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Rebecca Rupp

Autor(a) de The Dragon of Lonely Island

19 Works 2,479 Membros 37 Reviews

About the Author

Rebecca Rupp and her husband, Randy, homeschooled their three sons from preschool through high school, and all grew up to be creative, kindhearted people with large vocabularies. Rebecca has published over 300 articles in national magazines and nearly two dozen books, both for children and for mostrar mais adults. She maintains an educational resources blog at rebeccaruppresources.com. She lives on Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. mostrar menos

Includes the name: Rebecca Rupp

Séries

Obras de Rebecca Rupp

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
USA
Locais de residência
Vermont, USA

Membros

Resenhas

This is the diary of 12-year-old Sarah Simpson, whose parents have just divorced. She's upset about it, but she learns to accept it. Sounds cliche, but it's actually a pretty cute book, and very short (only 84 pages). Sarah's voice rings true.
 
Marcado
LibrarianDest | outras 2 resenhas | Jan 3, 2024 |
Originally appeared in a homeschool support group newsletter in May 2008.

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“In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love” (Locksley Hall. Line 19 by Alfred Lord Tennyson). And in spring, a homeschooling mom's thoughts turn to next year's lesson plans—and catalogs, curriculum fairs, and homeschool conferences. Unlike the pioneering homeschoolers who had few resources available to them, we have a vast sea of choices when selecting school books and supplies for our children. How do we know what to teach and when to teach it? What should we cover at each stage of our children's education?

One of my favorite planning resources is Rebecca Rupp's Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. She opens her book by stating, “There is no effective one-size-fits-all mode of education.” Every child is an individual, and homeschooling allows parents to custom-fit their lessons to their children's individual skills and interests.

All homeschooling parents know this and yet fret over whether their children are learning the basics and don't have holes in their education. This is where Rupp's book can help. She explains that while a standardized classroom curriculum may not work for your children, it can serve as a reference point and guide. Her book synthesizes the public school curricula of all fifty states and draws from various private sources and innovative educational organizations. Each chapter enumerates the standard goals for each grade and suggests resources to help parents achieve these academic goals.

The preschool chapter lists books, catalogs, magazines, software, and websites for both parents and children. For each of the school grades, the author covers Language Arts, Mathematics, History and Geography, Science, Foreign Language, Art, Music, and Health and Physical Education. The core subjects are broken down into subcategories. For instance, Language Arts includes Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking Skills, and Study Skills. Mathematics, Science, and History are also divided into subtopics.

The fourth-grade chapter, for example, starts with the Language Arts section. Under the subtitle Reading, the author begins with an introduction paragraph and suggests three literature curricula. Next, she states specific goals, such as “3. Define elements of figurative language.” Below this, she lists five types of figurative language and descriptions of different types of poetry. Then, she offers two books and two websites about poetry as resources.

To avoid repetition, Rupp references previous entries for some subjects. For instance, under fourth grade Foreign Language, she refers the reader to the kindergarten chapter where foreign language resources are listed.

This book contains five appendices: Technology, Textbooks and Resources, Lesson Plans, Book Lists, and Distance Learning. These appendices direct you to various resources, many having websites. An index concludes the book.

To use this book, you simply turn to the grade you want to study. For instance, my son will be in fourth grade next year. So, I will begin my planning by reading the fourth-grade chapter. I will also review some sections in the previous chapters to check for any areas that we've missed. As I consider these goals, I keep in mind that they are only guidelines and reflect the objectives of the public schools and might not coincide with my educational plans for my son. Yet, I often find the skill lists helpful in knowing what my son should know at a given level.

When you need assistance in navigating through the educational ocean, use this book as your compass.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
Newton_Books | outras 3 resenhas | Nov 11, 2023 |
This could have been good and there were some very interesting factoids in there but the format was predictable and ultimately a put off. If you are really interested in vegetables or in a particular vegetable then this might be for you.

I had high hopes for this book but…..A great gift for someone you are ambivalent about.
 
Marcado
Ken-Me-Old-Mate | outras 3 resenhas | Sep 24, 2020 |
Three children have to spend the summer at their great-aunt's house on an island. The aunt is not there, the parents and staff are usually busy, so the children explore. They find a hidden cave on a hill- and inside is a three-headed dragon. Each time the children visit, one of the dragon heads is awake, and tells them a story.

So it's really four stories in one. The children, their explorations and interactions and each of the dragon's stories, which are nicely interwoven. The children have a relatively quiet vacation- they explore the old grand house, go swimming and have picnics, bake cookies and play board games etc. but really they are always waiting for the day when they can visit the dragon again. Each has a difficulty or personality trait that the dragon addresses in its stories, giving them life lessons as it were. The oldest feels put-upon by having to be in charge, the middle child is something of a hoarder and doesn't like to share, the youngest lacks self-confidence and is easily frightened.

Dragon stories: first of a young girl in China during a time when girls were not valued. She finds the dragon injured in the forest, but nobody believes her when she tries to get help. Second story is about an orphan boy who goes to sea as cabin boy. Once he gets to the ship he realizes it isn't at all how the recruiting sailor portrayed things, but it's too late to turn back. He is mistreated on board and soon finds out the crew are actually pirates. He warns a ship they're about to attack and for that, gets dumped on an island, wondering how he's going to escape danger and get back home. Then he finds a cave full of treasure . . . Third story is about two children and their father, who are in a small airplane (back when planes were a very new thing) travelling across the world. They crash on an island, the father is injured and the children have to figure out how to survive. They find the dragon living in the forest, and ask it for help but it refuses annoyed being disturbed.

Of course each story is teaching the children something: how to be brave and face down the status quo, the value of sharing, resourcefulness and attempting things even if you don't know how it might turn out. For how short the book is, I really liked how well the characters and the stories they heard were depicted. And yes, the dragon talking to the children is the same dragon featured in each story. There's no high-stakes exciting adventures, especially with the three main children; this book has a very different appeal. The dragon itself is polite and mild-mannered, although it does at times get annoyed with the children. Sometimes its abashed reply to some lack of manners or compassion being pointed out was a bit- odd, for a dragon, but I think it's just driving the point home: this isn't a wild, angry, fierce beast. And the dragon likes to point out how wrong all the stereotypes about dragons eating princesses are!

from the Dogear Diary
… (mais)
 
Marcado
jeane | outras 5 resenhas | Aug 18, 2020 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
19
Membros
2,479
Popularidade
#10,345
Avaliação
3.8
Resenhas
37
ISBNs
85
Idiomas
4

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