We've been working on the "Explode the Code" and Singapore math books here and there. Dh had the chance to work with both kids over the holiday, just so he could get an idea of what they are doing. So far, they still love workbooks and get upset when we put them away. But T is resisting the writing portion of his "Explode the Code" book. Based on his age, we're letting him skip those sections. With B, we encourage him to do them simply because his pen grip and letter formation is not typical (and he's much older). T has a great pen grip, but I can't convince B to change his.

Dh was surprised at what T did with his workbook. There was an assisted spelling activity. A drawing is shown (e.g. hat) and for each of the 3 letter places, several letters are given. The child has to choose the "h" from a few other letters and then choose an "a" from a selection of letters and then choose the "t". T did it very quickly; dh was surprised at how well he did. Because T wants to do everything that B does and because he's doing some things that are a bit unusual for his age, it's hard to remember that he's not even 4 1/2 and that we should back off him. If he doesn't want to write, it doesn't matter. It only matters that he enjoys himself. Of course, it's the same for B, but since B is 6 1/2, I'd really like to try to correct some of his penmanship issues before it becomes even more of an ingrained habit.

For B's math, because he thinks he's not good at it, we decided to just start from the beginning in workbooks, so he could develop confidence. I figure it didn't hurt to give him some easy math so he might feel more confident. So, he's doing Singapore Math from the beginning, but dh works with him on other math topics on his own. B is good at calculating sums in his head, but I've noticed that he often calculates for simple sums. I think that once he memorizes those and has to calculate less, it should be easier for him. So, we play the quiz show game with the Magnadoodle, in which I fire off quick and easy math questions, in addition to sight words. He enjoys it and it seems to help him.

From the math quiz show game, I've learned that he knows addition doubles (e.g. 2+2, 4+4) up to at least 20. I've also learned that if we ask him in progression (first 2, then 3s, then 4s) that he automatically just gives the number that is 2 up, i.e. you simply skip count by 2s to 20.

The other night, dh used the Magnadoodle to do some extra math with B. He asked him what 3+3+3 is, to which B immediately replied, "9". Dh showed him that he could write it as 3*3. They did the same with 2s. I think B answered "5" for 3 2s, before correcting himself. They practiced writing these in multiplication formats. Dh gave him the trick question of "3", to which the answer he was looking for was "3*1". It all seemed to go well.

B also did some "Explode the Code" workbook work. I'm using a similar approach of starting him on an easier level, not only for confidence but to see if there are any gaps.

We don't have a regular time when we do these. We just do them when the kids feel like them, at this point. I'm not sure if we'll develop a routine or not.

Ok, so at B's request, we've started formal math. Yesterday, we dissected numbers. I showed him to dissect 32 into 30 and 2. He dissected a list of numbers like that, e.g. 98 is 90 and 8. We then moved into dissecting higher numbers like 130. When we did numbers in the 100s, however, he wanted to write it as 30 and 10, i.e. dropping one of the zero place holders in the 100. I did a strange drawing on 30 sitting on top of 100 (with strange voices, which the kids cracked up at). Then, he understood that when we take 30, all of the 100 is still there. I feel like he has a basic grasp on place value, which is what I was trying to teach him.

At supper, we went a bit further. I asked how many 10s were in 20. He knew that. So I asked him to dissect 32 in a similar way. He answered, "Three 10s and a 2." I feel that he has a good grasp on this. It seems like it's easier for him to 'dissect' the numbers mentally than it is for him to write it out. He can do it in his mind easier than he can do on paper. I've reserved a "Montessori at home" book at the library and I hope to get some hands-on math games from it.

Today, we went to the big homeschool store. We left with some Singapore Math, Explode the Code and Dover coloring books. Each child got an Explode the Code book, but only B got a math book. I don't think T is ready for written math yet.

When we got home, B blew through some Singapore math pages. I deliberately started him at a lower level so that he *could* blow through it and build his confidence, while checking for any basic gaps.

T worked on his "Explode The Code 1" book. In one set of exercises, T matched consonants with drawings that began with those consonants. As mentioned before, he doesn't know all the consonants but he was easily able to match them with the appropriate drawings. I just had to tell him the sounds of a few consonants. He got all of them correct except for one; some of the drawings are very ambiguous, tbh. He also did a word match; for example, which word matches 'fat', 'hat or 'fat'? The words were all -at words and he easily read them all. I stopped him at this point because I was a bit burned out and I thought he would benefit from having a break anyway.

Earlier this morning, while I was struggling to wake up with my cup of tea, the kids traced a number and letter worksheet, to help them learn the correct way to form those objects. T mostly drew on his. B still forms some of his letters backwards. T actually writes some words backwards sometimes, but I know that's developmentally appropriate. T announced that a 2 was a backwards 5 and that a 6 was an upside-down 9. They are both very enthusiastic about this so far.

