Week 10, Birthday, Math and Reading glasses

LB is 8

Happy Birthday, LB!  Darling LB turned 8 this week.

One of the good things about homeschooling is taking the day off for your birthday.  LB got breakfast in bed and a trip to the zoo for her birthday.  We spent the zoo trip following her around the zoo at her pace.  She also had a yummy gluten free chocolate cake with a dairy free chocolate ganache frosting.  Seven was fun, but she is happy to be eight.


CC's math project.  By all that is holy, please.  I don't have enough patience to watch a child color-code when she could be graphing.  Really.  She kills me.  I'm a monochromatic kind of person.  She's artistic.  Somebody save me from artistic people.  How on earth did this happen to me?!  Smile and breathe slowly.

She really did a great job.  She spent two weeks working on a graphing project.  She didn't just want to do something simple and easy to answer.  After a lot of effort, she chose to look at the effects of bias on surveys.  It took her a lot of time to design a question set that would demonstrate bias.  Then we spent 5 days collecting data.  The results convincingly showed that bias has an influence and negative bias has a stronger influence than positive.  (51%-49% favored dogs over cats in the unbiased question.  Only 30% chose whichever was the target of the negative bias.  59% chose the target of positive bias.)  She had to graph her data in two different ways which forced her to figure out how to account for the different sample sizes in her data set and still show her findings.  I think it was a terrific project.  She worked hard and learned how important it is to look carefully at the design of a study instead of just looking at the results.

This week her orchestra class had their first concert in morning assembly.  They were terrific.  I still think it is amazingly bold to take a whole class of sixth grade public school students and turn them into a string orchestra.  My brother always notes that the kids are self-selected into the school so they aren't the same as a class at a typical public school, but still.  This is not a group of 65 kids paying private teachers and paying for their own instruments.  It is bold to expect they can achieve this.  At the end of the year, these kids will sounds wonderful.  At the end of the 5 year orchestra program, they will be amazing.

LB's reading glasses arrived Monday.  She was very excited about them, but I think she was disappointed too.  Despite her dad and I both warning her that the glasses should make reading easier by making words bigger but that they wouldn't correct her vision problems, she was disappointed.  She spent a lot of time playing with the way things looked with her glasses during her lessons, but she eventually put them away before finishing her work without them.   I think she had hoped they would making make everything all better.  Later in the week, she brought out again to read a chapter from Mercy Watson and said that they really helped.

Between the new glasses and her birthday, she didn't do a lot of school.  She only completed three days of work this week.  She had a lot of fun, and is making progress in math and has been doing well with her science and poetry also.   Our book highlight for the week was The Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night.  It is a mix of descriptive poetry and natural history with beautiful illustrations.  It was our first poetry book by Sidman, and I think we'll read some more.

It think it is interesting how very different my kids' taste in poetry at this age has been.  In second grade, BB loved nonsense poetry by Shel Silverstein like Where the Sidewalk Ends.  CC loved dramatic poetry like "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson.  LB loves lyrical poetry like "Daffodils" by Wordsworth.

Week 5 With Focus on Math

History:

LB has been spending her evenings listening to David Tennant read How to Train Your Dragon to her (isn't that sweet of him?).  She has decided that it is time for history again and wants to study Vikings which are always fun.  We're using our trusty Time Traveler for most of our historical information along with a globe and some books on Norse mythology.  She spent some time in the afternoons practicing her longsword skills with her sister and breaking down boxes to fit in the recycle bin with the those wooden swords.  The Good Times Travel Agency book on the Middle Ages arrived, and judging by her reaction to the book, we might be ready for the Middle Ages next week. Although, I just might pick up their Viking book if I can find an inexpensive copy so we can stay here a little longer.

Science, Writing and Reading:
LB started avoiding the CLP Nature Reader so I decided it was time for a switch.  I pulled out the Daily Science 2 workbook and did a few lessons a day with her.  She read each lesson, answered the questions, and talked about the discussion questions with me.  It was a fun change.  I changed out the writing to poetry copywork from our old, tried-and-true IEW poetry book.  I also brought up a shelf of mixed level books from our basement library so she can have independent reading which really excited her.   I can't really decide where we stand on reading this week, but she did make it through a stack of books.

Dogs aren't very good at math.

Math:

Currently math is going well.  I'm pretty sure I have low expectations gained from years of failures teaching math, but I like math with LB right now.  We're doing a chapter of LoF Cats which is too easy and too fun to really count.  We follow that with a section of R&S Math 2.  It starts with what should be review of basic operations on numbers.  This week we started  subtracting from 6.  The math was easy, and we made it fun.  She doesn't have these facts as automatically as I think she should so I'm not skimping on this step.  We're also using toys.  We use Calico Critter toddlers which to the casual observer may not make good manipulatives, but they are for LB.  For the 6's, I chose 2 sets of triplets that each have 2 girls and 1 boy.  Each and every math problem had a story this week.  Six toddlers were playing when the 2 boys decided to chase the girls.  How many girls did they chase?  Six toddlers where playing, but the 3 kittens had to go home for their bowl of milk.  How many meerkats were left? I made a lot of silly math stories which were completely unnecessary, but she didn't have to stop and think or count the toys even once.  She knows how many kittens she has and how many are boys.   I told a lot of stories, and she did a lot of math.  It is clicking a lot better than any of the other math we've done.   After the calculations, there is place value work, skip counting, and other math that is very easy for her. Math is a marathon.

