All three of my kids have elected to sign up for the district 4 week Summer school program.  At a time when most public school kids are counting the days till school ends, they are counting the days until they get to ride the school bus (well, the little ones are).   

 Aubrey seems very interested to see how the middle school setting will be different from her memories of elementary school.  

 Oh.  Can’t forget.  The district is going to PAY them.   I think it is ludicrous.  And I think my kids are not going to be able to manage the 100% perfect attendance required to get it.   It is funny to hear them ponder what it will be like.  It sounds like it could be a fun program.  I do wonder how long the interest will last.

http://www.drawyourworld.com/strtwrt.html

Just got this yesterday and have been playing with it.  It definately has a learning curve.  I thought it was a bit expensive, but since we will be starting cursive soon, I thought being able to create my own practice sheets would be really helpful.  Also, since most of our “writing” is copywork right now, I figured I would print it out with this.   And spelling lists….

 I picked up a coy of Draw Write Now at the curriculum fair, and Jordan REALLY likes it.  She has visual motor deficits and so drawing anything that looks like anything is a huge challenge for her and she loves the step by step directions.   I’m glad I was able to look at them before purchasing, because I was going to skip to a jungle animal ones, but I realized they get much more complicated as they progress and book 1 was the best place to start for her.

Jordan has been wandering around belting out “I Love Rock and Roll!  Put another dime in the juicebox baby!”   and it just makes me smile every time I hear it.

 Anyone else have any favorite mis-lyrics?

 When I was young I remember singing “I love beans and burritos!” instead of pina coladas.  And I was so heartfelt with it too!

I can’t even imagine having tried it before I was a “seasoned” (ha! What does that mean?  That I have a nice flavor?  It surely doesn’t mean that I know what I’m doing!) homeschooler.   Even with a fairly clear vision of what I wanted to see it bordered on overwhelming.  

My main purpose was to take Aubrey and have her visit some booths with upper level math stuff.    Once she finishes Geometry and Algebra 2 I won’t be all that much help to her.   We checked out Teaching Textbooks and the upper level Math-U-See.   She hasn’t decided which yet, but I was impressed with the Math-U-See and I got to meet Steve Demme (how sad is it that I feel like I met someone famous—at least I didn’t have him autograph the Beta set I got for Jordan).   So there it is, after avoiding it for two years I’ve decided to give Math-U-See a go for Jordan.   She is progressing so much in math, but a lot of it is memorization and I’m hoping this will help her build a better conceptual foundation. 

 The highlight of the fair, however, was running into an old neighbor and friend who was there because she is going to be homeschooling her daughter next year.   

Aubrey made this from a pile of spare bits with a kit that was designed to teach soldering technique.  His eyes and nose(?) blink.

Got a new foster assignment from the shelter yesterday.

They are Shepherd mix and are basically feral.  They were the unwanted offspring of a somewhat neglected farm dog and they have had pretty much no contact with people.  They are very shy and timid and we are trying to socialize them.  

We are making some progress.

I’ve been trying to find something that will grab Alex’s interest enough to get him to read more, or at least willingly, lol.    He happens to be a big Hayao Miyazaki fan.    In my last Amazon binge I ran across picture book versions of a few of his movies and clicked one into the cart.  

If you aren’t familiar with it, think Alice and Wonderland meets Japanese Anime.   Since he was already familiar with the story, he was excited to read it.  The pictures in the book are stills from the movie and it goes through the entire story in a reading level just a bit above where Alex feels comfortable reading independently (so we read together and took turns).    But, it is 170 pages, so even with several pictures on each page and me helping, it took us some time to read it.  And I’ve already found him a couple of times with it on his own.   It makes me want to go back and buy every one of them!

I’ve posted before about the book Mindset:  The New Psychology of Success.   The basic premise (quote from the Amazon review) is “A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as… well, fixed. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you see yourself as fluid, a work in progress. Your fate is one of growth and opportunity. “

There are all kinds of examples showing how if you guide people into the growth mindset they are more interested in learning and unafraid to take on challenges and this will, eventually lead to greater progress and success.   Even small changes in the way puzzles were presented to children and how they were encouraged produced vastly different results and attitudes.  

