Wrap up: Semester 2 Wk. 2

Another cold January week completed! We finished 4 math lessons, 2 grammar lessons, 2 writing lessons, some journaling and cursive practice (which I mentioned in yesterday's post.) In history we read about the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.  We finally finished Wildwood, a huge, vocab-rich, complicated read-aloud that took 8 weeks and was worth every minute. I was going to move on to Tolkien next, but The Hobbit was checked out so we are now beginning Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret as our next read-aloud.

In our Friday architecture discussion, we learned about the difference between tension and compression and how both forces work together to support a cantilever beam. We looked at pictures of cantilever balconies and bridges and, of course, we talked about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. We also watched two helpful YouTube videos: Physics of Life- Cantilevers, and Cantilever Project.

The exercises in our Latin program are strictly Latin to English translation. El flies through these exercises as they are, but I think I finally figured out a way to make Latin challenging for him. After he learned the new word, I had him look at the answers to the exercises and translate the English to Latin. It made a big difference and I was able to see that he isn't even really looking at subject-verb agreement when he translates actions verbs. Needless to say, he greatly prefers Latin to English translations so we will probably only do the reverse translations once a week.

Having done just about everything we could do with Adventures with Atoms and Molecules, we began a new science unit from Intellego: Chemistry I for grades 3-5. This was the first Intellego unit I've tried and, after downloading it, I wasn't sure I was going to like it. The first 20 pages are unnecessary, in my opinion. However, it finally gets into the "meat" of the unit around page 20 and the lessons are pretty good. We completed 1.1. and 1.2.

We had a little snow but it was so bitterly cold that only a tiny snowman was built. However, I'm not sure who that ninja is or why he is standing over the tiny snowman... =)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but we have dropped spelling down to twice a week since El is flying through level E of Spelling Power. Pretest, write any missed words correctly, and then he gets them right on the post-test and on any subsequent review tests. Spelling is just not really an issue for him.  We did start keeping a word journal though, and he is writing down any unfamiliar words we come across in reading, in addition to writing his weekly vocab words there. Each day he spends about 5-10 minutes looking up and jotting down short definitions to any unfamiliar words.

We also discovered that there is, in fact, a limit to how many library books we can have checked out at once (you can see what we have checked out under the "What We're Reading" tab at the top.) That limit is 20. I think it is time to get El his own library card.

Wrap Up: (Sem. 2) Wk 1

We have just completed our first full week back after our awesome two (three?) week break. We jumped right in on Monday, with a full day of work. What is changing this semester? We began our new math program, Singapore Primary Math (Stds. Ed.) 3A which is going great so far. (El just took the Unit 1 test this morning and got 100% correct, so that was encouraging!) We began a basic vocabulary workbook and an intro to architecture/engineering book written for specifically for elementary kids. Both of these are a huge hit! We also began a geography workbook which is just okay. I guess it's a great value since there are 352 pages and I think I paid $7 for it, but it is really easy stuff. Looking at the Evan Moor Daily Geography Practice preview, I probably should have spent the extra 12 bucks and gone that route. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Red-Breasted Nuthatch: We have been visited by a few of these little guys lately. El drew this picture inspired by the picture in our bird guidebook.

El's drawing of the Parthenon. We voted: We prefer Athens over Sparta, 3-0.

Here are two more drawings inspired by Ames's fantastic Draw 50 Buildings book (El's Parthenon drawing above was also inspired by this book.)

Overall, we had a ton of work to do but El flew through all of it. Writing is the only subject he absolutely fights me on (handwriting, copywork, dictation, structured/creative writing.) Gah! Things like punctuation and writing on lined paper are torture to that child. He will write a few words and then switch to a comic-book style of writing with mostly pictures and some phrases written in captions, to just talking: "And then let me tell you how it ends..."

Me: "No. Write it. Please!" 

Him: "AAAaahrhhrrekggh! Fine!" (and then he draws a picture.) 

Sigh.

Wrap Up: Week 11

Week 11 (hey, which I just realized contained the day 11-11-11) was birthday week for Dad. Monday morning, before school started, we made our handmade birthday cards. Tuesday we had to think of something sweet to make Dad since he's a cake-hater (I know, right? O, the audacity! The heresy!) We came up with some handheld apple pies from one of the vegetarian cookbooks I checked out from the library last week. They were GONE within an hour of being finished (We made sure Dad got 2.) So good. 

