The Math Boy

Saying that Sam likes math would be an understatement.  The boy loves math.  He breathes math.  He's mind is just made that way...perhaps even a little twisted.  Ha!

He just turned 9 year old less than two weeks ago.

He taught himself most of his basic arithmetic. He memorized his multiplication tables, without help, when he was six.  He figured out multiple digit multiplication, division, and long division by absorbing his sister's lessons when he was suppose to be doing his own.  It took a mere 15 minutes for him to get binary and be able to convert between it and decimal numbers.  That knowledge made it easy for him to convert decimal numbers to any other base, as well.  He only needed a few minutes of explanation of how to use letters to understand hexadecimal.  And this was fun!

Now, at age 9, he's easily completing algebra, and I'm not talking about basic 2x=14 that they call "algebra" in the early math levels.  Give him a complex equation like the kind you normally see in 8th/9th grade algebra, and he can solve it.  Give him an equation of a line or inequality, and he can graph it.  He learned to solve simultaneous equations by graphing today.  Next, he learn to solve by substitution (which I know how to do) and elimination (which I need to learn first).

So, is it a surprise that when our good friend gave him two abaci and a book just three days ago, that he can already use them.  First, he knows that one of them is a Chinese abacus and the other is a Japanese abacus.  Second, the book only teaches how to use the Chinese one, but from that, he's been able to figure out how to use the Japanese one.  Finally, he tells me he can add, subtract, and multiple on them already and even demonstrated it.

Oh, and he figured out how to use them for counting, adding, and subtraction in binary.

This boy is leaving me in the dust in math. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when he reaches a point that I can't keep up with him anymore. 

Excellence in Writing

I really like Excellence in Writing and how it builds writing skills a step at a time.  Starting with a given source text, students learn to create a keyword outline and write from their outline.  At first, the student's writing is almost identical to the simple source texts supplied.  Over time, the students are lead through adding elements of their own: adjectives, adverbs, strong verbs, different kinds of clauses, and different kinds of sentence openers.  Eventually, they are pulling from multiple source texts and creating a fussed outline from all of them.

My kids' writing assignment this week featured a three paragraph source text about the Mayflower.  (We are using the US History-Based Writing Lessons to augment our history studies.)  It was basic and boring.  The requirements included adding an adjective, adverb, strong verb, vocabulary word, and who/which clause to each paragraph.  They were also required to add three different sentences: a very short sentence, a sentence that starts with a prepositional clause, and a sentence beginning with an adverb.

Here's my son's final draft:

The Perilous Journey

          In 1620, a group of brave English people, who wanted to worship God freely, decided to sail to America.  They are now known as Pilgrims.  Happily, they boarded on a big boat called the Mayflower.  During the trip, there was a loud, perilous storm.  Because they were afraid, they stayed below in the gun deck.  It was crowded, and salty ocean water came through the cracks.  They were scared.

          One day, John Howland, who was seriously tired of being cooped up, foolishly resolved to climb to the upper deck.  Suddenly, without warning, the boat shifted, and he fell into the ocean.  After he fell, he grabbed onto a rough hanging rope.  He was terrified.

          Luckily, the sailors witnessed the scene.  The sailors, who were greatly puzzled, were able to reach him with a boat hook.  Thankfully, he was saved.  Howland was relieved and grateful to be back on board.  He thanked the sailors for saving his life.  The pilgrims were glad that he was safe.  Because it was stormy, they knew that this journey was going to be long and perilous.

 Not too bad for an 8 year old boy.

Botany Lesson

My zucchini are rotting on the vine!  After some research, I think the problem is flower end rot caused by lack of pollination.  I certainly haven't seen any bees anywhere near my garden.  So, I began going out to my garden each morning, locating the male flower, gathering some pollen on a small, soft paint brush, and pollinating the female plant myself in hopes we'll get some zucchini to mature.  Today, I went outside to do my daily pollinating duties when I found a bee!  We had an impromptu botany lesson today.  It was all very exciting.

Here's the bee meandering around the male flower, gathering pollen.

After a while, he visited the female flower.

And here's a close up of the bee.

* If you click on the photos, it should bring up an enlarged version of the photo.

McChord Air Show

We decided to take the kids to the McChord Air Show yesterday.  We ran into a few snags in our plans but it worked out ok, and most of us had a good time.

