For those of you who are hoping for a very fun-filled home school update, this is not going to be what you expect. In fact, it will probably be very dry reading. My apologies! First off, let me say that I have decided to 86 the home school blog. I don't have the bandwidth to update and maintain three blogs (photography, personal, and home school). So the home school blog is going to morph into this blog. Expect more frequent (and more interesting) updates here. That said, I do honestly and sincerely realize that I haven't updated on the home school front for months and months and I don't even remember where I left off. You are about to be caught up, but in a rather matter-of-fact way, because I just submitted my January progress report to the province. I decided to post my report here, as a way of personal record keeping and also to serve as a sort of update to you, my family, friends, and readers. So I apologize if it's not an interesting read. This is the bare-bones of what our schoolyear has been like so far, copied and pasted directly from my official report:
January 2011 Report
Students: Spencer & Collin
Please note: the boys’ individual progress is noted in the Mathematics and Language Arts sections at the beginning of this report, but science, social studies, and other subjects are reported together, each boy having completed assigments according to their own grade level.
Spencer, Grade 2
Mathematics:
Spencer began this year with Gamma level of Math U See. He has been moving forward at a good pace, as he has a very analytical and math-geared mind. His math skills are rather impressive for his age. He has been working on learning his times tables during the fall semester, and has done very well with it. At the beginning of the semester, we felt that he needed more addition and subtraction practice, so we supplemented some practice sheets until he was consistently giving a satisfactory result. He has now reached the point that he can do all of his times tables, although a few are at times a bit shaky and I always welcome review to solidify his skills. He is on course to finish the Gamma level of Math U See by the end of this year.
Language Arts:
Phonics/Reading – we began the fall semester by continuing with the Hooked on Phonics reading program. I was also supplementing his reading with beginner readers from the library and requiring him to read at least two readers each day. However, reading was sort of a nightmare. He didn’t enjoy it and has a difficult time with the patience to decipher words. He is used to everything coming easily, but has some language delays stemming from inner ear fluid during early childhood, and language-related subjects are more difficult for him. Reading was becoming a daily struggle and fight. When we started home schooling in March 2010 I was aware that the public school had not been providing him with phonics instruction, so I set him back quite a ways in the Hooked on Phonics series to where I could be sure we had coverd all the concepts. He has so far worked through levels <2 through >4. However, I didn’t feel that Hooked on Phonics was thorough enough, that he had satisfactory retention, and that it gave ample practice. In December, on a tip from a fellow home schooling mom, we started using the See and Say series by Sarah Louise Arnold. He is currently 2/3 the way through the second level, and it has proved to be the answer to prayers. The lessons are interesting, interactive, and seem to be restoring his confidence and skills. I have also quit making him read anything except his lessons. With the lack of pressure, he has started reading books to his siblings, and enjoys perusing magazines and books, and I believe is coming around to a love of reading – which is my greatest wish. He has also begun reading the chapter book series “The Magic Treehouse,” which is thrilling to me to see him have come so far in such a short time. However, he still lacks the patience to slow down and carefully sound out words that he is unsure of, so he requires a bit of supervision in order to not become quickly frustrated and to extract the full meaning of his texts.
For Language Arts we follow the Weaver curriculum, which gives him daily language arts, creative writing, and grammar assignments. We have seen a drastic improvement from the beginning of the school year where he had difficulty writing one sentence or idea (again, language delay), to where he can now string together three or four sentences on the same subject. Spelling is becoming a strong focus, as that is one of the largest hindrances to his written language at this time.
Collin, Kindergarten
Math:
Collin started this year in the Primer level of Math U See. He worked very quickly and easily through the preschool level of the curriculum, but we came to an abrupt halt when we got to two-digit numbers. He was rather a reluctant learner with math. I realized that he had been helping himself along with number recongnition in the early levels because the numbers were always written on the pages, and provided a sort of multiple choice answer for him. But on his own, he recognized only a few cardinal numbers and had extreme difficult naming and producing most of the cardinal numbers. So we took a break from the Math U See and worked on counting, number recognition, and buildling two-digit numbers. We had manipulative and place blocks, but he didn’t seem to “click” until we bought an abacus. He now recognizes most all his numbers, can build and understand most double-digit numbers, and can do some simple addition. We have started back with the Math U See and he is doing fine.
Language Arts:
Phonics/Reading - For Language Arts we follow the Weaver curriculum, which gives him daily language arts, creative writing, and grammar assignments. Still, the best grammar and language arts practice I feel he is receiving right now is in our daily reading (we have read through a few books in the Little House on the Prairie series and also read many other books from the library on various subjects) and the audio books that I have them listening to every time we go anywhere. I notice his vocabulary and sentence structure improving all the time, especially as I am careful to require proper grammar from him and to model it myself.
Collin was also a reluctant learner with his alphabet. We banged our head against the wall for months and months trying to teach him the alphabet and alphabet sounds. It just wasn’t going in, and was so very frustrating. Teaching him individual letters is useless. Finally I discovered this about him: that he will learn something if it seems useful. As soon as he can see and use a letter as a part of a word he finally took off. The Hooked on Phonics series was a great start for him, but like Spencer, we have switched to the See and Say Series by Sara Louis Arnold, and we like it much better and I can see progress every week. Collin now knows most all of his alphabet by phonetic sounds, and can decipher simple words with short vowel sounds. He is doing very well.
Collin also daily completes a penmanship program, and does workbooks on numbers/letters/shapes at his leisure. He is quite the artist and is constantly drawing, painting, and writing his favorite words on paper for us.
