Some Learning and Playing Going On This Week

Learning and Exploring this week

Monday

*Project Time:  Jenna worked on adding straw, ashes, feathers and feed to the chicken "hide-out" while Caroline brainstormed ways to make a tall cat scratcher-thingy.  We ended up watching a youtube video of how to make a simple one and then we headed to the barn to gather wood.  Since I didn't know what wood was off-limits, I asked if she would like to make a small version as practice with the scraps on the floor. She ended up building this:

The only part I helped with was the hammering. 

*Had promised Caroline I would take her to the horse barn to see our friend, Grace, taking care of her horse.  The girls both loved it.  They got to brush him and clean his hooves.  Both wished they could ride him.

*Jenna and I played the violin together during Josh's lesson.

Tuesday
Got out our word boxes we made last week (consisting of any words we like) and made up sentences with them.  Caroline liked it okay (although I think she would have really liked it had I helped her more).

Buddy Math with Jenna

Read with Caroline


Wednesday
*We are reading the second Red Pyramid and we did a bit of map work after reading this morning (Caroline:  locating Africa and North America) and Jenna locating (Egypt, England, Russia, Canada and Alaska).  
*Swamp Math and even/odds activity with Caroline.
*Jenna graphed November temperatures
*Both girls practiced a sentence of dictation.
*Caroline played people for an hour while I focused with Jenna on her project time.  We came to the computer to make more chicken trading cards, but we stumbled upon piktochart and she made this infographic instead.

*Girls are now both playing castle with Egyptian Gods and Star Wars characters.

Some Projects and Interests in January, Plus a Graduation

1.  Jenna wanted to re-visit her interest in volcanoes after she picked out a documentary on Mt. St. Helens at the video store.  It was old and not that well done, but we still enjoyed parts of it as we watched on Friday night family movie night.  It's so cool when everybody gets swept up in other's interests.  We've all gotten more interested in volcanoes.

 Girls watching youtube videos of volcano explosions while eating lunch.

The girls made volcanoes with water bottles and paper, baking soda and vinegar.  Caroline wanted her volcano to explode out the top:

 "John" getting ready to feel the lava.  He's back in the play mix after the chickens dug him up out of the ground a couple of months ago.  He'd been missing for several years; Caroline didn't even remember him. 

Jenna wanted to make a lateral blast like Mt. St. Helens:

 

We watched how to make an explosion with mentos and Diet Coke and tried that too.  It made a big explosion, but was over quickly (no picture).  Daddy was home to watch it.  Jenna asked about what baking soda does in food (does it make bread rise?--yes, we found out it does).  That led to us watching this youtube video :  A Colorful Magic Trick with Acids and Bases:



That led to us replicating the magic trick on our own and then performing it for Daddy:




 

The diet coke was most acidic ( deep red) and the dishwashing Cascade soap the strong base (Caroline's suggestion for us to try and it turned green and then yellow--super cool).  Girls really enjoyed this!

We also found a riveting,but dark video on Pompeii:  (Pompeii:  The Last Day).  There was some adult content I had to edit and I ended up fast-forwarding quite a bit at the end because it was too disturbing.  Seeing how the volcano erupted, though, and what the city looked like, had the girls begging to keep watching.  We piled on the bed and talked the whole time about was what happening.  Fascinating!



2.  Kids got into designing clothes for their polly pockets.

Caroline found a design that made a lovely dress and she made a how-to video about it.  She also helped Jenna make one.

Caroline also tried making a little shirt for herself and she made a poncho for her AG doll.

3.  The girls and I played vet one morning.  I printed out some vet forms I found on Angry Chickens blog and we worked on the animals for a couple of hours.

4.  Jenna graduated Book 2 on the violin.  She practiced and performed ALL of the songs from book 2.  It was also our last lesson with Olivia until she comes back from Uganda.

5.  Caroline and I have been playing some reading and writing games I did with Jenna.  She's also working her way through the Bob books and playing a kindergarten app Jenna really liked.  :)
 

Back to "School" 2014

 

Actually, this just means I'm back to dedicating about 3 to 4 hours in the morning to learning with the kids, and then taking notes and planning a bit for the next day.  We actually started slowly last week, with project time (their favorite) and a bit of dictation and math review (emphasis on a bit).

