Are you watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on TV tonight? We will be! And we will be cheering for #11 Evan O'Dorney, an awesome kid from our old homeschool group. (We met him at a homeschool bee before we moved.)
Evan is a great kid, and we are really hoping he'll win this year, his third time to the bee. You can read about him here and here. And see an audio slideshow of him and his piano here. (He's multi-talented, for sure!) He was also featured in the extras on the Akeelah and the Bee DVD.
Go Evan!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Year in Review: Languages
K's 2 day school did not cover any languages this year. They were supposed to have Latin, but decided to begin Latin in 4th grade instead of 3rd this year. K was heartbroken when she heard! She had really been looking forward to Latin class.
Before the school started, we did some fun Latin with Minimus. This is a really fun kid-friendly program. It incorporates Ancient Roman culture into the language lessons and really brings the whole thing to life. I recently ordered the new Minimus minibooks to review and K has really enjoyed deciphering the stories. They are very cute little readers - K's favorite story involved the cat taking a nap in a catapult and then flying through the air and scaring the birds! We read this weeks ago, and still if I say "Vibrissa volat!" K cracks up :-)
K also learned some Latin here and there at school. For example, she learned the Lord's Prayer in Latin. And she has sung some Latin hymns with the choir.
K also attended a Japanese school once a week this year. It was fabulous for cultural learning, but a bit light on actual language study. They spent most of the year learning Hiragana, one of the 3 written alphabets in Japanese. They also learned some common phrases, colors, foods, family members, etc. K liked it all at first, but it got boring after a few months. I really think it was just the pacing. About once a month, there was a fantastic cultural activity, though, like mamemaki or mochitsuki. I think the class was worth it just for those days. K, however, is not interested in returning next year. The class pace is too slow, the cultural activities are the same each year, AND the classes often conflict with ice skating competitions and shows.
However, K does want to continue learning both Latin and Japanese next year. This year she took a Japanese class and I did a little Latin at home. Next year we will do the reverse. She will take a Latin class at school, and I will do Japanese at home, probably with Rosetta Stone. We are lucky to have access to a public library that offers all 30 languages of Rosetta Stone online for free! Rosetta Stone gets rave reviews, but I'm not really a big fan of using it with children, especially at the regular price. But for free, it will be fine! ;-)
Before the school started, we did some fun Latin with Minimus. This is a really fun kid-friendly program. It incorporates Ancient Roman culture into the language lessons and really brings the whole thing to life. I recently ordered the new Minimus minibooks to review and K has really enjoyed deciphering the stories. They are very cute little readers - K's favorite story involved the cat taking a nap in a catapult and then flying through the air and scaring the birds! We read this weeks ago, and still if I say "Vibrissa volat!" K cracks up :-)
K also learned some Latin here and there at school. For example, she learned the Lord's Prayer in Latin. And she has sung some Latin hymns with the choir.
K also attended a Japanese school once a week this year. It was fabulous for cultural learning, but a bit light on actual language study. They spent most of the year learning Hiragana, one of the 3 written alphabets in Japanese. They also learned some common phrases, colors, foods, family members, etc. K liked it all at first, but it got boring after a few months. I really think it was just the pacing. About once a month, there was a fantastic cultural activity, though, like mamemaki or mochitsuki. I think the class was worth it just for those days. K, however, is not interested in returning next year. The class pace is too slow, the cultural activities are the same each year, AND the classes often conflict with ice skating competitions and shows.
However, K does want to continue learning both Latin and Japanese next year. This year she took a Japanese class and I did a little Latin at home. Next year we will do the reverse. She will take a Latin class at school, and I will do Japanese at home, probably with Rosetta Stone. We are lucky to have access to a public library that offers all 30 languages of Rosetta Stone online for free! Rosetta Stone gets rave reviews, but I'm not really a big fan of using it with children, especially at the regular price. But for free, it will be fine! ;-)
Monday, May 28, 2007
Year in Review: Language Arts
Language Arts was K's favorite class this year. Her teacher was absolutely fantastic and made everything fun, plus there was a lot of reading :-)
The core workbooks were: Abeka Language 3, Just Write 2, and Reading-Thinking Skills C and D.
Abeka was fine - it's a thorough course in grammar and writing conventions with a lot of opportunities for practice. It is tiresome if you do every exercise, though. And of course, it has decidedly Christian content.