I think it really helps me to have clear goals of where I want to be in math by the beginning of 6th grade.  My previous big plans with contingencies based on when we hit Algebra were just too vague to really be useful.  I know now that by 6th grade I want her to be solid on computation along with some basic geometry, fractions and decimals.  That is all I am aiming for right now.  I know how to achieve that.


CC's School:
CC's school doesn't give the kids grades until their parents get very detailed evaluations at the end of the semester.  Instead of a numerical grade, each quiz, test or paper is supposed to have detailed feedback which is supposed to help the kids improve and not circumvent a conversation about the work.  Based on her recent quiz in Latin, I think she must be doing okay.  The comments on the different sections were: "Super", "Great", and "Terrific."  The overall comment at the top was, "WOW!!"  That must mean she did alright.   Her only trouble so far has been with the phrases in the vocabulary that use declensions she hasn't learned yet.  My attempt to explain the more advanced declensions to her gave me a great deal of respect for a guy that could successfully explain that to a whole gaggle of 6th grade girls.

CC's Allergies:
I bought two air purifiers for medium sized rooms which we put in the two classrooms where she spends the most time.  We have 5 hours of school covered with those two purifiers.  So far, it has helped tremendously.  She might survive weed season after all.

Week 10 - A math review

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

From the teacher's corner.....
This week CC is on a two week break from math so I am taking this opportunity to evaluate some mathy things.  I read Kitchen Table Math 1 and 2 this week.  They aren't exactly what I was expecting (a pick up and go math supplement), but they are terrific.   Having failed at teaching math on many levels,  I finally came to understand what Liping Ma described as related topics or web of information in math.  What I have been missing is something that breaks down math topics into those pieces so I can figure out what my kids need to understand and what things are related.  These books do that.  They give an explanation of each of the many, tiny steps that are involved in teaching math, usually including an activity that reinforces it and a sample of a problem demonstrating it.  The topics are also linked with a note as to what needs to be learned prior to starting the topic.  I am adding sticky notes and highlights and planning to demo some mini-lessons with the girls next week.

Now back to our week.  No migraines this week.  I'm pretty good at controlling my triggers (wheat, soy, corn, cinnamon, tree nuts, and MSG), but sometimes I get accidental exposure.

Monday - CC went to the office with her dad.  She knitted him a cap, read more of Giants, Monsters, and Dragons,  went to a few meetings, read The Story of Salt, Sneeze and a new Asterix, then went fencing and wrote in her journal.
LB played with play dough.  I read her Cinderella and from the Big Book of Tell Me Why.  She did her ETC.

Tuesday - CC did Perplexors, grammar, wrote in her journal, read from her Monsters book, and rode her bike with her dad to pottery. 
LB went to school.

Wednesday - I tortured the kids with some School House Rock, took them on a nature walk, read Listen to the Wind, and took them for a run to begin a 5k training program.
CC Did grammar and spelling.  We looked up the rules for her words in The ABC's and All Their Tricks then had a little spelling bee.  She also read from her monsters book and did perplexors.
LB did her ETC, played on pbskids.org, read some books about mammals, and went to ballet.

Thursday - CC went to school. 
LB did her ETC, watched Bambi, drew characters from the movie, played hide-and-seek, went for a bike ride and a nature walk. We also started reading fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson, again.

Friday - I am super busy trying to get done with work early so I can go to the park this afternoon, and I think the kids' day might consist of playing ping-pong in the kitchen until we go to the park.  Either that or wandering around begging me to play with them because there is nothing to do.  I really want Rosetta Stone accomplished and grammar - right now CC is helping LB with her RS - I keep hearing things like "Try egg" and "I think it means dog".   There are advantanges to having them do different languages - cross polination is a big one. 
I am, of course, leaving out the fact that they watched way too much Beakman's World on Netflix all week.



I need to start a loaf of bread and figure out what's for dinner. I need to go to the teacher store and order CC's next math book and the next ETC for LB.

I was on call last weekend and part of this week - it seems like I spent so much time handling calls the first two days of the week that I can't get anything else done all week. I'm on call next week from Monday to Friday, and my mom is going to stay with my sister for a month. I don't have high expectations for next week. This week seemed like a jumbled mess to me, but in the end, we accomplished much. Did you notice I started grammar again and spelling? Hooray!

WR 1 - 4th and K

Before you read my report, please read this back to school PSA.
This is my first weekly report of  the 2010-11 school year - we're on day 23 of school.  :)

Geography

K math

Working on a project

This week we were much more like school than vacation.  We did math and writing everyday.  We're also doing lots of geography in Kindergarten.  We enjoyed the manners books, a soda pop science kit, watercolor painting and a trip to the park with friends.  The big thing for the week was Back-to-School-Night at our enrichment school. We start next week.



