One-Sixteenth: September 2006 Archives

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September 23, 2006

More About Math

I know we've been discussing how it's good to be imperfect, but I've got to tell you: I've hit upon the perfect combination of math curricula.

Right Start math is brilliant. I am continually impressed by the way it teaches concepts. I wish I had found it earlier, so that I could have used it with Connor. It teaches concepts in a very concrete manner, and relies heavily on teaching patterns and strategies. For instance, Aidan is learning multiplication. His last lesson involved using the abacus to see why any even number multiplied by 5 will always be a multiple of 10, and will always end with 0; and why any odd number multiplied by 5 will always end with 5. In taking Aidan through this program, I've learned strategies for easy mental addition, subtraction and multiplication that I never knew existed. My math ability has been greatly enhanced by the information I've learned in the 2nd and 3rd grade book.

As fantastic as it is, we will continue to use Singapore Math as well. I used to think that Right Start did not provide enough practice, so we'd use Singapore as practice and drill. Now I see that Right Start doesn't need supplementation in that area - it's enough on its own. However, Singapore's strength is in its word problems. If we do nothing else, we will go through the Singapore workbooks and pull out all the word problems.

Singapore's word problems are real world problems. They are, in general, the kinds of problems we're all likely to run into, and scratch our heads over. They require creative thinking. They require learning how to take the facts, and structure a problem in such a way that it makes sense.

I recently bought a supplementary Singapore workbook for Connor: Primary Mathematics Challenging Word Problems. Challenging is right. Each chapter in this book starts with a few worked problems as examples. After the worked problems are a series of word problems. After the regular word problems is a series of "challenging" word problems. Oh, my.

Here's an example of one of their challenging problems: Laura had 400 stamps. She gave 3/20 of them to Sam, 5/16 of them to Joe and 1/5 of the remainder to Jim. How many stamps did she have left?

Or: Valery bought some apples and oranges for $13.80 altogether. Each apple cost $0.40 and each orange cost $0.20 more than each apple. If she bought 3 more oranges than apples, how many oranges did she buy?

For 5th grade, these are great problems, aren't they? Again, Connor is just about at my level of math. I can compute faster than he can, and I can do simple algebra. I am likely to get these problems right, but for the most part I do have to think about them first. Unless I'm extremely busy, I make it a point to work the problem myself, instead of just reaching for the answer key.

I had originally thought we'd go on to other math series, instead of using Singapore's New Elementary Math. I am reconsidering that decision. I hear that New Elementary Math is very difficult unless you're a "math person," or have a tutor; sounds like a challenge.

Posted by lynx at 9:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 22, 2006

Overheard at My House

Me: "Aidan, go get your Latin book."

Aidan: "Computer, end program! End program!"

Posted by lynx at 9:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 19, 2006

Imperfect Homeschoolers, Untie!

Wait ... sorry, that's the line for the dyslexic homeschoolers.

Poppins, that smart, smart Mama, has got it exactly right. There is no such thing as doing homeschooling perfectly right. There is no right method, schedule, curriculum. None. Zip. Nada. Just like real life, there are no magic pills.

Frankly, you're insane to homeschool unless you have a wickedly strong independent streak. You've got to use that trait to develop confidence in what you're doing, knowing full well perfection is not possible. Embrace the imperfection and run with it. Dance around the living room with it. Conjugate Latin verbs with it. (It's late, I'm punchy.)

Look, the modern public school system is nearly the most inefficient way of educating children that we've been able to come up with in the last 100 years. And even so, it does provide a decent education for many kids, complete with state-approved gaps. If there are children who come out of the public school system with a decent education, in spite of that inefficiency, you're going to do just fine. Whatever method you choose, whatever curriculum you use, or don't use; you're going to do just fine.

It's the imperfections that make life interesting, anyway.

Posted by lynx at 10:56 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

September 16, 2006

Conversations with the Older Children

The older kids are supposed to be going to bed. Instead, they keep coming down with questions. Tonight, I'm not sure I want to know where these questions are coming from:

"What are narcotics?"

"Mom, what is a mortgage interest deduction?"

Are they doing drugs, or trying to buy a house? Both? Maybe looking into selling drugs to finance the house? Should I be worried?

Posted by lynx at 9:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 14, 2006

More Conversations With the Four-Year-Old

"Lachlan, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Lachlan, what are you doing?"

"I don't have any knives."

_______________________________________

"Mommy, Griffin's not smart."

"What do you mean? Griffin is smart."

"Mommy, am I smart?"

"Yes."

"Is Griffin smart?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, that explains it."

_____________________________

And don't miss Mary Had a Little Egg.

Posted by lynx at 10:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Weird

Today, I spent two hours in a little room with two other women, and all our children.

One of the women has two daughters, 6 and 8. And three-year-old triplets. The other has five children and is pregnant.

For two brief hours, I not only had the fewest kids of anyone in the room, but my kids were the older ones.

I almost began to feel like an underachiever. Almost.

Posted by lynx at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I just found our winter activity ...

You know, for those days it's too rotten for the kids to go out, and everyone's stuck in the house?

Look at these plans.

Jeff, we're going to need boxes. Lots of boxes.

Posted by lynx at 6:53 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 12, 2006

So I Drive, And I Drive, And I Drive ...*

How do you active moms manage to handle having your children in 500 different activities?

