Countdown to holiday fun

It is getting harder and harder to get these written, but maybe that is a sign of a good thing...we are too busy!  In this last week we have had play rehearsal, been to the Nutcracker which thoroughly enchanted and thrilled him this year, not the least of which were our surprising up close seats.   Conor attended a play with his best friend on Saturday called "Red Ranger Came Calling", which they both adored, especially when the lead came and sat between their seats.  Conor has been writing every day, letters to his pen pals, in the lesson book we are creating, and a secret book for me he worked on for over an hour yesterday am. He was so into it that he wanted to show me right away but I convinced him to wrap it and save for the big day.  We have also been frantically baking and icing cookies for the play tomorrow, Conor doing all the measuring himself-including some recipes that I had him double and do by himself-a sweet kind of math class!

Let Conor tell you what we have been doing:

This is the second time I have gone to the Nutcracker and this time we were 4 seats from the far right!  This time was much more fun because it made it like 3D, we could see some of the orchestra, we could see back stage, and I understood what was going on better.  One time one of the male dancers was goofing off on the side before he came on, that was funny to see.  The Red Ranger story was very good to watch and now I want to go see the bicycle growing up a tree on Vashon.  In piano lessons I am learning to play the blues and "Jolly Olde Saint Nicolas".  I enjoy piano and find it is getting easier and easier to read music.  I am reallly excited about our play tonight that I am in, "A Big Day for Little Bear".  I play Galen, a wizard, and I get to be on top of a high mountain which is actually stairs up to a platform.  We go on in just a few hours for opening night, two performances! 

We are dropping behind on communicating, being a week of night shifts for me, along with our usual aikido, drama practice and sports classes.  In aikido, Conor successfully passed through his green belt test!  He has been working some months toward this and when he knew he was ready, he was very confident and prepared.  Already he is taking on the new role and the new skills with ease.  He also had a monthly Wilderness Awareness class-a lovely non-rainy day where he learned about many properties of Cedar and many other trees, collected sap, hiked a lot, roasted his lunch apple over the fire and had a great time.   

Conor says, "The best thing I learned this week is about lattice multiplication.  It is a trick I learned (on Khan Academy) to multiply any large number.  First you write out the numbers putting a space between each of the numbers.  Then you draw columns under them.  You draw the number you are multiplying on the side and draw lines out for those.  Then you split each column in diagonal, coming up through the boxes from left to right.  Then you start multiplying from the ones column on the top right, then the tens, hundreds and so on.  If the result is greater than ten, you carry over the ten number to the upper box.  After you have filled up all your diagonal boxes with your multiply results, you start adding the diagonal lines, carry over any tens to the next diagonal up.  Using this tool is very cool, you can multiply any number of any size, even millions!"

Today we are happy and festive from a trip to the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker where we somehow scored, via homeschool friends, fourth row seats.  Conor was just the right age this year, also having seen the story a few times, to really appreciate and enjoy it this year-he says it was "awesome"!

Winter has arrived!

Conor's summary of our last week or two

In drama this week is the last practice week before my play! And  I am also learning about the days of creation  and am doing pictures about each of the seven days along with the words in my best handwriting.  We have been playing "Apples to Apples" which has been great for my vocabulary.  For math I have been doing multiplication and division, lots of mental tricks to do them, practicing my times tables with bean bags.  And today at the new park we went to we found a sundial and I was able to tell the time!  This is also the last 2 weeks of sports class.  The end.

So we have started onto a module of "Old Testament" stories as a historical, language arts, and fine arts experience, starting with the days of creation.  Which is very cool on the heels of the Native American stories of creation, an interesting comparison.  We are making a book of wet on wet paintings of these Thestories so every day we cover a new day painting the scene and then using the best handwriting for the text.  I was entirely amused to see my son correcting the 1600 era English of the text version we were reading, and his handwriting has improved immensely.