For our work - CC is doing great in math. She is really good at it and knows it. We started WWE4 for writing this week. The dictation is LONG, but she is very proud of how well she is doing with it. Summarizing is giving her trouble still because she is so good at remembering details.

LB has made amazing jumps in math. She can do the within 10 addition and subtraction in her head now. I don't know what has changed except that time has passed. She did her workbook twice this week and played with attribute blocks and dice the rest of the week. I found neat colored dice that match the attribute blocks which opens all kinds of possibilities. She's rolling numbers on the dice, then matching them with blocks then making hop-scotch patterns for her toys with them. She also started WWE1 this week. I decided I wanted consistency and a focus on writing. She did WWE three days this week so far, I'm planning to get one more day. In Phonics Pathways, she has started writing words from dictation which makes her very proud. She loves that she can sound out words and write them.

Today, I started the day with 3 hours of conference calls. After lunch, I hope to round them up for lessons. We're learning to work this out working from home and schooling out with lots of help from my Mom and from Hubby.

Week 26 - Chicks, Elizabeth, and Math

This is math. See the Fred book there? CC passed her bridge to chapter 16 on the first try. We had a wonderful week in math. We did Singapore CWPs and Fraction and Percent War on Monday, Saxon lesson 51 on Tuesday, Fred on Wednesday, then today.. Lets just say that the lesson ended with me closing the book on problem 8 of 9 and telling CC that she had to do a chapter of Saxon INSTEAD. Yep. 8 of 9 problems then a whole chapter of Saxon.

She does great in Fred on days when she has an open mind - she just leaps from idea to idea and loves the challenge of figuring out things she doesn't know. On days when she wakes up sour and declares that it is too early to be up, Fred isn't a good idea. It is voluntary, and I refuse to fight her over it. So instead of doing the last two problems in the Lowest Common Denominator chapter to complete the math lesson for the day, she did a chapter in Saxon learning how to subtract numbers with more than 4 digits and how to use multiplication to check division.

LB has done a few pages in Miquon, played a few math games with dice and a hundreds chart, measured lots of things and completed a lesson from the BJU K book. I'm trying to think happy thoughts and not remember that this one still needs to learn LCDs and long division.

This is LB with her new chick Sweetie. We went to a farm store Monday to look for ducklings and came home with chicks. They've had a good week being mother hens.

Life isn't all about math, fortunately for me. This chick is Mary. Named after Mary, Queen of Scots. This week we switched queens (from Mary) to Elizabeth in history. In the process, we had a terrific discussion about the different experiences Mary, Elizabeth, and Mary had growing up. What would have happened if Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, had married the dauphin since there was an alliance at one time. Would she still have inherited the throne of England as well as France? Would England and France had an alliance then instead of England joining Spain against France? If so, would that have changed the outcome of the Revolution (since France's participation on the side of the colonists was crucial). Would Mary have been as bitter if she had not stayed in court all those years? Would she have treated Elizabeth differently? Who would Mary, Queen of Scots, have married? Would Elizabeth still have felt as threatened by her cousin if her sister had not been such a threat to her? Would she still have had her cousin executed? And why didn't Henry VIII follow through with any of the marriages of his children? I am glad that we decided to stop here in history for a time. CC never liked princesses when she was smaller, but she adores queens.

Otherwise - we watched a lot (26 of 40) of Liberty's Kids on Netflix this week since they are OnDemand finally, and I had a migraine for much of the week. LB is really cute quoting Patrick Henry, Ethan Allen, and Ben Franklin. She likes the dramatic lines best. We read the Children's Bible sections for the crucifixion through the Pentecost - I was going to stop at the resurrection or the ascension, but the girls wanted to hear more.

We also spent a day at the zoo with CC's enrichment school. We enjoyed a zookeeper talk and training session with hornbills and white-cheeked gibbons then a nice walk through the zoo. CC's teacher told me that she knows a lot about animals and animal classification - so much that last week, she just let CC share information for the whole class period instead of following her own notes.

Week 24 - The Grand Adventure

Remember - Life isn't confusing. It is a Grand Adventure.
Yes. That is corn growing in out of the trap in my nice, clean sink.
It has been a long week. Wait. No. It was a grand adventure.


On Monday, I had the brilliant idea to use fraction circles to help explain common denominators, again. Of course if you give my kids scissors, markers and circles, you will get paper pizzas not math. I did know enough to do this after doing Saxon. I retreated to the shower after the pizza defeat. We made it through our read aloud, writing and French before the phone rang. While I was on the phone, they made address labels and labeled the backyard then delivered their pizzas. There was only a little sleet and then some graupel - no reason to stay indoors. We finished the day with warm, homemade vanilla milk and The Royal Diaries on video.

