How Are Things Going?

Discussion in 'General' started by Aurie, Sep 18, 2008.

  1. Aurie

    Aurie Well-Known Member

    Since we are at least 3 weeks or more into the school year, I was wondering how things were going for everyone? What curriculum are you using? What do you like or dislike so far? Anything else you want to add?

    We started our year with a "field trip" to Washington DC. When we returned home, we did a unit study on the city and a bit of its history. It wasn't real indepth, just enough to make the field trip more then just a siteseeing day. We are now officially finishing up our first two weeks with our current curriculum. I must say (knock on wood) the kids are really responding to this curriculum. My oldest actually finished a book. I was shocked! There have been less stress and fewer tears already this year. Usually, we start off with fighting and tears until they get into the swing of it and then we still have bad moments.

    My DD (age 6 doing k/1) is doing so much better then I expected. She has CAPD (centeral auditory processing disorder). But I found a great online program called Reading Eggs. She is blooming with her reading in just 2 weeks. I combine that program with Starfall and some other free mini books.

    Our main curriculum is Oak Meadow. It is a bit weak in math so I purchased some additional math workbooks. I teach math my way, so I don't really get any of the fancier math programs, just a big book of math from Sam's club. I love OM's science and history. Both are combined in with their language arts. They boys are really responding to how things are presented in a very interconnected way. Also the book selections for the older grades (4th/5th) are really enjoyable.

    DD is doing 1st grade even though she is K. The reason is because OMs early grades are pretty weak academically. Thus the supplement with the above reading programs. Most of their arts/crafts/sciencesocial studies seems more on the kindy level as well. She is loving that part of it too!

    The twins are doing pretty good with things. I have been holding their naps off until lunch time. They seem to sleep for a longer period then. This gives me time for the one on ones needed with the older kids and especially my budding reader.

    So how are things going with you?
     
  2. mel_michigan

    mel_michigan Well-Known Member

    Things aren't going to bad here. Still trying to get a good routine with my older daughter, she tends to have miserable mornings where we end up fighting about doing her work, then come afternoon everything is peachy and she does more without prompting. I'm beginning to wonder how to conquer this!

    The 5 year old twins are doing well. We are finishing up Time4learning K as they have gone on to Click n Read and Singapore math. (We are wrapping things up with math and one twin is almost done with LA, the other is about 2/3 of the way done.) They both got real fed up with time4learning so we are planning a break from that site. We are looking at Foss for science (we started trees with materials from the library) and using Steck-vaughn for social studies, Family and Home Level A.

    My 8 year old daughter is an assortment. We use ALEKS for math, since she is over half way through the 4th grade AP in a little less than a month. We supplement that with Kumon workbooks for the hands on written practice of math. We use Voyages in English for writing and grammar, Literature units from Lakeshore learning (currently doing Dear Mr. Henshaw) and Literature Kogs from Real kids 4 science for vocabulary, spelling tends to come from both of these rather than a seperate book, we just use www.spellingcity.com for practice. Science is Chemistry from Real Science 4 Kids along with Foss Science in a Nutshell units to align with the state GLCE's. Social studies is Steck-vaughn, History of our Country with some time4learning, US Revolutionary Period,, to expand it in a little more detail. We will have to add Meet Michigan or some similar book to get Michigan History in sometime this year. We use Horizons for penmanship.

    We do bible, the twins use Lifepacs and my oldest uses Switched on Schoolhouse.

    We also invested in Brainware Safari for each of them, as my oldest has Aspergers and ADD, while my oldest twin has ADHD. My younger twin just struggles with some aspects of learning and her developmental peds thought this might help her.

    We do a variety with my older son, although he spends mornings M-F in Early Childhood for speech therapy. We use starfall and HOP, ready to read and might consider Horizons Preschool or K.
     
  3. mel_michigan

    mel_michigan Well-Known Member

    ...Forgot to add Kumon workbooks for the twins to help with writing numbers and letters. They are really nice when I need a few minutes with the baby to have them practice in the workbooks.

    Whew, it's a lot to keep track of and organized I will say. :)
     
  4. jenn-

    jenn- Well-Known Member

    We have just started our 10th week for the school year and things are going pretty well so far. DD seems to be picking up on her math a little easier so far (and I have just cursed us I am sure). Our curriculum is very hodge podge but we cover math, spelling, history, science, spanish, language arts (aka grammar), and our "other" subject which is currently world religions but will be switching to either Norse mythology or studying Halloween (depends on if I get off my tush and order a book). I have not been overly impressed with the Spanish work yet. I am not sure what I am going to do though. I really don't think she is retaining any of it at all, so I feel like we are wasting time. I am also not so sure about the spelling curriculum, but I will probably go through the rest of the book with it because she is a decent speller naturally so it isn't a big concern with me. So far her favorite subject has been science (I so knew at least some of my genes had to be in there). We started with biology and she loves reading about the different creatures and environments. Hopefully we don't hit any big attitude roadblocks this year.
     
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