Week 25 - Math is Great!

I often start our weekly school time by asking DJ to "choose something to do." This week his answer to my question was the 45 Layout - again. DJ first did this work back in June 2015. This is a BIG work for a little person. It involves laying out all of the 1 to 9000 number cards along with corresponding Golden Beads. Sometimes called the "Bird's Eye View," the purpose is to give a very tangible experience of the size difference between "1" shown by one little bead and "9000" shown by a tower of nine thousand cubes.

Continent Boxes - Asia

I am *finally* getting around to showing you inside our Asia Continent Box, even though it's been a good six months that DJ has been exploring it. I took pictures awhile ago but just never typed up the post. So here it is.

Weeks 17-21: Unschooling

And we're back! I know, it's been a month since I last wrote a blog post and you've all been anxious to know where we've been. I titled the last blog post "All the time in the world" in reference to my recent discovery that I need to teach more patiently, allowing more time for my son to go at his own pace and for me to not feel desperate when he isn't interested in moving forward. Combine that with a very hectic work schedule for me last month and a family vacation to Ohio in the middle of it and we've not done much schooling lately. In fact, I haven't done any formal schooling and during that time I've seen what it might be like to follow an "Unschooling" philosophy. For those of you not in the know, Unschooling is (essentially) a homeschool method where the parent let's their child discover things on their own by making sure they have the resources necessary to do so. And that is basically what DJ has been doing the last few weeks.

Week 13: Reading, Writing & Geography

I am hopelessly late in writing this post for last week. Sorry to keep you waiting!  The holiday season has kept me running faster than I can keep up.

I started DJ on a modified version of Phonetic Object boxes. This is an early reading activity where a set of objects and written labels are matched. Typically the labels would be written on slips of paper and I may eventually get there but without the time to prepare the materials in advance, I punted and wrote the words out with the movable alphabet and then had DJ match the objects.

Week 12: Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! We certainly did so "school" was light this week.


Although DJ can easily count to 50 now, when I asked what he wanted to work on he chose to go back to the beginning and do the Cards & Counters. Because he has done this many times before I let him do the non-traditional pattern for the counters. Typically the counters would be placed in pairs so that odd numbers would stand out with the extra counter standing alone. But DJ fully understands odd & even already. After completing the layout, he chose to add the Bead Stair by matching each bead strand above its corresponding number. You can see he's also still in his PJs. Now that it is mostly too cold to go outside he has decided there is no point in getting dressed. Lol.

Week 10: Birthday Gifts

DJ received this neat US map placemat for his birthday last week. It has images on the various states representing things you would find in that state. Then the border has some of the same images so you can play a game of finding which state each one belongs in. It also sparked questions like why the pig was in Iowa and the alligator in Florida.

Week 5: Struggles & Successes

After several successful weeks, I have to admit that this one was a difficult one. DJ could not seem to focus on anything, especially not school. The little bit of school that we did accomplish was mostly suggested by me, encouraged by me, dare I say, coerced by me? Ahem, not exactly "follow the child". Maybe I'll do better next week. But here's some highlights (and low points) of what we did do this week.


DJ and I reviewed the first box of the constructive triangles again. DJ likes it a lot because he's been seeing triangles in all sorts of shapes since we started this work.


After reviewing the first box, I presented the second box to DJ. Unlike the first one, where the pieces are color-coded to match and each have a black line showing where to line them up... these triangles are all blue with no black lines.

For each set, you start by making the same familiar shape as in the first box (in this picture, the rhombus) and then slowly slide one piece around the other. When the piece gets to the first tip (as in the picture) you point out that is not a regular shape. Then you slide the piece along the 2nd edge until a rhombus is revealed. Continue sliding to the 2nd point and there is another irregular shape, slide on along the 3rd edge to reveal a rhombus again. Finally slide past the last point and return to the original position.

I admit I had to watch YouTube videos to understand what the heck this was about. But once I saw it, I was amazed at the simplicity of it. Repeat this same task with the square and rectangle and you get trapezoids on the 2nd & 3rd edge before returning to the square or rectangle.

