Week 2 Learning Record

I'm going to wrap up the week's learning notes early. So this week was a short week, only 3 days. Next week will have an off day, too -- since it is Labor Day next Monday.

Monday:

• Appointments in town -- no school

Tuesday, Day 5:

Kieron

• Review Greek and Latin (basically, I asked him what he remembered)
• 2 more chapters of We Went with Magellan, independent reading
• Math Multiplication drill at Thatquiz.org.
• Latina Christiana Quia.
• Review of the Apostles Creed, then discussion about Ronald Knox and the purpose, audience etc. of Creed in Slow Motion. Then I read a bit of it to him and we discussed it briefly.
• Introductory Logic, first part of first chapter.
  
• Free Time: Designing comics.
  

Paddy

• I read several books to him, including Grasshopper on the Road, Frog and Toad All Day, and a couple of Little Critter books.
• He read a bit of a LIttle Angel Reader to me.
• Alphabet Quia
• Starfall

Aidan

• Starfall, Alphabet Quia.
• Walk to Post Office with Dad and Mom in wheelchair.
  

Both

• Both went on sort of an expedition with me. Paddy wanted me to pack him a little bag to put over his shoulder on a stick like a vagabond. Then he devised several "adventures" to different corners of our area, with different sub-objectives. Aidan and he "caught fish".

Wednesday, Day 6

Kieron

• Latin, Direct Objects and their case in first and second declension.
  
• Greek, pronunciation of vowels
• Math, review from Core Knowledge 5-- multiplying large factors, and decimal place value. Then he did Place Value Pirates.
• Bible History -- read introduction, about how we got the Bible, independently. He is supposed to tell me what it was about tomorrow (groans).
• More of Creed in Slow Motion -- about credulity vs skepticism. Interesting discussion resulted.
• Logic, the rest of chapter 1 and then Ex 1 (easy stuff -- like Liam, he loves the "nonsense" sentences!)

Paddy and Aidan

No real formal academics. I tried to do a little counting and adding with Aidan using beads. We all went to the library. I brought out a digital timer and Paddy is fascinated by it and using it in all sorts of contests. Aidan has lined his wooden beads in a Hot Wheel storage box and is pretending they are blood draw tubes.

Aidan found a picture in a toy catalog of a transportation puzzle he had when he was littler (someone gave it to him when he was in the hospital) and he became obsessed about it and wanted to order it, etc. This sounds like a small enough irritant but it gets to be like Chinese water torture, especially when he says things like, "Maybe it will be at the Post Office! Are we going to go there and pick it up?" again and again with a sort of fragile, almost hysterical enthusiasm! These things usually end in a major meltdown but this time it seems to have passed off OK.

Thursday Day 7

Kieron

• Math -- more review of decimals
• Greek -- pronunciation of vowel blends
• Logic -- review of first chapter
• Latin -- finding the right case for the direct object
• Narration of yesterday's reading of Bible History
• Literary discussion
• Reading: He Went with Magellan.

Paddy

• several stories read aloud.

Aidan

• a shortish reading lesson
• walk to Post Office with mom and dad

Goals for next week -- work up to a more complete schedule, and focus more on writing.

Week 2 -- typing out plans

I typed out some of the plans I wrote out for Kieron for Week 2. I don't think I'll write it out in such a complicated form, next time, but I like experimenting with my Word 2007. These are in gif form, so you can click on them to enlarge them (I hope so at least!)

Originally I had just written this down in my binder, one page per subject, in longhand, and it actually seems to go well that way, but it's harder to re-access if I ever need it in future, and I don't much like my own handwriting -- trying to improve that!

I also wrote out plans for Language Arts, "Other Subjects to Keep in Mind" (things I'm not really writing out plans for but don't want to forget), and "review/reinforcement" (I write down ideas and concepts I want to keep reviewing in one way or another).

I also made a short list of plans for the little ones.... mostly just things to keep in mind and work informally into the day.

Day 3

I put this (left) in the front of Kieron's binder so that we can see his readings and other activities at a glance.

Today I showed him his supplies, such as they are (below) -- he was happy about having his own writing supplies, scissors, and container to hold them in : ).

