Stretched to a New Dimension

The Ugly G Word

2012-02-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the word gifted. The word bothers me. It conjures up images of the bottom of the Christmas tree with all of its perfectly wrapped gifts. Shiny bows and ribbons, matching paper, perfect little boxes waiting to be enjoyed. That feeling of anticipation and beauty, and all the things you love about giving gifts.

For some reason I seldom think of things like the time my mother-in-law gave me clothes for Christmas that were 8 sizes too big. She didn't know what size I was, just that I was bigger than her. That was a wake up call to hit the gym, let me tell you! Or the time I bought my husband a cordless drill for his birthday. Worst gift EVER! We don't let him near power tools (this decided after all the pretty little star patterns surrounding the screws on our deck). Or what about the time when I was about 4, woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and went downstairs to sleep on the couch by the tree. I woke up to my parents screaming at me that I could have ruined Christmas "what if something hadn't been wrapped?!" FOR SHAME!!

I guess my point is that I feel like most people are like me when they hear the word gifted. They think of the artfully wrapped Martha Stewart like packages filled with something you really want. They don't understand that when you open those boxes life is a mess! It's more like I opened up a box full of clock parts without instructions on how to put it together.

Sure Zoë can read at a high school level, but it's hard to find things for her to read with subject matter appropriate for a 10 year old, and once you do find a book she reads it in a single day. Yeah Aiden can do geometry, but have you seen how he falls apart if he gets a single problem wrong? Yes, Zoë is excellent at deciphering emotions in people, but have you watched her spirit crumble as she has heard about the genocide in Rwanda, or the victims of Katrina, or Haiti, or any other tragedy? Yes Aiden can beat most people in many games, but have you spent your days listening to him endlessly drone on about them? Have you tried to sit on the couch and relax for just 10 minutes with a child who's brain is just not wired to shut off? Good luck with that gift!

Let me tell you "gifted" just doesn't sum it up! Hopefully some day we'll come up with a term that better describes how these people are wired, preferably one with less stigma and jealousy attached to it. Until then, I'll just keep trying to fit these clock parts together I guess. Oh and I should still remember to hit that gym!

Math Week

2011-10-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Aiden is in charge of the lessons this week. He has decided that they haven't been doing much math lately, so that is the theme for the week. They've both spent a while on Khan Academy doing the practice and earning points/badges. We've played around with this before, but I had forgotten how great it is. Although you have to do a set number of problems correctly to become proficient, you can skip around on the flow chart and it will back fill proficiency as needed. Best of all it's FREE!

He also wrote 10 story problems for Zoë to do based on Halloween. They're cute problems like "You get 12 Reece's peanut butter cups, but Dad gets a 25% toll. How many peanut butter cups do you have left?" We've also been playing math games like Equate and Set. Basically he said he wanted to find a way to do math things that Zoë would enjoy.

We are also as a family learning Sign Language. That has been a lot of fun. The kids are excited that they can now "talk with their mouths full." We checked out books from the library and have a friend that knows ASL so we can practice with her. Most of our dinner conversation last night was spent sharing signs and trying to talk in sign.

My big issue right now is coming up with a way to evaluate success in their learning by the end of the year. I've started to piece together some vague ideas and in the end I'm hoping to have a questionnaire we can each use to see how we think things are going. It needs to be life skills/job performance based instead of a standardized test. In this information age it isn't important that they can recall mundane facts, but rather can they work on a team, can they communicate (in many forms) their ideas to others, can they solve problems creatively...that kind of thing. I'm constantly evaluating and thinking about these kinds of things, but it would be nice to have it in writing with specific examples. In the end it will probably help if I need to create high school transcripts for them too.

Pasta, Link and enzymes

2011-09-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

As usual our week off doesn't mean a lack of learning, just a lack of record keeping for me and a very relaxed schedule. On Monday we all tried our hands at making pasta. It tasted fantastic, but I'm not sure it's worth all the work it took. Tuesday the afternoon was spent planning and designing a treehouse that the kids are going to build with their Grandpa. They were also both bitten by the cleaning bug and spent hours cleaning their room in the morning. It is so great when they do things like that without being told!

Zoë has more sewing lessons with Nana this weekend, and I'm sure they'll be busy finishing Aiden's Halloween costume. He's decided to be Link from the Zelda games. He's even growing his hair out to fit the image.

I also wanted to share this success story with everyone. If you're not familiar with Foldit, it is a game put out to help scientists fold proteins to try to find cures for diseases. Apparently a gamer has accomplished in 3 weeks, what they have been trying to do for years. We have played around with Foldit for about a year now. It's amazing what can be learned through games!

A Much Anticipated Update

2011-09-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

This picture was from our nature hike in Bush Wildlife Preserve in August. Despite the heat it was a great day and we discovered lots of new things.

Now that summer is finally over I'm starting to get back into our groove. This is our first week with all of the fall activities running. In a push to get Zoë involved in more social activities, we've added even more to our schedule this year. She has joined Team Spark in the First Lego League and the local 4-H club. We also have soccer, piano, JET and Tae Kwon Do for both of the kids. My Google Calendar looks crazy!

Two weeks ago the kids came down for breakfast with the idea that they were going to take turns planning activities for a week for each other. Zoë started last week with a reading unit. They read the first book in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series by Katheryn Lasky. She made a scavenger hunt for Aiden to do in order to give her reading directions to him. They also researched owls, drew accurate pictures of owls, made up their own kind of owl and discussed the book. What most amazed me was Zoë's ability to tailor her lesson to Aiden. She knows that he doesn't really like to read and has a tendency to read 5 pages of a book then put it away. So the first day she gave him his first scavenger clue which told him to read the first chapter of the book. When he finished that, he could have the second clue and so on. By the end of the day he was so engrossed in the book that he kept reading past where she told him he could stop.

This week is Aiden's week. He is calling it Game Week. He's helping Zoë design her own Scratch game, playing different games with her, and they're making their own board games. It has been so enjoyable to see them get up each morning and be excited about what they're doing for the day. They really seem to like taking charge of teaching the other about something that interests them.

Zoë also had a sewing lesson yesterday at the place she got her new sewing machine. I could tell that the woman teaching the class was a little apprehensive that I was just planning to leave Zoë and not take the class with her. By the time we got back an hour later of course the woman had changed her tune. She raved about how quickly she learned things, and what a pleasure it was to teach her. Of course I knew that would be the case, because we all know that Zoë should be an ambassador for homeschooling and is a delight. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly she picks things up and amazes the people she meets!

Let the crazy summer begin

2011-05-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow officially begins our hectic summer schedule. We're heading to Chicago for 3 days on the Amtrak. We're hoping to see the Museum of Science and Industry, the Chicago Art Institute, the Adler Planetarium, and eat some deep dish pizza. It will certainly be a whirlwind trip, but I'm sure we'll have a good time.

Aiden has been very busy preparing for his upcoming Bach piano recital. He was determined to get it in before heading to his grandparents for two weeks at the end of May. That has meant many hours on the piano, some frustration, but generally a very determined attitude. He has also been making programs using Scratch and has developed a fortune teller complete with some very odd fortunes. Once he publishes it, I'll post a link.

Zoë has been busy finding ways to earn money to go to Camp Ondessonk this summer. One of the things she is doing is making the invitations for her grandparents' 50th anniversary party. In order to do this, she has been learning to use Photoshop. It has been a great experience, and the invitations are looking fantastic.

Last week they also volunteered to donate baked goods for a fundraiser through Tom's work. They made a triple chocolate cake (thanks to Aunt Laura's recipe). The funniest part was that they decided there would need to be a trial cake made since they had never baked anything like it before. So the week before, I agreed (who could argue their logic), and they made a cake for us first. It turned out fantastic!

Yesterday their grandpa took them to get fishing equipment and out for lunch (another great perk of home schooling!). They spent the afternoon learning how to ready the line, cast, and catch fish. They had a great time and caught about 8 fish over the course of a few trips to the lake. Their grandma also dug out an old melodica which they have been playing around with.

A Successful Week

2011-04-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was definitely one of those "this is why we home school" weeks. It was filled with challenges, frustration, success, but most importantly child-led learning. It also helped that I managed to squash the little voice that only knows one way to learn, and was actually able to facilitate their learning.

Zoë managed to make 2 skirts and a shirt as part of her fashion project. Her seam ripper got a workout, but she kept at it and is very pleased with the result. She's also working to improve her blog and started reading the first book on her completed reading list. In her downtime she has been learning how to use Scratch (an open-source program put out by MIT to help people learn how to program).

We also managed to find (thanks to one of the gifted homeschooling listservs that I belong to) an online physics program. The kids decided that they were interested in taking the 6 week class on sound. So they split the cost and used their education budget to join the class. They're really enjoying the live webcast and the fun experiments he has them do. They will have to do the last class while they're at their grandparents, but otherwise it fits nicely into our schedule.

Aiden has been busy making a "cat battler" game on Scratch. Originally he wanted to make a Zelda type room using game maker, but by mid week he was completely frustrated. Scratch seems to be more of a middle step between gamestar and game maker. It was still frustrating for him, but he managed to complete his project. He also made a funny illness diagnoser.

Next week is very busy. We're going to the FIRST Lego League Championship, watching the space shuttle launch, having a piano recital, and a day at JET.

Treading New Waters

2011-04-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

It has been quite an eventful week in our household. After only a few weeks of hard work, Aiden has already managed to meet his gamestar mechanic goal. On Monday his game "Meso's Adventure (Part 1)" made it to the front page on the top rated games. We all went out to dinner to celebrate. Since then we've started discussing new goals and the idea of balance in learning. I'm all for games as a tool, but I can't bear the thought of it being the ONLY tool! So he is now self-imposing his own restrictions on daily screen time.

Zoë has been preparing for her art show this Sunday. In addition we're starting a new approach to her learning. I gave her a list of about 25 "courses" that she could pick from to study and she narrowed it down to 4. Taekwondo, piano, and French (she decided) will be mandatory. Starting on Monday she will be doing fashion design, blogging, astronomy and an independent study literature in addition to the mandatory things. Each week we will work together to set new goals. Hopefully this balance between help with goal setting and child led learning will be successful.

Our First Hurdle in Deschooling

2011-04-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

This week has been fairly uneventful. Last night the kids decided to have a kids camp out. They said it wasn't a survival night because they wanted a tent and didn't want to have to find their own food. So they spent the night by the fire they built toasting marshmallows and then slept in the tent. They had egg salad for dinner made by boiling eggs in a wax paper cup in the fire. They also wrapped potatoes in foil and cooked them in the fire. It never ceases to amaze me what children are capable of when the adults get out of the way!

Aiden has decided that he has exhausted his learning on game star mechanic. His goal was to make a game that ended up on the front page of the top rated games. Currently one of his games is on page 3 and still moving up. He also made a 100 level game that took him over 100 hours of work. He's still making games there, but he's also now learning game maker, which is a much more powerful game making site. I've also loaded lynx on their laptop because he said he'd like to start learning coding. This will truly be a test of his ability to teach himself. I know absolutely nothing about programming and will be of no help whatsoever.

Right now it's Zoë that seems to be floundering. I'm not sure if it's because she is having a harder time adapting to coming up with her own ways to spend her learning time or some other reason. She's the queen of accomplishing anything I ask her to do, but she seems to be struggling with things on her own. She keeps coming up with great ideas, but seldom finishes them. Right now she wants to have an art show, and I feel like I'm having to tug her along the process. She just doesn't seem to be able to find a passion and dive into it.

I've also noticed that since we've started this hands off approach to learning, Zoë has become much more bossy toward Aiden. It's almost like she can't handle the idea of letting him do his own thing and if I'm not going to tell him what to do, then she will. It's very interesting to watch. Several times this week he has come inside saying "I'm not playing with her anymore. She's just bossing me around and it isn't any fun." I feel like if she could find somewhere to put her energy and focus, this might go away.

A Time for Growth

2011-03-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

This has been a difficult week filled with lots of lessons and possibilities for growth. Aiden has experienced disappointment, joy, consequences and rewards all in a few days. Tom says we might look back on this week as a real turning point for our family. I certainly hope he is right.

For some time now we have been aware that Aiden has a lack of impulse control and tends to rush through things that he views as easy without giving any effort. This could not have been more clear than at Tae Kwon Do testing this weekend. About half of the time he was trying his hardest, the other half he was barely even moving. After talking with his instructors we found out that his effort at testing was much greater than it has been in class. So we had a long talk with him and decided that he would have to pay for 50% of his next testing since he's only giving 50% effort. Since that discussion he has worked very hard in class and has improved drastically.

This week has been a running dialog about how he wants other people to view him and how his actions can distort those views. He has researched impulse control and developed his own exercise to teach himself to improve in this area. I was very impressed with the exercise, and it seems to be helping so far. What most impressed me most was his ability to use the research to develop something that would be effective for him, and then try so hard to make it work.

This morning I stumbled on the idea of how to relate all of these things to something he is passionate about. I asked him how he wanted other people to think when he posted a new game on game star mechanic. Did he want people to be excited to see his name attached to a game? Would he want them to find it challenging, and feel like he had worked hard to create it? Also, did he just make easy games since he has already learned how to make them, or did he prefer to keep challenging himself with something that he already knows but could improve? This last question seemed to hit home for him. I hope that I was able to help him move past his idea of "if it's easy it's not worth trying," and allow him to see how his behaviors might give an impression to other's that he does not want them to have.

By no means do I think all the problems are solved, but it does feel like we're headed down the right path now. It's interesting to me how when I give up the control and make him accountable for his actions, changes happen much easier. Of course logic tells you that's true, but it isn't until you actually analyze how you are still controlling things that you're able to let go and let them grow WITH you, not FOR you.

The adventure continues

2011-03-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

Since last week was such perfect weather, and the neighborhood children were all on Spring Break, the kids were able to play outside most of the week. Thursday we had our first annual park-a-palooza. I surprised the kids by taking them to Civic Park in the morning to play while I walked. We were joined by our friends and continued to play for a while. Then we told them it was time to leave and drove to another park. They had no idea what was going on, but were thrilled when we pulled up to the next place! In all we went to 4 different parks and had a picnic lunch. It was a great day. Next time the kids get to plan which parks we go to.

Aiden is currently working on having a top rated game on game star mechanic. He just finished making a 100 level game (the previous high on the site was 50 levels), and now he's setting his sights on the top rated prize. He talked with me about things he could do to meet the goal. In the end he decided that he should spend more time playing and commenting on other people's games in order to drive more traffic to his games, and less time creating new games. He also thought that his comments and ratings should be polite and helpful, otherwise people would be unhappy and not play his games. It was a very interesting conversation, and I was pleasantly surprised at how insightful he was.

Zoë has a couple of projects going. Yesterday she decided she wanted to learn how to draw better, so we checked out lots of drawing books from the library and she spent the evening drawing. She's decided that she would like to have an art exhibition of her work, and is in the beginning of planning the event. Also, today she decided that she wanted to start her own blog and webshow. So I set her up with her own blog which she has titled "Zoë's Awesome Life." She's working on her first post. For now I've told her that prior to publishing anything either Tom or I need to proof read it. I'm not going to fix grammar or spelling errors, but rather looking for inappropriate content while she learns the rules of sharing on the internet. It will be interesting to see where these things go.

I've been busy modeling learning behaviors by trying to figure out photoshop creative suite. Wow, is that challenging! Here's a look at my first attempt. Obviously, I have a lot to learn. My hope is that one day I can use my creative juices to help make covers for Tom's writing. In the meantime he gets to be an evil wizard on the run from Azkahban.

Self Evaluation and Reflection

2011-03-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last two months wrapped up in some self-evaluation. It all started from a deep feeling of dissatisfaction that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I've finally discovered that the unhappiness is coming from my desire to maintain control (which of course is just an illusion) over my family and the kids education, coupled with a desire to explore my own interests. Thus begins another evolution of our homeschooling experience.

I've noticed as two years have passed, things have slowly changed around our house. When the kids were first pulled out of school we had a strict curriculum that we followed daily. As time went on I noticed that the curriculum wasn't enough. The kids either plowed through the material quickly, weren't interested, desired more than the curriculum had to give, or were sick of doing the same things. So I slowly began to steer away from the curriculum in order to continue to foster their desire to learn. I began to give them control over how they spent their days, but required certain things to be finished at the end of the week. This seemed to help for a bit.

Eventually, before I even realized it myself, the kids were showing me signs that even this plan was not enough and I was still controlling all the information and learning. Then we started exploring topics of their own interest. I began to set up lego mindstorm challenges, hosted a chemistry jeopardy game, encouraged them to build Rube Goldbergs again, and began reading everything I could get my hands on about learning styles and child led education.

Two weeks ago, in an effort to encourage their own exploration, I moved all of our school supplies into Zoë's old bedroom. They happily helped me carry everything up from the basement, and helped organize the room. They even made a sign for the door and named the room the "Explore Room." Within minutes they were diving into everything. It was absolutely amazing to watch this unfold! Their excitement was contagious.

Since then I have said nothing to them about schoolwork or provided them any ideas of things to do. Instead, I have sat happily with them in the Explore Room doing my own reading and research. Anytime they have a question or want to play a game, I put my things aside and help them. I have been silently watching their ideas unfold, and wow what ideas they have!

They have made all kinds of animal masks using paper plates complete with short plays with their new cast. They started studying American history, used the invention kit to design their own car and spring, learned about the human body by dissecting their human model, learned about the fifty states by playing the scrambled states game, spun the globe and started researching the country that their fingers landed upon, and read countless books. All of this in only a week during which time both of them have been sick and running a fever. Never once did I make any suggestions. I have only encouraged them each step of the way. I was feeling great! This is what learning should be like!

That was until yesterday when control reared its ugly head again. Aiden decided he wanted to teach the dog how to play dead. Instead of letting him figure it out, I got online, printed out instructions and found videos for him to watch. I should have known from his lack of interest in watching the videos or reading the instructions that he didn't want my help. Instead I ignored the signs and continued offering my thoughts on his process. I was so caught up in "helping" him that it wasn't until too late that I realized what I was doing. Finally after about 20 minutes of me butting in he shouts "this is just too frustrating, he's not making any progress and I can't do this." I watched him go from an enthusiastic child with a brilliant idea, to a deflated, unhappy shell. My desire to control what and how he was teaching the dog created this and I couldn't take it back.

