Almost a month and a half later, we are wrapping up our holiday break.
We went to Florida (Gulf side) for Uncle and Auntie's wedding. While we were there, we went to the beach, we collected shells and talked about what lived in them, we went to Dinosaur World, and learned about dinosaurs, including the scale involved... A grand, and educational, time was had by all!
Now that we are working on being back, I decided to start the new year with a sort of review. I took the subjects we were working on and came up with questions for each. Reading was mildly difficult, as expected. The words to read were: home, out, shut, cheek, target, penny. The results were not surprising. He needed a good deal of help to get home, shut was easy, out, cheek and target needed reminders of the "what does -ou- say?" or "what does -ee- say?" or "what does -ar- say?" variety, and that was then easy for him. Penny took some doing. He kept going with pen-yuh. That 'y' sound was just going to be the end of him. He did finally get it, though. We will go over the last unit of reading again, just to play it safe. Not actively teaching it, but watching the lessons, just as a refresher.
Social Studies had the question of "Who helps us cross the street?" This didn't go well, as Monkey defaulted to "red man, white hand." This is completely correct, as these are the signals on the crossing light, but I was hoping for crossing guard. Kind of funny, truth be told. He went through the signals, the crosswalk and holding hands before he figured out what I was going for.
Science saw the sun bigger than the moon, and health saw us brushing our teeth and wearing jackets in the winter and sandal-shoes in the summer. He was also able to explain why our clothing choices were different by season. Language as a whole went well, as he picked out a comma and a question mark, told me their names and functions with no hesitation. I was impressed. Math was a little slower. I'll want to do a few review lessons from the front of the blue book just to get back into the swing. He had three equations to solve - 7+2, 10+4, and 70+8. He used LEGO for the first two, and the abacus for the third, but he needed a little prompting to remember how to make those work. So we'll get back to that and get moving on along.
All in all, I'm very pleased, and I think his year is going exceptionally well. Next stop... planning for the rest of the week!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Musings.
We're currently on a break - we're studying Christmas and the winter solstice. But once again, Monkey surprised me. This evening, as I was setting dinner on the table, he was sitting in his bean bag chair with a lapful of Dr Seuss books. I couldn't hear well enough to make out what he was saying as he flipped through them, but I do believe that he was actually reading those books to himself. Part of confirming that suspicion is that he read the title for "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," when he would usually say "white fish green fish red fish blue fish," and the rest was that the instant he saw me looking, he dropped the books and ran off to play with his trains.
How very interesting. Looks like he's more ahead than I thought in reading as well as math. Should be a fun second semester!
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
End of week 22.
Well, it wasn't as great a week as I could have hoped for - we came home from Hammie's just in time to get sick. So, in the end, we didn't get all five days done, but only four. Still not too bad.
Monkey is now essentially a reluctant reader. If he wants to read something, he can. If he doesn't want to, he suddenly finds out that he "can't." Always entertaining.
Next week we will finish up Right Start Level A, so it's a good time for a bit of a break. We'll finish that, and then simply move along with a unit study on winter Solstice and Christmas. It is shaping up to be quite a well-timed season, and I like that.
Really, there isn't a lot new to report, so it could be a lot worse, no matter what we didn't cover this week.
Monkey is now essentially a reluctant reader. If he wants to read something, he can. If he doesn't want to, he suddenly finds out that he "can't." Always entertaining.
Next week we will finish up Right Start Level A, so it's a good time for a bit of a break. We'll finish that, and then simply move along with a unit study on winter Solstice and Christmas. It is shaping up to be quite a well-timed season, and I like that.
Really, there isn't a lot new to report, so it could be a lot worse, no matter what we didn't cover this week.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Week 22
We're back from a break, and ready to go again!
It's been a long time since we've had school time, which I think is part of why this has been The Week of Crazy so far. We cancelled school on our last Tuesday for an emergency dental visit for Monkey. On Wednesday, Monkey had a molar extracted, and I had a cyst removed from my back. On Friday, we went off to visit Hammie and Buppa. We got back on this past Monday, and I had a Rheumatology appointment on Tuesday, Wednesday/Thursday is our usual weekend, and then... off we went!
Raz-Kids is still doing well for us for Reading. Monkey enjoys it, but again, we're trying to get back in the swing. He's progressed from the beginning of level aa to the middle of level A, which is fantastic, and we did some work with word families ( -ab and -ack, -ag and -ail specifically) as well. There's more work to be done this week, but that's okay, we're moving at a good clip.
Monkey plowed through three Math lessons yesterday. I only gave him one lesson today, largely because I'm lazy and didn't want to clean up after weighing to then bring out water to measure volume. But, volume will come tomorrow, and we'll find octagons and tessellating, quarters, fractions, shapes (like cones and prisms)... and he's done with level A. Holy COW! I expect that will be next week, and we'll start level B right behind it.
Logic was an interesting time today. Monkey was doing relationships, which he usually is very good at, and in his primary grouping were grapes, a ring, an orange, and a peppermint. He somehow arrived at the conclusion that these things were all food, and crossed out everything but the smiling face (which resembles the smile cookie at our local coffee/donut stop). For the flaw in the logic, it worked well, but it was still not right, and he's still insisting you can eat a ring, so there's nothing to be done there.
In other news (not taking into account the subjects we haven't done yet), I just nabbed an amazing deal. The homeschool co-op occasionally has people listing the things that they're getting rid of - today I scored the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedias of World History, Science and World Geography (with world atlas) for $30. As in, $30 got me all three. If I'd gotten the new books as I'd planned, I'd have spent $75 plus tax and shipping. I'm THRILLED. All in all, it's a good week, which is a nice shift for a first week back after two weeks off.
It's been a long time since we've had school time, which I think is part of why this has been The Week of Crazy so far. We cancelled school on our last Tuesday for an emergency dental visit for Monkey. On Wednesday, Monkey had a molar extracted, and I had a cyst removed from my back. On Friday, we went off to visit Hammie and Buppa. We got back on this past Monday, and I had a Rheumatology appointment on Tuesday, Wednesday/Thursday is our usual weekend, and then... off we went!
Raz-Kids is still doing well for us for Reading. Monkey enjoys it, but again, we're trying to get back in the swing. He's progressed from the beginning of level aa to the middle of level A, which is fantastic, and we did some work with word families ( -ab and -ack, -ag and -ail specifically) as well. There's more work to be done this week, but that's okay, we're moving at a good clip.
Monkey plowed through three Math lessons yesterday. I only gave him one lesson today, largely because I'm lazy and didn't want to clean up after weighing to then bring out water to measure volume. But, volume will come tomorrow, and we'll find octagons and tessellating, quarters, fractions, shapes (like cones and prisms)... and he's done with level A. Holy COW! I expect that will be next week, and we'll start level B right behind it.
Logic was an interesting time today. Monkey was doing relationships, which he usually is very good at, and in his primary grouping were grapes, a ring, an orange, and a peppermint. He somehow arrived at the conclusion that these things were all food, and crossed out everything but the smiling face (which resembles the smile cookie at our local coffee/donut stop). For the flaw in the logic, it worked well, but it was still not right, and he's still insisting you can eat a ring, so there's nothing to be done there.
In other news (not taking into account the subjects we haven't done yet), I just nabbed an amazing deal. The homeschool co-op occasionally has people listing the things that they're getting rid of - today I scored the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedias of World History, Science and World Geography (with world atlas) for $30. As in, $30 got me all three. If I'd gotten the new books as I'd planned, I'd have spent $75 plus tax and shipping. I'm THRILLED. All in all, it's a good week, which is a nice shift for a first week back after two weeks off.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Week 21's wrap up.
This week was surprisingly easy for us. I've put in a couple changes, which seem to have made a really large difference.
Reading: Reading is the first big change. Instead of spending the week doing trash words, we've been using "Raz-Kids." My cousin has a subscription through her school district, and has 5 additional spots for her students that she's not using, so she put Monkey into one of those spots, and off we went. He read, and read well, all 18 of the Level aa books this week, and is about set to move on to the next level. I'm really proud of him, he's doing an excellent job using the pictures for clues, and also sounding things out when he needs to. We'll see how well he does with A next week.
Math: Math is the other big change. Instead of taking Right Start math one lesson per day and moving along, we've hustled it all up a bit, and he's now skipping anything review-related and working at about two lessons per day. He was, oddly, bored, and so he was acting out for it. Next week will be interesting, as I'm going to be trying to plan for it this week. However, Monkey can now tell analog time to the hours, which he is loving. I'm very pleased with his hard work, and he's doing a great job, and moving right along!
Logic: I still really need to get Lollipop Logic 2. Monkey is really anxious to do more than one lesson in a day, and I'd like to let him, but I'd also like the curriculum to actually last us a bit. He's still doing spectacularly at this, and there's very little else to say about it.
French: French has kind of dissolved on me. It would be easier if I knew what I was doing before I started, but I'm still going to keep trying. I've been, if nothing else, letting Monkey watch movies on Fridays... but we're using the French audio tracks (and English subtitles), so I'm hoping that counts at least a little.
History: We made our own personal seals this week. Depressingly, our clay did not dry as it was supposed to, so we have a week later, still soft seals. I'm thinking of doing this with Play-Doh tomorrow just to make the point, have the seals dry, and then make our pieces. Worst that happens is the lesson gets done twice.
Science: Monkey is having a great time with science, and we're averaging two experiments per week. We are still in The Human Body, and he knows so much about it now that it's almost frightening. I've never heard a four year old give a minor lesson on digestion or white blood cells before. However it comes, though, he's really loving it, and I'm thrilled to be able to be involved in it.
