three (6,8, and 11) have picked right up on the concepts!

 

[studentmom]

I just wanted to give you my 2cents. I have been homeschooling DD for three years and DS1 is now K age. For first grade for DD I bought nothing formal, just put together stuff that worked and used the internet a lot. 2nd grade I got a little more formal. 3rd grade, I had a math and spelling curriculum and used Story of the World for history and then we just explored topics we were interested in. This year we were headed into fourth (see my post above) and I got a formal full curriculum for her and DS in K. I have just about totally scrapped the curriculum for DS. We just do fun activities for learning letters and I really concentrate on the toys we have being focused on learning. It is going well and thankfully I bought my kind. curr. used so I didn't spend a fortune. So, don't stress too much about having to choose a curriculum. For all my years of just playing it by ear, DD is way ahead of her class in all subject areas. Half the time she didn't even know she was learnign. I'll expand on this more later because right now I have to get DD from school. Yippee.

Thank you, disneymom3! That was so helpful and encouraging I guess the reason I thought I would need a curriculum was to make sure I'm teaching her everything she needed by the time she finished Kind. I liked what I saw in Sonlight, but then I saw the price! So I'm looking at different options.

 

[disneymom3]

Apology for change of subject...Julie you and your daughter continue in my prayers!


But...was wondering how many use Winston Grammar? OMgoodness! My boys love doing sentences with those silly cards! We pulled it out a couple of days ago and all three (6,8, and 11) have picked right up on the concepts!

Please feel free to change the subject!!

I am not familiar with this grammar program--tell us more. Sounds fun and anything that can make grammar fun impresses the heck out of me!

 

[meandtheguys2]

Please feel free to change the subject!!

I am not familiar with this grammar program--tell us more. Sounds fun and anything that can make grammar fun impresses the heck out of me!

It is wonderfully simple. The kit has cards for each part of speech, you are given a sentence and use the cards to "map" it out. I had heard about it from my SIL, and purchased it on a whim. Just brought it out, and was surprised at how much they learned painlessly!

They were making up goofy (OK, they are boys...all things turn goofy!) sentences, and seeing how many of the cards they could use.

Also has a workbook to go over the ways of disecting a sentence. I wish I had this when I was struggling with adverbs!

 

[meandtheguys2]

OK...so grammar is not a good topic...

Bumping for more interesting stuff!

 

[nuzmom]

Just back from WDW and can't get back into the swing of things. Does this happen to you?

We returned LATE Wednesday. Yesterday was spent unpacking, sorting laundry, getting groceries (we were gone 12 days and had NOTHING in the house!!!), and getting my son to an orthodontist appointment (what was I thinking making this for our first day back?), oh and a softball game last night.

Well, I thought, that's ok, another day off, no big deal. Well, it's one of those dark rainy days, and already 9:45 AM (the boys slept in until 9:00am) and we need a trip to the laundry mat. I DON'T want to take another day off (but it is Friday ).

Another bad part to this is that we took two days off before we left. Packing, laundry, taking the dog to the sitter, etc. That's taking off 2 days before vacation, 8 school days on vacation, and now 2 days after returning home.

Ok, I actually have a question: how much time do you count for you WDW vacation? Btw, in Pennsylvania we need to log 180 days of school. I did have my DS9 read about 1 hour of his co-op history class book, we spent an entire day at Kennedy Space Center, and we did the "behind the seeds tour" at Epcot (DS9 is taking botany). Of course, we did the Hall of Presidents, the American Adventure, Epcot "country" stuff, etc. I'm thinking I could give him credit for at least 2 days. What do you think?

Ok, I'm going to have him get back into it today. Atleast his core subjects. I hope I can talk my DS4 into taking the day off That will make it easier on me.

Well, thanks for any comments you have.

 

[meandtheguys2]

Much more interesting! We do hours in OH, which I think is easier!

Maybe you could do an hour count, divide by 5 (the charter school amt. of time, here) and that would give you the # of days. Not a perfect formula, but one that you might be able to justify. (Don't know the laws in PA!)

OT: We are staying in the BWV in January. Were they totally awesome? We leave in 4 months!

Good luck getting back "on task!"

 

[nuzmom]

We do hours for high schoolers and days for elementary. We're required to keep a "log", but it doesn't get submitted to the school or evaluator. I guess it's just back up in case your child falls behind. I really don't know why I'm worried about the days anyway. We started the first of August to get extra days in and we usually end up with almost 200 days by the end. I liked your idea of using hours and dividing by 5.

