k12/Virtual Academy Winter 2009 - Page 6

[Satori]

Originally Posted by GinaRae

Interesting... there is SO MUCH reading (stories and novels) in 3rd grade. SO MUCH. Add on the reading he does for science, art and history and he's overwhelmed. This is a kid with no reading problems either.

Originally Posted by gromero

YES YES YES!!!!

My 3rd grader DOES have reading problems and overwhelming doesn't even begin to describe where we are with it. I brought it up with his with our teacher and all I got was more elluminate classes and don't forget to do Study Island. He doesn't need more work....it's the opposite...he needs less and at a lower grade level...but they won't do that because he scored "at grade level" with the scantron testing.

My dd won't read it, its not worth the battle so I read it to her and the teacher is fine with it. Might be worth trying

[GinaRae]

I also do A LOT of reading to him instead and we go quickly that way now. I've also skipped a few that were just not necessary. We will go over the lesson (like themes in writing, characters, etc) and I will show an example, but we will skip the story.

[GinaRae]

Oh hey, I've been meaning to ask, what do I do with ALL THIS PAPER and a ton of books they sent us? We're done with them and I'd like to clear it out now instead of holding onto it. No space! Are we supposed to give the books back or just gift them to someone? Can I recycle all this paper yet or do I need it for review later?

[mykdsmomy]

Originally Posted by GinaRae

Oh hey, I've been meaning to ask, what do I do with ALL THIS PAPER and a ton of books they sent us? We're done with them and I'd like to clear it out now instead of holding onto it. No space! Are we supposed to give the books back or just gift them to someone? Can I recycle all this paper yet or do I need it for review later?

The "consumable" books (ones you write in) you keep but the other books (teacher's guides, textbooks, manipulatives, etc) you send back. I believe there is a list somewhere on the K12 website that tells you what to send back. They will be sending you UPS stickers too. It's pretty easy.

[elanorh]

Originally Posted by kittie313

So is anyone else planning on doing lessons through Christmas break? We took some extra time off for Thanksgiving, and I need to keep our routines up as much as possible, so I'm planning on continuing lessons through the break instead of taking off the whole 2 weeks. We'll take Christmas and New Year's off (erm, the days that dh has off for those days that is) but I'm planning on keeping lessons going for my own sanity. I can't afford to have us out of routine right now, so we're not taking off. Anyone else?

Yes, we will be working through Christmas. We'll ease off a bit on things (not stress about getting through 4-6 lessons/day) - but we'll do it. We started a week behind here, and have not entirely caught up even now. I'm 'on target' or ahead for Phonics, Language, Math, and History -- but behind a bit in Science, Art and a LOT in Music. So we'll focus most on the classes she's most behind in (Music, Art, Science). And I plan on doing Math daily -- just blast through assessments, as I suspect that she actually would be doing well at 1st grade level, this has been almost all review for her (she didn't know about "pattern rules" yet, and I hadn't taught her how to count money yet, but that's about it so far). So I'd like to just rocket through Math and move into the first grade stuff. But then again, it is nice that we're ahead and it's easy and I can just skip it on busy days without worrying about getting behind.

Glad this thread has been helpful for keeping on track, Cat! It's served the same function for me too.

Welcome, Yippity Skippity!

ETA:
So, I'm gathering that if you've been given school work/materials for a grade ahead, and it's not completed by the end of the school year, you can continue to access k12 online all summer and keep working on those materials?! I had assumed that unless there was a summer school option that people were signed up for, it wouldn't work that way ....

[Satori]

Originally Posted by elanorh

ETA:
So, I'm gathering that if you've been given school work/materials for a grade ahead, and it's not completed by the end of the school year, you can continue to access k12 online all summer and keep working on those materials?! I had assumed that unless there was a summer school option that people were signed up for, it wouldn't work that way ....

Yep

[eclipse]

Yeah, you'll have access for most of the summer. There are days here and there that the OLS is down as they do upgrade, etc, but for the most part you can keep working. The only exception is foreign language - that cuts off right at the end of the school year.

[kittie313]

So is anyone already thinking about their options for next school year? Like, staying with k12 vs. a different VA vs. independent hs vs. public/private school? DH and I are starting to weigh our options now because we will need to have a plan in place and make purchases with the tax refund in the spring if we decide to go independent, and I'll want to make sure the kids are working up to grade level if they go back into public.