We left home at 10:30am and stopped at a Subway to grab sandwiches to take with us for lunch.  We didn't want to spend a gazillion dollars buying barely palatable vendor food.  We left Subway at 11am and headed for base via surface streets.  We expected the freeway and main exit for the base to be backed up (**directions below post)  THAT was an understatement.  Despite our attempts to bypass much of the traffic, it took us 2 hours to get to the base 15 minutes away.  We heard later that, at one point, the traffic backup was 13 miles long!

We parked and walked quite a long ways to the entrance of the field where they were holding the airshow.  After standing in a security checkpoint line for a bit, we happened upon a sign that said no food or beverages except infant supplies.  Uh oh!  We had quite a bit of food with us.

We headed straight for the grass to set up a spot for viewing and eating, since the show had already begun and we were hungry.  We ended up sitting in the shade of a truck trailer. 

We all enjoyed the coffee cake I had made earlier.  It was excellent.

The F-18 show was also excellent, but shockingly loud.  I remembered the previous airshow as being loud, but not THAT loud.  Perhaps, the F-18 wasn't part of that show.  Anyhow, we expected everyone to be fine.  Mika survived that show just fine, and she was only 1 1/2.

Look Mom, there's a jet!

Can we leave now?

The F-18 had Mika lying on the ground, hiding her face, covering her ears, and crying.  The above picture was during the F-16.  She did NOT like the airshow much.  It was too loud.  I found out later that she was also imagining a crash happening while we were there.  I explained that all of the pilots were extremely skilled at flying and that they planned the riskier maneuvers over the runway field to keep the spectators safe.  She was a little better after that, but still didn't like the noise.  She asked to stay home (or go to someone's house) when we go to future air shows.

Mika did manage to find a little bit of happiness at the air show.  The field was full of grasshoppers.  We had at least 2-3 of them on our blanket at one time.  Mika kept catching them.  This one that she is holding demonstrated their ability to drop a leg to get away.

After awhile, Scott took Maddie and Sam to look at some of the planes on the ground.  Specifically, Sammy wanted to see the predator drone.  He got his wish and Maddie got a sunburn.  Oops!  While they were gone, Mika played with grasshoppers and I took Josh to a nearby tent for some camo face painting.  When they got back, I took Mika and Josh out to see the planes.

Knowing Josh liked the BIG planes, we headed straight for the C-17 on the ground.  I chose this one because it was big, but also because I could see that the had the back end open and allowing people inside.  Josh has been talking about wanting to go on a plane.  

He really liked being inside the C-17.  He loved the seats along the walls and sat in probably 8-9 of them.  

He also wanted to wait in line to see the cockpit.  He loved it.  I think this may have been his favorite part of the day...being in a big plane.  However, that line was a long one and I was worried about Maddie, so that's all we got to do before heading back to see how she was doing.   It turned out that Maddie was sleeping on Scott, and we missed the B-2 Stealth Bomber show.  Darn!  I had wanted to see it, though I wasn't too disappointed...see Josh happy with getting to go on a plane was worth it.

Sam, hearing that we got to go in a plane, wanted to see it too.  So, Mika, Sam, Josh, and I headed back to the C-17.  

They got to sit in those seats again.  Mika got to be theatrical.  Then we heard some strange sounded booms.  I thought they were little sonic booms at first.  But then I decided we should be heading back (no standing in line for the cockpit for Sam), and saw this...

They were doing their simulated bombings.  That was exciting and really cool.  Apparently, we had a better view from the C-17 than Scott did on the ground closer to the bombings.

After we got back to our blanket, we decided it was time to head out so that we could beat the traffic.  It was near the end of the actual air show and we did not want to get stuck sitting in an unmoving car for two hours again.  The first time was bad enough.  

On the way out, we wanted the next show which included a few different jets.  Getting off base was much easier than getting on, though we ended up leaving via a different gate and didn't know where we were at first.  It ended up being a perfect route home.

Today, the boys are at the air show again.  This time, they left earlier and decided to try one of the shuttle buses there.  They are there now, and having a ball, I'm sure.

**directions to McChord: Take I-5 until you reach exit 125 for McChord AFB and Bridgeport Way.Turn left at the end of the exit onto Bridgeport Way SW and proceed approximately 1/4 mile to the Main Gate.  Or you can go to the Lakewood Town Center and take a shuttle to base. 