The Just Write series is really good - I would really recommend all the books in that series. Book 2 goes through the writing process step by step. There are pages for brainstorming, adding descriptive phrases, writing dialog, forming coherent paragraphs, etc. I think it is really useful and plan to complete what's left of the book this summer. The teacher supplemented the writing instruction in this book with techniques from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I think that is probably the best writing program out there, but it takes some time to train yourself to use it.
The Reading-Thinking Skills books were also great. They cover things like vocabulary, analogies, inference, transition words, etc. They are fun little exercises, and the readings were on interesting topics. K's favorite was a story about a message in a bottle that had to be put into a logical order. The analogies helped K get ready to take the SCAT for the CTY Talent Search :-)
They covered a lot of literature in this class, also. I put all the books on our Amazon page. K liked all of the selections. They began the year with Aesop's Fables and traditional Fairy Tales, and did fun activities out of the Evan-Moor literature pockets for each. (Love those Evan-Moor Pockets!!!)
The King's Equal was the first novel they covered. It is short and easy to read, but full of literary elements and quite a charming story. The teacher introduced literary analysis with this one, because it was fairly easy to spot. She used techniques from Teaching the Classics, another resource I like a lot. I've seen this guy at homeschool conventions and he is a great speaker - he always ends with a group analysis of a picture book. I saw him do A Bargain for Frances and was entranced.
Of all the books K read with the class this year, Mr. Popper's Penguins was her favorite. She would laugh out loud while reading, and often re-read chapters because they were too good to read only once :-)
K had already read Charlotte's Web, but didn't mind reading it again. We watched the new movie when it came out on DVD, too. K loved the movie, but I didn't think Julia Roberts made a very good Charlotte.
Homer Price was a fun book. It had some hilarious moments involving doughnuts, and K got a kick out of the old-fashioned slang.
Mariposa mentioned finding Rabbit Hill and noticed the interesting vocabulary. YES, it is full of unusual words- a great vocabulary builder, if it doesn't interfere with comprehension or enjoyment. K liked it, as she always loves stories with personified animals, and can read around most vocabulary. But one of her friends, N (also quite bright and an avid reader) just couldn't get through this book. N got stuck at every new word and couldn't get the main idea without looking up each word. She lost the flow of the story that way, and really didn't enjoy it at all. So I recommend that book with caution.
This teacher also read aloud in class each week. In the fall she read The Railway Children, and apparently she and all the children were crying at the end - they were really absorbed in the story! K is begging me to buy this book for her so she can have it forever. In the spring, they began Five Little Peppers. On the last day of school, she let the children choose what they would like to do, and they voted to hear as much of this book as possible in the 70 minute time slot! They still didn't finish, though, so K is again begging me to buy this one for her so she can finish and keep it forever :-)
Lastly, the kids read and sometimes memorized many great poems throughout the year, including:
Night and Day by Robert Louis Stevenson
Mr. Nobody, Author Unknown
Eletelephony by Laura Richards
Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field
Every Time I Climb a Tree by David McCord
Calendar by Sara Coleridge
Thanksgiving Day by L. Maria Child
The Land of Story-Books by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe
I'm not s huge fan of poetry, but I thought these were all lovely selections, and K had a lot of fun with them. Sometimes they invented hand movements to go with the verses and got really creative.
The core workbooks were: Abeka Language 3, Just Write 2, and Reading-Thinking Skills C and D.
Abeka was fine - it's a thorough course in grammar and writing conventions with a lot of opportunities for practice. It is tiresome if you do every exercise, though. And of course, it has decidedly Christian content.
The Just Write series is really good - I would really recommend all the books in that series. Book 2 goes through the writing process step by step. There are pages for brainstorming, adding descriptive phrases, writing dialog, forming coherent paragraphs, etc. I think it is really useful and plan to complete what's left of the book this summer. The teacher supplemented the writing instruction in this book with techniques from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I think that is probably the best writing program out there, but it takes some time to train yourself to use it.
The Reading-Thinking Skills books were also great. They cover things like vocabulary, analogies, inference, transition words, etc. They are fun little exercises, and the readings were on interesting topics. K's favorite was a story about a message in a bottle that had to be put into a logical order. The analogies helped K get ready to take the SCAT for the CTY Talent Search :-)
They covered a lot of literature in this class, also. I put all the books on our Amazon page. K liked all of the selections. They began the year with Aesop's Fables and traditional Fairy Tales, and did fun activities out of the Evan-Moor literature pockets for each. (Love those Evan-Moor Pockets!!!)
The King's Equal was the first novel they covered. It is short and easy to read, but full of literary elements and quite a charming story. The teacher introduced literary analysis with this one, because it was fairly easy to spot. She used techniques from Teaching the Classics, another resource I like a lot. I've seen this guy at homeschool conventions and he is a great speaker - he always ends with a group analysis of a picture book. I saw him do A Bargain for Frances and was entranced.