We continued the math review (Properties of Multiplication) and then some more Latin vocabulary and grammar and Greek alphabet and pronunciation review.

I gave him We Went with Magellan to read to start him off on our history. I went over a bit of an overview of history with him. So far I have not given him anything to do on his own besides reading, but I think that soon I will give him some sort of beginning writing project.


So today it was:

• Math
• Greek
• Latin
• History
• Nature Walk (we went out and tried to ID some species in our area)

The little ones' reading lesson went rather better today. Aidan just did review. With Paddy, it is interesting because he can already read quite a bit with almost no decoding ability. My goal is to give him some word attack skills.

I have researched lots about beginning reading, through the years. The "whole language" people have the right idea in that reading really is NOT a matter of decoding isolated or even nonsense words. Words have meanings and because of the way language is structured, their meaning is usually a part of a longer unit, ie a sentence. More and more, it seems to me to be an insult to a child's intelligence to have them read completely twaddly garbage sentences just to reinforce phonics.

At the same time, word-guessing is a really troublesome habit, and so the discipline of phonics as a basic strategy is very much needed. I like Spell to Read and Write's approach of teaching many words and waiting until that is mastered before having the child read sentences, so that he or she can start right off reading good easy books when the basic knowledge is in place.

Yet, with my kids at least, isolated words do not stick. My little kids learn from the big picture, not from micro-drilling. So I've been doing both -- some drills, and then words in sentences.

In one way, Paddy's extensive sight-reading vocabulary is an advantage, because I can write little stories using (1) phonics words and (2) familiar sight words. The disadvantage is that he plunges at the sentence and guesses at what he does not know. So I'm slowly trying to teach him to slow down and use phonics clues.

Day Two

I am typing quickly since this was a busy day and is going to keep being busy!

Today I introduced a couple more subjects to Kieron. My plan is to keep either adding or rotating into a couple more subjects every day until we basically have a method and some familiarity with all the new books -- most of them ARE new.

Today:

Math -- we reviewed Properties of Addition (and Multiplication) and I showed him the idea of variables and how you could substitute numbers for the letters to solve the problem -- also, related equations).

Latin & Greek -- for these subjects, we have gone back to two of our oldest resources -- Latin is Fun for Latin, and Basic New Testament Greek in 30 Minutes a Day, both originally acquired because Kolbe Academy used them. I do plan to get to Latina Christiana II (or Henle, we'll see how it goes) but I want to try something a bit different for a little while. Latin is Fun used to be difficult for me because it is hard to teach with little knowledge of Latin, but I am a bit more confident about that now.

So we did a bit of vocabulary from the book, and then the grammar.

Thus concluded the Year 7 school day.

The binder is my recordkeeping solution for him this year. I will put his work inside it -- the dividers are for the months, so I can keep his daily logs, and possibly his work as well, loosely organized. Details to follow -- I'm not sure if it's very interesting, but it does help me to remember it and actually do it if I write it out : ).

On the left side in the above picture is a weekly reading checklist. The details of this will probably change as I get a better idea of what method works best for us!



The little ones:

Paddy had a reading lesson.
They are playing with felts now.

They have been playing more creatively recently and even hanging out in the same space, as you see.

I have been spending the day bringing things upstairs that I brought downstairs last year. It is more spacious up here and easier to find a place to store the learning materials.

Off to make dinner now!

Day One

I had this (gif) written out for Monday, but I knew that this week it was very likely to take two days to do one day. Anyway, what Kieron actually did was to write out his name, address, birthdate etc in his best printing (to provide a baseline for this year) and then he did a math test on addition online, and a Latin Quia.

He just finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, and before that read The Lost World.

The little ones worked on phonics a bit.

We discussed how we are going to do our chore rotation this year. The two little ones (with my help) can stand in for Sean, who won't be around to do regular chores. They both are pretty positive about this -- the older kids were fortunate in that they were helping around the house when they were quite little -- my little ones haven't had that chance, and they have been (mostly) eagerly stepping up to the plate, feeling proud that they get to unload silverware from the dishwasher and that kind of thing.

