If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I have a child with special learning needs. Missa struggles with all her basic math facts, she can't get them memorized totally. She has some of them all in her long term memory, but it is a work in progress. I've slowed down her lessons in math for a few years now because of this fact, and have watched her get frustrated and want to give up over it many times. So I'm considering a new approach with her on this.
I'm thinking that this summer I'm going to take the remaining levels of Math-U-See that she has prior to algebra and teach her the concepts and practice her facts daily. I am going to start back at Beta with multi-digit addition and subtraction, despite her already doing that level, just as a refresher for her and move forward from there. She's really good at understanding concepts and how to do problems, the only thing that holds her back usually is the fact that she can't seem to get those facts memorized. I'm going to teach her to do the work on paper AND on a calculator both, using the manipulative blocks and any other materials (including flash cards for fact practice!) to reinforce the concepts. Then around September or October, depending on when we get finished with this step, I'm going to start pre-algebra with her.
I can already hear you asking why I would do such a thing. Well, there are many reasons for this. First off, Missa likes puzzles and is quite good at problems that involve solving for the unknown and other abstract concepts. She is really quick to pick up and solve problems like what you would find in algebra. Second, there is this awesome little device called a calculator that most people use (including professionals!) for basic math, even I use one quite frequently. They really do make it pointless to memorize the math facts if one's brain just isn't hardwired for that kind of stuff to happen easily. Third, I plan to continue working with her daily on basic math facts even as we move forward, in hopes that she will memorize all those facts eventually.
I've watched Missa grow a lot this last 5 years of learning, and she really is capable of higher math than we do because of her inability to memorize her facts. This is the best part of homeschooling her. I can take the time to work with her where she struggles but still not hold her back in the process. I've noticed that when we spend an extended period of time just working on basic math facts, she starts to get discouraged and shut down on me, calling herself stupid and insisting she'll never get it and then she starts throwing things and getting angry about it. However, if I work with her where she's struggling and add in new concepts at the same time, she seems to do much better and master both at a faster rate. I don't know why, but it is how she does things so I'm going to go with it.
The other kids will continue to move forward as they have been doing, as they are progressing nicely and don't need the additional help.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
homeschooling on a shoestring- the used curriculum sale
Yes, you read that correctly. I said USED CURRICULUM SALE. As a mom of 5, I don't always have the additional resources to purchase curriculum that we may want and/or need so I have to be resourceful. Granted, I know of many ways to obtain free materials online and I use this for the bulk of our education. However, sometimes you just can't beat a good old-fashioned book for teaching something efficiently. That is where a used curriculum sale comes in handy.
My local homeschool group had their sale this evening, and since it happened to also be payday I was able to go pick up a few things. I had in mind some very specific things I need for our lessons, in hopes that I'd be able to get some of it for less than the new price. I had $60 to spend, which is about the cost of a single textbook new on my list of wants for this fall. I was very careful and found a lot of great things, but in the end I managed to get most of what I really needed and a couple goodies for future use.
I got a book that lines up with our Middle Ages study in lessons for my oldest daughter to read bits of this year as appropriate. I figure that she and I can read a bit of the book at a time together and discuss it, and even if we decide to put it on the shelf for a couple more years it will get used. It was only $3 so I don't feel too put out from it. I have a feeling Missa will enjoy it, as she is really into all things related to history.
I went with the intention of hopefully finding a specific science book (Real Science 4 Kids level 1 Biology) but instead left with Apologia science (the 6th day of Creation one, animal science). I got it and another book that I can use to include my youngest girls in the lessons for $20 total. I'm happy with that, although it isn't what I planned to use for science.