Tuesday for fractions, we did a sample mini lesson from Plato then CC played a fraction game. She tried really hard to get all of the answers wrong in the game which she thought was hilarious. After that, she did the Impossible Fraction lesson from Fred and had no trouble adding mixed fractions. Somethings just need a little time and extra practice. She had learned fractions with the idea of parts of circles and had to switch to a more abstract way of thinking about them in order to do actual math with mixed fractions.

I won't trudge through the details of the whole week, but here are a few standout details. I tried to teach CC to multiply two digits by one digit, but she taught me to multiply two digits in my head instead. One morning we woke to sunshine and warmth with looming snow clouds so I rushed the girls to dress, and we enjoyed our breakfast outside daydreaming of summer gardens and a new tree house before the north wind forced us back inside to our normal day. Don't read Shakespearean tragedies to five year old girls. LB cried inconsolably when Juliet died.

CC wrote two letters this week which LB had to be a part of so she dictated a letter to GMa to me and then copied it with no backwards or upside-down letters. The girls were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when I left for work. LB called to tell me they were good, and CC asked how to empty the dust pan.

After CC cried for Laurie's broken heart when Jo rejected his proposal, she has decided that the last few chapters of Little Women need to wait until she is older so she has switched to Eight Cousins and wants to read "all of those classic orphan stories." Anybody know and classic orphan stories? The only ones I know are by Dickens, and she isn't ready for those.

Week 11 Report -

This week was a great week for Me. I learned a lot this week. CC still thinks Dodge Ball is one of the best games ever invented for school kids, but decided chess isn't so bad either. We spent a good part of this week repeating that it is very easy to have a bad attitude, but good ones have to be worked at somedays.

CC is loving Take Me Back as a history book in addition to just a fun book to read. We read about Egyptian burial rites, Indus valley civilization, and Hindu gods, goddesses and social structure this week. Pilgrims who?


She memorized a very long poem, and then we spent an hour looking up words in a couple of dictionaries and the thesaurus so that she could get a firm definition on some of the words that she wasn't familiar with such as commission, postulate and misassemblage - thanks Bill Watterson for the wonderful poetry.

CC is also almost finished with Through the Looking Glass and just committed to reading Little Women which we have been using for copywork.

She happily took her first Saxon 5/4 test today so that we could find the right place to start the lessons. She started with Test 3 and only missed one problem which was a horizontal subtraction problem with borrowing. She thought it was cheating to write it vertically so we looked up the lesson in which that was taught and saw the solution which is to first write the problem vertically. Saxon got good marks for the first day from a skeptic. She is getting comfortable with the idea that if she doesn't know how to do a type of problem that it is because I have failed to teach her instead of because something is wrong with her.

I am treading very carefully through here. I've been too cavalier in my approach to math. I messed up way back in K math by rushing her ahead because the work was easy then I spent years trying to get her back to liking math and understanding it. The sigh of relief that she gave when she saw that Saxon 5/4 starts the place value name discussions at hundreds really scared me. I had completely missed the fact that she was afraid that she was "behind" and that she was embarrassed because she knew that her friends knew things in math that she didn't - even though she was ahead in other areas. It was bad enough that I had missed something in a math sequence. It is worse that she felt responsible

What else? CC's enrichment school had an Open House - poor teachers. LB has been reading some Sandra Boyton books to me. CC's been reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to LB. BB is getting ready for finals.

It was a good week.

OOPs - bad math Mom

Yesterday, I was happy, sort of, with our math. CC loves Life of Fred, and she is tolerating Kumon to get those multiplication facts down. I was starting to think that all of our math problems were finally starting to work out.

Today. Today, ended with me picking up the Saxon that my math-teacher Brother had recommended. Our math lesson came to a screeching halt not very far in. CC doesn't know how to read the names of larger number values. She doesn't know what to do, and apparently she thought it was a failing on her part. She has known she didn't know and hid the fact from me. Man. I missed this one.


After explaining to her that it is not her job to know what she doesn't know, I explained that the failure was mine for skipping around in maths. I missed it in the shuffle - who knows what else I have missed. Luckily, she is young, and this is an easy fix. However, we are going to do math in a more systematic way. It was kind of my thinking when I went to Kumon, but that is only facts.

She told me that she is afraid to do math in front of other people because she might find something else that she should have known but doesn't?

Bad mom.

Week 10 - Report. Can I have a Do-Over please?

I must declare this week a failure. I think we did some school Monday, but LB was sick and CC was tired because the girls had along weekend. I am pretty sure we painted mom's room. I got LB's cold on Tuesday. After that things get a little fuzzy, and I don't remember what work we accomplished that allowed me to check off three days of school this week. I went to the post office to mail BB's Thanksgiving box. I took the dogs to the vet and to the kennel for a trial day. CC went to school thanks to hubby. I went to the doctor. I'm starting to feel better, but thanks to my asthma, every little cold is a big thing and every breath is precious to me.


I was feeling well enough today to leave the girls with a checklist of school work before I took my over-medicated self to the office. I explained to my girls that grownups don't get to stay home just because they probably should.