In our math, he has become quite scary at mental math, using shortcuts that are faster than ours in multiplication and division.  We still play our bean bag games to get faster at times tables.  We were at the park today and discovered a sundial at this new park-he correctly told me the time and totally confused another dad and I with his explanation of how he got the answer but he was right-even calculating for daylight savings time.  I am pretty sure soon I will be eclipsed by this boy, if not already.





                 

More Native American block

We continue our Native American block this week with a trip to the Duwamish Longhouse with our homeschool clan.  Conor will tell you what we learned: 

"We learned about the totem that was carved and place in a West Seattle lookout park (Belvidere), and more about the tribe and why they are not officially a tribe.  We learned a story, one in particular about the Snake people and the mean man who hurt a snake, that you cannot hurt animals or things without consequences.  We danced and sang a canoe song and made hats.  "

As you can see, the stories have been having the largest impression.  We have not completed any of the craft projects I had hoped to, but stretching our interest in crayon and color.  Here is an illustration of the Owl and Rabbit creation story. 

 And in our math work, we have been rounding out our knowledge about measurement of area and perimeters, square root functions, quotients and remainders.  Since I take advantage of the hired tutor to squeeze in solo shopping I miss the French class fun, but Conor hates to leave and comes home singing and counting en francais.  Piano is still a delight, although we have not been successful at getting out our recorders on a regular basis.  We sorely missed our drama and sports classes last week due to the holiday and await them with great excitement today.  Aikido is always a strong motivator for my son who would attend 4 days/week if we lived closer.  There he progresses in control and discipline, such a joy to watch.  

Sun or rain today, ah the northwest fall!

We have fallen off track with our weather journal, which is too bad since it is the season of change, wait 5 minutes and it will change.  Gorgeous sunny and crisp days, grey and wet days, and many times in the same day!

Meanwhile, we continue in our Native American block still talking much about the people of Cascadia, so there is so much rich information at our fingertips with this new resource:  http://www.peopleofcascadia.com/  We went for stories at the Duwamish longhouse.  Being late in the day, and being followed by a day with too little physical activity and much indoor reading, it did not draw his interest as much as I hoped, but we are back there next week with friends and should have much more fun.

Conor wants to tell you now what he knows about the northwest peoples:

1.i learned that a red cedar would be used for almost anything from baskets and  plankhouses  to diapers and carpets!
2. I learned that a long time ago the Duwamish tribe were forced to lived in bainbridge island 

3.i learned that the back of a longhouse is the royal space


and there you have it

In other news, the other highlight of this week was the science museum, which is always a draw, but particularly when the Harry Potter exhibit is in place.  Oh,that was a hit, from the first steps into the foggy entrance to the gift shop full of expensive wands.  (we resisted, or mom did)  Best new game at the science center:  a live pattern block game where the players since in rolling chairs and have to work together to move the pieces into a prescribed pattern.  A fun game of cooperation and communication, we will be back for that. 

Native American block

Now are into a very fun part of the year, a whole month studying the various first people-stories, culture, art, food, crafts.  We have a few trips coming up to the Duwamish longhouse included.   This week we are reading about the people of the plains and using block crayons to make studies of the grassy plains-and a few leaf rubbings and other fall fun.  It was also fitting that this last Friday was Wilderness Awareness, where the kids came home with great excitement over their firemaking skills.  Sadly for my son, it has been lovely weather and too warm for a fire, that will change too soon!

Conor has also become interested in NaNoWriMo and has set himself a goal of a 1000 word story.  He is already 20% there.  I just set him up with an online journal that he types himself and let him loose. So here is an excerpt:

when i was five i drove to a dog shelter and found a black dog named jack,we let him outside & he was so happy he jumped on my face. then i never looked at him again. yet i still love him, then i met pasco he was laying down and a jug of dirty water lay beside him. "i want him." i said, now he has been with me for three years, but he nearly died when he drank some kind of dirty water. we learned that he was so protective to me that he barked at anyone that came near me,when we took him home and he peed on our armoire was very happy and today (November 2 2010)we went to my mom's appointment, then we went to the nouveau bakery, then we went to the toy store and my mom gave me a book and pencil and told me i could choose five things to have i chose a playmobil dragon's knight playmobil dragon