There were a couple other little odds and ends I picked up as well, but I think my biggest score was all 3 volumes of the KONOS curriculum. These 3 books retail new for $110 each from the company, and I got the 3 books together used in pretty good shape (there are some penciled in notes and check marks and stuff like that, nothing a few minutes with an eraser can't fix) for a grand total of $20. Yes, I managed to get over $300 of curriculum for $20. I have a general plan already for this fall, using Story Of The World for history, but I am looking forward to using the KONOS books to keep going with lessons when we are starting to lose steam and hit burnout from going too long on our regularly scheduled lessons. It will provide a wonderful change of pace for us in that area. The only downside to this is that I'm not really all that familiar with the curriculum outside of knowing that it is unit studies centered around character traits, so I will need to spend some time really going through it and figuring it out so I am ready for it when we need to take that break.
I will still obviously need to get a copy of one specific book I need for a spine with our history program, but I am saving up for it and will purchase the book through Amazon this fall. Unless, of course, anyone who reads my blog wishes to donate a copy of the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History.......... No takers? Darn. Oh well, I'll get the book before we start in the fall and I'm not really too worried about it.
If you haven't taken advantage of a used curriculum sale, I highly suggest it. I spent less than $50 tonight and got a lot of great things that I can't wait to use with the kids this fall, to the point where I'm seriously considering cancelling "summer vacation" because of their bad attitudes already and jumping in as soon as VBS week is finished here.
My local homeschool group had their sale this evening, and since it happened to also be payday I was able to go pick up a few things. I had in mind some very specific things I need for our lessons, in hopes that I'd be able to get some of it for less than the new price. I had $60 to spend, which is about the cost of a single textbook new on my list of wants for this fall. I was very careful and found a lot of great things, but in the end I managed to get most of what I really needed and a couple goodies for future use.
I got a book that lines up with our Middle Ages study in lessons for my oldest daughter to read bits of this year as appropriate. I figure that she and I can read a bit of the book at a time together and discuss it, and even if we decide to put it on the shelf for a couple more years it will get used. It was only $3 so I don't feel too put out from it. I have a feeling Missa will enjoy it, as she is really into all things related to history.
I went with the intention of hopefully finding a specific science book (Real Science 4 Kids level 1 Biology) but instead left with Apologia science (the 6th day of Creation one, animal science). I got it and another book that I can use to include my youngest girls in the lessons for $20 total. I'm happy with that, although it isn't what I planned to use for science.
There were a couple other little odds and ends I picked up as well, but I think my biggest score was all 3 volumes of the KONOS curriculum. These 3 books retail new for $110 each from the company, and I got the 3 books together used in pretty good shape (there are some penciled in notes and check marks and stuff like that, nothing a few minutes with an eraser can't fix) for a grand total of $20. Yes, I managed to get over $300 of curriculum for $20. I have a general plan already for this fall, using Story Of The World for history, but I am looking forward to using the KONOS books to keep going with lessons when we are starting to lose steam and hit burnout from going too long on our regularly scheduled lessons. It will provide a wonderful change of pace for us in that area. The only downside to this is that I'm not really all that familiar with the curriculum outside of knowing that it is unit studies centered around character traits, so I will need to spend some time really going through it and figuring it out so I am ready for it when we need to take that break.
I will still obviously need to get a copy of one specific book I need for a spine with our history program, but I am saving up for it and will purchase the book through Amazon this fall. Unless, of course, anyone who reads my blog wishes to donate a copy of the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History.......... No takers? Darn. Oh well, I'll get the book before we start in the fall and I'm not really too worried about it.
If you haven't taken advantage of a used curriculum sale, I highly suggest it. I spent less than $50 tonight and got a lot of great things that I can't wait to use with the kids this fall, to the point where I'm seriously considering cancelling "summer vacation" because of their bad attitudes already and jumping in as soon as VBS week is finished here.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
2013-2014 school year plans
Since it is summer, the kids are playing and relaxing while I figure out what we're doing this fall. I thought I'd share what I've figured out so far, since I have a lot in my mind and I need to straighten it all out.
History this year we are going to use "Story Of The World Volume 2" to cover world history from Rome to the Renaissance (or somewhere around there). I was gifted all the materials for this level (book, activity guide, EVERYTHING except the extra books like a world history encyclopedia) so this costs me almost nothing to do (just printer paper to make copies of activity pages for the girls to all do). I can do this with all 4 girls together at the same time, making my life easier.