Unfortunately, when DJ tried to do the sliding, the pieces didn't stay cleanly together like when I had done it so he threw everything back in the box and declared he was done. *sigh*


After some cajoling, I convinced him to choose something else and he decided to do the decanomial square. I was impressed that be actually did the first three colors himself. Then he decided to place the pink tower cubes along the diagonal. When he finished that, he had me help him with the blue & purple sections at which point he then instructed me to finish the square for him. Argh! We decided instead to just put it away.


After trying to play trucks & lumber yard with the Brown Stair again, which I wouldn't allow, I suggested that I could teach him to count to 30. He was eager to do this because he really wants to count to 100. But once the lesson actually started, he was frustrated and distracted through much of it. But with perseverance we did make it from 20 to 29. Then I suggested we start at 1 and count all the way to 30. Only to discover he had apparently completely forgotten the words eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... Ugh! He counts ALL the time during his free play when he thinks I'm not listening.








We decided to take a break for lunch. I tried later in the afternoon to regroup. I remembered my role and encouraged DJ to choose anything he wanted to do. Surprisingly, he chose the life cycle cards and miniatures. He was really engaged with this and matched ALL of the miniature sets to their respective life cycle cards. He even remembered the word pupae!!

The last picture here is the Human Life Cycle card that I made for him using pictures of my ultrasound while pregnant, DJ's infant picture, DJ as a 3yo child, his dad as a teenager, and my husband and I as adults. He's ways felt this was a special card, but it has taken on new meaning as he has learned about umbilical cords and has been continuously asking me to tell his origin story from the first cell, through pregnancy to birth. This is probably because his birthday is coming soon and this is the first year that he really has a concept that birthdays celebrate the day of birth so he's wanting to understand what that means.


The next day, I presented the next lesson of the bells. DJ has gotten really good at matching the brown bells to their white counterparts. This time I put all of the brown bells on the table and had him choose them two at a time, play them and decide which one was the lowest. Through the process of elimination, he (almost) successfully graded them from low C to high C. He did great with the lower tones but as he got to higher pitches he began getting confused. Or maybe he was just getting tired. But the only one he had out of order was #7 - B which he placed between F & G. So when he finished grading, I had him play up the brown bells and down the white bells. He immediately noticed something was off but didn't know how to fix it. So I walked him through moving B up the scale and he finished with a cheer. Whew!


Next he wanted to work with the South America map. I've told him he'll "unlock" the other 4 continent map when he's worked sufficiently with this one. That gives him a huge incentive to want to work with this a lot. Why is he always more excited to do the work he's not ready for than the work that's right in front of him?

Anyway, after building the map outside the frame again while I named the countries for him, he surprised me by wanting to trace the shape of the continent. He went around and around counting each time. I haven't suggested he trace continents since way back when we were using the sandpaper globe and back then he has little to know interest in doing that. But there's no stopping him when it's his idea!


Next, he wanted to hear the story I've been telling him lately of his paternal lineage. It all started when he said Tae Kwon Do is a hard word to say so I began explaining that it is Korean and the people from Korea speak it. That led to me saying that we speak English which comes from England, so of course he asked me if we come from England. I told him the story of his 4th Great-grandfather, Edward, who came to America from Ireland and all of his descendants down to DJ, all but one having the same name as DJ. I didn't expect when I told the story that he'd immediately demand I tell the story again. And again. And again. I told it at least 6 times in a row. And then again the next day and the next. DJ's little absorbent mind is trying to memorize the story word for word and I find it adorable.


Despite some of the earlier frustrations, we did end with a huge success. DJ was not only interested in learning to fold laundry, he single handedly folded all of his own underwear! Whoo-hoo! How long before I don't have to be involved in his laundry anymore? Because I'm counting down the days.

Continent Boxes - South America

I have been so excited to share this Continent Box for weeks now. I have been learning along with DJ about the various cultures of the world and from the beginning the continent of South America seemed to be the most unknown to me. Fortunately DJ's Aunt Kim spent a great deal of time in South America in her youth and she and her parents have made a huge contribution to this box.

Week 3: Mostly Geography

This was an epic week for DJ as his Grandpa Dave bought him his first peddle bike as an early birthday present. He's had a strider balance bike for two years that he rides like a pro. He is so ready for a "real" bike. His favorite part? The bell on the handlebars, of course.