This year, we have co-op-ish classes on Tuesdays, and Karate/Chess Club on Thursdays. Both activities are in the middle of the day. And when we get home, everyone is beat and wants to go hide.

Today was our first day of classes. We got up and hit math and Latin (and Connor worked on some Classical Writing analysis). Then we got in the car, and drove. The drive was a fairly typical experience of driving in Michigan. It was foggy. It drizzled. The drive was long. After an hour of driving, a large orange sign informed me that the bridge was out ahead and I could go no further on my road. A frantic call to Jeff (thank the Gods for Google maps) brought me to an alternate route. On a dirt road. In the rain.

(To someone from Texas, dirt roads are weird. In Texas, a dirt road means you're really out in the sticks. In Michigan, it just means you've turned off the main road. I think the winters are so hard on the roads here that they just don't want to bother with paving the other half.)

I dropped the big kids off. Went to lunch. Picked big kids up. Drove home, an hour, in heavy rain.

Bleah.

The classes are good (and they'd better be!!). The boys are taking a Clay Animation class, and a LEGO engineering class. The engineering class is teaching actual basic engineering. Today the class involved a little math. (This is where the homeschooling Mom holds her breath.)

Me: "Soooo, how was the math?"

Them: "Oh, it was easy math. But some other kids had trouble with it."

Me (outer voice): "Oh. Well I'm glad you did well." (Inner voice: "YES! Score!")

They eat lunch there too, so they get the experience of being herded off to the gym and eating lunch out of sacks. Now their school experience is complete.

* The title of this post comes from a song. Jeff and Peggy are probably the only ones who have any hope of knowing it.

Posted by lynx at 7:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 11, 2006

Nice Article on Classical Education

In the CiRCE blog, Andrew Kern has a very nice piece on "What is a classical education?" In it, he explains why the modern usage of the Trivium as educational stages or methods causes more problems than it solves.

Outside of our religious differences, I wholeheartedly agree with everything Mr. Kern says. Using these principles we've stripped our homeschool down to math, Latin, reading and writing; I'm doing my utmost to make sure it's good math, Latin, reading and writing. If you learn these skills well, the content areas not be problematic. It's far better to spend our time and energy on teaching these skills, and teaching them well.

Posted by lynx at 7:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 10, 2006

Five Years Later

Jeff is going to have a running series of 9/11 posts on his site today.

Sharon commemorates the life of Andrea Della Bella. I'm linking to her main page, because her post previous to this one, about other lives that touched hers before dying on that day, is worth reading as well.

CNN is going to run streaming coverage of the day. I will probably bring the computer into our school area and watch some of it with the kids. I don't believe in sheltering them from this.

Posted by lynx at 10:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 8, 2006

Clip Art

Need clip art for your timelines? Clipart ETC has fantastic black and white artwork of a perfect size for timeline work.

Posted by lynx at 7:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 7, 2006

California Reinstates Pluto

I'm not sure what amuses me more, the incredible stretch to claim that the redefinition of Pluto harms California's children (Won't somebody please think of the children?), or the fact that the California legislature used the word "disrespect" in a House resolution.

Either way, these people have too much time on their hands.

They do make a fine point about redistricting, though.

Posted by lynx at 3:40 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 6, 2006

Latin for the Year

Let me try this again. I had a post all typed up this morning, and my kids killed it.

If, this year, you are venturing forth with Fr. Henle, as Dy is, you need not walk alone: Here's the handy-dandy Henle Latin Yahoo list! The folks on this list are endlessly patient, and willing to answer all your questions.

I am offically a Henle drop-out. I made it through Unit 7, then crashed and burned. I'm not distressed, though. I learned enough to get the kids through basic curricula, and then I can learn with them. I've got four kids to get through Latin. I'll learn it.

Connor is using an old, out of print text called Using Latin Book One. My printing is from the early 1950s. It's a fantastic text. The grammar is solid, it is filled with many interesting readings, and it's secular! Okay, so there's no current support. I have an answer key from a different version that's almost the same. I make up the tests. I can't recommend it widely because who know how many copies are around. I'm glad we found it, though.

If we hadn't found this book, we probably would have stuck with Latin for Children. "Latin for Children" is a nice, solid introductory program. It's a solid as Latina Christiana, but less religious and, frankly, more varied and interesting for the kids.

Speaking of LfC, Aidan has hit a wall in "Latina Christiana I," in the same spot Connor did. Is it the program? Is it a coincidence? Is it my teaching? I don't know, but I'm going to switch Aidan over to LfC Primer A to see if that's any better. If he struggles, we may ditch Latin for the year and wait. He's only in 3rd grade. We can afford to wait.

I must admit that our experiences are swaying us to the side of not starting Latin early. I do think there is some value in teaching young children the grammar chants, and whatever vocabulary interests them. However, when you start tossing in the grammar and expecting students to recognize direct objects from predicate nominatives, my kids do much better when they're older. I may not bother with any Latin for Griffin until he's in 4th grade.

I still think Henle is an truly excellent program. I love the systematic grammar, and the way it leads the student through step by step. I don't know, though, if I'm going to lead Connor into it. We may opt, after we've gone as far as we want to with "Using Latin Book One"/"Using Latin Book Two," to try Cambridge Latin. I think he'll like it better. The systematic grammar of Henle, while excellent, will simply drive some students batty, and the religious aspects will certainly irritate my kids.

One-Sixteenth