I debated what to do now. Finally, after a talk with Tom I decided to apologize to him for impeding his progress and let it go. So while we all ate dinner together, I told him I was sorry for butting into his idea, and would be trying very hard from now on not to do that again. He seemed pleased that I noticed and apologized for my behavior. I can only hope that he'll go back to his idea of training the dog new tricks again.

When we originally started homeschooling I was worried that I couldn't teach them everything they needed to know. Now two years later what I'm really learning is how to get out of their way and let them teach me! There's no such thing as knowing everything. What is most important is continuing to foster their natural desire to learn about the world around them on their own terms, thus enabling them to learn how succeed on their own.

New Year, new start

2011-01-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

I refuse to make new year's resolutions, but I have always loved the feeling of a fresh start. It's a great time to think about all that you have accomplished and set new goals. I realized this year that it was incredibly hard for me to think of any personal accomplishments. I had no trouble thinking of all the things the rest of the family has done, but for some reason it was difficult to come up with anything for myself. Although that's not a terrible thing (I do create the environment for the family enabling them to be so successful), I would like things to be slightly different this year. So I'm working.

I'm not sure that I could even think of half of the things we've done since my last post. A few highlights were Zoë's book one piano recital, she finished her math level, we've started an anthology writing group with the Nuehring girls, Aiden is halfway done with Algebra 1, and I've continued to tweak our school days.

Words can't even begin to express how proud I've been of Zoë these last few months. She has been the poster girl for perseverance, dedication, and hard work. She set goals for both piano and math back in August and managed to meet them both. I have always known that she can do anything she puts her mind to, and the past two months have just reinforced that. It has been truly amazing (and exhausting) to help her succeed.

Aiden has hit one of the crossroads we (and lots of other people) call the dip. He's working to learn a Bach Minuet in G and has just hit his first struggle. I've watched in the last couple of months as his playing has become stagnant or even gotten worse. After thinking about things, I have realized that this is probably the first time in his life that he is doing something he actually finds difficult. The problem is that it seems to be the same for math too. He's finally working with concepts and things that take him time to understand, and he is really struggling. On Tuesday I sat down and had a long talk with him about all of this. I explained to him that these kinds of things are the biggest reason we've decided to home school them. No matter how smart someone is, the thing that sets us apart is how we get past these struggles. They were never going to find these struggles in school, and therefore never learn how to handle them. We discussed measuring success in smaller increments, and just keeping your head down and plodding along one thing at a time.

He seems to be doing a little better the last few days. Perhaps just having the chance to voice his frustration has helped some. I don't think he was even exactly sure what the problem was, but recognizing that all of us go through this can't hurt. If I can teach him how to get out of this dip, that will be the best lesson he can learn his whole life.

Orlando and Free Learning

2010-10-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we got back from a week in Orlando. Everyone had a great time. Our favorite places included Kennedy Space Center where the kids seemed re-inspired to become astronauts, Universal Studios where we walked into the wonderful imagination of J.K.Rowling and the world of Harry Potter, and the Disney parks. Both of the kids had an amazing time in the Lego store filling cups with Legos to take home. The minute they walked in the door from the airport they started building! Although I'm glad we went, it will not be a place that I revisit. It was by far the most expensive and exhausting "vacation" I've ever been on.

With the bustle of everyday life I often forget how odd our family is, but taking a trip to Disney World was a huge reminder! Aiden was very upset that they didn't learn anything. At one point we went for a stroll on a trail in Animal Kingdom that was supposed to be a Cretaceous Era walking tour. They had some large dinosaur models along the trail. Aiden asked me which dinosaur it was, because he didn't recognize it. Of course neither did I, so I told him to find a sign that would tell him. There was no sign anywhere. He was so mad! He pursed up his face and exclaimed "Mom, why doesn't Disney want kids to learn?! All they had to do was put up a sign! Would that be so hard? I just want to know what kind of dinosaur that is!" All the other children where running around climbing all over the statue, but my kids were so upset that they refused to play on it.

We're slowly getting back into the groove with school work. The kids are continuing their "free learning" afternoons. Yesterday was a great success. Aiden spent his time building a model Sear's tower. He researched everything and built it to scale using legos. In his version the height of one lego is 2 stories or about 27 feet. He did all the math himself and had a great time building it. Hopefully he'll want to do Taipei 101 next. Zoë made a computer program on Alice. I enjoyed watching her perfect the program by tweaking small details. I can't wait to see what they come up with for tomorrow.

Electricity and Survival

2010-09-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

This week has been busy, but strangely calm. We started out the week working on an experiment with lemons and light bulbs. I gave the kids a lemon, a potato, an onion, 2 alligator clips, a zinc and a copper piece, a light bulb from the snap circuits set, and an LED bulb and told them to try to get the light bulb to light up. It was a lot of fun watching them progress from wires everywhere to thinking about circuits, electricity flow, and how to test for problems. In the end we discovered that the LED bulb did not work and they couldn't get anything to light with just lemons as the power source. Zoë was upset and thought the experiment was a failure.

After a great suggestion from Tom, we spent some time the next day making a list of all the things they learned from their trial. They came up with a bunch of great things, and in the end felt much better about not meeting the original challenge. We also had a discussion about watts, amps, volts and ohms. I think we all understand electricity a little better now.

We also started (and in Aiden's case finished) reading "My Side of the Mountain." He loved this book about a boy surviving in the Catskills on his own. We've decided that next week we're going to have our own mini survival trip. I got them both pocket knives (I must be crazy), and they've started making their own fishing hooks that they're going to try to use at Grandma's lake. Everyone agreed that we should have backup dinner plans just in case though. I'm going to teach them how to start a fire and we're going to try to build a shelter. Zoë insists that we set up the tent too.

Everyone's progressing nicely with their math, piano and clarinet for Zoë. I also started a daily writing time. At this point I don't care what they write about, they just need to spend some time every day writing. In the hopes of having Aiden enjoy writing, we're not going to do much editing to his stuff. Instead I'm going to have him edit things that someone else has written and I have altered with mistakes.

Everyone is slowly adjusting to the new way of doing things. I am still struggling with being able to see progression without a list of completed tasks, but I'm starting to come around. It probably helps that I've mentally made my own list of things that we've learned from our challenges. After all, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect the kids to get this if I can't model the behavior!

Our week "off" and met goals

2010-09-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week off, but also a little relaxing. Today we're heading to the Science Center for some fun and tonight Zoë is preforming in a duet night piano recital.

I've spent the week trying to learn the difference between volts, amps and ohms so I can teach it to the kids next week. Thankfully, Tom did some research for me, and I should be able to cover this. I've also planned an experiment for them with no clear directions. The plan is to give them the tools they need, tell them what we're trying to find out, and have them come up with their own method. In the end we're going to write a scientific paper to have the results "published."

I'm definitely struggling with the new learn as you go approach. I keep wanting to have them work on the curriculum because I'm worried they aren't learning enough since I haven't formulated where they should be going ahead of time. Of course that doesn't make any sense, and really I'm struggling with my own need to control things! Hopefully I'll adjust soon.

Aiden finished his ALEKS pie last week a month ahead of his original goal. He's ready to start Algebra I next week. I know I should be excited for him, but really I'm filled with fear. Of course I am proud of him. The amount of work he put in to finish a month ahead of schedule was incredible. It's WHAT he's finishing that makes me so uneasy.

Zoë also finished her 50% math goal a month ahead of schedule. She's also a week ahead of her piano goals. I worry about her because she doesn't seem happy about meeting any of these goals. It's almost like she can't allow herself to feel proud of her accomplishments. Gee I wonder where she gets that?! She has two parents that continuously do the same thing! As long as she isn't expecting perfection, maybe she's just driven.

Literary unit

2010-08-28T20:23:00.001-07:00

The last two weeks we've been doing a literary unit with the Nuehrings. It culminates with an awards ceremony (complete with a red carpet) on Saturday. The kids spent their time learning so many literary techniques. At times it was a little overwhelming, but they all did a great job! I am amazed at all the things they produced and the quality of their work.

As I anticipated, Aiden struggled throughout the week to get his thoughts onto the page. Thanks to an excellent suggestion from one of our favorite teachers, I started taking dictation from him toward the end of the week. I'm thinking that he needs to focus on speeding up his typing, because I could not keep up!

In the beginning, Zoë struggled through the editing phase. After a while she became accustomed to the idea that first drafts are not perfect, and did a great job.

What I was happiest with didn't occur during class though. Every technique they have learned about they have pointed out in their reading. We listen to books on cd all the time in the car and they are constantly saying "oh, listen, that's irony," or "ohhh...that was personification." It's great to see that they can take the things they're learning and see them in the books they enjoy reading. Now my hope is that they will incorporate that into their own writing.

So far both of them are doing really well with the goals they have set. At this point they're both about a month ahead of their math goals, and Zoë is right on target with her piano goals. Everyone's looking forward to actually being at home this week to work on things. The last two weeks have just been crazy! There were several days that we were gone from 9:30-7:30!

Another Time for Reflection

2010-08-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

With most kids returning to a new school year, I find myself spending a lot of time reflecting on our goals for school and learning. After quite a bit of research, thought and discussion we're trying something new again. This ability to change gears is one of the things I love most about homeschooling. We've decided that the kids could stand to have even more autonomy and freedom to learn about things they're interested in learning. So with Google as our inspiration, we're starting our own "20% days."

I've decided that the most important things the kids need to learn are math, writing and other forms of communication, how to set and achieve goals, and music. The later is important for developing mathematical skills, but more importantly for understanding how to master something by working on it every day. I think the other 3 things are obvious. At this age I think the other things they learn can be more interest driven.

I thought that I was providing them autonomy in regards to their learning by giving them a weekly task list. When I actually analyzed this, I discovered that it's really veiled control. So we've changed things quite a bit. Instead of telling them exactly what they need to do for the week, we've sat down and decided completion goals. Then we broke things down into smaller goals and discussed how they would approach those. Their only requirement is to meet the goals that they have set for themselves. My job will be to make certain they're on target.

Today was our first day to discuss these goals, and we haven't finished setting them for everything. We have done math goals for both, and Zoë's piano goals. It was refreshing to hear their ideas, and to see that they are so responsible. They were able to set challenging, but not unobtainable goals. We got out the calendar and made charts for them to keep track of everything. I'm sure this will be a big adjustment, and there will be times that I'll need to lay down the law, but in the end I think they will be better people and feel a strong sense of pride for accomplishing things on their own.

With goals set (or being thought about) for 80% of their work, that leaves the 20% days. Aiden has decided his independent project is going to be the planets. He wants to prepare a newscast/presentation discussing all the planets and the chances of humans being able to colonize each one. This could end up being a huge project that takes us all over the place. I can already see how to incorporate math, science, writing, problem solving, and psychology into just this one idea.

Zoë has decided she wants to learn how to make movies. She is going to turn one of her favorite parts of a book into a screen play, film it, and edit the movie. She'll have to make all the costumes, the sets, the script, and learn how to use editing software. This can also involve the history of film, budgeting, and perhaps some special effects.

If all that change wasn't enough, I've also redone the rewards system. I've been worried lately that having them earn rewards for completing tasks is no different than the things I hate about public school. It's just that the tasks they do are more challenging to them. So instead, we're going to do things the way we run allowance. At the beginning of each week I'll give them 10 chips. They can spend or save them however they want. The bronze, silver, and gold prize system is still in effect, but they're given a base pay now. Bonuses can be possible, but they will be random. Also, no chips may be spent on tech time before 3pm regardless of whether or not they've finished school for the day.

Overall, I'm much happier about these changes. I feel like we're really heading toward my goal of self-actualized people. Of course, I'm sure things will need a little more tweaking as time goes on, but nothing is ever truly mastered. I'm also trying to ignore the fact that the reasonable goals they have set have them finishing all of high school math in the next 4 years.

Prep Week

2010-08-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

This week the kids are busy at camps. Aiden is attending a biodiversity camp at the zoo, and Zoë is taking a pottery class through Craft Alliance. It sounds like they're having a great time at camp and with Nana.

I've spent the last few days going through the 2 foot high pile of filing (no, that's not an exaggeration!), and getting all our paperwork and units ready. Monday I took the day off and did nothing but goof off. I almost decided I didn't have the time to do that, but I'm glad I changed my mind and spent the day for myself.

Next week we're starting a literary unit with the Nuehrings and studying the 50 states. The insane JET schedule starts the following week. I'm sure this schedule is going to mess things up, but we don't have much choice. I'm willing to give it a try at least. Maybe it won't be as bad as I expect. I'll just have to be checking the calendar more often.

Minimalism and Some Personal Insights

2010-08-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

My question for the week is when is minimalism a sign of boredom? This comes from some of the work that has been handed into me this week (really it's been over the course of the summer for most subjects, but this week has been the worst). It has been well below performance level, and I'm not sure how to take it. Does it mean "I'm bored with this stuff", "I need a break from all these expectations", "Hormones are starting to kick in and I don't feel like dealing with authority", or just plain kids pushing boundaries.

I pulled out all my old Psychology books to refresh my memory of child development stages, but there was nothing I hadn't already thought of in them. I've tried to evaluate my feelings about the mediocre work, and I find myself having a hard time separating my abilities as a person/parent/teacher with my expectations for the kids school work. In reality perhaps sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and we all just need a break.

With that thought in mind I haven't changed our schedule for the week. Next week they'll be staying with their Nana and attending camps. I'm sure it will be good for us all to have some time apart. I plan to use the week to prepare for the upcoming semester, and try to figure out some solutions to our monotony. I'm wanting them to be excited about learning, but it's hard when I'm not excited about the material I'm teaching. I keep thinking that it's time to skip the pre-made material and do our own thing, but it scares me to death.

Somehow I need to get over the idea that they're missing something in their education if I plan their units. It seems like every single unit I've planned has been fantastic. They've learned a lot, been very excited about it every day, and we've all had a lot of fun during those times. Perhaps it's not the units that I make up that are impeding their education, but rather my inability to believe in myself as a teacher. I'm not sure which is scarier: the amount of work this could take, or the idea that I might actually be good at something. How's that for some personal insight?!

July update

2010-08-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Last month was extremely busy. I can't believe it's already August and we're getting ready to start back on the school year calendar. We've had several birthdays, trips to the lake, a week long vacation with all of the family, my desktop finally decided it was done working, and Zoë saved enough money to buy herself an iTouch.

During the time in July that we were actually home, Zoë spent her time learning about Greek Mythology and preparing for a Greek Trivia night. I was really proud of her. She read tons of books from the library on the subject and came up with 50 questions in 5 different categories to ask everyone. As her final project we invited friends and family over, divided them into 3 teams and hosted the trivia night. She decided she wanted to serve gyros for dinner, so she helped me make those and planned the whole night. She really did a fantastic job! People's only complaint might have been that the questions were too hard. I think the high score was 19/50!

Last week I heard lots of complaints about Math from her, so I decided to try something a little different. Instead of working on ALEKS for the week, I pulled out the old Saxon books and had her do an assignment every day. After two days of Saxon she decided that ALEKS was much better and the Saxon was just a waste of time. I'm hoping it helped her realize that she's a lot better at math than she gives herself credit for. I have been spending some time doing flashcards with her just to reinforce the basic skills.

Aiden has been diligently working through the end of our curriculum and flying through his ALEKS pie. He's already 80% done with his current level and striving to finish it before summer ends. He seems to be enjoying the new vocabulary assignments we're doing. One of the assignments has you match two different parts of sentences and then write the combined sentence. He told me that he didn't see any reason why he'd need to write the combined sentence. I explained that it was extra practice to help him learn the meaning of the vocabulary words. He told me that he didn't need the extra practice, so I agree to an "experiment" to see if that was true. Of course he was right, he didn't need the extra practice and scored really well on the test at the end of the week. I think he was happy that he was able to present a logical argument to me and I agreed. I want them learning, not just doing busy work.

I'm quickly coming to the realization that next year around this time things are going to be a lot different. I have so much research and planning that I need to do this year. This is the last year I will have a curriculum to work from. I might continue Aiden with the literature component, but Zoë is going to be beyond all of it. It's time to find a high school curriculum and start diving in. Both of them will already be in high school math courses before next year, but Zoë will need it for everything. They both need to focus a little on their writing skills, but they will be doing that over the course of this year. In other words, I'm starting to panic now. I feel completely unprepared for what's ahead. I just keep trying to remind myself that everyone is really unprepared when it comes to parenting. Why should this be any different?

Independent Research

2010-06-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks I've noticed that Zoë has started showing signs of complete disinterest in school. I've been struggling with ideas trying to figure out how to get that spark back. I thought she might be motivated by watching Aiden plow through, but it seems to have the opposite effect. So we're trying something new for a while. I've told her she can do an independent research project. I want her to be able to draw on her strengths and show her what she's capable of doing on her own.

We sat down this morning and started brainstorming ideas of what she wanted to study and how she was going to show me what she had learned. She's decided to do a more in depth study of Greek Mythology. Her goal is to have a "Greek Night" at our house where she will teach everyone what she has learned (and apparently we're all going to have to wear togas). Today she made a worksheet for everyone to do that matches the Hero with the monster they fought. She's also going to have an art project where you create your own monster by combining two things. She has ideas for games, a set of hero trading cards, quizzes, and all kinds of other things.

It was an absolute delight to see her so excited about learning again! She pulled book after book off the stacks at the library and spent most of the day reading. I'm excited for her to have something to do that is just her own. Aiden was a little sad that he doesn't get to do the project too, but she really needs this. We haven't set a date yet for Greek Night, but it will probably be sometime at the end of July or beginning of August.

Since he didn't have any books from the library to read, Aiden kept to his schedule and worked on our explorers unit and a lot of math. He started his new level on Monday and is already 50% complete. My head is spinning at this point! I don't mean he's halfway done with his week of math. I mean in 3 days he has completed half of an entire YEAR'S worth of math. I can only hope that the second half has harder material and he slows his pace a little. Either way it's just more reinforcement that in a few years we're going to have some major schooling issues to sort out.

I'm sure this might sound ridiculous to some, but I'm starting to be scared stiff of the pace that things are going. I never thought about how quickly we would cover required material. They are both so young, and I'm not quite ready to think about what will need to be done pretty soon. This issue is only compounded by the fact that I don't feel like I can even discuss this with many people. Most people view it as bragging (or simply don't believe me), and they have a difficult time realizing that it's actually a problem for us. I don't know what the best solution is. I have a few years before it becomes a major problem, but I can't just pretend it isn't there or keep thinking "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." I can see the bridge ahead now, but I have NO idea what lane I'm supposed to be in!