I'm also going to dust off All About Spelling for Lydia to do, she is having a lot of trouble with her spelling so I think we need to run through levels 1 and 2 with her (and Missa too but we'll see how that goes, I'll order more levels as needed for them). Hopefully it does enough that I'm not spending three times as long as I should to read her written work. I'm surprised that the school allowed her to have such horrible spelling without any intervention at all the first half of the school year, it is truly scary sad.
We also will read lots of great literature from the list for Sonlight cores B and C that go well with the history that we're doing this year. I also plan to tie in art and music by teaching about different styles of art (and for some of it, recreating copies of that art ourselves) and learning about instruments that were popular during that time (maybe try to make a few of our own if we feel a desire to do so).
I'm also going to do some US geography as we continue our 50 states study. We school 6 days a week during the busy time at Scott's work (back to school season is KILLER for us, he pulls 70 hour weeks easily from the beginning of August usually until around Thanksgiving or so) and most of the chapters in our history curriculum will only take 3 days a week to do. I'll use the other days each week to do a state with the kids, learning some stuff about each one and finding them on a map. This was the big thing I found out when we started our 50 states study, it only takes 2-3 days to cover most states the way I'm aiming to do them.
We are also going to learn sign language more deliberately. I did some searching on YouTube last night and found a channel called "Sign Language 101" that is nothing but videos to teach it, so I'm going to start on it tonight and just sign/speak together all the time as I learn more sign and then this fall I'll start enforcing with the kids that they sign when they speak while they learn new signs. The Signing Time dvd set will continue to be watched a couple times a week, but most of their learning will happen through immersion. It is the most effective way to learn a language, and will serve us well. I also plan on getting plugged into the local deaf community through a lovely lady I know who has a deaf son, to expand our opportunities to practice signing.
Math will continue as planned. The oldest 2 girls are plugging along in Math-U-See and doing well, while I plan to have the younger girls do Math Mammoth. I was gifted the books for the younger girls, so I don't have any out of pocket expense for them at this time. I just have to keep up with buying student books for the older girls, which I already have the books they need for this year.
Science is one area I've not really done a lot with yet. Right now we're going to breeze through our Real Science 4 Kids biology book, then I was thinking we'd do some animal studies. I would ideally like to purchase Winter Promise's Equine Science curriculum, but I don't know that we'll have the funds for that so I'm gathering up free resources as I find them to cover animal science.
We also are looking into the local American Heritage Girls troop for all the girls, and seriously considering it for "social skills" and any other area that it could cross over into. We'd do Girl Scouts, but quite frankly I'd weigh 500lbs if I had them selling cookies so they aren't doing that. Plus, AHG includes a lot of the values that we feel are important but Girl Scouts doesn't do. Yup, we chose the conservative Christian group that emphasizes traditional family values instead of the liberal group sponsored by Planned Parenthood that promotes a lot of things I won't be going into here (I have friends who love Girl Scouts, and am trying to respect their decision in this area without being insulting)
That is about all I've figured out at this point in time, I'm still working on the final plans and getting everything ready to go for us to start in August. Of course, I still have to give the girls their standardized tests to finish the year for reporting, and we'll be ordering those tests this weekend.
History this year we are going to use "Story Of The World Volume 2" to cover world history from Rome to the Renaissance (or somewhere around there). I was gifted all the materials for this level (book, activity guide, EVERYTHING except the extra books like a world history encyclopedia) so this costs me almost nothing to do (just printer paper to make copies of activity pages for the girls to all do). I can do this with all 4 girls together at the same time, making my life easier.
I'm also going to dust off All About Spelling for Lydia to do, she is having a lot of trouble with her spelling so I think we need to run through levels 1 and 2 with her (and Missa too but we'll see how that goes, I'll order more levels as needed for them). Hopefully it does enough that I'm not spending three times as long as I should to read her written work. I'm surprised that the school allowed her to have such horrible spelling without any intervention at all the first half of the school year, it is truly scary sad.
