What We Are Working On

 

From time to time, folks ask my son what he's learning about this year. So in the interest of sharing great resources, here's our list:

1. Life of Fred, Decimals and Percents:  Math was never so much fun! My son has read almost all the books just for the story, then we go back and do the math problems

2. Balance Benders Level 1:  Logic and algebraic reasoning puzzles from The Critical Thinking Co.

3. Word Roots A2:  Teaches students the meanings of Latin and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffixes commonly used in English. Also from The Critical Thinking Co.

4. Developing Critical Thinking Through Science, Book 2:  Hands-on, minds-on activities that help students learn basic physical science principles and the scientific method of investigation. From The Critical Thinking Co. as well (can you see a pattern here?).

5. Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program,Level 2 :  By the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary

6. The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance :  This text is a very fast read for my son, but it then provides a foundation for further research when an event or historical figure catches his interest.

My son will turn 9 this year and he still loves to read just for his own entertainment (yeah!). He reads both fiction and non-fiction as he pleases. At the moment he is reading a very old volume of Aesop's Fables that was mine as a child.

Those are the only texts or workbooks we will use, but of course video and online learning is mixed in. He has learned a great deal about computer language and skills just from his online game creations and Minecraft play.

In between helping me care for my pet sitting clients, we just follow his interests the rest of the time.

He also has decided he wants to document things more (thoughts, ideas, findings etc.), so he is getting writing time in on his own as well. This is much better than me asking him to write something specific, which never worked!

Games for Writing

It's brilliant, really it is! Thanks to a great book I ordered, I found a fun way to challenge my reluctant writer. The book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye, has given me dozens of way to engage and encourage my son to write.

Like many boys, he loves a good game and loves to try and bend the rules if he can get away with it. In this book, the author describes a game she calls "Word by Word".  You write a story with your child by taking turns adding the next words. The trick is you have to roll dice before each turn to see how many words you can use to continue the story.  So you start with a topic and then each take turns expanding the story.

At first my very controlling son refused to play because he didn't want me to change the direction of the story if he didn't have enough words to finish his thought. After a few tries as predicted, he was begging me to let him throw the dice again and use "more" words.

That's all it took (rules meant to be broken) for him to insist on writing. Brilliant I tell you, brilliant!
Half way through the story, we changed to me writing a full sentence and then him. He still threw the dice because he thought it was fun, but in no time we had completed a full page story.

I will be using this game again and again. There are many more examples in this book that will work for all types of children. However, if you have an intense, obsessive boy who likes to win games, give this a try!

*This is not a paid review. I purchased this book on my own and have never been contacted by the author

Cycles Of Learning

Like many home educators, I worry sometimes that my son is not learning enough or that I'm not spending enough time on lessons. I'm not sure I would call us "unschoolers" but we certainly are life learners and relaxed homeschoolers. Also, being that my son has developed many skills asynchronously (reading and math levels 3-4 years ahead of writing) I had to adapt to his learning style and delve much deeper in some subjects while waiting for other fine motor skills to catch up.

Some days it seems as though we don't do any lessons at all and then there are the weeks he gets turned on by something, and I can't find enough for him to do. It seems we go through cycles of learning. When he was four and five, this drove my crazy. I would have all these plans ready for the week and come to find it was an "off" week for him and all he wanted to do was computer learning.

Now that he is six, I have figured out finally, that he is really very self-regulated. When he is going through a period of nothing but learning on his own through the computer, I'm able to relax and let him be. Then sure enough when he has had his fill, he wants to do more hands on work, projects, etc with me. He even goes through a "workbook only" phase every now and then.

Between it all, he has taken in an enormous amount of information and can add his own self-taught knowledge to our discussions and projects. This he loves! Teaching the teacher is one of his favorite things! We still struggle with writing anything of length, but I have no doubt now that something will spark his desire to master that as well and he will catch up quickly.

So if you have a child that loves to keeping going on to higher levels in some subjects but struggles (or avoids) others, I wouldn't worry so much, that is why we homeschool in the first place. We have time (and thanks to the internet, the resources!) to move at their pace, whatever that may be.

My Son, The Author

A few weeks ago while in bed one night, my son wrote his first story, on his own. When he was finished, he showed me two full pages of sentences. He couldn't wait to read it to me and I couldn't wait to hear it. It was about a mother dinosaur protecting her eggs.

He didn't spell all the words correctly but he did have the correct punctuation. Funny thing is, the long names of the dinosaurs he did spell correctly! It's some of the simple words he had trouble with. I'm always amazed when he can read and write great big words before the smaller ones.

I was so impressed, I told him I would make his story into a book. So I typed it into a word document, leaving a space at the top of each page for an illustration. I made the necessary corrections and also made a cover page. The cover has a title and names him as author and illustrator.

Then I found some coloring pages for him to color that went along with his story. I pasted a picture at the top of each page and then laminated the pages. With a hole punch, I made three holes and clipped the pages together with small key rings. He was thrilled and now we have a wonderful keepsake to cherish!

Fun Ways to Inspire Your Child to Write

I don't know about your children but getting my almost five year old son to write anything is like pulling teeth. It takes him forever to finish one sentence and then if it looks scribbled to him, he will have a fit and start over. Yet when he wants to write something on his own, no problem.



After days of nagging him to finish one page of copy work, I essentially gave up. The next morning (just to show me he could do it), he got a pencil a paper and wrote me this note. I almost fell over!
I know he can write if he wants too, so I'm going to try some sneaky ways to encourage him.

• Have him help make the shopping list.
• Write notes to Grandma, Santa, etc.
• Make an ingredient list before cooking.
• Make a list of clues to investigate.
• Write measurements before starting a project.
• Filling out checks in an old checkbook.
• Write down speaking lines to learn for a play.
• Help me label anything (files, drawers, storage boxes)
• Make an address list of who to send Christmas cards to.
• Fill out a blank calendar with important family dates.
• Write a song.

This way it won't feel like handwriting practice and he will learn about planning for things as well. If you can think of any more creative ways to inspire the pencil muse, please share!