Of all the books K read with the class this year, Mr. Popper's Penguins was her favorite. She would laugh out loud while reading, and often re-read chapters because they were too good to read only once :-)
K had already read Charlotte's Web, but didn't mind reading it again. We watched the new movie when it came out on DVD, too. K loved the movie, but I didn't think Julia Roberts made a very good Charlotte.
Homer Price was a fun book. It had some hilarious moments involving doughnuts, and K got a kick out of the old-fashioned slang.
Mariposa mentioned finding Rabbit Hill and noticed the interesting vocabulary. YES, it is full of unusual words- a great vocabulary builder, if it doesn't interfere with comprehension or enjoyment. K liked it, as she always loves stories with personified animals, and can read around most vocabulary. But one of her friends, N (also quite bright and an avid reader) just couldn't get through this book. N got stuck at every new word and couldn't get the main idea without looking up each word. She lost the flow of the story that way, and really didn't enjoy it at all. So I recommend that book with caution.
This teacher also read aloud in class each week. In the fall she read The Railway Children, and apparently she and all the children were crying at the end - they were really absorbed in the story! K is begging me to buy this book for her so she can have it forever. In the spring, they began Five Little Peppers. On the last day of school, she let the children choose what they would like to do, and they voted to hear as much of this book as possible in the 70 minute time slot! They still didn't finish, though, so K is again begging me to buy this one for her so she can finish and keep it forever :-)
Lastly, the kids read and sometimes memorized many great poems throughout the year, including:
Night and Day by Robert Louis Stevenson
Mr. Nobody, Author Unknown
Eletelephony by Laura Richards
Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field
Every Time I Climb a Tree by David McCord
Calendar by Sara Coleridge
Thanksgiving Day by L. Maria Child
The Land of Story-Books by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe
I'm not s huge fan of poetry, but I thought these were all lovely selections, and K had a lot of fun with them. Sometimes they invented hand movements to go with the verses and got really creative.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
History Update - poems!
I found the book of poems about Rome! Apparently it is part of a series called Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times. Looking at Amazon, I see poetry books on Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Africa. Very cool!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Year in Review: Science
This will be a short review :-) Science didn't get nearly as much emphasis as other subjects this year!
The 2 day school uses Science 4 from Bob Jones. I hated everything about it. I won't even link to it. It refers to several prominent scientific theories as "myths" and says that scientists studying those theories are just making things up without evidence. AGGHHH!! We almost pulled K out of this class over that book. Aside from content, it is also poorly written, boring, and has few experiments or hands-on learning of any kind. It comes with worksheets that are boring and often confusing.
Thankfully, although the teacher was generally in agreement with the ideas in this book, she also thought it was very poorly done and supplemented a lot. She used some Evan Moor books during the space unit. (I love almost everything Evan Moor publishes!) And when they studied the human body, she used The Body Book to make life-size skeletons out of paper. That was a huge hit with all the kids.
Near the end of the year, the teacher started doing experiments almost every day. K's favorite was making ice cream :-) They also had the science fair in this class, and that was very valuable.
The 2 day school uses Science 4 from Bob Jones. I hated everything about it. I won't even link to it. It refers to several prominent scientific theories as "myths" and says that scientists studying those theories are just making things up without evidence. AGGHHH!! We almost pulled K out of this class over that book. Aside from content, it is also poorly written, boring, and has few experiments or hands-on learning of any kind. It comes with worksheets that are boring and often confusing.
Thankfully, although the teacher was generally in agreement with the ideas in this book, she also thought it was very poorly done and supplemented a lot. She used some Evan Moor books during the space unit. (I love almost everything Evan Moor publishes!) And when they studied the human body, she used The Body Book to make life-size skeletons out of paper. That was a huge hit with all the kids.
Near the end of the year, the teacher started doing experiments almost every day. K's favorite was making ice cream :-) They also had the science fair in this class, and that was very valuable.
Year in Review: History
The core textbook for the ancient history class at the 2 day school was A Child's History of the World. It's OK, but I prefer Story of the World, so we often listened to the stories on CD that corresponded to the chapters in A Child's History of the World. Next year, they are considering switching to Story of the World for the Middle Ages. I hope they do! However, the one thing I really liked about A Child's History of the World is that outline pages were included for each chapter. It seems like busy seatwork, but I liked that K was learning to glean information from a textbook and see things in outline form. I think that is a useful study skill.
