Friday, October 8, 2010
Week in Review - Oct. 4-8, 2010
Well, it has been quite a week. Bitter sweet at times. I choose to focus on the sweet rather than the bitter, so here it goes.
Attitudes and History
The week started out a little down. We had lots of moans, groans, and whines. This has been an on-going problem for the past couple of weeks. It seems like since we came back from the lake with Chris' parents, the kids have been in total vacation mode. Okay, I must admit, maybe I have been too. Anyway, this week was the time for a "come to Jesus" meeting. I used to have these little chat sessions regularly in my classroom when I felt like students were slacking off. So, the attitudes in the Foster household called for an object lesson. I have to confess, I got the idea from my bff, Paula, who stole it from another master mind whom I do not know. I called the children around the dining table and presented three items: little white puff balls (of the crafting variety), larger empty pill bottles, and a little dolly hair comb. I asked them to close their eyes and rub a little puff ball on their faces and hands. I asked, "What does that feel like?" The responses varied from soft/good to nice/tickly. I told them to keep their eyes closed and I rubbed their hands with the teeth of the comb. Noah jumped and wailed. I asked them how THAT felt. They both said scratchy, hurts, bad. Then I asked them how these words made them feel, "You're stupid, NOOOOOO, I can't do THAT!" Then I said, "Good job, I love you, Awesome!" I asked which words felt better to them. After a bit of prodding with Noah, he finally agreed with Caitlyn that the positive words felt better. (As a side note, right after I said the positive words, Caitlyn ran over and said, "Huggy!" - more evidence that her love language is words of praise.) Then we talked about how we have the opportunity every day to bless people with positive words. We can make someone feel good or bad simply by the words or reactions we choose. I told them how their "rough" words lately had made me feel really bad, like I had been rubbed with a rough comb. I encouraged them to use positive words with me and with each other. I also told them when their responses were positive, they would get little puff balls for their jars. The first day they filled up their jars and it was a WONDERFUL day of school. So, we had milkshakes for snack that day. That day we also had time to incorporate some fun things into our day, like making a Viking brooch with Caitlyn (Sonlight Core K - from our Viking activity book) and making hanging snakes from the valley of the snakes from the Sinbad story (SOTW 2 Chapter 7) I think both of the kids learned lots that day. I know I did!
Writing, Writing and Math
Wednesday we had to tackle another obstacle. It began with my whiny call to Jody about how I had taught 9th grade English for 8 years, yet I had no idea how to "dumb it down" to 4th grade. Everytime Noah wrote any type of "paragraph" I was just stuck feeling like it was terrible. And, to my defense, it was terrible according to 9th grade standards. I just couldn't get a grasp on how to go about helping him, on the 4th grade level. My friend Jody is a teacher as well, but I think she has done more homeschooling application of her writing instruction than I have, so I called her to whine and for advice. She told me she just started with her son by giving him a piece of paper and telling him to fill the page with anything he could remember about the subject they had studied that day (a la Charlotte Mason narration style). I was intrigued by the open-ended approach since I had mostly "given the topic" to my students instead of letting them choose their own. Humm, I thought...So, the same day, I implemented the instruction into our day. Noah was a little hesitant at first and I made the mistake of saying, "write five sentences" instead of just having him fill up the page. So, after a consultation with my educational advisor (Jody) we tried it again today. And, BOY did Noah do well! I was shocked that he almost filled up a front and back of a sheet (mind you, this was unlined paper - although I think he feels a little intimidated by all the lines on the wide ruled paper)! What a whopping success! Now I just have to get him to go back and edit his draft and do a final draft! The day before we practiced outlining (IEW style) with Noah's science topic - Black Holes. He did GREAT with that too! I think from now on, we will be working on writing at least twice a week (formally, we do it informally all through the week). Caitlyn had a great success also this week. We have been going through Miquon math (orange book) and working with the Cuisenaire rods this year. I decided to go with Miquon after a LONG self-debate about what program would be the best for Caitlyn. I had used Horizons and Saxon with Noah (Still using Saxon with Noah), but I really wanted to encourage Caitlyn to see beyond the numbers and picture what the math "looked" like. I was (and still am not) never good at math, and I really wanted more for her. We have been playing games and learning about numbers. We have made trains with the rods to explore addition and subtraction. We have worked a little on the writing of numbers, but I haven't really pushed that. She gets overwhelmed by a line of 3s or a page of writing numbers 1-10, but today I pulled out the adding 1's drill sheet. She had been watching Seth intently the other day doing his drill sheet. I thought at first that I might just have her figure out the answers to each problem and I would record her answers, but she quickly assured me that she could, "do it" by herself! As you can see from the picture, she had some inventive ways of making her numbers. She turned her page sideways to make the 8, but she got most of them correct. I was so very proud of her. I think she's doing great in math!
The Man Who Loved Books by Jean Fritz
We read a wonderful book today from our SOTW 2 book list, The Man Who Loved Books, by Jean Fritz. It was a delightful tale of an old Irishman who loved books so much that it sometimes got him in trouble. Last week we had been discussing how books were copied by hand and we had even done our own illumination letters, so this little tale was very timely. Noah and Caitlyn both liked the story. After a few pages we read, we discussed the major themes in each section. After our discussion I sat Noah down with pencil and paper and had him tell me the story. He did it like a champ!
Overall, this week has been great! Can't wait to see what next week holds!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the kids made up a jingle for Addie while they turned her into "Letter Dog". It was cute how she endured it. I just told her that was the price she had to pay for being a kids dog!