This throws a wrench in my theory that we are coasting right now. Right now, I want to switch to something with check boxes already planned out for me so that when I am feeling weak and the sharks smell blood in the water, they still do school. Hmm, Even with a half-mixed metaphors, my idea is still there. I need a more easily defended structure.

CC started Life of Fred Fractions today and liked it.

My big tip for the week - reading tongue twisters is great for fluency.

Week 8 - Math, Snow, History and more History

First let me tell you that Genghis Khan is really cool. My mom, a friend, two third graders, a 5 year old, a 2 year old and I all invaded the local history museum this week to check out the Genghis Khan exhibit. We all learned a lot and had fun. There were gold doubloons, bronze passports, giant-screen invading hordes. It was just awesome - oh and educational. We stopped by the outer space, sea mammals, butterflies, and dinosaur exhibits too. It was a long day, but most excellent. My history book choices may be falling flat, but history museums two weeks in a row have been terrific choices.


Now on to that most dread of subjects. Math.


I cannot tell you how many times I have reevaluated my math plans and found that they weren't working. Last week, my thoughts that our multiplication facts were slowing down the progress of math were reinforced, again. I am so opposed to drilling facts. I really thought we could get by without it. But I have given up that ideal. You should start hearing Another One Bites the Dust playing in your head now, because I do. I purchased the Kumon Grade 3 Multiplication book for CC and the Kumon Numbers 1-30 for LB. There will now be at least one page of math imposed on my family 7 days a week - yes, seven. Guess what? CC loves it. She loves the single topic. The mastery. The Self-Checking. The Grades. Yes, she even discovered grades. Now she wants me to get a grade book. Another One Bites the Dust How many of these ideals fall prey to reality? I loved grades as a kid, why shouldn't she?

We had two glorious days of snow, followed by warm and sunny today so we had to hurry to the sledding hill before it melted. Yum. Its not the beach, but it is FUN.

Oh, and back to history. Wow, I love E. Nesbit. CC read House of Arden earlier this year and became an instant fan of English history - even owning her own book of Kings and Queens of England and Scotland. Now, I'm reading it to her at bedtime. Every morning, we hurriedly search through our history encyclopedia to find out more about the who/what/where/when's that were referenced in the reading. I used to think Enchanted Castle was the best Nesbit, but House of Arden wins because of its historical references and excitement.

I more fully understand why she dislikes the books I have been trying to force on her - they just don't come near the beauty of what she likes to read. I still don't know what to do about it, other than keep on with what we're doing now, just adding more historical background information to a wonderful book that she loves.

Fractions, Division and History

First, Fractions are fun and easy at the third grade level. You should do them every day for a couple of weeks along with some real math. Eventually, you get enough meat to start doing challenging things with them.

Second, skip counting is wonderful but doesn't easily translate into knowing how to divide. I realized that although CC can divide when she's doing word problems, she quickly loses confidence when faced with a page of division problems. This morning, we had glorious fall weather so we did math on the swing set. I'd ask her a division problem, and she groan that she couldn't do it. Not the best approach to math. So, we tried skip counting through the table of the divisor which still didn't translate into her popping an answer. Eventually we took turns running through the multiplication tables while we were swinging "4 times 2 is 8" "4 times 3 is 12".... until we got to the number we needed and then she would jump out of her swing and write the answer. It is a slow way of doing it, but beats the stubborn refusal to divide.

Third, a child that excels at reading, enjoys quality literature, and makes great connections between historical events will really hate most history books. Really. They are either below her reading level, poorly written, dry, not engaging, or assume that the kids have no previous knowledge of the subject. I had high hopes for our three failed books this week, and I enjoyed reading each of them: Eating the Plates, Roanoke, the Lost Colony, and The Adventurous Life of Myles Standish. CC loves history, but she already knew most of what was in these books. I really liked the Myles Standish book - it has a great time line at the bottom. The problem with my history lover is continuously supplying her with challenging and interesting books that are appropriate. I am going to rethink our history again - I think she will hate the rest of the books I have for this unit.

Week 3 - Yeah we did school, but we have a long way to go

I think that my week needs serious work when I sit down to type up my report and can't remember what I did. Its a good thing I took a few pictures.

I'll start with K4/PreK. LB learned that four quarters makes a dollar so that you can get four gumballs at the school store. She also climbed trees, waded in streams, wrote her numbers to twenty in chalk at the park, swung on a rope swing and the swings in the yard and at the park, had a picnic, and learned that subtraction is a great way to procrastinate at bedtime.

And Third Grade? Well, CC is working on her multiplication, learned about fractions and equivalent fractions (I bought a Fraction Wrap-up for practice on our trip to Washington State). She also declared., "I can't go to bed now. I'm doing math, and I love math." She really likes those Wrap-ups. LB was doing the Subtraction Wrap-up when she learned a new form of procrastination. I think that maybe I'll just quit doing math during school, move bedtime up thirty minutes and try to trick them into doing it.