Next week will stay with Human Body, move ahead in History, try to move ahead in French, see what we can get to in Math, and for Reading, we'll keep with Raz-Kids, and see what he's able to get to. I'll pick up actual instruction after American Thanksgiving.
Reading: Reading is the first big change. Instead of spending the week doing trash words, we've been using "Raz-Kids." My cousin has a subscription through her school district, and has 5 additional spots for her students that she's not using, so she put Monkey into one of those spots, and off we went. He read, and read well, all 18 of the Level aa books this week, and is about set to move on to the next level. I'm really proud of him, he's doing an excellent job using the pictures for clues, and also sounding things out when he needs to. We'll see how well he does with A next week.
Math: Math is the other big change. Instead of taking Right Start math one lesson per day and moving along, we've hustled it all up a bit, and he's now skipping anything review-related and working at about two lessons per day. He was, oddly, bored, and so he was acting out for it. Next week will be interesting, as I'm going to be trying to plan for it this week. However, Monkey can now tell analog time to the hours, which he is loving. I'm very pleased with his hard work, and he's doing a great job, and moving right along!
Logic: I still really need to get Lollipop Logic 2. Monkey is really anxious to do more than one lesson in a day, and I'd like to let him, but I'd also like the curriculum to actually last us a bit. He's still doing spectacularly at this, and there's very little else to say about it.
French: French has kind of dissolved on me. It would be easier if I knew what I was doing before I started, but I'm still going to keep trying. I've been, if nothing else, letting Monkey watch movies on Fridays... but we're using the French audio tracks (and English subtitles), so I'm hoping that counts at least a little.
History: We made our own personal seals this week. Depressingly, our clay did not dry as it was supposed to, so we have a week later, still soft seals. I'm thinking of doing this with Play-Doh tomorrow just to make the point, have the seals dry, and then make our pieces. Worst that happens is the lesson gets done twice.
Science: Monkey is having a great time with science, and we're averaging two experiments per week. We are still in The Human Body, and he knows so much about it now that it's almost frightening. I've never heard a four year old give a minor lesson on digestion or white blood cells before. However it comes, though, he's really loving it, and I'm thrilled to be able to be involved in it.
Next week will stay with Human Body, move ahead in History, try to move ahead in French, see what we can get to in Math, and for Reading, we'll keep with Raz-Kids, and see what he's able to get to. I'll pick up actual instruction after American Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Week 20's Recap
For once, I'm right on top of this. Turns out, we got our work done today by 10:30, so it's no hurry trying to get the blog updated before gym class.
For the next 8 weeks, our schedule goes:
F: Homeschool
S: Homeschool (video call with Hammie!)
Su: Homeschool
M: Preschool, Science experiment
Tu: Homeschool, Gym
W: Preschool, Weekend
Th: Weekend
We're busy, which is good, but it's a bit of a stretch trying to get our four days of school in. Monkey has a hard time focusing if more people than just the two of us are around, so Wednesday and Thursday are out, as Skeeve is home. After preschool, it seems mean to put homeschool on top of it, so we skip Monday as well. As a result, we're working on four day weeks, and I'm trying really hard to make sure we keep our four day weeks - and not falling back to three day ones.
I've also realized that I'm not really actually teaching much yet. For now, I'm still just finding the bottom end of what Monkey already knows and essentially getting ready for next year. I suppose that's all JK is anyhow, getting ready for the following year, but it seems really weird to be proposing a JK curriculum that "studies" grade 2 reading, kindergarten math, grade 1 history, logic, French, and some kind of weird K-2 science. I suppose that's the beauty of homeschooling, though.
Anyhow! The update.
Reading: We've adapted Trash Words for our use here. Monkey loves it. I've taken the review words from unit 3, and he reads them to me. He is better at the beginning of the game than at the end, but that's pretty normal for him, so I'm not worried. He also LOVES playing, so it's even better. More often than not, he has a great handle on what is being asked of him, but the problem is that too much review makes him twitchy. So, Trash Words has been working well, and we'll watch Unit 3 a few more times, and then we'll move right on to level 2, and I can toss his sight words in as well, which will help, too.
Math: We've had a bunch of issues with math recently, it's become a struggle to get math done on a daily basis. However, I have no real way of knowing whether it's because of too much review, or too fast a pace - either way I get the same result - Monkey refuses to do the work. So today, we had a nice chat about how I really need him to answer the questions if he knows the answers so I can move on - otherwise I don't know he knows, and we keep working on the same things. This resulted in three rapid-fire answers, and so we moved on. In the last two days, we covered four lessons and skipped several others (all review!), so we're certainly moving right along. And it keeps Monkey happier, so I'm glad to do it.
French: Really unsurprisingly, French is difficult for us. I have a hard time trying to get Monkey to understand that it's a real thing, and that people in other countries, and in other parts of Canada, speak this way instead of how we do. I'm doing what I can, but I have plenty of time. He needs two years of French between now and grade nine, so I think we'll be okay.
Logic: This is still fabulously easy for him. Aside from some confusion over the instructions (he was trying to physically fit items into the starting box, instead of matching their use), it was really easy for him, and he was looking to do some more right away. I really need to get the next few books of logic so we don't run out quickly.
History: This is still a bit of a struggle. I'm not too worried, as we'll likely hit on Egypt and Akkadia again eventually, and he is enjoying the mapwork, so it's not a total loss.
Science: This is no end of fun. Monkey is adoring his unit on the Human Body, and is branching out every which way he can around The Magic School Bus. It's really neat, watching how quickly he picks things up out of thin air. I'm really proud of him.
For the next 8 weeks, our schedule goes:
F: Homeschool
S: Homeschool (video call with Hammie!)
Su: Homeschool
M: Preschool, Science experiment
Tu: Homeschool, Gym
W: Preschool, Weekend
Th: Weekend
We're busy, which is good, but it's a bit of a stretch trying to get our four days of school in. Monkey has a hard time focusing if more people than just the two of us are around, so Wednesday and Thursday are out, as Skeeve is home. After preschool, it seems mean to put homeschool on top of it, so we skip Monday as well. As a result, we're working on four day weeks, and I'm trying really hard to make sure we keep our four day weeks - and not falling back to three day ones.
I've also realized that I'm not really actually teaching much yet. For now, I'm still just finding the bottom end of what Monkey already knows and essentially getting ready for next year. I suppose that's all JK is anyhow, getting ready for the following year, but it seems really weird to be proposing a JK curriculum that "studies" grade 2 reading, kindergarten math, grade 1 history, logic, French, and some kind of weird K-2 science. I suppose that's the beauty of homeschooling, though.
Anyhow! The update.
Reading: We've adapted Trash Words for our use here. Monkey loves it. I've taken the review words from unit 3, and he reads them to me. He is better at the beginning of the game than at the end, but that's pretty normal for him, so I'm not worried. He also LOVES playing, so it's even better. More often than not, he has a great handle on what is being asked of him, but the problem is that too much review makes him twitchy. So, Trash Words has been working well, and we'll watch Unit 3 a few more times, and then we'll move right on to level 2, and I can toss his sight words in as well, which will help, too.
Math: We've had a bunch of issues with math recently, it's become a struggle to get math done on a daily basis. However, I have no real way of knowing whether it's because of too much review, or too fast a pace - either way I get the same result - Monkey refuses to do the work. So today, we had a nice chat about how I really need him to answer the questions if he knows the answers so I can move on - otherwise I don't know he knows, and we keep working on the same things. This resulted in three rapid-fire answers, and so we moved on. In the last two days, we covered four lessons and skipped several others (all review!), so we're certainly moving right along. And it keeps Monkey happier, so I'm glad to do it.
French: Really unsurprisingly, French is difficult for us. I have a hard time trying to get Monkey to understand that it's a real thing, and that people in other countries, and in other parts of Canada, speak this way instead of how we do. I'm doing what I can, but I have plenty of time. He needs two years of French between now and grade nine, so I think we'll be okay.
Logic: This is still fabulously easy for him. Aside from some confusion over the instructions (he was trying to physically fit items into the starting box, instead of matching their use), it was really easy for him, and he was looking to do some more right away. I really need to get the next few books of logic so we don't run out quickly.
History: This is still a bit of a struggle. I'm not too worried, as we'll likely hit on Egypt and Akkadia again eventually, and he is enjoying the mapwork, so it's not a total loss.
Science: This is no end of fun. Monkey is adoring his unit on the Human Body, and is branching out every which way he can around The Magic School Bus. It's really neat, watching how quickly he picks things up out of thin air. I'm really proud of him.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Week 19 Wrap.
This week was a bit of a toss-up for us, honestly. Some things were easier than I'd thought, others were suddenly like pulling teeth, and then we had a moderate revelation that will hopefully make life easier for all of us.
Reading: This was substantially easier than I'd thought. I'm still not sure if this is boring to him, or if he's still learning. Tonight, he wanted to watch one specific episode of The Magic Schoolbus - "the one with Ralphie!" The title screen came on "Inside Ralphie," and he jumped and cheered. I have no idea if this means he can read "Ralphie," if he recognizes the episode that starts with I and R is the one he wants, or even if he just knows that the second episode on the disc is the one he wants, but SOMETHING is up. He's busted out reading things before, and I don't know what his actual reading ability is anymore. I know his prediction skills are fabulous, and I know he is wonderful at putting in words that match pictures, but his actual ability to read? No clue anymore. We're going to look into Magic Schoolbus books for him so we can see if he's willing to read them or not. Who knows, really?
