Homeschool Conversations Pt. 4

How does a 6yo figure out negative numbers? I have no idea. Here's what happened during a lesson on how to use Singapore's bar models.

I was trying to show D-Man how the bar models correlate with addition and subtraction problems. In the course of the lesson, I used 6-10 as an example of a problem that doesn't work. Of course, that sent up a red flag with D-Man. He told me that it does have an answer and that he knew "all about negative numbers." Then he asked me to write a number line on the board and to add negative numbers to it. I did.

He then told me the answer was -4.  After that I came up with a couple of similar problems and he solved them just fine.  Then, he told me that he wanted to come up with his own problem.  Did he come up with one like mine...no, of course not.  He wrote down -20 + -10 =.  Just as I was about to stop him and explain that negative numbers can be a bit tricky, he writes down -30.  I stared at it dumbfounded.  How did he figure that out?  I have no idea, but he got it right.  

So ends another math lesson at our house. 

Homeschool Conversations-Pt.3

We are working our way through Singapore's Challenging Word Problems 1. We just got to the section on multiplication. We haven't worked on multiplication since we covered it in Primary Math 1B which was around Christmas.

So here's how two of our problems went this morning:

D-Man: That's 9x2. I have to go potty. Be right back.

D-Man: (Immediately after the quick trip to the restroom) That's 18.

Mom: That was fast, how did you know that?

D-Man: Well, I was thinking about it while I was going potty. 5-2's is 10 and another 4-2's is 8. 10 plus 8 is 18. It's really just an adding problem.

Mom: Wow, that's exactly right.

Next problem...

D-Man: (After reading the probem) That's 3x2. Hmmm...That's 10-4. It's 6.

Evidently, he thought that 5x2 = 10 and 2x2 = 4. When you subtract them, you get 3x2.

Interesting math day.

Weekly Update--catch up...Week 20

Oh...the neglected blog! I've been delinquent with my blog recently because we've been so BUSY. Between Airrosti treatment (my shoulder feels so much better), minor illness, and dr. appts (it was only a mosquito bite!), we've been on the go. However, school goes on. We've had some great school days in the last few weeks. It really is fun for this mom to watch her son's brain figure things out. So here's what's been going on...

LA: SWR has been a big focus for us lately. The words have gotten a bit harder so D-Man needs to practice them more during the week. I've had to add in some extra review. He really knows his phonograms and is good at applying them to the words, but when there are phonogram options for a word, he needs to practice that word to remember which phonogram to use. An example of this is the word "read." He knows that both 'ea' and 'ee' make the long e sound so he could use either in this word, but only one is correct. So, we've started dictation once/week trying to use as many of his spelling words as possible. He usually writes three sentences as I dictate to him and we'll get about 6-7 of the 10 words for that week in the sentences. I've also been giving him quizzes on Wednesday and Thursday to reinforce his words, but there is a big difference between the quizzes and a test. He's allowed to ask me questions on the quiz and I stop him if I see he's writing a word wrong. We do the quizzes on his little white board which is quick and easy. They take about 5 minutes. I also solved my problem of D-Man not reading the words out of his log book by assigning 2-3 lists/day. I wrote down our list assignments on my schedule so it gets done. Now, he's getting into me timing him reading the lists and is proud of how fast he can read many of the earlier lists. All of this practicing has been paying off as he's gotten a 100% on his last two tests.

The other exciting LA development is that he now knows all 70 phonograms. We finished the last four this week. He has about 60 of them mastered. A few will take some time for mastery (ie, ei, and ough), but we have plenty of time for that. He really likes my blue/yellow/red method of sorting his phonogram cards as it shows him his progress and motivates him to get more cards in the blue pile (he's a strong visual learner!). Now that he's learned all of the phonograms, I'm assigning him reading. It's pretty exciting to see him tackle a book and read it with minimal help from me. Right now, we're working our way through our rather large (thanks Grandma) library of level 1 readers. He could probably handle harder books, but I don't want it to be "torture reading" (Wanda Sanseri's phrase). These books are easy, but do allow him to practice his decoding skills. I'm seeing the beauty of the WISE guide words lists in action. They are designed around frequently used words. Because of this, he can read several words in his readers fluently (his spelling words) and only have to work at reading the few that he hasn't encountered yet. This way, he gets plenty of practice and the satisfaction of reading a book all by himself, but doesn't get frustrated sounding out each word. He's been reading about 2 readers/day. We'll keep cycling through these and SL Readers 1 until March when I order our next SL core. This will come with Readers 2 which will be a step up in difficulty. After that, I think we'll be able to follow the SL readers schedule and include library books when he needs some extra reading. He is really getting into reading books on his own. Thursday night, he read a knock-knock joke book and Curious George's ABCs to C-Monster as bedtime stories. He did it on his own accord and really enjoyed it.