Boo-tiful fall

The coming holiday is approaching with such excitement for some that it is hard for them to concentrate, but somehow we have managed to focus a bit.  We had our usual Thursday of drama class (they are starting to memorize their lines), followed by an active game of floor hockey in sports class.  After that we tried to do some math work at a local coffeeshop before aikido.  Friends were also there doing schoolwork, and it became full, so soon we were just too distracted.  The library quiet room saved us, and we whipped through a series of 2 and 3 digit multiplication problems with incredible ease.  Homeschool is rarely just at home, and on these days that we have classes on the far north end of town, we learn where most comfortable.  Aikido was also a huge hit, an hour and a half of athletic fun, I think we made it to 3 classes last week, my boy being quite focused on a goal of a green belt soon.

This week we finally started French lessons with an outside teacher over at a friend's house with 2 young friends.  Conor just loved the songs, games and new words.  Not only is he excited to go back, he is actually worried about being able to remember the words until next week.  We also kicked off a new learning module for 4 weeks around the first peoples, starting with the peoples of the rain and mist, aka our own neck of the woods.  We drew some lovely longhouses, Conor being far more attentive to detail than I.

And now for your literary pleasure, a holiday tale from Conor:

The Phantom of Darkness  

It was dark and our house was next to a deep dark wood. Many had entered and none had ever returned.  Last night we heard a long, low moan that surrounded our house like a fog.  When I went to bed I heard it again. I thought to seek it to slaughter it.  I got dressed and got my sword and brought my faithful dog, Pasco, with me.  Suddenly a thing jumped out of the trees and Pasco did a super bark.  The monster fell back stunned.  One of the shapes of darkness was coming out of the trees.  Then Pasco took the leash and did zoom-zoom!  The monsters fell down cut in half.  Hooray for Pasco!  "Oy! Be careful with that thing, it's sharp!", said a voice near the ground.  I looked down in surprise and saw an old gnome near the ground, Pasco's paws near him.  "Stop!", I said.  Pasco halted immediately and waited my next command.  "Stop swinging that sword around, you'll cut someone's head off!  We were just coming to meet our new neighbors", said the gnome.  It was a crazy night!  Pasco waited obediently for his treat that would come at any moment.  I gave him a wild salmon treat, his favorite, and walked the gnomes to the house.  I showed the gnomes around, we had tea, and we all were friends from that moment on.  All thanks to Pasco!

Boy and his dog from "Dogoween" costume contest.

Fall continues...

First an intro from our star, typed himself:

This is Conor here to tell you about my week! The first thing I'll tell you is about my recorder. I learned how to play a few days ago, the song I learned to play was called Hot cross buns, the second thing I will tell you is roman numerals I learned them a day ago and now I am doing multiplication with them! Then there's northwest trek, they told me that only the carnivores are in cages. 

Back to mom, fall was a great time to visit Northwest Trek-all the animals of the Northwest right up close.   Even the grizzly was pretty active, and the bison were close enough to touch, except that our group was very good about keeping their hands inside the tram that lets you be the watcher in the animals habitat.  We had a lovely fall drive down, walk in the woods, and learned many new things about these gorgeous creatures.   

Conor really loved a solid 2 weeks of math focus on measurement and multiplication, and actually complained a bit Monday when we started a weeks's focus on weather.  Of course, that quieted down when we started in on hurricanes, typhoons, and twisters, which he reported on in his journal.  He is still very jazzed about math and my planned short lesson on Roman Numerals I-10 turned into an evening of fun where he and his dad pretty much had them all down up into the thousands.  And funny how much more fun addition and subtraction is with roman numerals. 