The history course also relies heavily on the history cards and songs from Veritas Press. I LOVE these! The songs are very cute and easy to memorize. In fact, the class sang the Greece/Rome song for open house. Here's a video. The cards are beautiful with some kind of art depicting ancient life on the front, and an explanation of that point in history on the back. These are from a Christian publisher, so the history is told from a Protestant viewpoint, but as long as you are aware of that potential bias going in, I think they are fine. The kids really enjoyed them, and have a good sense of the time and order of ancient events now.
They did lots of creative things with history too, like activities from Evan-Moor's History Pockets. I think these are fantastic. We did the Egypt pockets last year, too. The only bummer is that they don't make a set for Rome! I've emailed Evan-Moor and they say that they have no plans to publish one, either. Why not???? Grrr.... However, I found this free ebook on Wowio that has lots of neat activities. Actually, this is one in a series on Wowio - they also have Da Vinci inventions, Native American activities, etc. And they are all free ebooks! Wowio has some classic literature, and comics/manga, too. (Hey, if I sign up 10 friends, I get a free ipod shuffle! I'll be sending you invitations!) During the Rome unit, the kids also learned some great poems from Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times. Here is a video of K reciting her poem, The Roman Army, at the open house.
They covered some geography and map skills in this class as well. They used Maps, Charts, and Graphs, level B, a workbook to cover basic map skills. It was too simplistic - K learned as much about maps from navigating around the zoo. K still thought it was fun, though. More useful were these Geography Songs by Audio Memory. Early in the year, when they did a review of Mesopotamia, and an introduction to Greece and Rome, the kids memorized all the modern countries in the Middle East this way. K can still name almost every country in the Middle East on a blank map! The best thing about these songs, is that the tunes match the area, so the Middle East song has a Middle Eastern-sounding tune, the British Isles song sounds regal, etc. The kids also memorized several parts of modern Europe (when covering the Roman Empire) and all 50 U.S. States. With these songs, it was fun!
Speaking of the United States... they wanted to cover some U.S. History, but it didn't combine well with Ancient Greece and Rome :-) The solution to this was to have some side reading on early American history: The Courage of Sarah Noble, Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Stories of the Pilgrims, and Boys and Girls of Colonial Days. The only one of these that K really loved was Squanto. I think that is funny, because I remember reading that one in elementary school and loving it, too! K enjoyed the others, but didn't rave about them. The only one she really disliked was Stories of the Pilgrims. She actually didn't even finish that one, which is pretty rare for K.
K really loves history, so I was always looking for additional books for her. We stumbled across one series that K completely loved! It's called the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence. She is an American now living in Britain and she publishes everything there first, so we haven't been able to get the whole series yet. They are even making a TV show for the BBC! I wonder if we will ever be able to get that here. Hopefully we will at least get DVDs eventually. Anyway, I haven't read these, but K recommends them wholeheartedly!
We also ordered a bunch of Horrible Histories and K has read and loved these: Groovy Greeks, Rotten Romans, Vicious Vikings, Measly Middle Ages, and Julius Caesar and his Foul Friends.
The history course also relies heavily on the history cards and songs from Veritas Press. I LOVE these! The songs are very cute and easy to memorize. In fact, the class sang the Greece/Rome song for open house. Here's a video. The cards are beautiful with some kind of art depicting ancient life on the front, and an explanation of that point in history on the back. These are from a Christian publisher, so the history is told from a Protestant viewpoint, but as long as you are aware of that potential bias going in, I think they are fine. The kids really enjoyed them, and have a good sense of the time and order of ancient events now.
They did lots of creative things with history too, like activities from Evan-Moor's History Pockets. I think these are fantastic. We did the Egypt pockets last year, too. The only bummer is that they don't make a set for Rome! I've emailed Evan-Moor and they say that they have no plans to publish one, either. Why not???? Grrr.... However, I found this free ebook on Wowio that has lots of neat activities. Actually, this is one in a series on Wowio - they also have Da Vinci inventions, Native American activities, etc. And they are all free ebooks! Wowio has some classic literature, and comics/manga, too. (Hey, if I sign up 10 friends, I get a free ipod shuffle! I'll be sending you invitations!) During the Rome unit, the kids also learned some great poems from Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times. Here is a video of K reciting her poem, The Roman Army, at the open house.
