Today was an interrupted day, like many these days, but I had decided in France that I don't have to try to get everything done in the morning and save all of the afternoon for free time. So today we got a lot of homeschooling done even though I took a two hour trip from 9:30 - 11:30 to drive to Z's agency and discuss which head shots they want to use.
We got back just before lunch and normally that would have meant very little homeschooling accomplished, just math, grammar and spelling today. But after lunch we continued on to Japanese, piano practice, some more science (Z studied the 12 systems of the body and learned that our skin, hair and nails are the Integumentary System) and finally reading with vocabulary.
I am trying something new with vocabulary this year. I am taking vocabulary words from her readings. I ask her to read aloud, today from an old-fashioned book of fairy tales written in 1937 with more difficult vocabulary than most children's books of today, and when she comes across a word she doesn't know for sure I write down the sentence the word is in and copy and paste the definition of the word of dictionary.com. After Z finishes reading we go over the definitions. At the end of the week I will ask her to match up the definitions with the words as a test. Her words today were luscious, enticing, dismal, fugitive, and refuge.
I am also trying to do a more formal spelling program with Z. I found this list of second grade words online - http://www.polk-fl.net/Berkleyelm/secong_grade_spelling_lists.htm. Today Z got all the words on the first list correct (I just said the word and Z wrote it down_ except bring with she spelled brang, probably because that is how I pronounced it to her. ;S
Math was a little frustrating. She makes all these little errors and get problems wrong that I know she could get right if she would just pay attention. She often adds subtraction problems or starts subtracting in the ones place and then adds in the hundreds place! But somehow she got all her multiplication and division problems correct.
I am not sure what to do. She is at multiplication and division in her workbook but she is obviously still having problems with paying attention/focusing/whatever on much easier problems. *sigh* I am making up my own pages of problems for her to work on as practice that have old stuff and new because I know she likes the new but I don't think she is ready to leave the old.
Science has been great. I am using Brainpop a lot again. I might as well since I have a subscription. It is a good supplement. Z had always said she wants to be a Doctor and an Astronaut when she grows up so I decided to study the human body and then space this year. After that, in the Spring, I think we will do a long nature study.
We haven't started History yet. I am waiting for my D'Aulaire's Norse Myths book to come from the library. I decided I wanted to hit the Vikiings before we start into the Middles Ages.
Tomorrow we have another interrupted day. Wednesday is our park day with our homeschool group. We are both looking forward to seeing our friends, most we haven't seen since the summer break started except at the two parties I hosted. I am going to try to get some maths in before we leave for the park because I am concerned with her performance these last two days and I feel that more practice will help.
I do feel really good about the amount of homeschooling we are doing and the quality of it.
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3 comments:
I am SO glad to know that other pg kids do math like that! lol It drives me batty with K! She adds subtraction problems, and subtracts multiplication, and forgets to add in carried ones when regrouping. ARGH!
P.S. Thanks for the postcard! That was a real highlight last week! And thanks for the harp picture, too. I meant to write a comment on that day's blog, but got distracted. (Gee, and I wonder where K gets her distractibility from? ROFL)
I was discussing our long division troubles with a friend today -- Violet figures them out in her head eventually, but actually writing down the steps is a real problem -- and she said her gifted son had the same problem too! My philosophy is to forge ahead and then revisit -- the skills solidfy when you're not looking! We also have done simple algebra problems, which give a chance to review math facts but still do interesting math.
My personal theory is that these kids are
a) thinking so fast that they jump ahead a step and forget the basics (like what kind of problem of this, carrying, etc.)
or
b) thinking of so many different things (many of them more interesting and complex than the math at hand) that they fade in and out of focus on the problem
I have been mentioning this maths dilemna on my blog too. Rose can do advanced concepts easily, but still wrestles with easy ones. Like Shaun, I tend to let her go ahead and sneak in the basics when I can. Also, more and more I write suitable problems for Rose. The main difficulty with this is my own ineptitude with the subject!
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