Ad Camp and a Math Level Complete

2010-06-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

We had a great week learning about the tools advertisers use to get people to want to buy their products. Hopefully none of the children will ever watch a commercial the same way again. At the beginning of the week we asked them if a commercial ever made them angry. They all thought that was an odd question and said no. Yesterday, one of the children made the comment that they thought it was horrible that some school districts were selling advertising space on their buses. Of course we mothers were proud and pointed out that they just expressed anger toward an ad!

Today we wrapped up the week by recording their own commercials. It was great to see the different techniques they used. They all did a fantastic job!

Aiden spent the week either at Ad Camp, playing piano or doing math. He diligently worked hard all week, and last night he finished his level and earned a gold prize. At about 8:30 last night he finished what he thought would be his final assessment only to have 7 objectives put back onto his pie. He was so distraught! We had a discussion about perseverance, and plowing ahead despite difficulties. He took a big breath, and went back to work. By 9:15 he'd finished everything and was doing a happy dance around the kitchen. We're all so proud of him! I am absolutely amazed at how focused he was and all that he accomplished. He learned 30 objectives this week and spent 13 hours doing math according to the report I get emailed weekly.

Twitter and advertising

2010-06-22T13:59:00.001-07:00

This week we're doing a unit on advertising with the kids (including 4 of their friends). They've been learning about the different ways companies try to convince you to buy their products. They've also enjoyed making their own cereal boxes, doing a print ad for the fictitious "Burp Cola", and designing a travel brochure for a place they picked.

The rest of the week will be spent learning about Public Service Announcements, more dissecting of commercials, and culminating in them making and filming their own commercial. Zoë and Haley have already decided that they're going to have their commercial be a PSA about the benefits of home schooling for gifted kids. I can hardly wait to see how that turns out! Aiden is going to do a commercial for the cereal he created called "Super Singers."

Yesterday I finally broke down and got onto Twitter. Tom's been periodically extolling the virtues of it for several months now, and swears that it will be a great tool to connect with other people working with gifted kids. Perhaps once I figure out how it works that will be true! You can follow me at @rcarpenter74 if you're interested.

Rats, Math and Piano

2010-06-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

This week went by very quickly. I was expecting a lot of whining and complaining. As usual the kids surprised me with their desire to accomplish things, and we managed to finish everything with no complaints at all! The literature unit was supposed to take 3 weeks, but we finished it in just one. I was amazed at how far the kids have actually come in the last year with their reading comprehension! Between having to share the piano and the computer for math, they both ended up working on the literature at different times. It was good to hear their own answers to questions instead of the normal Zoë answers and Aiden may or may not add something.

Everyone is nearing the end of their math levels. They're both above 90% completed. Zoë had an assessment early in the week and improved 7% (that's really high for those of you not knowing how to score-- 4% is normal). She was thrilled, and diligently worked the rest of the week. For now I still sit with her while she does math, but I'm hoping that soon she will discover her own confidence and that will no longer be necessary. If only she could see herself as the brilliant young lady that everyone else sees! I'm sure my family is thinking "Hello, kettle" right now. It's funny how your own flaws appear so clearly when you see them in your children.

Aiden only has 22 objectives left to finish before he'll move up to middle school level 2 math. This morning (yeah it's a Saturday) he decided to do a few problems. I had a brilliant idea to help curb his problem with trying to do everything in his head. He was working on finding the area of a trapezoid and was taking forever to do one problem. I told him that we were going to run an experiment. I would time him doing a problem in his head, and then the next problem he had to work out on paper, and we'd see what the difference was. When he does them in his head he ends up making simple math errors and becomes unfocused. He did the first problem and spent over 2.5 minutes working on it only to have the answer wrong. He was very frustrated, but I explained to him that it was actually perfect, because that way we'd only have one thing different in our experiment...the way he was doing the problem (the program makes you complete the problem correctly before you can move on). So he sat down and did the problem, using paper this time, and finished it in less than a minute with the correct answer. He did a total of 3 problems in the amount of time it took him to do 1 in his head INCORRECTLY! He was so excited, and I'm hoping that now he understands for himself why I keep asking him to write things down.

We seem to have also had a breakthrough with piano. Zoë has practiced every single day for about an hour for the past 2 weeks! She's learned how to play her most difficult song, and has started on a new one. In addition, she's taking some extra lessons from Ms. Heather, and has been doing all of the things for that. She has decided that she wants to get 100 practice days in a row. I'm hoping it's a spark of confidence that will only grow! She really plays so beautifully.

Aiden is flying through book 2 material. He already knows the first 2 songs and is over halfway through learning the third. He is CONSTANTLY at the piano. He can't pass a piano without sitting down to play at least one song. It's a blessing and a curse. Nothing like being woken up at 6:30 on a Saturday to him playing. I'm feeling like I might have to make a new rule that he can't play from 10 pm to 7 am, but I really hate to discourage him from practicing.

Right now I'm just trying to enjoy the fact that things are going so smoothly. I think having a vacation really helped everyone refocus their energy. As with everything in life, there is bound to be a valley looming ahead, but for now it's a great ride.

Summer fun

2010-06-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since we all got back from our various vacations, and we're starting to settle back into our rhythm. The kids were able to spend a week with their grandparents in Ohio and went to Niagra Falls. Tom and I relaxed in Jamaica.

Last week we did a Greek mythology unit with the Nuerhings. We had a great time learning about the various gods, deciphering code using the Greek alphabet, summarizing myths, writing a 13th labor for Heracles, and putting together a talk show where the children played the god they had researched. As soon as I get the copy, I'll post it on YouTube and link it here for you to watch. It was a riot.

This week we're reading "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH." It is the literature book that goes with the work unit. We'll have that done by Friday and then have Science Camp next week.

I spent the evenings last week reorganizing some of the cabinets in the kitchen to keep our school supplies. We never seem to be in the basement room anymore, and since everything is going to be on the computer this year, we will never be down there. I think we'll enjoy this set up much more. Now if I could just get through the foot high stack of filing that has compiled, I'll have everything in order. Unfortunately, that will be a weekend/evening project because all of our weeks off this summer will be spent on vacations!

Piano and Simple Machines

2010-05-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. The kids have been learning about simple machines, work and designing their own Rube Goldberg machines. That was A LOT harder than we thought it would be. Fortunately, I was able to talk them out of having 10+ steps. Aiden has decided that he didn't mind making his, but he was never making one with a pulley again. Needless to say there was a lot of frustration. We managed to get them both working, but Aiden's mysteriously stopped working sometime between Friday night and Sunday morning. We were able to catch Zoë's on film.

Friday night was our studio piano recital. It's always exciting to see how all of the students have progressed over the year. On Sunday Aiden had his first solo recital. He has completed Suzuki Book One, and played all of the songs for about 25 friends and family members. We're all very proud of him! He did a great job, and was really excited to play for everyone.

For the next week and a half we're wrapping up end of the school year things and getting ready for vacation. It will be a light couple of weeks.

New Incentive Program

2010-05-03T12:46:00.001-07:00

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the idea of incentives, and internal vs. external motivation. Does providing incentives make for people that are only externally motivated? Is there even such a thing as internal motivation? I've decided that I don't know the answers! I did, however, find an interesting study scientists have been doing with school children in 4 different cities. And I have also decided that people are not intrinsically internally motivated. Even the smallest child will repeat actions if their parents smile at them. Think of the number of people that toil away at work with the only reward being a paycheck.

The study I read is showing that children who are provided small rewards for specific things (like reading a book and taking a short quiz about it) end up getting better grades and higher test scores. This result doesn't happen as often if children are given larger rewards for something as subjective as better grades. Basically, if you don't teach someone how "to get an A," they don't know how to go about doing it. If you want to read the study, it was in a recent issue of Time magazine.

With all of this in mind I've completely revamped our rewards program. First, it's a random reinforcement program combined with accomplishing set goals. Since Pavlov showed us that random reinforcement is the best way to learn something, I had to involve that component. Second, the rewards are in three tiers: bronze, silver, and gold. Bronze rewards are things like a candy bar, $1, an hour of tech time, one book buck (10 = a new book from the bookstore). Silver rewards include a trip to DQ for ice cream, lunch out, 5 book bucks, and pokemon cards. The gold rewards are the best: a reading party, gift certificates, a new video game. I had the kids give me ideas about what the rewards should be, and they helped me put the drawers together where we're keeping everything.

The set accomplishments are things that if done, they will improve in other areas. For example their math skills will improve if they can become quicker with multiplication, so for every 2 hours per week they spend playing our multiplication game or working with the flashcards they can earn a bronze reward. If they listen to their piano music every night they also get a reward.

The random reinforcement can be from anyone, anytime. It's basically the "catch them being good" idea. If they work through their math without complaining or giving up, learn a new song on the piano, have an extra good piano practice, or write an incredible sentence, they might earn a reward. The possibilities are endless.

Everyone is very excited about the new program, and they've both been working very hard with virtually NO whining! Today I was able to give Zoë a reward because she decided to clean out the garage. She was looking for something to do, and asked me (apparently the resident activities director) for ideas. I was busy doing some bookkeeping, and jokingly told her she could clean the garage. Of course her response was an eyeroll and something about looking for something fun to do. After a while I went outside to find that she had all of the stuff out of the garage, and was actually cleaning it! It was fun to tell her she could pick something out of the bronze drawer for being such a big help! They really are great kids, and I could be much better at making sure they know how much we appreciate them. Before now, I think my ideas about internal motivation have gotten in the way of that.

Long overdue update

2010-05-03T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy thinking about our future, planning lessons, and instituting a new incentive system that I didn't realize it has been almost a month since my last post. Of course there was also planning a vacation, interviewing cleaning services, several trips to the vet, etc... Needless to say things are busy.

In two weeks Aiden has his book one piano recital. We've sent out invitations and he's been practicing every day. I've been amazed listening to him practice. He's been able to practice exactly the things he needs to improve. He'll play each hand separate and repeat sections over and over until he gets it right. Apparently, he's extremely motivated for this performance!

We had a wonderful field trip to the zoo last week with the Nuehrings. All the kids talked about how the animals had adapted. They did a great job applying what they've learned and reading the signs about each animal.

Our "fantastic" school district has decided to throw us for a loop starting next year. They've introduced a new schedule that will result in JET not being on one set day of the week. I still haven't decided what we're going to do. I have the schedule through December, but any snow day would change it for the rest of the year. Basically, this schedule change will make it impossible to have any semblance of a normal schedule, and it will be extremely difficult to do anything weekly. Just writing about this is making me angry!! How in the world are children and teachers supposed know if they're coming or going?! This also means we won't be sending Zoë to art next year. It really feels like the last resource our district has for gifted children is being taken away. I might be able to work around it for a semester, but we won't be able to do any other weekly activities!

Next time I'll share my new incentive program. Right now I'm all worked up and need to relax before we start classes in 30 minutes.

Spring Fever

2010-04-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

With the change in seasons, everyone is scrambling to spend more time outside these days. This week was supposed to be our week off, but we traded it for last week off. Afternoons have been spent playing outside with the neighborhood children. It's nice that they're old enough now to run around the neighborhood. Of course that doesn't mean that I don't wonder what they're doing, but I'm trying hard to allow them the freedom they have earned. Oddly enough, growing up is a bigger adjustment than home schooling! There are curricula and state guidelines for education. I'm still looking for that parenting manual for the rest.

Saturday both of the kids participated in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. They did fantastic! I was very proud of all the hard work they put in to prepare for the tournament. They went to extra sparring classes and practiced their form at home all the time. It all payed off, and both of them got either first or second place in all three events. You might be surprised to know that Zoë was the one the got first in sparring. Who knew the little pixie could be so aggressive! Aiden got first in forms. He looked very crisp and powerful.

Soccer season is in full swing. Only Aiden is playing this year. The good thing about that is he's able to play on a team his own age. He seems to be really enjoying it. He scored a goal in the first game, and has been playing very hard.

It seems like right now no one is very interested in school. I've been trying to make sure we aren't doing more than our scheduled time, so they have free time in the afternoons. I decided that since they finished the state requirement for time in February, everything now is just bonus anyway. Plus, with the rate they are flying through the content, it wouldn't hurt them to have some time to just be kids! So on most days we're only spending 3-4 hours doing school instead of our usual 5-6.

Mobile School

2010-03-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

This week we've taken school on the road and have been doing our work at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Thanks to the generosity of Miss Wendy, we even get to practice piano down the street each day. So far it's been a huge success. We get our work done while the grandparents are at work, then we have the evenings to share together. The kids have really enjoyed sharing the things they've learned with new people. Apparently, they're tired of just discussing it over dinner with Dad.

Right now our unit is on animal adaptation. They put on a puppet show last night with puppets they made to discuss how animals adapt to desert and arctic climates. We did an experiment with "blubber" (crisco) to find out how well it protects from cold, and they've learned about different animals that estivate during the summer to stay out of the heat. Yesterday they also used natural resources to build their own model boats, then floated them in the sink and made adjustments as needed. It was a VERY busy day.

This morning I ordered the curriculum for next year. We're trying something new that may enable us to be even more mobile. The company is now offering online curriculum, and the kids thought that would be great. Aiden was thrilled to learn that he could type most of his answers and then print out the worksheets instead of having to hand write everything. I think he'll love that since he can type much faster than he writes, and editing is much easier. Zoe liked the idea that websites will be embedded in the text and easily accessed for more research on topics. Next year is the first year the curriculum is student driven. The lessons are all written with clear directions for the kids to follow, and I can help as much or as little as needed. I'm very interested to see how this works, and a little sad to give up some of the reins to allow them more independence. They sure are growing up fast!

Either way, having our curriculum online might make it easier to be more on the go. Next time I won't have to pack the crate of books and supplies if we want to spend a week studying somewhere else. I'll just need to find a way to cram the piano in the trunk!

New Unit and School on the Move

2010-03-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

This week we've started our last unit for the year on exploration and survival. The next few weeks we'll be studying animal adaptation and reading Abel's Island. So far it seems like a really fun unit. I can't wait for the last part that focuses on simple machines and culminates with making our own Rube Goldberg!

Our piano "experiment" is going really well. In this case it's more of an observation than an experiment with the goal being daily practice. Everyone has discovered that they learn things very quickly when they practice more than 3-4 days a week. Both of them are now progressing quickly through book 1, and we've started planning Aiden's book 1 recital for sometime in May.

On Saturday we pack up our school books and head to Cleveland to spend the week doing school at Grandma and Grandpa's. I'm not looking forward to the 10+ hour drive, but at least we have 3 books on cd to listen to while we travel. If they can manage to get all their work done during the week, we'll be able to do this more often. I don't think it will be an issue because my parents are still working during the week, so they'll be gone all day while we're doing school. I am looking forward to not having all the other things I normally have to do during the week! Maybe that's worth the 10 hour drive.

Pi Day

2010-03-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

We had a great time on Sunday. It was the first time we celebrated Pi day. The kids made invitations that they gave to their grandparents and the neighbors. The party started at 1:59 and was over at 3:14. They thought that was great.

We started out with a brief lesson about Archimedes who discovered pi, how it's an irrational number, and then went into finding out how the number is derived. The kids found 5 different circles, measured their circumference and diameter, then found the ratio of each. Then they found the average ratio for their 5 circles. Both of them were pretty close to pi.

Of course we had to also eat pie! What pi day party would be complete without a slice of pie?! So we took a short break to have some cherry crumb pie. Then they made pi necklaces using ten different colored beads to represent each number 0-9. The necklace started with a special bead representing the 3. Each of the kids went out to 150 digits. So if they start reciting pi to over 100 places, you know how they're doing it!

This week is spring break for everyone. I've spent it so far doing spring cleaning and planning out the rest of the year. We have some great things coming up including a trip to Cleveland, a unit on Greek Mythology, Science Camp, book clubs, and ordering next year's curriculum!

Monet

2010-03-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today we've been spending the morning researching Monet and setting up an outdoor studio so the kids can do some landscape sketches. They're having a great time using light and shadows to draw things in the yard. Zoë even took her lunch with her, just like Monet would have, and ate while she drew.

Last week was our first test of not finishing their task list. Zoë decided that she wasn't going to complete her math, so she spent the weekend with no technology privileges. She did manage to finally sit down and work on it Sunday morning, so at least the work doesn't carry over to this week. I think she thought she could just skip doing it altogether, and was upset to find out that was not an option. Something tells me she won't do that again.

We have a very busy week fitting in the rest of the Europe unit before we head out of town for the weekend. Final projects will need to be completed by Thursday night, and they have a few lessons to finish before they even get to the final projects. It's probably going to be a long week!

This weekend they participated in a piano competition. They had to play 2 songs, one from the Suzuki book and another they just learned by reading. They also both took a theory test after they played. We just got their scores back and they did very well. Both Aiden and Zoë received a superior rating on their playing. Aiden got a superior in theory, while Zoë received an excellent. We're really proud of all the practice they've put in lately. I'm hoping that Zoë's higher score will motivate her to continue practicing well. Aiden is further along in the book, and she sometimes gets discouraged by that.

We're starting to think about planning Aiden's book one piano recital. He only has 2 songs to finish hands together, and he'll be ready. He can't decide if he wants to do the recital at home or a piano store. I'm hoping he picks the piano store! We can't comfortably fit all the people he wants to invite into our living room, plus I think it would seem like a bigger deal if he did it away from home. Hopefully, I can sway him to pick that option.

Off to Europe

2010-03-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

Last week was our week off during which we still practiced piano, had Taekwondo, went to a concert at the symphony, and had culture nights for both of the children's JET classes. Let's just say the week off, didn't feel too "off."

Yesterday we hit the ground running with our Europe unit. We'll only be spending two weeks on the unit, because we're going to fit it all in before Spring Break starts, but they won't have a problem getting it all done.

They'll be reading Charolette of Giverny (a fictional journal about a little girl living for a year around all the Impressionist painters in France in 1892). Zoë is thrilled with the art focus. During spring break we're going to take a trip to the art museum to see all the Impressionist paintings they have.

