Day 76

Geography

Aidan spent most of the day working on a United States map floor puzzle. It is a bit too hard for him -- once I helped him and twice Kieron helped him. And now Brendan is helping him. So I guess that is both their geography for today (K and A, I mean, because B has always been the local map authority).

Science and Reading

To Paddy I read: MSB in a Bee Hive, and a book called Barkis by Clare Turlay Newberry. We have read this one twice and the MSB about 10 times. As do all children I suppose, Paddy makes his own Five in a Rows out of the books he really likes. The first couple of times he just listens but then he starts questioning and commenting, as he assimilates it better I suppose. It seems that the familiarity is sort of a springboard to questions about Why? What? How? etc.

We also read some more Tintins....yawn. You know you've read too many when almost everything in real life reminds you of a Tintin situation.

Math

Both the little boys can tell time digitally and Paddy is starting to get a bit familiar with the analog clock face.
Aidan typed and had me print out some more numbers -- up to about 30.

Nature and Local Life

Aidan went out in the snow for a while.
We caught and released another squirrel.
We went to the library and the market.

Aidan has been looking at a mammal field guide.

Movie

Toy Story II.

Occupational

Aidan found some pipe cleaners and I dug up some beads for him. He and Paddy strung beads on the pipe cleaners. Paddy was done after one session but Aidan has revisited several times since.

Aidan was also picking up things with tongs which is actually the sort of thing his OT has him do so it was nice to see him extend it voluntarily into real life. He also chased Kieron and Paddy with the tongs.

Art and Language

Kieron made another bionicle comic (computer art). This is #50 he has made.

Conversation

The older kids were planning a comedy/radio play/musical. Having lots of fun; now Paddy want to make a musical : )

Paddy has been asking me lots of "themed" questions. Once he asked me about babies -- how they grow, etc.

Visual Tour of Year 7 Books

I thought I would pictorially show what's in my Year 7 student's book box right now. I might as well start with the basic core -- Greek, , Math, Logic, Latin ;-).


So far all of these are fun and seem to be a nice change of pace from what we did last year. The papers are from this MEP site. .... simple logic puzzles. Kieron really likes these.

Then there are the books -- some of them I read for our Morning Hour and some of them are independent reading. I have been reading some of the stories from the Literature section of Core Knowledge 5. They make good start-offs for further reading in other areas -- for example, "Coyote and the Land of the Dead", from CK5, made me think of the Dancing Horses of Acoma, which in turn seems to help give an idea of some of the pre-Western legends and mythology of N America.


A nice bonus to reading aloud in the mornings is that Paddy is usually an interested listener. He has not had as many opportunities as his siblings to listen to books above his level, because Aidan his nearest sibling is behind him in listening comprehension. So I am making reading aloud to Kieron a priority and trying to choose books and stories that have some potential of being interesting to Paddy as well.

Finally, the religion curriculum:

The open one is Creed in Slow Motion, which I printed out from the internet. We are making slow progress because it gives so many opportunities for discussion -- even asks whether one should believe in the Loch Ness Monster or not ;-).

For Shakespeare, I had planned to start with the Tempest, but Kieron really liked the Core Knowledge retelling of Julius Caesar and it is sort of a Renaissance/Am Gov't book in the sense that it raises questions about government and leadership and the common good, so it seems to fit in here.

"Smoke Jumpers and Fire Fighters" is in there because our library was getting rid of it and I was trying to focus this year on local nature and geography and related local issues. I haven't ever done that before, and am looking forward to it.

What Your Nth Grader Needs to Know has always been a useful resource for me. For me, it provides a good help for brainstorming topics and resources for a particular time period. We get bored if we simply try to read through it, but grabbing bits and pieces here and there and launching off to "related topics" has been nice through the years.

So that is what we are using right now for Year 7.

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.

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.