It's only eleven days until we begin our school year. I need to finish my curriculum posts so I can get ready for the new year. Here is what Princess S will be using for next year.
Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1: We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography. I plan to incorporate more narration and copywork for her this year. She will be completing the UG level for most of the year, but I plan to begin the transition to D level part way through. I will have her reading a few of the D level literature books this year and including her in our discussion times for it.
Math-U-See Delta: She will continue on from where she ended the year. I anticipate she will be moving on to Epsilon about halfway through the year.
Latin for Children Primer A: This will be her first year with Latin. I'm hoping we get through this in one year, but I am going to be flexible. I'd rather go for mastery than finishing a book in a year. In fact, I really think we will only get about 2/3 of the way through. Last year, I had all the pages in page protectors for Princess E and she wrote on them with an ultra-fine permanent marker. I used an Expo board doctor to get that off. However, because I had waited until the end of the year it took a long time and lots of elbow grease. I finally gave up and threw away about 40 page protectors. This year we will use wet erase markers. I also purchased the activity book used, so that will give some more variety in the assignments.
God's Marvelous Works Book One: The last two years we have done science together. This year we are trying science separately. So Princess S will be working on this book. I plan to incorporate narration and notebooking with this subject. She will do the reading and answer the questions. I entered the vocabulary words on Quizlet so she can study them there. I also bought the test booklet.
Globalmania: We are going to add in this program for our geography studies. My hope with this is that they will be able to have a better grasp of where things are in the world. We will be setting aside a little bit of time each week to work on this adventure.
Language Arts - I am a language arts fiend! I was an English major and this is my love and comfort zone. But finding something that works for all my princesses is difficult. These choices below may seem like a lot, but Princess S really needs repetition as well as variety in order for concepts to sink in. She also needs lots of hands on practice. So I am blending a variety of programs together. We won't be doing all these each day, but we will be working with each thing at least twice a week. Most of these I purchased used.
Caesar's English 1: This will be our first year using MCT for vocabulary. This is an intense program. We are going to take it slow, but hopefully finish in one year.
Grammar Town: This is the next book that follows Grammar Island, which we did this past year. They enjoyed the story aspect of learning grammar, so I'm hoping this will be the same. As per MCT recommendations, we will be "front loading" this program. She will complete the book in five weeks.
Paragraph Town: She will use this after she completes Grammar Town. There are so many different activities to choose from with this one. We will be choosing those that look the most fun and the most helpful. (Yes - this might overlap some with IEW - but the approaches are different and like I said, she needs the constant review.)
Practice Town: Last year I purchased the student books for each princess. This year, I am going to be including this exercise during our meeting times. I only purchased the teacher's manual and will be dictating the sentence to them. Then they will be working through the four level analysis.
Fix It! Grammar - Tom Sawyer: This will be an additional grammar exercise. Princess S is a very good writer as far as creativity - but her mechanics and usage need some real work. I am hoping that this will help her become more conscious these aspects in her own writing.
McCall Crabbs Book B: We will be continuing this exercise this year. They will complete it during our half hour meeting time. They will be alternating between this and Practice Town. We may need to double up for about three weeks spread out through the year in order to finish.
Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons (IEW): This will be done with a friend's sixth grader. I will be teaching my oldest two princesses along with her third DD, and she will take my youngest two princesses with her youngest DD to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a craft. I really like the looks of this program and am hoping that Princess D will spur my two princesses to excellence. Princess D really enjoys writing and it's one of her favorite subjects I'm told.
Well, there you have it. Princess S's school year in a nutshell. I'm actually getting quite excited for it.
Showing posts with label Math-U-See. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math-U-See. Show all posts
8/23/10
Flash Cards - Learning the Skill
Princess L learned how to do flash cards this week. Or should I say, she learned how to do Math flash cards the Math-U-See way. One of the things that is listed as a goal in Math-U-See is mastery of the facts as demonstrated by completion of flash cards in three seconds or less recall time. They have an online drill on their website that will show you the time. But my kids always had issues with adding time while they hunt and peck for the numbers on the key board. Princess S had issues with flash cards. She would get lost in what she was doing, and it was very frustrating for both of us. Since I was forced to improvise I am using some of those lessons learned with Princess L.
First, since she is only in Primer, there is not the requirement to master the facts. So that isn't our goal yet. But to make it easier, I only made up cards for the +1 and 1+ facts. As I learned with Princess S, it is necessary to make both sets of cards. Even though she could verbalize the fact that in addition you can switch the order, when I only made one set of cards she would get lost on paper when it didn't look the same as the flashcard. She would have to switch the order either in her head or by physically writing the problem the other way. And while that is doable, it certainly adds much time to any assignment.
Next, I had her read the front side of the cards out loud as a sentence. This helps with the auditory sense processing what they hear. Then she built the sentence with the math blocks. This helps with the tactile sense and the visual sense. Then she figure out the answer. That was our first time through the blocks.
The next time through the blocks I had her read the front of the card as a sentence and say the answer without using the blocks. I told her she could read them in "silly" voices. This helps to break up the monotony and makes it fun! She had fun coming up with different voices and accents. The next time through I asked her to just give me the answer as quickly as she could. This is what we did today.
Finally, I will make sure that each answer is given within three seconds. If it is and is correct she gets to keep the card. If it is not it goes back in my pile to be reviewed again. After she displays mastery of the +1 and 1+ facts, then we will move on as the scope and sequence of Math-U-See suggests. I generally will use the flash cards until she can get the facts we are working on, then add that stack to the review cards and spend time on those. To my discredit, I did not do that with Princess E, and I believe she has issues with her facts still. Princess S, due to ADD and SPD, knows her facts well, but cannot always show that she knows them depending on the day, hour, weather, mood, etc.
First, since she is only in Primer, there is not the requirement to master the facts. So that isn't our goal yet. But to make it easier, I only made up cards for the +1 and 1+ facts. As I learned with Princess S, it is necessary to make both sets of cards. Even though she could verbalize the fact that in addition you can switch the order, when I only made one set of cards she would get lost on paper when it didn't look the same as the flashcard. She would have to switch the order either in her head or by physically writing the problem the other way. And while that is doable, it certainly adds much time to any assignment.
Next, I had her read the front side of the cards out loud as a sentence. This helps with the auditory sense processing what they hear. Then she built the sentence with the math blocks. This helps with the tactile sense and the visual sense. Then she figure out the answer. That was our first time through the blocks.
The next time through the blocks I had her read the front of the card as a sentence and say the answer without using the blocks. I told her she could read them in "silly" voices. This helps to break up the monotony and makes it fun! She had fun coming up with different voices and accents. The next time through I asked her to just give me the answer as quickly as she could. This is what we did today.
Finally, I will make sure that each answer is given within three seconds. If it is and is correct she gets to keep the card. If it is not it goes back in my pile to be reviewed again. After she displays mastery of the +1 and 1+ facts, then we will move on as the scope and sequence of Math-U-See suggests. I generally will use the flash cards until she can get the facts we are working on, then add that stack to the review cards and spend time on those. To my discredit, I did not do that with Princess E, and I believe she has issues with her facts still. Princess S, due to ADD and SPD, knows her facts well, but cannot always show that she knows them depending on the day, hour, weather, mood, etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)