We had a little difficulty yesterday when both of them were complaining about the work they had to do. It seemed like they were just waiting for me to do it for them. Instead, I had them talk about what they were struggling with and come up with a solution. Aiden was working on finding the longitude and latitude of major cities in Europe. The map we had only had a few longitude and latitude lines and he was angry that he didn't know the numbers exactly and had to estimate them. After talking to him and watching him do the lesson, I realized that it wasn't that he was unable to do the estimations, it was that he was mad that he couldn't be precise. So I had him come up with ways to find the real numbers. He did a google search of maps of Europe, but couldn't find any that were anymore precise than the one he had. Finally he found a site that listed the city's latitude and longitude. Normally, I wouldn't have let him do this because the lesson was to be able to understand how to use the coordinate system, but he understood it completely, and the lesson turned into learning in which countries the major cities are located and how to solve your own problem. Zoë hasn't done this lesson yet. I'm interested to see how she responds to the impreciseness. I'm guessing that it won't bother her.

Quote of the Day

2010-02-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

We've all been excited to watch the 2010 Olympics, and most nights this week we've tuned in to see how the athletes are doing. Last night Aiden told us "I'd like to be in the Olympics someday." After a short pause he told us, "the oldest person is 36. I'm already 7. I better get started now." After we had a discussion about how much practice goes into being an athlete of that caliber, he decided he'd rather watch. Either way it made me giggle.

Final Projects

2010-02-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

This week is final projects week for the units. The kids put together a presentation pretending they were paleontologists needing funding for an expedition. They did a great job explaining fossils, what can be learned from them, and discussing how to test rocks and minerals to discover what kind they are. We had one minor mishap with the computer and a lost file, but they persevered, redid the presentation, and were able to move past the upset.

They both finished Holes last week, and we watched the movie last night. It was fun discussing the differences between the book and the movie. We felt like overall, they did a good job with the movie. Their final project for this is to design a camp that might actually help boys in trouble. It was very interesting to see their extremely different approaches! Aiden decided that if he made things so terrible, the boys would never want to come back, and would stop doing bad things. Zoë felt like most of the boys just needed to have some fun and a structured routine.

The neatest thing about the Holes final project to me was being able to discuss what motivates people to do good. I was able to ask lots of questions about why people choose to make good decisions, and how there are always more than one perspective on stories. I enjoyed watching and listening to Aiden work through his thoughts about the camp he was designing. In the end he decided that he needed a mixture of reward and punishment included in his camp. It was an excellent opportunity to discuss how best to motivate people to make good choices while trying to understand the grayness of perspective. And they thought they were just reading a good book...

Poetry

2010-02-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

After giving Zoë a hard time about writing several acrostic poems during her assignments this week, she came to me with this diddy. I love her sense of humor!

A I am not
Cvery good
Rat acrostic
Opoems.
Severy letter
There, well most
Ievery letter,
Cwhatever.

Pthey never
Omatch. So
Ematch is omatch
Mand and is mand.

Crystals, short stories, and sickness

2010-02-05T08:19:00.000-08:00

This week has flown by. Zoë was sick Monday and still not feeling well on Tuesday, and I was sick Thursday. Somehow we still managed to complete everything on their agendas.

Since Zoë was sick I spent most of the week being able to do lessons separately with the kids. I think Aiden got a lot more out of literature knowing that he couldn't rely upon Zoë's answers to get him through. Either that or his reading comprehension has dramatically improved. I'm guessing it's some of both.

Both of the kids have been excited to write their own short stories, so I've changed our writing assignments to having them work on their stories. Tom has agreed to teach them editing skills. They seem really excited about this.

Another change I'm introducing this week is for Zoë with her math. She has been continuing to struggle with the idea that her math is getting more difficult, but she really has little problem doing it. Lately, she's been spending more time lamenting the problems than actually doing them. So I made an agreement with her that she can either master 5 different types of problems per day or spend an hour doing math (whichever comes first). Yesterday, we finally had a breakthrough and she finished math in 25 minutes.

The beginning of the week we did a rock hunt and then spent time doing tests on each rock to try to figure out what kind they were. The curriculum just had them do the tests and stop there. Aiden was bothered that he didn't actually know what kind of rocks he had, so we went to the library and checked out a field guide and he looked his rocks up. He couldn't understand why anyone would spend all that time doing the tests, and then not know what rocks they really had. Since then he's been reading the field guide and learning all he can about igneous rocks.

Yesterday, despite me having the stomach flu, we managed to complete 6 different science experiments with crystals. Now my kitchen window sill is filled with glasses growing crystals including rock candy. We also got to break open a geode and do some painting with "crystals."

Finally, I knew it was going to happen (though I didn't think this early), but Aiden was working on some math that I could not remember how to do. Fortunately, after one explanation problem it came back to me. He was making a line graph of an algebraic equation and I just couldn't remember how to do that. So together we clicked on explain and after I read it over it came back. Needless to say I have very little reason to remember how to graph things like y = 4x + 2. I know this is just the beginning of these issues, and sooner or later I'm not even going to be able to remember how to do the problems!

Our first year at home

2010-01-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

We are approaching the one year anniversary of pulling the kids out of public school, so I thought it would be a good time to reflect upon all of the things we've done this year. As I started compiling the list I realized why I've felt so busy this past year! We've had so many changes and learned so much.

It took me about 9 months, but I think I've finally been able to place both kids where they need to be for math. We started with second grade books and are now doing ALEKS at the 5th and 6th grade levels. They've learned multiplication, division, long division, factors, greatest common factors, simplifying factors, all kinds of geometry, percentages, algebra, order of operations, all kinds of properties, and probably 100 other things that I can't even remember. The most important thing is that they are learning something new each day, and are able to progress at their own pace.

Through our curriculum we've covered lots of different science and social studies units. The units included ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, American Heroes, states of matter, motion, weight, balance, American Government, magnetism and electricity, forces of nature, Africa, Asia, rocks and minerals and Ben Franklin. They also completed units that I designed on Japan and volcanoes.

I'm also happy with their progress in reading and writing. They've both read 10 books as part of their literature curriculum. This doesn't count the 3 reading parties they've earned, the book clubs we've joined, and the amazing amount of free reading that I don't even count toward our home school hours. Both of the children have dramatically improved their intonation while reading aloud, spelling and vocabulary.

They have also been learning all kinds of things with our electives. They've both learned to type, read and write cursive handwriting, and have started learning Spanish. We've continued with piano lessons and have started taking Taekwondo. Both kids would like to finish Suzuki book one by the end of 2010, and they're both yellow first in Taekwondo. We've also taken countless field trips including a great trip to Philadelphia.

Both of them have been continuously challenged. This was probably the hardest adjustment they had to make. Neither one of them knew how to deal with something they didn't know how to do. They've since learned how to work past the frustration and complete their tasks. I have to say that those are the moments that fill me with the most pride. It is hard to watch them struggle, but it's so rewarding to teach them how to get past that.

During the course of the year we've gone from lessons being completely driven by me, to a weekly task list. This has been a great change! It has taught them time management, organization, and how hard work can pay off. They have never left something unfinished (probably because they aren't willing to pay the consequences of not finishing their list!), and I don't have to motivate them to do their work.

When we originally decided to home school I thought we'd try it for a year and see how things went. Now that the year is up and we're evaluating how things have gone, I couldn't imagine our lives any other way. Zoë has become much more confident in herself and her abilities, and Aiden has learned how to focus.

The past year hasn't always been easy. There have been times that I question my ability to educate them, or wish for some free-time. But as time has gone on those feelings have waned. When I see their excitement while we work on activities I know that we've made the best choice. Our whole lives have become more full and at the same time more relaxed.

I'm excited to see what the next year will bring!

Our week off

2010-01-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

This week we do not have any classes. Of course that doesn't mean they aren't learning things. Aiden has been very focused on finishing the Gregor the Overlander series. He's on the last book now. Zoë has even gotten into the frenzy and is on the second book. And they've both started turning the artroom into their own Underland. They've made characters from the book and hung them all over the room. Now they're waiting for the refrigerator box from their grandparents to complete the process.

Aiden has also started writing his own underland story. He spent Monday and Tuesday developing characters, new animals found there, and beginning to write his story. I've had to spend a little time with him making sure he understands it's not how long a story is that makes it good, but how good the characters and the plot are that make it enjoyable. At first he was very focused on how many words the story would be. Now he's busy giving descriptions of the characters and telling the story. I'm really hoping he finishes this one. He has a habit of starting stories, but never finishing them.

Zoë has been in a creative mood also and has spent the week putting on magic shows (she's gotten MUCH better at these!) and drawing. Everyone in the house has been given a personalized cat drawing that she has made. This morning she's convinced Aiden to help her develop a new level on "Little Big Planet," and they've been quietly working together on the couch creating and testing their game.

I get to spend the rest of the day preparing for the next three weeks and making sure all of my record keeping is up to date. Fortunately, I was finally able to fix my computer, so we'll be ready to do math in different rooms next week. We'll see how that works. Something tells me we're going to have arguments about who gets to use my computer.

Holes and Rocks

2010-01-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

This week we started our geology unit. The kids have had a great time learning about the different kinds of rocks. So far they've studied igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. Their first "lab" was to test 5 different rocks to figure out what kind they were. I remember doing that in college labs! They did streak tests, hardness tests, acid tests, and magnetism tests on each sample. They both did great, and were able to identify all 5 samples correctly (the samples were hematite, magnetite, calcite, quartz, and talc). It worked out really well, because Aiden decided to do more math while Zoë did her experiment. That way they came up with their own answers and did the tests on their own. They did a great job understanding the differences in the types of rocks. Of course I'm thrilled to be teaching this unit. (For those of you that don't know, I actually went to college to become a geological engineer before I decided to switch majors).

Everyone is busy plugging away at their ALEKS math. I'm so proud of Zoë. She is constantly feeling like it's "too hard," but each day she continues to work out the problems. I just keep reminding her that the reason the pie pieces aren't filled in is because there are things she doesn't know how to do, and with most things it seems hard when you don't know how to do things. They both had assessments to complete this week, and they continue to progress through the level. I usually sit in the computer room working on other things while they work on their math, so I'm available to answer questions and keep Aiden focused. I've noticed that lately Aiden has needed very little refocusing, and seldom asks questions. When he does ask a question I can just remind him to click "explain" and he figures it out from their explanation. Zoë prefers to have me read the explanations to her, but gets frustrated with herself so easily. Usually after she's mastered the problem in only 3 examples she realizes that it wasn't that hard, and she actually did well.

So far the only problem we have with math is that all of the computers are in the same place. Aiden likes to think out loud and Zoë needs quiet. So in an effort to fix that problem I moved my computer out into the kitchen. Of course now it isn't working! I've spent the last week trying to diagnose the problem and now I'm waiting on a fan to arrive so I can fix it. Until then we still have lots of "Aiden be quiet!" going on. Next week is our week off, so I should have it ready to go by then (if not, I might take a bat to it!)

We're reading Holes for our literature unit. This week we'll cover the first 12 chapters. Hopefully they'll really like this book. It seems like a good one so far.

Aiden has finally taken a liking to reading. In the last week he's read half of the Gregor the Overlander series. The first book he read in one day. Fortunately, I've read them too, so we've had some great discussions about the books. The other night he had to read a part to me, because he was so excited about it. I was amazed at his ability to read every single word! A few times he would stop to ask me what a word meant, but he could always pronounce them. His intonation and phrasing has really improved as well.

Quilting

2010-01-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

We spent last week busy making "quilts" with the information the kids researched about a few countries in Asia. This weekend we sewed them together and they turned out great. If I get an extra moment, I'll take a picture with them and post it. They each researched six different countries and made a quilt block for each country. They had to write a paragraph about what a person might see if they went to the country, include a picture of a person from there, a map of the country, what a typical house would look like there, and an animal that would be found there. Then we printed them onto t-shirt transfer paper and ironed them onto fabric that we sewed onto a big piece of felt.

Today we cried our way through the end of "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." Then we spent some time talking about war, and why it was important that Americans read a book like this. They also designed and made models of their own peace monuments and researched the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima, Japan that was erected in memory of Sadako. After all that we all decided we liked adventure or comedy books better.

The rest of this week will be spent wrapping up the unit on Asia and Africa. Next week is Geology!! I'm really looking forward to that unit. They'll be doing some of the same things I had to do in college lab classes...testing hardness values, etc. For the literature portion we'll be reading "Holes."

In the car today Aiden told us that he thought learning made more technologies and bigger cultures. When I asked him why he thought that he said, "because if you're studying about one thing, and then you come up with a brilliant idea from something else you know, you could create a whole new thing. That is what makes better technology." He didn't get to the part about bigger cultures, but I'm interested to hear what he means about that too.

Prime factorization and a box of tissues

2010-01-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our first day back to school, and it went much better than I anticipated. Both of the kids were up, showered, fed, and on the computer doing their math by 8 am. I have really been enjoying the ALEKS system. Both of them are more than halfway done with their levels and they just started the program in November. Among other things Aiden is currently working on prime factorization and Zoë is doing common denominators. Of course within the hour that they work on the program they're doing at least 4 different topics, but those were the last things they worked on today. Aiden was especially proud of himself when he solved the equation 35 = 3X - 13. He came running into the kitchen shouting "Mom, mom, look at the algebra I did!"

Right now we are studying Asia and reading the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." I'm thinking they should have included a box of tissues with this literature unit! It's my second time reading the book, and it's not any easier this time around. I've decided that Zoë is so empathetic that it wouldn't be a good idea if she read the book alone. So we sat in front of the fire today and read aloud half of the book. Aiden did a great job and would step in reading whenever I was too choked up to go on. Zoë listened while she knitted, and we all discussed it together. Part of me was tempted to skip this part of the curriculum, but when I evaluated my reasoning for this, I realized it was really just my desire to shield them from bad things, and in the end they would be better served by having an honest discussion about the book and how we felt reading it. So next week we'll have our box of tissues ready, and hopefully make it through the end of the story. I still can't figure out why they would pick this book as part of a gifted curriculum knowing that extreme empathy is often associated with giftedness!

On a completely different note, I heard that Missouri is trying to put forth legislation to allow open enrollment. I'm crossing my fingers that this goes through. One of the districts near us has a gifted school and I would certainly look into having them attend there if we could. In the meantime, I'll do some research into the program and see if we can't write some letters to our representatives urging them to push the legislation through! Once again I'm reminded how stupid it is to base education on arbitrary boundaries and dates of birth instead of abilities. Now if we could just convince people that "athletic prowess" is NOT a legitimate reason to hold kids back from receiving a better education!

Unit Ends

2009-11-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

We spent last week trying out the new math program and doing the final projects for our unit. The kids had a lot of fun making posters explaining the three laws of motion and "catching dreams" for the BFG.

The ALEKS program has been a huge success so far. Both of the kids love the independence it provides and the immediate reinforcement for mastering problems. In four hours of work both of the kids mastered over 30 concepts. That pace scares and amazes me! That's at least 10% of a year's curriculum in 1 week. Apparently, I've been holding them back even the way I'd been teaching math.

It has also been working well to give them a weekly list of tasks to complete. Even though I was sick two days last week, they got everything done without me pestering them.

They're looking forward to the programming class their dad will be teaching Monday and Tuesday. I'm looking forward to taking two days off!

Links for reading and math

2009-11-12T04:41:00.000-08:00

I've found the links that were suggested to me at NAGC. This is for finding age AND level appropriate books. Thank you to our local librarians for helping us locate this site!

The other is an online math program called ALEKS. If you are using it for home school math there are sites that will allow you a one month trial period instead of the 48 hours they give on their site. I'm not endorsing the product, because we have not used it yet. I will write up a review after we have tried it out for a month or so though. Just reading about it has me excited. Let's hope it lives up to my expectations.

NAGC

2009-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

I was very lucky to be able to attend the National Association for Gifted Children's national convention here in St. Louis this weekend. The tone for the day was set by an amazing young woman who performed her poem "Well". I knew from that moment it was going to be a good day. Here's Ms. Phillips reciting her poem at the 2009 MSA. Trust me when I say it's worth a viewing and have your kids watch it too.

I learned several things that were helpful, and reinforced the idea that we're on the right track. I met several people in the gifted field who offered their help and gave me lots of ideas including a new math program to try, and a searchable database for books that use age AND reading level to sort. One of the most interesting things I learned was really something that my intuition had already told me. That is that gifted children for some reason will not retain knowledge that they already know if they're forced to continuously repeat the task. I found this out through math drills I was making the kids do. Aiden (who's strength is math) was getting worse as each day went on while I was making him do fact quizzes. At least I learned quickly, and after about a week of doing the quizzes I stopped. Thanks to Heather's advice we're back to quickly progressing through math and he's doing fine now.

It was also interesting to see that over half of the parents in one of the seminars geared toward highly gifted kids were homeschooling their children. All of the mothers I talked to after the seminar had too much difficulty with schools, and their kids were thriving at home. I also found out that of the parents whose children were either of high school age or older only one of the kids out of about 6 graduated from high school. The rest of them tried a semester, went back to homeschooling, and started college early.

Due to some discussions I had, we're trying something new at home. The kids are going to have a weekly list of tasks that must be accomplished by Friday night. I'm not going to structure the days for them. Instead they can do the things on their list whenever they want. This way if they're enjoying working on the science stuff, they could spend all day with science if they wanted. Zoë has already told me that she's planning to do her math every day so she doesn't end up with 5 math assignments to do on Friday. How great is that! An eight year old who recognizes that math is her least favorite subject and she's better off doing it in small pieces instead of overwhelming herself. That is priceless knowledge!

It was wonderful to be surrounded by over 2500 people who care about educating our most neglected group of children. I feel refreshed, reassured, and armed with new knowledge. Now I just need to find some time to sort through all of the information I got and start saving for some of the amazing summer camps they have at colleges around the country.

Problem Solving

2009-11-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

Friday was our first problem solving day. Four of our other friends from the gifted program were able to join us, and we had a great time. I think the kids learned a lot, and I learned that EVERYTHING they do takes them less time than I anticipate. I started to get worried when 10 minutes into things Zeke and Haley were already done with 3 problems, and the others were on their third. They worked on logic links puzzles, brain teasers, giving directions to a partner to have them build something without looking at it, and discussed a Mars exploration trip and all of its challenges.