I didn't realize how much he would get into the recorder either, we whizzed through the basics and he has a repertoire of 3 songs.   He already has musical theory down pat from piano, in fact, is game to try out any new sheet music first on the piano.  Pasco, our mutt, was not a fan of our new instrument and lay moaning in pain for part of the lesson until he was kicked outside-it really was not that bad, just a few squawks!   

Along the way I worked the weekend while the boys did aikido, went to a harvest party, went to the zoo, and today we finally got more of the garden cleaned up for fall, with only part of the harvest of tomatillos and carrots brought in.  Which reminds me, my boy has grated his carrots (from his garden bed, no less), so I am off to make muffins!

Math, math, math

We focused on math this week, and it was surprisingly fun! First we continued our measurement theme.  Once we reviewed and tested the liquid measures in the house, we found this adorable story of magic and measurement quickly converted the recipe like it was a secret code.  Sadly, we never did get around to making the brownies since this was one of our outside classes days.  Conor has continued playing Timez Attacks and gaining speed and accuracy with his times tables.  And he has conquered multiplication of 2 and more digit numbers, which he is rather proud of.  Tonight out at dinner alone, he was getting rather good at doing them in his head.  I don't recall getting math this easily and quickly.

Monday we joined in with some of our neighbors and planted our traffic circle.  If only we had this much enthusiasm about our own yard work!  Either Comcast or google or all of the above is making things miserably slow or I would post a pic, next week!

Conor says:  "I learned a new way how to solve multiplication of 3 and 4 digit problems this week.  It is fun and easy!  I like practicing it, especially at getting faster at solving in my head.  I love my new sports class I started last week, we even went outside and played kickball and kickball.  The wind would catch the ball and put it opposite of where you sent it.  In aikido I am working on my next belt, aikido, which I hope to do next week."

Back to our rhythm

We are back after a week away in Michigan, sadly to say goodbye to my dearest maternal grandma. She was one of my best teachers, both in life and in knowledge. It was a long, difficult week but important and memorable to us both.  While it was a week off from formal work, Conor spent a great deal of time working on an idea for an instant transporter that would take us from Seattle to Michigan in minutes.  He says "it may take me until I am 40 to work out all the problems.  I just need to solve how to break the people into their atoms and put them back together on the other side. "  That lead to a trip for urgently needed study materials from the bookstore, a science dictionary and a book about technology, both of which Conor has been studying quite intently all that evening and our travel day back.  


We have kicked off a measurement theme, yesterday using our bodies as rulers, measuring various parts of our bodies and diagramming them.  We noted that horses are still measured by hands and that a yard was the length of a stride.  Conor then measured the width of our property with large strides.  We multiplied his strides by 3 and then noted that number.  Then we measured by tape measure and found that he was off by less than 2 feet!  Today we brought out the liquid measurements first guessing and then testing our approximations.     

The rest of the afternoon was taken up by an exciting chemistry lesson about the properties of atoms.  We took water of varying temperatures and observed the rate of diffusion of each, creating first an hypothesis which was quickly confirmed.  While we were waiting for the final time interval measurements we also discussed the parts of an atom.  Which turned out to be total review for my studious boy.  


Writing is coming more and more willingly and easily.  Our daily weather journal fell by the wayside on our trip, but  back into it today.  In other math review, Conor is getting faster and quicker at his times tables with Timez Attacks.  Overall, it has been a bit sluggish trying to get back to a rhythm, but looking forward to seeing our friends again in drama and sports class tomorrow to be truly back in the swing.  