Math: D-Man has finished Singapore 1A and is now working on 1B. He's done 21 lessons in a week. I thought we'd slow down when we got to 1B, but the material is still easy for him. He understands regrouping and now automatically uses it when needed. We will start multiplication in a couple of weeks and I plan on slowing down to make sure he really understands it. We also need to work on his addition/subtraction math facts a bit. They come naturally for him and he automatically recalls most of them just from completing Horizons K, but I want him to have them down cold because he's advancing in math so quickly. We're still doing 1 lesson of Horizons 1 every day as well. Horizons includes a lot of problems and gives him good practice of what he's learning in Singapore. Horizons 1 includes tests every 10 lessons and I've been administering them as tests. D-Man doesn't have any problem with this...he thinks tests are fun. In fact, he likes to see how well he knows the material. It helps that he's received a 100% on both tests. Horizons is primarily review for him so I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Sonlight: Wow, we're on week 28 already. Milly Molly Mandy is still a big favorite. I think we'd all like to go visit her in her little village and meet her friends. I really love the innocence of the book and am enjoying watching the boys become friends with Milly Molly Mandy. It is fun seeing the boys getting lost in and enjoying literature as much as I do. D-Man also loves the book Then and Now. It's scheduled to read 2 pages/week, but I think we'll be reading the whole book about once/week instead. It's a cute book showing how ordinary things (like a market or a kitchen) have changed over the years. I think it's a great intro to history. Next week will be our last week of formal SL reading for awhile. We'll be taking time off between Thanksgiving and Christmas to do "Christmas School."

Art: I know I've raved over The Way They See It before, but I just can't say enough good things about this book. It is a perfect introduction to Art History and learning about creative expression. It's giving me an opportunity to teach the boys about the benefits of being individuals and how it's okay to express ourselves uniquely. That's a lesson that will be replayed over the years since D-Man and C-Monster are so different in every way and I don't want them to get in the habit of comparing. Last week, we studied a painting about a stormy sky. I'd been waiting for our sky to have something interesting to color (we have a lot of clear, blue sky days). One night, I noticed how beautiful the sunset was. We actually had a few clouds and the sky was filled with red, orange, and purple. I told the boys to look at it and D-Man exclaimed, "Mom, can we go draw it? I'll get the crayons...don't forget the book!" It was a fabulous idea so we doused ourselved in bug spray and spent the next hour coloring the sunset. Okay, C-Monster drew his version of a helicopter racing an airplane through the sky...all with a yellow crayon, but the intent was there. I'm not in a hurry to finish the book or get through all of the projects, so we might spend the next month or so just coloring the sky.

Well, that's the jist of the last 4 weeks or so. I'll definitely be posting more as we get closer to Christmas. I'm eager to share how Christmas school goes for us.

Homeschool Conversations pt. 1

This was a conversation that occurred this morning:

D-Man: (while finishing his geography) Mom, can we do my word problems book next...PLEASE?

Mom: Sure. If if that's what you want to do...

D-Man: How many pages can I do? Can I do a lot?

Mom (who has planned for D-Man to do 1 page/day): How about 2 pages? That's a lot, right?

D-Man: No, how about 5 pages because I'm 5? Can I please do 5 pages? That would be 10 problems. (He continues talking to himself) Unless I do 20 problems...then I would only have to do 5 more pages.

Mom: Okay, you can do 5 pages (as she wonders what we're going to do when he finishes this book).

D-Man: GREAT!

Lunch at Sonic

Friday, we got to go to Sonic for lunch. Those of you who know me, know that this is a big deal for me to take the boys out to lunch. We rarely eat fast food. However, Sonic is great for a reward because they have fun drinks for kids (and Mom) plus the boys can get something besides chicken nuggets. Oh, and the boys love that they can get bananas instead of french fries.