Math: For whatever reason, this week Math was suddenly like pulling teeth. Wanted NOTHING to do with it at all. I don't know if it's just not moving fast enough for him, if there's too much repetition, or if he doesn't like having to work at it, but something is up. I'm going to see how next week goes, and once we're through that, if it's still an issue, I'll ask him his thoughts, and see where we end up. We made our way through three lessons this week, each taking one day. We're rapidly approaching the end of the book, with lesson 52 starting this week, and 77 lessons in the book. When did this happen?!? Yikes!
French: We're working on a two-week approach to French as well. Week 1 is an introduction to the concept, week two is a review of things to date. I have no idea how this is going to go, as Monkey still doesn't seem to grok the concept that some people speak another language.
Logic: Again, this seems ridiculously easy for him. He's flying through each lesson, then asking if we can do some more. I have to hold him back, expressly for the reasoning of not having the next book in the series yet, and not wanting to fly through a year worth of curriculum in a month. I'm looking at getting the next book at the next available opportunity, and we'll see where we go from there.
History: This week, we built a pyramid. Monkey adored it. Just adored it. It took a while for him to understand the "stair step" concept around the design, but once he got it, it was 45m spent building a pyramid, taking it apart, and building it again. He's LOVING it. I'm always so excited when he's happy with lessons.
Science: He loves science. Can't get enough of it. It's crazy. This week's experiment was making a stethoscope so he could listen to his heart beat. We talked about what the heart does, that it's a muscle, it's size, all that, and he thinks this is just the coolest thing ever. He is really taking off, courtesy of The Magic Schoolbus DVD we got, the LeapFrog Tag board he has, and the Little Labs he's loving so much. It's so neat to watch him just absorb all this stuff. He was telling me today during his lab that yes, the heart pumps the blood full of nutrients around the body, and the blood gets nutrients from the small intestine, but really, they come from the villi in the small intestine, which soak up the nutrients from the food we eat, that goes through the stomach, after the esophagus, which is where it goes once you swallow after you chew. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this child sometimes.
All in all, a great academic week. He also had a great week at preschool, which is wonderful news. We also found out that Monkey is a very sensory-seeking child. He is avoidant in some things, but he is primarily seeking. We have now given him unrestricted access to an iPod of music, and a pair of child-safe headphones. Whenever he feels upset, he can turn on his music and calm himself down. I'm also trying to make a point of keeping music playing all day, so there is some background noise, as the quiet seems to drive him nuts. We shall have to see, once again, how it goes, and with any luck, this will be a great breakthrough for our sanity!
Reading: This was substantially easier than I'd thought. I'm still not sure if this is boring to him, or if he's still learning. Tonight, he wanted to watch one specific episode of The Magic Schoolbus - "the one with Ralphie!" The title screen came on "Inside Ralphie," and he jumped and cheered. I have no idea if this means he can read "Ralphie," if he recognizes the episode that starts with I and R is the one he wants, or even if he just knows that the second episode on the disc is the one he wants, but SOMETHING is up. He's busted out reading things before, and I don't know what his actual reading ability is anymore. I know his prediction skills are fabulous, and I know he is wonderful at putting in words that match pictures, but his actual ability to read? No clue anymore. We're going to look into Magic Schoolbus books for him so we can see if he's willing to read them or not. Who knows, really?
Math: For whatever reason, this week Math was suddenly like pulling teeth. Wanted NOTHING to do with it at all. I don't know if it's just not moving fast enough for him, if there's too much repetition, or if he doesn't like having to work at it, but something is up. I'm going to see how next week goes, and once we're through that, if it's still an issue, I'll ask him his thoughts, and see where we end up. We made our way through three lessons this week, each taking one day. We're rapidly approaching the end of the book, with lesson 52 starting this week, and 77 lessons in the book. When did this happen?!? Yikes!
French: We're working on a two-week approach to French as well. Week 1 is an introduction to the concept, week two is a review of things to date. I have no idea how this is going to go, as Monkey still doesn't seem to grok the concept that some people speak another language.
Logic: Again, this seems ridiculously easy for him. He's flying through each lesson, then asking if we can do some more. I have to hold him back, expressly for the reasoning of not having the next book in the series yet, and not wanting to fly through a year worth of curriculum in a month. I'm looking at getting the next book at the next available opportunity, and we'll see where we go from there.
History: This week, we built a pyramid. Monkey adored it. Just adored it. It took a while for him to understand the "stair step" concept around the design, but once he got it, it was 45m spent building a pyramid, taking it apart, and building it again. He's LOVING it. I'm always so excited when he's happy with lessons.
Science: He loves science. Can't get enough of it. It's crazy. This week's experiment was making a stethoscope so he could listen to his heart beat. We talked about what the heart does, that it's a muscle, it's size, all that, and he thinks this is just the coolest thing ever. He is really taking off, courtesy of The Magic Schoolbus DVD we got, the LeapFrog Tag board he has, and the Little Labs he's loving so much. It's so neat to watch him just absorb all this stuff. He was telling me today during his lab that yes, the heart pumps the blood full of nutrients around the body, and the blood gets nutrients from the small intestine, but really, they come from the villi in the small intestine, which soak up the nutrients from the food we eat, that goes through the stomach, after the esophagus, which is where it goes once you swallow after you chew. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this child sometimes.
All in all, a great academic week. He also had a great week at preschool, which is wonderful news. We also found out that Monkey is a very sensory-seeking child. He is avoidant in some things, but he is primarily seeking. We have now given him unrestricted access to an iPod of music, and a pair of child-safe headphones. Whenever he feels upset, he can turn on his music and calm himself down. I'm also trying to make a point of keeping music playing all day, so there is some background noise, as the quiet seems to drive him nuts. We shall have to see, once again, how it goes, and with any luck, this will be a great breakthrough for our sanity!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Week 18
Week 17 completely passed me by, unfortunately. We have been the house of plague this month, so it's been harder and harder to not only accomplish what we have planned, but also to remember to update status reports on it. Week 18 though... That's a doozy. Week 18 is officially the halfway point of the year. Big stuff, especially for October!
Our Progress to Date:
Reading: With the completion of this week, Monkey has mastered three of the six skills I had set out for the year. While I'm not willing to assert mastery of Table of Contents, Retelling, or anything to do with Handwriting, I am willing to say he is reading at or above a grade 1 level, he understands the basics of punctuation, and he has a good handle on grammar and the concept of spelling. I think we're well on target to not only meet, but also exceed our reading goals for the year. I have some reservations about "effort" on this, as there is a lot of "I don't want to do that" interspersed with the "I want to learn to read!" going on here, but all things in time. I'm now just waiting for the moment when he realizes he already CAN read. He's quite capable, he just doesn't realize he is.
Math: With the completion of this week, Monkey has progressed through Lesson 48 of Right Start's Level A. There are 64 lessons remaining in my goal for us for this year, but as the goal was created using the notion of schooling from June to May, no 3-month break, I'm fairly confident in thinking that he will continue to meet expectations, and we will progress through the remainder of Level A, and into Level B by the new year, and then move through Level B at a good enough clip to see us complete the first 35 lessons well ahead of schedule. He is still plowing through lessons at 1 per day, and given that math tends to fall by the wayside whenever we get sick, I'm not entirely surprised we're "behind" on this - or, at least, compared to other subjects.
Health: We have been slowly working on health aspects in with the rest of our lives. We're working on Human Body right now for Science, which will cover all aspects of health with ease. While we don't have perfect mastery of all concepts, he is quickly picking up many things just by being involved in preschool and home life.
Science: Science is continually evolving. Both in classroom and out, I suppose. However, Monkey is doing a fine job of picking things up, and of working on experiments and on jumping in with both feet when we hit new topics. He has a good grasp of living and non-living things, he has an astounding grasp of Sun/Moon/Stars/Planets, he understands experimentation, and he is working toward understanding scientific method. I don't expect mastery of that for many years, but being exposed to it is always good. The remainder of the year will see us cover things like weather and seasons, air and water, fire and temperature, and solids/liquids/gasses. Some things will be more practical than lab, but that's perfectly fine by me.
Social Studies: This is ridiculously easy as far as most scope and sequences are concerned. The goals I originally set are all but met - Monkey needs to work a little more on map reading and holidays, as well as heritage (I have no idea how to cover this, so it's fallen by the wayside), but everything else is completed. No worries. As far as history, though, I've opted to take my time. We're going to work on one chapter of reading, then spend the following week doing extension activities. For example, we learned about ancient text, then made cuneiform "tablets" the following week. Last week, we covered the Pyramids. This week, we're going to build our own pyramid. History will take a lot longer than I'd planned, but we've gotten a significantly earlier start on it than most, so I'm not worried even slightly.
All told, if I had to guess, I would say that Rowena's Browncoat Academy's JK program runs the gamut of "regular" school grades SK-2, depending on the subject. I'm not sure if I'm impressed, frightened, both, or just hanging on and hoping for the best. ^_^
Our Progress to Date:
Reading: With the completion of this week, Monkey has mastered three of the six skills I had set out for the year. While I'm not willing to assert mastery of Table of Contents, Retelling, or anything to do with Handwriting, I am willing to say he is reading at or above a grade 1 level, he understands the basics of punctuation, and he has a good handle on grammar and the concept of spelling. I think we're well on target to not only meet, but also exceed our reading goals for the year. I have some reservations about "effort" on this, as there is a lot of "I don't want to do that" interspersed with the "I want to learn to read!" going on here, but all things in time. I'm now just waiting for the moment when he realizes he already CAN read. He's quite capable, he just doesn't realize he is.
