Math
The Scientist's list from ALEKS says he mastered the following lessons: simplifying fractions, problem-solving with ratios and proportions, writing variable expressions, interpreting a stem and leaf plot, histograms for numerical data, estimating in the hundred thousands, divisibility rules, writing an inequality, the counting principle, translations, writing a mixed number as an improper fraction, adding time, integer addition, finding a function rule, reading and plotting a point in a coordinate plane, perimeter of a polygon, intro to exponents, and describing data patterns. I don't understand how his brain works.
The Storyteller finished the measurement unit, working in metric and English. He also learned to subtract in columns with borrowing. It took a lot of patience on my part to convince him to do it on paper and from right to left instead of in his head with the system of visualizing hundreds and thousands blocks that he had developed. That boy has a mighty powerful mind's eye. I can't visualize a thousand of anything.
Math was much better with the Hero this week. I worked out a routine so that I didn't have to think about what he should do each day. He has learned to write numbers to thirty, but by rote. He has no concept of place value. He keeps forgetting to order the digits correctly, switching twenty-one out for twelve, for example. He picked up the terms "minus," "subtract," "difference," and "sum" without difficulty. It took me til adulthood to remember which is a sum, a difference, a product, and a quotient because no one ever used those words when talking to me about what amounts do, so I have been careful to use mathematical vocabulary when I give him aid and direction.
Math was much better with the Hero this week. I worked out a routine so that I didn't have to think about what he should do each day. He has learned to write numbers to thirty, but by rote. He has no concept of place value. He keeps forgetting to order the digits correctly, switching twenty-one out for twelve, for example. He picked up the terms "minus," "subtract," "difference," and "sum" without difficulty. It took me til adulthood to remember which is a sum, a difference, a product, and a quotient because no one ever used those words when talking to me about what amounts do, so I have been careful to use mathematical vocabulary when I give him aid and direction.
The two little boys have new math books, those cheapo drugstore $10 Complete Book of Math things. For Storyteller I wanted something that was more colorful than Math Mammoth and that would get him through the material faster. For the Hero I wanted something more comprehensive than the topical Kumon materials but less intellectually demanding (yeah less, he's still five) than Math Mammoth. I don't believe these will keep me from continuing to teach the math techniques that the Scientist learned when we used Singapore.
Composition
The Storyteller wrote another chapter of his fan fiction. Composition time for him has become an opportunity to write the things he always says he wants to write. I wish I could attend a composition class like that. At some point I'll grab his writing and mark it up for corrections in mechanics and style, but nothing intrusive. I'm thinking of big, obvious things like using the same word five times in a paragraph or starting words with "so" over and over.
Flailing about for appropriate religious material, I gave the Storyteller first Higginbotham's explanation of how quantum physics and Paganism relate, then, when that failed to get through to his non-science-y brain, Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. That was the right move. He can understand Lewis' writing better than the technical physics stuff, and he isn't rebelling non-sensibly because Lewis is bringing my little lobster slowly up to a theist boil. He covered the rule of the nature of man, or the idea that everyone is hardwired with the idea that right and wrong is at the very least a question to be asked.
Art was simple and rushed because the daddio wanted to pick the boys up early for his weekend visitation. Each boy took some paper outside and filled up a page with what they saw, using oil pastels. They read about the color wheels and drawing from observation.
Science
Science this week was pretty tricky. We had a lot of materials-related stops and starts, and the Storyteller tried to insist that science isn't a subject he needs to do. In the end, a battery was successfully made out of lime juice.
Composition
The Storyteller wrote another chapter of his fan fiction. Composition time for him has become an opportunity to write the things he always says he wants to write. I wish I could attend a composition class like that. At some point I'll grab his writing and mark it up for corrections in mechanics and style, but nothing intrusive. I'm thinking of big, obvious things like using the same word five times in a paragraph or starting words with "so" over and over.
We read a picture book about a pirate and a penguin that highlighted the fun of knowing more about your protagonist than your readers will know.
The boys both did outlining practice from their history books. I'm still providing the subtopic headings.
