Silver Moon Learning

Oct. 8, 2009

Uh, I meant, montly update. Yeah, that's it.

I always intend to update more frequently. Sigh.   We're moving along splendidly with regards to school. The new organizers have proved invaluable. (If you plan on making one, I suggest stapling the velcro pieces to the plastic sleeves instead of gluing them. This is how half of ours are fastened by now.) The memory boxes have been a perfect fit. I don't know how I managed to keep all that straight without them. They're well on their way to being filled with stuff like poetry, prepositions, presidents, nursery rhymes, speeches from history, pronouns, and Latin lists. Kidlet by kidlet: Faith, aka Squeaky   This kid is a riot. Lately she tells us every letter and number she can find is an "A" and dances with excitement at her cleverness. I'm pretty sure it's from similar things each kid has, with an initial on it for easily discovering who's metal water bottle was left in the middle of the floor and thus spilled everywhere. Faith will help herself to any bottle left in her reach. Which causes a sib to take it from her, point to the letter, and help her find the one with an "A" instead. (Her first name begins with an "A")   She's also learned how to call her biggest brother a booger. He encourages this. While waiting for our food at In-N-Out Burger last week she was gleefully yelling, "Boogah-boogah-boogah-boogah-boogah," for all the restaurant to hear. The brother was quite pleased. Grace   Grace can't get enough school. She just barely turned four! She's a fluent short vowel reader now, and is branching into long vowel words with increasing confidence. She can legibly write any letter of the alphabet, count to fifty with ease, and loves workpages. I mean, really, really, loves, workpages. She's using a kindy level Comprehensive Curriculum workbook right now. It doesn't always move fast enough for her, but her love of workbooky activities keeps her moving through it.   She picked a Robert Louis Stevenson collection of children's poetry from the library this week. She's absolutely mezmorized by him. (Note to self: Put this book on the Christmas shopping list.)   History stories really strike a chord with her too. The Liberty's Kids episodes completely captures her attention. It's a really great series put out by PBS, you follow a few kids through the Revolutionary times.   She's more than a little miffed that she can't join scouts herself until next fall. She does get her fill of scouts going to her three older siblings meetings and occasional leader meetings with me too. Honor   This little guy is soaring academically. His reading has taken off like a rocket, his pencil-phobia has disappeared, he loves his spelling book and thinks First Language Lessons is a blast. Math has always been a favorite of his, and comes very naturally, but he's been unimpressed with it lately. He's playing around with place value and measuring for now. I hid the addition book for now to keep him from burning himself out on it.   He's a Tiger Scout now and has had a few meetings so far. He has a great pack that I'm thrilled to be a part of. They're organized, approachable, and focus on the boys' involvement. He still practically swoons all over himself when he gets a chance to hang out with "the guys" in big brother's troop. Joy   This girl is a very motivated learner. She'll start her school as soon as her brekkie is done, and fuss at me if I didn't get my part of the preparation done ahead of time. She is flying through First Language Lessons 3 now. At her present speed and comprehension I think we'll skip FLL4, and put her in the more rigorous grade 5 book that Justice used when she's done with FLL3. I asked Justice his opinion of how she'd handle that book and he agreed with me.   She begins Classical Writing: Aesop this week and is looking forward to it. It will roll all her dictation, narration practice, outlining, and composition writing into one program, as well as pull in vocabulary and review bits of grammar. I think she'll do great. She's spent the first month of school working on those skills individually, straight from a book of Aesop fables. The first few lessons from CW will have her working with fables from Aesop as well, which ought to help her transition.   She's also beginning typing, using the Dance Mat Typing game.   In her scout news she's a Junior Girl Scout this year. She's had a few meetings and been to Build a Bear with a bazillion other Girl Scouts in the area. I haven't made it too many of her meetings to be a part of them, unfortunately. Her meetings were moved to the same night as Justice's, and start a half hour before his. That translates to me seeing her first twenty minutes before I have to take a boy to their meeting. Justice     This guy is flying through the academics, as is his trademark approach. He breathes history some days. Well, between Spiderman and Batman. Or whichever Marvel character is the kewlest of the week.   He's racing through English From the Roots Up, and could probably move even faster than he is. There is a prize at the end (we told him we'd buy a full Latin course for him when it's done), but he really does enjoy that book.   He's very strong in grammar, and loves busting adults with it. His stories in Classical Writing are increasingly more interesting and creative. The grammar and vocab have been a walk in the park for him, so he moves through it faster than intended.   The spelling series he's in this year really makes him work with the spelling rule. I can see him applying it all across the board in other subjects. He'll *tell* you that he doesn't really like spelling, then brag that his highest marks are in spelling in his next breath. (I refrain from mentioning only three of his subjects are even markable. )   Math is still his nemesis for the most part. Life of Fred has changed that to a point. I -love- that five year old Fred. Those books are written with a quirky sense of humor, right up Justice's alley. He still does his regular math text on the side and is struggling with it a bit this year. He's making strides though.   His scouts hasn't changed. We all went on the last campout with them. That was fun. In a tortured sort of way (I'm not a camping fan). He really enjoys his meetings and has made some great relationships there. Of course he learns the usual, lashing, knots, flag folding, first aid, etc. They made water balloon catapults using nothing but wood and ropes awhile ago. By the time we left I was having to defend Girl Scotus to *Joy*! "Well, yeah, they DO do fun stuff. But they DON'T make CATAPULTS!" *stomp*