Math: With the completion of this week, Monkey has progressed through Lesson 48 of Right Start's Level A. There are 64 lessons remaining in my goal for us for this year, but as the goal was created using the notion of schooling from June to May, no 3-month break, I'm fairly confident in thinking that he will continue to meet expectations, and we will progress through the remainder of Level A, and into Level B by the new year, and then move through Level B at a good enough clip to see us complete the first 35 lessons well ahead of schedule. He is still plowing through lessons at 1 per day, and given that math tends to fall by the wayside whenever we get sick, I'm not entirely surprised we're "behind" on this - or, at least, compared to other subjects.
Health: We have been slowly working on health aspects in with the rest of our lives. We're working on Human Body right now for Science, which will cover all aspects of health with ease. While we don't have perfect mastery of all concepts, he is quickly picking up many things just by being involved in preschool and home life.
Science: Science is continually evolving. Both in classroom and out, I suppose. However, Monkey is doing a fine job of picking things up, and of working on experiments and on jumping in with both feet when we hit new topics. He has a good grasp of living and non-living things, he has an astounding grasp of Sun/Moon/Stars/Planets, he understands experimentation, and he is working toward understanding scientific method. I don't expect mastery of that for many years, but being exposed to it is always good. The remainder of the year will see us cover things like weather and seasons, air and water, fire and temperature, and solids/liquids/gasses. Some things will be more practical than lab, but that's perfectly fine by me.
Social Studies: This is ridiculously easy as far as most scope and sequences are concerned. The goals I originally set are all but met - Monkey needs to work a little more on map reading and holidays, as well as heritage (I have no idea how to cover this, so it's fallen by the wayside), but everything else is completed. No worries. As far as history, though, I've opted to take my time. We're going to work on one chapter of reading, then spend the following week doing extension activities. For example, we learned about ancient text, then made cuneiform "tablets" the following week. Last week, we covered the Pyramids. This week, we're going to build our own pyramid. History will take a lot longer than I'd planned, but we've gotten a significantly earlier start on it than most, so I'm not worried even slightly.
All told, if I had to guess, I would say that Rowena's Browncoat Academy's JK program runs the gamut of "regular" school grades SK-2, depending on the subject. I'm not sure if I'm impressed, frightened, both, or just hanging on and hoping for the best. ^_^
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
State of the Academy and Week 16 Wrap.
From September 12-27, we were on a break. We left the country to attend a funeral, so it wasn't exactly fun and games around here. However, because of the nature of life, we covered basic geography, existential questions on the nature of life and death, and trees, grasshoppers, and what happens if you poop in your pants and mama doesn't have a spare pair. Generally, a very educational trip, though not in the formal sense.
Week 16, we were back with a vengeance. This ran from 9/28 to 10/2.
Reading: We worked with vowel blends this week, ow and ai specifically. Monkey grasped these very well, and very nearly right away, so it was actually ridiculously easy. We haven't gone back to silent e words yet, though I do intend to review that shortly.
Math: Monkey made it through three lessons this week, 42-44, with no particular difficulty. He seems to have a grasp of math that I just never did. I'm glad to see it, but I'm wondering when these lessons that are supposed to take two and three days... will. So far, they're not.
Science: Monkey and Skeeve have moved up to two experiments per week, and an occasional lab report. The report is more for my benefit than Monkey's, but it's there all the same. This week, they grew cress seeds and built a barometer. We're still observing the barometer, and we observed the seeds all week. Lots of fun had by all, and Monkey seems to be at minimum entertained by the experiments, which is good.
History: History seems to be an awful lot like pulling teeth. Monkey does NOT want to sit still to listen, but if he doesn't, he doesn't listen at all. I'm hoping this has something to do with his lack of interest in the subject matter, so it is something I can correct as we enter "pyramids" and "mummies" and such. Much more interesting than "these rivers" and "ooooh, floods!"
Logic: Once again, logic is Monkey's absolute strong suit. We have moved into relationships now, and if I let him, we would blow through the Lollipop Logic book in a whopping 4 weeks, as he would go through each section in one fell swoop. However, as I'm not in the mindset to be going through textbooks by the millions, I'm holding him to one lesson per week. His skills in relationships are rather impressive to me - he got 4/5 questions "correct" per what I thought the answer would be, and the 5th one... Well, that one was right, too, but for a different reason. He was given a picture of a birthday cake. Then told to pick which picture was related to it - a book, a party hat, or a pencil. He chose the book. I went with it, and at the end, asked him his reasoning. Turns out, he chose the book because it would be the one closest in size to the cake. I gave him full credit for that one (as in, "hey, that was really nicely reasoned, I hadn't thought of that" not "full marks"), and we hung it on the fridge.
French: This week, we introduced French. I think Monkey is having a failure of understanding (also parsed as "What we have here is failure to communicate.") as to what the purpose of this is. I ask him "Comment t'appelles-tu?" and he looks at me and says, "I'm FIRESTAR!" Which, in and of itself is an appropriate answer, as he'd not five minutes before run to the kitchen to "transform" into Firestar, but when I prompt him to use Je m'appelle with that, he tells me, "No, not Je m'appelle Firestar, just Firestar!" So, I'll have to work on that one.
In other news, we went to Circle R Ranch this week! We participated in their Farm Animals program, and had a wonderful time. Monkey got to ride a pony, pet two other ponies, take a hay ride (with REAL HAY and not straw!), pet a sheep, a goat and a pig... He had a great time. I just wish these outings were easier on both of us than they are. It's so hard to keep a psychomotor-ly overexcitable child engaged in this sort of setting without losing him entirely - which almost happened. He very nearly ran away on me, and because I get the "wow, helicopter much" looks while I'm out with him in open spaces, nobody would listen and GTFO my way when he did run off. After all, he should be just like all the other kids and stop where he's told. But he doesn't, and he nearly chased a farm cat into the woods, then took off into the parking lot. Maybe next week. o.o;;
Also coming up on the horizon, we've enrolled Monkey in a gym class for homeschoolers! It's indoors, which will make it so much easier to avoid the running away, and he will undoubtedly love it to bits. I'm really looking forward to it!
Monkey is also enrolled in twice-weekly preschool. He adores it, and he's getting more social interaction, so it's all good. They want me to put him in for a third day per week, but I don't know that this is a feasible option for us. We'll have to see how it goes. I don't like the idea of losing an educational day from our regular homeschool week, and I'm not sure we could afford it even if we weren't losing the day. Ah, well. We'll see how it goes, and run from there!
Week 16, we were back with a vengeance. This ran from 9/28 to 10/2.
Reading: We worked with vowel blends this week, ow and ai specifically. Monkey grasped these very well, and very nearly right away, so it was actually ridiculously easy. We haven't gone back to silent e words yet, though I do intend to review that shortly.
Math: Monkey made it through three lessons this week, 42-44, with no particular difficulty. He seems to have a grasp of math that I just never did. I'm glad to see it, but I'm wondering when these lessons that are supposed to take two and three days... will. So far, they're not.
Science: Monkey and Skeeve have moved up to two experiments per week, and an occasional lab report. The report is more for my benefit than Monkey's, but it's there all the same. This week, they grew cress seeds and built a barometer. We're still observing the barometer, and we observed the seeds all week. Lots of fun had by all, and Monkey seems to be at minimum entertained by the experiments, which is good.
History: History seems to be an awful lot like pulling teeth. Monkey does NOT want to sit still to listen, but if he doesn't, he doesn't listen at all. I'm hoping this has something to do with his lack of interest in the subject matter, so it is something I can correct as we enter "pyramids" and "mummies" and such. Much more interesting than "these rivers" and "ooooh, floods!"
Logic: Once again, logic is Monkey's absolute strong suit. We have moved into relationships now, and if I let him, we would blow through the Lollipop Logic book in a whopping 4 weeks, as he would go through each section in one fell swoop. However, as I'm not in the mindset to be going through textbooks by the millions, I'm holding him to one lesson per week. His skills in relationships are rather impressive to me - he got 4/5 questions "correct" per what I thought the answer would be, and the 5th one... Well, that one was right, too, but for a different reason. He was given a picture of a birthday cake. Then told to pick which picture was related to it - a book, a party hat, or a pencil. He chose the book. I went with it, and at the end, asked him his reasoning. Turns out, he chose the book because it would be the one closest in size to the cake. I gave him full credit for that one (as in, "hey, that was really nicely reasoned, I hadn't thought of that" not "full marks"), and we hung it on the fridge.
French: This week, we introduced French. I think Monkey is having a failure of understanding (also parsed as "What we have here is failure to communicate.") as to what the purpose of this is. I ask him "Comment t'appelles-tu?" and he looks at me and says, "I'm FIRESTAR!" Which, in and of itself is an appropriate answer, as he'd not five minutes before run to the kitchen to "transform" into Firestar, but when I prompt him to use Je m'appelle with that, he tells me, "No, not Je m'appelle Firestar, just Firestar!" So, I'll have to work on that one.