Kids' cooking project: Handheld apple pies... Mmmmmm.

Yeah, they look a little weird but they tasted awesome!

El was ecstatic when he heard Monday's history project: Build an Assyrian siege tower out of Legos. He didn't really know where to begin, but luckily I found another hs blogger working through SOTW and we looked at her kids' towers for inspiration. Here is El's finished tower:

On Friday, we had Em with us so she worked on some Singapore math pages, a GDI printing page, this math sentence practice page recommended by Math Mammoth's Maria Miller and some Tumblebooks.

Friday was also art day and our artist of the week was Henri Matisse. Matisse was a post-impressionist who loved COLOR so he fit right in at our house. The project from our art book was to create a Matisse colored paper collage similar to the art he was making in his later life.

Here's more of our week:

•  Spelling: We are still finishing up SP Level D. I have pulled out every missed word from this level and I'm going to re-test those words over the next couple of weeks. I've divided them into 4 sections and will re-test 17 or 18 words at a time. I know, this isn't SP protocol at all but I'm stalling a little bit before heading into Level E since E (roughly grade 6/7) looks to be much more difficult than D has been.

• Reading: For Ancients, we finished up Six Beautiful Stories of Life by Cynthia Rylant (of Henry and Mudge fame) and I think I can say it has been my favorite ancients book so far. El also flew through Book 4 of Mary Pope Osborne's Tales from the Odyssey series. We also continued on with our On the Banks of Plum Creek unit study. El also read stories about George Washington Carver and Pocahontas. The library was closed Friday so we actually didn't make it to the library last week. That's right, we didn't go to the library last week and the world didn't end! Amazing, huh?
• Grammar: Completed 3 FLL lessons and mastered memorization of the Thackary poem.
• Health, music, Latin, handwriting, sign language... the usual.
  
• Writing: Copywork, dictation, Spectrum pages... the usual. 

•  Math: Finished up Chapter 7 in Math in Focus. This means El heads into long division in the coming weeks. This also means I have 2 chapters left until I run out of math. I've got to decide what I'm doing next for math, since I don't have the full MiF 3B and I'm still not sure I want to stick with it. 
• Science: Chemistry- "enzymes, yeast, and fermentation" in our chem. experiment book and  "rock types and the rock cycle" in our other science book. We also watched some YouTube videos about rock types since I didn't happen to have a geology lab at my disposal.

Week 10: Wrap Up

It is so difficult to challenge keep up with El sometimes. When I am totally worn out, I have to remember that he spent the past year in public school not being challenged at all. Our schedule, which began with the basics (arithmetic, language arts, social studies, health, science with some experiments, the arts) has grown and grown to include fiction unit studies, Latin, chemistry, geography, ancient history, cooking,

Think I'm kidding? Last week, I actually heard the phrase: "But mom, I need more information about Hatshepsut!" Luckily, there's a PBS doc for that. Whew. Saved by Netflix, once again.

sign language, speech, art history... I don't even know. When I ask him if he wants to give up one of these things so he can spend more time focusing on the others, he inevitably answers: Cursive! Sigh. No you cannot give up cursive. Anything else? What? No! I like it all!

If the concept of classical education was made for anyone, it was made for Eliot. So we are now cramming in a traditional public-school standards education in with a classical education and plenty of child-led unschooling as well. Why? Well, I don't know. I guess because he wants to and I haven't cracked yet. I'm sure the day is coming, though.

My family is just all-around... bizarre! intense. I don't know how to describe it. Okay, here's an example: My husband came home about three weeks ago and declared that, while he loves meat, the world should not be producing meat anymore. If there is meat available in abundance, such as when an increasingly abundant population of fish threatens the survival of other native species, that meat should be consumed by humans. Otherwise, though, we should not be wasting our natural resources on meat production. (To clarify: Meat is fine to eat, we just shouldn't be purchasing as much as we do and encouraging commercial production of it.) Okay. I guess I'll just scrap the menu plan for the rest of October.
(ETA: I don't necessarily disagree. He has a point.)