In random homeschool news, I taught them some Mandarin the other day. I think it's hard for them as children to distinguish between the 4 tones in Mandarin. I used my hands to indicate which tone was which. One sounds like a command, one sounds like a question, one is constant like singing a note and one sounds like an incredulous question. They learned, "how are you?" "I am very well" and "thank you". When my Chinese class starts, I thought I might try to teach them some Mandarin if they are still interested. We also talked about the characters. I got out a Chinese teacup that has characters on it and we talked about how the characters originated from a pictorial language like hieroglyphics. For example, the pronoun characters all begin with the same character, which originates from a picture of a stick man. B found this interesting, as he has recently been trying out Egyptian hieroglyphics. I keep meaning to find and print out cuniform for him, but I think we would benefit from some history stories to give it context. Although I have mixed feelings about it, I think we're going to get "Story of the World".

This post is just full of random hs things.

In the new house, and this goes against everything I thought I believed about early childhood and academics, I think I'm going to see if T is receptive to me working with him on reading. He already can read simple Bob books (but not all in one shot, b/c he gets tired). He knows how to blend words, although I'm not quite sure how he figured that out. But yet, he doesn't know the names of all the letters yet. It's funny. He can sound out and read small words, but he forgets what an "N" is. The other day, he was writing at the table. He was trying to write, "Day in Spanish" and he had written "DAE". B did not help him at all; he had just sounded it out and worked it out himself. He had problems writing Spanish, because he forgets what an "N" is. Whereas B was always heavily resistant to instruction, T seems happy when someone sits with him to do stuff. So, I'm going to see if he's receptive to some (gasp) formal instruction.

What's crazy is that he isn't legally allowed to start Kindergarten for two more years, based on his slightly late birthday. If we used school, the earliest he could do K would be 2009/2010. I'm trying to figure out how this works with homeschooling. I would like to simply ignore the birthday cut-off (less than 2 months from his bday) and start legally tracking him next year. I don't know if I can do that or not. I'm just thinking of long-term. What if my kids want to go to school at some point? I would rather T have the option of doing the higher grade. Anyway, it's a long way away.

In other random hs news, T was asking dh questions about the Sphinx so dh Googled some stuff for them. Then, dh printed off a hieroglyphic sheet for B. B was so happy; he wrote his name in hieroglyphics. Then, he started inventing his own pictorial alphabet. I want to print off some cuniform for him too, since he was so interested in pictorial text. Actually, if my Chinese book wasn't in storage right now, I could show him that, because the characters are derived from pictures. For example, the first character in the pronouns is based on a picture of a person.

Right now, they're playing with Legos. We had a busy week with two days of very active outside play so they're enjoying some introverted bliss of quietly playing. I've barely heard from them today.

I wanted to add something to my fall/winter 2007 assessment of B for our portfolio. We have a better idea of where he is in math based on some questions he's asked in the last few days. He's been asking questions about addition doubles. And then yesterday, he asked me, "How much is three 4s?" When I replied, "12", he said, "That's what two 6's are!" When I mentioned this to dh, dh said that B had rattled off the sums of two 2s, two 3s, two 4s and two 5s for him. Based on how quickly he said them, dh thinks he's gone beyond figuring them out and has memorized them. From what I can tell of First Grade expectations, this is in line with those, except that they focus on memorization. I would rather see number sense precede memorization, rather than the other way around. I say that as someone who is absolutely terrible at math but who dutifully memorized everything I was asked to. I feel good about where B is in math. In the new house, I've promised workbooks.

Fall-Winter 2007 Homeschool Assessment, for our portfolio

Well....I got kind of slack with hs blogging. It's just been a crazy time. First, we all got sick with various things that seemed to stagger so that someone was always sick. Then, there was the holiday craziness. Finally, we're all in a rut living in this apartment. Whenever we visit the new house that's being built, T cries when it's time to leave. I think we're all desperate to have our own house again, where we can make as much noise as we want, spread out as much as we want, make messes and have a yard to play in. It's looking like two more months on the house front.

So I find myself at the end of the homeschooling fall-winter session already, where I have to record B's progress for legal purposes. I don't have to turn it in, but I have to keep it in his personal portfolio at home, by law. So, while I'm thinking of it, here is what I have for B in fall-winter 2007, "first grade".

**Language Arts:
-Although B doesn't sit and read for pleasure yet, he reads at or above grade level. He frequently points out words that he's read. A recent example is reading a magnet, announcing it said, "Polish Art Kenter (Polish Art Center)". He seems to have gone from laboriously sounding words out to reading small words effortlessly and quickly.
-B frequently writes, using inventive spelling that follows phonetic concepts. Example: Hee floo uwae (he flew away). He enjoys writing small books and making greeting cards for people. I posted an example of one in this blog not that long ago. I'm keeping samples of his work.
-B still writes some of his letters backwards.