We also will read lots of great literature from the list for Sonlight cores B and C that go well with the history that we're doing this year. I also plan to tie in art and music by teaching about different styles of art (and for some of it, recreating copies of that art ourselves) and learning about instruments that were popular during that time (maybe try to make a few of our own if we feel a desire to do so).
I'm also going to do some US geography as we continue our 50 states study. We school 6 days a week during the busy time at Scott's work (back to school season is KILLER for us, he pulls 70 hour weeks easily from the beginning of August usually until around Thanksgiving or so) and most of the chapters in our history curriculum will only take 3 days a week to do. I'll use the other days each week to do a state with the kids, learning some stuff about each one and finding them on a map. This was the big thing I found out when we started our 50 states study, it only takes 2-3 days to cover most states the way I'm aiming to do them.
We are also going to learn sign language more deliberately. I did some searching on YouTube last night and found a channel called "Sign Language 101" that is nothing but videos to teach it, so I'm going to start on it tonight and just sign/speak together all the time as I learn more sign and then this fall I'll start enforcing with the kids that they sign when they speak while they learn new signs. The Signing Time dvd set will continue to be watched a couple times a week, but most of their learning will happen through immersion. It is the most effective way to learn a language, and will serve us well. I also plan on getting plugged into the local deaf community through a lovely lady I know who has a deaf son, to expand our opportunities to practice signing.
Math will continue as planned. The oldest 2 girls are plugging along in Math-U-See and doing well, while I plan to have the younger girls do Math Mammoth. I was gifted the books for the younger girls, so I don't have any out of pocket expense for them at this time. I just have to keep up with buying student books for the older girls, which I already have the books they need for this year.
Science is one area I've not really done a lot with yet. Right now we're going to breeze through our Real Science 4 Kids biology book, then I was thinking we'd do some animal studies. I would ideally like to purchase Winter Promise's Equine Science curriculum, but I don't know that we'll have the funds for that so I'm gathering up free resources as I find them to cover animal science.
We also are looking into the local American Heritage Girls troop for all the girls, and seriously considering it for "social skills" and any other area that it could cross over into. We'd do Girl Scouts, but quite frankly I'd weigh 500lbs if I had them selling cookies so they aren't doing that. Plus, AHG includes a lot of the values that we feel are important but Girl Scouts doesn't do. Yup, we chose the conservative Christian group that emphasizes traditional family values instead of the liberal group sponsored by Planned Parenthood that promotes a lot of things I won't be going into here (I have friends who love Girl Scouts, and am trying to respect their decision in this area without being insulting)
That is about all I've figured out at this point in time, I'm still working on the final plans and getting everything ready to go for us to start in August. Of course, I still have to give the girls their standardized tests to finish the year for reporting, and we'll be ordering those tests this weekend.
Monday, June 03, 2013
the last week of the 2012-13 school year
I'm trying to keep plugging forward despite all the curves that I've had thrown at me this last few months, we set this upcoming Friday as our last day of the school year and I am NOT going to call it quits before then. I'm really REALLY hoping that we can get this week to go semi-smoothly so that I can go into our summer plans. I am planning that we'll take the rest of June off all lessons completely once we finish this break, then pick up again in July with a fun series of Evan-Moor theme pockets (I got the July monthly theme set for us to do some of) and gently work back into full lessons with the basics. I also plan to fill our summer with hands-on crafty stuff and lots of time outdoors, playing and working in our small garden.
I may be a bit behind, but I discovered recently that there is a really nice park not too far from our home and that it is easily accessed by just hopping on the bike path so we don't need gas for the van even to get there. Add in 79 cent ice cream cones at McDonald's (also within walking distance if we wanted to) and we will have a pretty good time with cool summer treats and lots of park time.
We also are hoping that we can get the funds to buy bikes for Scott, Missa, and myself along with replacing a tire on 2 bikes we already have for Liddy and Kimmy (oh and a seat for Preston on my bike). If we can get that all going on, then we can hit the bike path regularly as a family and ride all over the county (maybe even to visit Grandma in Johnstown by the end of summer).