In other news, we went to Circle R Ranch this week! We participated in their Farm Animals program, and had a wonderful time. Monkey got to ride a pony, pet two other ponies, take a hay ride (with REAL HAY and not straw!), pet a sheep, a goat and a pig... He had a great time. I just wish these outings were easier on both of us than they are. It's so hard to keep a psychomotor-ly overexcitable child engaged in this sort of setting without losing him entirely - which almost happened. He very nearly ran away on me, and because I get the "wow, helicopter much" looks while I'm out with him in open spaces, nobody would listen and GTFO my way when he did run off. After all, he should be just like all the other kids and stop where he's told. But he doesn't, and he nearly chased a farm cat into the woods, then took off into the parking lot. Maybe next week. o.o;;
Also coming up on the horizon, we've enrolled Monkey in a gym class for homeschoolers! It's indoors, which will make it so much easier to avoid the running away, and he will undoubtedly love it to bits. I'm really looking forward to it!
Monkey is also enrolled in twice-weekly preschool. He adores it, and he's getting more social interaction, so it's all good. They want me to put him in for a third day per week, but I don't know that this is a feasible option for us. We'll have to see how it goes. I don't like the idea of losing an educational day from our regular homeschool week, and I'm not sure we could afford it even if we weren't losing the day. Ah, well. We'll see how it goes, and run from there!
Friday, September 14, 2012
A Belated Week 15 Wrap.
Week 15 overall went well. We're now juggling scheduling with preschool, which eats up parts of our Mondays. But, since Mondays are usually a science read-aloud, fluency, and something fairly easy for math, it's not too bad.
Respectfulness went about as well as can be imagined for a 4 year old. It's getting better, but for most of the week, I've wanted to hit myself over the head with a shovel. However, we made progress, we got through our schoolwork, everything was mostly uneventful, and we carry on from there.
This week, we are doing Not Week 16. Monkey and I are leaving town to go back to my mother's house for a funeral this week. We're leaving early Monday morning, and probably returning on Wednesday. Because I'm so completely wrecked (a friend of mine died unexpectedly at 34 {natural causes} and the funeral arrangements have only recently been set), I'm not focusing properly, and I don't want to subject Monkey to half-assed teaching.
Instead, I will take my child, who is obsessed with all things relating to death and dying, and bring him to a funeral and hope for the best. I need to say goodbye to an old friend, and this is the only way it would make sense to do so. So Rowena's Browncoat Academy is closed for the week, and we will pick up week 16 when we return. Hopefully, that will turn out to be the smarter move.
Respectfulness went about as well as can be imagined for a 4 year old. It's getting better, but for most of the week, I've wanted to hit myself over the head with a shovel. However, we made progress, we got through our schoolwork, everything was mostly uneventful, and we carry on from there.
This week, we are doing Not Week 16. Monkey and I are leaving town to go back to my mother's house for a funeral this week. We're leaving early Monday morning, and probably returning on Wednesday. Because I'm so completely wrecked (a friend of mine died unexpectedly at 34 {natural causes} and the funeral arrangements have only recently been set), I'm not focusing properly, and I don't want to subject Monkey to half-assed teaching.
Instead, I will take my child, who is obsessed with all things relating to death and dying, and bring him to a funeral and hope for the best. I need to say goodbye to an old friend, and this is the only way it would make sense to do so. So Rowena's Browncoat Academy is closed for the week, and we will pick up week 16 when we return. Hopefully, that will turn out to be the smarter move.
Friday, September 7, 2012
15-1.
Also known as "the day I want to rip out all my hair."
Reading: Monkey did very well with lessons 5 and 6 of his reading. He is still struggling with silent e words - when they're presented to him without any preamble, he defaults to short vowel sounds, then ignores the silent e - but ee, ea, ow, and oa were all rather easy for him. I'm thinking we'll move on, and review silent-e words as we go. That may also be a fluency/context thing, as cub makes no sense in something like "the six sided die is in the shape of a cube." I suppose we'll see.
Math: Always fun, that math. It was ridiculously easy for him to count by tally marks, but apparently Monkey's focus and my patience are on holiday in the Caribbean together today, as partitioning (as in splitting 5 into 1-4, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1) was an utter bust, and while he added plus-ones competently (when he would hold still), he didn't quite see the pattern.
I'm thanking lucky stars at this point that Fridays don't have a third subject yet.
Last night, we had a family meeting. We talked about being respectful, and about school, and work before play, and things like eating meals in less than 3 hours, and such. I'm hoping it's just a matter of getting used to the new normal, but right now, it's insanity in here. Belligerence, screaming, rudeness, hitting, completely ignoring instructions (be they "add one bead" or "don't stand on the easel," or "could you please bring me your froggy bowl?")... It is an utter nightmare in my house, and I'm debating running away. However, I'm trying to hang in, and see what happens. I'm also considering returning to dairy-free. That made a difference forever ago, I'm not sure if it's something we're going to be able to do, but we can sure as all get out try. I need to do something or I'm going to go nuts.
Reading: Monkey did very well with lessons 5 and 6 of his reading. He is still struggling with silent e words - when they're presented to him without any preamble, he defaults to short vowel sounds, then ignores the silent e - but ee, ea, ow, and oa were all rather easy for him. I'm thinking we'll move on, and review silent-e words as we go. That may also be a fluency/context thing, as cub makes no sense in something like "the six sided die is in the shape of a cube." I suppose we'll see.
Math: Always fun, that math. It was ridiculously easy for him to count by tally marks, but apparently Monkey's focus and my patience are on holiday in the Caribbean together today, as partitioning (as in splitting 5 into 1-4, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1) was an utter bust, and while he added plus-ones competently (when he would hold still), he didn't quite see the pattern.
I'm thanking lucky stars at this point that Fridays don't have a third subject yet.
Last night, we had a family meeting. We talked about being respectful, and about school, and work before play, and things like eating meals in less than 3 hours, and such. I'm hoping it's just a matter of getting used to the new normal, but right now, it's insanity in here. Belligerence, screaming, rudeness, hitting, completely ignoring instructions (be they "add one bead" or "don't stand on the easel," or "could you please bring me your froggy bowl?")... It is an utter nightmare in my house, and I'm debating running away. However, I'm trying to hang in, and see what happens. I'm also considering returning to dairy-free. That made a difference forever ago, I'm not sure if it's something we're going to be able to do, but we can sure as all get out try. I need to do something or I'm going to go nuts.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Week 14, Day 4
Today went remarkably well for being right after a massive sick day.
We got done most of the things I wanted to, we are only behind in math (I'm so not doing two lessons in one day) and Monkey is having enough trouble concentrating that I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something more going on than just "he's an active boy." Tomorrow is our Not Going Back To School picnic - we hope. It might be a trip to the Central Library, as it's supposed to be miserable and rainy, but I'm still hoping we'll be out to the park. Monkey needs the time to run and be free. ^_^
All in all, a productive week. The only problem I have for the foreseeable future is that he is now sounding out ALL a-words with a long A sound. Including things like cat and has. Whoops. We'll get there, though.
We got done most of the things I wanted to, we are only behind in math (I'm so not doing two lessons in one day) and Monkey is having enough trouble concentrating that I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something more going on than just "he's an active boy." Tomorrow is our Not Going Back To School picnic - we hope. It might be a trip to the Central Library, as it's supposed to be miserable and rainy, but I'm still hoping we'll be out to the park. Monkey needs the time to run and be free. ^_^
All in all, a productive week. The only problem I have for the foreseeable future is that he is now sounding out ALL a-words with a long A sound. Including things like cat and has. Whoops. We'll get there, though.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
14-3?
Well, I prepped for today last night. That should have been my first clue. Skeeve is home from work sick, which makes anything school related an absolute bear, as Monkey hates an audience. However, I am also down with a stuffed, fuzzy head and sore throat, and Monkey isn't any much better. Therefore, today has been called in favor of sick day, and getting better before we get worse. Ugh.
In other news, I've sent an email off to the GDC in Colorado. If I don't hear anything, I will give them a call on Tuesday. I'm trying to sort out what kind of testing they will want to do, and how much it is likely to cost us. I can see some of the things being an absolutely invaluable resource, but the fact that it's worth the money doesn't make us any more likely to actually have the money, so... It's a research mission.
In other news, I've sent an email off to the GDC in Colorado. If I don't hear anything, I will give them a call on Tuesday. I'm trying to sort out what kind of testing they will want to do, and how much it is likely to cost us. I can see some of the things being an absolutely invaluable resource, but the fact that it's worth the money doesn't make us any more likely to actually have the money, so... It's a research mission.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Week 14 Day 2
Today, as predicted, went much easier than yesterday. Happily. It seems Monkey is coming down with something, though we're not exactly sure what yet. Skeeve has a headache and sore throat, which we're thinking came from Monkey, so... We'll see.
Anyway!
Reading: Reading went exceptionally well. He watched and completed lesson 5 today, with absolutely no difficulty. I was rather surprised, as we didn't even need to talk about what ee and ea say before he was competently able to sound out the words on screen. Tomorrow will be sight words, though if we have more time on our hands, I might just see if I can get him through a couple more lessons - not pushing, just looking to see what he'll get up to.
Math: Math was also ridiculously easy. It was another day of adding, this time using numerals and not tally sticks, but he used the abacus to add up to tens. It was really rather nice, and while the warm ups were challenging (due to a thorough dislike of repetition), the math itself was simple for him. I'm again leery of the rest of the week, on account of that whole review thing, but I'm hoping it will go much like today.
Logic: Today we did some review, and a few changes to methodology. We only did one new sequencing exercise, but instead I pulled number cards 1-6, and the last three lessons we worked on. We lined up the cards in order, then lined up the lessons underneath them. It turned out well, and he seemed to understand what I was asking a little better. When we went through the new exercise, he made a couple errors, but they were due to rushing rather than incomplete knowledge. I can certainly handle that.
