What We Did Over Summer Vacation - Part 1

Back in August, we checked out the special Lego Travel Adventure exhibit going on at the Great Lakes Science Center.  It's INCREDIBLE.  There are tons of amazing three dimensional scenes and recreations of famous landmarks from around the world, as well as artwork on the walls made from Legos, interspersed with lots of free play areas.  And all of this is included in the regular admission for the museum - there's no extra fee like there usually is for the special exhibits.
 

Real-Life Word Problems

Monkey is still pretty resistant to any kind of formal math lessons.  If you just give him a straightforward math equation he has to really think about it, or else he just guesses.  Instead, I give him random word problems related to whatever we are doing throughout the day and it becomes a fun game for him.  I am constantly amazed by how quickly and effortlessly he fires back the answer.  He can answer things like "How much change will we get if this costs $12 and I give the cashier a $20 bill?" or "You have $7.00 but you need to have $13.00 to buy that.  How much more do you need to save?"

Another real life example from a couple days ago:

Me:  Okay, we are supposed to be there in 5 minutes.  But it takes 20 minutes to get there.  How late are we going to be?
Monkey (enthusiastically):  Oh!  15 minutes late!

Not only did he *know* the correct answer to 20 - 5, he first calculated the relationship between those numbers to form the correct equation in his mind in order to get the right answer, which is a higher order of thinking.

(BTW, I swear I really am working on trying to set a better example in the punctuality department...)

Random stuff we've been up to... (getting caught up)

This is a rather long and photo-heavy post, but it's all of this random "stuff" I've been meaning to post about, so I am just gonna throw it all out there and finally get caught up.  A photo-purge, if you will.  So what have we been up to...?

Doing some math, aka playing with Inchimals.  Love these!

A little geography play with the Tag Map.  Monkey got this for his birthday, but Bug is much more into it.  Go figure.

An idea found via Pinterest - glow sticks in the bathtub.  It was a big hit!

Bug's favorite pastime - driving cars on the bookshelf/window seat.  I found this awesome "road tape" - so simple and fun!

My poor, "unsocialized homeschooler", getting picked up for a go-cart ride by B, a friend from the neighborhood.

Monkey is still reluctant to practice writing, but we have hit on a great way to practice written communication without pen and paper - texting!  He loves sending texts to Dad and Grandma.  I let him try to work out what to say and how to spell things on his own, just giving him hints when asked for help.

Bug, trying to homeschool the dog.  "Look Noodle, that's a kitty."

A delicious lesson about fractions!

Overdue update!

I have shamefully been neglecting this blog lately.  First I blame the holidays, and second I blame my recent obsession with ancestry.com.  BTW, if you've been on the fence about joining ancestry, just do it - it's amazing.  Also, it would make an excellent homeschool project.  I keep trying to tell Monkeyman about what I'm doing but I can't seem to get him interested yet.  But we'll have lots of information to go on when he's older and starts to realize how cool it is.

Anyways, here's some stuff we've done in the past month or so.  I apologize for the brainstorm-slash-bulleted list style of this post but there are lots of little things that I just want to make sure I get written down.  (I know there are many more where I've thought "Oooh, I should write about that" and then forgotten.)

GREAT question!

So tonight at bedtime, Monkeyman & I were doing this thing we do, where we jokingly compete for who loves who more:

Monkey:  I love you!
Me:  I love you 7 times more than that!
Monkey: I love you 10 times more than that!
Me:  Well, I love you 35 times more than that!
Monkey:  Well, I love you 100 times more than that!
Me:  Oh yeah, well, I love you 1,000 times more than that!
Monkey: I love you 100,000 times more than that!
Me:  Well, I love you a million times more than that!
Monkey:  (pauses) Hey, what is the last number?

"Last number" meaning:  "What is the very highest number?" so he can use that to outdo me.  It just struck me as a really great question - I love the way his mind works.  I told him that there is no "last number" and explained the concept of infinity and he thought that was really cool.  "Oh, like on Toy Story, right?"  And I replied that yes, when Buzz Lightyear says "To Infinity and Beyond" he means "On and on, forever."

So that's our math lesson for the day - a review of the concepts of "greater than" and "infinity".  :)

Piggy bank contents = math manipulatives

One day last week, Monkeyman wanted to know how much money was in his piggy bank. I suggested he count the contents himself and find out. First, we dumped the coins on the table and I had him sort them by type:


Then I had him put them into piles of 4 for the quarters and piles of 10 for dimes and pennies (for some reason there weren't very many nickels in there):


Finally, I showed him how to count out the right amount to put into rolls - for the quarters and dimes we counted by ones (each pile was one dollar), and for the pennies we counted by tens (ten-twenty-thirty-forty-fifty cents). A simple, hands-on, real-life math lesson - boom, done. He was really interested and focused on the "lesson" because he truly cared about the results. (Burning question: Is there enough for a new video game? Answer: Yes!) Oh, and I guess we fit a homeschooling stereotype that day: doing school in our jammies, as you can see Monkeyman in his Elmo pjs. Pretty sure I was still in my jammies too. (And yes I know I use parentheses too much.)

Update + random product reviews

Well I haven't had much to say in the past week or two (or much time to write), but surely this picture is worth at least a thousand words:

Bug has been saying new words like crazy lately - like a dozen a day some days. He has also started showing interest in the potty and will occasionally demand "SIT POTTY!" although he hasn't actually done anything there yet, as far as I can tell. BTW, shown in this picture is my favorite product at Home Depot (although I couldn't find it on their site): it's a regular toilet seat with a potty seat built in, that is nested in the lid and held closed by a magnet. We tried several potty seats and potty chairs with Monkeyman but this was the best solution. It doesn't take up any extra space in the bathroom and it looks like a regular grown-up seat so the little ones feel secure but also feel like "big kids" too.