Afternoon Fun

We sent the kids outside to play with neighborhood friends this afternoon.  They've been out there for about three hours now...playing, running, screaming, getting wet, etc.   A little while ago, I took them out a treat of M & M's because I just happened to have the right number of bags.  Then I sent Scott outside with the ingredients of a little science experiment...the old Mentos and Diet Soda.

Our kids have been bugging us to do this for a while.  I bought the Mentos and soda a while ago but between our trip to Portland, the rain, and our house troubles, we haven't had the chance to do it.  Today seemed like a good time.

Here, the kids are lined up on our hill waiting for Dad to set it up.  My kids know what's going to happen because they've seen it online and on Mythbusters.  Our friends didn't know what was going to happen.

And here is the resulting fountain.  Afterward, Mika got the bright idea of trying to drink the remaining diet soda with Menthos in it.  Yuck!

The Story of Bob

A couple weeks ago we received two containers containing five painted lady caterpillars each. We put them on a shelf where Josh couldn't manhandle them and watched them grown. And grow they did. Quickly.

Then one day, the first caterpillar crawled up to the top of the cup, attached himself or herself, and turned into a chrysalis. Not long after, the others all joined him hanging upside down except one, who either made the change on the bottom of the container or fell soon after.

It was time to move them to the butterfly pavilion. Per the instructions, we hung the paper disks from the bottom of the jar lids on the pavilion walls. Carefully, Mika picked up the chrysalis on the bottom of the jar and placed him on a napkin as advised by the instructions. That poor caterpillar had a heart attack right then and there. He started wiggling like crazy and didn't stop for several minutes. Our little booklet told us that wiggling by the chrysalis is normal behavior designed to scare off predators. We joked a little, but worried about the poor little guy. Mika named him Bob.

Over the next 7-10 days, we watched the chrysalises hoping to see signs that they are ready to emerge. We noticed one of them turn very dark, then a few others also turned dark. We expected something to happen. Then, just two days ago, Mika walked by the pavilion and noticed two butterflies unfurling their wings. Excitement spread through the house, and everyone gathered around. As we watched, a third butterfly emerged. Others emerged over the next day or so, and we noticed Bob's chrysalis had turned very dark. We hoped for the best.

As I passed by the pavilion earlier today, I noticed a couple more had emerged. I also noticed that Bob's chrysalis was missing from the napkin at the bottom of the pavilion. I called my daughter and together we looked for Bob's chrysalis. We finally found it, still attached to one of Bob's wings. I reached in and helped him rid himself of it. I thought it probably got stuck because it wasn't attached to the pavilion's walls while he crawled up and out of it like the rest had done.

As I reached in, I noticed that Bob had a few problems. One wing looked normal, but the other wing was curled up, split in two at the bottom, obviously deformed. He also had a bent antenna. Later, I noticed that his proboscis had not gone to together properly. Earlier reading told me that he would be unable to eat.

I had Mika take Bob (she had been begging to hold him) outside to die in the wild. It's his true home, I thought. Worried, the kids kept checking on it so I let her bring him back in. Poor Bob. He's obviously weak. He doesn't move. We keep thinking he's dead, but when we check on him we find him still hanging on. We don't expect him to make it much longer. His life will be remembered.

Next Year

Gosh, trying to decide curriculum for the next school year can be difficult! But I think I finally did it. Here's our as-final-as-I-going-to-get-it plan for next year.

Language Arts

Mika: Mika is such a naturally good speller that I've decided she can be done with formal spelling. Vocabulary will suffice. She'll be continuing with Michael Clay Thompson's Voyage level for grammar, vocabulary and poetry. We'll read their writing book but it won't be our primary program. We will also be continuing Excellence in Writing for our writing program, using their first volume of US history based lessons. Our literature selections will come from history (great choices found on Sonlight's reading list) and classics.

Sam: Sam will be continuing with Spelling Power but at a faster pace. He's been complaining about it being too easy the way I've chosen to implement it. He'll continue with Michael Clay Thompson's Town level. Sam really loves this curriculum. His writing is the same as above but using the A level directions while Mika uses the B level directions. Literature is the same as above.

