Socially acceptable !schooling: 3-7 Sept 2012

• home education

In which I once more attempt weekly updates on the homeschooling side of things. Going to see how I go just writing about the bookwork and if I remember to add the Other Stuff we do as I go (and I found out after reading the curriculum outlines that we actually do most of the stuff in the curriculum without making much effort to do it, wonder how long I can get away with that… :).

Also I changed the generated url as punctuation gets dropped.

Maths

7yo did some multiplication and division with popsticks, 3yo counted the popsticks. 7yo and 5yo learned about polygons being closed shapes. We went from circles to decagons, bouncing off equilateral and isosceles triangles, parallelograms, trapeziums, and rhombi on the way through, and also glancing over right, acute and obtuse angles and definitions of parallel, perpendicular and intersection. 7yo wants my compass and protractor, buggered if I know what they’ve done with it as they lost my maths set ages ago and it hasn’t turned up yet. Might add that to the list of crap to get for next year.

Finally bought new maths workbooks for both big kids from a Dymocks. 5yo has a Kumon one about Numbers 1-30. Couldn’t find anything in 7yo’s age range at that particular shop at that particular time; did find an Excel Multiplication and Division book and pointed it out to him as we’ve been working on that lately. He was a bit uncertain as the book said it was for 10-12 year olds. I told him it didn’t matter what age the book said it was for, he could do it if he was interested. Also gave him the option of Excel Whole Numbers, Decimals, Percentages and Fractions and I think this algebra book which may have freaked him out more as it was aimed at 12-13 year olds. He took the Multiplication and Division one. Will try them out next week and see how we go.

On the way home from that shopping trip, 7yo asked what a g after a number meant, as he had 150g on his packet of Turkish Delight. I said it meant grams. He wanted to know what a gram was. I said it was a unit of weight, measured how heavy something was. He asked how much a gram was. I said the one gram, it was the base unit and everything else worked off that, 1000 grams is a kilogram (had to think of how many bytes in a kilobyte to remember because I’m sad like that) and there were 1000mg in a g. Then I had to concentrate on driving because on this particular day people were determined to run me off the road, but that’s what a lot of our car trips are like.

English

Big kids had the choice of doing the requisite two pages from their books or doing one level of whatever maps they’re on. Both clamoured for the laptop, 7yo got on it first, so after a lot of tears and tantrums 5yo got JJ’s desktop once he was done with his chess game. That left 3yo with my tablet, so he chose to sit with 5yo and watch her instead. 7yo is on lesson 87 and slightly miffed that Reading Eggs thinks he has a reading age of 6 years and has some motivation to “correct” it. He reads fairly fluently these days and has only been asking for help with difficult words or when something is out of context for him (example: yesterday he asked me why there was the word “share” under the Youtube videos he was watching). 5yo is up to lesson 58. 3yo is sitting on lesson 3, he keeps repeating one of the exercises he particularly likes, otherwise tends to hang out in the playroom.

5yo has been havng a great time gadding about on Google Maps street view. She tried to look for it herself yesterday, typing “googlmaps” (not a bad effort at sounding out) into the searchbar. She didn’t realise at the time that she would get taken to a search results page and had to click on what she wanted, she thought it would go straight to where she wanted to go. Told her to click on the link and she was happy.

7yo has chosen an Excel Reading and Comprehension book for 6-8 year olds for when he finishes his Reading Eggs books. 5yo has a couple of new Reading Eggs books that JJ picked up (intended to be one each for both 5yo and 7yo but 7yo is still going on his so 5yo got them both), picked up Reading Eggs My First Alphabet for 3yo. First thing he did was impress Nanna by knowing he was looking at the letter A when I asked him what letter that was.

PE

Footy season was over a few weeks ago for the Auskickers. So far 7yo has indicated that he wants to play next year. I think it’s his last year at Auskick and then he’s into juniors. He’s looking forward to whenever he gets to start tackling.

We’ve had no luck with dance for 5yo but she really enjoyed horse riding when we went and do the boys, they’re are pestering for the next time we go back. This one is going to be a very expensive exercise.

Kung fu and tai chi have dropped off a little bit as I keep managing to have dental appointments and being otherwise engaged on training days, hoping to get back into it next week.

Science & Technology

Couldn’t find any science books anywhere near 5yo’s age range. Aside from talking about camoflage and how other animals perceive the world and when our next trip to the zoo will be and other such conversations, we haven’t “done” any science this week as I think I bombed out on the designated science day (cut me some slack, I recovered from wisdom teeth extraction just in time to find out I need a root canal). I have vague plans to have some fun with solutions tomorrow but will have to see how reality pans out.

Other plans involve the microscope and seeing if I can put together a little kit with the unused syringes I found in the medicine cabinet and any interesting looking containers that may be about the place. Also, we have a telescope to take out and have fun with. And Lego Mindstorm to save up for.

LOTE

Restricted to discussing different cultures so far, primarily of the Asian variety as we hit Christmas Island so often, and also because I like to pretend I’m any good at Malay because I remember a couple of words here and there. I have so far completely and utterly failed at teeing up with my mum to teach the kids Malay. I have put together a set of five themed word lists in lojban which I’m going to find pictures for, turn into word books and print (and then make available on here once I work out how I’m going to squeeze a downloadables section in without Sprat killing me over the menu). Aside from spouting words at the kids on occasion and reading “ma se zvati le crino lanme” we haven’t really done much here due to the lack of resources (situation I’m trying to remedy) and my current non-grasp of gerna. On the bright side my vocabulary is getting decent, so maybe time to study grammar again.

The case of the missing history

I didn’t realise it was in the lower primary curriculum. Oops. Fortunately so far we have actually managed to cover what we’re apparently supposed to be covering. Might hit up the war memorials and historical relics about the place again, and it’s been a while since we’ve been to the museum and the art gallery.

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