Weekly update for the week of 11/12/2012

We actually just finished our Rev to Rev week yesterday.  We are now off for Thanksgiving, other than math.  N. is happy because when we start back up our days will line up again with Monday being Day 1.  He didn't think it would bother him having them not line up, but it did.

This week he continued to work with his electric circuit for Science.  He made it have a switch using a nail, wing nuts and a paper clip.  How cool is that?  I just continue to be so impressed with this science.

For his history project he made a French tri-color Rosette to go along with studying the French Revolution. Folding paper accordion style is not his favorite thing to do, but he did it and didn't want me to help.  Of course when I took the pictures he had to let his sense of humor show yet again.  The French Revolution meets a Kansas goofy lumberjack hat.

We started reading "Marie's Home", which is such a good way of showing the horrors of the French Revolution without focusing solely on the the gruesome things that were done.  As we read about Marie and her family in the Palace of Versailles when it was taken over, the author did such a good job of making you feel the panic and fear. I have read "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Tale of Two Cities" with S., and this book gives yet another viewpoint of the events.

Teaching Textbooks Math is going very well.  N. is enjoying math again and says they explain things in a new way that even brings a new understanding to things he already knew how to do.

I have said many times how thanks to HOD  N. now loves to cook and draw.  Those are 2 things that I am certain he would not have attempted much, if at all, if it weren't for how they are incorporated into HOD.  His real passion is helping the dogs at the shelter where we volunteer.  He loves all of them.  In his free time he has been drawing all the dogs that are currently up for adoption using the pictures that I have taken as his model.  He is then posting them up in our dining room/school room.  He says he will take the picture down when they get adopted.  I am hoping we have a big adoption weekend since I don't think there is much more room on our wall.

 

Weekly update for week of 11/5/2012

Another week of Rev to Rev has come and gone.  Amazing how fast the year is going by.  I can't believe it is November already.

The big hit this week was again the Exploration Education Science.  He loves this curriculum and I am very impressed with what he is learning and so is his engineer daddy.  This week he did an experiment where he learned about resistors and he found out that lead is a resistor.  He used a piece of lead from a mechanical pencil and found out that if he pushed the lead harder against the copper wire then the light bulb glowed stronger.  He then learned that this is how dimmer switches work.

He continues to enjoy the state study.  Here he is letting some of his goofiness show as I am trying to take a picture.

He started reading about Eli Whitney in Four American Inventors.  He says he likes reading from this book. I like that he is getting such a broad view of so many inventors.  There is lots of history imbedded in the stories of the inventors lives and this helps reinforce what he is learning in history.

The one area I feel like I have failed in this year is Math.  We started out with Chalkdust because I wanted a good video teacher.  It moved way too fast and N. was only frustrated by it.  I then switched to Lial's Prealgebra because I had it here and N. liked the look of it.  Well he is getting frustrated with it also.  In the second chapter they have some very challenging problems that are not usually tackled  until at least half way through Prealgebra. He was getting the concepts, but was overwhelmed with how challenging the problems were.  I think he also needs a more spiral based program similar to CLE.  I have ordered Teaching Textbooks.  I was afraid of it since so many people had said it was behind in scope and sequence.  However after comparing the table of contents of the new 2.0 editions I don't see that as the case any more.  They added many chapters to Prealgebra, Algebra I and Algebra 2.  I figure it is more important that he understand the concepts and that he doesn't feel so overwhelmed.  We will see how it goes.  I just wish it wasn't our 3rd math curriculum for the year.

 One family project we did this year was to fill shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  Both kids enjoyed picking out things and packing their boxes.  Here is even a rare picture of S. and even rarer still she has her in it's natural state instead of straightened.

Weekly update for the week of 10/29/2012

Another pretty good week using Rev to Rev.  N. has changed up the order in which he does his subjects and that seems to be helping keep the time down a little bit and also has him doing the more challenging things when his brain is fresh. 

In Science he continues his experiments with electricity.  He learned about electrons and same and opposite charges and what happens when objects with same charges come near each other and what happens with those with opposite charges come near each other.  The experiments were simple, but the explanations that the log book was looking for were ones that used more mature terms than what he has done in the past.

He also did an experiment later in the week testing conductors and insulators.  I can't say enough good things about the science this year.

His history project was making either Hasty Pudding or Bread Pudding.  We have made forms of Bread Pudding before with little luck so this time he made the Hasty Pudding.  It was actually quite good and N. and his Daddy especially loved it.  Thanks to HOD N. has become quite the cook.  Yesterday alone he fried up bacon for Men's Bible Study, then he helped his Dad make dinner and then he asked to make cookies and did most of that on his own. 

In Science he has been reading some Chapters from The Story of Inventions.  It is a little tougher read, but I like the fact that it has questions at the end of the chapters for him to think about when he is done reading.  These questions helped guide him as he wrote his written narration this week.

We continue to read The Reb and the Redcoats for storytime.  It is a very good book.  The vocabulary is definitely middle school level, but if you are looking for a book for that age that takes a different look at the American Revolution I highly recommend it.

He also has been listening to Jim Weiss's recoding on Thomas Jefferson.  This is an Independent box, but I want to hear it also so he puts it on the stereo so I can listen also.  I have learned quite a few new things about Jefferson.

The Composer study and the Worldview Study continue to be huge hits around here. 

In Math he continues to plug along with Lial's Pre-Algebra.  He seems to understand the explanations in this book much better than the ones in the Chalkdust program.  I am finding that I need to limit how long he works on this each day or else he starts making careless mistakes. I have had to curb the whole "I must make up for lost time" attitude and just go as slow as needed so that he really gets the concepts.