More farming and fall fun

We just had such a huge breakthrough today that brought tears to my eyes.  My husband and I tend to read through all the philosophies on learning and pick out from that what fits or resonates.  We tend to be fairly unstructured in our home and agree with Holt "... the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we are good at it; we don't need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it."  But at the same time both my husband and I have experienced that without some guidance we tend to get overwhelmed with choices, discouraged by the difficulties finding focus when the path is unlimited.  My independent 4th year college French was fun, but I was frustrated that I really didn't progress much with it.  So we try to have a blend of structure and choice.  We plan our schedule-which is also determined by my part time work-but we roll with changes or with sudden inspirations.  This year I chose a Waldorf curriculum that gives me an outline that fits where our boy is developmentally and interest-wise, but we are not limited by that at all.  Do know, dear reader, that this is what works for us now and may not for you and yours,. What I hate most about many parenting trends is the need to insist that there is one-size fits all, and to waste negative energy criticizing another's paths smacks to me of insecurity about your own.  I come from a long line of teachers and respect their work, and am thankful for all those that help teach my son.  But I did feel a further vindication and happiness this week knowing that what we are doing, imperfect as we may be at times in our process, is working despite us as my son conquered one of his greatest challenges, writing. 


We have had things run pretty easy for us with most subjects, math, history, science.  We do math in lots of ways, books  some of the time, more often in games, measurements (cooking, building), observation, and he grasps concepts easily ahead of what I remember doing.  Reading he seemed to pick up himself overnight when we really held back from pushing it formally.  We read to him daily and for long periods, we played some phonics games in kindy year but our first years of language were pretty unstructured.  One day 2 years ago he picked up "The Hobbit" and read it through.  The same with science and history, he loves them and he wants to learn more, well above what he would if in a classroom.  But his writing, eh, has been his least favorite.  Spelling and grammar actually come to him quite well from his reading.  But the act of putting pencil to paper, painful.  I sensed that with all the ideas in his head one day he would just take off, so just kept nudging him without making it a horrible chore, trying to find any way to slip some short and fun writing time in.  Today he resisted again but I asked for 15 minutes.  And at 15 minutes he was so absorbed he didn't want to stop.  When he brought me his story he said "I never want to sit down and do it, but today I realized that when I sit down and start that suddenly I really love writing and I didn't want to stop!"  


But lest you think it is all fairies and fun here, there are painfully hard times, too.   I am not going to focus on the moments where we realized he has misplaced his weather journal he has written in for 2 weeks, nor the not so stellar mom moments where I became frustrated at being the only one looking while he was playing with the dog/Legos/or the piece of lint that crossed his path.  Oh so much pain comes along with the joy, but don't they make it all worthwhile?


In other news, we toured the local salmon hatchery with homeschool friends, saw enormous spawning salmon filling the ladder and learned many interesting facts about the process, all of which brought up just as many questions as answers.  Conor then went off that evening on an overnight at a sheep farm, details of which he will tell you  below.  We practiced some form drawing skills, pulling out some patterns which tend to help kids who still have a few issues with reversing letters  from time to time.  We met with friends to practice a play we will perform together to celebrate Michealmas, the automn festival.  And although not very Waldorfy, I introduced Conor to the online game "Timez Attack".  He was at first intimidated and frustrated by the speed of the game as it tested his level and tested much lower than where we have been working.  But we have never really memorized times tables well, and he suddenly got very into the game and is moving along rapidly.  


And the masterpiece, only slightly edited.  The best part is that when I went to copy it tonight I found that he had it hanging in his room proudly.  

Tilth Fair!

We continued our foray into our farming theme with a weekend trip to the Tilth Harvest Fair.  Here Conor fell in love with the idea of making a new chicken coop, and since carpentry is on our list of projects for this year, this might be our second project, after our workbench is built.  This would be for the baby chicks he would like to get in the spring.  We have plenty with our 5 gals, but 2 are getting on in years and it might be handy to have a few more for the eggs.  And we rescued all our girls so never went through the egg to chick process, which he really wants to see.  So maybe in the spring...  Other highlights from Tilth for Conor was the beekeeping booth, honey being one of his favorite treats.   We learned more about queens, drones and worker bees and how the bees make honey.   We also are continuing to enjoy "Farmer Boy", today learning about oxen yoking and block ice cutting and storage.  Since I have been incorporating more and more permaculture into our home life, doing this is almost just an extension of what we do regularly in our house.

