Hello! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. But, since The Kid and I are starting a new academic adventure together, I thought it might be a good time to ressurect the blog and keep a record.
After years of semi-classical homeschooling, we've decided to try something new. I'm cutting down the formal lesson plans to just three subjects: math, English and foreign language. Everything else will be done in an unschool-type style.
This change has been coming for a long time, I think. I have this Kid who is bright and enthusiastic and interested in so many things. But, no matter how much we tweak it, the whole concept of "school" seems to get in the way of his learning.
We had already cut back on the formal, planned school for this year, putting in place instead a list of subjects and a set of guidelines for each one. I had hoped that would be enough to spark something for him. Instead, we're still butting heads every day over whether he's "done" each subject and whether whatever he has accomplished is "enough." I'm seeing that my constant attempts to codify and control the process and his resentment of that are getting in the way of him actually learning anything.
In addition, I keep finding these wonderful opportunities out in the world, and I find myself frustrated and saddened by how often and how much "school" makes it impossible for us to enjoy and learn from those things. Instead, I am always rushing and feeling stress about the boxes we're not checking off at home and the items on my lovely, neat lesson plans that aren't getting done.
Things came to a head for me this week. I was thinking about a couple of things we have on our calendar and feeling wistful about the educational things we could do surrounding them if only we weren't slaves to those lesson plans. For example, we have tickets for the Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcast of Anna Bolena, which is coming to a local movie theatre in a couple of weeks. We also have tickets for the "field trip" day for a small, local Renaissance Faire that week. And the new movie Anonymous opens the Friday before. I was thinking how great it would be if we could just take the time between now and then and read about the Renaissance and let my son work on his costume for the faire and dig into the story of Henry VIII and Anne . . .
"But we can't," I thought, "because we're so far behind already."
And then, suddenly, I realized that was just dumb.
I know, from long experience, that The Kid will learn so much more from going and doing than he will from trudging through the reading list I carefully assembled and parsed out over my painstakingly planned year. Why, then, not do what will work? What is the point of following "the plan" rather than actually doing things from which he'll learn and retain someting?
So, after consulting with my husband and thinking it through over the weekend, I sat The Kid down for a talk this morning. Here's the new routine:
1. He is to be out of bed by 8:00.
2. We're going to continue reading aloud over breakfast.
3. Desk time starts at 9:00.
4. We will stick more or less to my existing plans for math and English.
5. He will continue the FLVS Spanish class.
6. There is no TV or computer time (except for educational purposes) until after 4:00 pm and then only if the three core subjects are done.
7. The time in between core subjects and 4:00 is to be used productively: reading, working on costumes or other projects, drawing, playing the piano, practicing for his dance or music lessons, learning lines for his current show, trying out ideas for his Lego robotics club, etc. "Productive" means pretty much anything except watching TV, playing computer games or goofing off in the backyard.
The agreement is that we'll give this a try until the holidays, the end of the first semester. At that point, we'll discuss and evaluate. If he's happy and I think he's learning, we'll continue for the remainder of the year and evaluate again.
I'm nervous. I'll admit that. I don't see, for example, how science gets done in any kind of organized way. And I'm afraid we'll still spend too much of every day arguing about whether he's doing "enough."
But, the truth is that something has to give. It's breaking my heart to see my bright, sweet, excited, interesting and interested Kid going through the motions and learning more about gaming the system for grades than about the subjects he's supposed to be studying.
So, the new adventure begins.
I'm hoping to return to the habit of doing weekly reports. I like the accountability it encourages for me, and I like having a chance to write up and read how much we actually did each week.
I'll keep you posted.
So, off the map we go.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Friday, March 27, 2009
Ugh.
Hmm. What to say about this week? Actually, I think the title of this post says it all.
We’re now finishing our second week back after three weeks mostly off, and it is clear we’re still not really back in the swing. Math, especially, is simply exhausting and unpleasant.
So, here’s where we are:
Math:
Despite our (my) best intentions, RobotBoy never did very many math lessons during his semi-break. Then, last week (our first week back), he didn’t even finish a single week’s worth of lessons. So, we’re right back into six-lessons-a-week territory. And, we’re now elbow deep in quadratic equations, which is not exactly easy stuff. Add in the fact that RobotBoy is having some trouble even getting to work at a decent time in the morning, and you can see why the going has been a bit tough this week. We did trudge through all but one of the requisite number of lessons, but his grades on the daily assignments were pretty awful. The thing is that I just really can’t tell whether he honestly doesn’t get it or whether he just isn’t mentally present enough to do it. (There’s just so much going on right now. See “Other Stuff” below.) He does fine when we work through the lesson together. And he’s slow but fairly accurate for the first few questions of each assignment. But then it just spirals down into him spending inordinate amounts of time complaining and begging for help and getting wildly wrong answers because he seems to completely forget how to add. Sigh.
In other news, he has finished the first Murderous Maths book I bought for him and is now working on The Phantom X. He also did two more pages of Greek-inspired math in Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
He continued reading about ancient Greece this week, and he’s especially enjoying Theras and His Town. He also read about Socrates and Plato and others in The Story of Philosopy, which he seems to find very interesting, and dipped into Terry Deary’s Top 10 Greek Legends. He watched another episode of Secrets of Ancient Empires and the “Spice Routes and Silk Roads” segment of the Story of India series. His written work this week was a History Scribe page about Phoenician culture. Oh, and he did a couple of Child’s History of the World stories, “The People Who Made Our ABC’s” and “Hard as Nails.”
