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| Serious face because Middle School is serious. |
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| These brothers have got her back. Middle School ain't got nothin' on her. |
"God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." -Romans 5:5
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2016
School Days
School has started. Here we are documenting the occasion. Enjoy.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Our Online School Experience. . . so far
As I mentioned in a previous post, the children are "attending" an online public school. To give a little history, all of the older three children have attended a public preschool. The oldest, Rebekah, also attended a Catholic school for two years. For the past two years we have homeschooled on our own (with an eclectic approach). Now, with three in school we are giving the virtual school a try. So without further ado. . .
1) CHEAP!! It is $97 per kid, and that includes everything. They even send a computer if you need one, no extra charge.
2) All the planning is DONE. No serious prep work required. Sometimes you need to print things or gather materials (such as for science experiments), but they have it all laid out for you under "advance prep" for "tomorrow" or "the week" and for all your children or just one.
3) Lots of computer work and that keeps the kids interested. Each lesson is "recorded" online.
Some of them will read something along the lines of, "This lesson is 'offline' so gather materials (which they have a link to, so you can see what they look like and print them if you want - or go find them in your workbooks/textbooks/teacher's manuals) and follow the activity guide." Then you click to the next screen and mark the lesson complete.
Other lessons will have some information that the students read through and a question or two to answer on the computer (and then it will tell them if their answer is right, etc), with each screen. With the younger ones it has lots of games and simple instructions, for example, "Click the object that is a square" - or "Sort all the shapes into the correct bins." I REALLY like the online work for vocabulary words. They are hearing the words pronounced correctly and the definitions, often while seeing pictures to reinforce. It is handy for phonics games, for Jacob, also.
They also have links to games during the lesson. There is a math game about germs that the kids really like. They do math problems to get the goop to flow and neutralize the germs. There are also spelling games. These are played online and I have saved the links to them, so we can pull them out whenever we want (not just when the link comes up in a lesson) and Samuel especially likes those. He asks to play them on weekends and in his free time.
4) I like the vocabulary words chosen so far and I am glad they are teaching to learn definitions from the context, but also having them check in the dictionary to be sure.
5) The online classes (in blackboard) are enjoyable and I think Rebekah learns some from them. I like her learning some from another adult (besides me) and I like to see her interacting with other kids she does not know (even though it is in the virtual world). (Only Rebekah does these - two per week, one in reading and one in math - because they do 3rd grade and up in them, I believe.)
6) Our "Education Specialists" (aka "teachers") are very friendly and helpful. (In case you were curious, my title is "learning coach" which I think fits well.) Plus, it helps to be held accountable to someone else. They talk with me and each student about twice a month, unless we have problems, questions, etc., as they are available anytime (within reason).
7) Having our workload set for us gives me a sense of what "the real world" expects us to be accomplishing in a given day, week, month, etc. If nothing else it is helping me get a picture in my head of how our time should be/could be spent in a given day.
(I would like to preface here, that I do not claim to be an expert. I could have misunderstood or flat-out "missed" some of the instructions or I could be doing some things "the hard way," without realizing it! I am not perfect, so some of these cons could potentially just be "user error." )
1) The lessons are repetitive and often have less content than I would expect. Imagine the homework they send home from school when your child is sick. Now imagine your child being sick every day of the year. That is basically how virtual school goes. In my experience, homeschool curriculum can be more in-depth as the student is more focused and one-on-one learning is so effective. But these lessons could be picked up and taught to 20 kids pretty easily. I'm not faulting them for it. They are most likely written by a school teacher. But, as I said, from my experience, school done at home does not need to be structured quite the same way and having one child do repeated activities that were meant to be spread about over a larger class, can be tedious and boring at times.
For example, Samuel needed to count from 1 to 500. They had him practicing little snip-its of counting from here or there (count from 99 to 155 and count from 345 to 389, etc). Then they had an animated kid counting (on the computer) and Samuel listening - to different parts. For the 40 minutes he spent listening and doing his worksheets for this lesson, I should have just had him count to me from 1 to 500 (as I figured he probably could) and been done in 5 minutes.
2) It is a lot of computer work. Now, I would not say it is too much, but if you are wanting to be basically "unplugged," this is not the path for you. Plus, the lessons are all online on their server. The other day, their server was down. . . that was a little frustrating. But our education specialist said that happens maybe once a year, if that.