In the past two weeks, we've:

• gone hiking at three different parks
• started working on a bit of memorization: the Pledge of Allegiance, and our address & phone number. I have them taped on the dining room wall and we recite every morning. When he knows them by heart, I'll put something else up there for him to work on memorizing.
• started working on some basic addition and skip counting
• studied earthquakes and hurricanes (aka current events)

• done LOTS of reading

• tried out some new toys - Wedgits blocks. At first I was disappointed because I didn't realize I'd ordered the "mini" size but they are great fun to play with & can be stacked in all kinds of interesting ways. Monkeyman is diggin em!)

• built a fun robot costume out of boxes just for kicks

• investigated all kinds of things with this:

...and may I say that no homeschool home should be without one! It's a pocket microscope, very simple and low-tech. You can find a similar, but better, one at Timberdoodle.com, or other online retailers. (Note: the one pictured is actually mine from when I was a kid. I had ordered one from Amazon a long time ago because I couldn't find my old one, and then of course, I found it. The old one works MUCH better than the new one - the image is always blurred with the new one. Not sure if it was just a fluke or if they're all junk, but just in case, DON'T get this one from Amazon.com.) Anyways, it's not super powerful, but 30x is enough to give you a very different perspective on things. We have examined clothes, carpet, the countertop, newspapers, money, the computer screen, skin, hair, fingernails... and tonight we compared Monkeyman's temporary tattoo with Shane's and my real ones. It was especially interesting to compare Shane's and mine because his is over a decade old and mine are just a few months old. Mine definitely looked a bit sharper.

Ooh, and tonight at bedtime, Monkeyman surprised me by reciting the names of the planets, which he picked up from this amazing CD, which I reviewed recently. We have been listening to it nonstop every time we go somewhere in the car.

I just turned the calendar to September today and it is covered in writing. We have lots of interesting things going on this month: an overnight trip to Kalahari (water park), our annual trip to the county fair, two homeschool group field trips (a canal boat ride and a visit to a pumpkin patch), and two or three other informal homeschool gatherings, as well as a couple of family gatherings as well. Fun stuff ahead!

Great article

I've heard about Khan Academy all over the place, and am already planning to incorporate it into our homeschooling when the boys are older. I just had to share this excellent article from Wired magazine: How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education. It's kind of long but totally worth the read. If you haven't heard of it, Khan Academy is a website full of free video lectures, many of which are about math, but there are other topics as well. It all began when Salman Khan started making videos to help tutor his young cousin who lived across the country, and over time it turned into the huge thing it is today. Even Bill Gates was using it for his own children! The article is about how a few school systems are now using his program and are being blown away by the results. Towards the end is an interesting bit about how Khan doesn't want to work too closely with them because "he doesn’t want the school system and its byzantine standards determining what he does with his site". He insists he isn't trying to be a reformer of the school system, he just wants to help kids learn. The following paragraph really stood out to me:

"Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it’s not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”"

That's right... I have to say that again. They wondered if it could be modified "to stop students from becoming this advanced." Students becoming too advanced? Oh the HORROR! Only public school administrators would see that as a problem.

Just had a "WOW" moment...

Max was looking at the timer on the stove, waiting for lunch to be ready. It's a digital timer, but it only changes by the minute - it doesn't count down the seconds. He was quietly counting backwards to himself, and when I realized what he was doing...

Me: Are you counting backwards?!
Max: Yeah.
Me: I didn't know you knew how to do that!
Max: *grins* 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 ...

...and proceeded to count all the way down to zero with an ornery grin on his face, as I stared at him, open-mouthed.

How Max learned to count to 100... and beyond

Every night at bedtime, we count. It started because he is always trying to get me to stay with him just a little longer, so I started saying, "Ok, I'm gonna go downstairs after I count to 20." I started going to higher and higher numbers, thinking that maybe listening to me would eventually help him learn to count. I'd go to 30 for a couple days, then 50, then 100. Pretty quickly, he wanted to participate in the counting too, and we started alternating numbers - he'd say the odd numbers, and I'd say the evens. I also started having him count by tens with me, repeating each number after I said it, thinking maybe that would help him remember which group of 10 came next when counting by ones. After just a few times, he had it down and could go from 10-100 all by himself. In the past couple weeks, he has completely taken over the counting and now does it all on his own, first going from 1-100 and then counting by tens from 10-100. It's one of my favorite parts of the day now, with him snugly tucked in bed and whispering the numbers to me... he giggles at my enthusiasm as I tell him in a loud whisper, "Yes! That's right!"

Last week we were at the doctor's office for Emmett's checkup, and Max was looking at the numbers on the blood pressure thingy on the wall. "Look mom - that's 100!" he said, pointing it out. I then pointed at the number 200 and asked him, "If a one with two zeros after it is 100, what do you think this number is?" He thought about it for a minute and didn't get it so I told him, "Two hundred." He said excitedly, "Oh!!! Two hundred!" So I had him count by hundreds with me up to a thousand. He thought that was pretty cool. Over the next few days we did that just once or twice more, and tonight he surprised me by rattling it off to me - I didn't think he'd remember to say "One thousand" instead of "Ten hundred" but he did!

See? This teaching/learning thing can be fun, organic, and quite painless. I know it won't always be, every single day, but I totally trust in Max's desire and ability to learn, and in my desire and ability to help him do that. It's not that I want him to know everything, but I want him to keep wanting to know everything. That's the goal.