All in all, a good, productive day. I like when those happen - it's not entirely a frequent occurrence, but I'm hoping it will be more frequent as time goes by.
Anyway!
Reading: Reading went exceptionally well. He watched and completed lesson 5 today, with absolutely no difficulty. I was rather surprised, as we didn't even need to talk about what ee and ea say before he was competently able to sound out the words on screen. Tomorrow will be sight words, though if we have more time on our hands, I might just see if I can get him through a couple more lessons - not pushing, just looking to see what he'll get up to.
Math: Math was also ridiculously easy. It was another day of adding, this time using numerals and not tally sticks, but he used the abacus to add up to tens. It was really rather nice, and while the warm ups were challenging (due to a thorough dislike of repetition), the math itself was simple for him. I'm again leery of the rest of the week, on account of that whole review thing, but I'm hoping it will go much like today.
Logic: Today we did some review, and a few changes to methodology. We only did one new sequencing exercise, but instead I pulled number cards 1-6, and the last three lessons we worked on. We lined up the cards in order, then lined up the lessons underneath them. It turned out well, and he seemed to understand what I was asking a little better. When we went through the new exercise, he made a couple errors, but they were due to rushing rather than incomplete knowledge. I can certainly handle that.
All in all, a good, productive day. I like when those happen - it's not entirely a frequent occurrence, but I'm hoping it will be more frequent as time goes by.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Week 13 Wrap, Week 14 Day 1.
Week 13 ended on a high note. Monkey did very well across the board. I was happy. He was still sleeping like crud, though, so there was never any time to blog. There was never any time to shower, much less blog. Mercifully, Skeeve can keep an eye on a boy while I get wet - same is never the case for blogging. It's all time full of "What'cha doin', Mommy? What's that? Can I type letters, too? I wanna play too!" and nothing gets done. Right now, I'm blogging during reading review in the hopes that it will keep him occupied long enough to get something done.
Reading: Reading went well. Monkey went through both long A words, and long I words. I wanted to (and did!) review them with him in the beginning of week 14. He retained fairly well, and while he does need occasional prompting on the silent e, once that's done he kind of goes "OH!" and gets everything pulled together. I'm pretty cool with that. Sight words are still hard going, but I suspect anything memorization-based will be. He's not so good with memorizing things he doesn't see a need for. His fluency is still behind, though that's fine. He is reading the Thomas the Tank Engine phonics readers for his checks, and as they keep getting harder, I'm not expecting him to make huge strides. He's sitting at an average of about 22 words per minute, which is low for his instructional level, but for his age it is phenomenal. So I'll more than take it.
Math: Math went very easily. As expected, he blew through the lessons with ease. He is now capable of counting to 50 by ones and twos, and to 100 by 10s. He also adds within ten. Week 14 will be continuing to add, which I don't know about. He may do very well, he may revolt against all the review. No way to tell until we get there.
Logic: Logic, as usual, went quickly and easily. I'm going to review this next week, just in case. He understands what is being asked of him, but doesn't often have the focus to really work on it, so he half-assedly hands me whatever is in front of him. We'll review, and I'm fairly certain he'll have a handle on it by the time it comes up in week 14.
History: History went spectacularly well. He did his mapwork and his coloring pages and had a wonderful time of it. He traced the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and stayed on the lines, which was impressive. He also took pains to color the land green and the water blue. I was fairly impressed, all told. His narration isn't the best, but he can answer review questions, so we're working on it. He'll get there eventually.
Science: We covered the life-sustaining properties of Earth. How sunlight alone is not enough for life, and water is needed. We currently have three pots of cress seeds around the house - one marked Venus, one marked Earth, and one marked Saturn. Saturn lives in the freezer, the other two out in the yard. We water Earth every day, and Monkey pointed out to me today that the seeds are growing in the Earth pot, but not the Venus one. Skeeve will talk with him later about how that is, and why that happens - Skeeve is the science experiment guy.
Reading: Reading went well. Monkey went through both long A words, and long I words. I wanted to (and did!) review them with him in the beginning of week 14. He retained fairly well, and while he does need occasional prompting on the silent e, once that's done he kind of goes "OH!" and gets everything pulled together. I'm pretty cool with that. Sight words are still hard going, but I suspect anything memorization-based will be. He's not so good with memorizing things he doesn't see a need for. His fluency is still behind, though that's fine. He is reading the Thomas the Tank Engine phonics readers for his checks, and as they keep getting harder, I'm not expecting him to make huge strides. He's sitting at an average of about 22 words per minute, which is low for his instructional level, but for his age it is phenomenal. So I'll more than take it.
Math: Math went very easily. As expected, he blew through the lessons with ease. He is now capable of counting to 50 by ones and twos, and to 100 by 10s. He also adds within ten. Week 14 will be continuing to add, which I don't know about. He may do very well, he may revolt against all the review. No way to tell until we get there.
Logic: Logic, as usual, went quickly and easily. I'm going to review this next week, just in case. He understands what is being asked of him, but doesn't often have the focus to really work on it, so he half-assedly hands me whatever is in front of him. We'll review, and I'm fairly certain he'll have a handle on it by the time it comes up in week 14.
History: History went spectacularly well. He did his mapwork and his coloring pages and had a wonderful time of it. He traced the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and stayed on the lines, which was impressive. He also took pains to color the land green and the water blue. I was fairly impressed, all told. His narration isn't the best, but he can answer review questions, so we're working on it. He'll get there eventually.
Science: We covered the life-sustaining properties of Earth. How sunlight alone is not enough for life, and water is needed. We currently have three pots of cress seeds around the house - one marked Venus, one marked Earth, and one marked Saturn. Saturn lives in the freezer, the other two out in the yard. We water Earth every day, and Monkey pointed out to me today that the seeds are growing in the Earth pot, but not the Venus one. Skeeve will talk with him later about how that is, and why that happens - Skeeve is the science experiment guy.
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Week 15 will start French. Week 14 is planned and underway. As it's our Monday, today we only have Reading and Math. Next week, we'll have French on this day as well.
I think Monkey's sleep will be better soon. Last week he was having trouble with long I words, even after having gone over the silent e long A words. Today, I wanted to cover long O words. He blasted through the review of long A and I, so I tried him out on the remaining lessons in the unit. Sure enough, he was perfectly able to work his way through lessons 3 and 4 as well. Tomorrow, instead of working on long O, he's going to be working on 'ee' and 'ea' combinations. We'll see how it goes over and where we go from there.
Like I said with math, he'll either ace this week or hate it. It's all reviewing how to add, and how to add with the abacus, or the tally sticks, or using them to make the numerals and adding with the numerals - along with the abacus and tally sticks. The leap to just using the numerals will be interesting, but they're taking it nice and slow, so it's hard to say what will happen.
Fridays are always difficult. We're just coming off our weekend, when Skeeve is home to allow nearly unlimited television time, and we're generally off our routine. It'll be nice to get back to it, but until tomorrow, the "it's school-time" stuff tends to be met with "but I wanna watch SpiderMan and his Amazing Friends!!!" and another chat is had about needing to finish work before we play. I have to laugh, though, as he'd be starting full day JK this year, where much more would be expected of him than one hour of activities - and I get the feeling a lot of people would give me crap about his having to "do school" every weekday, when it's a whopping hour to hour and a half in our house. Versus six hours at JK. Sheesh.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Week 13 - Catching Up.
This week has been a little weird at best. I have everything all planned out well, and pacing is good, but Monkey has decided that the only way to sleep is in 20 minute increments, and after that time is up, he needs to wake up screaming and crying - unless we are in the bed with him, of course. So, while my planning time is fine, my prep time is gone, which makes things feel harried.
Reading: We made it through both long A and long I. Again, it takes a little working on it to get there, but he does understand the principle, and he still hates practice. I checked to see if he "got" silent e words as a concept, and he hadn't yet, so we're doing one vowel at a time. He's doing great, and is using the time between reading and math to play Starfall on my computer, also eating into my blogging time. Ah, well. He's enjoying it.
Math: Math is still flying right by. We'll need to reinforce what a "dozen" is, but as of right now, he's still going through both sections of a lesson in a day. Even more fun, though, is that he has decided that if he fights me on doing it, I'll somehow let him play Starfall more. I'm not sure where he got that, but whatever. So, he spent half an hour this afternoon dinking around instead of putting together seven cents. I finally snapped and told him flat out that not only was he not watching television, but he wouldn't play on the compy anymore if he couldn't get his act together. He assembled seven cents in about three seconds. I'm glad he gets it, but I am unamused at the stalling tactics. Maybe we'll save Starfall for after the school day is completely done.
History: We wound up doing both sections of chapter 1 today - the nomads, and the nomads becoming farmers. He did *spectacularly* well on the mapwork for the fertile crescent, and he did a wonderful job coloring the farmer with his shadouf as well. I was really impressed that he is now choosing his colors with care - he wants blue for the water, green for the grass, etc. It used to be that he'd just color whatever he wanted in whatever his favorite color of the hour was. So I was pretty pleased. He also did a fair job with the review questions. I think it might take a little while to get him narrating, but that's okay. I'm happy to know he listened, and happy to hear him able to answer questions - even if the nomads were camping out in tents.