So, of course, I try to take this information and apply it to our homeschool life.   Jordan, who has had to struggle for many things that come easy to others, is very much in the growth mindset.   That doesn’t mean she doesn’t get discouraged easily (she does), but she focuses on working hard and she knows she can do better if she works at it.   Then we have Alex.  When presenting something for schoolwork, if he doesn’t already get it, it is too hard.   He is all about saving face and will exagerate his abilities and will try anything to get the upper hand in a game.   I don’t know how much of it is temperment and how much is being the youngest, but it is definately something we work on.

A lot has been said in the media and educational literature about praise.  This book reinforces what I’ve heard lately that praise by itself only makes a child feel more in fear of failure the next time if it focuses on achievement.   If, however, you focus on the effort, it showcases the work involved rather than the final outcome and doesn’t lead children to fear that they may not come out on top next time.

So what does that have to do with roller skating?   We went to a homeschool roller skating day today.  Alex has what you’d call natural athletic ability.    Jordan has what you’d call natural complete lack of coordination.   They’ve only been roller skating a couple of times before this.  They both headed out on the rink, Alex completely confident he’d sail around it and Jordan with a stubborn look in her eye.  

I don’t think Alex made it all the way around.  He didn’t happen to be automatically amazingly good at roller skating.   He ran off and hung out in the arcade area while Jordan doggedly went around and around.  

An hour later, Jordan was no longer holding on to the wall and was able to go around with caution, but a bit of speed.  She was able to do the chicken dance.   In the last few minutes Alex tried to skate around again and realized that Jordan had greatly surpassed him in roller skating ability.  Having her out-do him in any kind of athletic event was something that had never occured to him and he was a bit shocked.

I don’t say this to dog on Alex, though I think he has something to learn from Jordan’s tenacity.   I say this because the way Jordan tackles anything that is hard, and slowly wills herself through grit and practice to be able to do it amazes me each and every time.    Go Jordan.  You’re my hero.

A freind passed along this link. http://www.krampf.com/

You can sign up to get directions for a new science experiment every week. I just signed up, so I don’t have any direct experience yet, but the word is it is some cool stuff.

Or, how NOT to teach a Science lesson.

I am not a Miss Honey (from Matilda).   My voice is not soft and gentle and I don’t exude a sweetness that makes everyone around me calm.   In fact, left unchecked, I am decidedly more towards the Ms. Trenchbol side of the barometer.  I do check myself, of course, but I will never be like the sweet montessori teacher Aubrey had whose quiet singy voice enraptured children and who could calm a room of rowdy preschoolers with a few strums on her guitar.   The most I can hope for is to muster up enough patience to not raise my voice throughout the day (not always accomplished) and to have scripts in my head that I can try to pop up to respond to situations (Gentle touch….I know you can think of a way to fix this….Let’s talk through this..work it out…). 

 So apparently yesterday was one of my least Miss Honey moments.  We are finishing up our study of the body and I pulled out a model/puzzle I’d gotten from clearance from some place for really cheap.  It had plastic bones/arteries/organs and they all fit nicely (once perfectly assembled) into a clear plastic “skin”.   So everyone gathered around excitedly and pulled out all the pieces and started identifying them (hey, I guess it shows they learned something!)

Of course, I’m starting to realize that clearance items often have one thing in common—they are on clearance because so many people have complained about how crappy they are.  As I’m sitting there trying to piece the organs together inside the rib cage muttering things I’d rather my children NOT learn and at the same time carry on a discussion (Yup, here is the heart–Alex, I said leave the dog alone–Now what goes under here?  Alex, I SAID LEAVE THE DOG ALONE….) and let them participate in the construction of “Bob” (their name pick) it becomes clear that Bob doesn’t really want to be put back together.  By the time I start trying to snap the clear skin back over the top of him, his bladder has slipped down into his thigh (insert peals of manic laughter) and his hand bones are rattling.

As I’m struggling to snap the clear skin together, a crack appears across his leg.  I’ve broken Bob.   In a decidedly un-Miss Honey moment, I slam Bob into the floor in frustration.   At which moment, organs, bones and clear plastic skin erupt and go flying around the room.   First I hear an exclamation “You killed Bob!”  “Murderer!”   Are they traumatized?  No, they are giggling with glee as they go and find his body parts splattered around the room and continue in a sing-song rant about how I killed Bob. 

And then, just to prove that maybe they have learned from this, Alex pipes up “Well, that toy was certainly a piece of crap!”

 Sigh.   Today I will be Miss Honey.  Today I will be Miss Honey….