English:
In English Prep we read Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” and talked about personification. We also learned about the rules for making plurals of words ending in ‘o’ (which I don’t think I ever had explained to me, by the way) and reviewed active and passive voice. The new writing model is the story of Androcles and the Lion, which we read over and talked about a couple of times. RobotBoy also did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
“No Joke—The Earth Is Pancake Flat!” Or so said the title of this week’s chapter of The Story of Science. Alongside that, RobotBoy is reading Science in Ancient Rome. We never got around to the project/experiment for this week, because we used most of Wednesday to catch up on desk work.
Spanish:
He just chugging along in The Learnables.
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
RobotBoy spent most of this week working on his “briefing” about India for the module on South Asia. He is also supposed to be making corrections and additions to a couple of lessons on which he didn’t do very well the first time around.
Other Stuff:
He had to skip tap class this week, because it conflicted with the dress rehearsal for his recital, which is coming up this weekend. He did attend ballroom, ballet, choir and organ, though, along with two more rehearsals for the opera. We’re now gearing up for the final weekend of The King and I performances, another opera reherasal and the recital. Next week, he’ll have rehearsals Monday through Wednesday evenings for the opera, which opens that Friday. So, it may be challenging—again—to get much schoolwork done.
One thing about which I'm very pleased is that RobotBoy has done some spontaneous and serious music practice in the last couple of weeks. I haven't nagged him about it, and he's actually working on the currently assigned piece instead of just playing ones he already knows over and over. That's a good thing.
My 52-Book Challenge:
I’m managing to keep up so far, with the addition of some audiobooks for the time on the road. In the weeks since my last post here, I’ve read/listened to Larklight (Phillip Reeve), The Virgin Blue (Tracy Chevalier), Q & A (Vikas Swarup), The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) and Innocent Traitor (Allison Weir). I enjoyed Larklight, which was a family listening experience on a road trip. All the faux Victoriana was fun, and RobotBoy is clamoring for the next in the series. I have mixed feelings about The Virgin Blue. I found it very absorbing, but I knew from early on that something nasty was going to happen to a child and spent a lot of time dreading it. Q & A is the novel on which the film Slumdog Millionaire is based. I enjoyed it, although I found the writing style rather bland in many places. I’ll admit that the big reveal caught me by surprise, though. The Book Thief was lovely, just lovely. I found myself consciously memorizing phrases and descriptions to savor later. And I enjoyed Innocent Traitor much more than I expected. In fact, I was inspired to dash out and buy Weir’s other novel, The Lady Elizabeth, which I’m reading now.
So, not a terrible week, but I’m really not sure what to do with math. I guess we’ll hang on another couple of weeks until we get past the opera and then see if RobotBoy’s brain becomes functional again.
PUPPY!
Good grief, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention the puppy! I picked her up in South Carolina on the drive to take Moonheart back to school. She’s been with us for almost three weeks, now, and is just a wonderful, sweet, adorable ball of fluff. I’ve been taking her with me for quite a few of our afternoons out, and having her in my arms makes me the most popular person in any room. We’re working on housetraining, of course, and just generally getting into a daily routine that works with a puppy. She’s just darling, though, and well worth the wait.
Here she is playing with the cats' toy today:
We’re now finishing our second week back after three weeks mostly off, and it is clear we’re still not really back in the swing. Math, especially, is simply exhausting and unpleasant.
So, here’s where we are:
Math:
Despite our (my) best intentions, RobotBoy never did very many math lessons during his semi-break. Then, last week (our first week back), he didn’t even finish a single week’s worth of lessons. So, we’re right back into six-lessons-a-week territory. And, we’re now elbow deep in quadratic equations, which is not exactly easy stuff. Add in the fact that RobotBoy is having some trouble even getting to work at a decent time in the morning, and you can see why the going has been a bit tough this week. We did trudge through all but one of the requisite number of lessons, but his grades on the daily assignments were pretty awful. The thing is that I just really can’t tell whether he honestly doesn’t get it or whether he just isn’t mentally present enough to do it. (There’s just so much going on right now. See “Other Stuff” below.) He does fine when we work through the lesson together. And he’s slow but fairly accurate for the first few questions of each assignment. But then it just spirals down into him spending inordinate amounts of time complaining and begging for help and getting wildly wrong answers because he seems to completely forget how to add. Sigh.
In other news, he has finished the first Murderous Maths book I bought for him and is now working on The Phantom X. He also did two more pages of Greek-inspired math in Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
He continued reading about ancient Greece this week, and he’s especially enjoying Theras and His Town. He also read about Socrates and Plato and others in The Story of Philosopy, which he seems to find very interesting, and dipped into Terry Deary’s Top 10 Greek Legends. He watched another episode of Secrets of Ancient Empires and the “Spice Routes and Silk Roads” segment of the Story of India series. His written work this week was a History Scribe page about Phoenician culture. Oh, and he did a couple of Child’s History of the World stories, “The People Who Made Our ABC’s” and “Hard as Nails.”
English:
In English Prep we read Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” and talked about personification. We also learned about the rules for making plurals of words ending in ‘o’ (which I don’t think I ever had explained to me, by the way) and reviewed active and passive voice. The new writing model is the story of Androcles and the Lion, which we read over and talked about a couple of times. RobotBoy also did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
“No Joke—The Earth Is Pancake Flat!” Or so said the title of this week’s chapter of The Story of Science. Alongside that, RobotBoy is reading Science in Ancient Rome. We never got around to the project/experiment for this week, because we used most of Wednesday to catch up on desk work.
Spanish:
He just chugging along in The Learnables.
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
RobotBoy spent most of this week working on his “briefing” about India for the module on South Asia. He is also supposed to be making corrections and additions to a couple of lessons on which he didn’t do very well the first time around.