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Sep. 2, 2009

First week down. :)

I'm a couple days late, but you should be used to that by now. I'm used to it. Week one already!! That f.l.e.w. The kids all did great, every one of them. It's taking us awhile to "get it all done," but our time is dwindling already as they learn new books and get in the groove. I'm so very glad I wrote those lesson maps in pencil. We're still in the adjustment phase, here a tweak, there a tweak, everywhere a tweak, tweak. The new organizers are working out great!! The kids get a visual of exactly what's left. Taking a moment to stuff a card in a pocket and check the next one seems to help them shift gears for the next subject more readily. It takes me no more than five minutes in the evening or early morning to get them all back out again and ready for the new day. the first few days I was having to reglue one or two velcro tabs back onto the plastic sleeves. By the fifth day I just grabbed the stapler when one came off. Apparently the rest of the lot just had to see how serious I was and they've caused no problems since. Little to big? Faith's day hasn't changed much. She gleefully chases the sib not currently involved in a lesson wherever they'll go. And occasionally tries climbing between a sib and the book they're reading, much like a cat. Grace is blossoming at a rapid rate. She'll finish the first of our four kindy level readers this week. She's starting to chunk her reading, picks up new sight words in the story within one or two lessons, and will literally do a happy dance when she can read a word from a sign when we're in town. Her Comprehensive Curriculum preschool workbook is just about eaten up. She's up to letter "Ss" and number nine. (I have the kindy one in the same series waiting for her, in hopes of sparing my printer ink!) Honor's workload has increased somewhat. Grammar and spelling being added in are the major differences. His first spelling test is today, he's looking forward to it! He absolutely loved every part of his spelling unit, front to back. I think it's been his favorite all week. In First Language Lessons he's learning the definition of a noun, and can already recite his first poetry assignment from it. The Caterpillar by Christina G. Rossetti. The big two had a hard time restraining themselves and not saying it along with Honor. They both loved their time in the first FLL book. Joy *loves* the new organizers. I thought she would. She's successfully diagrammed sentences like "A Boy Scout troop made a monkey bridge," read at least two books on the Revolutionary War period and another fictional history of George Washington's childhood, been charmed by Aesop (narration practice), jumped into MindBenders with glee, nearly memorized I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth in three days, and taught the younger two a few crafts from her own library book. She's a very self-motivated learner that tends to have two independent lessons done before I have one cup of coffee in my circulation. Justice has impressed me at how well his week has gone. His week has consisted of possessive plurals, irregular verbs, outlining up to three points, rewriting an Aesop fable after thoroughly dissecting it, finishing up his last MindBender book (7-12 grade level!), learned five Latin roots, nearly memorized America For Me by Henry Van Dyke, read at least four chapter books and a couple Marvel Heroes books on the side, and started his new math book (first chapter is all review so far). The only challenge of our week is trying to map the individual days out for the best of everyone. Starting all three bigs at the same time and tag teaming between them worked, but had us constantly crashing each other. Then I tried starting earlier with Justice, which had Joy starting her independent lessons on her own accord. That landed them both at needing their most mom intensive subjects at the same time, which was when Honor was ready to start too. Needless to say, that didn't work. Today I tried getting the bulk of Lawyer's mom intensive subjects done while keeping Rj busy with a craft so she didn't jump in on her own. Then when I had him down to just readings and math left I pulled her in. Once they went their own ways with reading to do Grace had gone to bed, and I had a perfect window for Honor and I to be one on one. I think this is going to work out well, but I don't know how to tell Joy she can't do school until Justice hits his halfway point. LOL  Maybe we can make mornings craft time? Joy could "teach" the Honor and Grace some animal science then? Hm...

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Jun. 8, 2009

Grace's assessment update.

She did corner me about the reading test later in the day. She scored at .7 for a mid-kindy grade level. The words she missed had long vowels. She'll turn four in September.

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Jun. 8, 2009

End of the year assessments!