I took Melissa to the doctor today for an ADHD checkup, and got that referral for dyslexia testing. The office is also going to send me a copy of the referral form for my records, and I need to let our teacher know that she's been referred. So that covers everything I needed to do for that, now I wait lol

[lovinlife1219]

Originally Posted by elanorh

ETA:
So, I'm gathering that if you've been given school work/materials for a grade ahead, and it's not completed by the end of the school year, you can continue to access k12 online all summer and keep working on those materials?! I had assumed that unless there was a summer school option that people were signed up for, it wouldn't work that way ....

Yes, our teacher told us that we can work through the summer, rather than have to take a break. We'll probably slow way down because he'll want to be outside playing a lot, but in his bored times he may ask to do some work because for the most part he likes it. Maybe each school is different but most I've talked to said they are allowed to continue working through summer.

We've got two more lessons and then we'll be moving on to 1st grade math. It's really slowing down now though, now that were touching on things he hasn't been exposed to before. It's fun, we like doing the lessons and moving on slowly now.

Phonics though, we still haven't hit a wall...so trying to get him to where he needs to be has been a slight challenge. We're about 75% of the way through. I haven't read ahead, so I'm not sure how much harder it gets in K...

We're going to take a week off at Christmas because we will have a full house of out-of-state visitors! It's going to be chaos (loving chaos though, right?!) :nana

[Satori]

Originally Posted by kittie313

So is anyone already thinking about their options for next school year? Like, staying with k12 vs. a different VA vs. independent hs vs. public/private school? DH and I are starting to weigh our options now because we will need to have a plan in place and make purchases with the tax refund in the spring if we decide to go independent, and I'll want to make sure the kids are working up to grade level if they go back into public.

I took Melissa to the doctor today for an ADHD checkup, and got that referral for dyslexia testing. The office is also going to send me a copy of the referral form for my records, and I need to let our teacher know that she's been referred. So that covers everything I needed to do for that, now I wait lol

If there working on grade level for K12 then there ahead of there public school peers so no need to worry there Unless CAVA starts with more mandatory crap we'll stay with them for next year too.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by Satori

If there working on grade level for K12 then there ahead of there public school peers so no need to worry there Unless CAVA starts with more mandatory crap we'll stay with them for next year too.

That's what I was thinking, as long as they are at grade-level in all subjects they are at LEAST 2 years ahead of our local ps. Melissa's in 1st grade and doing semester 2 of phonics K, and that girl is already "caught up" by the ps standards for reading. Lydia, despite being way behind in phonics K herself, is ahead of the K kids (the first half of the year they go over letter names and sounds, they don't even START blending and reading until after Christmas and we're already doing that only /4 of the way into phonics K) Yeah, there will be NO problems with them being behind if they get back into ps in the future lol

[GinaRae]

I'm not seeing that with CAVA so far. Jack seems to have already gone thru most of this stuff in his old B&M school. I'm hoping we can start getting into something slightly more challenging soon.

ETA: As far as math is going, at least. Other things I do feel he's getting a better education. And certainly expanded and adjusted for HIM which is priceless.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by GinaRae

I'm not seeing that with CAVA so far. Jack seems to have already gone thru most of this stuff in his old B&M school. I'm hoping we can start getting into something slightly more challenging soon.

ETA: As far as math is going, at least. Other things I do feel he's getting a better education. And certainly expanded and adjusted for HIM which is priceless.

Yeah, we're still reviewing concepts that Melissa learned last year in public also when it comes to math. I'm not too concerned because she is dyslexic (probably) so the review of concepts is more to get her writing things properly and to reinforce the visual (she knows it too, I was going to just assess her out of all this stuff we've been doing but she insisted that she wanted to go through it so that she could practice that so it was technically HER request, not bad for a 1st grader IMO) Now phonics, that is a whole different story lol One day she'll catch up................