Other Stuff:
He had to skip tap class this week, because it conflicted with the dress rehearsal for his recital, which is coming up this weekend. He did attend ballroom, ballet, choir and organ, though, along with two more rehearsals for the opera. We’re now gearing up for the final weekend of The King and I performances, another opera reherasal and the recital. Next week, he’ll have rehearsals Monday through Wednesday evenings for the opera, which opens that Friday. So, it may be challenging—again—to get much schoolwork done.
One thing about which I'm very pleased is that RobotBoy has done some spontaneous and serious music practice in the last couple of weeks. I haven't nagged him about it, and he's actually working on the currently assigned piece instead of just playing ones he already knows over and over. That's a good thing.
My 52-Book Challenge:
I’m managing to keep up so far, with the addition of some audiobooks for the time on the road. In the weeks since my last post here, I’ve read/listened to Larklight (Phillip Reeve), The Virgin Blue (Tracy Chevalier), Q & A (Vikas Swarup), The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) and Innocent Traitor (Allison Weir). I enjoyed Larklight, which was a family listening experience on a road trip. All the faux Victoriana was fun, and RobotBoy is clamoring for the next in the series. I have mixed feelings about The Virgin Blue. I found it very absorbing, but I knew from early on that something nasty was going to happen to a child and spent a lot of time dreading it. Q & A is the novel on which the film Slumdog Millionaire is based. I enjoyed it, although I found the writing style rather bland in many places. I’ll admit that the big reveal caught me by surprise, though. The Book Thief was lovely, just lovely. I found myself consciously memorizing phrases and descriptions to savor later. And I enjoyed Innocent Traitor much more than I expected. In fact, I was inspired to dash out and buy Weir’s other novel, The Lady Elizabeth, which I’m reading now.
So, not a terrible week, but I’m really not sure what to do with math. I guess we’ll hang on another couple of weeks until we get past the opera and then see if RobotBoy’s brain becomes functional again.
PUPPY!
Good grief, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention the puppy! I picked her up in South Carolina on the drive to take Moonheart back to school. She’s been with us for almost three weeks, now, and is just a wonderful, sweet, adorable ball of fluff. I’ve been taking her with me for quite a few of our afternoons out, and having her in my arms makes me the most popular person in any room. We’re working on housetraining, of course, and just generally getting into a daily routine that works with a puppy. She’s just darling, though, and well worth the wait.
Here she is playing with the cats' toy today:
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Weekly Not-Much-of-a-Report
I planned our homeschooling schedule around Moonheart’s college calendar this year. Since her spring break starts this Friday, I figured I’d be on the road for at least a couple of days this week and, therefore, planned no new work. I figured we’d use whatever time we did have this week to catch up on anything that needed our attention.
As is turned out, we were pretty much caught up. We were gone most Monday and took Tuesday to recover, then had light days Wednesday and Thursday. And I’ll be gone Friday for yet another to-Virginia-and-back road trip. RobotBoy will be home with Dad, but I’m assuming there will be no schoolwork done.
Because Moonheart will be home and RobotBoy will be very busy with his birthday and assorted show rehearsals, I’m not planning on any heavy schoolwork next week, either.
Math:
We did the left-over lesson from last week plus one more. He’s still on quadratic equations, but is now solving by factoring, which seems to be a bit easier for him. I'm really hoping we can get through several more lessons in the next week, because that would lighten his weekly load for the remainder of the year. Currently, he needs to do about six lessons a week in order to finish the course by the end of this semester. If he could do an extra eight or nine lessons in this two-week semi-break, he could bring the number down to a more normal five per week for the rest of the year.
History & Literature:
He watched the other two short Greek myths from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller.
Geography:
He’s still working on the North America module. The current lesson has him learning about demographics and population changes.
Other Stuff:
We did a quick Virginia trip last weekend to see Moonheart in the college’s spring musical, Wonderful Town. We made it back home on Monday afternoon with just enough time for RobotBoy to get into choir uniform and head out for a concert. That went quite well, but we didn’t get home until almost 11:00 that night. RobotBoy ended up sleeping until very late on Tuesday morning. He had a make-up music lesson on Tuesday afternoon, followed by his regular tap class and a show rehearsal, which again kept him out later than usual. We finally got some schoolwork done on Wednesday before running out for organ practice, ballet and another show rehearsal. He has another long run on Thursday afternoon, with his regular weekly organ lesson followed by choir and then one more show rehearsal.
All in all, it’s a good week to have a light academic schedule.
My 52-Book Challenge:
My “official” book for the week was the audiobook we listened to on the road, Larklight by Phillip Reeve. It was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed the faux Victorian tone. Currently, I’m reading Q & A, the novel on which the film Slumdog Millionaire is based, and another book about dog training.
As is turned out, we were pretty much caught up. We were gone most Monday and took Tuesday to recover, then had light days Wednesday and Thursday. And I’ll be gone Friday for yet another to-Virginia-and-back road trip. RobotBoy will be home with Dad, but I’m assuming there will be no schoolwork done.
Because Moonheart will be home and RobotBoy will be very busy with his birthday and assorted show rehearsals, I’m not planning on any heavy schoolwork next week, either.
Math:
We did the left-over lesson from last week plus one more. He’s still on quadratic equations, but is now solving by factoring, which seems to be a bit easier for him. I'm really hoping we can get through several more lessons in the next week, because that would lighten his weekly load for the remainder of the year. Currently, he needs to do about six lessons a week in order to finish the course by the end of this semester. If he could do an extra eight or nine lessons in this two-week semi-break, he could bring the number down to a more normal five per week for the rest of the year.
History & Literature:
He watched the other two short Greek myths from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller.
Geography:
He’s still working on the North America module. The current lesson has him learning about demographics and population changes.
