!schooling -0001 Jung 10-14 | 10-14 Sept 2012

• home education

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

Maths

Forgot 7yo already had a maths book so he’s continuing on with his old one. He got away with doing only one page instead of two as I also made him read the thing by himself which taxed him quite a lot as he was already a bit tired and we started later than we should have. Kumon book is much too easy for 5yo so will have to get another one that’s slightly more challenging. Seems like it would be a good thing for 3yo so either he will get 5yo’s book or I’ll get him another one like it.

English

First time “homeschooling” three at once this week! Previously I’d just been giving 3yo colouring books, used workbooks or notebooks/scrapbooks to draw/scribble in while the other two did their workbooks. This time he joined in with his own Reading Eggs book. He did pretty well as far as letter recognition went, correctly circling the letters he was supposed to. He found circling things that begin with the target sound a little more challenging. I did have to supervise him a lot, but we managed.

7yo’s letter formation is improving. 5yo is recognising more sight words and blends, and attempted to read one of her books by herself. She got through the first sentence on the first page before giving up as she spent about 5mins struggling with an unfamiliar word that she did eventually figure out.

I’ve recently set 7yo the task of reading an article on Pokemon breeding on Bulbapedia (and to follow any links that might interest him) as he has been asking me way too many questions in a short space of time about Pokemon breeding. It got temporarily put on hold when I realised that I had idiotically forgotten to fortify their browser and spent a lot of time safe deleting the kids’ account and then finally getting around to making them their own accounts.

Science

7yo wanted to know why shadows get bigger the closer you move to to a light source. JJ explained it to him. We read a book on Australian reptiles and turtles and discussed the difference between a tortoise and a turtle, and how crocodiles haven’t really changed form for the last few million years. 3yo discovered this video on JJ’s computer which he’d found on a friend’s G+ stream, which was a fun introduction to genetics. Also, Tim Minchin.

We went up to Jackadder Lake while visiting Nanna and had a picnic there. The ducks came to visit as people keep feeding them despite being told not to. We discussed duck biology and physiology which is a fancy way of saying we talked about what kind of food ducks ate and what kind of food humans ate and why most human food wasn’t particularly good for ducks which is why humans shouldn’t feed ducks.

Petered out on the socially acceptable subjects towards the end of the week as it’s been a bit busy. Also finally made the difficult (for me) decision to split shift kung fu and tai chi on the weekends as I’m really struggling to get to the night classes as it goes over stupid hour for 3yo. Also not sure what it comes under (dealing with real life, maybe) but I’ve decided they can start learning about paranoid safe, privacy-aware internet computing including how to manage their own accounts (the big kids accounts lock after 15mins of inactivity and they need to log back in, the toddler’s doesn’t but he’s allowed to access all of two websites on his account), how to behave online and how to deal with email (including signing and encrypting it for safer communication).

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