Old Time Summer

Tag: Math-U-See

  • August 2012 Educational Preview

    A new “school year” is beginning. We have a new family computer to use for education. It’s a nice HP TouchSmart AIO Core i5 23″ beauty, though it doesn’t have any of the features I wanted to add on, in store we had no options, only this one. HDMI input, Bluetooth, Blu-ray … none of them exist on this model. It wasn’t super important, but I did want at least a Blu-ray player. Really want a Blu-ray burner and have thought for awhile that maybe I should just get a stand-alone version, so … the other thing is a Bluetooth module … I can get a dongle, but that’s not as nice as built-in on an AIO.

    My laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth nor Blu-ray. I hated that back when I got it. Guess what I feel now? I really hate that I STILL don’t have those features on a machine. I have a dongle on my laptop for bluetooth. It doesn’t work right unless I put it on the e-Sata port. It’s a special combo port, anyhow, it provides better power, and it’s the only port on my laptop that will run it correctly, troublesome, since my keyboard and mouse use it and I have an external sata device …

    So I have a job I need to finish and that is archiving all my photos and making something out of all my video footage. I need Blu-ray disc burning for that. I refuse to use DVD’s nowadays, so I do nothing at all. I have a lot of video that I need to process and this new computer can handle it better. Which means I need to put my Sony video programs on here (the machine I’m typing on is the HP AIO.)

    As for the educational things: I have LEGO We Do software which will work with this desktop, finally a desktop! Our other things never worked with it, only my laptop. I am actually missing one of the discs, I hope I can figure out which one and find it. I have Artes Latinae installed. I’m having them ‘start over’ again, for the 2nd or 3rd time. It’s been that long since I bought it and we’ve had so many computer issues … augh! Hopefully that ends here.

    I need to get them all started on more stuff, so the main topic is how to REALLY use a computer, use programs, and create things. Also they need to learn to use their cameras better, and how to really make the photos nicer, delete when necessary, organize like crazy.

    They will have a better time on this computer writing blog posts and other documents. We have OFfice 2010 Home and Student. I’ll upgrade this computer to Win 8 and have plans to upgrade to the new Office programs.

    Years ago I had Office 95 (actually still have it, just isn’t installed). I loved it, I loved Access. I really wish they had that in H & S … but they don’t. It’s just not possible for us to buy 2 or 3 licenses for Office Pro, but I wish I could. In the old days it was easier to deal with these things, You could put it on a laptop and a desktop both. No real life restrictions. So we have H & S since it’s affordable for family use, even though it’s a lesser product, but not so bad.

    I need to get more things going than ever, and it’s hard with limited funds. I’m hoping I can get some packages of somethings for my oldest two to rip through soon … it’s a high possibility. So we need to get on point and finish the Math-U-See levels they are on and go through more than one more before the end of the year.

    Well, that’s just starting peek into what we are planning and getting done, or need to.

  • Getting things going better

    Spring and the coming summer ALWAYS make me feel more into “schooling” for some reason, as does the Christmas Season, which is kind of strange when I think about it. Anyhow, I do know somewhat where we live has to do with it, the weather and seasons, Spring & Summer very hot and sunny, or rainy, but humid and miserable. Good for inside living, doing educational things. Christmas coming is after Thanksgiving, so I get into the stuff of Christmas, the weather may or maynot be winter-like, but the sun goes to bed early, comes up late, and that gets me feeling that education is needed to be more formal, and crafty … so when others are off, I like doing stuff. Also, I prefer weekend educational more than weekday, not that hubby has to be around, I just have a hard time motivating things along and getting anything else done at all.

    So to bring this post to a point, it’s mid-Spring, first birthday of the year is over, Mother’s Day is over, now we have a month before Father’s Day, Summer Solstice and another birthday. So now is the time to get head over heals into everything that we can educationally minded.

    One thing will be Math-U-See, I’m pushing my two oldest to complete their terribly low level (Beta) to get to the new package we are picking up today (Gamma) level & get going seriously to get up to par.