This week also started with me doing a lot of work on Monday that left DJ to entertain himself. Forgive the mess in the living room. It's common for him to strew chaos when I'm too busy to redirect him. I don't usually take pictures of this, but I couldn't help capturing this shot of DJ working with the South America map. He chose to build the map outside of the puzzle frame. Traditionally DJ won't work with these maps without my involvement so I'm glad to see his budding independence. He also doesn't know that building the map outside the frame is described as a lesson in my Montessori albums. He just came up with the idea on his own.


And it is officially official now, DJ is learning Tae Kwon Do. He really needs this. DJ is very intelligent and extremely strong-willed. It is taking all I have to direct him to be peaceful. I am looking forward to this program working with me to teach him self-control of his emotions.


Although it's been awhile since we've worked with the Number Rods, DJ has been spending a good amount of time working out basic math facts in his head. He'll make up songs about "1 and 2 make 3" and "2 and 2 make 4". So when it came time to do school on Wednesday, I brought out the number rods and showed him again how he can use them to work out all the ways to add two numbers to make a third, larger number. He enjoyed this activity a lot.

It's hard to tell in the photo, but he has the 6 bar in front of him. He then stacked the 3 on top of it and realized he didn't have another 3 to fill the gap. So he took the lesson to the next step and filled it in with the two and one. "3 and 2 and 1 make 6". Wow, slow down little man. This is really the first time I've wished I had a set of "table-top number rods" that come in pairs so you have 2 of each length. Maybe I'll make them for him.

When he'd worked with this activity long enough to want to start playing, I pulled out the Teen Board and suggested he work with that. He is SO close to being able to count to 20 but almost always skips 12 & 13. But, as he's been doing recently, he refused and said it was too hard for him. Argh. So I told him to choose something to do for school.


He chose, for the first time in a LONG time, the land & water forms. As soon as he started pouring the water, our cat, Molly was really interested. Lol. The forms we had already prepared were lake, peninsula, gulf, straight and isthmus. Somehow our island had disappeared. So I put our clay in the oven to soften it enough to make a new one.


In the meantime, DJ began matching the cards to each shape and also finding examples on the Australia Control Map. In this photo, he has the peninsula card and is pointing to Eyre Peninsula in Southern Australia. (Yes, I looked up the name of the peninsula on Wikipedia).


Once the clay had softened enough, we made a new island and then two new forms, Archipelago and System of Lakes. He was really intrigued with the word Archipelago and he repeated each part, syllable by syllable until he could say the whole word. And then he immediately forgot how to say it. I do that with hard words too.


DJ liked the Archipelago so much that he even made his own a couple of days later, despite the clay having cooled off and being too hard to really work with. But when I said to his dad, hey, DJ made an archipelago, he replied, no I didn't, I made a bunch of islands. Hah!


DJ finished the school day with some "easy" work. He doesn't need to use the Color Box 2 as he knows all of his colors really well, but he likes to play with the tiles. I used it as an opportunity to teach him the colors of the rainbow. It hadn't ever occurred to me to teach that before but in his Tae Kwon Do class, the instructor had them do an activity where they had to stack colored plastic cones in the order of the rainbow. About half the class, mostly the 5 year olds, already knew the order but poor SJ had no idea what she was talking about.


Finally, he worked with the tessellated shapes from his Melissa & Doug pattern boards. Ever since I introduced the first Constructive Triangle box, DJ has been noticing shapes within shapes everywhere. I used this activity as a chance to remind him of the word trapezoid. As I was showing him the trapezoid I pointed out that it had two parallel lines on the top and bottom but the sides were running towards each other. Then I put my fingers along both sides and DJ says, "If the sides kept going, they'd meet at the top and it would be a triangle!" Wow. I had never noticed that. So I placed the small green triangle at the top of the trapezoid, and sure enough, a trapezoid is just the base of a triangle with the top cut off. Weird!!