CC already read through one of the books about Lewis and Clark that I bought for our trip. I'm glad she liked it, but I think she preemptively reads the books I have planned just so that I won't be able to teach from them as effectively. - Paranoid much? But really, she prefers to be the one explaining things instead of being taught. I'm glad that I bought more than one book, and we are both looking forward to doing the crafts in the book she read.


What else? I'm sure we did more. Asthma is still beating me down which probably explains more about my week than anything else. Little by Little.

More Summer Still

August is turning out to be another spectacular month.

It is a joy to see BB for a few weeks while he is between semesters. This morning BB and Hubby climbed up 1 mile of mountain stairs and hiked down 4 miles of mountain. He's also been trying to squeeze a little Japanese with hiragana into the girls and me.

CC is learning a lot with her little cutie of a puppy - Inu. The pup is doing great with crate training, and house training. She is also sitting before she gets her meals and learning to sit and be invited to go outside. She is not only smart, but she is also keeping up with us on our nightly walks. Last week we saw two bucks, a doe with two fawns, and a mother bear with two cubs all on our walks.

LB is progressing with her reading and has started writing notes.

Next week we are taking off for a week in the mountains. When we get back, we'll start to ramp up to school with math first. I've printed out the MEP lessons for both the girls, and I have each a level of Ray's for oral review and Singapore CWP for word problems.

Second Grade Report Card

We have finally reached the end of our one hundred and seventy something days of school and are ready to call second grade complete. I think it was an excellent year. I started the year with the intent to get CC to write more, improve her handwriting, move into more complex math, be ready for multiplication, increase the length and complexity of the books she is reading, and discover that Rome isn't the only time period in history worthy of study. I think we accomplished that and more.


ART
She took several classes at the local art school. Plus she had weekly art at a Public School enrichment program. She loves art.

Math
We had a rough start in math. We started out the year with her in tears over 5+7, and ended with her whizzing through complex, multi-step problems in her head. There were two - or three - great changes in our math thinking. First, BB explained to her the stuff that was stumping her and she then instantly "got it." Second, I realized that her love of word problems is my key to her math mind. And finally we found MEP. She now loves math.

Here is what we have used this year.
Math Mammoth Add and Subtract 2B and 3
Singapore math 3 A
Singapore Math Challenging Word Problems 2, 3
Miquon Green and some Orange
MEP 2 and 3
Ray's New Intellectual Math - I read these over breakfast a couple of times a week.

English

Again, this was more of a journey than a curriculum. She discovered that she loves writing tiny, and it transformed her handwriting. She discovered old-fashioned ink pens and cursive. We tried several things, but decided that copywork and spelling would cover all that we needed. We took copy work from beautiful sentences that she chose and from poetry that she memorized. She learned several poems of her choice including Jabberwocky.

History
We read through SOTW2 mostly, but still have some of it left. She discovered the middle ages, Shakespeare, Robin Hood, castles, knights, feudalism, King Arthur, Richard the Lion - Hearted and much more. She also did a unit on westward expansion and a unit on ancient Greece in her enrichment program. Rome is still her favorite, and she spent a lot of time reading about that on her own.


Science
We did a unit on earth Science with our friends and had lots of fun. We also did a short study of Darwin. Other than that, she did science at her enrichment program and covered life cycles and physics.

• The Voyage of the Beetle by Anne Weaver

The Literature -
She reads daily on her own, but this is literature that we share. I have been focused on myths and tales. We have loved the stories we read this year. The Arabian Tales was especially loved. When we read the Shakespeare Stories, it inspired her to go deeper into A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has read about 5 versions of that now and loves it. She recently also decided that Hamlet is her next favorite.
Celtic myths -
Norse myths -
1001 Arabian Tales -
Shakespeare Stories -


That was Second Grade. We finished differently than we started. I don't think we completed a single workbook. We changed a great deal. We learned a great deal. Most days were very short, but in the end my dd knows some history that she didn't know, knows more math and enjoys it more than she did before, writes better and more clearly, knows more science, has learned new techniques in art, and loves Shakespeare, Norse mythology, and the Arabian Nights. I think it was a VERY good year.

Week 33 - Tatami mats, Thirsty 6's and Giants

This is the new apartment in Tokyo for the Big Brother in college. His space is eight tatami mats large or 12 x 12. That's a big step up from the 9 x 9 (4 1/2 mats) dorm room he just moved from; he even has a bed long enough for his 6'6" self to sleep in. He ended up sharing an apartment with two girls that are from our home state. The world often turns out to be smaller and more connected than you think.

This week at school we started bumping against those multiplication tables again.

I've been letting CC use a reference chart of multiplication facts so that she can continue to be challenged in math without waiting for her to memorize those facts. She has been able to do quite a bit that way, including figuring out division with remainders, prime number factorization, and two digit-multiplication with carrying. This week, I gave her a copy of Times Tales to read through to supplement her math. I think she liked it because she was not only giggling while reading it, today in math when factoring 36, she lit up and said, "Oh, Thirsty Sixes! That is 6 x 6!"