They covered some geography and map skills in this class as well. They used Maps, Charts, and Graphs, level B, a workbook to cover basic map skills. It was too simplistic - K learned as much about maps from navigating around the zoo. K still thought it was fun, though. More useful were these Geography Songs by Audio Memory. Early in the year, when they did a review of Mesopotamia, and an introduction to Greece and Rome, the kids memorized all the modern countries in the Middle East this way. K can still name almost every country in the Middle East on a blank map! The best thing about these songs, is that the tunes match the area, so the Middle East song has a Middle Eastern-sounding tune, the British Isles song sounds regal, etc. The kids also memorized several parts of modern Europe (when covering the Roman Empire) and all 50 U.S. States. With these songs, it was fun!
Speaking of the United States... they wanted to cover some U.S. History, but it didn't combine well with Ancient Greece and Rome :-) The solution to this was to have some side reading on early American history: The Courage of Sarah Noble, Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Stories of the Pilgrims, and Boys and Girls of Colonial Days. The only one of these that K really loved was Squanto. I think that is funny, because I remember reading that one in elementary school and loving it, too! K enjoyed the others, but didn't rave about them. The only one she really disliked was Stories of the Pilgrims. She actually didn't even finish that one, which is pretty rare for K.
K really loves history, so I was always looking for additional books for her. We stumbled across one series that K completely loved! It's called the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence. She is an American now living in Britain and she publishes everything there first, so we haven't been able to get the whole series yet. They are even making a TV show for the BBC! I wonder if we will ever be able to get that here. Hopefully we will at least get DVDs eventually. Anyway, I haven't read these, but K recommends them wholeheartedly!
We also ordered a bunch of Horrible Histories and K has read and loved these: Groovy Greeks, Rotten Romans, Vicious Vikings, Measly Middle Ages, and Julius Caesar and his Foul Friends.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Year in Review: Spelling
Spelling and Penmanship is a single class at K's 2 day school. This was a difficult placement because it combined K's greatest strength with her greatest weakness. At the placement test, K was really between 3rd and 4th, but since she had never done the spelling program and didn't know cursive yet, we decided 3rd was safe. Mid-year, K asked to be moved up to 4th, and they let her. She was much happier there.
Anyway, the whole 1st-5th grade spelling program is built around Spell to Write and Read. I think it is a great program, but it is VERY complicated. If the teachers weren't doing the bulk of the instruction on the two school days, I probably wouldn't bother, since K has great spelling intuition. But if your child needs serious spelling instruction, this program is VERY thorough and based on rules and logic.
On the two school days, the teachers would explain spelling rules, then dictate spelling words (15-20 each day) to the kids, who would then take turns spelling the words and explaining which rules applied. The kids wrote the words in a special notebook and marked them with symbols to remember how the rules work. On homeschool days, we memorized rules with flashcards, practiced spelling the words, and did enrichment activities, like finding the Latin roots of words, or looking for synonyms, etc.
We went along with the homeschool plan for the first few months, but the flashcards got old, and K seemed to be able to spell all the words just fine without knowing each rule by heart, so we dropped that. The spelling practice was supposed to be done in writing, but that was tiresome with all the other handwriting K had to do. So we subscribed to espindle.org and I added K's assigned words to that so she could practice by typing. Espindle.org was really great. It's pretty cheap, and it remembers which words are missed and adds those back to your practice each session until you get them right 3 times in a row. I also like that it has pre-programmed words and it would automatically give those to K if she ran out of manually added words. It also shows a definition and a sentence for each word, so you can improve your vocabulary at the same time!
Next year, we will drop spelling at the 2 day school. K has completed 4th grade, and got the highest score on the final test. She actually got a score equivalent to the end of 5th grade, and nearly the end of the program. So there isn't much point in a spelling class next year. There is some talk of having a spelling bee prep class, for kids who have passed out of the program, but that means studying words for which K has no practical use, and I think she is too young to start doing something like that. If she wants to do spelling bees in a couple of years, we can reconsider.
So, we will just do espindle.org practice a couple of times a week with their preloaded lists. She likes spelling, and the typing practice is good, too :-)
Anyway, the whole 1st-5th grade spelling program is built around Spell to Write and Read. I think it is a great program, but it is VERY complicated. If the teachers weren't doing the bulk of the instruction on the two school days, I probably wouldn't bother, since K has great spelling intuition. But if your child needs serious spelling instruction, this program is VERY thorough and based on rules and logic.
On the two school days, the teachers would explain spelling rules, then dictate spelling words (15-20 each day) to the kids, who would then take turns spelling the words and explaining which rules applied. The kids wrote the words in a special notebook and marked them with symbols to remember how the rules work. On homeschool days, we memorized rules with flashcards, practiced spelling the words, and did enrichment activities, like finding the Latin roots of words, or looking for synonyms, etc.
