Cosmic Classroom to the Salmon Forest...

I finally got two very excited children into bed. Halloween is tomorrow, and Lauren has been preoccupied with her costume all day. SHE is dressing herself. I no longer have any influence in that department. The Queen of Blue is her latest costume idea. Works for me, no sewing or fussing for me this year. Just her rummaging around in our Tickle Trunk and putting something blue, sequinny and 'queenly' together. Matthew's costume (Thomas the Tank Engine) is care of the Nu-to-You. I got off easy this year. :)

Homeschooling since my last entry has rocked! We are having more fun, I'm more relaxed and even Matthew is enjoying some of the hands on activities we are doing. I didn't anticipate how excited and thrilled I was going to be watching the kids learn and grow.  Watching their minds expand before your eyes, and getting knocked over by profound and thought-provoking questions! I keep thinking to myself, this is the wonderful thing about homeschooling your children. I can't imagine missing this growth. It is really such an honour to witness. I remember holding Lauren as a newborn wondering what kinds of things she'll like, her passions, our conversations we will have, etc... And here I am now, watching this five-year old blossom into this amazing child.

The nuts and bolts:

Lauren continues to enjoy her school books, and in between our formal sit downs we are doing a ton of hands on activities.

Garden Project:


Last spring, Dave built Lauren a raised garden bed. In April, she picked what she wanted to plant, considering the fact that our garden doesn't get the optimal amount of sun a great veggie garden needs. She planted: peas, sweet peas, carrots, bachelor buttons, and morning glory. She learned how to transplant plants such as wild Lamb's Ear, and transplanted a few of these from our yard. A few strawberry plants as well.
On October 12th, we went out to the garden to do a Fall Clean-up and assess her garden. I asked her to make observations on her garden bed. She noted that bachelor buttons and sweet peas STILL had blossoms! The carrots when pulled were not long, but thick and stubby (but sweet and crunchy!). She discussed next year's plans- beans this time, more carrots, and tulips. She realized her morning glories did not work, or her strawberries and believes it was due to crowding (she's right about that!).  She also observed that the southern tips of all of our garden beds had the best and biggest veggies (especially our kohlrabi crop- a complete failure except a few of the southern most plants). Her hypothesis was because they got more sun. When they grew bigger, they shaded the northern portion of the beds. Cool! She wants to look up shady flowers. Her final comment, was that she was pleased that her garden did well despite not watering it.  I rarely watered it for her, because this was our agreement. Before leaving the garden Lauren decided to conduct an experiment. Can you transplant a carrot? She pulled a few and redug them into the soil. She quickly came to the conclusion that it would not succeed. Leading to our discussion on roots, etc... (see picture below, of freshly planted and labeled garden- April 09).

Workbooks:


Kumon Math pg. 28

• more very simple math. Addition by 1. Kumon books do a ton of repetition exercises. Today Lauren was in no mood for it. Onto something else.

Math Ahead p. 19

• Chapter 3 'Numbers to 20'
• count and write numbers to 20; count forward from 0 to 20 and backward from 10 to 0; and identify odd and even numbers. Lauren found the descending rows more difficult but completed the last two on her own. She was VERY pleased and was able to articulate what exactly she wasn't understanding at the beginning. 
• Lauren faced new concepts in this chapter. Learning to count and write numbers to complete exercises like this "13 is 10 and 3. She seemed to understand the odd/even number concept when she could draw out the number of objects and circle pairs. 
• Chapter 4 'Time'
• Started exploring this chapter. Will pick and choose from it. We began with days of the week and months of the year.  Looked at a calendar, and how it's drawn. The exercises in the book were difficult so we did them together. We still rely on how many more sleeps until... as our units of time. But this was a good intro.
• This chapter ends with intro to the clock and telling time. For another day...

Complete MathSmart pgs. 6-13

• Comparing heights and lengths
• Comparing sizes
• Comparing positions (under, on, left, right, inside, outside, etc.)
• Lauren found all this very easy and tired of it quickly. We moved on.

Basic Phonics Skills- Level B pgs. 21-30

• 'M' sound, and review of 'S', 'B', and 'M' sounds. 
• Exercises such as listening for letter sounds at beginning and ends of words. 100% understanding of these. Even remembered the words 'grass' and 'kiss' end with two s'!

Science Made Easy (Grades K-2) pgs. 8-11

• label body parts, sounds (loud vs. quiet things), identify animal's eyes. One animal, the snail. stumped us all. Where are the eyes? Do they have eyes? Go to the internet and we spent some time learning about snails! Yes, they have eyes, and we read about their body structure, habitat and reproduction. Introduction to hermaphrodites! Lauren was stunned at this bit of info. 

