Posted in Schoolday Doings
|
Life has kept us tired and busy -- thus, no blog updates of late. Geometry is pretty interesting, from my point of view. I make up worksheets for Violet, because I can't find anything pitched at the right level. I'm astonished at her ability to remember the forumlas and theorems we've done so far. She knows how to find the sum of the angles of a polygon -- S=(n-2) x 180, where S = sum and n=number of sides She knows how to find the area of a polygon -- A=1/2 ap, where A= area, a=apothem, and p=perimeter. No, I did not know what an apothem was either, but it is a line drawn from the center of a polygon that bisects one of the sides and a central angle. She knows how to determine if a pair of triangles is congruent or similar. Now, if we could just get the pronunciation of Isoceles down we'd really be in business! Geometry is great math for the highly asynchronous young math learner. Your mind can run way ahead with the logic and theorems, and you get to practice your operations skills without thinking too much about them. I am thinking, however, of instituting a weekly operations review to keep hammering our math facts. The problem I have realized is that once you step out of the standard scope and sequence, it's hard to get back in. We're off the grid, curriculum-wise, so I don't really know where to go after this. Do I have to keep making up my own math stuff? Because that is really not my speciality. My speciality is emptying the dishwasher and knitting while Violet teaches herself math out of a book. Our playdate was lovely. Violet had a friend over from homeschool group, the first time we've done this. If I am allowed to say so -- it was a total geekfest. Hey, we're a family of nerds, well, except maybe Victoria, but she's still young. It was just fabulous to see Violet and her friend geeking out joyfully, without any thought of what they should be doing. My understanding is that this boy (age 9, very bright) is not great in groups, so it's really nice that he and Violet have clicked in this way. They spent much of their time exploding water ballons on the front sidewalk. We had a couple of lovely surprises. First, when Victoria came downstairs from her so-called nap, she was dying to meet Violet's friend. ("Do you think he will like me?" my little 3yo asked.) He was very friendly and offered her a water balloon to pop. Then the older kids made a balloon for her and dropped it several times rather gently to soften it up for her so she could break it herself. (I'm not sure this was either helpful or necessary, but I thought it very sweet nonetheless. What especially charmed me about this 9yo boy was that when they got to the bottom of the bag of balloons, he convinced the girls to leave the last 2 in the bag, so each of them would get the same amount of balloons. Must be fair! (Oh, and they were diligent about picking up the remains, without any instruction from me, so that was a real plus.) Then one ripped, so we only had one left. So he said to me, "Hey, why don't you make a balloon and do one big last splash with us? Well it was just so friendly and -- can you tell I am a boring mom by nature? -- surprising to me. I was delighted to be invited in rather than sent away from their playing. I had been so scruplulous about telling Victoria that Violet would want time alone with her friend, about staying in the background, and this boy had no expectations that someone ought to be left out because she was too old or too young. Is that a homeschool thing? Of course I don't know. But I enjoyed it all the same. |
Comments
|
|
|
|
|
Posted by Anonymous
|
|
|
|
|