Math

Mika: Mika will working through Math U See Zeta level. We'll continue exploring Math Olympiad Contest problems as a supplement.

Sam: Sam will work through Math U See Algebra over the first semester. I have no doubt he'll finish it that quickly. Once he's done with that, he'll move on to Art of Problem Solving Introduction to Algebra. AoPS recommended a child as young as Sam to do a basic algebra course before doing theirs so that's what he's doing. He'll also do the Math Olympiad Contest problems.

History

Both: Story of the World Volume 3 is up for next year. We'll supplement the US history chapters with library books and literature selections. My long term plan is combine this with Story of the World 4 over three years (rather than two) so that we have time to supplement the US history portions.

Science

Both: We want to continue with Apologia and study swimming creatures next year. I'll be picking up a lab kit so we can do some of the experiments and we'll definitely be raising tadpoles and sea monkeys. My kids have loved raising little critters this year. Sam is begging for chemistry so we'll alternate Apologia with Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry Level 1.

Geography

Both: I want to hit some gaps this year and one of them is Geography. We'll be using A Child's Geography of the World because it covers more of the meteorology and geology side of geography. We'll get the traditional geography through history and go more in depth over the next two years following next year.

Fine Arts

Both: We'll continue with Draw Squad but will alternate with Artistic Pursuits. This will cover some art things that Draw Squad doesn't cover (namely color) and art history/artists. We'll also beginning covering composers. I tried once before but dropped the ball. It sounds like a lot but we'll be going slowly and only doing it once a week, I think.

Logic

Both: I've decided to stick with just the basic Perplexors next year and doing just two puzzles per week. We'll also be using Fallacy Detective, which looks really interesting.

Bible

Both: We'll be using Memoria Press Christian Studies 1 next year. I hope we like it because I've never been good at doing Bible study with the kids.

Foreign Language

Mika: Nothing. She's not interested so I'll save foreign language for high school when it will be required to ensure she has the credits necessary for college.

Sam: Sam has been begging me for Korean for a couple of years. I'm going to get him Rosetta Stone online and let him loose.

PE:

Mika: Normal play, nothing formal.

Sam: Sam will continue with taekwondo. He loves his new dojang.

Not a butterfly?

Mika, Sam, and I were reading and discussing the next section of our science text this morning when I stumbled upon another lie told to young children in the field of science. Now, if you've been reading for a while, you might remember I first learned that bears don't hibernate. I was shocked to learn that I had been lied to all my life. Why can't adults just tell children the truth? How hard is it say that some small animals hibernate and others, like the bear, enter a different kind of sleeping winter state? Children are perfectly capable of understanding that there is a difference in heart rate, body temperature, and ability to arouse, etc.

So, what was the big shock this morning? It comes from one of our favorite books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Most people have seen and read this book. After the caterpillar eats and eats and eats, it comes to a page that shows an oval, brown object and says this:

He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself...

Well, according to our science text that means our very hungry caterpillar is the larva of a moth. A cocoon is a casing of silk spun by many moth caterpillars and other insects that go through a complete metamorphosis.

But then you turn the page of the book and you see a pretty, colorful, insect. According to the text...

he was a beautiful butterfly.

But that can't be right. If he built a cocoon, he's a moth. Butterfly caterpillars, on the other hand molt as they grow larger. Their final molt reveals the new skin underneath, which is the chrysalis.

I have to be honest here. I did not know that the book was incorrect until just this morning. I had never been taught the difference between a moth and a butterfly or a cocoon and a chrysalis. It took homeschooling my own children to learn these things.

So, my questions is this: Why can't we just teach children the truth from the get go? About bears. About moths and caterpillars. About any other commonly taught lies. Then we wouldn't have to go through that painful realization that something we were taught, something we've known for as long as we can remember, is wrong. Then we wouldn't have to wonder what other lies we were told.

O, Cardboard Box by Mikaela Kuhn

The assignment:

Write an apostrophe to a common object. Make it fun and funny.

O, Cardboard Box
by Mikaela Kuhn

O, cardboard box, how glorious thou be,
With thy open-up sides all brown and dusty.
O, thou gave me space for storage and decor.
But now, cardboard box, I must sadly say,
That thou is not large enough to hold all my stuff.
I throw thee out the door for that poor recycling truck.