Attitudes and History
The week started out a little down. We had lots of moans, groans, and whines. This has been an on-going problem for the past couple of weeks. It seems like since we came back from the lake with Chris' parents, the kids have been in total vacation mode. Okay, I must admit, maybe I have been too. Anyway, this week was the time for a "come to Jesus" meeting. I used to have these little chat sessions regularly in my classroom when I felt like students were slacking off. So, the attitudes in the Foster household called for an object lesson. I have to confess, I got the idea from my bff, Paula, who stole it from another master mind whom I do not know. I called the children around the dining table and presented three items: little white puff balls (of the crafting variety), larger empty pill bottles, and a little dolly hair comb. I asked them to close their eyes and rub a little puff ball on their faces and hands. I asked, "What does that feel like?" The responses varied from soft/good to nice/tickly. I told them to keep their eyes closed and I rubbed their hands with the teeth of the comb. Noah jumped and wailed. I asked them how THAT felt. They both said scratchy, hurts, bad. Then I asked them how these words made them feel, "You're stupid, NOOOOOO, I can't do THAT!" Then I said, "Good job, I love you, Awesome!" I asked which words felt better to them. After a bit of prodding with Noah, he finally agreed with Caitlyn that the positive words felt better. (As a side note, right after I said the positive words, Caitlyn ran over and said, "Huggy!" - more evidence that her love language is words of praise.) Then we talked about how we have the opportunity every day to bless people with positive words. We can make someone feel good or bad simply by the words or reactions we choose. I told them how their "rough" words lately had made me feel really bad, like I had been rubbed with a rough comb. I encouraged them to use positive words with me and with each other. I also told them when their responses were positive, they would get little puff balls for their jars. The first day they filled up their jars and it was a WONDERFUL day of school. So, we had milkshakes for snack that day. That day we also had time to incorporate some fun things into our day, like making a Viking brooch with Caitlyn (Sonlight Core K - from our Viking activity book) and making hanging snakes from the valley of the snakes from the Sinbad story (SOTW 2 Chapter 7) I think both of the kids learned lots that day. I know I did!
Writing, Writing and Math
Wednesday we had to tackle another obstacle. It began with my whiny call to Jody about how I had taught 9th grade English for 8 years, yet I had no idea how to "dumb it down" to 4th grade. Everytime Noah wrote any type of "paragraph" I was just stuck feeling like it was terrible. And, to my defense, it was terrible according to 9th grade standards. I just couldn't get a grasp on how to go about helping him, on the 4th grade level. My friend Jody is a teacher as well, but I think she has done more homeschooling application of her writing instruction than I have, so I called her to whine and for advice. She told me she just started with her son by giving him a piece of paper and telling him to fill the page with anything he could remember about the subject they had studied that day (a la Charlotte Mason narration style). I was intrigued by the open-ended approach since I had mostly "given the topic" to my students instead of letting them choose their own. Humm, I thought...So, the same day, I implemented the instruction into our day. Noah was a little hesitant at first and I made the mistake of saying, "write five sentences" instead of just having him fill up the page. So, after a consultation with my educational advisor (Jody) we tried it again today. And, BOY did Noah do well! I was shocked that he almost filled up a front and back of a sheet (mind you, this was unlined paper - although I think he feels a little intimidated by all the lines on the wide ruled paper)! What a whopping success! Now I just have to get him to go back and edit his draft and do a final draft! The day before we practiced outlining (IEW style) with Noah's science topic - Black Holes. He did GREAT with that too! I think from now on, we will be working on writing at least twice a week (formally, we do it informally all through the week). Caitlyn had a great success also this week. We have been going through Miquon math (orange book) and working with the Cuisenaire rods this year. I decided to go with Miquon after a LONG self-debate about what program would be the best for Caitlyn. I had used Horizons and Saxon with Noah (Still using Saxon with Noah), but I really wanted to encourage Caitlyn to see beyond the numbers and picture what the math "looked" like. I was (and still am not) never good at math, and I really wanted more for her. We have been playing games and learning about numbers. We have made trains with the rods to explore addition and subtraction. We have worked a little on the writing of numbers, but I haven't really pushed that. She gets overwhelmed by a line of 3s or a page of writing numbers 1-10, but today I pulled out the adding 1's drill sheet. She had been watching Seth intently the other day doing his drill sheet. I thought at first that I might just have her figure out the answers to each problem and I would record her answers, but she quickly assured me that she could, "do it" by herself! As you can see from the picture, she had some inventive ways of making her numbers. She turned her page sideways to make the 8, but she got most of them correct. I was so very proud of her. I think she's doing great in math!
The Man Who Loved Books by Jean Fritz
We read a wonderful book today from our SOTW 2 book list, The Man Who Loved Books, by Jean Fritz. It was a delightful tale of an old Irishman who loved books so much that it sometimes got him in trouble. Last week we had been discussing how books were copied by hand and we had even done our own illumination letters, so this little tale was very timely. Noah and Caitlyn both liked the story. After a few pages we read, we discussed the major themes in each section. After our discussion I sat Noah down with pencil and paper and had him tell me the story. He did it like a champ!
Overall, this week has been great! Can't wait to see what next week holds!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the kids made up a jingle for Addie while they turned her into "Letter Dog". It was cute how she endured it. I just told her that was the price she had to pay for being a kids dog!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
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