I am currently reading the girls a book of Norse Mythology and Knight's Castle . This week the two disparate works both talked about giants. I love it when things like that happen because it give us good literary ideas to discuss. LB woke me up this morning and asked if I would read Jack and the Beanstalk to her. It is one of those great stories for children that not only let them run around with a "Fe Fi Fo Fum. I smell the Blood of and Englishman.", they also reassure children that the giants can be defeated by children.


“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G.K. Chesterton

Week 31 Summary - Family and Fresh Air

School this week was reduced to its essential - math, spelling, and art plus reading in history, literature and mythology. Hubby's dad was here, and BB is home so hubby took off a few hours every afternoon for some family time.












Outside of book work, our week included some of our favorite places with plenty of sunshine, fresh air, rocks, blue sky, caves, trees, sticks, picnics, mud, and family.


We read a great story about Loki this week, and LB had a cute idea about what kind of lies Loki told. She said that maybe sometimes he would say that he was going upstairs to go potty, and then he would sneak into his room to play. That trickster Loki.

I still love MEP. This week we used symmetry and perimeter in geometry to reinforce multiplication. We also did multiplication and division using Roman numerals. CC thought that this was really cool. Today, I had her work some from the SIngapore CWP3 book just to make sure that all of this different math wasn't changing our wonderful word problems, but after she read the problems, she said that she knew just how to solve them and went on to easily solve word problems that used multiplication, subtraction and division in the same problem without even slowing down. I love it.

I also spent more than two hours on the phone with Sallie Mae, but that is a whole 'nuther discussion.

We have 31 days of school left for 2008-2009 school year.

Friday Summary Week 30 - The Return of the Brother and the Big Performance

Can you spell JetLag? Poor BB, left Tokyo Monday at 5:30 pm and returned home at 3:30pm. His body is a full 16 hours off from our life, and he lost a day in the Pacific. He fell asleep at his sister's art class at 5pm only to be wide awake at 11 when I was going to bed. He looks like he has lost twenty pounds off his tall, thin frame. But it is good to see him and know that he is okay. I just want to tuck him into bed and feed him and keep him home. Except, he's 19 and scheduled to go back to school in two weeks. He told his sisters to not grow up too fast because being an adult is hard.Can I reverse time back to when he was little and do it all again more slowly?

Speaking of doing it all over again more slowly - LB is growing up too fast. Since she is the youngest, I am finding that I have to make sure I let her take turns to lead when we hike and explore. She loves to play with a younger friend so that she gets to be the older one for a change. This week she brought me a piece of paper with a hangman drawn on it and wanted to play with me and BB. She had a lot of fun being the one to write the words and letters. Now that she can spell a few words, she's excited to be able to play this with us. We used to play with BB when he was little, and we went out to eat, and now its her turn to play.

CC's once-a-week school had a talent show this week. As soon as she heard about it, she wanted to perform Jabberwocky. She already knew the poem; she just had to get over being nervous saying it aloud. We practiced several times this week with her standing in conspicuous places, and us doing silly things to try to distract her. Here is her performance, a bit shakey - yes, at least a unipod next time for the camera.






She was awesome!

We did some actual school this week, and

MEP is the best math program ever. Okay, at least I am still loving it. One of the problems she did this week was ___ x 7 - 12 = 4 x 4 I was prepared to explain and give some hints per the teacher notes, but she looked at it and said that was easy since she just needed to see what times 7 is 28. What? Wait, I was ready to help, but she said it was easy and went on 16 / 4 + 1 = ___ / 3 . Where has this math been all my life? She hates doing a page of multiplication and division facts, but eats this stuff up.

Other than that, we read history through the Aztecs and Incas, did dictation, spelling, art, and went on a lovely nature walk. She also read daily, recited Jabberwocky, and learned a new acronym - R.I.C.E - rest, ice, compression, elevation. I love our family doctor. He took the time to explain to her how to care for her injured, bruised hand (thanks to playing London Bridge with a friend too close to a bookshelf).

The poor dear has a terrible, deep purple bruise on the carpal bones in her hand - the doctor also named all the bones and described the functioning of the hand, small bones, tendons, and muscles. If she hasn't improved significantly by Monday, we might start lessons in writing with her alternate hand.

I think I'll spend next week trying to convince myself that my youngest isn't growing up too fast, my oldest isn't leaving too soon, and my middle isn't going to leave me someday too.

WR28 - A Famous Mathematician

First do you know what Graupel is? Yesterday, we had rain, graupel, and thunder which finally all surrendered to a snow storm early this morning. You gotta love spring and forms of water that you never knew existed.

We had a wonderful week. I am starting to think that second grade might actually work out for us. We had a visit from home schoolers that live a hop, skip and jump from us on Monday, then we walked to their house. It is great to know somebody that close that home schools. It is like we aren't so weird after all.

First, BB is taking finals this week and next at the university in Tokyo. He feels like he is doing well. So far he knows that he received a 95% on the Japanese oral final. Excellent!