We had our traditional end of the year assessments this morning. My kids have done amazing this year, across the board. Today's family meeting was easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I got all my forms printed out last night, some I've had downloaded for ages and some new ones from www.donnayoung.org (LOVE that website). A reading assessment, an individual evaluation, a course of study (list of intended schoolbooks for the new grade), a blank week lesson plan page for what we call lesson maps, and the typical course of study list from www.worldbook.com were assembled for Justice, Joy and Honor. For the first time ever I printed out some grade keeping forms. For Justice. I've had it recommended from more seasoned homeschoolers that now is the best time to start grading. It will be a learning experience for Justice and I, but by the time it's needed for high school transcripts we'll both be comfy with it. Stuff like spelling and math I can handle. Not one bloody clue how to grade the way we do science and history. On to the kid updates/bragging! I started with Joy, for no other reason than she was the handiest kid to pluck from playtime. Her reading level was 1.2 grades ahead of the grade she's in. She was quite pleased with herself!  On the individual evaluation she said her strengths were grammar and memorizing, and her weakness is narration. Her goals are to get better at cursive and to kick narration's butt. I'm quite pleased with how well she did that evaluation. Then she aced the math and language arts sections of the worldbook lists. The only blips were in science and history, which we do quite differently from the traditional model. I'll grab some resources for the ones I think are worthwhile for her to read this week. First evaluation - check! Honor happened to be playing near when I sent Joy on her merry way. He wasn't terribly thrilled but he humored me well. He scored a 1.5 grade level, not bad for a boy who wouldn't be old enough to start a traditional kindy until this fall! He doesn't understand grade levels and just said, "Ok. That was easy." *snort* For the individual evaluation he said his strength was math, he didn't have weaknesses, and his goal is to read a LOT of books.   The few things I couldn't check on his worldbook kindy list were math things that seem poorly placed. Stuff like calendar, clock, money denominations, chart and graph concepts. Considering he's soaring through a first grade math book, I'm not concerned in the slightest. He's doing great and will have no problems with first grade material in the fall. Somewhere in the middle of Honor's assessment Grace figured out there wasn't a packet of forms on my desk for her. I sheepishly printed off a preschool course of study and reading assessment for her. I mean, how dare I leave the three year old out of this! We went down the preschool course of study, checking off absolutely everything except for reciting phone number and address. The kindy list would have served her better, but I was leery of stepping on Honor's toes.   That was enough assessment for her and she ran off on her merry way. I'll keep the reading list handy, lest she call me on it later. LOL Then I shooed all but Justice outside to play. Doing the reading assessment the right way he scored 2.5 grade levels above his current grade. Counting all the words on the list he could do correctly (the test says to stop when they get X wrong on one particular list), he scored 3.6 grade levels ahead.  For the individual evaluation he said logic and reading were his strengths, math was his weekness, and his goals were to get better at dictation and start learning Latin. Fine choices in my opinion. I showed him the grading forms I chose, explained how they'd work, and told him this would be a joint effort as I'd be learning this as we go. He thought that was kewl. I did explain that the grades wouldn't change his lessons at all, and a bit about high school transcripts. Then we hit the worldbook list. Some of the history was way off, and just a couple science topics. I had to explain a traditional school model on those two subjects to help him understand why we weren't lining up. He aced the language arts section, excluding bibliographies. A quick explanation and example fixed that. A couple math things couldn't be checked, and I knew that would happen. He's right on the cusp of moving into that section and will have it done this summer so we're not targeting them. Then we get to the health and safety section. "Preparing for puberty" started it all. "Remember talking about that?" "Uh... not really?" "You know, that's when your body starts changing to be more like a man's, instead of a child's." "Oh yeah, I do remember that." So we went over the basics, voice changing (already starting, eep.), shoulders broadening, hair growing in new places. One thing led to another and testicles came up, which led to testicles making sperm. He knows the sperm and egg story. Then he says it. "So how does the sperm get into the woman's body?" "When a man and a woman have sex the ***** goes into the ******." "That's absolutely gross." A couple more timid questions, with answers as simple as I could keep them, and he declared he was all done talking about that now. Poor guy looked a little green. Like a might toss your cookies shade of green. I quickly turned the topic back to the Life of Fred math curriculum and how we planned to implement it between the math course he's in now and the one we have for the next grade. When his color restored I declared the meeting done, "You're brilliantly smart. Doing great. Looking forward to another great year teaching you. Go play already." "Oh thankyou!" I even got a hug out of the deal. That assessment was a little more than I'd expected!

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Feb. 2, 2009

What's up with school this week.