Other Stuff:
We did a quick Virginia trip last weekend to see Moonheart in the college’s spring musical, Wonderful Town. We made it back home on Monday afternoon with just enough time for RobotBoy to get into choir uniform and head out for a concert. That went quite well, but we didn’t get home until almost 11:00 that night. RobotBoy ended up sleeping until very late on Tuesday morning. He had a make-up music lesson on Tuesday afternoon, followed by his regular tap class and a show rehearsal, which again kept him out later than usual. We finally got some schoolwork done on Wednesday before running out for organ practice, ballet and another show rehearsal. He has another long run on Thursday afternoon, with his regular weekly organ lesson followed by choir and then one more show rehearsal.
All in all, it’s a good week to have a light academic schedule.
My 52-Book Challenge:
My “official” book for the week was the audiobook we listened to on the road, Larklight by Phillip Reeve. It was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed the faux Victorian tone. Currently, I’m reading Q & A, the novel on which the film Slumdog Millionaire is based, and another book about dog training.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Back on Track
Well, after a less-than-wonderful last week, it was lovely to be back to smooth sailing. RobotBoy took Wednesday completely off, which leaves us officially one math lesson behind. However, when I planned the year, I assumed we would do no work at all for the next two weeks to accommodate a couple of road trips to Virginia and RobotBoy’s birthday. As it turns out, we’ll miss only a few of those days. So, RobotBoy and I have decided to do a math lesson on each day we’re not doing anything else and that he will keep working on the online geography course. This means that we will not only make up that one math lesson but may be able to lighten the load for the remaining weeks of the academic year.
And, even with taking Wednesday off, he wrapped up all of his work for the week before noon on Friday.
Math:
He’s finally hit some concepts that he’s finding truly challenging. This week’s lessons were on “Introducing Quadratic Equations and Their Graphs.” There were two lessons that just took a lot of time, and he didn’t score as well on the chapter test as I would have liked. I’ve opted not to stress about it, though, since the plan is for him to work through a fun algebra program for review this summer. I’m sure he’ll be in good shape to move on the geometry in the fall. He also read some more Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits and did two pages of playing with Greek numerals from Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
This week, he’s been learning about both ancient Greece and ancient India. He read more Aesop and D’Aulaire’s and watched both Clash of the Titans and two short retellings of Greek myths from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. He read about ancient civilizations in general in Mysteries Through the Ages: Mysteries from the Past and Present Explained Through Recent Scientific Discoveries and about the Mauryan and Guptan empires in his Atlas of World History. His worksheet for the week was a fill-in-the-blank one with sentences about ancient India.
English:
In English Prep we read a poem and talked about symbolism. We also did some vocabulary and reviewed different types of sentence (simple, compound, complex). So, of course, we had to take time to sing a couple of verses of “Conjunction Junction.” We introduced a new writing model, the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes, and RobotBoy did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
This week’s chapter of The Story of Science was about Claudius Ptolemy. RobotBoy also read the remaining three chapters of Science in Ancient Greece and did a fun project from Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids inspired by Pythagoras’s discoveries about how the length of strings affects the pitch in musical instruments.
Spanish:
The Learnables continues to go well. This week, RobotBoy was particularly delighted to learn how to say “big feet.”
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
This week, he started the module about North America. His assignment was to research either the United States or Canada and prepare an itinerary for a trip to either country. He chose to research the U.S. and to plan a trip to Virginia and New York. Conveniently, he has been to both of those places more than once, so he even had pictures to use in his report.
Other Stuff:
Both ballroom (because of the holiday) and organ (because the teacher had a scheduling conflict) were cancelled this week. And, although the original plan had been to drive up to Virginia last weekend to visit my daughter and see her current show, a variety of things came up that led to a decision to delay the trip. RobotBoy attended his first rehearsal for The King and I, and we went to church and then to see Coraline on Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, though, we stayed home. So, all in all, we ended up with more free time than usual on our hands. It was kind of nice.
Life will get busier again in the next few weeks, however, I suspect. Rehearsals for the King and I will heat up as they get closer to opening. And RobotBoy volunteered to take a non-singing, just-be-cute role in an upcoming Orlando Opera production. His ballet and character classes are also preparing for their recital, which is coming up in March.
And, of course, I am counting down the next couple of weeks until I can go pick up my new puppy.
My 52-Book Challenge:
It was another re-read for me this week, Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation. I have a couple of books on my wish list for this week, but what I read depends on what comes to hand easily at the bookstore or library.
And, even with taking Wednesday off, he wrapped up all of his work for the week before noon on Friday.
Math:
He’s finally hit some concepts that he’s finding truly challenging. This week’s lessons were on “Introducing Quadratic Equations and Their Graphs.” There were two lessons that just took a lot of time, and he didn’t score as well on the chapter test as I would have liked. I’ve opted not to stress about it, though, since the plan is for him to work through a fun algebra program for review this summer. I’m sure he’ll be in good shape to move on the geometry in the fall. He also read some more Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits and did two pages of playing with Greek numerals from Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
This week, he’s been learning about both ancient Greece and ancient India. He read more Aesop and D’Aulaire’s and watched both Clash of the Titans and two short retellings of Greek myths from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. He read about ancient civilizations in general in Mysteries Through the Ages: Mysteries from the Past and Present Explained Through Recent Scientific Discoveries and about the Mauryan and Guptan empires in his Atlas of World History. His worksheet for the week was a fill-in-the-blank one with sentences about ancient India.
English:
In English Prep we read a poem and talked about symbolism. We also did some vocabulary and reviewed different types of sentence (simple, compound, complex). So, of course, we had to take time to sing a couple of verses of “Conjunction Junction.” We introduced a new writing model, the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes, and RobotBoy did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
This week’s chapter of The Story of Science was about Claudius Ptolemy. RobotBoy also read the remaining three chapters of Science in Ancient Greece and did a fun project from Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids inspired by Pythagoras’s discoveries about how the length of strings affects the pitch in musical instruments.