She decided that she wasn't happy with her poem as is. She wanted it to rhyme better. So, we found a rhyming dictionary and she edited her poem more to her liking. Here's the new version:

O, cardboard box, how glorious thou art,

With thy sides all dusty and falling apart.

O thou gave me space for storage and décor.

But now, cardboard box, thou can help me no more,

For thou art not large enough, oh, tough luck!

I throw thee out the door for that poor recycling truck.

What kind of bird is this?

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? They LOVE the suet we're putting out and will go through the entire basket in just 2 or 3 days. They do most of their eating in the morning. I know this isn't the best picture, but it is the best I could get. I didn't resize the photo, so if you click on the photo you'll get the full sized photo.

Spring: The Home Stretch

I, like many homeschoolers, hit a rut during the spring. I just want to be done with school. However, we still have work to do, curricula to finish. So, I do my best to press on and celebrate each curriculum that we finish because that's one less subject we have to do each week.

That rut hit me hard this year. I'm tired. I've overwhelmed with the burden of teaching two children, trying not to neglect a preschooler, and caring for an infant. Somewhere in there I have to fit in cleaning the house (yes, the older two help a lot with housekeeping) and cooking three dairy-free meals a day. Tired of the struggle to find dairy-free snacks that the kids will eat between meals. Frustrated of the struggle with an over-scheduled week...computer class, film making class, taekwondo (x5), swimming (x2), MOPS. Overwhelmed with my special projects which includes packing up the main floor of the house and moving it upstairs...while still doing everything that is normally done in a week...so we can replace our flooring in a couple of months. I. Just. Want. To. Quit. School!

But I can't.

My solution is to press on the best I can. To complete the main subjects and alternate the rest so that nothing gets completely forgotten. Today is Monday, Mika's computer clubhouse day. School must be done by noon so she can eat and leave. She'll arrive back home in time for dinner, followed by my leaving for the night. We have three hours to do school on Monday. That's it.

How did I fill those three hours? We started with math, as usual. I needed to help Mika remember what she was doing and then switched to Sam, who was working on an honors lesson. His questions were difficult. Solve for x. Q(X + B) = R(X+C) We both enjoy these types of problems so it was a good start to the day. Then the kids worked on analyzing a grammar sentence and completing two map pages for history. We all took turns helping Josh, holding Madelynn, and working with mom. I tested Sam on two new spelling list, consisting of 36 words, orally. He's been complaining that his lists are too easy. He only missed one word; maybe he's right. We discussed the sentence he analyzed and corrected the portion of his math page that we didn't do together. Then it was Mika's turn. We discussed her grammar sentences and corrected her math page. We also tried an online multiple choice spelling test of the 100 most commonly misspelled words in the English language...for fun. She got 74% correct. I got 79% correct. I'm glad she didn't beat me. LOL She also did her regular spelling practice with ten more SAT words. Often I have to do some research before I can understand a word's meaning enough to make up a sentence for them. Finally, all three of us discussed a history worksheet together. And we called it a day. There'll be plenty of time for the rest another day.

Wolf Haven

We went on a field trip to Wolf Haven today. Mika requested the trip; she needed to observe, to research wolves for a book she wants to write for Nanowrimo in November. Seeing that they had some interesting group tours and class presentations, I decided to organize a group field trip for the first time. It ended up working out well.

Wolf Haven International is a nonprofit organization working to protect wild wolves, provide sanctuary for captive-born wolves, restoring wolves to historic ranges, and educating the public. Some of their wolves come from zoos, private owners, and other places not properly caring for these wild animals. They have many wolves; however, you can only see those that can handle the stress of human attention on the tours. Others who will be reintroduced to the wild, or who will be bred for repopulating wolf habitats, are kept far from human intrusion so they may safely return to the wild. The tour included a lot of information about what they do, how they do it, why they do it, and the history of the wolves on the tour.


This pair of grey wolves were the second pair on the tour. I don't remember the wolves names except one of these was Cricket. We learned that the wolves are always housed in male/female pairs to keep each other company.


This studly dark fellow was just a pup. At 18 months old, he was already quite large though. We got to see him howl, and I noticed he howled differently from the others. Rather than holding a single pitch like the others, he seemed to vocalize more with an undulating tone. I asked about it and was given an explanation of him being a pup and still learning social graces. His female is quite a bit older than he is, and we also got to see her putting him in his place. They had a nice long conversation.