UNIT STUDIES
Social Studies and Science are intertwined, as we do a unit studies. During the Fall Semester we completed three units.
First unit: Communication (Language, Listening, Speech)
During this unit for Social Studies we explored various languages and countries, accents and dialects in English, idioms and Amelia Bedelia, and various modes of communication. We studied Alexander Graham Bell, and Helen Keller. We also discussed idioms, Koko the gorilla, and heiroglyphics. The boys also learned some sign language, and Spencer surprised me by fulling learning the ASL alphabet by watching a children’s ASL DVD.
For Science we learned about how sound travels, how the ear works, the sounds of the stars (in the universe), the voice, radar, echos, echolocation, and bats. We built a soup can phone, and pretended to be different parts of the ear to pass along the message through the channels.
For Health, we learned about ear care, voice care, eye care, and posture.
During this unit we also took a few field trips. We attended an orchestral performance at the Cube in the Exchange District, and took a tour of the library. But the most extraordinary experience we had during this unit was visiting the Manitoba School for the Deaf for their networking day. My children and I went to the school and joined the deaf students for a day of play and activities. They knew very little sign, but managed to communicate with the other students. The most interesting and triumphant moment was when Spencer was in the gym playing a game with the other children. He needed to tell several of them to move out of the running path, but he couldn’t yell to them because they couldn’t hear. When he wave to them, they didn’t see….So he finally stomped the ground as hard as he ground over and over until the other children felt the vibrations and looked up, then moved when he motioned to them. It was a fantastic moment in studying communication with my children! Spencer had such a great time at that school, he wanted to go back again. I was amazed at his adaptability and I plan on taking them for every networking day at the MSD.
Second unit: History/Family History/Genealogy
For this unit we began by taking a road trip down to the midwest of the US which is the only place in North America where we have ancestry and family history. There we visited old family homesteads, extended family members, and the town graveyard where so many of our ancestors are buried. When we were visiting the old farm where my grandparents raised their family and my mother and uncles and aunts grew up, we phoned my mother across the country and she told him stories of her childhood while he looked at the grounds where they took place. It was a very meaningful and moving experience.
The boys each put together books of their own personal history. They chose five stories from their lives and wrote and/or illustrated the stories, then “bound” them together into a book of their Personal History book. We also did something very similar for a family history book. However, we did a twist on the family history book and instead of writing about our own family history, we wrote about the family history of Jesus Christ, starting with Abraham, and going through a few of the patriarchs to Christ himself. For this unit we also got a roll of brown paper and made a 15-foot long timeline, placing important Biblical events, family events, and personal events on the timeline to give the boys some scope of where they were standing in time. We still have to find a good place to mount and display our timeline in order to use and add to it.
For science in this unit, we studied science itself – what is science, what are its methods? We studied great scientists like Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton, and the history of science including ancient civilizations and their contributions to science, and scientific classifications.
For health, we touched on old home remedies and ancient beliefs and medicinal practices.
We also studied family trees, proper names for relatives and family relationships (great grandmother, great-great grandmother, first- second- counsins, great-aunt, etc.). A major perk at the end of this unit was travelling to my mother’s home where she has an entire family photo gallery of my great-uncles and aunts, great-grandparents, and great-great- grandparents. It was the perfect conclusion to this unit.
Third unit: Transportation
This was a fantastic, fun-filled unit!! Not only did we start it off with another road trip (a great way to introduce transportation in the US, the trucking industry, trains and their role in the economy, etc.), but we also stayed in Phoenix for the duration of the unit, where we could avail ourselves of several different types of transportation and get some first-hand experience. During the month that we studied transporation, we took field trips to ride the light rail, the city trolley, and a train. They boys also took a field trip to the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, AZ. Now, a nuclear missile isn’t exactly a type of transportation, but it is very much about technology, speed, power, and also involves concepts like friction, speed, energy, lubrication, inertia, gravity, etc.
In this unit we studied these concepts: various methods of transportation around the world, moving and the necessity of moving, professions of transportation (fire fighter, jet fighter pilot, train engineer, captain, etc.), travel and making trips, hot air balloons and their history, airplane and its history, ships, boats, submarines, trains, the Wright brothers, Amelia Earhart, friction, specific gravity, and gravity, travel safety, car safety, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
We whittled soap boats and had quite a time getting them to equal bouyancy in the kitchen sink. Since it was close to Christmastime, we made a “gingerbread ship” instead of gingerbread house, using all the correct terminology – pretzel masts, and white chocolate rigging. We made a collage of the different phases of air travel – the evolution of the plane. We also made a fake photo album of a trip that we were going on, using our imagination to think of what we might need on our trip. One of the most enjoyable activities we did during this unit was to watch “Around the World in 80 Days” and note all the different types of transportation they used in the movie. This was definitely one of my favorites!!
OTHER SUBJECTS:
The boys attend Beaver Scouts, and several programs at the YMCA including: soccer, swimming, and TaeKwonDo (Spencer).
That wraps it up!
Note: in this Spring semester we are taking a bit more relaxed approach to the unit studies and curriculum. While we are still covering all the subjects and information in the units, we are also asking the kids what they would like to learn about. They are surprising us with a very diverse curiosity about the world, and are also enjoying the unit studies/subjects more than ever. They surprise us by wanting to know about dinosaurs, the ice age, sea life, movie making, ninjas and martial arts, mammoths, and ancient mythology. They have also taken an interest in science experiments and dutifully mark the books of experiments that we get from the library so we can buy the supplies and have an occasional “experiment day.” We have also purchased a Manitoba Museum membership and they beg to go to the Museum every day. We are loving watching them love learning!