A couple of days later I wanted to do school again with the hopes of keeping up with my goal of two days per week. DJ wasn't really into it. But he did ask to work with the South America flags. The cards he has in front of him are pictures of the capital cities on one side with the country name, capital city name and country flag on the back. DJ selects a toothpick flag, then I find the matching card and point out the country on the map for DJ to stick the flag in. Then we talk about what we see in the picture, mountains, oceans, parks, statues, tall buildings, etc. I bought the toothpick flags of the world on Amazon. I was confounded today to discover that I don't have flags for Guyana, Suriname or French Guinea but I DO have a flag for Trinidad & Tobago! Really?

So that was week 3. DJ still has zero interest in any language works although I did read about 5 books to him today. I did get him to pull out the Movable Alphabet at one point, but he did what he usually does...string a bunch of consonants together and ask me what it says. When I suggested he thinking of a word to write he said, "This is too hard" and put it away. Well, maybe next week.

First Week of Preschool 2015

For those of you who have been following this blog over the summer and the past year, it might seem odd to call this the first week of school. But it's official - we have started the new year and since DJ is a November baby, this likely would have been his first year if he went to regular school. In some ways I consider last year just a practice year, but DJ accomplished SO much it also feels kinda silly not to consider him a second year student.
What makes this an official end to summer and start to a new year has more to do with me than DJ. While I have coasted through the summer, I now have a renewed commitment to present new work to DJ each week along with a goal to do at least one "science" activity each week.

Summer Break (still)

So we're still on summer break and having a great time. It's been a hot summer for us so lots of outdoor time. But even though I'm not doing school, DJ still has access to his work shelves and selects activities randomly. This summer is giving me more respect for unschoolers - a homeschooling method where the parent doesn't directly teach but just provides materials for the child to teach themselves.

Seeds

Remember when DJ received these pattern blocks for his birthday and he was so frustrated because the pieces would shift as he added new pieces? Well, six months later and there's no more frustration, just a lot of fun!

School Days

DJ is moving slowly through the early Golden Bead work. This involves matching the large number cards to the corresponding cubes, squares, tens and units. He enjoys this work but it is challenging for him so we are taking it very slow.

School Days

Geography: I presented the USA puzzle map last week. This is a BIG work for DJ. In this photo he's pointing to the state where we live. I showed him the states where his dad & I was born and all the places we've each lived. I also showed him where his grandparents live.

Continent Boxes - North America

Part of the Geography sequence includes Continent Folders or Boxes. Folders would include pictures of various cultural aspects of each continent while boxes hold cultural objects. I chose to go with boxes and started putting them together last fall. They are still a work in progress but they will be used for years so as I collect new items, they'll be added to the box. But what I have now is a good enough selection to show what I have and how they are used.

Some old favorites

I'm terribly late in writing this post. It should have been written at the end of last week but I just didn't feel like it. So thank you for waiting patiently!


Since there wasn't anything new on the shelves last week, DJ selected some old favorites. The Land & Water forms hadn't been touched for months but he started off the day with an eager "let's do these!" I was impressed with how much he remembered. He still can't say isthmus, but then I can't either. I had also made a point of telling him a peninsula was like a thumb of land sticking out in the water, so he always holds his thumb up to the picture to help him remember the name. We also made some more homemade playdough so he could re-create several of the shapes.

So very much activity

Happy Valentine's Day! Although I don't do much with themes, DJ did participate in a Make & Mail Valentine exchange in his toddler playgroup this year. I was so incredibly impressed with the way he chose to paint the hearts. It made me a little sad to not be able to keep them!

Science Experiment & More North America

DJ received this Primary Science Lab Set for his birthday a few months ago. It's been upstairs in his playroom until this morning when he came downstairs caring the whole box and saying, "Let's do this!"

Letters and Maps

School these days is all about letters and maps, maps and letters. We have now done 13 of the 40 sounds, or about a third. I'm really impressed with DJ's memory for sounds. And I'm beginning to catch him outside of school time exploring words on his own such as h-h-hat. And we haven't even done /h/ yet!

North America map!

Who would have ever thought doing Geography with a 3 year old could be so much fun?! DJ has been working with the World Map puzzle for awhile and can now name all the continents, although he usually calls Asia "the big one". Hah.