This Week

We're half-way through with 1st grade math, and I'm thinking of skipping ahead to 2nd grade sometime soon. Jonathan's still bored by the repetition, and even with copious skipping, it's been almost completely review for him. He's getting to brush-up on money, but I'm thinking he could do that just as well with the 2nd grade books. Any recommendations for non-repetitive math? If it were up to me, we'd just lay back and learn through play, but he loves "math meetings" and the whole ritual aspect of doing it every day. He wants to do it every single day even though it's getting on his nerves to a certain extent.

We're studying ancient Africa this week and I'm putting together our feast for Friday: chicken with figs, papaya stir fried rice, fried plantains, date and banana bars, and date chewies. I have no idea how authentic any of this is, but the recipes sound yummy. Jonathan and I went through the ingredients speculating how abundant they might have been 5,000 years ago. For our feast/party, we're also making a bunch of homemade instruments out of household items. I'm looking through his library books to get more ideas for the party, too. Friday night, good-neighbor M is going to be hearing and smelling some strange stuff coming from the little red cabin.

Also, Dan's boss is from Sierra Leone, and I've been trying to figure out if J would be interested in talking to him about what he's been learning, but he hasn't given me a straight answer, yet. I've also been trying to ascertain from Dan just how receptive the boss might be to such a thing.

I've been able to stall him on the 3rd grade spelling thing and we've just been writing down words that he mispells in our day-to-day activities and working on those.

We're finishing up arachnids and will be moving on to reptiles soon for our Animal Kingdom studies in life science. Like math, alot of the things we've been going over in science are review for him, as well, so we've just been digging deeper. I never realized just how widely he has cast his nets these last 6 years. Going into a subject, it's amazing how much basic and even in-depth knowledge he's carrying around already.

He's finished The End by A. A. Milne (which he liked very much: But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever/So I think I'll be six, now, for ever and ever.), and is now copying out Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson and memorizing that in the process. I usually copy out three or four lines a day for him to copy and memorize. These are the poems that he's dedicated to memory while working on his manuscript writing since August:

The Caterpillar by Christina G. Rosetti
Work by Anonymous
Time to Rise by Robert Louis Stevenson
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
The Berry-Queen by Cicely Mary Barker
Hearts Are Like Doors by Anonymous
I Know All the Sounds That the Animals Make by Jack Prelutsky
Monday's Child, a Mother Goose rhyme, adapted by Sarah Buffington
Days of the Week, another version of Monday's Child that he liked better, I think
The End by A. A. Milne
The Months, a Mother Goose rhyme

His writing has improved so much. He had never written on lined paper before August (or was it September) and the difference is amazing. Lined paper. Who knew?

He also studies once a week with the Jehovah's Witnesses. The little boy (he's 13, I think) who studies with him is very sweet, but very much a JW. I've been trying to give J a more balanced view of world religions with books like this one, but he's so drawn to the literal and concrete. I so wish that Buddhists came door to door with beautifully illustrated books explaining their religion to little children. And Jewish people, and Muslims, and Hindus, and... We could have religious study every day of the week.

We got a Bionicle magazine in the mail yesterday and he's been devouring it over and over again ever since. He and B and N spent most of today playing outside in Metru Nui. J has our property divided into different Bionicle zones. I'll tell him to take something out the back door and he'll say, "You mean in Po Metru?"

Um, yeah.

Chug-Chug-Chugging Down the Track

We're finishing up Ancient India in our history studies and will begin Ancient China soon. I'm learning all sort of things that I never knew.

These are the books J has read so far on Ancient India:

Rum Pum Pum: A Folk Tale from India by Duff, Maggie
India by Chatterjee, Manini
Savitri: A Tale of Ancient India by Sherard, Aaron
Ancient India and Its Influence in Modern Times by Wirsing, Robert
Chachaji’s Cup by Krishnaswami, Uma
Nine Animals and the Well by Rumford, James
The Jungle Book by Kipling, Rudyard
One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by Demi
Once A Mouse by Brown, Marcia

We'll be finishing up our Ants and Termites study in science, too, since the books are due tomorrow. Whenever we start a new topic, we classify the critter, from Kingdom down to Order, do some coloring pages and anatomy labeling, fill out an observation sheet full of questions about the animal, and then read, read, read. Here are the books we've read on Ants and Termites:

Roberto: The Insect Architect by Laden, Nina
The Life and Times of the Ant by Micucci, Charles.
Ants by Heinrichs, Ann.
The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in its Pants : A Book about Ants by Cole, Joanna.
Inside an Ant Colony by Fowler, Allan.
A Natural History of Termites by Behnke, Frances L.
Armies of Ants by Retan, Walter.
Through a Termite City by Telford, Carole,
Ants by Jacobs, Liza.
An Ant's Day Off by Becker, Bonny.
It's an Ant's Life by Parker, Steve.
The Ant and the Grasshopper by Poole, Amy Lowry
Ants In My Pants by Mould, Wendy
Ants by Halfmann, Janet.
Thinking About Ants by Brenner, Barbara

Jonathan's still into copying down poetry for his writing practice (I don't think he realizes that he's practicing his writing, though). Right now we're doing Monday's Child: Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesdays child is full of grace, etc. Next up is The End from Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne: When I was One,/I had just begun./When I was Two/I was nearly new., etc. After that I have some fall poems picked out by Robert Lewis Stephenson and Cicely Mary Barker (Flower Fairies of the Autumn). J already copied and memorized (one in the same, for him) The Berry Queen (I couldn't find a link online!) by C.M. Barker: An elfin rout/With berries laden/Throngs 'round about/A merry maiden, etc. Very sweet.

He's finished 2nd grade spelling and I don't know what to do with him. 3rd grade in the Spelling Workout series is in cursive and in a bid to prove to me that he should go on, he's begun to practice cursive writing. I'm more of a mind to switch to a different speller (The Natural Speller), or just practice the words that he misspells in our everyday work, but he's bent on Spelling Workout C. The actual spelling words don't seem that difficult for him. Maybe I should just go on with it.

We're more than half-way through the 1st grade Saxon Math book, with copious amounts of skipping and skimming. What we have been focusing on are the money lessons because he hasn't had much practice with it. He catches on quickly, though, and the lessons are monotonous and repetitive for him. So I skip alot and do the ones that look fun for him. Looking ahead, I saw that the whole thing will be review for him, right up to the end, so I've ordered the 2nd grade edition and we'll start that soon. One thing I don't like about the curriculum is that it doens't lend itself to skipping ahead. We'll probably be starting the 2nd grade stuff soon, for instance, but the lessons are dated and it takes some working around. It also builds on previous lessons, so you're liable to miss a previous introduction to a certain manipulative or idiosyncratic concept particular to the curriculum. I may explore some other math materials for our main lessons. I wish I could locate my early Miquon materials because we've reached the point in the books that I have unpacked where he's obviously missing some earlier instruction. He's still loving the Math Magic book, though, and happily spends half of his day with math study.

We're half-way through both of his grammar books, as well. The First Language Lessons is too repetitive for him, as well, so we skim through it so that he doesn't get bored with it. It does have some exercises that entertain him, so we focus on those, mostly.

He's not been asking for his Latin books as often, and I'm not dumb enough to bring it up when his interest is waning (no surer way to make him balk), so we've just been skipping it altogether. I'm sure he'll pick it back up again when he feels like it. His interests tend to wane and then come back with a vengeance.

Benjamen and Nicholas both want in on the action. I've been doing reading and math with Benjamen, at his insistence. We're about a quarter of the way through 100 Easy Lessons, usually do a lesson every other day or whenever he asks. We alternate that with the Kindergarten Saxon materials I had on hand. He's mostly playing with manipulatives, counting, and figuring out the calendar, days of the week (I had made up a song for Jonathan years ago which we're resurrected), months, etc. He's identifying more numbers than before, and he's identifying lots of letters, but he hadn't been interested in writing anything down until the other day. He came to me with a bunch of M's he had drawn and demanded that we send them to Gramma ASAP.

Nicholas wants to learn sounds and count, too, so he plays with manpulatves and listens in on J & B's lessons. Last night before bed, J was overheard giving 2 y.o. N an impromptu lesson in cellular biology:

J: There are these little round things called cells that make up your whole body, but they're too tiny for you to see.
N: Oh!
J: Inside of each one is a nucleus.
N: Wow! Nuk-ye-us.
J: Nucleus. Inside each nucleus are X-shaped things called chromosomes.
N: Krozomomes! Dat's wite.
J: Chrom-uh-zomes. Inside the chromosomes is DNA that we got from Mom and Dad.
N: Oh! Mom and Dad! Dat's wite.
J: Mom, I think you should explain to him about how the DNA is replicated. I don't seem to be making any progress, here.