Mei, the Cuppycake

Mei, the Cuppycake, is back! She is my friend Sarah’s 11yo daughter and I am privileged to have her with me about two days each week. Mei is in the sixth grade.

Mei's Chick-Fil-A face paint from this summer.

Here is what Mei did at my house this week:

Time4Learning

LA and LA extensions, combined- 0:52:43
Math- 0:17:51
Science- 1:39:41
Social Studies- 1:36:09

So, 4:26:24 is the total time that Mei spent doing the computer portion of T4L in the two days that she was at my house this week. The level 6 T4L Science and Social Studies are quite time consuming. Mei is working through the reading and filling out fill-in-the-blank worksheets that I have created. It really is quite a bit of material to wade through. The T4L math is just supplemental to the rest of the math she is using, so the time spent on T4L math should never be particularly high.

Math

In math Mei completed Saxon 76 Lessons 10 and 12. She completed pages 10-14 in Key to Fractions Book 3 and also worked 11 minutes on day one and 11 minutes on day two at Khan Academy. She earned a proficiency star each day and a Moon Badge on the second day!

Language Arts

At my house in language arts she worked on Sequential Spelling both days. In IEW this week Mei narrated and wrote a paragraph from her Key Word Outline about vulture bees. We also did a Key Word Outline of The Fox and the Hare. Mei began studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. She copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart. We reviewed parts of speech, types of sentences, and we came up with sentences of our own modeled after the examples on the Essentials of the English Language chart. She also read a couple of poems from Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman.

Other Stuff

In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, we headed over to youtube and watched the first three weeks of the Lake Norman timeline song with hand motions. She also recited the U.S. Presidents. I wish I could blog that we did some cool art project or something, but alas that did not happen this week. IEW and Essentials of the English Language really sucked up our time this week.

This summer we made clay critters.

Week in Review- Duncan (wk4 of 36)

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is his fourth week of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 2:22:06 (Verbs, Adjectives, Thinking Skills & Comprehension)
Math- 0:47:11 (Addition, Subtraction, and Multiples)
Science- 0:54:34 (Physical Properties, Magnetism, and Relationships between the Sun/ Earth/ Moon)
Social Studies- 0:57:47 (Inuit, Geographic Tools)

So, 5:01:38 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

Math
Duncan barely looked at Foerster’s Algebra this week although he did finish section 2-8. We actually put this on the backburner this week so he could spend more time on Khan Academy. This week he worked an average of 26 minutes per day at Khan Academy. Duncan finally received proficiency in Units and received his Artisan Pre-Algebraist Moon Badge! We haven’t worked much with measurement. Consequently, he had never worked with problems that say things like: An alien rocketship is traveling at a speed of 0.023 miles per second. At this speed, how many inches will it travel in 1 hour? Round to the nearest thousandth. Not having completed measurement problems previously made that units exercise a real bugger! He was very determined to watch the videos and learn how to do those problems. That silly little moon icon motivated Duncan to work harder than I could have... even bribing him with real money. I began requesting that he look at least one exercise with the orange review icon before beginning to work on exercises where he hasn't yet received proficiency. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

Language Arts
In language arts he worked on word list 61 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 15-18 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week we narrated and rewrote the paragraph from the Key Word Outline about vulture bees. We also did a Key Word Outline of The Fox and the Hare. Duncan began studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. He copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart and we came up with sentences of our own. He read pp.39-85 (eight stories) in The Beginner’s Bible. On Wednesday he started The Sign of the Beaver and finished chapters 1-9. He also read a couple of poems from Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 4- Africans in America in Land of Liberty and The New Americans by Maestro. We also watched the DVD Colonial Life: Settling the New World from Schlessinger Media. (Obviously, some of his literature is also tied to his history.)

Science
In addition to T4L, this week Duncan watched The Way Things Work- Springs (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.) and Disney’s Oceans.

Other Stuff
He did practice violin more than last week, but not daily. In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, we headed over to youtube and watched the first three weeks of the Lake Norman timeline song with hand motions.

Duncan in CC the end of last year.