Seeing our homeschooler friends again at the community center where we take drama was great fun, and the class even more so.  Since this community center was once a navy base, it also now has large grounds behind the building in use as a pea patch, off leash, playground, playfields and more.  So the kids love just being able to run free there for an hour or two.  Hah, those poor, unsocialized homeschoolers!

We have also faithfully kept up our daily weather journal, and very excited about our new weatherstation to take our own measurements!

Conor would now like to tell you what he has learned about sheep in preparation for a farmstay this weekend with his dad, masterpiece to follow after the trip since today we are off to drama.  Tomorrow we have a field trip to the salmon hatchery and then piano! 

Sheep Facts

Sheep are ruminants, which means they have 4 stomachs and that they cough up their food and chew it up again.  They also call them cud chewers.  Sheep can provide us milk to make cheese, butter and milk.  Sheep also provide us with wool to make coats and sweaters.  They can also provide us meat and also use their skin for clothing.  Sheep can also be used to keep your grass down, they eat grass, clovers and forbs.  A forb is a flowering, nutritious plant.  You can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat by their tails, which are usually down in sheep and up on a goat. 

Third grade begins!

Once again it is fall and we are not back to school again!  Funny, we really are life learners and have experienced huge leaps in development during the summer when we weren't formally "doing" anything, but my son really enjoys the excitement of starting a new year of school.  When we order new books or materials it is like Christmas, and he loves to tear into them.  We also do report our progress with a local school district in order to get funding for our adventures, so we do follow their schedule when kicking off a new year.  But it is fun to start anew, thankful that we have the chance to follow what works for us now, that we are truly comfortable with it, and we can also change it whenever we need. I am not one to follow the rules of any one philosophy of homeschooling that sometimes seems as controlling as the schools they scorn.  Really, I don't need to trash anyone else's choices to justify mine, we don't all have the same needs and most certainly not the same children.  I came from a line of teachers and don't disrespect them at all, I love how the other teachers in my son's life influence him, and also love how much he teaches me.  We prefer to take from lots of ideas, keep them all loose, and fit what works and what he seems to need this year.  

This year we are excited by just a little more structure and routine, something I know I need a little more of because it does not come naturally and I see that my son, like me, has a hard time focusing if the choices are unlimited and no clear direction.  We also resonated with many of the aspects of Waldorf education that manifested in developmentally appropriate learning, simplicity, focus on the whole child, heart, hands and head.  The third grade year of Waldorf seemed to fit perfectly with where our boy is at in this year from 8 to 9 years, so I used those school funds for a curriculum for that lets us fit what works for us, at our own pace and schedule.  Which means we kick off with a Farming theme, which also goes well with the 5 or more farm related events we were planning to go to in the next month.  Already Conor is jazzed to get up in the morning and have some little rituals to start the day.  Daily weather journal, and starting the morning with a candle and a good morning song are his favorite things.  He baked us some zucchini bread (how that went from yuck to yum) with the overabundance shared from a friend (ours just weren't that prolific this year), skillfully measuring and remembering without cues his fractions.  It was eaten up very quickly!

 

We get outside at least twice even during our totally home days, even if just for short walks. We are already writing more than ever, and just generally excited about learning.  And of course, about reading, this is how I see him most of the day when not running, nose in a book!

And yesterday kicked off our outside classes where it was fun to see our homeschool friends, some of whom we haven't seen since classes finished in the spring.  Drama started at the community center, with our beloved teacher, Ken.  I peeked in and saw the kids enthusiastically following the exercises and just happy to be back.  After class was the usual 2 hours of free play around the grounds outside, I never caught the full story but I know it involved royalty, seeing as my son was disappointed I interrupted him before a crown could be made for the leader, Tui.  No children were harmed despite the proliferation of long sticks.  Aikido topped off the day, another enthusiastic and energetic hour of discipline and form.  Since dad was at a late meeting we celebrated our first week with a shared pizza a la Tutta Bella before returning home from our long day out.  We have another fun day home ahead topped with another favorite, piano, and then this weekend the Seattle Tilth Fair!