Wednesday-
 *Girls separated laundry 
*Started out with bird watching.  Jenna and I read from the bird book (and she wanted me to look up what "hulled" means) a bit as we watched.  We noticed things about the Junco, looked at a ruler to check and see if our birds were matching up to the sizes listed (concluded our birds would only meet the size estimates if you measured from the tips of their tails), and oohed and aahed over our red-bellied woodpecker (determined she was a female).  I noted that we don't have quite the variety of birds at our front feeder (but our view is so super, amazingly close) as we did in the backyard.  Jenna wondered why.  Jenna and Caroline both filled out their bird sheets.


*Kids took care of the chickens and played outside on the rope swing and in the snowflakes.  I gave them warm tea when they came in.  :)  They also dumped the ashes.  Why do I count this as part of our day that's worth recording?  Because I agree with Renee Tougas at FIMBY:

Involving children in home life, not just involving them but depending on them, at age appropriate levels for pet and animal care, cleaning, laundry, chopping wood, cooking meals - good old-fashioned chores - develops self-discipline.

*Deskwork- 2 math review pages for Jenna while Caroline read a Bob book to Lambie.

*Jenna dictated Chapter 1 of a story to me:  Sunny Bun Buns the Adventures of a Chicken (inspired by a book the three of us loved:  Louise:  The Adventures of a Chicken.
*Caroline dictated her to me about the adventures of Rosie the Chicken.

*We watched a couple of Cornell birdwatching videos that were sent to my email.  Learned that the Junco looks different based on what part of the country he lives in (we noticed we have two different colored varieties).  Also got excited about trying the new Cornell bird identifying app, Merlin.

 

* Jenna asked if she could try adding an embroidery braid to Caroline's hair (I initially balked at doing this for project time, but see the value in letting them explore things that aren't "academic.").  She watched the video several times, tried it on Caroline first and then tried it on me.  She asked me to read Gulliver's Travels (an annotated version Bryan found for her at the library-she's been reading it on her own, but she loves it so much, she wanted Caroline and I to get to read it too).  Caroline got in my lap to listen and sucked her thumb.

*Clean-up
*Girls played
*Ate lunch around 1:00 and I read more of Gulliver.  I got out the map so we could see where Gulliver went. 

A bit from FIMBY I found that summarizes SO WELL the importance of exploring interests outside the typical academic realm:

When children become a young adults, after a childhood of creativity, exploration, and play, "applying themselves" looks like a whole lot of intense study into things adults might question as valuable or worthy.
You've got to kind of expect this, especially after you've given young children time to develop interests, and don't box them into subjects. School subjects are constructs, "real" in name only.
Adults don't go through life thinking of their days and activities in terms of "now I'm doing math, now I'm studying history, now I'm having phys ed." No, they balance the checkbook, read for the pleasure of it and to learn about something they're interested in, and work out because it feels good.
Even so, when well meaning adults see young adult students spending heaps of self-directed time on things that don't easily quantify as "American History, Chemistry, or English" they get a little panicky. What about the success track as laid out above?
(Perhaps at this point I could direct you to a different success track. Let's say the story of Steve Jobs who spent heaps of his young adulthood "playing" with electronics.)
Here's the rub. It's hard for people to understand when another person, child or adult, is invested in and personally driven to do something they themselves don't value, or can't see as valuable in society.
And yet these outliers, these people who pour energies into solving problems other people didn't even know existed or make art that modern day sensibilities don't get, these are the very people, all through history, who are society's movers and shakers.
Even if people question the assumption that the conveyer belt education system is "the track to success" (success by who's standards? by what measures?) they assauge that cognitive dissonance with the belief that by conforming to the system you at least learn self-discipline.
My question is: Do you learn self discipline with compulsory education?

Caroline made a little rug

The girls got into finger-knitting a few months back.  Caroline had an idea what she wanted to do with hers:  swirl it into a rug and sew it together.  I read how to do it, got her started with a blunt needle, and she sewed for well over an hour. 
It's so sweet as a baby rug!

Week of September 15, 2013

* Crazy Math on the front porch.  Caroline said the numbers as she jumped (and she and I competed getting down to the end of the porch by rolling one die and a + or – sign.  She loved it.  Then Jenna and I played, only Jenna doubled the numbers, subtracted 2, added 10, and then got to 10.  We tried to do it fast by playing Red, Red, Robin on the ipod.  Kids loved it and showed Bryan what they did as soon as he got home.  

 

1.      * Project time:  Caroline worked on taping a branch together as a whip while I wrote down Jenna’s comments on the chickens.  Typed them up for her and she added, corrected and I re-printed. 

2.       Caroline called Grandma Susie and asked to take a class with her to learn French (this was her idea).  Grandma Susie coming over tonight.

3.        