Here's a short 13 second clip of him howling along with the other wolves. Twice the whole lot of them started howling around us. It was eerie!


These two were coyotes. I would have never known the difference. Shows you how much I know about canines! One of them was eyeing Josh like he was dinner.


After the tour, we had a class presentation. The presentation included showing us various skulls and talking about the features that helped us know more about the animals. We discussed teeth, nasal and eye openings, and size. Then we guessed what kind of animal they were. The skulls above, from left to right, are Kodiak grizzly bear (the thing was HUGE), black bear, mountain lion, bobcat, and wolf. After the skulls, we looked at and discussed a variety of antlers. We saw antlers from moose, elk, and deer. We also saw the horns of a muskox. Most of the items were available for closer inspection afterward.

After the class, we headed back to our cars by walking through some Mima Mounds. These mounds are an odd formation found in a few locations throughout the US, but are named after the Mima Prairie found here. They really look odd...small perfectly round hills scattered all over the area.

Swimming Lessons

Mika and Sam are currently taking swimming lessons at Kinder Swimmer. We tried swimming lessons at the YMCA a couple years ago but, after nine months of lessons twice a week, they still didn't know how to swim. In fact, they barely made any headway at all in swimming. In contrast, after only 6 weeks of lessons at Kinder Swimmer, both kids are able to swim across the pool on their own. While they still have a ways to go, that's progress!



This is how Mika usually tries to swim. She has always had a strong fear of water getting on her face. In fact, it made it very difficult to wash her hair; we had tears through age 7 with that. Finally, in the last year or so, she overcame enough of her fear to be able to shower which makes hair washing so much easier.


But, in only 6 weeks, she is able to put her face in the water. The only problem now is that after a couple of strokes, she doggy paddles to breathe and begins to panic. It's progress but there's still a long ways to go.


One of the requirements of the class is jumping off the diving board. As you can see, Sam has no issues at all with it. He loves this part of class.


At the end of class, they have toy time. Mika and Sam are racing across the pool with kick boards. With the boards and her head above water, Mika is pretty happy.


Here's their teacher, Kelsie. She's infinitely more patient with the kids than I am but still requires each segment of the class to be done, including doing certain things again as needed.


During class Josh and Maddie hang out. Usually Josh is wandering all over the place while Maddie is chewing on anything she can get her hands on or trying to crawl.

We're pretty happy with Kinder Swimmer. I just wish we had the money to continue swim lessons after our CVA funds run out.

Last Month

Each month, we have to write a review of what we covered in each subject for our virtual academy. I just finished my review for the last month. While I knew that we were way too overscheduled with outside classes and that we weren't getting as much done with formal academics, I was still surprised at how little we actually accomplished. In some subjects, we only accomplished a week's worth of work. In others, we got a whopping two weeks done. Eek!

For example, Mika only covered 10 spelling words for the whole month. We only covered half a chapter of science. Science doesn't look too bad when you consider hands on learning, though. We did an activity designed to show how bats have a MUCH better sense of smell than we do. We watched birds eat suet we placed out in our tree. We went on a little nature walk where we got to see chickadees and Formica ants up close. History was a little better; we covered three chapters of reading and map work, but not a single additional book or activity. Math included two lessons only. Sad, huh?

What did we do with our time if we weren't doing school? Mika spends 4 hours (plus 1 hour travel round trip) at a computer club each week learning about computer stuff, like Scratch and RPG maker and film making. Two afternoons a week we spend traveling to and taking swimming lessons. Sam spends two hours, four days a week at taekwondo. Two mornings a month, the kids have art lessons. We've also been stepping up our chore responsibilities, trying to get the house decluttered and cleaned. For their extra help, the kids earn money and have been learning money management through a website I recently discovered. It's busy. It's chaotic. It leaves little time for formal schooling.

Fortunately, all of those outside commitments count as school work. However, if we don't find a way to pick up the pace a bit, we'll be working at this year's curricula forever!

Happy Pi Day

Today is Pi Day! And with a math lover in the family, we just can't let it pass unnoticed.



This is dinner...chicken pot pi decorated with 3.14.

Dessert is chocolate pi. Yum!

Do you celebrate Pi Day? How?