The Scientist continues to write without complaining. It's the only subject at the beginning of which he doesn't bang his head against the table and declare "I HATE this subject." Readers who have followed this blog since it was on homeschooljournal.net are wondering now if they have mixed up the Scientist with another one of my kids. He wrote a complete plot outline.
The Hero is writing. I can give him dictation! He spells everything without vowels and then illustrates it. HMR = hammer, for example. It's adorable. He tires of it very quickly, so I only gave him a couple of words a day. He's also still tracing and copying vowel-consonant-vowel words on the worksheets I made a few weeks ago, but he's finished the last one. Next week I need to give him a bit of a quiz to see which letters he definitely has mastered. Oddly, he still can't remember how to spell his name. It's not an especially hard name and he recognizes it when he sees it, but he keeps trying to spell it without vowels.
Humanities
Fun fact -- Walt Whitman and I and the boys' granddad and the guy who wrote The Latin-Centered Curriculum, upon which we base our homeschooling, are all from the same city.
The boys both did outlining practice from their history books. I'm still providing the subtopic headings.
The Scientist continues to write without complaining. It's the only subject at the beginning of which he doesn't bang his head against the table and declare "I HATE this subject." Readers who have followed this blog since it was on homeschooljournal.net are wondering now if they have mixed up the Scientist with another one of my kids. He wrote a complete plot outline.
The Hero is writing. I can give him dictation! He spells everything without vowels and then illustrates it. HMR = hammer, for example. It's adorable. He tires of it very quickly, so I only gave him a couple of words a day. He's also still tracing and copying vowel-consonant-vowel words on the worksheets I made a few weeks ago, but he's finished the last one. Next week I need to give him a bit of a quiz to see which letters he definitely has mastered. Oddly, he still can't remember how to spell his name. It's not an especially hard name and he recognizes it when he sees it, but he keeps trying to spell it without vowels.
Humanities
Fun fact -- Walt Whitman and I and the boys' granddad and the guy who wrote The Latin-Centered Curriculum, upon which we base our homeschooling, are all from the same city.
My sons hate Walt Whitman. I made a crucial strategy mistake in letting the Storyteller, my budding mathematician, read "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" first; the mathematics of astronomy has much more beauty to him than just staring at the stars. The Hero did not understand why it was news that everything was a miracle. And the Scientist, after Herman Melville's earthy prose, thought all the big mystical words were silly.
We did have a neat little conversation about what he must have been like, based on his poetry, and that was the best part of the literary week. I decided that Walt must've been polyamorous and Pagan and genderqueer. The boys had positive impressions of the man, even though they couldn't muster any appreciation for his poetry.
There was poetry in our history lessons, too. Listening to my boys chant The Charge of the Light Brigade was fun. Sons of pacifists don't grok the romance of obedience. But they tapped out the rhythm on the wall of the library study room, and someone tapped it back. Sorry, random library patron; we didn't know anyone was in there.
Flailing about for appropriate religious material, I gave the Storyteller first Higginbotham's explanation of how quantum physics and Paganism relate, then, when that failed to get through to his non-science-y brain, Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. That was the right move. He can understand Lewis' writing better than the technical physics stuff, and he isn't rebelling non-sensibly because Lewis is bringing my little lobster slowly up to a theist boil. He covered the rule of the nature of man, or the idea that everyone is hardwired with the idea that right and wrong is at the very least a question to be asked.
The Scientist mostly learned about cleansing and consecrating, what it means and how it happens and why we do it. That I did mostly without a book, just talking him through it, but I had started with a RavenWolf book that was way unhelpful, and got upset with him when it appeared he hadn't bothered to read it. That made him pretty grumpy and I had to apologize a bunch and will now have to propose a new way to cover such things so that he doesn't reject the study of ceremonial magic entirely.He read about coming of age traditions and symbolism in a Campanelli book. I talked to him about enrollment in the Grey School and his need for a magical name. We decided upon a format for a name-getting work. It will start with taking away his name before he goes to bed, doing a cleansing ceremony then, giving him a satchet of name-inspiring/dream-bringing herbs and charms to sleep with, asking a deity of choice for help. In the morning hopefully he'll have come up with a name or had a dream about one, and he can take it to a council of trusted adults or maybe just me, and we'll consecrate him with it to the purpose of pursuing this religion. I have to flesh out details, but we have a plan now and that feels good. I'm considering doing it on Mabon with just him and me and pretending that was an intentional choice because Mabon means "son of the mother" and not that I failed to gather a council of trusted adults on his birthday several months ago.