    No more messing around not getting the right stuff into our home when it’s needed. $ is needed, doing it on purpose instead of looking for extra $ when it sometimes comes around.

    There are other things I need too, literature, geography & history kinds of things to go with my Bible, History, Geography Charlotte Mason sort of program. I have some of it, need some more to really make it fly.

    I also want more literature for the sake of literature. (I mean good books, not pamphlets from some company.)

    So it’s tough too then when I have 4 children that get up at different times in the morning. Eldest sleeps too long, teen already. Second oldest doesn’t get up early, but sometimes gets up early, or too late, or something. Mostly they both are sluggish in the morning and so nothing gets done fully enough until afternoon, that doesn’t include schooling.

    My 9 year old boy is struggling to read still. He CAN do it, just hasn’t gotten to the successful stage of “I can do it!” so we are going to get him Brain Safari software, see it it can motivate and progress him.

    Right now things are between pay times, so I can’t get the program through my online co-op, hope it’ll be around when I can safely order the product.

    I don’t look at the homeschool co-op site often enough, so I miss good deals, don’t know what some of them mean since I didn’t see when it started to understand what they are doing with it near the end of it’s run “extended a month” with no dates on the page at all. FWIW

    I think I write on this blog more about trying to get going, rather than what we are doing, have done, etc. I need to change that.

  • Know Thyself

    It’s Monday, time for “official” education-ing to be happening. I’m getting “them” to do their Latin on Tues. & Thurs., and every day do their “Grammar” & “Spelling Wisdom” & “Creative Writing” & “Math-U-See” & “Catechism Q & A” (Westminster Shorter) …

    Just for starters, trying to get THESE things happening regularly. Hopefully I can get the rest of the art things I need to employ the Art program I have sooner than later. Also need to get some more things to use the Bible/History stuff I have.

    I’m using the rest of this month to get on track and catch-up the very basics, then begin again in January and February with the other things I don’t yet have.

    I’m also using this month for crafty-ness, creative writing, special audio books (holiday stories) and whatever else that happens and is a “learning moment” or whatever.

    One thing I did for my two eldest in early November, I got them each their own day-timer from Target, the made by Franklin-Covey student spiral bound sort, so it started in August. I’m trying to get them to record things they do, places they went, things they NEED to do, etc. Start getting themselves accustomed to organizing themselves in a book. I like it for a semi-journal recording of what I’ve done. I haven’t had one every year, but I have used different calendars similarly, cramming things in here and there, though I haven’t done it to the extent that I have wished I would have through the years.

    Part of what I want my children to learn is “archiving” what they do, learn, read, like, etc. through the years, on paper.

    I found two things of mine from when I was younger in some things I went through in our storage area last week. One is a “slam book” that I started in 1981. I actually only had one friend “sign in” and log her answers, then the other “sign ins” are all me from 1981 to 1990. I had forgotten about it. I’m going to have my children make their own versions later this month.

    The other thing I found is a small spiral bound notebook with 1-year of my life at a church my friend and I started to attend and decided to join, but waited a year to officially do it. I wrote about the people & things we did for that year. I had forgotten about that as well. It’s funny to look back on these things.

    I never had a “diary” that I kept up with. I found them too emo-stupid usually to be able to write one as was thought of should be in a diary when I was young. Like, I looked back at what I wrote the day before or the week before, and felt embarrassed, couldn’t stand what I had written, how childish it seemed afterthefact. Sometimes I feel like that about blog posts, or forum posts, but I don’t actually post as much as I write, because of that I decide while I’m still writing that it’s too NOT what I want to post, so I stop/delete it. I at times am able to just look at it as an editor and re-write it, but usually I don’t. I find that tedious.

    Many times I do write things and then don’t do anything with it, feeling satisfied that I got it organized in my head by writing it out, and don’t save it. I would like to keep a better record of myself …

    I would like my children to keep a good record of themselves through their life. So the things I like to do and want to do I will start doing and have them do them too. It’s good to know where you are and how you got there. Personal journaling/notebooking of life can aide in that journey of understanding.