Spanish:
The Learnables continues to go well. This week, RobotBoy was particularly delighted to learn how to say “big feet.”
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
This week, he started the module about North America. His assignment was to research either the United States or Canada and prepare an itinerary for a trip to either country. He chose to research the U.S. and to plan a trip to Virginia and New York. Conveniently, he has been to both of those places more than once, so he even had pictures to use in his report.
Other Stuff:
Both ballroom (because of the holiday) and organ (because the teacher had a scheduling conflict) were cancelled this week. And, although the original plan had been to drive up to Virginia last weekend to visit my daughter and see her current show, a variety of things came up that led to a decision to delay the trip. RobotBoy attended his first rehearsal for The King and I, and we went to church and then to see Coraline on Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, though, we stayed home. So, all in all, we ended up with more free time than usual on our hands. It was kind of nice.
Life will get busier again in the next few weeks, however, I suspect. Rehearsals for the King and I will heat up as they get closer to opening. And RobotBoy volunteered to take a non-singing, just-be-cute role in an upcoming Orlando Opera production. His ballet and character classes are also preparing for their recital, which is coming up in March.
And, of course, I am counting down the next couple of weeks until I can go pick up my new puppy.
My 52-Book Challenge:
It was another re-read for me this week, Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation. I have a couple of books on my wish list for this week, but what I read depends on what comes to hand easily at the bookstore or library.
Monday, February 16, 2009
A Bit Belated
Things were a little ragged last week, with RobotBoy hitting a bit of a bump trying to get back to work following the camping trip. So, we were working right down to the wire on Friday afternoon. He did finish up, but not until moments before we needed to head out for the afternoon activities. Somehow, in the rush, I never got around to writing my weekly update.
But I’ve decided to remedy that now.
Math:
Math was a bit of a chore last week. He was factoring various types of polynomials, and he got a little tangled up now and then. We got through it, though, and I feel pretty good about his grasp of the material. So, we gratefully moved on. Toss in a couple more Mayan math worksheets and another chapter of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits, and you’ve got the whole week.
History & Literature:
RobotBoy finally wrapped up his Mesoamerica study this week. He finished reading both The Children’s Homer and The Well of Sacrifice, both of which earned thumbs up reviews. His worksheet for the week was a criss-cross with vocabulary from his history reading. He also watched a documentary about efforts to decode Mayan hieroglyphs and spent some time playing with a website about the ancient ballgame.
English:
This was a writing week. RobotBoy turned in his draft of the re-telling of the hero twins story on Tuesday, then made corrections and finished the final version on Friday. There were a few minor mistakes remaining, but I’m pleased with the effort. We did a few pages of English Prep, too, but I can’t remember what they were about right now. And RobotBoy did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
He read the next chapter of The Story of Science and a couple of chapters of Science in Ancient Greece. We never got around to either of the projects I had on the assignment sheet, but we’ll try to make them up this week.
Spanish:
RobotBoy continued with The Learnables, learning some vocabulary for facial features and hair.
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
He finally finished that assignment about the Pacific Rim , turning it in on Thursday. I was pretty irritable about how long he lingered on that one, but he got a very good score. He did the oral assessment for the module on the phone with his teacher on Friday and earned full marks on that, too. She had lots of really nice things to say about him and his work, and she assured us that the remaining two modules are much easier than the last one.
Other Stuff:
We camped with the choir last weekend. It was pretty cold for us Floridians, but RobotBoy had a wonderful time running around with his choir-mates. If I agree to go again next year, it will be because someone has bought me an air mattress with a battery-operated pump. We made it home on Sunday afternoon with enough time for me to nap for an hour, then shower and dress and drive back uptown for a ballet performance. It was a fun program of short pieces, but I so much prefer the full, story ballets.
My 52-Book Challenge:
Umm, this was not my finest week. I dragged the Henry James novel with me on the camping trip, but just could not focus. RobotBoy and I both tried reading in our tent by the light of our lantern, but I didn’t get very far. Then Moonheart got sick, which caused me some distraction and plenty of time on the phone. Eventually, since I am in the process—at long last!—of trying to adopt a puppy, I bought and read Ian Dunbar’s Before and After You Get Your Puppy. So, that’s what got counted for last week. I’m also about half-way through re-reading Oliver Twist, so that will probably be my “official” book for this week.
But I’ve decided to remedy that now.
Math:
Math was a bit of a chore last week. He was factoring various types of polynomials, and he got a little tangled up now and then. We got through it, though, and I feel pretty good about his grasp of the material. So, we gratefully moved on. Toss in a couple more Mayan math worksheets and another chapter of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits, and you’ve got the whole week.
History & Literature:
RobotBoy finally wrapped up his Mesoamerica study this week. He finished reading both The Children’s Homer and The Well of Sacrifice, both of which earned thumbs up reviews. His worksheet for the week was a criss-cross with vocabulary from his history reading. He also watched a documentary about efforts to decode Mayan hieroglyphs and spent some time playing with a website about the ancient ballgame.
English:
This was a writing week. RobotBoy turned in his draft of the re-telling of the hero twins story on Tuesday, then made corrections and finished the final version on Friday. There were a few minor mistakes remaining, but I’m pleased with the effort. We did a few pages of English Prep, too, but I can’t remember what they were about right now. And RobotBoy did two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
He read the next chapter of The Story of Science and a couple of chapters of Science in Ancient Greece. We never got around to either of the projects I had on the assignment sheet, but we’ll try to make them up this week.
Spanish:
RobotBoy continued with The Learnables, learning some vocabulary for facial features and hair.
