Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Help with a huge undertaking

Hello everyone

I'm asking for some help with a project I'm starting. Let me give you the background.

My upstairs neighbors are a 6 year old girl and her single mom. My next door neighbors are the elderly parents of the single mom. They are from Bulgaria. The mom speaks English great and is currently studying Behavioral Science at UVU. The parents barely speak English, but they sure try.

The 6 year old girl was recently diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disorder which requires her to be homeschooled. Well, I've always thought that homeschooling works well for some but not as well for others. Sophie falls in the not-as-well category. She does great at school, not as great at home.

I've been feeling for a while that I should help homeschool her. I ignored this idea and contested it for quite a while, but I finally admitted that maybe I should listen to the Spirit and offer. Last night I presented my idea and I thought the mom was going to cry, she was so excited.

Here's where I need help. They have no money to buy a curriculum, so I'm helping them make one. I've found some great resources online, but I would love LOVE any input and ideas I can get here! Can you email me worksheets, assignments, projects, etc. that your first grader is doing this year? Thank you thank you thank you!

We started today--so far it's been a success! I copied a worksheet my niece Tatum was assigned for homework the first week of school when I was visiting. :)

Alright folks, send me your homework assignments! (And your prayers, too!)

6 comments:

Melanie said...

I certainly don't have anything, but my sister-in-law Kerri (Mark's wife) homeschools her boys. Here is her email address: kerridame@yahoo.com Good luck!

Jena and Jason said...

Staci, you inspiration. I don't have anything to offer at the moment, but I will keep you and her in mind.

Steph said...

You need to talk to Hannah DeForest-- she's an expert homeschooler. I'll bet she'd have lots of good resources for you.

We're doing a trial homeschool year ourselves-- I've come across some great online resources. I'll email them to you.

Alpine school district contracts with a company (K12) to provide an extensive online curriculum for free to homeschooling families who want it. I heard that Provo school district might do something similar-- it may be worth a call to the district office.

I'm impressed with your kind heart and your spunk.

Kate Challis said...

Also you can check out elementary school textbooks from the byu library. They are located on the 1st floor (lowest basement floor) to the right, on your right. There are usually materials in there that can be copied if you are a teacher (which now you are!)

Teri said...

E.D.Hirsch books titled by grade: "What Every 1st Grader Needs To Know" (with the grade being different for each book.) EXCELLENT material! And one bit of advise... to not keep your thought in the "public school curriculum" box. You have the great opportunity to prayerfully use the Spirit to guide you write a great curriculum by searching out all sorts of materials. Specifically good materials that the politically-correct-public school curriculums would never use! You are so capable of doing a smash up job, I'd hate to see you limit yourself to just public school materials. Plus... If you do write an entire curriculum for K-6 or K-12, especially for LDS, you will have an automatically built-in clientelle at the end of your writing it! To the tune of tens of thousands of families who would love to purchase a "good" and especially "LDS" homeschool curriculum from you! And who knows.. you may become a homeschool convert one day yourself! =)

To begin, here are some recommendations. The first one is hugely enlightening and awesome!

1) Revealed Educational Principles & the Public Schools: A look at principle-centered education through the prophets and LDS educational history.

2) http://www.schoolofabraham.com/

3) http://www.ldshea.org/(curriculum help)

4) http://www.ldfr.com/ (GREAT resources, not just LDS)

Have FUN!

Teri said...

Oops, forgot to tell you the author's name for #1: Jack Monnett

and the URL:
http://www.archivepublishers.com/html/88.html