Week 3 2013

Edging back to a more "normal" week, but with playdates instead of afternoon work.  School friends will be back at school next week and the week after, and term activities kicking off, so we'll be back in the swing of it in no time.

Theme of the week: 

THINK before you speak.  Opportunity to practice scissor skills as well as learning to be a little kinder with our words.  Big Brother has been desperate to try some fancier cursive than the plain italic style he's learning, so he got a chance to do that too.  

Maths: We're nearing the end of Ice Cream!  This week's topics included graphing functions, reviewing long division,  and counting back change.  BB is still very much in love with the Fred way of Maths.  He's also embarked on his "real" textbook for the year - Beta Mathematics and this week reviewed order of operations, factors and multiples and prime numbers.  It turns out he's never actually made a sieve of Eratosthenes, only read about them, so he enjoyed making one this week, and liked finding "patterns" in the numbers.  I think you're supposed to use it to find the primes though, not show why they are after you already know them... ah well!  He's enjoyed revisiting Kahn Academy too, and is getting into the groove on that.  

Spelling: topic words this week... true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind, piano, apologise, celebrate.  Two lessons of All About Spelling (5) completed.  

Typing: we only managed to get onto typing web once this week, but next week we'll try again :-)

Writing: was completed with out crying or complaining... woohoo!  We've worked through first part of WWE(3) and we'll ass in some more challenging stuff as we get into the swing of it.  

Handwriting: review of the oecs family and also adgq.  Taking care to form letters carefully and working on slope.  

Other stuff... playing with friends 

Enjoying the summer afternoons

Arty Things:

Crayon Rubbings

 

 

Little Sister calls this "The Spiral Bridge Between the Gardens"

And she calls this one "Stars Over the Sea"

We made Puppies today... more scissor practice!  

 

Introducing Sparkly Super Rainbow Flying Dancer Dog... he looks like a happy guy. 

Books Big Bother's been reading include (lots of chess and...) Me and My Dog Gary Crew, Birdmagic Holly Webb, Gods Goddesses and Monsters Sheila Keenan, DK Puppy Care Kim Bryan and Where Did I Come From Peter Mayle

Little Sister decided to surprise me this week and have a go at writing her own story:

"I am in my cot"

Great spelling!

Movies watched: Harry Potter #2

Websites enjoyed: wonderopolis, PhET, Kahn and Chesskid

Read Aloud: The Secret Mountain... nearly done!  

Week 2 round up

Week 2 in review...

Holiday programme 9-12 each day for Big Brother.  He has made papier maché, painted a pet rock, planted a geranium and been to the movies (Rise of the Guardian).  Unfortunately he was also kicked and punched by another child :-(  He was happy with how it was dealt with though, and decided that on the whole it was a positive experience, and he'd like to go again another time.

Kindy is back for Little Sister... three mornings of playing "Mums and Dads" with new and old friends,  sandpits, painting, dressing up, playdough and generally being three... yay!

On Tuesday Grandma took both kids to see a stage show of the Three Little Pigs.  BB's comments are in another post... that's about all I've heard about it, but they seem to have had a good time.

At home:

Lego for LS... this is a "policeman's house, and his 'mergency vehicle"
Lots of reading books.  Little Sister has decided she really wants to read like everyone else so she's working really hard.  She has reached about yellow level now (RTR) and is accelerating quickly.  I scored a Reading Eggs CDRom at Every Educaid's new shop (which is not as cool as it was prequake)  and she has had a little play with that but, like the website, it's just too much repetition and the steps are too small for it to be much fun.

Little Sister and Big Brother both got out their hot dots pens (LS has the cat and BB the dog) and played with their cards - LS is working on telling the time (o'clock and half past) and BB is reviewing and learning new stuff about the Human Body.

Working on our coursera course - Evolution and Genetics.  

Big Brother has been playing more Chess (surprise!), reading more Chess (another surprise) and trying out the lego mindstorms kit we have borrowed.  He made a start on his brand new handwriting book (E) and I'm working on tracking down a fountain pen for him to start using soon.  He's very excited about that!  He's been playing Minecraft, and enjoyed a movie afternoon with a friend.



This is my bargain of the month too... two buckets for oranising the kids' school supplies for just $2.99 each!

These will be especially handy as some of our school will be in the car / out and about this term.

Read Aloud: Still The Secret Mountain

Next week... school starts "properly"

Adventures in Home Education: Maths

We've reached the conclusion that BB is better off at home for now.  The decision isn't final and we'll continue looking for options to get him 'in the system' but for now we're working at home.

Maths: after much debate and research we've settled on

Miquon  - he's currently working on the red book.  This isn't new learning for him for the most part, but he's able to work it through independently and is enjoying the review.  He loves filling in the workbooks and every now and then he strikes something new.  The hands on aspect of the rods is excellent for when he meets new ideas because he can 'see' what is happening, although in reality they mostly sit on the shelf while he works through the pages independently.

In addition to the Miquon books we've been trying out a few different websites to add variety and challenge.  We've completed trials of WhizzMath, Dreambox and Aleks.

WhizzMath claims to give a full report of the child's "math age" in various areas and then to work the child at that level.  Unfortunately the trial was pretty limited and after putting lots of time into the initial assessment we discovered that we 1) couldn't access the report without subscribing and 2) could only try one lesson as part of the trial.  This meant we couldn't tell how accurate the assessment was, and couldn't tell how well the lessons are adjusted to meet the learner's needs so far as pace and repetition of the lessons.  What we did see looked good, and we might come back to it at some point.

Dreambox was fun, and BB often asked to play with this, but there was so much 'fluff' surrounding the actual learning - stories, games and animations that he got frustrated with it quickly and didn't stick with tasks long enough to make much progress without direct supervision.  The teaching style and sequence of activities was excellent and for a child who likes stories and 'playing' with maths I'd really recommend it.  The other disadvantage of this was that it only goes to grade 3 which is about where he's finishing now.  Oddly it started him at the beginning of grade 2 which meant he didn't try any new learning activities, but the review was good.

Aleks was our favourite, and the one we're continuing with for now.  It's the one with the least 'game like' learning (it's not game based at all).  BB is very motivated by seeing what's left in the pie chart for him to learn, and we both like that he can move on as soon as he demonstrates mastery so the pace is as fast or as slow as he needs it to be.  For some of the tasks he needs some paper and pencil practice to really master them, but it's great that it's broken down in to small chunks so we can see exactly what we need to address.  He's looking like completing 3rd grade in the next week or two, but the programme includes right through to college level courses so it should keep him happy for as long as he's interested.

Life of Fred is probably where we'll go once he's finished with miquon  - BB will likely enjoy the story and the concepts covered should provide challenge for some time to come.

Finally, we've also been adding a few bits and pieces of other maths from various sources, like some Christmas themed bits and pieces we did last month:

Equivalent decimals, fractions and words Christmas Trees

Two times table Angels