It feels weird around here with just Kieron and the little ones to teach. Paddy is too young to have much attention for formal academics, and Aidan is too focused on the concrete. I think I shall memorize a list of goals for various subjects and then try to work them into a more floor-time approach. I know that sounds like "using" play -- it IS in a way but on the other hand it is more demanding and interactive for ME, and less deadening for THEM, than sitting down with a workbook (though we will do a bit of that, too).

As for Kieron, I am looking forward to a more interactive approach with him, and also looking forward to giving him more ownership of the process by letting him choose, give input, etc. He already is pretty good about making things his own, but I hope to keep on the upward curve. I plan to introduce a couple of courses a day during the week, and put them into his notebook, so that they are there for reference.

I know I said I was going to log in a weekly format, and I still intend to try that,.....but not for the first week. I'll probably have too much processing to do in the first week. Once things settle into a pattern I want my learning notes to look like this, and this. (I'll have to figure out how to fit 3 students into a compact weekly format though)

I can't believe how fast this summer has gone past -- it hardly seemed like we got in stride.

Day Zero

Besides this, and a phonics lesson with Aidan, we mainly did this:

Kieron made the cookies















Paddy liked them















Then Aidan and Paddy had to make their own "peanut butter cookies" (they like rolling them into little balls, and pressing them with the fork.
























In the evening, we went to Mass for the Feast of the Assumption. What we did was drive to the high school to pick up the last bit of Sean's football practice, then drove to the church early and sat around on the swings having quite a nice family conversation. Sean was starving -- I hadn't brought much for him to snack on because I thought it would be too late for him to eat and still receive communion. In fact, he did have time, but had to settle for water and half a granola bar.

So this ended the first week of Sean's school. And I am calling this Day Zero, because we did get a homeschool start.... sort of... and Monday we'll start properly.

The cookies are a tradition. Maybe we'll make some more, on Monday.

Day 8

We woke up to a storm today -- the rain intoxicated Kieron and Aidan (everyone else was asleep) so we went for a couple of short nature walks to see what our favorite spots in the forest looked like during an August rainstorm. They also had fun trying out their Irish umbrellas -- we don't get to use them very often in central California highlands!

So that along with the bat, and a cluster of daddy-long-legs we found, counted as Science/Nature for them for today.

Aidan helped me make Rice Krispie squares -- not exactly health food, but various forms of pouring and stirring and measuring -- so, Practical Life for him.

Kevin took the older kids off to watch the matinee screening of Harry Potter in town; they will be gone till late night because after that, it will be Sean's therapy and then his football practice.

Kieron has rediscovered the Tintins and is reading those.
Sean is reading Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse -- he read us a part this morning.

Last night we listened to Les Miserables and to Amazon samples of Scarlet Pimpernel.

As far as formal academics --
Sean didn't get anything done before they went.
Kieron did Math (parentheses and order of operations)....Greek, Thinking Skills (he is enjoying these!) and I reviewed Latin vocabulary with him since Clare didn't have time to do Latin. I must say he knows the vocab well. Whatever the two of them are doing, it is working!

(Incidentally, I remember how I used to read about older kids teaching younger ones, and feel bad because I never tried to train them to do this. However, now I see lots of natural teaching like this going on in my home, and I never had to "train" -- something I rather dislike and prefer to avoid. It makes me happy now that I waited, though I think that if I had respected my style and my kids', I probably would have seen signs of this process and been able to build on it and encourage it a lot sooner).

This will be the last academic journal for about a week, since I am going to Alaska to visit my parents, along with Brendan. I THINK I will tell the kids to do their Greek and Vocabulary daily, and I probably couldn't STOP them from reading -- I intend to collect a pile of books for them to choose from. But that's about all they will be doing.

Day 7: Serendipity

Great learning day today.

Sean brought me his Algebra first thing in the morning, since he hadn't done any math yesterday. We went through two lessons -- review of division, and powers. Then we did Latin exercise 13 which brings us up to where we stopped last year. Then he did Greek, Vocabulary, and read a bit more of Creator and Creation. Then we did the heat, massage, ice treatment for his leg that we are supposed to do in the morning and evening.

When I got a chance, I worked on his literature booklist for this year. I'll take a picture when I get it all collected, and write out a list.