Greek:
He did a page of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
He finally finished that assignment about the Pacific Rim , turning it in on Thursday. I was pretty irritable about how long he lingered on that one, but he got a very good score. He did the oral assessment for the module on the phone with his teacher on Friday and earned full marks on that, too. She had lots of really nice things to say about him and his work, and she assured us that the remaining two modules are much easier than the last one.
Other Stuff:
We camped with the choir last weekend. It was pretty cold for us Floridians, but RobotBoy had a wonderful time running around with his choir-mates. If I agree to go again next year, it will be because someone has bought me an air mattress with a battery-operated pump. We made it home on Sunday afternoon with enough time for me to nap for an hour, then shower and dress and drive back uptown for a ballet performance. It was a fun program of short pieces, but I so much prefer the full, story ballets.
My 52-Book Challenge:
Umm, this was not my finest week. I dragged the Henry James novel with me on the camping trip, but just could not focus. RobotBoy and I both tried reading in our tent by the light of our lantern, but I didn’t get very far. Then Moonheart got sick, which caused me some distraction and plenty of time on the phone. Eventually, since I am in the process—at long last!—of trying to adopt a puppy, I bought and read Ian Dunbar’s Before and After You Get Your Puppy. So, that’s what got counted for last week. I’m also about half-way through re-reading Oliver Twist, so that will probably be my “official” book for this week.
Friday, February 06, 2009
We're Packed
Okay, I mentioned in my regular weekly report that RobotBoy and I are off to camp with his choir this weekend. What I might have failed to mention is that I drive a MINI Cooper. Now, granted, it is the "extended" Clubman model, but it's still pretty small. So, I thought it might amuse folks to see what it looks like when we pack for a camping weekend.
Not too bad from the outside:
And here are the interior views:
Note: We had to strap in the bin of cooking supplies, because my car assumes anything over a certain weight is a person and beeps at me until I put on its seatbelt.
Still, not to bad for my teeny, adorable car. It's nice to know it's practical, too!
Not too bad from the outside:
And here are the interior views:
Note: We had to strap in the bin of cooking supplies, because my car assumes anything over a certain weight is a person and beeps at me until I put on its seatbelt.
Still, not to bad for my teeny, adorable car. It's nice to know it's practical, too!
Another Friday
So, here we are again. Now, it’s not that I’m complaining. Honest! But it’s getting to be a bit challenging to come up with a cute title or introduction to these weekly reports when things are just coasting along smoothly. Of course, I’m very happy with the smooth thing, but still . . .
Math:
We had our first tiny bump in the road on Thursday with the lesson on “Factoring Polynomials: Using the Distributive Property” It was really, really tiny and may well have had something to do with the fact that RobotBoy had already completed one and a half other math lessons before we started that one. But he did get very frustrated and have to retire to his room for a few minutes to calm down. After that, all was well. Things clicked, and he got 100% on his assignment. Otherwise, things are going well. Earlier in the week, he earned 95% on a chapter test. He also played around with another Can You Count in Greek? worksheet on Mayan math and read some more of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits.
History & Literature:
It was more Mesoamerica this week: a page from the history atlas, an article from Learning Through History: Mesoamerica and a few pages from The Maya: Life, Myth and Art (Timothy Laughton) followed by cryptogram with a message about Mayan religion:
The Mayan religion was polytheistic, meaning they worshipped many gods. The most important god was the sun god. The Mayans used large mounds and pyramids for worship.
This was his first puzzle of this sort, and he had a blast with it. He was so much enjoying The Children’s Homer and The Well of Sacrifice that he read ahead and finished his assigned reading for the week in both by sometime on Tuesday.
English:
This week, we introduced a new writing model, based on the Mayan story of the hero twins. RobotBoy knows a couple of versions of this story from his reading, and the one I chose for the model was slightly different. So, we talked about how such things develop variations over the years. In English Prep, we read and answered questions about Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and a non-fiction piece about St, Valentine. (Pretty clever how this chapter fell at just the right time of the year, huh?) We also read the vocabulary section about forms of the word ‘martyr.’ He also did another two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
In The Story of Science, RobotBoy read about Rome. He then read the first two chapters of Science in Ancient Greece and did a project about light and parabolic reflectors from Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids. For fun, he watched two episodes of Secrets of Ancient Empires, one about pyramids and another about obelisks.
Spanish:
RobotBoy did the next 11 pages of The Learnables. I don’t remember exactly what was covered, and I’m too lazy to go get the book and check. I do know that I chatted with him about a couple of the pages, reading the sentences in Spanish and asking him to translate, and he did just fine.
Greek:
For the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker this week, RobotBoy learned “The Dipthong Song.” He also did several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
He’s still working on the module about the Pacific Rim and is a little bit stuck on one assignment. He is supposed to choose three countries in the area and do a compare and contrast thing. In order to earn full points for the assignment, he is supposed to compare and contrast with seven categories, and it’s just taking a lot of time to mine the information.
Other Stuff:
The reading I mentioned for last Friday was kind of disappointing. It was billed as a re-working of The Tempest from a female point of view. Prospero became Prospera, and Calliban was played by a woman, etc. We were really looking forward to it. But it turned out to involve little more than changing of pronouns and introducing a couple of musical numbers in the second half.
Sunday afternoon, we went to see a production of one of our favorite shows, The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). So much fun. And RobotBoy talked us into letting him audition for a community theatre production of The King and I. (He starts rehearsals next week.) We spent most of Wednesday making lists and shopping and gathering gear from the garage, because RobotBoy and I will be camping with his choir this weekend. He’s very, very excited.
My 52-Book Challenge:
I have started and dropped several books lately. So, my official book for last week was Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, by the same woman who wrote Queen Bees and Wannabes. It was okay, although I found an awful lot of the information just didn’t seem to apply to our family’s life. And I never did figure out for sure what “type” I am. I can’t seem to settle into anything for this week, either. I’ve started a novel called In the Fall, but I’m really not loving the writing style. And last night I started The Wings of the Dove, but it hasn’t really grabbed me, either. I’m sure something will click. I’ll let you know next week!