Then Em- my 38 lb., increasingly superstitious 6.5-yr-old- decides the only foods worth eating are corn, plums, plain biscuits with nothing on them, ramen noodles, and the broth made by one chicken bullion cube in one cup of water. They can't be eaten at the same time, though, because then they would mix together in her stomach and that would apparently be gross. This child came home from trick-or-treating, ate half a Ring Pop, and asked for ramen. I am not even kidding. Exasperated sigh. (This isn't permanent, though. Last week it was canned carrots, almonds, and dried cranberries. Who knows what next week will be?)

Progress! I got her to put pizza sauce on the biscuits and she actually ate them.

So, yeah. We all have our quirks (in addition to our quarks, El would tell you with a grin.) And since I am tired (and quite possibly anemic again) I'm not even going to wrap up our week. Everything. We covered everything. Except for biology or zoology. Shhhhh. No one mention biology or zoology to my kid, okay? Please? Not this year, anyway.

Hiking Adventures

El: "Mom, I think that's a brain. Just keep walking."
Me: "No, it's cool. It's from a tree."
El: (seriously panicking) "AH! Mom, no, I think it just moved! Get away from it. I really think it's some kind of brain or brain plant." (?!?)
Me: "Calm down. Look. There are more hanging off that tree over there. It's okay."
El: "Oh, WHEW. Okay. Wow. I'm sure glad it's not some kind of brain."

They All Even Out in Grade 3

"We don't do any testing before third grade because most kids level off by then."
"We don't provide any gifted programs before fourth grade because most kids level off before then."

I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, but I hate to appear critical of the public school system for a couple of reasons: 1. Some public school teachers are AMAZING. My mom is one of them. Em had another one last year. They are out there, these gems, who will deal with whatever new standards and procedures you throw at them and still have time to help every single student be the best they can be.  2. It's a bit of a non-issue at this point, and always has been. We have always planned on homeschooling them when they became old enough to accept and appreciate education. We aren't homeschooling El as a reaction to something negative, we are being proactive. Em is having fun and she went into first grade working at a second or third grade level so I'm not worried about her education at all this year. First grade was similar for El. However, he went into second grade working at a fourth grade level. He left second grade working at a fourth grade level.

Let me tell you how to "level-off" a kid. It's a two-part process involving parents and schools.

Our district gives report cards 3 times a year beginning in second grade. (In K and 1, there were "I Can Do It's" but no report cards, which I find reasonable considering the material.) On his first report, El leveled into grade 4.5 in reading. His teacher said he was actually reading much higher than that but when testing comprehension, he started to miss questions at about level 4.5. Specifically, he was missing questions regarding the author's intent. She said this was understandable since this was not usually taught until the fourth grade.

Fast forward a few months to the second grading period. El leveled into grade 4.5 in reading. His teacher said he was actually reading much higher than that but when testing comprehension, he started to miss questions at about level 4.5. Specifically, he was missing questions regarding the author's intent. She said this was understandable since this was not usually taught until the fourth grade.

Wait, did that last paragraph look like a copy and paste of the one above it? Yeah, it was. I had assumed that the school would do it (part one of leveling off.) The school wasn't the slightest bit concerned about him progressing, as long as he finished second grade at least on level (part two.)

Lesson learned: It's MY duty to be responsible for my children's education. I'm not going to send him somewhere where he could spend entire months learning next to nothing. If his entire learning process is going to take place outside of school, WHY was I sending the kid there for 7+ hours a day? Social reasons? I'm not impressed. 

"What's the hurry? Why do you want him to be so far ahead?" Nope. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with my child sitting there day in and day out, doing busy work. I could have sent him to daycare. His writing composition did not improve. His math did not improve. He barely budged, yet no one was concerned because he had met the end of year goals for second grade. He always made straight A's, so why should anyone be concerned? (Update: He did learn cursive, so that was nice.)

Well, it's not his teacher's job to be concerned with kids like El. Her job was to get these 25 students on level by the end of the year. Hopefully she did that, and I wish her well. I was the one not doing my job, and I have learned my lesson. Within a week of receiving that second report card, we had made the decision not to postpone homeschooling any longer. He finished the school year and we then withdrew him from the district. I will probably start homeschooling Em in second grade instead of third. I have already started afterschooling her in math because she asked for it.

So, yeah, I'm sure a lot of kiddos do "level off" by third grade when left entirely to their own devices.