Kieron did Latin with Clare, though part of the time they seemed to be singing songs .... NOT setting paradigms to song, they assured me (they seem to resist these kinds of auditory drills -- thinking it confuses secondary ends with primary ones musically, I suppose)

Then I did something I think I will have to try more often since it works well with my kind of teaching style and the type of kid he is. I gave him the old KidsArt "Art of Ancient Rome" which is sort of like a self-enclosed unit study with a focus on art. I have a whole series but never really used them with the other kids. I asked him to read it and tell me if he thought any of the projects looked interesting. He chose the Roman arch and the design-your-own-coin.

Then the day took a magical turn. .... you know what I mean about magic -- not Harry Potter -- I think serendipitous is a sort of synonym. The Roman arch called for sugar cubes. I vaguely remembered that we had some sugar cubes around the house from when I was using Greenleaf history with Liam -- about ten years ago! So I went looking for them in my sorely-needs-to-be-organized craft closet (it is the house's linen closet, but who needs a closet for linen??).

I finally found them in the laundry room -- go figure. And in the process I spilled Liam's pastels and a bunch of balsa wood blocks -- wonder if those would be useful for anything??? But here's the neat part -- I found Liam's old metronome -- and it worked! Clare needs a metronome for her violin practice, so she was thrilled. She immediately embarked on an impromptu (timed) concert.

Kieron worked happily for a long time. I helped him when he had problems, which is SO much in tune with my personal style (rather than being the initiator). When he was looking for something, he found some sort of mystery insect, and Clare took a picture. We can look it up and ID it and that can be science.....

He didn't want to stop to do math, so it was serendipitous again that the lesson was a review of graphing and consequently extremely easy and interesting.

Clare noticed the sugar cubes and to her that spelled "old fashioned tea party". So she started planning a tea party -- and we decided we could come in costume -- and we dug up an old sugar bowl from her great-grandma. And then, I found Kevin's old X-acto knives! I have been looking for these for a long time. Kieron used them to make "coins" -- first he made a pencil sketch, then foil over clay, then cardboard. He had a fun day.

As for Aidan, no formal academics, but he has kept busy with Practical-life exercises. He made lemonade, "made cookies" (I made him some edible playdough and he used that). And he played a bit with the matching picture cards. I am thinking of ways to do this with other materials for him.

Paddy did a wooden clock puzzle that we found in Ireland.

The two teenage boys are playing football on the X Box.... Sean has to go for rehab and then to practice today, and in between, Kevin is taking him to watch the high school football practice. Sean said (complaining about Algebra) -- "first I go through mental pain, then physical pain!" : D

I hope we get another day like this at least every seven days : ) -- it went well.

Day 5

Sean:

Greek
Vocabulary
Latin (exercise 8 of Henle)
Algebra
He finished reading the Space Trilogy -- Perelandra and That Hideous Strength -- and is now reading David Copperfield.


Kieron

Greek
Latin (Quia)
MCP Math
Thinking Skills F from Essential Learning Products (apparently OOP but from this series)
For science, he colored a salamander from the Peterson's field guide coloring book.

Aidan

Wasn't interested in 100 Easy Lessons-- got halfway through lesson 16 -- tense morning for him. Started to do math but ran off when Paddy came to watch.
Later he found a card matching game based on short "e" and "o" CVC words. HE played that for a long time and matched all the cards.



Paddy

Lesson 10 of 100ez lessons
Colored in the math book and helped me sharpen the colored pencils.
"P" in Handwriting without Tears.

Later I took the three youngers to the library. Then I took Aidan up to our granite ridge and he played a bit and seems happier now. He is outside playing right now.

Clare was sick today -- I don't know all that she did but I know she was reading Peggy Noonan's book about Ronald Reagan, and now she is watching the old BBC production of Pride and Prejudice.

Yesterday she finished Sean's pirate coat and today she is trying to sew a little girl's dress. She got stuck at one part and we spent a while trying to figure it out together.

Yesterday for teacher prep, I separated the Audubon bird cards for Aidan, and today I made a Kindergarten log form. I also looked through All Ye Lands and the CHC study guide for it. I may use it for Kieron along with some of Faith's booklist and also, there is a list of homescholars doing World Geography this year. I did one with Brendan back when he was in 6th but would have to dig through computer archives to find the details. But it was really fun.