They came up with some great ideas to solve some of the issues of a trip to Mars. They wanted to make the astronauts live together in a similar sized area for about two months before the trip to see if they would get along. They couldn't decide if it would be a co-ed exploration, because as Ella pointed out, if they're gone for about 4 years, you could have babies in that time. Heather and I smiled at that. They also decided that they would take 5 astronauts and they should each have a different profession and would then be trained to be an astronauts. If I remember correctly they wanted a doctor, and engineer, 2 scientists (one physicist and one to study the planet), and a pilot.

I enjoyed watching them work on the lego structure assignment. It was very interesting to see how the different pairs worked together. For Zoë and Ella it was so important that they understood each other that they would hold up the piece they were working on and ask the other person if they were putting it in the right spot. I don't know Ella very well, but I can guess that she's a lot like Zoë in that it's very important to her that she gets things right and does what people ask of her. This was different from Haley and Zeke how liked the challenge of seeing if they could build it with just the other person's verbal directions. They were both a little surprised that the other person didn't build exactly what they were told. I didn't even get a chance to see what Aiden and Maddie did, because they were finished too quickly. I could hear Aiden giving some directions as I was walking around the other groups, and he told me that neither one of them were very close in their builds.

After all that we played a space trivia game. I was surprised how much each of them knew about space. All in all, it was a lot of fun, the kids had a good time, and next time I'll need to plan even more things to do!

Projectiles and Giants

2009-11-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

Today we continued with our force and literature units. The kids had a great time testing projectiles (what kid doesn't look for an excuse to throw things!) and learning how to measure angles. They also seem to really be enjoying The BFG.

Math was very slow for Aiden this morning. He seemed like he was getting bored with things. Even though he only had 10 problems to do, it took him over 90 minutes! Hopefully as we get into harder things he'll be more interested. We have a little bit to cover with fractions and common denominators and then he'll move on to the 6th grade book.

Zoë is starting the beginning steps for long division. She asked me today why I keep giving her problems with the square root of 64 in them. I told her as soon as she memorized the answer I'd stop giving her the problems! She's also working on her report on solar energy for jet. It's turning out very good. It's not due until the 13th, but she's determined to finish it on Thursday so she won't have to worry about it anymore.

As a final note I thought I'd share a random quote from Aiden. As we were driving to my Aunt and Uncle's house to have brunch on Sunday he says (from what appears to be nowhere) "you know, I still find it hard to believe that there aren't a google of atoms in the universe. You'd think there would be."

Wrapping up Philly and starting Taekwondo

2009-10-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today we finished our Philly entry into the newly created "Field Trip Scrapbook." The kids did a great job with it! I think this will end up to be a wonderful keepsake. They divided up 13 different topics/places that we went, wrote a paragraph about each place, and found pictures to go on the page. They're excited to show it to their friends tomorrow at bubblegum day and with our family this weekend.

They have also both finished their taekwondo essays. We told them if they wanted to take lessons they would have to write an essay explaining why it was important to them to learn taekwondo. Tom and I were both amazed at the thought they put into the essay, and how well they expressed their ideas. Zoë even researched things on the Internet and provided a short history! I'm going to make them present their essays to the master so he knows how much thought they've already put into wanting to learn the martial art. So now we'll be adding taekwondo lessons to our schedule!

Here's an excerpt from each of their essays:

If I can't do something I'll keep trying. This will teach me perseverance. ... I will try my hardest, follow the rules, and always be respectful.
I will learn self-defense, balance, and self-control by taking taekwondo. ... I will be the best sportsman I can be.

Today was parent teacher conferences with the JET teachers. Of course they had nothing but great things to say about the kids. Aiden's teacher pointed out that she could see a big difference in him since we've started homeschooling. She said that his focus is better, he has more control, and he's become a wonderful leader in the class. Zoë's teacher said that she will tackle any problem, and gets along very well with all of her classmates. We're very proud of both of them!

Philadelphia

2009-10-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

We just got back from our 5 days in Philadelphia. It was a fantastic time! We spent the entire time seeing as many sights as we could fit in. It was wonderful to see some of the things we had been studying about. An incomplete list of the things we saw included The Constitution Center, Independence Hall, The Franklin Institute, The Museum of Natural Sciences, Fireman's Hall, Elfreth's Alley, the Liberty Bell, City Hall, the first public library, the American Philosophical Society, Franklin's grave, the US Mint, City Tavern, and a lot more! Needless to say we're all a little worn out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Nana for making this happen and continuing to spark more ideas. We can't tell you how grateful we are to have her support, help, and ideas! I don't think I could have even thought about homeschooling if it wasn't for my mom.

On the plane ride home I decided that we're going to start a Field Trip Scrapbook (for lack of a better term). Each child will have pages to work on explaining what we did each day and how it fit into our studies. They can include pictures we took, brochures, postcards, pictures they found from the web, or anything else they can think of adding. The key will be at least a paragraph about each place. As they get older there will be more writing assignments. Then I'm going to keep them all in a big book that we'll add to anytime we go on another field trip.

I also decided that next field trip will include some kind of scavenger hunt where they have to find some information. Aiden was notorious for not bothering to read the signs (of course he is 6), but that might help him take his time and look for the information on his own. That will mean a lot more prep work for me before we go, but I think it will help improve the trips. I have this vision of them carrying around a clipboard and writing down facts from each place we go. Don't worry, this is only for field trips, not vacations! No clipboards at Disney World.

I've also started thinking of a list of other places in America we will go over the years. So far I have Mt. Rushmore and the Indian Reservations in the Dakotas to study some Native American history, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone for geology (let's see if I can remember any of that from college!), of course Washington D.C. for American government, Houston for NASA, maybe Boston for the American Revolution, somewhere for the Civil War and some kind of archaeological/paleological dig. The last one will take a bit of looking into, but I'm sure I can find something. If you have any other great ideas, feel free to comment. Guess I better start saving money now!

Philly here we come

2009-10-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Last week was extremely busy. On Monday we were able to go visit Gigi (the kids' great grandmother) and pick pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. The rest of the week was busy with school and lots of rainy weather. We're about halfway finished with The BFG, which everyone is really enjoying. Both kids are progressing quickly in their math studies and several days last week did more than one lesson a day. They're also busy working on an essay about why they want to take Taekwondo. This has to be finished and presented to the Master before we will sign them up.

This week is our week off. Early Wednesday we're heading to Philadelphia for a field trip. The kids have researched all the places they want to go and we're all looking forward to visiting Ben Franklin's hometown! We even get to attend a reception at Constitution Hall and can go to an art exhibit opening if we want. Hopefully, we can fit everything in!

Design Challenge

2009-10-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

We all had a great time at the Design Challenge at the science center. There were lots of other kids there (50-60 per session) from different schools and most of them seemed to be around 10 years old. Aiden and Zoë had no trouble meeting each challenge. They were given a piece of foam track (1/2 of a piece of foam pipe insulation), a cardboard toilet paper roll, masking tape, a tin can, and 2 marbles. The first challenge was to create a ski jump making sure some part of the track was touching the ground. Once the marble landed in the can two times in a row, they could move on to the second challenge. The other challenges were to make a longer "jump", make a track with a loop, and finally to design a track with at least two sets of hills and valleys. We all ran out of time on the last challenge, but they would have finished it if they had a few more minutes. They just got the marble into the can for the first time when time was called.

I got to play the roll of tape dispenser. I refused to help them in any way except giving them pieces of tape, and twice when they were having problems I did say "remember Newton's first law of motion" and they would quickly rearrange things without any other assistance. I was very proud of their teamwork, determination, and ability to use what we've been learning. They really are amazing!

After the challenge we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the science center. We could have spent all day in their new lab doing experiments. If you haven't been to that part, you really should check it out! The experiments are all on touch screen computers with clear directions. Neither of the kids needed help. Aiden created DNA using wheat germ and Zoë solved a crime by figuring out which pen was used to write a ransom note. There were probably six other experiments that they could do, but we were running out of time and hadn't eaten lunch yet!

If I was ever questioning our choice to home school, it's days like that I'm reminded how different the kids are and how they are much better served being at home and learning at their own pace. It seemed like every new thing we did that day opened my eyes to their abilities, how much they've learned, and how I actually make a good teacher for them. Sure, I constantly feel like the house is a mess and I have a giant list of things to do, but overall we are a much happier family now, and that is much more important.

Physics is Fun!

2009-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last week we finished up our unit on magnetism and electricity as well as finished reading Ben and Me. The kids had a great time planning a birthday party for Ben Franklin as their final project for the book. They came up with games to play and each wrote an original song to sing for Ben. Aiden was completely thrilled to get an opportunity to write a song. He ran upstairs to the piano and started picking out a tune while Zoë and I stayed downstairs. Within a few minutes he had the tune written on grand staff paper and came down to write the words! The song starts out "Please help us again, make more contraptions Ben" and goes from there.

Now we're reading The BFG by Dahl and studying force and motion. I signed the kids up for a design contest at the Science Center as part of their SciFest 09. Tomorrow they get to go and design roller coasters and compete against other teams. We're all looking forward to that!

Aiden has decided that physics is his favorite kind of science. He thinks that any science that uses force, energy, motion, matter and lots of math (not to mention roller coasters) is the best thing in the world. I wonder if he's going to change from wanting to be an aeronautical engineer to an astrophysicist soon.

I'm really proud of both of them for working so hard on their math. They've both become very independent while doing their problems each day. All the time I spent picking out problems for them and showing them how to figure out which lesson each problem came from really seems to be paying off, and they seem to like being able to look back and answer their own questions. The key is just making sure we do math first thing in the morning!

I solved our math book issue by finding a used copy online. I wish I thought of doing things like that more often! Of course you run the risk of getting a raw deal, but it worked out perfect this time. The book looks as good a new and I saved about $30.

The Empress of Fall

2009-09-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

We've made another addition to our daily schedule starting this morning. After seeing some research that has been done regarding morning exercise and increased test scores, we've started taking a walk with the dog every morning. Not only does it help to get everyone's brain moving, but it shows the importance of daily exercise, helps the dog out, and seems to put us all in a better mood.

During our walk this morning the kids picked up different colored leaves. When we got home Aiden put his in order from most alive to most dead. Zoë decided she was going to make a crown with hers, so she could be "the empress of fall." She decided queen wasn't grand enough. :) The school bus passed us midway through the walk and we all breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't have to get on board!

Math went a lot better this morning. Everyone worked hard on their problems independently. I was worried that I might have been helping too much, but after seeing the work they did on their own, that isn't the case. A few times they looked back in the book to figure out how to do a problem, which is really the only help I was giving them anyway. The only issue I have now is that I need to buy a second book or have them do math at different times. I really hate to buy a second copy when Aiden will be done with it in about 6 weeks though. Guess I should crunch some numbers and find out if copies are cheaper.

The Magic House

2009-09-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Today for our field trip we went to The Magic House. We had not been there in several years, and I'd forgotten how wonderful that place is! We spent almost four hours (and could have stayed longer) looking at everything. The kids had so much fun they couldn't decide what was their favorite part. I would say it was hands down the best children's museum I've ever been to.

It was a lot of fun to see them using what they've learned and even sharing it with other people. They really enjoyed the magnet and electricity rooms, and it was apparent to me that they have learned a lot from the unit so far. They didn't need any of the explanations that were written to tell me what was happening, and often provided more information than was even given.

Problem solving day

2009-09-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

We've decided that once a month we're going to have problem solving day. I've invited Heather and her kids to join us, and just ordered some books from the Critical Thinking company. The idea came to us Friday night. I was looking through the catalog and they had some sample exercises included that the kids and I were working on. (Yeah, not how most people would spend their Friday nights, but we like it). The book is full of logic based problems requiring lots of different thinking to solve.

I've started gathering different problems the kids will be working on. We're going to do math story problems, logic problems, moral dilemmas, at least one science experiment, and discuss general problem solving tactics. It should be a lot of fun. Our first day is scheduled for October 30th. The kids don't have JET that day because of parent-teacher conferences, so it works out perfectly.

If anyone has any problems they'd like us to work on, send them my way.

Long overdue update

2009-09-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy I haven't had the energy to put anything in writing. Last weekend we had an excellent visit with Tom's Uncle and his family. They were the perfect house guests. One, they didn't stay in the house (they set up their pop up in the yard). And two, it was just nice to have people to communicate with without any expectations of entertainment. They also got to spend a morning with us doing school. The kids had a lot of fun doing experiments with electricity together.

For the past four days I've been mulling over solutions to two roadblocks that we're encountering. First is math. All the workbooks have entirely too much repetition and way too many problems for a six and eight year old to do at their ability level. So I spent all day yesterday going through lesson by lesson picking out specific problems for each child to work on each day for the next three weeks. Also, I made up a game using math facts for us all to play (instead of just boring flash cards). These aren't math facts like 3 x 4 = ?, but are things like "what is the formula used to find the area of a circle" or "what is the least common multiplier of 3 and 5?" The idea came from a fantastic list that Heather sent me, Thanks, Heather! Hopefully, playing this game often will help them with their problems.

Another issue with math is that I feel like they need to be more independent while they're working on their problems. In order to accomplish that I'm going to show them how they figure out where each problem came from in the book. Then they can look back on their own if they don't remember how to do something. After they finish their problems, then I can sit down with them and discuss anything they got wrong.

Our second roadblock is an emotional block. I've known for sometime now that whenever Zoë starts learning something new that she thinks is difficult, like a new math lesson or a new song on the piano, or if she doesn't know the answer to something, she can sometimes shut down completely. She will throw herself onto the floor, hide under a table, and refuse to communicate at all. Aiden occasionally does this too, but it is a more frequent behavior with Zoë.

It breaks my heart when this happens. If I have patience at the time, I can talk them out of it, and get them back to work. The problem is that the more this occurs, the less patience I have dealing with it. It's not their frustration with learning something new that bothers me, it's the inability to communicate what's going on. I simply can't help if they can't tell me what they don't understand or how they're feeling.

I think that this is tied somehow to an idea that they have that people love them because they are "smart." So if they don't know something, that means they aren't that smart and therefore people love them less. Of course that simply isn't true, but if you've spent your entire life hearing from strangers and people you know things like "wow, you're really smart" it starts to be absorbed. I've done a lot of research on this idea, and have been working hard to avoid statements like that, but I cannot control what others say to them. Ultimately, why it happens doesn't matter though. I need to find a way to change the behavior.

So I'm working on ways to avoid the emotional shut down. I talked a little bit with Zoë about it this morning and she had some ideas that we're going to try. I also know that the problem is worse if she's tired or hungry, so we're going to structure the day so that she's doing the things she thinks are the most difficult first. I know this will be a slow process, but we'll get there.

Jam packed short week

2009-09-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was our second reading party day. The kids worked hard to earn all their beads and did several challenge problems to finish out the jar. Everyone read all day, and Aiden spent some time writing scary stories to read around the campfire for this weekend. Wednesday and Thursday were a blur of magnets, electricity, and more Ben Franklin. Friday was another JET day.

This weekend we have some family camping in the yard, and they're going to be able to spend the day with us Monday during school. We're all really excited to share our learning style with others, and help spread the word that there are other ways to educate children that don't involve large institutions.

I'm back to having more math problems. Apparently this subject is just going to give me lots of trouble. Drilling basic math facts is not working. They are bored to tears with it, and I'm losing them. So I'm going to give the Saxon math another try and just go through each day and star certain problems for them to work on. That way I can tailor their needs and forgo unneeded repetition. I'm still wishing there was some magic math fairy that would wave her wand and the perfect curriculum would appear. Maybe when I find that fairy, I'll run into the laundry fairy and make a deal with her too!

Friday already?!

2009-09-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

The week has just whizzed by! We have been so busy with the new curriculum and all the other things we're doing that I've barely had time to breath. I can't believe all that we've gotten done in 5 days.

The kids are really enjoying reading Ben and Me by Robert Lawson. We're getting to discuss historical fiction, Philadelphia and inventing. Several of the lessons have had them invent their own things, which has been a lot of fun. We're really excited to learn that Nana will be taking us with her to Philadelphia next month, so we'll get to see all of the things we're learning about!

Science has revolved around magnets. Several of the experiments we've had to do turned out interesting. A couple of times we didn't like the things they had us do, so the kids worked hard to improve the experiment. One in particular had them try to build a boat that you could move without touching by using a bar of soap and magnets. After discovering that the bar of soap wouldn't float, they came up with using plastic eggs with a magnet inside instead. I loved watching Zoë decide which magnet she was going to use inside the egg. In the end she decided the bar magnet worked best because she pointed out that the poles on it were further apart, so the egg would move and not just flip over trying to attract to the magnet in her hand. Aiden was busy deciding which magnet should be held in the hand to move the "boat." In the end he decided the rare Earth magnets we have are the best since they have the strongest magnetic field.

This weekend is filled with family, the Japanese festival, taekwondo, friends for dinner, and then a reading party on Tuesday. This time Tom has taken off the day from work and will get to join us during the reading party. Everyone's excited, and I'm sure we'll be a the library for a while this weekend getting lots of books.

LONG days

2009-09-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Both yesterday and today have been extremely long days. Despite the length the kids have managed to complete every task without complaint. Not once have I heard "I don't want to do that." In just two days we've done 5 experiments with magnets, learned about Ben Franklin, the 13 colonies, Philadelphia past and present, worked on Spanish, writing, typing, spelling, math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, discussed the idea of force and power both in nature and government, and practiced piano. Zoë has also gone to art and PE. Whew!

I've been impressed with both Aiden and Zoë's ability to think through and use reason while doing their experiments. They could figure out exactly why things weren't working or their data was not the same. They both found ways to figure out which pole was which on their different magnets, and Aiden correctly assumed which materials would conduct magnetic force and which would produce a shield. What's great about that to me is I was completely wrong! Home school certainly is making us all learn things.

My challenge now is to decide if I'm having them do too much, or find some way to decrease the amount of time we're spending in class. Yesterday, we didn't complete everything until 2:30, and today it was after 3:00. That's with very little goof off time in between. Snack and lunch only took 30 minutes total and we started classes at 9:00. That's as long as a public school day, but none of it is wasted time! I guess as long as there is no complaining, I won't change things. It will just make our weeks off that much nicer. Of course it means I have absolutely no free time until about 7:00 pm, but that's probably better than a full time working mother, and I get to spend my time surrounded by people I love not lousy co-workers.