There will also be a point at some point where we will take a couple days off lessons likely, as we've made a painful decision that medically we have to take permanent measures to prevent more pregnancies. My last pregnancy was touchy for us with my hypertension, and it progressing into full pre-eclampsia within 6 hours of Preston's birth, and I'm still suffering some of the effects of that complication. We've been told that there's no guarantee that it would happen again in the future, however we feel that it is more important to our family that the 5 children we have are able to have two living parents who are fairly healthy so I have a consultation for a non-surgical procedure called Essure to see if I'm a candidate for the procedure. If not, then we have to discuss other options to determine who will be having surgery and when we can afford for Scott to take the time off (with Essure I could have it done on a Friday and be up and going again before Monday, requiring Scott to only take 1 day off work). It is a decision that we've had a lot of conflict over the past 15 months, but now that we've made a decision about it I really do feel ok with it and know that it is the right way to go. We've been blessed with 5 incredible healthy children and while we'd love a few more, it is time to call it done for medical reasons. We plan to open our home up to foster care and adoption in the future as our kids are older and we have the space to do so.
That about sums up what our June is going to look like I think. I can't wait for this weekend when we will do our own little "graduation" to move each kid up to the next grade with a certificate and cake (I just have to find a dairy-free recipe that tastes good, I already have plans to make a butterfly cake thanks to some directions my mother shared on my Facebook wall this morning)
Once we get through this week, I'm going to make plans officially for the summer and then I'll share the July plans here. Hopefully I can have it all figured out in the 1 week between finishing lessons and Scott's week off, because we'll be spending that entire week off doing things like going to Amish country, the Columbus Zoo, and other such things. :)
I may be a bit behind, but I discovered recently that there is a really nice park not too far from our home and that it is easily accessed by just hopping on the bike path so we don't need gas for the van even to get there. Add in 79 cent ice cream cones at McDonald's (also within walking distance if we wanted to) and we will have a pretty good time with cool summer treats and lots of park time.
We also are hoping that we can get the funds to buy bikes for Scott, Missa, and myself along with replacing a tire on 2 bikes we already have for Liddy and Kimmy (oh and a seat for Preston on my bike). If we can get that all going on, then we can hit the bike path regularly as a family and ride all over the county (maybe even to visit Grandma in Johnstown by the end of summer).
There will also be a point at some point where we will take a couple days off lessons likely, as we've made a painful decision that medically we have to take permanent measures to prevent more pregnancies. My last pregnancy was touchy for us with my hypertension, and it progressing into full pre-eclampsia within 6 hours of Preston's birth, and I'm still suffering some of the effects of that complication. We've been told that there's no guarantee that it would happen again in the future, however we feel that it is more important to our family that the 5 children we have are able to have two living parents who are fairly healthy so I have a consultation for a non-surgical procedure called Essure to see if I'm a candidate for the procedure. If not, then we have to discuss other options to determine who will be having surgery and when we can afford for Scott to take the time off (with Essure I could have it done on a Friday and be up and going again before Monday, requiring Scott to only take 1 day off work). It is a decision that we've had a lot of conflict over the past 15 months, but now that we've made a decision about it I really do feel ok with it and know that it is the right way to go. We've been blessed with 5 incredible healthy children and while we'd love a few more, it is time to call it done for medical reasons. We plan to open our home up to foster care and adoption in the future as our kids are older and we have the space to do so.
That about sums up what our June is going to look like I think. I can't wait for this weekend when we will do our own little "graduation" to move each kid up to the next grade with a certificate and cake (I just have to find a dairy-free recipe that tastes good, I already have plans to make a butterfly cake thanks to some directions my mother shared on my Facebook wall this morning)
Once we get through this week, I'm going to make plans officially for the summer and then I'll share the July plans here. Hopefully I can have it all figured out in the 1 week between finishing lessons and Scott's week off, because we'll be spending that entire week off doing things like going to Amish country, the Columbus Zoo, and other such things. :)
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