**Maths:
-I have not formally assessed his ability in this area, but I plan on doing so in the new house when our lives are a bit more normal. I know that he can mentally add sums up to 10 or 15 in his head. He can add single digits to double digit numbers (e.g. 24+4) if he counts out loud (25...26...27...28). In the past, he has added single digits to double-digit numbers without counting but those are isolated incidents. I feel confident that he's at grade level for math. He's taking an interest in very basic multiplication, mostly the doubles of numbers. He often asks things like, "What are two 8s?"
-I consider spatial skills pertinent to Lego building to fall into this area. It's pre-engineering or something like that. He frequently builds very complex Duplo creations. They are structurally sound, very complex and sometimes contain moving parts. He's going to enter a Lego contest in February.
-B started getting an allowance, which has helped him develop math skills. He is now more interested in how much things cost and how to read price tags. He took a loan from us at one point and had to repay it. While we did not charge him interest, we talked about what an interest-free loan meant, which led to some interesting discussions about how banks work.

**Arts:
-B has taken two art classes this past semester. One was a drawing class that focused on shading techniques. The other was a class about making things from paper. B learned art techniques and terminology such as "photo montage". He also learned about some famous artists, such as Pablo Picasso. We have made several trips to the Art Museum.
-B frequently draws and makes 3d paper creations at home. He would do more with other supplies if we had the space for it. He wants to make a robot out of metal cans and other parts.
-We listen to a wide variety of music, such as jazz, African music, classical music, Latin jazz and opera. We discuss some elements in the music. We try to identify which instruments we can hear in classical pieces. We recently watched a bell choir holiday concert on TV. B has expressed an interest in taking violin lessons. Thanks to the 'Little Einsteins" cartoon, he has an awareness of some composers' names; often, they are composers that we have listened to in the car and we talk about that.
-B acted in a Christmas pageant.

**Social Studies:
We don't have a systematic approach to history, but we have a lot of interesting conversations.
-- We've had many detailed conversations about the Vikings, with connections to geography. B is very interested in the Vikings and he can identify their origins and many destinations on a map.
--We've had some detailed conversations about Egyptian mummies and how they were made. We saw a Reading Rainbow episode on this topic and we paused the show many times to discuss things related to it. We have talked about hieroglyphics and we've looked at examples.
--We've talked about slavery, segregation and integration, after watching a Reading Rainbow episode together. We talked about this in relation to our community. We kept it on a very high level.
--We've talked about Jewish culture, on a very high level. We saw a Reading Rainbow episode about Levar's Jewish friend; they made challah bread together. And B drew a picture of a menorah after watching a Blue's Room episode about the holidays.
--We've talked about poverty and we volunteered to buy Christmas presents for a needy boy B's age.
--We've talked about taxes on a high level. We've talked about some things in our community that are funded by taxes, like our local recycling facility. We took a field trip to a local recycling center.
-B remains very interested in world geography.

Foreign Languages
-We have been working on learning some Spanish. We have watched Spanish TV shows, such as "Plaza Sesamo". We have watched the Muzzy Spanish CD. We have learned some Spanish phrases together. I have read them well-known books in Spanish, such as "Good Night Moon" and "Harold and the Purple Crayon". The kids have learned a Spanish song from the Dragontales cartoon: "Buenos dias, buenos dias. Como esta? Como esta? Muy bien, gracias. Muy bien, gracias. Y usted? Y usted?" They understand what the phrases in the song mean in English.
-The kids have also learned some German, after choosing the Muzzy German tape from the library. They have learned the phrases: Ich bin (name), Ich haba hunger, nein, gross and klein. B has also learned how to say, "Good afternoon" but I don't know how to spell it. Dh has taught them some Bavarian greetings. B recently had the chance to speak some German with real Germans.
-We have very briefly spoken about other languages and tried to associate some geographic locations with them. There has been a very brief exposure to Chinese, Polish (they learned the word for "man"), French and Russian.

**Science:
-We've dissected owl pellets, but we have not yet reassembled the rodent skeleton as B hopes to do.
-We've taken some field trips to science museums.
-B drew many detailed anatomy pictures from memory, after browsing through (reading??) his DK anatomy books. He can correctly draw and name the: heart, lungs, brain, brain stem, liver, gallbladder (he doesn't know the name for this one), stomach, intestines, colon (he doesn't know the name for this), and appendix.
-We've read about animal cells vs plant cells, on a very high level. B made an animal cell from cardboard. He remembers that they have a nucleus and he remembers the term "organelles".

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I cannot think of anything else that I should record here, so I'll leave it at this. What I need to do now is buy some pocket folders like I did last year, so I can organize the samples of his work.