On-line Math Games

• Sheppardsoftware.com has two little games that Lauren had fun playing. An addition game and a subtraction game. Lauren is getting the hang of simple equations, memorizing some, and working out others on her fingers, and sometimes in her head.

Other notes:

• planted edible sprouts in a mason jar. Soaked for 12 hours, then we are watching them sprout. Ready to eat by tomorrow. The kids have watched with mild interest. I still figure it's learning, despite them not being overly excited by it. 
• Our candle-making friend, Laura taught Lauren and I how to make soy candles. Melted soy candle chips then Lauren had to watch the thermometer to achieve the right heat. Then we mixed in pigment chips. We used the thermometer again, to see if the wax reached the right pouring temperature. This may be a good lead in to some further science based lessons. ?

SOLAR SYSTEM! (*cue the music from 2010 Space Odyssey)

Back in September when we sat down to do Lauren's 'Mind Map' I was surprised she had an interest in the solar system. With this in mind, Dave chose a learning book "Planets- A Thematic Unit Book".

I decided to start there, not knowing where to start such a lesson as grand as the cosmos. We flipped through the book, looking for age appropriate activities. Thankfully, it covered the basics (sun, positions, names and desciptions of planets and their moons).

We decided it would be fun to act out the sun and earth's relationship. Me- the sun, Lauren- the Earth. And Matthew was some sort of asteroid running around and between us. I stood still, while Lauren walked around me, all the while rotating. I would yell 'day' when she faced me, and 'night' when not. Then once she made a complete circle around me, we declared one year had passed! Really sunk in.

The work book provoked many questions from the kids. Lauren wanted to know what kind of creatures lived on these planets, and if not why couldn't they? Naturally this lead to a great conversation about Earth, and why it is so special that it supports diverse life. Brainstormed all the conditions needed to sustain life.

We did a little exercise to recreate the surface of the moon, and mercury- both full of craters. Got a plate, and put flour on it. Then let the kids dip their fingers in water and let the droplets fall onto the plate. Craters formed. They experimented with bigger drops of water and from different heights- resulting in different sized craters.

We got a couple of children's space books given to us today. We shall read those over the next little while, and see where our cosmic classroom will take us next!

FIELD TRIPS!

Galey Farm- for a train ride/hay ride/pumpkin patch/corn maze. A fun-filled field trip. Then onto...

Goldstream Park- for a wonderful experience! The Spring Leaves group went to the Nature House and Lauren thoroughly enjoyed the Owlry display. Then we learned about the Salmon Forest and got a tour of one. Later, on our car ride to the ferry, Lauren told her Gramma and Papa all she learned (they stayed in the car with a sleeping Matthew!). I couldn't believe how much she retained and absorbed:  she told us about the salmon's life cycle, the ocean, the estuary, decomposition and bugs, wolves, nitrogen, animal poop fertilizing forests, etc... She got a beautiful lesson in the concept of species inter-connectivity.

 

Funny, but I really felt emotional listening to Lauren recap her Goldstream experience to her grandparents. She learned some big and beautiful things that day. Things that I think changes a kids' world view (in a good way). It has broadened her awareness of the natural world that much more. Our Goldstream tour guide also put an emotional lump in my throat, when she concluded her tour by telling the kids, that it is their job to protect the future of our Salmon Forests, and our planet. Such a heavy burden for such little shoulders. Isn't it?

Signing off for now. Happy Halloween.

One Plus One equals, Phew!

Since our last blog entry, the family is finding our stride. Getting organized and out the door is easier, and moods are better.  The Grenonas are finding their groove again!  This has allowed for more time and space for Lauren and I to focus on her learning.

What is working so far, is Lauren sitting down after breakfast to do some lessons. Lately she has been drawn to picking up her math workbooks.  So we've been sitting down at the table to do math for numerous mornings.

"My Book of Simple Addition (Kumon, ages 4,5,6)" is a great workbook to warm her up. She loves the repetitious exercises. She finds the exercises quite simple,  as a result I am seeing this build confidence.

• Example exercises: Saying and Writing Numbers up to 30; saying numbers while tracing them, fill in the missing numbers, and simple adding by 1 (i.e. 1 + 1= 2, all the way to 30). 
• Lauren has completed these pages with relative ease, makes a few mistakes usually when rushing through, but enjoys crossing out and correcting her answers
• Her number writing itself is still quite awkward, but improving
• most importantly, she seems to enjoy it (Phew!). Somewhere along the way I developed a major dislike for math (which I do NOT communicate to the kids!), so watching her happily explore math makes me happy. Lauren's dad on the other hand, is a very gifted math guy. He just taught me long division, which sadly I had (sort of) forgotten. And, surprising enough, it was FUN! Hey, maybe through watching and teaching the children, I will re-evaluate my dysfunctional relationship with math? :) But enough about me...