The treat was for D-Man finishing up Horizons K this week. It took us less than 4 months to complete it, but the last 15 lessons seemed to drag on. This is mostly because we received Singapore PM 1A in the mail and D-Man was really exicted about it. We started to use Singapore as our primary math each day and Horizons K was relegated to a supplement. We did a little at a time until we got to lesson 150. That's when D-Man decided he was going to finish it. He worked on it during his rest times and finished it in 3 days. His motivation was that I wouldn't let him start Horizons 1 until Horizons K was completely finished. He's been chomping at the bit to do Horizons 1. So, we'll get to start it today, too.

Singapore PM will still be our main math program; Horizons 1 will be a supplement. Horizons presents a wider range of topics and LOTS of practice problems. We'll also be starting Challenging Word Problems (CWP) 1 soon. The CWP books have gone out of print, so I had the bindings cut off, put each page in page protecters, and put them in a binder. My idea of a non-consumable workbook. D-Man loves word problems, so CWP will be more of a fun, bonus activity on Fridays.

Math

Math is a fun subject for me. I'd love to teach high school math someday, especially advanced math. Shawn is also pretty mathy himself, so it was not surprising when D-Man declared math a hobby instead of a school subject. Math is fun for him, too. After tutoring a lot of my friends while I was at the Academy, I came to the conclusion that you either get numbers or you don't. Some that I tutored got numbers and just needed a little help understanding the concepts that we were learning, no big deal. Others just didn't get it. They struggled through almost every course...it is an engineering school after all. D-Man, however, is the kind of kid that asked for addition and subtraction flashcards for Christmas when he was four and is currently trying to re-invent multiplication at the age of 5. Because I don't really think it is necessary for kids under 5 to do formal academics, I haven't worked with him to advance his math skills, but we have played lots of games and I answer any questions that he asks. Plus, he likes to pick Grandpa D's brain for new math concepts whenever he visits.

When I went to research math curriculum for this year, I had to keep five things in mind. D-Man loves to do math, he's a visual learner, I didn't want math to be overly challenging this year (we're focusing on LA), and I didn't want him to get too far ahead of his grade level, but I didn't want him to be bored. After a lot of research, there were two programs that stuck out to me: Horizons and Singapore. They are both considered to be great at teaching the concepts and challenging for the grade-level. I decided to use both with D-Man. Since he does like to do math and we school year-round, I knew that he would likely finish a math program in less than 6 months. Just going through a math program at lightning speed doesn't have the desired end results for me. Sure, I might have a 14 yo who has been through Calculus, but so what? What I would rather have is a 14yo in Geometry who really has good foundation in arithmetic. Depth rather than breadth.

The two programs are also very different in their presentation of math. Horizons is a fast spiral teaching concepts in a traditional workbook fashion. Right up D-Man's alley. He won't get bored, but will get the eye-candy he likes. Singapore specializes in mental math...really thinking about the process. The depth I'm looking for. I'm also excited about doing both of these programs with D-Man so that I can decide which one I'd like to use with C-Monster and Little-J. I don't want to push two programs on them if they don't have the desire and one program is definitely enough to provide an excellent education.

Right now, we are doing Horizons. The general consensus is that Horizons runs about 1 grade-level ahead of the norm. D-Man tested into Horizons 2 (could be considered 3rd grade math), but I didn't see any reason to start him that high. It would have been pretty challenging for him which I didn't want. I decided instead to do Horizons K and go through it as fast as he wants focusing on concepts that he hasn't been introduced to like skip counting, money, and telling time. He loves Horizons K. It does include a lot of number penmanship practice that we skip (it's just busy work), but overall, it is great. It only takes him about 5-10 mins to complete a lesson so we do at least 2/day. We are already on Lesson 85 after working on it for about 6 weeks. Looking back, I could have easily started him in Horizons 1 and it still would have been easy for him, but I'm happy where we are. Here's a sample of what he's been doing:

Once we're done with Horizons K, we'll start Singapore 1A. After that, we might go on to 1B (1A and 1B make up a full year program) or go into Horizons 1 and do 1B/2A in before Horizons 2. I'll just have to get a feel for it. Both programs go up to level 6 which I'm hoping not to finish until D-Man is at least in 5th grade. Then, we'll see about Algebra for 6th maybe pre-Algrebra. The one thing I love about homeschooling is that I can be flexible and change the plan whenever it needs to be changed.