BWVs - WONDERFULL!!!! We're heading back to WDW in December and staying a Saratoga - I'm SO tempted to get on the wait list for BWVs instead. We're going with my mom and she wants to try our "home resort", but is somewhat open to me changing it. IMHO, the rooms were just "ok", but I'm comparing them to OKW, which we really liked. We had a one bedroom and an adjoining studio. Would have liked a true 2 bedroom instead. That may have been part of the issue with space? Anyway, we LOVED just walking most places - Epcot, MGM, and the "big" pool. Even when we drove to other parks, it was FAST - BWV really is in the middle of EVERYTHING. Oh, and don't even get me started with the boardwalk - it was a BLAST. My DS9 was picked for 3 different magic/juggling acts. The only mistake I made was buying some groceries. ONLY get SNACKS. There are so many choices for eating, who wants to eat in the room? Between BWVs, Y&Bclubs, and Epcot there are MANY dinning choices. Going into Epcot puts you in the world showcase - many restaurants to choose from. Oh, the boat into/from Epcot took the same amount of time as walking and was eaiser on the feet. But, we found that walking to MGM was the way to go. It's a quiet/relaxing walk and is much faster than the boats (they stop at Swan/Dolphin, and Y&BC, before BWV) and our villa was on the MGM side, so it was a quick walk through a side door. Enjoy!

 

[meandtheguys2]

I am so excited! We are staying 5 nights at BWV and 5 at OKW, so from your post, I will assume that all will be wonderful! Thank you!

 

[JMSMommy]

counting hours and days....our cover school requires 1 hour for Kindergarten, 2 hours for 1st grade and 3 hours for 2-12 grades for a "full day" of homeschooling (that's our state law I believe). So, DS6 is techinally in 1st grade, so I will average about 2 hours of "learning" every 2 days I figure in Disney. We have to log 180 days, and I've learned that February is my absolute WORST month to keep on track, so we school through summer so we can slack some in Feb.

Last year I ended up using all that "extra" time during the fall when Dh was sick, so I had to keep on doing lessons in February.

So, what I would do, is probably count 2 of the days of your vacation like you said, I'm sure you covered enough educational stuff there for the requirements for 2 days. Do you know how many "absent" days, or "teach planning" days you get per semester/year? Perhaps that could help some too.

BTW...on soapbox here...our homeschooling law is 180 days, private schools have to go 180 days, but PUBLIC schools only have to go 175 days. WHY?! Drives me crazy, I think all kids should have to go the same amount.

 

[TNKBELL]

Not to change the subject, but my good friend just let me borrow a great homeschool book! It's called Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss. It is well written and encouraging to moms. I'm excited to implement some of the ideas. One thing she states as important the notion of exposing the children to beautiful literature, art and music on a daily basis and reading to them often, in order to foster a love of reading before the child learns to read and continues after the child is reading. Also she doesn't do school in the traditional sense of the word but creates a learning environment for her children. An example is everyday they have a nature walk whether it is in the backyard or down the street and the children keep a nature journal in which they record in writing or by drawing pictures and note subtle changes in thier environment and they really try to focus on the details. She also uses lots of math manipulatives and encourages the kids to play and learn from those along with studying math facts and constantly repeating the concepts in every year of learning instead of dropping it once it's been studied. I think she has a great concept of education and it shows through the examples of work by her children throughout the book. I have been inspired and wanted to pass that on to all of you!! I'm sure I don't do her book justice as I have only read 1/3 of it!!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

TNKBELL--that sounds like a cross between Classical style and Montessori. Does she mention either of these as influences?

 

[TNKBELL]

TNKBELL--that sounds like a cross between Classical style and Montessori. Does she mention either of these as influences?

Lisa...Elizabeth Foss is a Catholic with 7 children and it is definately a classical approach, she does mention being influenced by Edith Stein and mostly Charlotte Mason and she does make references to Montessori teaching. I have only read a portion of the book, but I am already making some changes to my curriculum, I think the message I am receiving is that it's OK for kids to have fun and enjoy learning and that so much can be learned without being given a load of worksheets and seatwork,although some of this is necessary to learn to be disciplined, her idea is to make learning enjoyable so that the children remember and want to learn more. She also stressed the importance of not trying to teach absolutely everything but the things we do teach, to teach in depth. She said she spends about 15 minutes a subject doing worksheets or seatwork and the rest is a more hands on approach. She also refers to "living books" to bring science, history, art,ect.. to life in the child. I think the main thing I will be adding is more reading to my Dks, I used to do this more but have slacked off since they have been reading on thier own, I now realize how important being exposed to good literature is. She includes a list of resources and a book list. I can bring the book with me and let you take a look at it. See ya soon!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Thanks tnkbell! I may have to look her up.


On another tangent....looking for help--we have a trip to a firehouse in a couple of weeks....

please look at this thread and help me get creative:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=920070

Thanks!

 

[meandtheguys2]

So...is anyone else ready for an Oct. break? We started in August, and fall is so gung-ho, that we sometimes take a week break in October. It gets us ready for the push to Christmas.

 

[Lora]

So...is anyone else ready for an Oct. break? We started in August, and fall is so gung-ho, that we sometimes take a week break in October. It gets us ready for the push to Christmas.

We just had our break at WDW!!

We start in August as well and then take our vacation in Sept. or Oct. It works out well for us. You gotta love that flexibility.

 

[4girlsmom]

We're going to Hawaii the last week of Oct. Still having summer weather here in Calif. Hoping it'll be fall by the time we get back.

Been busy adjusting to our 1st year of homeschooling, so I haven't been on here much. Day by day we're figuring out what works for us. Just wanted to say how much our family LOVES HS. I wish we had our own board here already!