"Math Ahead- Grade One"-

• Sorting (Geometry & Spatial Sense): 
• Circle the picture in the group that doesn't belong, sort the items that belong to each group/category (i.e. freezer foods from fridge foods, summer clothes from winter clothes, fish and birds, etc...), and looking at a group of animals and Lauren making her own two categories then sorting. She breezed through this section.
• Patterning (Patterning & Algebra):
• Identify patterns such as shape patterns and colour patterns; 
• Identify and extend patterns; 
• identify patterns described in words and 
• create their own patterns. 
• Lauren had difficulty with the last exercise in this chapter. A series of patterns were started and Lauren was asked to continue the pattern using similar colours. We worked together completing them.

Geometry Blocks/Math Manipulatives-

• Lauren has been enjoying playing with the coloured geometry/pattern blocks. Working on adding and subtracting equations. 
• I just found mathplayground.com. Will check that out for fun on-line math games.

Printing Practice-

• 20 minutes of formal printing practice (lower-case letters) in her dry erase printing book
• Lots of printing practice this week while making Thanksgiving cards and presents, and she wrote another story book. Still prefers to write with upper-case letters.

"Basic Phonics Skills- Level B"

• Completed exercises Beginning and Ending Consonant Sounds of b and s. Lauren demonstrated that she clearly understood these concepts and easily completed exercises.
• Learned about the double s (ss) sound and the sh- sound.  Will do another lesson today to reinforce this concept since this was entirely new to Lauren.

Other activities of note:

• Two great back-to-back Spring Leaves Wednesdays- Beach sculpting and Art. Of course Lauren is at ease in both these environments where she can creatively explore and create. This past class we also traced our shadows on the pavement to watch our shadows shift as the sun moved across the sky. We will likely do this again sometime where I can put more time into the exploration and explanation. This will tie in nicely with Lauren's desire to learn about space, planets, etc...
• We have been exploring the compass direction points both in relation to where Lauren's house faces and on the world map.
• Dave involved the kids in the decision making and planning of the window placement and design in their tree house
• Dave also has taken the kids to his work on numerous occasions lately to visit the Treatment Plant at Currents at Otter Bay. They watch dad operate the system and test and treat the drinking water as well as the swimming pool's water.
• Violin lessons on Monday continue. Lauren is still grooving on them, and likes to practice at home.
• Lots of baking at home. We've been gluten-free for the past two weeks, so Lauren has been helping me to bake gluten-free breads, and muffins. She is learning about various flours, rising agents, etc... And also learning that sometimes baking experiments don't work (she has witnessed me tossing a few loaves of unpalatable 'bread' in the garbage!).
• We are going for morning walks with the dog. Our usual route is through the disc park, then take the trails that branch off from there. I hope to do this rain or shine- it is a GREAT way to start our day and we all come home refreshed and beaming. AND, these walks provide numerous opportunities for learning and discussion about the natural world...
• This week we are winterizing the yard and garden. Lauren has her own garden bed so we will examine what needs to be pulled out, and examine the state of her carrot population. I will take this opportunity to discuss with Lauren her gardening experience overall. What she planted that worked, what didn't grow, how could she improve next year's growth, etc...
• The Montessori mornings are good opportunities for Lauren and Matthew to play and learn with kids of all ages. They have been learning songs, baking, crafting and experiencing good old fashioned playtime under the apple trees. 
• One evening Dave bundled up the kids and went up the hill to the ocean-view lot to look across to Sidney and the various other islands. Across this distance, they could see traffic lights change, and cars driving. They were amazed! They then turned their attention to the starry sky. Lauren and Matthew saw their first satellite. They haven't stopped talking about this evening. What are satellites? And so we are learning about satellites. 
• Finally, last night at my parents for Thanksgiving, my brother, Uncle Mikey, set up the telescope, and set it on Jupiter. The kids still haven't got the hang of looking through telescopes, or binoculars, (an acquired skill I think), but they did see Jupiter with their own eye. This of course fed right into Lauren's fascination with space. This week I shall open up our book on the planets and we will read about Jupiter! 

PHEW! That's it for this update. Thanks for reading. I welcome comments and suggestions by all who read this. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Until next time,

Joanne