We went along with the homeschool plan for the first few months, but the flashcards got old, and K seemed to be able to spell all the words just fine without knowing each rule by heart, so we dropped that. The spelling practice was supposed to be done in writing, but that was tiresome with all the other handwriting K had to do. So we subscribed to espindle.org and I added K's assigned words to that so she could practice by typing. Espindle.org was really great. It's pretty cheap, and it remembers which words are missed and adds those back to your practice each session until you get them right 3 times in a row. I also like that it has pre-programmed words and it would automatically give those to K if she ran out of manually added words. It also shows a definition and a sentence for each word, so you can improve your vocabulary at the same time!
Next year, we will drop spelling at the 2 day school. K has completed 4th grade, and got the highest score on the final test. She actually got a score equivalent to the end of 5th grade, and nearly the end of the program. So there isn't much point in a spelling class next year. There is some talk of having a spelling bee prep class, for kids who have passed out of the program, but that means studying words for which K has no practical use, and I think she is too young to start doing something like that. If she wants to do spelling bees in a couple of years, we can reconsider.
So, we will just do espindle.org practice a couple of times a week with their preloaded lists. She likes spelling, and the typing practice is good, too :-)
Year in Review: Math
Today is K's last day of "school" so I thought I'd start posting my thoughts on the curriculum we've used this year. I'll start with math, since that has been on my mind a lot lately.
The 2 day school uses Developmental Math levels 8, 9, and 10, Saxon 3 worksheets, and Calculadder drills. On our own, we've done EPGY on and off (grades K-3 complete, and a bit of 4) and tried a month of Aleks. A bit hodgepodge, huh?
I have mixed feelings about Developmental Math. It's good, in that it breaks everything down into very manageable pieces, includes pictures of dots or other manipulatives, and presents each concept in multiple ways so that it makes sense eventually. However, it can be VERY repetitive once the child gets the concept. Of course, if we were homeschooling alone, I could just skip over sections once K got the concept, but with the 2 day school, we couldn't do that. Also, the lines for writing answers are WAY too tiny. The school doesn't use this series for 4th grade, and I probably won't return to it, although I did get the level 11 book for K to have some summer practice with multiplication and division with more digits.
I really liked the Saxon 3 worksheets. These were used for daily review and some drill on facts. I liked the review pages because there was just a sprinkling of various types of questions on each page. It kept the knowledge fresh and didn't get too redundant. I also liked that each page was two sided, so that if everything made sense on one side, we were done, but if something was confusing, there was a second side with a similar problem for extra practice. The drill sheets in here were good too. They had either 25 or 100 problems, of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Usually they focused on just a couple of fact families at a time. I timed K on these pages to see if she could beat her own previous times, and that was motivating to her without being too stressful (most days!) K's speed and memorization of facts improved dramatically this way.
I cannot tell you how much I hate the Calculadder drills. Horrible! They are drill sheets just like those in Saxon, except that you have two minutes to complete all the problems on a page correctly. So instead of beating yourself, you are trying to beat the clock. This caused ridiculous stress and heartache for K :-( The sheets come in levels and once you complete a level perfectly in the alotted time, you get the next level up, with either more or harder problems. K passed 2 levels in addition and 1 and subtraction. She passed those in the first couple of months of school and has been stuck on the same levels ever since, while most other kids have moved through 5-10 levels this year. These were done only at school - I would have thrown them away if they had been sent home! I see how quickly K can work on the Saxon drills, so I don't believe she is even trying with these Calculadders anymore. I think she gave up. This has been somewhat damaging to K's view of her math abilities.
We started EPGY math partly in response to K's lowered math self-esteem. We started with the lowest K/1 level to make sure it was enjoyable and easy, and to start from square one with all the set terminology. It's a fantastic program, IMO. Well worth the money. K learned a ton about sets, geometry, probability, and more. We stopped when she got into the 4th grade material and our subscription expired... partly because K was getting tired of it, and partly because I wasn't sure she was ready for all the 4th grade topics yet. I thought maybe the 4th grade topics would come a little more easily if we took a break and reviewed for a few months. We can't afford to keep EPGY year-round anyway, so it will have to be an off and on thing.