Japanese Night

2009-08-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

Japanese Night was a huge success. Everyone had a great time seeing what the kids have been working on for the past month and trying some new foods. It was fun watching Great Grandma try sushi for the first time. She said that she liked it. The kids both told me this morning that they had so much fun last night. I think they enjoyed being the center of attention and showing off all the things they had learned. If I could just get them to remember the phrase "constitutional monarchy" things would be perfect. For some reason those words have no resonance to an 8 and 6 year old. Go figure!

After hours of unsuccessfully trying to burn our kabuki play onto a cd, I've finally given up and just uploaded it to YouTube. You can watch the short here. At dinner last night they handed out a program that went with the play explaining the true story of the 47 ronin and the differences between a real kabuki performance and their adaptation.

We also had a table full of all the art projects they worked on for the unit including kabuki warrior masks, clay dishes, origami swans, good luck eggs, and their book of haiku. They were able to show everyone their PowerPoint presentations on samurai and Tokyo as well. It really was great to be able to share some of our knowledge and let the family know how hard they've been working.

Tomorrow we hit the pre-made curriculum. I've spent all morning getting that together and into the lesson plan. We'll be starting with magnetism and electricity and reading Ben and Me for science and literature. Piano lessons also start back this week. I have a feeling it's going to be very busy this week, and there will certainly be some adjustment crankiness from all of us. On top of all that I'm taking Taekwondo lessons 3 times a week, and Tom's family is coming into town Friday for a camping weekend in our yard. Yikes!

Our "week off"

2009-08-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that we don't have classes this week, things have been very busy. In addition to Zoë having art and PE yesterday, we also spent all of the time in between working on art projects. Both Aiden and Zoë completed the math challenge problem, and today we visited the art museum. We were all sadly disappointed with the complete lack of art from Japan. They had two small rooms that were supposed to be dedicated to Japan, but several of the pieces were from China and the ones that were from Japan were mostly modern works of art. Although it was all very beautiful, everyone was sad we didn't get to see any older Japanese art (especially no samurai swords or armor). In order to make the trip have some learning involved we spent some time discussing light sources in paintings, Greek and Egyptian mythology, and architectural differences of houses in the late 1800s America. Of course you can't be that close to the loop and not have lunch at Fitz's. So we headed over there for lunch and a root beer float.

Tomorrow we're spending the day filming the play. Hopefully, I can get it all edited and uploaded by Friday afternoon. They've been working on their lines for the last few days, though I'm sure we'll have to stop the camera a few times.

The kids got to meet their JET teachers last night. Aiden will have Mrs. Battle again (hooray!), and Zoë will be in Ms. Kell's class. Everyone's looking forward to returning to JET. Zoë's first unit will be on power (which fits right in with out unit at home), and Aiden will be having a "left brain luau" with science and math. I'm not sure what that will entail since they're not allowed to cover core material in gifted classes in our state, but I guess we'll see. They're both happy to have some friends from Mystery Camp this summer in their classes too! I'm looking forward to having Fridays to catch up on documentation and housework. Well, maybe not looking forward, but the free time will be appreciated.

The flight home

2009-08-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today was technically our last day of the Japanese unit. We have a few things to finish creating next week, and we're going to make a trip to the art museum to see the Japanese art. The kids have certainly learned a lot in the past 3 weeks. They've studied the arts, language, history, geography, and government of Japan. They've also learned about samurai and the shogun era, and have spent the time doing their math with an abacus. They have created a lot of works of art, a kabuki play, and have planned a Japanese meal. Most importantly though, they've had a lot of fun while learning. We're looking forward to sharing everything with the grandparents next weekend.

I get to spend next week preparing for our units. I have lots of new ideas and thoughts on how to address some issues that have popped up, and I'm looking forward to working things out. We're going to be doing math completely different for a little while for one thing. Both kids are at a point now with math that they really need to have mastered the basic facts in order to progress at their capable pace. So I've made charts for each of them and each day we're going to take 4 basic fact quizzes. When they can finish all 400 problems in 20 minutes, we'll go back to using the math books. Until then, though they're capable of doing the work, it's too time consuming and they lose interest quickly. I know that won't be the case when they've mastered the basic facts. Then I bet they'll start flying through stuff.

Kabuki

2009-08-19T12:31:00.001-07:00

This week we've been focusing on Kabuki Theater. We watched some youtube videos of Kabuki productions and learned all about the history, styles, and costumes used. We also made our own Kabuki warrior masks which the kids are going to wear during their play.

They decided they wanted to do a jidai-mono style kabuki play (meaning historical) about the 47 ronin. This was a great idea, and they spent the morning learning about the story of the 47 ronin and writing the script for their play. They have adapted the story, but are going to put the real story in the program they're making to hand out at the show.

I can't believe that we've almost finished our unit on Japan! Next week is supposed to be our week off from classes, but I think we're going to have some art projects to finish in order to have everything ready for Japanese Night. I'm really going to make an effort for this to be the exception though. I think we all really need the week off since they've worked through the summer. Hopefully, it will be easier to maintain 3 weeks on, 1 week off when we're working with the curriculum from MBTP. Of course it's not that weeks off are really off...we'll still have piano, JET, and art and PE for Zoë.

I'm a little concerned about our schedule starting next week, but I'm sure we'll fall into a plan. I just don't think there's anyway we're going to have everything done by noon. They usually end up surprising me at how fast they can finish things though, so maybe I'll be wrong.

Research projects (Aug. 12)

2009-08-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the children started their research projects as well as finished up with our literature part of the unit. Aiden is researching Tokyo, and Zoë chose samurai. They've finished gathering facts over the last two days and will be putting together power point presentations the rest of the week that they can share with their grandparents on Japanese Night.

Also, today they worked on 2 challenge problems. We started a new thing recently where they can earn 10 beads for each correct answer they get to a challenge problem. When I first introduced the idea, they read the problem and decided it was too hard and they didn't want to bother. Of course that defeats the whole point of a challenge! So today I sat down with them and let them slowly work through both problems. I realized it wasn't fair of me to think they would automatically know how to do these, so I showed them some ways to break the problems down and make them easier. They were so proud of themselves when they got the answers and earned 20 beads! Now I need to find new challenge problems. If you're curious this was one of the ones we worked on:

In the following addition problem AB + AB + CC = ABC, the three letters, A, B, and C represent three different digits. If A cannot equal zero, determine the value of each letter.

I got this problem from the math contest webpage. Thanks, Heather, for showing us that!

Haiku and abacuses

2009-08-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

Today we started working on our book of Haiku. The children had fun creating these. Zoë wrote 5 today, and Aiden wrote 2. We're going to put them all together in a nice scrapbook that I bought so we can share them with everyone at the end of our unit.

I also found out Zoë's school schedule today. She's going to be taking art and p.e. at the public school. Art will be on Tuesday mornings and p.e. will be on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It may end up being a lot more running around, but hopefully it will be worth it.

I've finally convinced Aiden to go to school for art and p.e. too. Now I just need to call his school and set that up. Unfortunately, they won't be in the same building because K-2nd is at one school and 3rd-5th is next door. More running around I suppose.

Abacus work is getting easier. Zoë struggled to finish her homework last night, but things went a little smoother this morning. Aiden took a little bit to get the concept of adding, but he's off and running with it now. Tomorrow we're going to learn subtraction.

Trip to Japan

2009-08-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

Today we started our unit on Japan. We have so much to do that I'll be surprised if we can fit it all into one month! We started the day learning how to count to 10 in Japanese, looking at pictures that I took on my trip there many years ago, locating places on a map and learning how to use an abacus. They were surprised to learn that the abacus wasn't just for fun. I bought real ones and they struggled in the beginning to understand that some beads meant one and some meant five. I'm sure by the end of the week, this won't be an issue and I won't hear anymore complaining, but that part of the morning did not go smoothly. I'm pretty sure at one point I said "what, did you think I wasn't going to challenge you to think this whole time?" To which they hung their heads in same and mumbled "no."

We have a lot of things planned for the unit which will end with a Japanese night at our house complete with a kabuki production, haikus, and of course sushi for dinner. They both seemed really excited to start the unit. I'm just happy to be done planning and into the execution stage. Someday, I'd really like to take them there. In the meantime we'll just learn about it and write to our Japanese penpals.

Vacation

2009-07-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

We spent last week visiting my parents in Ohio. The kids got to stay an extra week at the grandparents without their nagging parents, so they won't be back until Monday. Everyone had a great time at Cedar Point for two days, seeing the new Harry Potter movie, and just enjoying time with Grandma and Grandpa. Hopefully, I won't have to do too much deprogramming when they get back.

I've been spending the week doing all those things that pile up in the house and preparing for our August unit on Japan. I've ordered real abacuses (I hope that's the plural) that we're going to learn how to use as part of math. We're also going to study samurai, ninjas, and of course history, language and geography of Japan. I still have a lot of reading and prep work to do, but I'll be ready before August rolls around. I haven't quite decided what their final project will be, but it might include another newscast and a viewing over a traditional Japanese meal with some of the family.

This summer has brought lots of travel for everyone and I've been able to see some of Tom's family that we rarely get to visit with. It has been so wonderful to see the interest that everyone has in what we're doing with the kids. I spent a while last Saturday chatting with Tom's cousin Kristen about homeschooling. It's funny how just having these discussions with people reinforce our decision to home school. When you're in the middle of all the work, it's easy to forget why you chose to be there in the first place. Talking about it with other people is a wonderful reminder, and really seems to re-energize me to continue. Despite the struggles, we really are doing the best thing for their education.

Lots of people have started to volunteer to teach something to the kids. I'm going to have to get together some kind of schedule and make sure this gets done. I think it's a great idea that they're exposed to different teachers. Everyone does things differently, and they need to know how to adapt. My mom is going to teach a course on American Government. Their grandpa Jim wants to teach some geography. Tom will be teaching a course in basic programming and logic skills the week of Thanksgiving. I know I'll certainly enjoy sharing some of the teaching burden! So if you're interested in teaching a class, let me know and we'll work something out.

Lastly, Happy Birthday to our Zoë!!! She's 8 years old today.

More coasters!

2009-07-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

The kids had so much fun doing roller coaster math that I had to come up with more problems for today. I think I'm enjoying it as much as they are. They have a chart with each roller coaster's stats. Part of the lesson was learning how to locate the information they needed. Here was today's lesson: (the numbers for trusses and support beams are made up, but everything else is real)

1. Trusses are used to support roller coaster tracks. If a truss is placed every 10 feet, how many trusses were used to build the Ninja?

2. Each truss has 50 support beams that are used to build the truss. How many support beams were used to build the Ninja?

3. How many more support beams does Evil Knievel have compared to the Ninja?

4. Each car of the Magnum holds 6 people. If there are 6 cars in a train, how many people can ride per train?

5. The Magnum is about 2 minutes long. If there are 3 trains running at once, how many people can ride the Magnum in an hour?

6. Cedar Point is open from 10am to 11pm on Saturdays. How many people could ride the Magnum each Saturday if every train was filled to capacity?

7. Each train on The Corkscrew has six 4 passenger cars. The ride is 2 minutes long and runs 3 trains at a time. How many people can ride the Corkscrew in an hour?

8. Mom and Dad get in the line to ride Top Thrill Dragster. The sign says it is a 90 minute wait from the point they get in line. If it takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to ride the Millennium and 18 minutes to get back on the ride, how many times could Aiden and Grandpa ride the Millennium before Mom and Dad get on Top Thrill Dragster?

9. Zoë and Grandma don’t want to ride either of those roller coasters. Instead they decide to drive the bumper cars. If the bumper cars run for 2 minutes and have a 5 minute wait, how many times could they drive a bumper car while waiting for the others?

I was afraid that these might be too difficult for them, but they did a great job! My favorite part was Zoë made up her own problem for #7. She was reading the problem out loud and added "the ride is not working today, so how many people rode it". We took a snack break at that point, and got a good laugh out of it.

Also, Aiden met his goal of typing 20 words per minute today, so we all met our family goals and earned Guitar Hero World Tour. We spent some time this afternoon rocking out together. Now we need to find some new long term goals and something else to work toward.

Roller coasters on the brain

2009-07-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Last week we took the kids to Six Flags. They had earned their tickets through the read to succeed program at school, and the school was nice enough to save their tickets even though they're no longer enrolled. We had a great time. Both Aiden and Zoë are over 48" tall now, so they were able to ride a lot of the rides. Although Zoë was apprehensive about riding the Ninja, she got on it anyway and had so much fun that we rode it twice. She seems to have a healthy amount of fear.

Aiden is a different story. Frankly, he scares Tom and I to death. He showed absolutely no fear whatsoever. He rode everything he was tall enough for, and was slightly disgruntled that he couldn't ride The Batman. At one point Tom took the kids down the speed slides in the water park while I watched and waited. Zoë chose to ride one of the curvy slides, but Aiden insisted upon waiting for the tallest, straightest slide. I watched all the people coming down the slides and Aiden was by far the youngest and shortest to come down during those 20 minutes. Tom told me later that everyone in line was shocked he wanted to go down and couldn't believe he was only 6.

I think some amount of fear is a good thing. It can stop you from doing stupid things that we shouldn't even be contemplating. It can help us find limits to our abilities. At the same time fear can be limiting. If we're too afraid to try something, we may never know what we're capable of doing. As with most things, problems arise at either extreme. My concern is that so far Aiden seems to be an extreme. I'll be much happier if next week he decides that the Millennium Force (a 310 feet tall, 93 mph, 82 degree drop roller coaster at Cedar Point) is too much for him. Otherwise his lack of fear might be too much for me!

Since all everyone can think about is our upcoming vacation and the trip to Cedar Point, I made up our own story problems for math today using facts about different coasters. The kids had a great time comparing all the different roller coasters and answering the story problems. When we finished class for the day, they headed up to the artroom to draw designs of their own coasters. Zoë said she was designing one that would be three times taller than the Millennium, but she wasn't going to ride it. She would have a team of testers ride it and tell her how it was. I'm hoping Aiden won't be on that team!

Another reading day, please!

2009-06-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

Well, the deck is covered in books, a hammock, pillows and a fort, but I think the reading party is finally coming to an end. The weather couldn't have been better! It was really a great day.

Zoë has just stopped reading for the day (near 5 pm). She took a break for lunch, but otherwise she has been reading non-stop since 7 am. She thinks that she has read over 15 books today. Aiden spent all morning reading, and around 3 he started getting stir crazy. He read 4 books and a bunch of Artemis Fowl. Needless to say I think the Reading Party was a big hit! Now I need to take them back to Barnes and Noble and the library to turn in their reading lists.

It was wonderful to hear one of them giggle to themselves about something they read, then run over to share it with me, or in Zoë's case, hail me from her throne on the hammock. We took a break to grab some lunch from the evil empire (I promised they could have a Happy Meal), and have an afternoon snack, but otherwise we read all day.

The morning started out interesting when we found a surprise resident trying to build a nest in a muffin pan in the drawer under the oven. The rodent perpetrator was promptly set free outside. Good thing they wanted muffins for breakfast, or who knows when I would have found him! He's lucky the snake is still too small, or he would have been breakfast for Diamond instead of relocated. Maybe now the kids will listen to me when I tell them to shut the door behind them.

Reading Party Here We Come

2009-06-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

We finished out our week of eclectic learning. Aiden is back on the typing bandwagon and working hard to learn how to type at 20 wpm. He's certainly frustrated that it isn't something he can learn in one day. It's nice to find a challenge for him.

They're both doing well with their daily writing sessions. They've produced lots of stories, poems, and the beginning of a graphic novel. The hardest thing about it for me is not editing anything. At this point I'm not even making suggestions for improvement. They will get enough of that when we're working on the projects with our curriculum starting in September.

Today after school they realized they were 11 beads away from their reading party. After lunch they asked me if there was anything they could do to earn the rest of the beads so they could have their party on Monday. They decided they would get one bead for each room that they cleaned. Hooray!! As I'm writing this, they have 2 beads left to go. Tomorrow we'll head to the library to get stacks of books for Monday morning. I'm excited for them. They've worked really hard and have both done an excellent job quelling the "I don't know" answers. I think they only lost 2 beads the whole time for using those words. Now I need to find something to read too!

Olio of learning

2009-06-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been rather uneventful. The kids seem to have gotten back into the groove of morning classes quickly, although I have had to explain several times why we're not taking the week off since it's technically our 4th week of school. After I told them we have most of July off, they weren't upset and have worked very hard.

In typical Aiden fashion he's already taken his spelling test for the week. I found some 5th grade spelling lists that they're working on. I was astounded that he quickly learned to spell achieve and acoustics among others.

Zoë has been devouring books. She's finished The Westing Game and is ready for the discussion on Thursday. She reads at the grocery store, as she's eating lunch, and while she's walking around the house. She finished both the library and Barnes and Noble's summer reading programs weeks ago.

They're both learning to read music now, and seem to enjoy that part of piano practice. We've also started a new system where they have to write everyday for 20 minutes. I don't care what they write, and I don't edit any of it, but I spend time telling them what I liked most about the work. I just want them to get used to sitting down everyday to get something on paper. They really took to the idea of setting a timer and we've incorporated that into Spanish, reading and spelling practice too.

They have almost earned their first reading party day. It looks like probably some time next week we'll have our party. They saved the beads they earned during Mystery Camp and yesterday we were going to add them to the jar. Aiden put his in with a sour look on his face and Zoë didn't even want to add hers. I knew right away what they were thinking, but pretended to have no idea why they were upset. Aiden said that he didn't want to use the beads from Mystery Camp because they were smaller than our beads and that would mean that they'd have to earn more before they could get their reading party. Zoë didn't want to add the beads because she was afraid that the next time they were working toward a reading party they would have that many more they'd have to earn. I gave them both an extra bead for thinking and communicating and let them count out the same amount they'd earned from our beads. They were thrilled!

Lizards and Diamond

2009-06-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

After a weekend at my Aunt and Uncle's in Springfield chasing skinks, Aiden decided that he wanted a pet lizard. As soon as we got home, he ran over to Grandma's to try to catch a lizard. Of course the neighborhood kids all thought this was a great idea, and soon there were four of them running around trying to catch a lizard.