Sinking In

Once in a while us homeschooling moms get a glimpse of true success in what we do. Of course, there are the little successes like when our kids do well on an assignment or get an A on a math test. Then there's the greater feeling of success that comes when we get back the results of annual assessments and all of our hard work is validated by the test. Finally, there's the TRUE success that comes when our children begin applying what we are teaching them in their regular life. My daughter gave me that tonight.

I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when Mika came in and told me, "Mom, I using dress ups in my story." First, the back story:

1) She's writing a story completely on her own volition. It has nothing to do with school; it is not a required assignment. Mika likes to write.

2) Dress ups is a term used by our writing curriculum, Excellence in Writing. The term refers to adding several things to our writing that makes it better and more interesting. Some of the dress ups add more interesting word choices, and some of them help the writer vary sentence structure. The curriculum asks that the student deliberately practice adding them into every writing assignment, and each paragraph has to have at least one of each dress up that they have learned. Over time, the student begins to use them naturally and comfortably.

Mika used what she has learned and added several dress ups into one sentence to make it more interesting. She even acknowledged that she thought her sentence was more interesting because of the dress ups. She also used alliteration, which she learned from our poetry curriculum. Here's her sentence:

Phoenix sat on her bed, gazing gloomily outside at the softly falling rain.

When a child begins to use what she learns outside of school assignments, it makes a homeschool mom proud.

First Day Back

Today was our first day back after a long winter break. Our virtual academy gives us the whole month of December off. December was 5 weeks long this year. We did a little bit of work over the break, though, because we were behind. I took the last week of November off so we did that work. We also got caught up on history because we're trying to fit in a 42 week program into a 36 week school year. We also continued with some of the stuff that we do for fun that counts as school: read alouds, independent reading, crafts, and fine arts (going to plays/shows).

Today was our first official day back. Since Mondays are short days for us anyway, I decided to make it a fun day.

First, we did a spelling test for the words we worked on from the last week of November. Mika got all of her words correct, and Sam missed one word: tomorrow.

Then we pulled out a Christmas present for the first time: the game Set. This game was a last minute purchase; I needed to spend $5 to qualify for free shipping and it was on sale for $6. I've seen the game mentioned on an online homeschool forum and it was very highly rated on Amazon.

Set is a simple card game using visual perception skills. Each card has a picture on it, and each picture has four attributes: symbol, color, number, and shading. Each card has ovals, squiggles, or diamonds. Each card has one, two, or three of those symbols. Each card is green, purple, or red. The symbols are outlined, striped, or solid. Got that? So, you lay out 12 cards on the table. The goal is to be the first person to call "set". If you call "set," you must immediately pick up your set, which everyone then checks to see if you are correct. If you don't have a set, you lose a point. If you do have a set, you get a point and keep the cards. What's a set? A set is three cards that are either all the same or all different in each of the four attributes. They have to be a set in all four areas to qualify. So, you can have all red, all solid, all different shapes, and all different numbers. It sounds complicated but it literally only takes a couple of minutes and a couple of tries to understand the game.


Here's Sam pointing out that Mika's set doesn't qualify. Sorry Mika....they are all purple, they are all ovals, they are all different numbers, but two of them are outlines while the third is solid.

The kids LOVED playing Set. "Awesome!" if you ask my kids. I was actually kind of surprised at how much they liked it.

Then we pulled out Equate, which Sam got for his birthday. Equate is basically Scrabble with numbers. The goal is to make true equations rather than words. It comes with the original set of tiles, but you can also buy a basic set of tiles (easier) and an advanced set of tiles (harder). We bought the advanced tiles but used the original today. There are many variations of play to make it easier or harder. We attempted the traditional rules and found it quite challenging. Mika was at a disadvantage because she hasn't learned enough about fractions yet. Even I had difficulty coming up with equations. We played for close to an hour before calling it a game. We decided to ease into this game and play the simpler versions for a while.

Finally, we did our planned math lesson for the day. Mika had a lesson on measuring where the length includes a fraction (ie. 3 and 5/8 inches). Sam had his first prealgebra lesson, adding with negative numbers.

When math was done, it was time for a quick lunch before taking Mika to her computer club. She got to play with the green screen and photoshop.