3) Some of the content is not what I would pick. For example, Jacob is reading fairy tales for his Kindergarten literature. The first one we read was Goldilocks. In this version, the wolf eats the grandma and then the girl. Then the hunter hears him snoring and sees them in his throat, so pulls them out and the wolf runs away. When we got to the part about the wolf eating the grandma, Jacob said, "I don't like this story. Can we stop now?" He was so distraught! Then after we finished the story he said, "Wolves don't REALLY eat people do they?" My answer, "well, not normally people IN CABINS." Of all the literature in the world, are you telling me they could not find some that would not give my Kindergarten nightmares about wolves eating people?!?! Sheesh.
4) Although the materials are plentiful, they are a bit confusing! Rebekah has about six different books she works from for her Language Arts. Two of them are writing books. One is solely grammar, but there is grammar in her "Language Skills" book also! She also has a literature book, a spelling book, and a vocabulary book!! It is rather confusing many days to figure out what book she is supposed to be in - and even what page to be on! (As she skips around some, too.) It does not seem very systematic to me.
5) Obviously, there is no religion course since this is a "public school" so I am trying to supplement that on the side myself. I suppose that keeps it separate so they realize that studying the Catholic faith and the Bible are not really just school subjects, but at the same time, I do think they should be spending time each day putting their heart and soul into understanding our faith and studying Scripture. In my head it is perhaps the most important "subject" of all.
* Obviously I will have much more to say about this by the end of the year, but I wanted to get my thoughts out now while I am thinking about them. I am quite curious to see how long it will take us to finish and if we will end up working through the summer or if we end up finishing early. Although there is a progress page online that shows where we are, it is difficult for me to get a sense of how fast we are really moving and to anticipate if we will be able to keep that pace, or what other distractions, etc will come up along the way.
Pros:
1) CHEAP!! It is $97 per kid, and that includes everything. They even send a computer if you need one, no extra charge.
2) All the planning is DONE. No serious prep work required. Sometimes you need to print things or gather materials (such as for science experiments), but they have it all laid out for you under "advance prep" for "tomorrow" or "the week" and for all your children or just one.
3) Lots of computer work and that keeps the kids interested. Each lesson is "recorded" online.
Some of them will read something along the lines of, "This lesson is 'offline' so gather materials (which they have a link to, so you can see what they look like and print them if you want - or go find them in your workbooks/textbooks/teacher's manuals) and follow the activity guide." Then you click to the next screen and mark the lesson complete.
Other lessons will have some information that the students read through and a question or two to answer on the computer (and then it will tell them if their answer is right, etc), with each screen. With the younger ones it has lots of games and simple instructions, for example, "Click the object that is a square" - or "Sort all the shapes into the correct bins." I REALLY like the online work for vocabulary words. They are hearing the words pronounced correctly and the definitions, often while seeing pictures to reinforce. It is handy for phonics games, for Jacob, also.
They also have links to games during the lesson. There is a math game about germs that the kids really like. They do math problems to get the goop to flow and neutralize the germs. There are also spelling games. These are played online and I have saved the links to them, so we can pull them out whenever we want (not just when the link comes up in a lesson) and Samuel especially likes those. He asks to play them on weekends and in his free time.
4) I like the vocabulary words chosen so far and I am glad they are teaching to learn definitions from the context, but also having them check in the dictionary to be sure.
5) The online classes (in blackboard) are enjoyable and I think Rebekah learns some from them. I like her learning some from another adult (besides me) and I like to see her interacting with other kids she does not know (even though it is in the virtual world). (Only Rebekah does these - two per week, one in reading and one in math - because they do 3rd grade and up in them, I believe.)
6) Our "Education Specialists" (aka "teachers") are very friendly and helpful. (In case you were curious, my title is "learning coach" which I think fits well.) Plus, it helps to be held accountable to someone else. They talk with me and each student about twice a month, unless we have problems, questions, etc., as they are available anytime (within reason).
7) Having our workload set for us gives me a sense of what "the real world" expects us to be accomplishing in a given day, week, month, etc. If nothing else it is helping me get a picture in my head of how our time should be/could be spent in a given day.
Cons:
(I would like to preface here, that I do not claim to be an expert. I could have misunderstood or flat-out "missed" some of the instructions or I could be doing some things "the hard way," without realizing it! I am not perfect, so some of these cons could potentially just be "user error." )
1) The lessons are repetitive and often have less content than I would expect. Imagine the homework they send home from school when your child is sick. Now imagine your child being sick every day of the year. That is basically how virtual school goes. In my experience, homeschool curriculum can be more in-depth as the student is more focused and one-on-one learning is so effective. But these lessons could be picked up and taught to 20 kids pretty easily. I'm not faulting them for it. They are most likely written by a school teacher. But, as I said, from my experience, school done at home does not need to be structured quite the same way and having one child do repeated activities that were meant to be spread about over a larger class, can be tedious and boring at times.