Before I say anything about school for the ones at home, let me say that I love MEP math. CC, who used to fight over every little problem in math, dreamed last night that she was a famous mathematician.


We completed lesson 103 in MEP2. CC is breezing through the multiplication and division. She is doing multi-step problems. She is not complaining a bit. I love this math.

We finished Spelling Power List E, Group 1. We have a routine that seems to be working for us this week. I test for 6 minutes, starting with any words she missed from the previous day. Then she spends 12 minutes "playing with words". She comes up with her own ways to practice words during this time, and she has so far loved that. We are finding words and patterns of words that she doesn't know how to spell. For instance, she spelled except as accept.

We received the Sonlight Science 2 Discover and Do dvd and the science kits this morning. The girls had already made a circuit and tested most of the kitchen to see what conducts electricity before I left for work. Hopefully this will help to add more hands-on science to our week. The kids wanted science experiments that they could do by themselves. LB smiled proudly at me when she was explaining what she had done (while I was drying off from my shower). She said that she likes being a scientist. Hubby looked concerned when I told him what the kids were doing, but I explained that even if they tried, they couldn't hurt themselves with Double-A batteries.

We read about Joan of Arc, the War of the Roses, and Ferdinand and Isabella in history this week. The girls decided that wouldn't want to be inline for a throne during the middle ages. We also read some stories about Robin Hood, and are getting ready to read an illustrated version of Ivanhoe. Those are in preparation for rereading Knights Castle by one of our favorite authors, Edward Eager. We have read it twice already for fun, but never in relation to history and the other works of literature that it discusses. Eager is great about making CC excited to read other authors and learn about the timer periods that he writes about.

Other than all that, CC has chosen The Tyger by William Blake as her next poetry project. LB chose Hurt No Living Thing as her next poem to learn. They are funny, because by the time they both learn them, they will also know each other's poem.

We also had writing, art, and other such stuff, but these were the highlights and important things (that I still remember as of Friday night).

WR27 - Sand in the house?

What you see pictured here is a real look at my school table. I didn't clean it up for the picture. The little one is still in her pj's, and the middle one is supposed to be writing her spelling word (yeah word) in the sand. Doesn't writing spelling words in sand sound like a nice, multi-sensory activity? It does. Now quit laughing. My hubby even laughed - he asked who on earth suggested giving sand to kids? It was of course the end of school. It wasn't the planned end of school, but I couldn't get anyone's attention back after somebody found a tiny seashell in the sand left over from last time we used it for a craft. So I just gave in, brought out my box of ocean-themed stuff and poured myself a cup of coffee. A long, hot shower helped too. The girls had fun then we cleaned up. Most of the sand really stayed on the plates - I was surprised.


We started last week in MEP math at lesson 84, this week we finished lesson 99. I am still loving it. We had a minor victory Wednesday when CC had to figure out what number times 3 plus 18 equals 75. Once she got the answer she was a little disappointed because it was "just like easy math but with bigger numbers." She was very proud of her work this week.

She started her new art class. Its another pottery class - she loves pottery and is waiting to be old enough to use the wheels. She also took a field trip to a local pioneer center. Her favorite parts were scrubbing clothes on a washboard, drawing water from the well, making corn bread, and panning for gold. She loves history that she can see and touch.

All that and we took Monday off because we needed a day off, went to the park on Tuesday after we finished our work, found two tiny, baby bunnies in our back yard, spent over an hour at the library reading the first chapters of books looking for a good mystery for CC, had a great day on Wednesday at the park with our friends, and colored eggs today.

LB is starting to get very independent. At the library this week, while I was looking for books for CC, she was supposed to be looking at books or playing in the children's area. I turned to check on her and she was gone. I looked behind me and there she was walking back from the water fountain with a big smile. She had been thirsty and gone for a drink. "Mommy, this is a small library and I walked right by you to get the water. I know the way there and I could see you, but thanks for looking for me." Why did my 4 year-old give me such a good defense of her water fountain trip? Maybe, she is bigger than I thought she was, and the reason I leave her in the children's area while I look in the bigger kids area has a lot to do with the size and layout of the library. She's my little devious child. She had anticipated my objections and had an answer for them.

The sun came out and we took a spelling test

After a blizzard and several days of blowing snow and cold, the sun came back so our short morning walk ended up at the park with an added nature walk. I love our parks and trails.

CC took the first step of the placement tests for Spelling Power today. She enjoyed the process.


She has been wanting to become a better a speller, and I have been struggling to accommodate that since she is a great speller and still very young. She scored a 25 on her placement test, which puts her current spelling level around grade 5.5. It also explains why I've been having trouble finding challenging material for her at a second or third grade level. Hopefully, This will be the spelling program for us.

Today she also happily worked through two lessons of MEP math. I still love this stuff. Now she's watching the funny part of Home Alone and eating a late lunch before we go out to run errands. I think we've all gotten a little out of shape this winter - a simple two hour romp in the woods and half mile run to and from the park shouldn't wear out such young kids. :) I love spring time and fresh air and exercise and sunshine and sunshine and fresh air.