*   Girls began coloring a King Tut page Jenna spotted on pinterest.  I read to them an article about King Tut, which led to us watching several national geographic videos about ancient Egypt.  Then the girls grabbed a small book about ancient cities and had me read it.  Jenna said she wants her next project to be about mummies

*     

       Jenna went to read Nancy Drew (an old book of Lori’s she found in Pop and Gma Rita’s barn)  in the swing with the chickens around her. 

      Caroline and I made her “Whip-or-whill” with wildflowers and LOADS of tape.  I think Caroline’s project is masking tape.  J

*Word Problems:  I wrote Jenna a word problem (which she loved) about the chickens and showed her how to write the equation out.  She wanted me to keep adding to the problem.  While she wrote one for me, I made up math problems about the squinkies for Caroline.  Then, she wanted me to make up shape problems with the Math U See blocks.  Jenna had to consult the computer for the answer to her problem (it involved a number with 17 zeroes.  We found a website to look up the names of numbers that big).  Jenna’s math problem was about the smurfs and included the word “incidentally,” which was used correctly. 

 
* Read Pippi Longstocking over lunch.  Ended up in the hammock as it is GORGEOUS outside.  The kids climbed up in the tree over my head as I finished the book. 

**  Didn’t record the afternoon.  J  Jenna wrote a few sentences about the chickens if I remember correctly.  I went to the store and the kids visited grandparents.

And a picture of what was going on when I came home from the store:  :)

Tuesday, Sept 17

Project based learning Time—I made some chicken notes.  Jenna wanted another Pharoah sheet and she colored Cleopatra while I read questions she asked me about her on the iphone.  Jenna announced that her next project was on Egypt and asked for a 3 ring binder.

Caroline worked on copying her version of a drawing out of Pippi Longstocking. 

Kids went out to play and I set up Math with Manipulatives (with gems).  Kids went bonkers when they came in.  They loved them!  Jenna worked on multiples of 2, which led into multiplication (and she discovered a pattern—with a gleeful announcement—when you multiply by 2, you just double the second number).  Caroline worked on counting out gems for numbers 1-10 and then they both made patterns.  I also worked in a bit of waldorf (cause the kids loved the gnome stories so much) and drew a gnome on chalkboard and got out our stuffed squirrel.  Mentioned making wooden versions of the gnomes and the kids really want to do that. 

Ate lunch outside and started a new read aloud about a little red hen and the girls begged me to keep reading.  We laughed at the descriptions of the chicken behavior—we SO could identify with it!

Kids separated two loads of laundry and picked up a few things in living room.

2:00  Kids played House outside on the swingset while I went for  a walk around property.

4:00  Picked a sentence for dictation out of Pippi for Jenna and Carnie wrote a couple of words.  Jenna dug into a coloring math activity on her own when I set out the next workbook of Math-U-See.

Nighttime Extras—we drew some artist cards and made up names and stories about them on the back.  Also, Jenna did more math with Bryan.  

Wednesday

*Girls ran with Bryan.  Jenna ended up running a mile.

*Chicken observing and playing.

*(first Jenna announced she wanted math during project time..haha!  I told her, “later.”)

  Project Time: Jenna asked to print out more sheets for her ancient Egypt book.  She said she wanted maps and more pictures and wanted to write information about them.  I read to her from the iphone as she colored (based on what she told me to look up).  We read about how Cleopatra died and she marked a couple of things on her map and recorded what a “sarcophagus” is.  

Caroline was a bit tired and only wanted to work on a cardboard house project.  We need cardboard though.  I set out a “gem code” for her to dial Grandma Rita’s phone number and she called Grandma herself.  Caroline ended up coloring King Tut with me as Jenna worked.  

Jenna picked out some books on amazon she wants me to order from the library about ancient Egypt.  (also, Jenna became convinced one of the chickens is broody and checked on her several times).  

The cardboard arrived at the house when Daddy came home on the tractor.  Caroline began crying initially because it wasn’t the right size, but as we looked at it, she came up with a bunch more ideas, including a Barbie house (on the agenda for tomorrow).   

Jenna proudly brought Daddy in to fill him in on Ancient Egypt knowledge.

Girls played  dinosaurs with the box.  One of them is a “meat eater” and one is a “plant eater.”

Jenna asked me to look up how to mummify an action figure, which led to a website on mummifying Barbies.  The girls have been playing for the last couple of hours--mummifying their Barbies, with sale,

Yeah, the start of this year has been so, so, so sweet.  Learning and engagement going on all around.  The best yet...