Logic: This went well, too. I printed out three lessons, colored in the boxes, and cut them out. Then I scrambled them (within lessons) and put them down for Monkey to determine their order. I'm still doing a bit of scaffolding there, but he seems to be catching on faster, so I'm cool with it. He's also doing more sly-putting-things-in-the-wrong-order-to-see-if-I'll-call-him-on-it, so I'm going to have to find strategies to get him out of that habit. 'Cause I do not deal well with the "I'm going to deliberately waste your time!" stuff.
Science: This week science will cover living conditions, and whether or not life is sustainable on other planets. I'm looking forward to that, truth be told. I'm loving the science, and Monkey is a big fan of the experiments. Should be a good time.
I may have to drop back to a once per week wrap up, 'cause I'm having such a hard time keeping up between Starfall, PBSKids and Monkey's poor sleeping. I keep trying to blog, and then get sideswiped by something every time I try. Go figure.
Reading: We made it through both long A and long I. Again, it takes a little working on it to get there, but he does understand the principle, and he still hates practice. I checked to see if he "got" silent e words as a concept, and he hadn't yet, so we're doing one vowel at a time. He's doing great, and is using the time between reading and math to play Starfall on my computer, also eating into my blogging time. Ah, well. He's enjoying it.
Math: Math is still flying right by. We'll need to reinforce what a "dozen" is, but as of right now, he's still going through both sections of a lesson in a day. Even more fun, though, is that he has decided that if he fights me on doing it, I'll somehow let him play Starfall more. I'm not sure where he got that, but whatever. So, he spent half an hour this afternoon dinking around instead of putting together seven cents. I finally snapped and told him flat out that not only was he not watching television, but he wouldn't play on the compy anymore if he couldn't get his act together. He assembled seven cents in about three seconds. I'm glad he gets it, but I am unamused at the stalling tactics. Maybe we'll save Starfall for after the school day is completely done.
History: We wound up doing both sections of chapter 1 today - the nomads, and the nomads becoming farmers. He did *spectacularly* well on the mapwork for the fertile crescent, and he did a wonderful job coloring the farmer with his shadouf as well. I was really impressed that he is now choosing his colors with care - he wants blue for the water, green for the grass, etc. It used to be that he'd just color whatever he wanted in whatever his favorite color of the hour was. So I was pretty pleased. He also did a fair job with the review questions. I think it might take a little while to get him narrating, but that's okay. I'm happy to know he listened, and happy to hear him able to answer questions - even if the nomads were camping out in tents.
Logic: This went well, too. I printed out three lessons, colored in the boxes, and cut them out. Then I scrambled them (within lessons) and put them down for Monkey to determine their order. I'm still doing a bit of scaffolding there, but he seems to be catching on faster, so I'm cool with it. He's also doing more sly-putting-things-in-the-wrong-order-to-see-if-I'll-call-him-on-it, so I'm going to have to find strategies to get him out of that habit. 'Cause I do not deal well with the "I'm going to deliberately waste your time!" stuff.
Science: This week science will cover living conditions, and whether or not life is sustainable on other planets. I'm looking forward to that, truth be told. I'm loving the science, and Monkey is a big fan of the experiments. Should be a good time.
I may have to drop back to a once per week wrap up, 'cause I'm having such a hard time keeping up between Starfall, PBSKids and Monkey's poor sleeping. I keep trying to blog, and then get sideswiped by something every time I try. Go figure.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Falling Behind.
Well. Blogging, reading, teaching, cleaning, gardening, reading and teaching seem to be completely impossible to complete simultaneously. Particularly if my browser window crashes and I forget to reopen blogger. Whoops.
This week has been a bit of a bust. I didn't get a chance to plan, due to lack of sleep, which was caused by reading a really good book... so it's my own fault, really. But, we did do work every day, so it's something.
Reading: I seem to have found Monkey's instructional level for reading - 2.2. Now, that's subject for revision as I found a way to make the long a sound stick today, but we'll see. This week's lesson was on silent e words with the long A. So, we watched a lot of LeapFrog Word Caper, and we did endless repetition of "silent e makes the first vowel say its name" that didn't help in the slightest. So, today, in reading the actual 'practice' section of the book, I finally just said, "Monkey, all these words have the long A sound. The A says A in all these words." Thinking about it, I don't think that's any much different than "Now you're going to learn to read words with the long A sound" so I'm thinking he may just blow through this as well - once I find the keys to teach him what sound we're working on, he's racing ahead. He went through the first line (of three) in probably half an hour. Then, I hit the "everything says A" and he went through the last two lines in about five minutes. So, we'll see what we get tomorrow.
Math: Today we did combinations of coins, counting by 10s, evens, odds, and halves. Monkey raced right through that lesson as well, once I got him focused on the work. He even drew the correlation that we were cutting shapes on the lines of symmetry (which, since we folded paper shapes in half, then cut on the fold, was 100% accurate). I about fell out of my chair. He can do a lot more than I planned. Most of the rest of the week, he was working on evens and odds, and counting by tens to ten-ten.
Science: Today we talked about the relative size of the sun, and why it looks so small in the sky when it is, in fact, unimaginably huge. We also talked about what the word diameter means, as well as which number was bigger - the 500 miles we drive to Hammie's house, or the 856,000 mile diameter of the sun. He got that in one, too. Skeeve will work on the actual experiment for this concept on Wednesday or Thursday, cementing the idea.
Logic: I spaced on logic this week. I think, over the weekend, I'm going to give Monkey some logic puzzles to solve, and see what happens - what this means is that I'm going to print out the lessons he's already done, color them, then cut them out. Monkey can then use the squares individually to arrange them in order.
History: This will be gone over tomorrow. It will probably be the only thing gone over tomorrow, as we have a load of grocery shopping to do, and I'd forgotten to get on that earlier. No big, though, as I plan for four day weeks. Anyway, history will be the first piece on The Earliest People. I really need to spend the next bunch of time going through the history book. There's more than one religious story presented as fact, and this is only the case for one religion, and that seems... not equitable. Therefore, I need to edit the sections as I go, making sure that everything is presented fairly. Should be interesting.
Pre-School: Monkey will (I hope) be rejoining his preschool from last year. They work on things like his fine and gross motor skills as well as his social skills - things which are exceptionally handy for me to not worry about.
Next week, I wish for better planning and a less engrossing series of books to read. The bright side is that I'm now at 78 books read for the year, with a goal of 100. So at least some kind of goal is being met?
This week has been a bit of a bust. I didn't get a chance to plan, due to lack of sleep, which was caused by reading a really good book... so it's my own fault, really. But, we did do work every day, so it's something.
Reading: I seem to have found Monkey's instructional level for reading - 2.2. Now, that's subject for revision as I found a way to make the long a sound stick today, but we'll see. This week's lesson was on silent e words with the long A. So, we watched a lot of LeapFrog Word Caper, and we did endless repetition of "silent e makes the first vowel say its name" that didn't help in the slightest. So, today, in reading the actual 'practice' section of the book, I finally just said, "Monkey, all these words have the long A sound. The A says A in all these words." Thinking about it, I don't think that's any much different than "Now you're going to learn to read words with the long A sound" so I'm thinking he may just blow through this as well - once I find the keys to teach him what sound we're working on, he's racing ahead. He went through the first line (of three) in probably half an hour. Then, I hit the "everything says A" and he went through the last two lines in about five minutes. So, we'll see what we get tomorrow.
Math: Today we did combinations of coins, counting by 10s, evens, odds, and halves. Monkey raced right through that lesson as well, once I got him focused on the work. He even drew the correlation that we were cutting shapes on the lines of symmetry (which, since we folded paper shapes in half, then cut on the fold, was 100% accurate). I about fell out of my chair. He can do a lot more than I planned. Most of the rest of the week, he was working on evens and odds, and counting by tens to ten-ten.
Science: Today we talked about the relative size of the sun, and why it looks so small in the sky when it is, in fact, unimaginably huge. We also talked about what the word diameter means, as well as which number was bigger - the 500 miles we drive to Hammie's house, or the 856,000 mile diameter of the sun. He got that in one, too. Skeeve will work on the actual experiment for this concept on Wednesday or Thursday, cementing the idea.
Logic: I spaced on logic this week. I think, over the weekend, I'm going to give Monkey some logic puzzles to solve, and see what happens - what this means is that I'm going to print out the lessons he's already done, color them, then cut them out. Monkey can then use the squares individually to arrange them in order.
History: This will be gone over tomorrow. It will probably be the only thing gone over tomorrow, as we have a load of grocery shopping to do, and I'd forgotten to get on that earlier. No big, though, as I plan for four day weeks. Anyway, history will be the first piece on The Earliest People. I really need to spend the next bunch of time going through the history book. There's more than one religious story presented as fact, and this is only the case for one religion, and that seems... not equitable. Therefore, I need to edit the sections as I go, making sure that everything is presented fairly. Should be interesting.
Pre-School: Monkey will (I hope) be rejoining his preschool from last year. They work on things like his fine and gross motor skills as well as his social skills - things which are exceptionally handy for me to not worry about.
Next week, I wish for better planning and a less engrossing series of books to read. The bright side is that I'm now at 78 books read for the year, with a goal of 100. So at least some kind of goal is being met?
Monday, August 13, 2012
Week 11, Days 2&3
I thought I'd forgotten to update... Ah, well.
Saturday was Monkey's birthday party, so it was a school holiday. Therefore, yesterday was day two, and today is day three.