I also had the Scientist go over the same Higginbotham material this week, mostly just so he could talk about it with his brother, but also so that he would be reassured that he was making the right choice when three of his siblings (the daddio's sons and the Storyteller) are being loudly atheist in a non-intellectual "it's fun to rebel" kind of way.
The boys read "Story of the World" Chapters Two and Three, covering Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan to the West, the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale, David Livingstone and Victorian Britain in Africa, and the Great Game. They looked at the pages on those topics in a couple of history encyclopedias. The boys filled in blank outline maps to show movements and events on those topics, and they added all the relevant dates to their timeline. They each read extra books on all of the topics, too. I wish I had thought to write down the titles before returning them to the library.
The boys read "Story of the World" Chapters Two and Three, covering Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan to the West, the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale, David Livingstone and Victorian Britain in Africa, and the Great Game. They looked at the pages on those topics in a couple of history encyclopedias. The boys filled in blank outline maps to show movements and events on those topics, and they added all the relevant dates to their timeline. They each read extra books on all of the topics, too. I wish I had thought to write down the titles before returning them to the library.
Art was simple and rushed because the daddio wanted to pick the boys up early for his weekend visitation. Each boy took some paper outside and filled up a page with what they saw, using oil pastels. They read about the color wheels and drawing from observation.
Science
Science this week was pretty tricky. We had a lot of materials-related stops and starts, and the Storyteller tried to insist that science isn't a subject he needs to do. In the end, a battery was successfully made out of lime juice.
I have to figure out a thing to do with the Hero and the Storyteller. They can't tag along with the electronics stuff the big kid is doing. It's a stretch even for him.
Piano
We have progress! Each kid played better than before, noticed, and enjoyed it. The Scientist has got those sharps and flats down. The Storyteller moved up to simple but traditionally written music rather than the numbered/lettered finger system used by our curriculum in the first few books. The Hero's pinky finger gained the strength it needs to hit those keys.
Miscellany
We did finish The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Hero said, "Okay, we can finish all the Oz books... but then we'll stop doing chapter books." He and I had a nice discussion of all the ways Dorothy might get back to Oz. I was surprised that the Scientist, who was five years old when I read the first five or so Oz books to him, didn't remember any of it, while the Storyteller, who was three, really did remember a lot.
In logic, the Scientist covered the fallacies of non-sequiturs, vehemence, affirming the consequent, and equivocation.
Piano
We have progress! Each kid played better than before, noticed, and enjoyed it. The Scientist has got those sharps and flats down. The Storyteller moved up to simple but traditionally written music rather than the numbered/lettered finger system used by our curriculum in the first few books. The Hero's pinky finger gained the strength it needs to hit those keys.
Miscellany
We did finish The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Hero said, "Okay, we can finish all the Oz books... but then we'll stop doing chapter books." He and I had a nice discussion of all the ways Dorothy might get back to Oz. I was surprised that the Scientist, who was five years old when I read the first five or so Oz books to him, didn't remember any of it, while the Storyteller, who was three, really did remember a lot.
In logic, the Scientist covered the fallacies of non-sequiturs, vehemence, affirming the consequent, and equivocation.
We were planning to do food prep for a Food Not Bombs fundraiser for Bradley Manning, but didn't end up going. In anticipation of it, however, Storyteller and Scientist did some research and discussed ethics with me.
Next week we are taking off for Mabon. I have requested every book the library has on autumn, I think. I have a dream pillow project in mind. We'll also have a feast.
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