We did a month free trial of Aleks.com a couple of months ago. K LOVED it. I don't think it is as solid as EPGY, but K preferred the setup, and it is significantly cheaper. K liked that she could control the topics she studied. In EPGY, you just get topics in a rotation and you cannot choose what to do first. In Aleks, you can choose, although there are some limitations so that you don't do ALL of the geometry problems and nothing else ;-) K also liked that this little moose in the corner says how many problems you must get correct before you can mark that topic complete and move on. EPGY keeps that a mystery. I guess you could say that K really likes to keep control of her learning and know what is coming next!
For next year, I think we will do math independently and not follow the school's curriculum. Speed drills become even more prominent in 4th grade, and I don't think K's ego can take it. I think we will alternate Aleks and EPGY on the computer, and do some written work from Singapore. I already have a book of Singapore word problems for the summer.
The 2 day school uses Developmental Math levels 8, 9, and 10, Saxon 3 worksheets, and Calculadder drills. On our own, we've done EPGY on and off (grades K-3 complete, and a bit of 4) and tried a month of Aleks. A bit hodgepodge, huh?
I have mixed feelings about Developmental Math. It's good, in that it breaks everything down into very manageable pieces, includes pictures of dots or other manipulatives, and presents each concept in multiple ways so that it makes sense eventually. However, it can be VERY repetitive once the child gets the concept. Of course, if we were homeschooling alone, I could just skip over sections once K got the concept, but with the 2 day school, we couldn't do that. Also, the lines for writing answers are WAY too tiny. The school doesn't use this series for 4th grade, and I probably won't return to it, although I did get the level 11 book for K to have some summer practice with multiplication and division with more digits.
I really liked the Saxon 3 worksheets. These were used for daily review and some drill on facts. I liked the review pages because there was just a sprinkling of various types of questions on each page. It kept the knowledge fresh and didn't get too redundant. I also liked that each page was two sided, so that if everything made sense on one side, we were done, but if something was confusing, there was a second side with a similar problem for extra practice. The drill sheets in here were good too. They had either 25 or 100 problems, of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Usually they focused on just a couple of fact families at a time. I timed K on these pages to see if she could beat her own previous times, and that was motivating to her without being too stressful (most days!) K's speed and memorization of facts improved dramatically this way.
I cannot tell you how much I hate the Calculadder drills. Horrible! They are drill sheets just like those in Saxon, except that you have two minutes to complete all the problems on a page correctly. So instead of beating yourself, you are trying to beat the clock. This caused ridiculous stress and heartache for K :-( The sheets come in levels and once you complete a level perfectly in the alotted time, you get the next level up, with either more or harder problems. K passed 2 levels in addition and 1 and subtraction. She passed those in the first couple of months of school and has been stuck on the same levels ever since, while most other kids have moved through 5-10 levels this year. These were done only at school - I would have thrown them away if they had been sent home! I see how quickly K can work on the Saxon drills, so I don't believe she is even trying with these Calculadders anymore. I think she gave up. This has been somewhat damaging to K's view of her math abilities.
We started EPGY math partly in response to K's lowered math self-esteem. We started with the lowest K/1 level to make sure it was enjoyable and easy, and to start from square one with all the set terminology. It's a fantastic program, IMO. Well worth the money. K learned a ton about sets, geometry, probability, and more. We stopped when she got into the 4th grade material and our subscription expired... partly because K was getting tired of it, and partly because I wasn't sure she was ready for all the 4th grade topics yet. I thought maybe the 4th grade topics would come a little more easily if we took a break and reviewed for a few months. We can't afford to keep EPGY year-round anyway, so it will have to be an off and on thing.
We did a month free trial of Aleks.com a couple of months ago. K LOVED it. I don't think it is as solid as EPGY, but K preferred the setup, and it is significantly cheaper. K liked that she could control the topics she studied. In EPGY, you just get topics in a rotation and you cannot choose what to do first. In Aleks, you can choose, although there are some limitations so that you don't do ALL of the geometry problems and nothing else ;-) K also liked that this little moose in the corner says how many problems you must get correct before you can mark that topic complete and move on. EPGY keeps that a mystery. I guess you could say that K really likes to keep control of her learning and know what is coming next!
For next year, I think we will do math independently and not follow the school's curriculum. Speed drills become even more prominent in 4th grade, and I don't think K's ego can take it. I think we will alternate Aleks and EPGY on the computer, and do some written work from Singapore. I already have a book of Singapore word problems for the summer.
A better homeschool/school combination
After a lot of thought and discussion, I think we have a new plan for school next year. .. and it doesn't involve full-time school :-)
This year was both too much and not enough school at the same time. The two day school has very long days and lots of written work assigned for the off days. However, the environment AT school was truly fantastic for K. She wished to go there every day and enjoy her friends, teachers, and school atmosphere. She really blossomed there this year.