History ~ George Washington. Well, they say all the presidents, but we'll do them in order. The first George Dubya it is.  Today we talked about how we know his profile picture so well and why, then made profile drawings of each other. Can you hear the laughter with that one? One kid staring at the wall with a flashlight aimed as his/her noggin, another kid with a paper on the wall trying to trace the profile shadow. another giggly kid holding the flashlight. Some of the profile tracings had so much giggling involved they caused more bouts of giggling. Tomorrow we'll learn more about his life before the presidency. Justice ~Math is adding and subtracting mixed fractions, pretty sure I pulled the pages from www.math-drills.com. I pulled some writing from the free Scott Foresman stuff,  Just the wirting pages in the grade 6 section, their grammar isn't thick enough to warrent pulling him off Daily Grams for it. Today he worked on qualities of a personal narrative, then wrote his own about meeting Bionicles on a previously boring stroll through a swamp. We did that page orally until it came time to create his own personal narrative though. Too bloody much writing if I expect him to actually like original writing. He's reading a book about a kidnapped orangutan. Joy ~ She started Spelling Wisdom today. So far, one really easy lesson in, she's giving it two thumbs up. I think we're really going to enjoy spelling this way. Very untraditional and kid paced. (I am SO ordering the next level up for Justice this fall.)  In First Language Lessons she made some silly sentences with subjects, state of being verbs and some fun adjectives. Then I read The Camel's Nose to her. Afterwords she gave the best story narration she's ever done. I nearly fell out of my chair! Included the important detials, in order, didn't back up, just needed nudges at the very beginning. She's come a long way this year. Honor ~ He raced through his list of twenty words in Phonics Pathways, nearly always saying the word before I can say "Now put the sounds together."  A few counting pages later he raced off to the backyard. He's so proud of his accomplishments lately. Stinkin' adorable. Grace ~ She also did her lesson in Phonics Pathways, blending L with the vowels. She asked for it just before nap and was kinda off balance, but did pretty good in spite of being tired. Her workpages had patterns on them today, she was pretty confused as to what they were asking at first, but had started puttiing it all into place by the end. Faith ~ Can't leave the baby out! She's over her fear of the step to the backyard. Did I mention there's concrete at the bottom?    We used to have to make sure she had long pants and leather baby shoes on before she'd tolerate being put on the grass at all. Now she barrels across the backyard barefoot, lol.

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Jan. 9, 2009

New semester. New plans.

The details of that PKC meeting I mentioned last night! I compared the major points of what was left in their books to the worldbook.com typical course of study lists for their grades. Between those I made a list of what I considered important to get done by the end of this school year. I added the things they wanted to get into. The big two and I discussed each point and how we thought they should happen We made a fresh list of those goals. We tend to cover the subject bases fairly evenly for the first half of the year, then mix up the last half. This year won't be any exception. Broken down individually that goal list looks like: Justice Needs a new grammar book, he'll use Daily Grams with some added sentence dissecting from mom until it's replaced. Spelling will be dropped completely. (But he'll have ample opportunity to exercise his natural spelling ability in the next one on this list) Language arts will become the nuts and bolts of writing. Outlines, gathering facts, cohesive paragraphs, writing reports, proofreading, oral presentation, etc.. We'll wing this for now, I'll look for curriculum options now and keep a few in my wishlist if we get to a point of needing more guidance. Justice works best just digging in feet first with me, rather than having a book guide his efforts. Math will get a lot of focus. Fractions, decimals, percents, and geometry. Joy Dropping phonics, and stepping spelling up a bit. I'll order Spelling Wisdom for her asap (from www.simplycharlottemason.com) Finishing up First Language Lessons for grammar (She wasn't ready for this until the end of second grade) She wants to go back to cursive, which she hasn't used for over half a year, so copywork comes back. Her language arts will focus on vocabulary, proofreading, oral presentation, and writing original thoughts well (Just a sentence at a time! This will be the hardest part for her) She's completed third grade math. She wants to go further with multiplication though. She understands the process well and is ready to move on to using it (drills etc). Justice and Joy Science and history have always been done together and we can't picture it any other way. They're going to rotate weekly instetad of daily. We're adding the -nyms (synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, homophones... I'm forgetting one) and geography. Justice said he could use the review on the -nyms and Joy has them on her LA list too. So they'll do those together. And I've never included geography separately. This is something that Joy has always had a really hard time wrapping her mind around. Any of it that's not within the US went right over her head. She's had a lightbulb and wants to get into it, and Justice does too. These two will probably rotate weekly too, just to spare some planning time if nothing else. Honor is happily playing along in random workbooks, Phonics Pathways and Starfall.com. Grace literally demands her own Phonics Pathways lessons and I've got to find more workbooks for her or she'll wipe out the printer ink. Not to be left out, Faith is trying to run and talk.

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