Math:
We had our first tiny bump in the road on Thursday with the lesson on “Factoring Polynomials: Using the Distributive Property” It was really, really tiny and may well have had something to do with the fact that RobotBoy had already completed one and a half other math lessons before we started that one. But he did get very frustrated and have to retire to his room for a few minutes to calm down. After that, all was well. Things clicked, and he got 100% on his assignment. Otherwise, things are going well. Earlier in the week, he earned 95% on a chapter test. He also played around with another Can You Count in Greek? worksheet on Mayan math and read some more of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits.
History & Literature:
It was more Mesoamerica this week: a page from the history atlas, an article from Learning Through History: Mesoamerica and a few pages from The Maya: Life, Myth and Art (Timothy Laughton) followed by cryptogram with a message about Mayan religion:
The Mayan religion was polytheistic, meaning they worshipped many gods. The most important god was the sun god. The Mayans used large mounds and pyramids for worship.
This was his first puzzle of this sort, and he had a blast with it. He was so much enjoying The Children’s Homer and The Well of Sacrifice that he read ahead and finished his assigned reading for the week in both by sometime on Tuesday.
English:
This week, we introduced a new writing model, based on the Mayan story of the hero twins. RobotBoy knows a couple of versions of this story from his reading, and the one I chose for the model was slightly different. So, we talked about how such things develop variations over the years. In English Prep, we read and answered questions about Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and a non-fiction piece about St, Valentine. (Pretty clever how this chapter fell at just the right time of the year, huh?) We also read the vocabulary section about forms of the word ‘martyr.’ He also did another two lessons of Word Roots.
Science:
In The Story of Science, RobotBoy read about Rome. He then read the first two chapters of Science in Ancient Greece and did a project about light and parabolic reflectors from Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids. For fun, he watched two episodes of Secrets of Ancient Empires, one about pyramids and another about obelisks.
Spanish:
RobotBoy did the next 11 pages of The Learnables. I don’t remember exactly what was covered, and I’m too lazy to go get the book and check. I do know that I chatted with him about a couple of the pages, reading the sentences in Spanish and asking him to translate, and he did just fine.
Greek:
For the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker this week, RobotBoy learned “The Dipthong Song.” He also did several pages of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!
Geography:
He’s still working on the module about the Pacific Rim and is a little bit stuck on one assignment. He is supposed to choose three countries in the area and do a compare and contrast thing. In order to earn full points for the assignment, he is supposed to compare and contrast with seven categories, and it’s just taking a lot of time to mine the information.
Other Stuff:
The reading I mentioned for last Friday was kind of disappointing. It was billed as a re-working of The Tempest from a female point of view. Prospero became Prospera, and Calliban was played by a woman, etc. We were really looking forward to it. But it turned out to involve little more than changing of pronouns and introducing a couple of musical numbers in the second half.
Sunday afternoon, we went to see a production of one of our favorite shows, The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). So much fun. And RobotBoy talked us into letting him audition for a community theatre production of The King and I. (He starts rehearsals next week.) We spent most of Wednesday making lists and shopping and gathering gear from the garage, because RobotBoy and I will be camping with his choir this weekend. He’s very, very excited.My 52-Book Challenge:
I have started and dropped several books lately. So, my official book for last week was Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, by the same woman who wrote Queen Bees and Wannabes. It was okay, although I found an awful lot of the information just didn’t seem to apply to our family’s life. And I never did figure out for sure what “type” I am. I can’t seem to settle into anything for this week, either. I’ve started a novel called In the Fall, but I’m really not loving the writing style. And last night I started The Wings of the Dove, but it hasn’t really grabbed me, either. I’m sure something will click. I’ll let you know next week!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Still Holding My Breath
Okay, I admit it: I’m a little stunned that we had another good week. I’m not sure what’s going on, and I have this insane compulsion to knock on wood all the time, but things are going really well. I did mention it to RobotBoy, and he said he just came back from our holiday break feeling like he wanted to do better. And so he is.
Absolutely amazing.
So, here’s how it went.
Math:
RobotBoy is keeping up very well with the faster pace in this course. He’s completing his six lessons a week with good (okay, mostly perfect) grades and nary a whimper of protest. He took the test on the introduction to polynomials and is now breezing through the unit on factoring them. He read some more of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits and did another page of Maya-themed math from Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
He’s continued to focus on Mesoamerica this week,
reading from his world history atlas, Learning Through History: Mesoamerica, The Maya: Life, Myth and Art (Timothy Laughton) and Egyptians, Maya, Minoans (Susanna Matthies). This Friday’s worksheet was a fun wordseach with vocabulary from his reading. Literature-wise, he’s continuing with The Children’s Homer and has read about the first third of The Well of Sacrifice. Both are getting thumbs up reviews.
English:
RobotBoy did his writing project this week, recounting the Chinese folk tale of “Wang the Peddler.”
He turned in a pretty good first draft on Tuesday (right on schedule!), which really just needed minor punctuation and spelling corrections. The “final” draft he turned in a day early on Thursday wasn’t completely clean, unfortunately. So, he made the remaining corrections and re-submitted on Friday. I did knock off half a point, but I still consider it a success.
In English Prep, we reviewed prepositions and definite/indefinite articles. Then on Friday we read the excerpt from Silas Marner and talked through the comprehension questions.
RobotBoy did two more lessons of Word Roots. I’m a little sad that he won’t be able to continue the program next year, since he’s finishing the last level that is available for the computer.