Day 2
Reading: We read for fluency, choosing Hop On Pop as that seems to be the bigger success for him. He jumped from 20wpm to 28wpm, which is a great thing. He doesn't want to do it... but then when we start, he doesn't want to stop either. It's very odd. I have no idea how else to encourage fluency, and I have no memory of learning to read myself, so it's a struggle for me to sort out how to help his fluency match his skills. He is perfectly capable of reading the words through the end of unit 3, but actually reading them - as in from a book instead of sitting down to sound out individual words - is incredibly tedious for him. I'm guessing this will be an area of asynchrony for him, and I need to just let it go.
Math: We covered sorting for ease of counting today. Making rows of tens so it is easy to count large groups. He still has some trouble with it, in that he wants to make one large line instead of many small ones, but with a little support to remind him to break at 10, he does well, and then counts easily. It is much easier for him if the groups are sorted by color according to his abacus, but either way, he can do it, and that was the important part.
History: We talked to Hammie about her history. We filled in her page in our family history book, and we reviewed historians and archaeologists, what historians do, and what archaeologists do.
All in all, day two was easy, and a resounding success, which makes things seem much more do-able.
Day 3
Reading: Today we went over sight words. With the exception of two words, he has mastered the group of sight words he's been given, and I'll start adding a few more as we go. Now, he's watching unit 3 one more time before we bump him up to the next level of reading. Fluency is still a worry for me, but again, I think it's going to be one of those things I need to just let go of.
Math: We finished lesson 30 today, talking about estimation. He's not particularly good at estimating, but he understands the concept, which is good. We'll review more in the coming days, which will cement that, and I'm good with it.
Science: I'd say today was science review day, but really, he knows more about the solar system than I do I sometimes think. We'll spend some time this afternoon playing with the Solar System Adventures set he got for his birthday for the Tag, and call it a wrap.
Week 11 has been good to us. There is very little going on that shouldn't be, everything that is going on has been covered well, and there are very few areas of confusion. I'm pretty pleased with the whole thing, truth be told. I'm enjoying this review week thing - and it came at a good time, too, with Monkey's party right in the middle of the week.
Saturday was Monkey's birthday party, so it was a school holiday. Therefore, yesterday was day two, and today is day three.
Day 2
Reading: We read for fluency, choosing Hop On Pop as that seems to be the bigger success for him. He jumped from 20wpm to 28wpm, which is a great thing. He doesn't want to do it... but then when we start, he doesn't want to stop either. It's very odd. I have no idea how else to encourage fluency, and I have no memory of learning to read myself, so it's a struggle for me to sort out how to help his fluency match his skills. He is perfectly capable of reading the words through the end of unit 3, but actually reading them - as in from a book instead of sitting down to sound out individual words - is incredibly tedious for him. I'm guessing this will be an area of asynchrony for him, and I need to just let it go.
Math: We covered sorting for ease of counting today. Making rows of tens so it is easy to count large groups. He still has some trouble with it, in that he wants to make one large line instead of many small ones, but with a little support to remind him to break at 10, he does well, and then counts easily. It is much easier for him if the groups are sorted by color according to his abacus, but either way, he can do it, and that was the important part.
History: We talked to Hammie about her history. We filled in her page in our family history book, and we reviewed historians and archaeologists, what historians do, and what archaeologists do.
All in all, day two was easy, and a resounding success, which makes things seem much more do-able.
Day 3
Reading: Today we went over sight words. With the exception of two words, he has mastered the group of sight words he's been given, and I'll start adding a few more as we go. Now, he's watching unit 3 one more time before we bump him up to the next level of reading. Fluency is still a worry for me, but again, I think it's going to be one of those things I need to just let go of.
Math: We finished lesson 30 today, talking about estimation. He's not particularly good at estimating, but he understands the concept, which is good. We'll review more in the coming days, which will cement that, and I'm good with it.
Science: I'd say today was science review day, but really, he knows more about the solar system than I do I sometimes think. We'll spend some time this afternoon playing with the Solar System Adventures set he got for his birthday for the Tag, and call it a wrap.
Week 11 has been good to us. There is very little going on that shouldn't be, everything that is going on has been covered well, and there are very few areas of confusion. I'm pretty pleased with the whole thing, truth be told. I'm enjoying this review week thing - and it came at a good time, too, with Monkey's party right in the middle of the week.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Week 11, Day 1
Thankfully, week 11 was already decided to be a review week. Skeeve is home from work ill today, which throws a lot of things out of whack if we're looking at new learning. Obviously, not his fault, but I'm really glad for the review, as it means there's less concentration needed in most things.
Reading: Reading went remarkably well. We reviewed Unit 3, going over the review page. Monkey still has an issue with slowing down to read the words that are printed rather than the words he wanted to see there, but since I had the same problem as a child and read absolutely voraciously (and always have), I see no reason to worry. Particularly not since when I slow him down, he has no issue sounding out the correct word. His fluency still pretty well bites. He sounds out everything, rather than using past knowledge - his use of past knowledge comes into play for things like "dented" where he says /d/-/e/-/nt/... dentist! So he is capable of the fluency, he just needs to actually use it appropriately. That's okay, though. We're working on that. It would be less of an issue if he didn't need the repetition for this, but he hates repetition. Reading and re-reading the same things makes him nuts. This review week is only bearable because he's able to color his sheets, and he's able to jump and play while he reads the words. I know he needs it, but holy WOW is it difficult to get done.
Logic: He re-did the lesson 1-3 worksheets. He understands exactly what the lesson wants of him, but refuses to slow down to get the right answers. There's a lot of scaffolding going on here, largely because while I know he knows this, I also know that getting them entirely wrong isn't a matter of lack of understanding, but instead lack of care. I'm not sure how to instill that care, though. I suppose we'll see as we go.
Math: This will go all day. Literally. We're reviewing the values of a penny, a nickel, and a dime, and how to enter them on the abacus. This is, again, something he full well knows. He just doesn't want to slow down enough to make sure the answers he's giving are the ones he wants to give. And so, we review, and hope for the best, really. He's good at it, but it's a challenge trying to make sure he slows down enough to demonstrate what he knows versus what he simply can't be arsed to do.
All in all, this is a good day. A little awkward, with Skeeve home and Monkey's penchant to not learn well with many people around, but that's okay.
Reading: Reading went remarkably well. We reviewed Unit 3, going over the review page. Monkey still has an issue with slowing down to read the words that are printed rather than the words he wanted to see there, but since I had the same problem as a child and read absolutely voraciously (and always have), I see no reason to worry. Particularly not since when I slow him down, he has no issue sounding out the correct word. His fluency still pretty well bites. He sounds out everything, rather than using past knowledge - his use of past knowledge comes into play for things like "dented" where he says /d/-/e/-/nt/... dentist! So he is capable of the fluency, he just needs to actually use it appropriately. That's okay, though. We're working on that. It would be less of an issue if he didn't need the repetition for this, but he hates repetition. Reading and re-reading the same things makes him nuts. This review week is only bearable because he's able to color his sheets, and he's able to jump and play while he reads the words. I know he needs it, but holy WOW is it difficult to get done.
Logic: He re-did the lesson 1-3 worksheets. He understands exactly what the lesson wants of him, but refuses to slow down to get the right answers. There's a lot of scaffolding going on here, largely because while I know he knows this, I also know that getting them entirely wrong isn't a matter of lack of understanding, but instead lack of care. I'm not sure how to instill that care, though. I suppose we'll see as we go.
Math: This will go all day. Literally. We're reviewing the values of a penny, a nickel, and a dime, and how to enter them on the abacus. This is, again, something he full well knows. He just doesn't want to slow down enough to make sure the answers he's giving are the ones he wants to give. And so, we review, and hope for the best, really. He's good at it, but it's a challenge trying to make sure he slows down enough to demonstrate what he knows versus what he simply can't be arsed to do.
All in all, this is a good day. A little awkward, with Skeeve home and Monkey's penchant to not learn well with many people around, but that's okay.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Another Moment of Freaking.
Every Thursday, I take part in the NAGC chat (Twitter chat at 9 Eastern, 8 Central, #nagc ). This week was "Back to School Hopes." We got onto the topic of the Common Core Standards in the US, which 45 states have adopted, with leniency in how they are implemented. These are the standards I use as a basis for the scope and sequence for Rowena's Browncoat Academy. Obviously, as these are common to the US, this does not apply to us here in Ontario. I base my school thus on the very simple concept that I was trained as a teacher. I graduated with a BS in Elementary Education in the state of Illinois, so using their standards was familiar to me. I went with it. Not long ago, I learned that the standards in Canada are very different. Generally speaking, whatever grade a child is in at their American school, they will likely be studying the same things in Canadian schools... anywhere between 12 and 18 months later. I've known this for a while now, as I was looking into Canadian curricular and educational standards months ago. But chatting tonight brought it to the fore, and left me assembling the pieces in all my utterly dumbfounded glory. I have been basing Monkey's educational plans on the theory that, according to the standards I have, he is firmly (currently) sitting between a 1st and 2nd grade level. This depends on the topic - he is very good at social studies, reading, and science, but he is learning an entirely new math system, so that's slower than it could be. When I put it together, this puts him anywhere between 2nd grade and 4th grade in Canadian schools. This is just boggling to me. Granted, this changes nothing. I have no "shout it from the rooftops" plans, I have no intent to suddenly enroll him in college at age 6, nothing changes. But sometimes, ones mind is so thoroughly blown that you have to express it somewhere. And really, where better than the homeschool blog dedicated to the adventures of educating a gifted Monkey?
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