What We've Been Up To in Term 2

This term seems like it's flying by so fast and I am in a constant state of feeling like there just isn't enough time to do all the things we need or want to do.  We received his first term report card and were SO pleased with what we saw.  It's his best one ever, so something about this is working.  With two A's and a B, he was so proud of himself too.  Nothing like positive reinforcement to generate more motivation to do well.  His two hardest subject are still his two most difficult but even in those I feel like there is progress. 

 

The way we do things is very casual in regards to planning ahead.  Our day starts around 10 after sister is off to public school and breakfast is eaten and cleaned up.  We decide which subject to dive into and go from there.  Sometimes we'll let the text book be our guide and we'll read through, discuss, possibly make notes, and usually do a review of past material.  But we let the text book be a jumping off point from where we branch into a project.  It's a very 'go with the flow' type style, which seems to work well for both of us. 

 

It's always nice when one subject crosses over with another and often we'll adjust one subjects 'lesson plan' to coincide with another subjects project. 

 

Sometimes I look at what we have in his work binders and it doesn't appear that much has been done so I'm constantly having to remind myself that it doesn't necessarily indicate how much we really do.  We have oral quizes often and lots of discussion but how do you measure that?  I did find it interesting that an hour or two after giving him an oral quiz - which he aced, I gave him a written exam and the results were not near as good so balancing the two can be a bit challenging sometimes.  Maybe my note taking needs to be better. 

 

As of late, we are doing the following:

 

Language Arts: 

*Working on a book report for Stranded.  I've set up the questions I want answered but the idea of a book report and how to put it together is competely foreign to him so I've now stepped in a bit more to guide him through.  After getting hung up on one set of questions we skipped ahead and I also scribbed his draft notes which helped tremendously.

 

*He works on a short and sweet writing project called Blabber which essentially is a 5 minute writing exercise where he just writes anything, non-stop.  No worries about spelling or neatness, just complete sentences, even if they don't connect to each other.

*Typing, which maybe isn't so much of a LA subject, but anyways.  There is a great FREE typing program online which we're using called Dance Mat Typing and can be found HERE

*He's also been doing lots of reading as usual.  He's now got 8.5 good sized books read since September.  He plowed through the last 2 Percy Jackson books in just a month and is half way through the next one in the related series. 

As well, he's been listening to The Fellowship of the Ring on audio while he does building projects for other subjects.

*We play the odd board game which may focus on memory or on reading comprehension

 

 

Math:

*He's been continuing with Math Whizz which has been good.  It's good for him that it continually keeps track of his progress and has a large variety of math 'games' to work with.  It also takes stress out of the teaching/learning dynamic as it's a subject which could easily be very straining on both sides.  However, I wish the program would have a place for parents to better check on what's been done and the progress.  That is heavily lacking and I'm not a fan of that. 

*We've also been doing some work from worksheets that I photocopied last year. 

*We also try to work math eqations into regular conversation because as you know math is just one of those things that you use all throughout each and every day.  So those things can't really be gauged.

*We played Quizmo, which is basically a math Bingo game.  Wasn't a huge hit, maybe because I won, but it was still some good review for simple mental math.

 

Science:

*This term we are focusing on Electricity.  We've been doing lots of text book reading trying to get some basic information down and reviewing often. 

*He is taking a Robotics course which his is more than half way done now.  He and Mike go and work on it together.  There is a lot of math involved in the course as well.  His project is a boat.  I don't honestly know a whole lot about it.  It's nice to relinquish this one over to dad's capable hands.  He's working on it a lot at home also and this is usually where the audio books come in.

 

 

*Coming up in a very short time the learning centre will be inviting the kids to bring in and display a science project  they've been working on.  Well, so far we're in the very beginning stages of this.  He's got his idea and that's about it.  He wants to experiment with what material will be the best conductor of electricity.  Guess we need to get crackin' on this.

*He's also been doing lots of building simple machines/motors with his Meccano set he got at Christmas as well as using his electric circuit board.

 

Social Studies:

*We are going through the text book and discussing things such as stereotypes, ethnocentrism, wants and needs, how to find reliable information, and how to have a more broad and fair perpective.  Most of this is discussion based and hard to track.

*We are also beginning a project which tackles maps, atlases, and globes.  Continents, equator, prime meridian, Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, the Arctic and Antarctic circles.  He's paper mached a globe, well the first stage.  Next he will build up the continents and begin making it look like a globe. 

The next stage after all of that is done (which will proably take a while), will be to use the points of interest that he's picked out (for example:  pyramids, Hawaiian volcano, Great Wall of China, African safari....) and he will plan a trip for himself which will require him to make a map and itinery for his adventures.  We will then take a closer look into each of those 'points of interest'. 

 

 

*He was recently sick so the day called for DVD's.  We borrowed a short documentary from the library which was about a Canadian girl roughly his age who has been working for years with the homeless in Eastern Canada.  It was a great start for some good discussion on being a global community and how everybody has a story, how anybody can make a difference.  What makes this girl so similar to us and also so different?  How do people start when trying to make a difference?

 

*We also watched more from the Planet Earth series.  We focused on mountains.

 

P.E.:

*His main are of physical exersise is still his bike.  Loves his bike.  He's also doing a paper route which gives him lots of exercise.

 

 

*I started to work on some running/fitness exercises with him but haven't done that much.

 

 

I'm also trying to get him back into Lumosity as we had a serious lapse for a while.  But it's a good way to exercise the brain in a fun way for a short period of time.