Science:
This week in The Story of Science, RobotBoy read about Eratosthenes and his attempts to measure the earth. He then finished Archimedes and the Door of Science, which also earned a thumbs up review.
Spanish:
He’s still working on the “Pronouns” section. I think his favorite thing this week was the exercise about the man being chased out of his tent by the lion. He tracked me down in the kitchen to read that one to me. I have to say, though, that I was actually pretty pleased with his pronunciation. It’s not something that gets worked on formally in The Learnables, but he seems to be picking it up, anyway.
Greek:
He’s nearing the end of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker. So, he did just two pages of that and six of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! He continues to enjoy these.
Geography:
This week, he’s started reading about the Pacific Rim. His assignment was to choose one country from that part of the world, about which he had to answer some basic factual questions and then research an imaginary trip. Given his obsession with samurai, it’s probably not a big surprise that he selected Japan to research.
Other Stuff:
It was a very busy week with extras. On Saturday, RobotBoy took the Explore exam at a local school. He said it was not so much difficult as tedious, but he was pretty tired by the time he was done. That afternoon, we had tickets to see the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast of Orfeo ed Euridice. That was really lovely, by the way. We all enjoyed it. On Sunday afternoon, we went to see a reading of a new play about John Wilkes Booth at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre’s festival of new plays. Tuesday evening brought the Horns and Pipes concert at St. Luke’s cathedral, which RobotBoy really loved. In honor of Mendelssohn’s 200th anniversary, they played several of his pieces, including the "Wedding March" from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On Thursday evening after choir, RobotBoy and I went to see/hear a workshop of a new opera based on George Bernard Shaw’s play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. RobotBoy enjoyed it and said it brought back memories of his own opera workshop experiences about this time last year.
We have tickets to another reading tonight (Friday) and a couple of more things over the weekend. We love PlayFest time!
My 52-Book Challenge:
I finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility this week but haven’t decided what I’ll count as my official next book. I have Utopia, which I had planned to be next, but I bought a copy of Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads on sale yesterday and started that while I was waiting for RobotBoy to come out of choir. Maybe I’ll do both.
Absolutely amazing.
So, here’s how it went.
Math:
RobotBoy is keeping up very well with the faster pace in this course. He’s completing his six lessons a week with good (okay, mostly perfect) grades and nary a whimper of protest. He took the test on the introduction to polynomials and is now breezing through the unit on factoring them. He read some more of Murderous Maths, Fractions and Averages: The Mean and Vulgar Bits and did another page of Maya-themed math from Can You Count in Greek?
History & Literature:
He’s continued to focus on Mesoamerica this week,
reading from his world history atlas, Learning Through History: Mesoamerica, The Maya: Life, Myth and Art (Timothy Laughton) and Egyptians, Maya, Minoans (Susanna Matthies). This Friday’s worksheet was a fun wordseach with vocabulary from his reading. Literature-wise, he’s continuing with The Children’s Homer and has read about the first third of The Well of Sacrifice. Both are getting thumbs up reviews.English:
RobotBoy did his writing project this week, recounting the Chinese folk tale of “Wang the Peddler.”
He turned in a pretty good first draft on Tuesday (right on schedule!), which really just needed minor punctuation and spelling corrections. The “final” draft he turned in a day early on Thursday wasn’t completely clean, unfortunately. So, he made the remaining corrections and re-submitted on Friday. I did knock off half a point, but I still consider it a success. In English Prep, we reviewed prepositions and definite/indefinite articles. Then on Friday we read the excerpt from Silas Marner and talked through the comprehension questions.
RobotBoy did two more lessons of Word Roots. I’m a little sad that he won’t be able to continue the program next year, since he’s finishing the last level that is available for the computer.
Science:
This week in The Story of Science, RobotBoy read about Eratosthenes and his attempts to measure the earth. He then finished Archimedes and the Door of Science, which also earned a thumbs up review.
Spanish:
He’s still working on the “Pronouns” section. I think his favorite thing this week was the exercise about the man being chased out of his tent by the lion. He tracked me down in the kitchen to read that one to me. I have to say, though, that I was actually pretty pleased with his pronunciation. It’s not something that gets worked on formally in The Learnables, but he seems to be picking it up, anyway.
Greek:
He’s nearing the end of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker. So, he did just two pages of that and six of Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! He continues to enjoy these.
Geography:
This week, he’s started reading about the Pacific Rim. His assignment was to choose one country from that part of the world, about which he had to answer some basic factual questions and then research an imaginary trip. Given his obsession with samurai, it’s probably not a big surprise that he selected Japan to research.
Other Stuff:
It was a very busy week with extras. On Saturday, RobotBoy took the Explore exam at a local school. He said it was not so much difficult as tedious, but he was pretty tired by the time he was done. That afternoon, we had tickets to see the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast of Orfeo ed Euridice. That was really lovely, by the way. We all enjoyed it. On Sunday afternoon, we went to see a reading of a new play about John Wilkes Booth at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre’s festival of new plays. Tuesday evening brought the Horns and Pipes concert at St. Luke’s cathedral, which RobotBoy really loved. In honor of Mendelssohn’s 200th anniversary, they played several of his pieces, including the "Wedding March" from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On Thursday evening after choir, RobotBoy and I went to see/hear a workshop of a new opera based on George Bernard Shaw’s play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. RobotBoy enjoyed it and said it brought back memories of his own opera workshop experiences about this time last year.
We have tickets to another reading tonight (Friday) and a couple of more things over the weekend. We love PlayFest time!
My 52-Book Challenge:
I finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility this week but haven’t decided what I’ll count as my official next book. I have Utopia, which I had planned to be next, but I bought a copy of Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads on sale yesterday and started that while I was waiting for RobotBoy to come out of choir. Maybe I’ll do both.
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