As I was sitting out on the deck relaxing from a lack of sleep and a long drive home, the kids come running back with their jar yelling "we caught it, we caught it!" All four of them are talking excitedly at the same time and are so happy with themselves. This is when I discover that "it" isn't a lizard at all. It is a baby king snake. Great...now what do I do. Snakes don't actually bother me, but I'm not sure I want one as a pet. I was okay with a lizard, they eat bugs.

So I try to think of a way out of this without actually saying no. I tell Aiden that he can't just keep a snake in a jar. What do they eat? How big will it get? What do they need to survive? It wouldn't be fair to take a baby snake out of the wild and make it into a pet if you didn't know how to care for it. He says okay and the four kids run inside to the computer room and start doing research. The little boogers come back with all kinds of information! Now I'm stuck. They did the research, they got the habitat ready, and now I have to say it's okay to keep him. My only hope is that when it actually comes to feeding the snake they won't want to do it. It's too small to eat even pinkie mice, so the mice will have to be cut before we feed him.

A few days later we head to the local pet store to buy frozen mice to feed to the snake. I'm trying the whole time not to be squeamish about this. I've dissected frogs and fetal pigs in biology for pete's sake. I should be able to handle a tiny mouse. We tried to feed him that night, but apparently he wasn't hungry. So I told Aiden that if he doesn't eat something by Monday, we'd have to let him go so that he could fend for himself. This was on Wednesday. On Friday we're getting ready to pack the kids up for a week at Nana's. While I'm busy doing laundry and such, Aiden decided to feed the snake on his own. He cut up the mouse and fed the snake all by himself. Maybe I should have acted squeamish about the mice!!

So now we have a pet snake named Diamond that could grow to be 6 feet long and live for 20 years. Sometimes I hate the Internet and the ease of which information can be found!

Mystery Camp

2009-06-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

Last week was Mystery Camp with two other families with highly gifted kids. I can't even describe how fantastic it was to see these six bright young minds at work. When I think about the potential in that room, I am amazed!! It has been so wonderful to have a group of kids together with similar odd senses of humor, amazing reading abilities, and seeing the joy on their faces at being challenged to think. They all worked very hard, and I'm proud of each of them.

I have learned a lot from Mystery Camp too. Of course I've had to learn about the lessons that I taught (Amelia Earhart and the Mary Celeste), but more importantly it was an eye opener. I have never been one to compare my kids to others, but last week, that was difficult. After some thought (and some enlightenment from Tom) I realize why that changed last week. I have never really had anyone to compare them with. They're my only kids, and I assumed that's how all kids were. When they started school, I realized they were different. But they were still so different that it was like comparing apples to oranges. At Mystery Camp I have for the first time been able to see them with other similar children. That wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't wired to see ways toward improvement so clearly (it is after all why I chose to be a therapist).

Like all human beings, we have flaws, or places in our lives that could use some improvement. It wasn't until the middle of the week that I was able to stop looking at the negatives and focus on Zoë and Aiden's strengths. By Friday I had a solid plan of attack to help them make some small improvements, and also was able to see things in perspective. For example, Aiden tended to have a hard time paying attention while people were reading out loud the first day. My first assumption was that he just didn't want to sit still. When I actually talked to him about what was going on, I discovered that the older kids were reading too fast for him to keep up. So once he got lost he just didn't bother to try anymore. After knowing that it was easy to help him keep up and he did much better the rest of the week.

This week they're staying at Nana's and going to Zoo Camp. They're learning about all kinds of different animals and animal conservation. The highlight of the week is Thursday night when they get to spend the night sleeping outside at the zoo. Both of them seem really excited about zoo camp and want to do it again next year.

I've been spending the week getting the house back in order, running errands, preparing for our solstice party, and reading.

Surprise Visit with long lasting effects

2009-06-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

We had a surprise visit today during school time from Tom's uncle John who lives in Chicago. The kids were so excited to show him our classroom and some of the things they had been working on. They pumped his head full of volcano facts and played some piano for him.

It's interesting how one surprise visit can have such an effect. Because he wanted to see what the kids had been up to, they enthusiastically gave him a tour of the classroom. Their obvious excitement made me feel even better about our decision to home school and the job that I've been doing. This feeling gave me more patience during our lessons later that day, and in turn the kids got a lot done and enjoyed working hard. So despite the fact that I was mad at myself for somehow sleeping through my alarm this morning, we had a great day.

Thanks for the visit, John. It made us all smile!

And we're off...

2009-06-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy day. We spent the first part of our morning reviewing all the challenges we have for ourselves during the summer (i.e. summer reading programs, short story contests, piano practice goals, etc.), then introducing the new math system, and lastly discussing our new reading day incentive program. The kids were thrilled to learn about reading day. We spent a while talking about what kinds of things are good behaviors and how they might earn a full jar. Then we talked about those 3 horrible words "I don't know," and how we can avoid saying them and hence losing beads from the jar. They both had excellent ideas and at least twice I saw them working hard to change "I don't know" into something more helpful. They really did a great job today.

Math was a little longer than I hoped. This is one of the issues with having 6 and 7 year olds working from 4th and 5th grade levels. Even after only doing the even problems, they both spent over an hour (Aiden 90 minutes) on their math assignments. I'm sure this will improve, but right now they were doing a lot of new things since I didn't know exactly where to start them in their new curriculum. Zoë was working on reading mixed numbers from a number line and Aiden was working on transformations of geometric figures.

After finishing piano, spelling, Spanish, and writing, we ate lunch and went to the pool. An hour after we got to the pool it started to thunder so we decided to pack up for the day. Hopefully, this is how most of the summer will go (without the rain interruption). Now if I could just get back to getting up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym, everything would be in order!

Our first day

2009-06-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

Today starts the 2009-2010 school year for us. The kids decided that they wanted to attend their public school's Olympics Day. The school was very accommodating, and the kids should enjoy the games and time with their old friends. It was definitely an odd feeling to take them back there, and I certainly don't miss doing that every day!

I'm set to hit the ground running tomorrow with a new math curriculum, the Spanish program loaded onto the computer, spelling lists already entered into spellingcity.com, a year's worth of lesson plans finished, and all kinds of ideas of fun things to do. Since we're doing some work through the summer, we only have to spend 3 hours a day on school things, and can spend the rest of the afternoon at the pool. I've also started a new system where they can earn a reading day and pizza party (thanks to Heather for the great idea!) Hopefully, this will curb some of the antsy behavior and stop them from immediately answering "I don't know" to a question all with the added bonus of being excited to spend the day reading. Of course it's not that I expect them to know the answers every time, but I do expect them to learn to communicate what things they understand, and what route their thinking is going. I'm going to spend some time in the morning talking about this with them and helping them find better answers than "I don't know".

It's looking to be a really fun school year. I'm very excited to see how far they progress.

Our Time Capsule

2009-05-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

We have had a very relaxing and fun weekend. Lots of entertaining and lazy time with or without friends around. Today we're putting everything together for the time capsule and burying it if the weather allows.

The kids did a great job gathering items for the time capsule. We had one problem and lost all of our data while trying to save, but I've found everything again and we're ready to go. They had to find things to represent several different areas of our culture including jobs, homes, entertainment, transportation, food, and something personal. They found pictures of everyone's ipods, found lists of top selling books, music singles, movies, and tv shows to represent entertainment in our culture. For homes they decided to use a blueprint of our house. For food we got a menu from our favorite place to eat (McGurk's), and put in copies of some of our favorite recipes. They also found pictures of the cars we drive, and have all taken a picture by "the Hamlet tree" to include to show how both they and the tree grow over the years. Both the kids had to write a letter to include talking about what was going on in our world now, and make some predictions about what things will be like in the future. Zoë did an excellent job of summarizing many current events such as housing foreclosures, job loss, poor economy, wars. I'm amazed at how much they must pick things up just from having npr on in the car or listening to dinner conversations. Well, that and I really do include them in our conversations and make sure they understand what is being discussed.

Now I just need to work on something to include!

A time for reflection

2009-05-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

Although the kids have JET on Friday, tomorrow is our last day for the year. For the past few days I've been feeling very discouraged about my ability to continue this and if they're actually learning anything. So today I sat down and went over some of the things they have worked on in the last 3 months. Wow, what an amazing feeling that has been! Here's a very small summary of what they've accomplished since Valentine's Day.

Aiden has one more chapter left in the fourth grade math book (which he probably won't have to do because it's measurement, and I doubt he'll score below 90% on the pretest). That means technically he's done 3 years of math in 3 months time. He has read at least 5 chapter books, learned 4 songs hands together on the piano, built countless machines using legos, kinexs, or marble runs, learned about photosynthesis, force, friction, inertia, momentum, done at least 15 science experiments, learned 100s of facts about volcanoes, learned about ancient Greece and Rome, studied WWII and can tell you how the war started, completed 5 beautiful art projects, has asked thousands of questions... The list goes on and on. My fantastic homeschool tracker couldn't even keep track of all the things we've done!

Zoë is only a few chapters behind Aiden in math. I couldn't possibly count the number of books she's read since February (she gets about 6 books a time at the library), studied Ancient Egypt Greece and Rome and the Middle Ages, written several short stories, learned about several famous people including an in depth look at Benjamin Franklin, learned about the California Gold Rush, built dioramas, created her own civilization called "Pixia", written and preformed in several skits/plays, created 100s of craft/art projects, also knows all about volcanoes, made us laugh 100s of times with her witty humor, and really seems to have a much better sense of herself and her abilities.

Not only have we done all of these things and much more, but somehow we've managed to keep the house relatively clean, continue a social life, and had lots of time to just play. Of course we have run head on into several road blocks, but in the end we have navigated around them. I am completely overwhelmed at all we have done when I reread through this post. I'm not even sure why I've been having feelings of doubt. Perhaps it's the perfectionist in me that can always think of one more thing that could be done instead of focusing on all that has already been done!

Overall, I couldn't be happier with their progression. My only real goal for the past 3 months was to undo the negative things they had learned in public school, and get them back to being excited about learning. Even if we had done nothing else, at least I can say we have certainly met my goal of being excited about learning. The rest is really icing on the cake to me. I'm looking forward to seeing what they accomplish for the 2009-2010 school year. Imagine what I can do with them for an entire year!! Anyone know any good math tutors? At this rate I'm going to need one.

Everything can be a learning experience

2009-05-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Somehow last night turned into a giant physics lesson. Don't tell the kids though, they thought they were having fun! We pushed back all the couches and built a giant marble run (16 meters long) in the living room. It included lots of test runs and discussions regarding how to improve the track. In the end we had a working marble run (as long as you used the lighter marble). They pointed out you couldn't use the heavier marble because the force of gravity was stronger on the loop since it weighed more, and that's why it wouldn't complete the circuit. We also spent a little time discussing how the company that made the parts could have improved them. Our biggest complaint was the lack of weight in the bases for the uprights. As you can see from the picture we had to weigh the bases down with books. So if you're ever designing a toy like this, keep that in mind.

Regardless of some of the flaws, we had a great time. Some days it can be completely overwhelming to challenge the children, but then we have nights like last night that remind me why we're doing this in the first place!

Winding down, though LONG winded

2009-05-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to wind down for the year here. Yesterday, we finished the unit on matter and movement culminating in a wordless skit the kids put on showing different forces and balance. They had to come up with 3 different ways to pantomime push, pull, gravity, balance and friction. Two of my favorite parts were Zoë as the human balance with boxes on her hand, and watching Aiden keep track of Zoë eating a balanced diet of pretend food. I just love that given free reign to formulate the skit, Aiden came up with a balanced diet to represent the idea of balance. The kids practiced the skit a couple of times, then preformed it last night for Tom and me.

We're also starting the final project for the unit on change. We've taken the curriculum's idea of a time capsule and expanded on it. Today we spent some time discussing what important parts of our culture we should include in the time capsule. This is going to be a lot of fun, and all four of us are going to put some things in it. My hope is that when the kids are grown, and (hopefully) have their own children, we'll dig it up and look through it. I guess the key will be burying it in a spot we can find in 20+ years!

Today in math we made lists of the steps for multiplying multiple digits (for Zoë) and long division (for Aiden). It dawned on me that these concepts would be easier if we spent some time listing out each step. It did seem to work. Zoë did a great job with her problems overall, she just needs to remember to add anything carried over. Aiden continued to befuddle me by being able to do story problems in his head, but struggling with the mathematically written version. If he's not a visual-spacial learner, then no one is! Either way it was a vast improvement over yesterday's math lesson, and we got donuts for a morning snack to celebrate their hard work.

I've received the samples from Saxon for their middle grades math curriculum. Meh... My initial thoughts are that it is entirely too repetitive for Aiden still, but maybe Zoë would like it. Part of me (the lazy part) wants to just order it and say tough. It would be so much easier to just hand them their book and say "do today's lesson." I just don't think that will work well with children who grasp the big concepts so quickly. I think part of me is scared they might miss something if I don't use a curriculum. Of course the reality is that we are using grade based math workbooks, so I really don't think they'll miss anything. Maybe it's more that I can't wrap my head around the idea that some people don't need to work as hard to learn basic math concepts. Perhaps I've forgotten what I felt like at their age.

Improvement

2009-05-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, no visits to the principal were necessary this week. After laying down the law on Monday, everything has gone smoothly. Tuesday and Wednesday were extremely busy and productive. We've built diorama's from ancient Greece and Rome. Studied Alexander the Great, learned about gladiators and Roman cities, and compared and contrasted Greek and Roman civilizations. We've also studied gravity as a force and friction, and built mobiles with geometric shapes to learn about the center of gravity of different objects.

Aiden is ready to move on to the next math concept of long division. After a little confusion with multiplying 2 digit numbers on the first day, he's learned the ideas and is doing well. Zoë is finishing up her final test and will be ready to start multiplying 2 digit numbers on Monday. They're both moving very quickly through the concepts. Their memorization levels can't keep up with how quickly they master the ideas. I'm guessing after a summer of TimezAttack this won't be an issue though.

Yesterday everyone got to get a fun book to read at the library. The kids spent the afternoon with their books reading in the tree. It was really cute. Zoë is actually reading a fantasy book that I just finished. I can't believe she's able to read it, but we've been having discussions about it, and she doesn't seem to be having any problems (with the exception of pronouncing names, but who doesn't have that problem with the fantasy genre!). Aiden found a series of books by Cornelia Funke that he's enjoying. Oh, and he lost his two front teeth last week!

Missing Patience

2009-05-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but this morning I lost all of my patience. Zoë was in tears and Aiden was hiding under a blanket as I laid into them about their inability to at least pretend they were thinking and paying attention. After a string of "I don't know" answers, jumping on the furniture and flailing limbs, I made everyone sit down in the middle of the floor and laid out some expectations.

I know that I'm over-sensitive to Aiden's "active" lifestyle, but I had just had enough! I told them both if they wanted to continue not thinking or listening they should just sit in public school classes for 7 hours. I know I expect a lot from them, but they are capable of much more. I listened to all of their complaints, helped them find solutions, but in the end told them if they couldn't behave I would start doling out more punishments and taking away rewards. Needless to say, we're all looking forward to the week off at the end of May.

Things weren't all bad. We're spending the afternoon at the library researching Ancient Greece for Aiden, and the Roman Empire for Zoë. We talked about myths and learned about Narcissus and Pandora. We also discussed force and did an experiment throwing objects. In math Aiden has started learning how to multiply 2-digit numbers and Zoë was working on probability. She's about ready to move up to the next math book now.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

More testing

2009-05-01T09:40:00.001-07:00

I'm still stumbling over where to put Aiden for math. He's been spending most of his math time for the last 2 weeks continuously doing tests or pretests. I've been looking through the Saxon stuff again, but this time for the middle grades. I'm going to request a sample and see how that turns out. The younger stuff was entirely too repetitive for either Zoë or Aiden, but maybe they've gotten past that for the middle school grades.

I still have a little bit of lesson planning to do for the next school year, but that's looking good so far. My challenge will be to figure out how to get each of the children to think on their own. Having them do the same curriculum requires a lot less time, but it can cause some lazy thinking. I find it interesting that already if a math question is asked, Zoë won't answer, but if it doesn't involve basic math skills Aiden won't answer. Of course this isn't true every time, but certainly a majority. I have a few ideas to balance this, but I'm sure more will come up as time goes on.

Organizing

2009-04-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

In addition to our normal school days, I've been spending the afternoons organizing things for next year. I've decided to start the 2009-2010 school year on June 1. This will enable us to do 3 weeks on then 1 week off throughout the year, while still meeting Missouri's annual 1000 hours requirement.

Aiden took his final test in math yesterday. We were happy with his 92%, but more importantly I was amazed that he sat still for an entire hour answering all the questions. That's a lot to ask of a 6 year old, but he wanted to keep going. So in less than 2 months, he's done an entire year's worth of math. At this rate by Christmas I'm going to have to find math textbooks and start him on pre-Algebra!

Zoë took her math mid-term yesterday, and also did very well. Today she did 2 1/2 chapters and is well on her way to finishing her book too. She had a little difficulty comparing fractions today, but it clicked for her after a few problems. She was pretty frustrated, but finally worked through it.

Both of the kids are working on balance, force, motion, and friction; as well as researching an ancient civilization. Instead of doing separate lessons, I've just grouped them together and have them both doing the same thing for science/social studies. This seems to work much better.

Learning, learning and more learning!

2009-04-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

I have been so impressed with the kids desire to learn new things recently. Both Zoë and Aiden have taught themselves a new song on the piano this week (Aiden learned 2). Zoë has developed her own civilization called "Pixia." It has it's own alphabet, customs, occupations, etc. They've been having a great time playing in the yard pretending to be in their made up civilization.

Aiden has been diligently working on math pre-tests. We have an arrangement that if he gets 80% or higher on a pre-test, he can skip the chapter. He has yet to be even below 90%. In the last 2 days he's skipped 5 chapters. This was after getting a 93% on the midterm test. He seems much more motivated to continue to progress since I instituted this policy. I still can't believe all the things he already knows how to do!

We had a great time yesterday playing with Haley, Maddie, and Hunter. It's so great to have another family on the same page! Heather is filled with so many great ideas, and she continues to motivate me all the time.

Now if I could just find someone to do all the household chores, things would be perfect (for now anyway)!

Mondays

2009-04-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

Today was a rather difficult day. No one felt like being in the classroom, so I quickly redid our schedule to include some fun. The morning was spent working on math and writing exercises. Then we went to the library to check out books on Earth for Aiden and Ben Franklin for Zoë. The afternoon was spent baking cookies and listening to a litany of facts from Zoë about Ben Franklin. One of the facts was that Franklin became a vegetarian so he could save money to buy more books. Zoë decided that was reason enough to start public libraries.