Day 4

Sean

Henle Latin: more review
Algebra -- lesson 2 -- it was a bit of tough going
Greek
Vocabulary lesson 4

Kieron

Henle Latin -- with Clare
Math -- MCP F -- lesson 2
Greek
Spelling (from Writing Road to Reading)

Aidan

Alphaphonics lesson 1 and 2 -- blending a bit better.

Paddy

100 Easy Lessons #8-9
Horizons K Math -- coloring

Kieron is printing out coloring pages for the little ones.

Later on we are going to homeschool Stations of the Cross -- so that wraps up our first week of work.
-----------------

Update and Informal Learning Log:

Stations was cancelled, which made me sad because of Kieron's sadness. He looks forward to seeing his friends all week. Instead we made peanut butter cookies together, and then when Kevin got back from town where Sean was seeing his uncle, a chiropractor, for his muscle tear, --- we went to the lake after dinner. It was spectacular, and so quiet. Clare and I talked about future plans and her reactions to her course of studies so far, and several other things, while the younger boys played in the water.

Oh, and also Clare, who had been pretty sick and miserable this week, took Kieron and Aidan for an "expedition" out in the woods, and later sang Irish drinking songs with him : ) like Wild Rover, which cheered him up quite a bit.

It was nice, but I wish it was easier for Kieron to meet up with his friends. Because a miscarriage came between him and Aidan (we lost twins in mid-gestation) there is 3.5 years between them and 3.5 more years between Aidan and Paddy. Aidan's developmental delays put him closer in level to Paddy than Kieron, and Sean is firmly planted in the teenage world, while Kieron is still a youngish eleven, and a very different type than Sean. Consequently, though there are consolations like Irish songs and trips to the lake, Kieron is lonely in a way the other kids weren't.

(photo, courtesy of my Treo -- it's not good quality, but it gives you a glimpse of the beauty -- we've made plans to go back there again one of these late summer evenings, and maybe we'll bring a "real" camera)

Day 3

Sean

Today I made breakfast and then after getting dressed came down to find Sean already working on his schoolwork. He did Greek and Vocabulary, then told me that since he had already finished reading Out of the Silent Planet, he was going to read The Man Who Was Thursday.

Then I worked on Algebra and Henle Latin with him (for Latin, we are reviewing last year's lessons quickly in order to make sure the past declensions are clear in his mind).

Then he went off to do his "weeklies" (chore rotation).

We still have religion, science and history to add, plus logic, but so far things seem to be going pretty well.

Kieron

I made a book change for Kieron in math. When I looked at Saxon 76 I remembered how tired I get of Saxon after a year. We usually do Saxon 65 and that's about enough of the incremental approach for me. Kieron also was not looking forward to it. So I remembered I had the old MCP Math F that I had used with Clare. It's not a high level math program but it is solid, I believe. This one looked much better to Kieron and so we got math off to a start today.

He also did Greek, and is now doing Henle Latin and Nature Study with Clare (bless older siblings!). She is having him draw a bird, with good results. Later on in the month I will photo some of his work.

I keep forgetting to start the morning with a prayer. This first week is always about slowly introducing new books and methods, and making notes of what is slipping.

Aidan

He did lesson 16 of 100EZ Lessons.
And a bit of coloring in his math book.
He "cooked" with his playdough which he has been doing every morning while I make breakfast.

Paddy

He is on lesson 7 of 100EZ and really skating, though he has the attention span of a water strider. Well, he is only 4, but he is like Clare ..... SO ready to start decoding.

He also wanted to "do math" so we talked about smaller and larger, same and different, and did some simple picture based adding.

Note: I want to bring out the Parent/Child masterpieces and also the Audobon bird postcards I bought last year, so they can both play matching games.

(Another Note: I usually don't mention Liam or Brendan or Clare in this chronicle because L & B are graduated and Clare, does most of her things independently and keeps her own records. Liam is starting his junior year at Thomas Aquinas College. Brendan is working part time and continuing his reading and writing -- right now he is reading The Rise and Fall of the Communist Revolution. I'll probably incidentally mention things that the older ones are doing that seem to trickle down to the rest of the family, because I do notice that part of a learning environment consists of what the rest of the family is doing, even if a particular child is not actively involved in a given experience).