Wordless Wednesday

Week in Review- Duncan (wk3 of 36); Hasta Luego to Christian

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is his third week of third grade:

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:28:00 (nouns, verbs)
Math- 0:31:59 (subtraction)
Science- 0:56:29 (Scientific Investigation)
Social Studies- 1:31:29 (Inuit)

So, 4:27:55 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

In Foerster’s Algebra Duncan continued with chapter two and completing section 2-6 on Monday, 2-7 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and starting 2-8 today. He also averaged about 11 minutes each day at Khan Academy and spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

In language arts he worked on word list 60 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 10-14 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week Duncan finished nouns and began verbs on T4L. Last week we watched some IEW and did a Key Word Outline for a paragraph about booklice. This week we narrated and rewrote the paragraph from the outline. We also did a Key Word Outline of a paragraph about vulture bees. He was scheduled to read Matchlock Gun this week, but he read it last month, so this week he read a couple of Encyclopedia Brown books and pp.7-38 (the first five stories in The Beginner’s Bible).

In history Duncan read chapter 3- Europeans Settle America in Land of Liberty and Exploration and Conquest by Maestro. He also read a couple of poems from The Oxford Book of American Children's Poems.

In addition to T4L, this week Duncan watched Bill Nye- Probability and The Way Things Work- Wheels & Axels. (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.) He also looked through Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep by Mike Everhart. I say he looked at it rather than read it, because it comes with little 3D glasses and that is really the fun part.

It was another slacker week in violin. In my defense, I am pretty amazed that he finished as much as he did. We were packing up my oldest for his return to college and Duncan didn’t get as much attention this week in anything.

Mr. Christian was excited to be back at college.

Christian, Grayson, Duncan in front of Christian's dorm

After a long day in the car, Grayson is getting silly

Home Education: Mules and Boulders and Self-Doubt

Duncan is so easy to homeschool. It would be really easy to take the credit and say, “Look at me. I am such a good homeschooling mom!” However, I have two older children and know that this is not the case.

My oldest hates confrontation, so he was all about the yes, ma’ams. This didn’t mean that anything that came out of Christian’s mouth correlated with what he actually completed. He is also 2E (mildly gifted, mildly dyslexic). Encoding and decoding, as it related to language, had been dealt with before I brought him home in fifth grade, but imagine my surprise and confusion when I found out that he couldn’t do math- at least not as well as I thought he could based on his grades, standardized test scores, and the little evening homework assistance that I had given him after working all day to pay for the private school.

Christian is a living-a-learning-lifestyle guy and the things he is interested in he knows about deeply. Unfortunately, his interests and the things he needed to have completed for college admission were not always the same. Only when he fully understood that he had to do something did he decide to work through the material. Trust me- he did this for himself and not because I asked him to. While I could revel in his independent reading and research, he was also very frustrating. You can lead a mule to water, but you can’t make him drink until he decides he needs the water.

My middle son, Grayson, can move so slowly you wonder if he is moving at all. As an elementary student, some days he could drag four hours of work into 12+ hours of work. He also doesn’t mind confrontation. He will look at a situation and determine how much going against what is asked will cost him. If he determines that not doing what is asked is worth the punishment, he will simply tell you that he isn’t doing it. You never have to guess or follow up behind Grayson. If he says it is done, then it is done. If he says he isn’t going to do it, go ahead and mete out the punishment, because he isn’t going to do it. Then, the next day try a different angle. Sometimes homeschooling can be like dragging a boulder through mud.

With Duncan I am finally blessed with a child who is easy to homeschool. He may not love schoolwork, but most days he will move quickly through whatever I say needs to be done. He clearly has his sassy, I-think-I-am-a-teenager moments, but, unlike Christian, he can’t keep a straight face and tell me that he has completed something that he hasn’t (although occasionally he will try.) In general, Duncan understands that the faster he completes what I say he needs to do the faster he can get to what he wants to do. Also, he enjoys having his free time without restriction, so he is rarely defiant like Grayson. My primary challenges with Duncan fall in the is-he-being-challenged, am-I-doing-enough, oh-no-am-I-rewarding-schoolwork-with-more-schoolwork, self-doubt category.

I just wanted to share that when I write about Duncan I know how fortunate I am, because I know what it is like to homeschool a mule and a boulder.