I decided that a regular 5 day school would not meet K's needs. She would not likely be as accelerated as she is here. Even if she were accelerated the 2-3 years she needs, the social environment might be difficult 5 days a week in a larger school. We can only do a radical acceleration like this in a school where multi-age groupings are normal, character and morality are highly emphasized, and much written work is done at home where she can take her time writing, or even typing.
So we have a new plan. K is not going to take a full load of classes at the 2 day school. She can go in at 10:10 (instead of 7:30!) and skip math, spelling and PE. She will just take Language Arts, History, Science, Latin, and Choir at school, and I will provide math and spelling at home (likely with espindle.org and either EPGY or Aleks Math). Then, one day a week, K will join another little school for homeschoolers that provides only enrichment courses. There she will take Shakespeare, Art, Cooking, Tae Kwon Do, and Musical Theater. These classes don't have any homework aside from some reading, so it won't add to our homeschool workload.
K is really excited about this plan. It gives her more school days with more fun classes, but I take back control of a couple of core subjects and I can provide those with less intensive writing. I hope it works!
This year was both too much and not enough school at the same time. The two day school has very long days and lots of written work assigned for the off days. However, the environment AT school was truly fantastic for K. She wished to go there every day and enjoy her friends, teachers, and school atmosphere. She really blossomed there this year.
I decided that a regular 5 day school would not meet K's needs. She would not likely be as accelerated as she is here. Even if she were accelerated the 2-3 years she needs, the social environment might be difficult 5 days a week in a larger school. We can only do a radical acceleration like this in a school where multi-age groupings are normal, character and morality are highly emphasized, and much written work is done at home where she can take her time writing, or even typing.
So we have a new plan. K is not going to take a full load of classes at the 2 day school. She can go in at 10:10 (instead of 7:30!) and skip math, spelling and PE. She will just take Language Arts, History, Science, Latin, and Choir at school, and I will provide math and spelling at home (likely with espindle.org and either EPGY or Aleks Math). Then, one day a week, K will join another little school for homeschoolers that provides only enrichment courses. There she will take Shakespeare, Art, Cooking, Tae Kwon Do, and Musical Theater. These classes don't have any homework aside from some reading, so it won't add to our homeschool workload.
K is really excited about this plan. It gives her more school days with more fun classes, but I take back control of a couple of core subjects and I can provide those with less intensive writing. I hope it works!
Friday, May 11, 2007
To school or not to school....
It's been a rough week for homeschooling here. K is fighting me more and more at home, yet she is extraordinarily happy at school on her two school days. On Wednesday I suggested that perhaps we should consider sending her to a regular full-time school, since she seems so much happier in a school situation. She cried. She said she wanted to homeschool, but she wished she could go to school 5 days a week. LOL I think the definition of homeschooling is lost on my daughter.
Anyway, I started asking around and looking at schools to see if there is something that might work for her. One of K's ice skating friends attends a reasonably priced private school, and her mom even teaches there, so I asked the mom all about it. It sounds pretty good! They are flexible on placement, and have an honors program even at the elementary level, which is an entirely separate class with different curriculum. I told K about it, and asked if she might like to try it. She said yes, and my heart sank. I really wanted her to say no, but I didn't know it until she said yes. Now I'm thinking up negatives about going to full-time school to convince K not to try it. How twisted is my mothering?
Work was crazy this week - it is the end of the semester! I had to make and give finals, then grade them. And now I must calculate grades by Monday afternoon. I was also in charge of launching and de-bugging our new website. Maybe this craziness has fueled my desire to put K in school. I don't know.
Any then my cat puked in my shoe. I'm so glad it's Friday.
Anyway, I started asking around and looking at schools to see if there is something that might work for her. One of K's ice skating friends attends a reasonably priced private school, and her mom even teaches there, so I asked the mom all about it. It sounds pretty good! They are flexible on placement, and have an honors program even at the elementary level, which is an entirely separate class with different curriculum. I told K about it, and asked if she might like to try it. She said yes, and my heart sank. I really wanted her to say no, but I didn't know it until she said yes. Now I'm thinking up negatives about going to full-time school to convince K not to try it. How twisted is my mothering?
Work was crazy this week - it is the end of the semester! I had to make and give finals, then grade them. And now I must calculate grades by Monday afternoon. I was also in charge of launching and de-bugging our new website. Maybe this craziness has fueled my desire to put K in school. I don't know.
Any then my cat puked in my shoe. I'm so glad it's Friday.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
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