2010-2011 School Year in Review: Writing
Abby, my 5th grader, worked on two different writing programs this year. The first was “Jump in Writing” by Apologia. This is a very good program and walks the student through the brainstorming process and other step-by-step writing processes. We didn’t even come close to finishing it, so we will continue in it next year.
The other one we used was “Writing Trails in American History.” It is a very simplified version of the IEW process. I wanted to use some if it because it tied in with our history study, and I am all about tying things together whenever we can. Â It was probably a little too simple for the 5th grade level, but hey – it worked and it got her to do her writing.
Emily, my 9th grader, has been working on the One Year Adventure Novel. Even though she loves to write, this program is tough. The first half of the year is spent outlining the novel, and the second half is spent writing it at the pace of a chapter per week. She has not been able to keep up with this pace at all. In fact, a few weeks ago she got stuck with her story and started it all over from the beginning. That was in late March and the school year is coming to a close, so I am panicking a little. My advice to anyone looking at this program is to make sure you know your student. I know that some people have taken two years to do this curriculum. I think Emily has learned a lot and has been pushed to become a better writer, but it would be good to think ahead of time about whether or not your student could handle the writing load.
2010-2011 School Year in Review: Math part 2
As I stated in my last post, we used Math-U-See for many years. But when it was time for Emily to move on to Algebra, I switched her to Teaching Textbooks. The reason was that I wanted to take myself out of the equation (ha ha!) and let someone/something else do all the teaching. I chose TT because of the solution cds which walk the student through the solutions to every problem. Emily has used this pretty frequently.
Having said that, I am probably going to move her back to MUS for Geometry next year. The main reason is that I go with my gut feeling, and my gut is telling me to switch. I’m not entirely unhappy with TT Algebra, but MUS is more affordable and I like the new textbooks and workbooks. I also hear conflicting opinions on whether or not TT is rigorous enough for high school. I don’t know the answer to that, but I am confident in the MUS program and am going to stick by it from here on out. (Probably.)
2010-2011 School Year in Review: Math
I thought it would be nice to look back on the school year and reflect on how things have or haven’t worked.
The first subject I would like to talk about is math. But first I need to rewind.
For a number of years, I had used Math-U-See. When Abby was heading into fourth grade, she was due to start the Delta book which has an emphasis on division. I knew that she was not ready to work on that, so I put her into Teaching Textbooks 4. That worked out pretty well for fourth grade. It was fairly easy for a fourth grade text, but the spiral review and the instruction on money and time-telling (which I found MUS to be weak in) was a good fit. Abby continued on into TT5 for this year, but just last week I started her back up into MUS Delta. Why? Well, I felt that she was ready to tackle division, and frankly, didn’t care for some of the ways that long division was being taught in TT5. Abby is also at the point now where mastering division (which is the MUS approach) would be very beneficial to her.
It is a little strange to change curriculum at this late point in the year. But Abby is flying through these first MUS lessons, and I’m fairly certain she will fly through most of the book. My plan is to do as much as we can in these last 6-7 weeks, then in the fall we’ll wrap up Delta and move on to Zeta.
All of this is to say that for us, Teaching Textbooks 4 and 5 were a good fit for a couple of transition years for Abby, until she was ready to tackle the next Math-U-See. I’m pretty sure we’ll be sticking with MUS from here on out. My next post will be about Emily’s experience in TT Algebra.
Smile
The other day I was pushing my cart down the grocery aisle and saw a woman I recognized. We smiled at each other as we passed. As I turned into the next aisle, I was still smiling to myself as I was thinking about the woman and wondering how I knew her. Then a wonderful thing happened. As I entered that aisle with a smile on my face, two other customers looked up. They saw me smiling and both smiled right back at me. It was a nice feeling.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments OffMy List
Do you ever make mental lists?
I have one called, "People That I Want To Like More Than I Actually Do." It is a list of people that are probably perfectly nice human beings, but I can’t stand them. And yet, I can’t look away.
1. Kathie Lee Gifford
2. Katie Couric
3. Marie Osmond
4. Robin McGraw (Dr. Phil’s wife)
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off
KrisMN