She said she put the broom on the back of the couch, sat on it, and took a picture in front of the green screen. Then she used photoshop to take the couch and green screen out. Then she popped herself into a background of a quidditch field. Finally, she resized a picture of a golden snitch and added that in. She said her foot didn't show up for some reason so she had to reattach it. LOL And, finally, you aren't suppose to notice that she only has one leg...but she'll fix that next time. Pretty decent work for a nine year old, though.

Then Scott brought Mika home. I made chocolate chip cookies. While making cookies, we all played Set together with Daddy. Now, I'm being a bed for Madelynn and the kids are hanging out waiting for dinner which isn't going to be done so they'll get treated to fast food.

Just a fun school day at our house!

The Fox and the Geese

We right smack dab in the Middle Ages in our history curriculum. We've reached the part of medieval history that most people are familiar with: knights, castles, crusades, and the whole feudal system. Given that we are a couple of weeks behind where I want to be, we are continuing history through December rather than taking the month off completely. Because we have more time, and because this is a fun period of history, we are taking more time to do more activities and read more books than we usually have time for. Today, the kids played a game from the time period.

The Fox and the Geese


Here's Mika and Sam just starting their first game. In this game, Mika is the geese (13 of them) and Sam is the fox (just 1 on them). Mika's goal is to trap the fox in a corner. Sam's goal is to capture, by jumping, enough geese so that they can't trap him in a corner. Mika, being older and pretty good at strategy games, won.


They switched parts so they could experience playing the game from both perspectives. Mika won as the fox, too. There were lots of giggles while they played. There were also interesting phrases like, "I'm going to eat you" and "I just ate you." It makes for some interesting eavesdropping, especially if you don't know that they are playing a game.


Scott decided to get in and try playing Mika. He won as the fox. Mika, however, won when he tried being the geese.

They want to keep this game around for future play.

Edible Medieval Castle

Our history curriculum's history guide has a great assortment of activities to make learning and remembering history fun. Once in a while an activity makes me go, "Hmm, what were they thinking?" Today's activity was one of those.

The goal was to make an edible Norman castle using coco puffs cereal, melted marshmallows, and butter. I figured the kids would have fun with it and enjoy eating the results so I went ahead and bought the ingredients though I doubted our ability to sculpt a castle from these ingredients.


Here's the kids working with our chosen medium. It was sticky. We figured out that you have to REALLY butter your hands to work with it. Otherwise, it just stuck to your hands; every effort to unstick it from your hands resulted in the stuff getting stuck to your other hand. Butter (or dairy-free margarine) is the key here.


Here is our "castle" from above. That suppose to be four walls, four towers in the corners, and a keep in the middle.


This is the castle for the side view. If you look closely, you can almost make out three of the corner towers and the keep in the middle.

What's really laughable is that they activity guide suggested adding an entrance and windows, going so far as to tell you that windows on the lower level were narrow while windows on the upper levels were wider.

It tasted good, though.

Nearly Finished

To say Sam works through math quickly is an understatement. Typically, he covers two years of curriculum per year. In past years, I made him do every problem on every page, and he still completed two years worth of math. This year, I made an exception to that rule because I knew that he had most of the lessons for the next two levels mastered already. I didn't see the point of forcing him to learn and practice something he had already mastered on his own. However, I wanted to be sure we didn't miss anything so we went through each lesson in a shortened way.

How did I shorten it? Each day I "taught" the lesson for the week and then had him do the test page. In this way, I could judge if he really knew the information or if he needed more practice. I found that in Epsilon, there were only a couple of new concepts to learn. Those were learned without difficulty. In Zeta, I found that there a few more concepts to cover, but again, they were very easy for him to pick up. Only one lesson warranted extra practice for him. I took one of the practice pages (which I'm saving for Mika to use next year) and wrote the problems on the white board for him to do.

I just taught Sam the last two lessons in Zeta. They covered angles, so I went ahead and did both of them with him. I also added in a couple of things not covered that, I'm sure, will be covered at some later point in the curriculum. I knew he would find it fun. He's doing lesson 29's test page today and lesson 30's page tomorrow. We'll then spend some time redoing any problems he missed throughout the thirty tests as review before he takes the final exam.

In January, he'll be starting prealgebra. He's excited to be getting into the upper levels of math finally.

I better hit the books and remember how to do this stuff before then. LOL