Homeschool Art: Lesson 1

Friday was the last day of our "trial" week in which we tried out the various subjects that we will be homeschooling beginning tomorrow. We started the day with art, which I have learned I am not nearly as prepared as I thought I would be regarding materials. The book we are using is called Discovering Great Artists and the first lesson was to be an egg wash paint in the style of Giotto. Well, of course I didn't have what I needed, so I unwrapped the neat oil pastels and looked in the index to see what lesson we could use them in.

Degas it was! I didn't really know much about him, so it was fun for both of us. We read the workbook paragraphs about Degas, then went over to smarthistory,org for a little video. Smarthistory is a great resource for high school or college students, I'm sure, but poor El was bored so we moved on over to YouTube where we found a much more entertaining presentation. We completed the lesson by using the techniques Degas used to paint our own pictures. El was so excited about how his turned out that he wanted to stop and make a video using his new DV camera, which is exactly why I'm posting. Here you go: A third grader's video about Edgar Degas.

Classical it is! (pt. II)

Language Arts... What can I say? Wow! This area is just massive. As it is, in our nightly reading sessions we read an hour or two but apparently that is nowhere near sufficient. "Language Arts" includes such childhood favorites as Spelling! Grammar! Handwriting! What?! Won't these things stifle the creativity of my aspiring little writer? All right, seriously now: My aspiring little writer is rarely able to successfully end a sentence ("and, and, and...") His handwriting and spelling are laaaazzy ("I just need to get this thout down on paper- it doesnt mater if i use corect spelling and puncuasion! I have the squiggly line to tell me when im wrong!") I'm hardly any better, so I have purchased curricula to walk us both through these basic parts of language arts.

Once again, going with the SWB on a couple of my choices here:

1. Writing. There is a nifty little book called "Writing With Ease: The Complete Writer" that covers the first four years of writing preparedness. The whole WWE series includes workbooks for each individual year but I have decided to save the Earth by not purchasing four unnecessary books when I can develop my own program from "The Complete Writer" (translation: Yeah, I'm broke.) I haven't given El the "mastery evaluations" in this book yet, but I'm pretty confident he is going to test into the "Year 2" level.

2. Grammar and then some: First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, Level 3. (Okay, this isn't technically SWB, but it's her mom so... close enough.) I did go ahead and get the instructor's guide with this since it was really affordable and it walks you step-by-step through each lesson. This big workbook is such a great value at under $13 on Amazon. The workbook has a certain amount of review from Levels 1 & 2 so I'm hoping it won't be too difficult for El to go right into 3.

In the non-Peace Hill Press category of language arts curriculum, I'm going with Spelling Power for spelling (What? Did you see the price on that page? Yikes. No. I did not shell out $60+ for a spelling program, even if it is for several years. I found an ugly orange used 3rd ed. for a few dollars on eBay.) I love this program because the word lists are not really level-based, but rather frequency based. I also love that you pretest and then the child only works on the words that he or she missed on the pretest.

What else is there... oh, reading! Well, there is already so much reading material in this house that I can't imagine not having something to read. Additionally, we have Kindles (free downloads of most public-domain books) and live a couple of blocks from our local library. As for what to read, we will be drawing a little from our history program. We will also do some selections from the book-lists over at Ambleside covering years 1-3. I'm not really worried about forcing any reading. In fact, I need to go upstairs right now and tell them it's time to put the books down and go to sleep. :)

What are you reading, anyway?

El: Mooommmmm...
Yeah?
El: I can't sleep. I'm too afraid of all those preserved bodies in Pompeii.
Uh, Pompeii's like, on the other side of the world. If they frighten you, you can just choose to never go there I guess.
El: I know, but that doesn't help me right now.
?!?

Those tricky silent letters

Me: What did you learn about in school today?
El: Did you know it's black history month?
Me: I did. Did you talk about some famous black Americans?
El: A little. But then I got to read this book about Rosa Parks. She did not want to stand in the bus assel just because she was black, but black people had to stand in the assels back then if white people wanted to sit in the seats.
Me: Oh, sweetie, the "s" is silent. The word is pronounced EYE-ull (aisle.)

'Cause standing in the aisle's bad enough. Hate to think of what it's like standing in the bus's assel.