The cookies were interesting. They came from a mix and were really more about coloring and forming cookies into any shape you want than tasting good. We had ducks, compound volcanoes, flowers, cookies with names on them, umbrellas, etc. After they cooked everyone got to eat one. Of course Aiden picked his volcano to eat since it took up almost half of the pan. After a few bites he said to Zoë, "you want this? These are crap!" They were tasteless, but they had fun making them and messing with mixing colors.

Praise

2009-04-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about the article I posted last and analyzing the praise that the kids get. Fortunately for us, we're believers in the Suzuki method of learning, and the idea of praise is very similar. We find one specific thing to comment on, and one specific thing to improve. This has become a habit with piano practice, but not so much with daily life. So today I really concentrated on applying this idea while we did our school lessons. I was amazed at how quickly it became apparent that this is an extremely successful approach to learning. The kids were both eager to work just a little harder to earn that very specific praise. It certainly takes a lot of energy on my part to do this, but it will be so worth it in the end. Eventually, it might even come as naturally as piano lessons do on some days.

Self-esteem and praise

2009-04-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

I found this very interesting article about praise and gifted children today. The gist of the article is they have found that children will try harder tasks if they are praised for their ability to try something and not for being "smart." It goes further and talks about the relationship between praise and self-esteem. I can't even count the number of times I've told the kids "wow, you're smart" after they've completed something! And after having them at home for 2 months now I was beginning to wonder why sometimes they had a difficult time wanting to try new things. I'm going to have to run our own little experiment at home and see how things improve by just changing the kind of praise they recieve.

Today the kids started art classes. They loved drawing African animals and should finish their projects in a couple more sessions. The morning was very busy with classes, and we got a lot done!

Questions

2009-04-09T10:17:00.001-07:00

After great piano lessons this morning, we spent the rest of school time working on questions for a book club and an interview with Mary. Last night I registered the kids for zoo camp. They're really excited. They'll get to spend a week in June at the zoo learning about the animals and conservation efforts the zoo makes. At the end of the week they spend the night at the zoo. It should be a lot of fun. I've also been researching foreign language classes. They'll probably end up taking Spanish classes through the St. Charles Home school group. They were the only reasonable priced things I've found.

Aiden has gotten excited about math again. I've been having him work through pretests and told him if he got an 80% or higher on the test we'd skip the chapter. It's amazing how motivated it has made him to take his time and get the right answers. So far we've been able to skip 3 chapters. He's going to start working on the division pretest tomorrow. I wouldn't be too surprised if he can skip that one too. Learning to skip things has been the challenge for me. I'm such a task oriented person that I find it difficult to skip things. I've just adjusted my task to be finding him a challenge instead of completing problems. I think everyone is happier with this change. I'm doing the same thing for Zoë too.

Weekend bliss

2009-04-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic weekend. It was extremely busy, but a whole lot of fun. Friday night we spent playing a game with the kids. Saturday was soccer, cleaning, cooking, and then the 5 Browns concert. Before the concert we got to go back to the green room and meet the 5 of them. They were extremely nice. The kids acted nervous, but all of the Browns asked them questions and talked with them about how long they had been playing piano. The show was by far the best classical preformance I've ever seen. It was delightful to see 5 people so excited about what they are doing. They literally ran to their pianos! Before each piece they spoke to the audience about the song, the composer, and how they felt while playing the song. It was very interesting to hear the details.

My favorite part of the evening was the look on the kids face when the encore began. Since we ordered the tickets sometime last fall all the kids talked about was that they hoped they played "Hall of the Mountain King." I had gotten the set lists about a month before the show and knew that they weren't going to be playing their favorite piece. Aiden almost jumped out of his seat giggling after the first two notes of the encore! Yep you guessed it, "Hall of the Mountain King." We sat mesmerized at the speed of their fingers (we were in the 3rd row). Aiden and Zoë were all smiles and mouths agape throughout the song. It was a perfect way to end the show! If you want more details read Tom's blog.

The other interesting thing I discovered (really it's no surprise) is that the Browns were all Homeschooled. There's a nice little video of them talking about their Homeschool experiences on youtube. I'd love to talk with their parents!

Sunday's meal turned out excellent, and we all enjoyed having company over. Then that evening we got to visit with Tom's Grandma and Aunt at his parents house. At one point in the evening GiGi (short for Great Grandma) pulled me to the side to tell me how proud she was of me for working so hard with the kids and how excited she was that we were homeschooling. I was floored! I am so grateful to be surrounded by people that support our decision! We're planning a trip to her house to interview her about the changes she has seen our country and the world go through. She'll be 93 this fall, and I'm sure she has seen some amazing things. It all fits right in with Zoë's unit on change, so we're really excited about it. Plus, who doesn't love a trip to visit their Great Grandma!

This week has been slightly different because the kids had JET on Tuesday instead of Friday. Today they have a math test (it took them 2 days to do the entire chapter). Everyone is either in the middle of or starting final projects for the end of a small unit. Next week they start art classes with a former art teacher out of her home. I'm also looking for a good way to have them start learning a language. Aiden wants to learn Spanish and Zoë wants to learn Russian. Basically, it's the usual whirlwind of activity around here!

Long days

2009-04-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog I intended to make about 3 posts per week. That barely seems plausible at this point. It seems like Fridays are the only days I get a chance to sit down while my brain is still functioning enough to write!

It has been a busy week as usual. On top of schooling I've been trying to get together everything to order for next year, meet with an attorney to make out our will, refinance the house, and try to fit exercise back into my routine. I'm still extremely bitter that about the only time I have to myself is from 5:30-6:30 am! I abhor mornings, but I guess it has to be done.

Aiden is still working on matter. He's also memorizing multiplication tables and created a background for a fictional character. Zoë is wrapping up her literature unit about ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages. We adapted the project in the curriculum to be a movie about some of the differences between now and the Middle Ages. She spent part of the morning working on the storyboard for the movie. Filming should start Monday. She's also doing the character background and multiplication tables.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Heather's house letting the kids play together while Heather and I got the curriculum orders figured out. Aiden and Maddison (5 1/2) played a duet together of Allegro (Aiden's favorite piano song). Maddi was on the violin and Aiden played the piano. The problem was that the songs were in a different key. Although both did a great job playing their parts, together they sounded worse than a horde of dying cats. It was worth the grueling sound to see the excitement on their faces when they finished though. They were both so proud. Zoë and Aiden were happy to see that they have friends who have to practice music too.

Tomorrow starts soccer season and at night we have tickets to see the 5 Browns at Powell Symphony Hall. We get to meet them before the show since we're part of the Suzuki Piano Institute. Apparently, the Browns were Suzuki trained as well. The kids are really looking forward to this. So are Tom and I actually! I think they will like seeing what a group of young people can do on the piano.

Sunday we're hosting dinner for some friends. I've planned a big Italian style dinner complete with homemade focaccia and chocolate cake among 3 other courses. I always enjoy the opportunity to cook for other people, but it is a lot of work! One of these times I'll actually plan something simple instead of these ornate meals that require days of preparation. At least the kids are getting to the age that they can help and not just make a bigger mess of the kitchen.

Insipration

2009-03-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

The kids had a fantastic time in Chicago with their Nana. Aiden bought a Venus flytrap plant, which he has been talking about nonstop since returning home. Unfortunately, the dog found it and wondered what it would taste like. Apparently, the answer is not very good, because we found the plant almost whole on the living room floor. I'm still not sure if it survived being in a dog's mouth, but we're trying desperately to nurse it back to health. Fortunately, Nana found a place to order more carnivorous plants and ordered some. So even if it doesn't live, we'll have some new ones to replace it with.

I spent Friday at the Home school expo. Though the curriculum available to look at and the seminar I went to were worthless for our family, it was still worth the $20 fee to feel some reassurance for the route we're taking. I seem to have stumbled upon the perfect curriculum for the kids on the first try, and I got the feeling that I'm WAY more prepared for educating the kids than some other families.

The other thing that has been fantastic is I've found another family in the area that's homeschooling for the same reasons. Heather and I were actually in Moms club together, but I haven't seen her for years. If it weren't for facebook and this blog, I don't think we would have even discovered we were taking the same route. We have some plans to do some lessons together and maybe even have the kids form their own equations team. Two of her children are virtually the same age as Zoë and Aiden, and they're both in JET as well. What's even better is that Heather is a former teacher, so she's full of fantastic ideas! Thanks, Marnie for calling her to let her know we were homeschooling too!

I've decided that next year I'm going to have the kids do the same curriculum for everything except math. Since they're only 16 months apart, there's no reason I should have to split them apart. Also, I need to have Aiden doing less math problems (or at least fewer of the same kind of problems). His ability to grasp the concepts happens so quickly, and he doesn't need the constant repetition. From now on I'm going to do about 5 problems per page. As long as he gets them all right, he can move on to the next concept. Hopefully, this will address some of his boredom.

Plasma...it's not just a fancy TV

2009-03-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

After much anticipation we spent the day today studying plasma, dark matter and Bose-Einstein condensate. Yeah, I didn't know what they were either!! Leave it to Aiden to ask questions that require a lot of research. He told me that his books kept mentioning plasma, but didn't tell him what it was. This was nothing short of torture to a precocious 6 year old. So after several Science Friday podcasts, wikipedia pages, and google searches, we discovered what the 3 other phases of matter are. Ask Aiden or do the research yourself if you're interested. Maybe we should get him a summer internship at CERN! Honestly, the hardest part was understanding the research enough myself to put it in terms that he would get. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that we have never discussed protons, neutrons and electrons.

Our day also included a trip to the doctors office. Aiden just wasn't getting any better despite the fact that his fever disappeared. Turns out he has strep throat and an ear infection. The doctor told me with a smile "he must have a high tolerance for pain. I bet it runs in the family." He's probably right. All I could think of was 21 hours of labor with a nearly 10 pound baby and no drugs. Some might call that a high pain tolerance!

Zoë has been going stir crazy with no one to play with. She has spent a couple afternoons helping her grandma in the yard just to find something to do. Sometimes I forget how much fun she is to hang out with. Her wit constantly makes me laugh. I'm glad I've had a lot of time this week to spend with just her. Her intelligence is so much more subtle, that it can be easy to forget how brilliant she is!

I was reminded today that we need to do another family newsletter. I'll whip the troops into line and put one together for everyone. There's certainly no shortage of items to include these days!

Is it really only Wednesday?

2009-03-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. This has been a very long week. Aiden has been sick since Sunday (though he's on the mend now) with a fever. I'm guessing he got whatever I had. On Monday I just did lessons with Zoë while Aiden slept on the couch. I haven't been able to get much done in the afternoons since I've been taking care of Aiden (this obviously includes blog posts), and things are starting to pile up around the house. Yesterday, we found out that one of Tom's fraternity brothers, Brian, lost his battle with cancer, so we're dealing with those emotions and scrambling to make arrangements to attend the funeral. The one bright spot is that we've been able to have class outside on the deck all week since the weather has been so great.

School today was very busy. Zoë is starting an experiment to find out what water pollution does to plants. We also pretended to be Native Americans and foraged for food outside, made headdresses to wear and read about the Nashau River. Aiden worked on making an alternative ending to Bartholomew and the Ooblek, made our own ooblek out of cornstarch and water (that stuff is weird!), and tried to decide whether ooblek was a solid or a liquid. It's liquid until you apply pressure to it, then it becomes a solid. Strange stuff!

I managed to lose my mother of the year status by completely forgetting the kids were supposed to go to a homeschool program at the science center yesterday. Somehow the date didn't make it onto my google calendar, and things were so crazy with finding out all the news about Brian that it slipped my mind. They were both really mad at me, but I apologized and told them there was always next month.

This weekend they leave for several days in Chicago with Nana. They have plans to go to the Field museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Addler Planetarium, and the Sears Tower. Nana's going to be exhausted! I plan to take at least one day to do absolutely nothing while they're gone. HA! As if I could possibly lay around and do nothing... Perhaps what I mean is that I'll refuse to do anything that looks like a responsibility. The other three days I'll spend cleaning, organizing and lesson planning.

2009-03-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Things are still going very well with homeschooling. I can't believe how much the children have changed in the last month. The drama, tears and bickering have disappeared. They've been replaced by self-motivated, responsible children! I am so amazed at not only their ability to learn, but how seriously they take it. Since they've been at home only one time have I had to remind them of the time, or chores, or piano practice. These are the same kids that would cry and yell when it was time to start piano, or throw themselves onto the piano bench anytime they made a mistake, or feel sick when it was time to leave for the bus.

Part of me feels really guilty about this. Why didn't we think of this sooner? How much damage has already been done? Was I blind to the problems they were having in school (or maybe just too busy worrying about my sick mom to notice the extent of things)? Then I remember that we were aware. I knew there would be problems before Aiden even started school. We met with teachers, counselors, and the principal the spring before kindergarten began. We had him tested, they moved him up a grade, and he started the gifted program. I asked the school to test Zoë in kindergarten, but they talked me out of it. That I certainly do regret, but in the long run it won't matter. So we were doing things, and I can't beat myself up about not making the choice to homeschool sooner. The fact is we're on the right track now, and maybe we wouldn't even be here if we hadn't tried public school in the first place.

As happy as I am now, I have started to notice that I've slowly been letting myself and my needs be put aside. I need to work a little harder to find some things to do for myself, and not just once a week. I've found that as soon as I start feeling an imbalance in the workload at home, then I need to start doing something for me. I'm sure everyone knows that feeling. It's the thoughts of "why should I put those dishes in the dishwasher? No one else does anything around here!" type of thoughts. It really has nothing to do with other people, and everything to do with needing your own outlet or interests to pursue. So I'm going to start finding those things again and scheduling time for just me.

Where did the week go?!

2009-03-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's already Thursday afternoon. Despite having a terrible head cold for two days, the week really flew by. Yesterday we spent most of our lesson time playing educational games. We all learned how to play senet, an ancient Egyptian game, as well as Totally Gross, and Amuse Amaze. I'm sure someone might roll their eyes at the idea of playing games as part of the curriculum, but it actually worked well. Senet involves a lot of addition and logic skills, and Amuse Amaze requires you to use letters to form words, so they were actually using their brains. Granted, I wouldn't do it everyday, but it was a perfect fit for a teacher with a sinus infection.

Today we learned how to make our own papyrus scrolls. Right now my kitchen counter is covered in drying homemade paper. We talked about how tedious the job was, and the kids thought this was probably the reason there weren't a lot of books around back then. Once the paper is dry, they've decided they're going to use the scrolls to provide clues written in hieroglyphics for a treasure hunt. I guess I should find some "treasures" for them to find.

Monday we've planned a field trip to the Science Center with Dad (hooray!). We're all looking forward to that.

New curriculum

2009-03-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

Today we started working with the prepared curriculum I bought. I can't tell whether I like it or not. It's definately different trying to do more than one thing at a time. The kids are working on different things now, so I'm trying to find the balance between helping each of them. There was a little of "why don't I get to do that" this morning, but otherwise it seemed to go well.

They surprised me this morning by being extremely responsible. The puppy had decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood, so at about 8:45 I went out to find him. It took over 20 minutes, but when I came back both of the kids were on the computer working with their typing program. Zoë said they decided that since I wasn't back yet and it was 9:00, they'd start working on their agendas. WOW!! It's good to know that even if the teacher leaves the room, they continue to work.

I spent a while editing the volcano newscast last night. I've uploaded it to youtube if anyone is interested in viewing it. It's actually really cute. While you watch it, keep in mind that the kids wrote their own script. Each person wrote the part they read. They did all the research, decided what things they should talk about, what order they should be presented, and found all the pictures. A few times I helped Aiden form thoughts into a complete sentence, but otherwise I took dictation (since I can type faster than they can). We're still working on how to do the commercials, and I'll upload them when they're finished (if they even decide to do them).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEQ15Q4I9AI

Aiden is working on a unit on Matter and Movement now. The look on the librarian's face while we were checking out books this afternoon was priceless. Aiden was saying to me "you know mom, there are more than 3 kinds of matter. What about plasma? And isn't there dark matter? Are we going to study those too?" I guess I have some research to do, because although there is a brief sentence in the parent manual about plasma, it's not covered in the curriculum.

Zoë has started a unit on change and cultures. She's studying ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages. She got at least 7 books at the library, and finished reading one in the amount of time it took me to drive to Costco and shop. I guess it's a good thing she has 6 more to read!

I AM good at math!

2009-02-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

If I had a nickel for every time I heard a girl say "I'm not good at math" I would put them all in a bag, tie it to my foot and jump off the nearest bridge. There is nothing worse than hearing those five little words together (okay, there are worse things, but that's not the point). Math is like everything else in life, it requires practice. I'm not saying that some people don't find math easier than others. Some brains are wired that way, but the idea of not being good at math is demoralizing. If you were only filled with the idea that you're not good at something, you'll never do it, and if you don't practice math skills the idea becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sure math may be difficult or challenging, but having the attitude that you're not good at it is harmful.

Today those harmful words escaped the lips of my wonderful daughter. My own daughter! How could she say something so terrible?! She is actually quite good at math. It may not be her strongest subject, but compared to her peers she does excellently. The problem is that she is comparing herself to her brother. This is the brother that capped out the pattern recognition and problem-solving sections on the IQ test. Needless to say math is his strength.

So now I'm having a dilemma. I know that Zoë is capable of doing the math book she has. Things have slowed down for her, and it takes her longer to complete the assignments now (much longer actually), but she does get the concepts. On top of that she has begun trying to avoid doing the math at all. My dilemma is whether I should make her keep plodding along with her current level, or ease her back a little and do some more review stuff. I lean more toward the review idea. She would still be working ahead of her grade level, but could solidify more of the basic mental math computations. If she were stronger with the basic facts, the later stuff would seem easier.

Basically, it all boils back down to trying to find the line between challenging and too much. That is such a difficult line to find. Not only is it different for everyone, but I think it changes with time for all people. One day you're being challenged and the next you feel completely overwhelmed. I will say that I'm proud of myself for recognizing today that she was feeling overwhelmed. We were able to have a nice discussion about it and thought of some solutions that we're going to try.