Week in Review- Duncan (wk2 of 36)

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:54:54 (suffixes, homophones, idioms, nouns)
Math- 0:55:32 (number theory and systems, addition)
Science- 1:39:50 (investigation)
Social Studies- 1:04:02 (Inuit)

5:34:18 may not be much time, but in our three weeks of using T4L it is the greatest amount of time that Duncan has spent doing the computer portion of this product. This week, after he finished the activities and quizzes for the number theory and systems section of grade three, he took the test over that section. When he completed the test, we discovered something fun. When you finish a section test in math, the star you click to enter that section says mastered across it. He went ahead and took the test for the level 4 number theory and systems section. Sure enough, not only did the section star have mastered written on it, but so did every activity within that section.

We added Foerster’s Algebra back into the mix. Duncan started chapter two and completed sections 2-1 through 2-5 without any difficulty. He also averaged about 18 minutes each day at Khan Academy. This week he received his Earth Badge for reaching proficiency in 40 lessons. I think he was more excited about that than any of the previous badges he has earned. One of the lessons he did was scientific notation. I am now supposing I should show him some science where it is used. I just don’t know that he will remember what it is if he doesn’t have any opportunity to use it. He did spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

I guess I should note that, yes, Duncan burned the end of his nose. He was playing with his electric car track when I told him it was getting too hot. He asked how I knew and I told him that I could smell it. At that point he picked up a car to smell the bottom and burned his nose! All I could do was laugh at him.

In language arts we watched just a little bit of IEW’s TWSS, did a word list from Spelling Plus, 4 pages in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5, and some grammar ditto sheets from the proper noun sections of the 2nd and 3rd grade free online Scott Foresman grammar texts. It is always bizarre to me what children trip over or forget. This week Duncan worked on nouns at T4L and acted like he had no idea when or what to capitalize, particularly in book titles and other multi-word proper nouns. I wondered if this was due to typing so much, but Word doesn’t always catch those sort of capitalization errors. (I tried several of the typical mistakes he was making.) This makes me wonder if he either just doesn’t write proper nouns frequently enough or if I always correct them without thinking about it. Anyway, it was nice to have a free resource with beginning level activities to do as a reminder.

In history Duncan read chapter 2- Europeans Explore the Americas in Land of Liberty and The Discovery of the Americas by Maestro. He also read chapters 8-26 to wrap up Pocahontas and the Strangers and read poems from The Oxford Book of American Children's Poems.

His science section in T4L this week had him looking at tables, charts, and graphs. The notebooking suggestions had him taking a poll and creating some of his own, so we did this instead of adding any additional science this week. I had planned to cover some oceanography while we covered explorerers in history. I also thought it would have been an appropriate follow up to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, but it didn’t happen. I may see if I can work some in next week.

Violin this week was a disaster. I told the violin teacher that until the week after Labor Day our home was going to be too busy to complete much practice. Honestly, if I am short on time, violin is where I am a slacker. I really need to work on that.

This week we also went to Chik-Fil-A Family night. Mei was with us and both of them got balloon things and painted on bandanas.

Mei's kissy-face horse

Duncan's green shark

Week in Review- Duncan (wk1b of 36)

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:45:59 (antonyms, prefixes, and punctuation)
Math- 0:39:23 (numbers)
Science- 1:07:06 (investigation)
Social Studies- 1:23:16 (finished Viking studies and began Inuit)

Another big total this week- not quite five hours.

In science we also did some of the off the computer T4L activities for science, so science ran a little longer than just the total computer time. Duncan also watched Bill Nye- Light Optics and The Way Things Work- Telecommunications (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay. They are not spectacular, but they are sort of cute in a corny way.) Additionally, we watched many shark episodes that aired on the Discovery Channel for Shark Week.

He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day working on Kumon math and spent 83 minutes on Khan Academy for an average of 16.6 minutes each day.

He read 30% of Alice in Wonderland on the Kindle and 6 chapters in Pocahontas and the Strangers.

He practiced violin and had a lesson on Thursday.

We started history this week. Duncan read chapter 1- The Earliest People of the Americas in America’s History: Land of Liberty, finished the picture book- North American Indians by Douglas Gorsline, finished at least one poem each day from The Oxford Book of American Children’s Poems, and listened to about 2 hours total of Johnny Tremain on audio.

I definitely feel safe in saying that between this week and last week we completed 5 full days. Next week I know that we will add math and spelling. We may also start listening to IEW TWSS or looking at Essential of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations Essentials, but this depends on how emotionally draining it is to add the math and spelling. I am so thankful that I am home educating, so my little guy can ramp up into full days instead of jumping into being in a classroom all day.



First Day of Third Grade- 08/01