[Satori]

Originally Posted by kittie313

Yeah, we're still reviewing concepts that Melissa learned last year in public also when it comes to math. I'm not too concerned because she is dyslexic (probably) so the review of concepts is more to get her writing things properly and to reinforce the visual (she knows it too, I was going to just assess her out of all this stuff we've been doing but she insisted that she wanted to go through it so that she could practice that so it was technically HER request, not bad for a 1st grader IMO) Now phonics, that is a whole different story lol One day she'll catch up................

I hated K12 phonics with a passion, I still do to the point that its a deal breaker and won't be enrolling my younger dd until she's hit the 2nd/3rd grade mark just to avoid those stupid phonics lessons!

That said many here love starfall and they just started more.starfall.com which is a pay service for phonics but we ended up buying headsprout and it allowed dd to quickly get the phonics figured out quickly.

[kittie313]

We really like te k12 phonics actually. I've tried several things to help Melissa with her reading, and this is literally the first program that's got her not only starting to read, but actually ENJOYING her reading lessons. She does so well with phonics now, we've hit a groove for her to really bloom and grow at a great pace that fits her. I'm at a place where if we didn't do k12 next year, I'd likely still be getting k12 phonics for her and her sisters.

[eclipse]

DD hated k12 phonics with a passion, but I think it was because she was already reading (even though she claimed she couldn't ). Eventually I decided to scrap most of it other than dictation for writing practice. If we stick with k12 for next year, I think it might actually be a good fit for my now 4yo. He has a speech delay, and I think the slow pace and very deliberate isolation of different sounds they do might be very helpful for him. He's sight reading a lot of words, but has no understanding of how letter sounds relate to the words he reads. Other moms of kids with speech delays who have posted on the CAVA yahoo group have said that k12 phonics actually helped with their kids' speech, so it could be interesting.

I'm a little hesitant to enroll ds2 nexy year, though, because of all of CAVA's recent focus on "acheivement." Aside from his speech delay, he has some other minor delays and issues that I think could be problematic for CAVA. When DD started CAVA, she was easily 1st grade level, into 2nd grade in many things, so it was easy for us not to feel any pressure on acheivement. DS2's brain just seems wired differently than my older kids. He's one smart cookie, but I don't know how it will be demonstrated with k12 curriculum - combine his speech delay with a fine motor delay and a typica l4/5 year old boy's lack of ability to sit still for more than 30 seconds at a time, and I just don't know how it will go. We could wait a year (he's a September b-day), but as it is he really wants to "do school" like the older kids. We need to get him officially evaluated, too, because if he needs an IEP, I'd like to enter any charter school we use with one already in place so there's no confusion about him "underacheiving." There ARE other charter school options that have more flexible curriculum, so that might be the way we go - but if we do that, I'll switch all the kids, because I don't want to be dealing with two different charters.

[lovinlife1219]

Originally Posted by eclipse

DD hated k12 phonics with a passion, but I think it was because she was already reading (even though she claimed she couldn't ).

That sounds like my DS! He is reading the last books of the K "readers"which have a few sentences on each page. He's reading them with minimal help from me, to which I reply "dude! you just read that! you can read, that is so cool" and he says "no, I don't know how to read" but he really enjoys it! So, I learned right away to back off and for some reason he doesn't want to acknowledge that he knows how to read but since he gobbles it up and enjoys it we continue...I just don't talk out loud that he knows how to read

[kittie313]

Well, Melissa is at the table with paints, mixing them to make different colors for art class. I really do NOT like art.................... lol She isn't too fond of the k12 art lessons either, so we usually just look over the concept that she's learning and go for it with our own method of teaching. She's learning all about color mixing right now, and did it yesterday too for a bit, and I'm praying that it doesn't get *too* messy lol

[elanorh]

Hi all,
Sorry I disappeared for awhile - dh's great-grandmother passed away last week, so we had a cross-country trek to her funeral and virtually no internet access. We're en route home now ....

I had been almost entirely caught up on k12 (except for music and art) -- but with a week of hardly any internet access, I've lost ground significantly. We've managed to do a couple science and a couple history, a ton of math (but I should have brought the whole book because we used all the assessments I brought to do), and some reading .... but it looks like we are going to be pretty much working through almost all of Christmas break.

[eilonwy]

Oh, we're working too. I've been ill for the past two weeks, and very little has been accomplished. We've got to play catch-up in a big way over winter break.