Friday's Homeschooling

PE today was swimming. It may be the one of the last warm days this year, so I encouraged Aaron and some of his friends to spend time in the local creek.

Math - was fractions. He didn't listen to my instructions and got all the (simple) problems wrong. We'll do that page over again next week. ::sigh::

He's 12. I try to teach him - and his mind goes 100 miles an hour... in other directions. Sometimes it feels frustrating. I know he's learning all the time, and gets a lot of information from sources that have nothing to do with me sitting across from him at the table asking him to do things... but sometimes it feels too much like a battle to try to keep his mind on the topic at hand.

Ancient Wisdom today - was to read more Aesop's Fables and discuss them, and then the Golden Rule. Writing was to copy the Golden Rule. Reading - he did a word search puzzle.

Social Studies - we read a well-illustrated book about the ancient Roman Empire. When we got to the part about taxation of people in conquered countries, we were able to compare that situation with the US Revolutionary War taxation issue. I was impressed at reading that Roman homes were heated via hot water pipes under the floors. We discussed that, and it got him thinking. Since building is one of his interests, we have one class section this semester called "Alternative Archetecture". I'm always looking for new building ideas to show him.


Thursday's Homeschooling

Yesterday Aaron wanted to ride his bike, so I followed him in the car - several miles south along the river highway, and back again. He is fast, and didn't look at all winded when he got back. He wants to train for mountain biking, now that he's spent so much time reading about it.

He was really hard to work with for the other subjects... he was so distractable and energetic today. Math was fractions. Reading and writing were from the Dolch word lists we've been working with. We played the same game again, but he wasn't all that interested this time. I'm going to have to think of a new game strategy. I had him fill out a crossword puzzle worksheet... one I created myself for him a few days ago. This was his first time to do a crossword... like I have said so many times, this is a child who really, really did not want to learn to write (or read)... except in theory, perhaps.

He had fun painting and making ink blots - we compared our impressions on what the ink blots resembled... that was fun.

For Ancient Wisdom I read him more of the Aesop's Fables.

  ¶ 5:22 PM  

  Wednesday's Homeschooling

Today we had a treasure hunt. Aaron loves Three Musketeers candy bars, so I hid one. Then I wrote five clue cards. He had to read each one to find the next clue, and eventually found the location of the hidden candy bar. There were some words that were hard for him and he had to decode them. This activity was worth doing again. It was challenging, but he was highly motivated to find the food.

We also played a game with Dolch word lists. I printed out two copies of two of the grade level lists. Then I cut the words out, so there was one word on each slip of paper. (This made two copies of each word.) We took turns drawing words out of a pile and reading the word out loud when we drew it, then placing it face up on the table. When there was a match, we would write the word on our list. We could match words from either our own piles or each others'. The person who was the first to have ten matched words written down won. (He won.) Aaron liked this game so we will play again. The site where I got the Dolch word lists also has a page about games to play, but this was one we made up as we went along with it.

Aaron also spent time working on his timeline binder. We're still getting it set up with clear pocket dividers, with a bright colored paper in each. Each side of each page will represent fifty years in the history of the world and it will be up to him to decorate each page with that half-century's events.

Next.. we read from the extreme mountain biking book. He just loves this book. We're already reading the last chapter and it is about competitions. We also read a vocabulary list of slang used by mountain bikers. I let him try to guess what each term referred to - and a few he got, like "brain bucket" means helmet, and "steed" refers to a mountain bike. I will make a multiple choice test for him after we finish the book - not that I want to test him, but more because I think it will help him remember all the vocabulary we learned.

Also tonight I read to him from "Home Schools, An Alternative" by Cheryl Gorder. I want him to know more about the homeschooling movement that he's chosen to be part of. The book uses a lot of big words, like "influential" and "controversy" - so this was a vocabulary building experience! He enjoyed the reading and interrupted me several times to discuss the issues!

After that he asked to be excused so he could clean his room and move one of our computers back there, so I let him go.

Later - we listened together as Art Bell interviewed cave explorer Bonnie Crystal... she's just awesome and has wonderful stories about her expeditions under the earth.

Tuesday's Homeschooling

That was 24 hours or more ago and I don't remember much about what we did. If I don't write things down right away, the memory fades...

  ¶ 11:49 PM  

  Monday's homeschooling

Aaron's favorite subject is PE right now, since we're reading about mountain biking. Today we read that bikers do stretching before riding, so I tried to teach Aaron how to do pre-exercise stretches. He did not exactly pick it up right away. We'll keep trying, until he can do it right. He showed me a series of stretches he'd learned in karate class this last summer.

For Ancient Wisdom we read a couple of Aesop's fables, and compared them to Proverbs we've studied during the last few weeks. We also read some more Chinese proverbs.

I read quite a bit in the New Jersey book - I'm anxious to get through it. I was disappointed that after several days of concentrating on NJ, Aaron still couldn't point to it on the USA map. He pointed at Massachusetts. Maybe I expect too much. While I was reading, I had Aaron looking at a map of New Jersey, locating cities as I read the book.

For math we talked about adding money amounts, fractions, number patterns, and a few more things. I'm laying the foundation for what's to come. The rest of the week will be on fractions... at least, that's the plan.

This time I saved writing practice for the end. He wrote a list of stunts that mountain bikers do into his writing notebook. He was so glad to get done with that.. so I let him go afterwards.

  ¶ 4:17 AM