For example, Samuel needed to count from 1 to 500. They had him practicing little snip-its of counting from here or there (count from 99 to 155 and count from 345 to 389, etc). Then they had an animated kid counting (on the computer) and Samuel listening - to different parts. For the 40 minutes he spent listening and doing his worksheets for this lesson, I should have just had him count to me from 1 to 500 (as I figured he probably could) and been done in 5 minutes.
2) It is a lot of computer work. Now, I would not say it is too much, but if you are wanting to be basically "unplugged," this is not the path for you. Plus, the lessons are all online on their server. The other day, their server was down. . . that was a little frustrating. But our education specialist said that happens maybe once a year, if that.
3) Some of the content is not what I would pick. For example, Jacob is reading fairy tales for his Kindergarten literature. The first one we read was Goldilocks. In this version, the wolf eats the grandma and then the girl. Then the hunter hears him snoring and sees them in his throat, so pulls them out and the wolf runs away. When we got to the part about the wolf eating the grandma, Jacob said, "I don't like this story. Can we stop now?" He was so distraught! Then after we finished the story he said, "Wolves don't REALLY eat people do they?" My answer, "well, not normally people IN CABINS." Of all the literature in the world, are you telling me they could not find some that would not give my Kindergarten nightmares about wolves eating people?!?! Sheesh.
4) Although the materials are plentiful, they are a bit confusing! Rebekah has about six different books she works from for her Language Arts. Two of them are writing books. One is solely grammar, but there is grammar in her "Language Skills" book also! She also has a literature book, a spelling book, and a vocabulary book!! It is rather confusing many days to figure out what book she is supposed to be in - and even what page to be on! (As she skips around some, too.) It does not seem very systematic to me.
5) Obviously, there is no religion course since this is a "public school" so I am trying to supplement that on the side myself. I suppose that keeps it separate so they realize that studying the Catholic faith and the Bible are not really just school subjects, but at the same time, I do think they should be spending time each day putting their heart and soul into understanding our faith and studying Scripture. In my head it is perhaps the most important "subject" of all.
* Obviously I will have much more to say about this by the end of the year, but I wanted to get my thoughts out now while I am thinking about them. I am quite curious to see how long it will take us to finish and if we will end up working through the summer or if we end up finishing early. Although there is a progress page online that shows where we are, it is difficult for me to get a sense of how fast we are really moving and to anticipate if we will be able to keep that pace, or what other distractions, etc will come up along the way.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Crazy Hair Day
Last week was Red Ribbon week at school. The kids got to do something special every day to help promote saying no to drugs. Friday was crazy hair day. Here is Rebekah with her somewhat tame (because I am NOT a hair stylist) but still fun, crazy hair.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Looky looky - it is done! :)
At the parent info night for school, Rebekah's teacher gave us homework. She gave us each an over-sized sheet of paper and told us to take it home and decorate it - most importantly it needed to have our child's name on it. Then, when we brought them back she would laminate them and they would be the kids' work mats for when the did projects. She said that we could do it in secret and bring them back covered in newspaper so it would be a surprise for the kids when they first got to use them. It is really a brilliant idea - even though, being a perfectionsit, I am rather intimidated by these type of projects. In any case, last night I stayed up a little later than usual and here is what I came up with. I'm sure I don't hold a candle to tried and true "scrapbookers" but I think it will work. It pleases me (although I did get a little carried away with the stickers at the end - it was late and I was getting a loopy-tired).
Description:
The top left has our family photo with my "most creative" frame (aka I cut jagged and crazy on purpose because I know I can't cut straight). I wrote "We love you - Mom & Dad" at the top here as the very last thing because as I looked over all that I had done I realized that is EXACTLY what I was trying to say by making this as beautiful as I could for her. So I figured I might as well come out and say it directly.
Next to this is a picture of Jacob. I did his name in publisher and then cut it out all creative (all on my own - I get more and more artsy as I get more and more tired).
The sticker says "God hears us when we pray" - something that should never be forgotten!
The heart girl at the top is Princess Ariel - one of Rebekah's favorites.
Then there is a picture of Rebekah sitting in Daddy's lap.
Paul is on the lower left corner, looking all adorable, hands in his mouth.
Then there is a heart picture of Pocahontas - another of the princesses.
I did her name on publisher, as well - word art - gotta love it.
The ballerina came off of an old card - I think it symbolizes how I look at her often - she really loves dance.
Then there is a picture of Samuel (the only one I could find - but it works).
And last but not least is a small cut-out of Cinderella - her FAVORITE princess.
Under Cinderella is a sticker that reads, "The Lord Bless and Keep you."
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