Science activity sheets

Waterford Games & Activities has free downloads of lots of kinds of activity sheets, mazes, dot to dot, coloring, word find, origami, find the differences, scramble, and several others.

Another unschooling article on the web (and in a paper)

It seems that unschooling is becoming a popular feature topic for "news". At least once a month someone on one of my email lists posts a link about some newspaper/website that has done an article on unschooling. Homeschooling itself isn't exciting enough (or controversial enough?) for an article anymore. Would they do a feature on families who do strict "school at home" with schedules down to the minute? I doubt it. My ambivalence is showing. It's nice to see this style of homeschooling recognized as a valuable alternative, but most of the articles have some education "expert" who cast doubts with having experience unschooling or even knowing a family who does it.

This article, 'Unschool' parents: Kids can be own best teachers is similar to the last one I blogged, in that it uses positive examples of actual unschoolers, then has people without unschooling experience comment about it. This one also has comments from people who have read the online article. They are particularly opinionated, often without first hand experience. The article, however, is pretty balanced and informative. There is also some information in the sidebar about definitions, a sample week, and Tennessee homeschooling regulations.

DVRL - Drumming in Fractions

I got this link, The Futures Channel from Mathing Off because this video is about fractions in music, particularly drumming. It appears that there are many good video clips here of "real math, real science, real careers." The Futures Channel's subtitle is "Connecting learning to the real world."

Playing school again

We "played school" again today. DS1 asked about it yesterday. We were busy this morning with MOPS, then lunch with Dad, then I was gone for a while. I had forgotten, but he remembered right before dinner. So after dinner he eagerly put the dishes away while I set up the little table in his room. I had to search for the Handwriting Without Tears book because practically everything got moved in December to make room for our Christmas gathering and gifts.

He had a great time coloring and drawing lines. A few times he wanted me to do a page. I reminded him that if I was being the teacher and he was being the student, then I would show him how to do the first one, but that he should be the one to do most of the page. That explanation satisfied him. At one point I thought he might suggest that he wanted to be the teacher and I could be the kid. That would have been fun and fine with me, but it didn't come up (this time).

Other fun things he/we did today:

* made up silly rhyming words (this has been a popular activity for the past couple of weeks)

* made a teddy bear sewing card - I drew the outline and and cut the cardboard, he punched some of the holes and I punched some

* threaded some foam "beads" on a string

* laced around the edges of the bear - he was very consistent lacing up then down repeatedly, quite different from Monday at PAT when his "stiches" were in many different directions

* showed Daddy how to lace the teddy bear

* bedtime story was from Click magazine - it was about mixing colors, both pigment and light - the pigment mixing is old hat, but the light mixing was new information

Unschooling Voices

It's about 2 weeks until the next edition of Unschooling Voices, a blog carnival about unschooling. I first learned of blog carnivals about a year ago. It's basically a blog that links a bunch of other blogs (and may include email posts) on a related topic. February's topic is deschooling. I have a couple of old posts that sort of fit, so I think I might actually submit something this time. It's likely to get more people to read my blog. I wonder how many people read it now?

You Have to Trust that the Child will Learn

Here is a new article about unschooling. It was written for the Chicago Sun-Times. The featured student was in public school until 8th grade, then began homeschooling (unschooling) for high school. It's very well written and quite positive about unschooling. Of course, there are the obligitory "expert" opinions, but they aren't as negative as most.

radio free school CFMU 93.3 FM

The radio show, radio free school CFMU 93.3 FM, which is referenced in my previous post. It has a blog, too.

Minding your own - Home based education

This is a series of articles on a Canadian news website by Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko, an unschooler who has a weekly radio show, Radio Free School. I haven't read them all yet, but I plan to.

MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home

For future reference, MIT OpenCourseWare OCW Home give access to the content of MIT courses. I presume it includes the syllabus and class notes. It could be quite fun to poke around.

I want to think

"I don't want to count, I want to think." - DS1
Me, in my head, "Yea!!!!!"

The background on this is that DS1 asked to "play the plussing game". That's what he calls our "Travel" Math U See set. We did that for a while then he went and got the "the other blocks" (starter set) and his (Primer student) book. We started where he left off last time (review after lesson 3) and he did 6-8 pages, to the middle of the lesson 4 review. He also jumped ahead, to somewhere around lesson 18. Since the review pages cover lots of topics, I don't know exactly where this one was from, but it was past lesson 4. The task was to count the things and write the number. Sometimes he just says the number, sometimes he counts while pointing.

This time he said, "What's 4 plus 3." (They were in 2 rows, 4 on top, 3 on bottom.)
"Why don't you count them?" I answered.
"I don't want to count, I want to think."

Then he rolled around on the floor a bit and asked, "What comes after 8 when counting backwards."
I answered his question this time, "seven," I said.
Then he said, "it's seven," and rolled back over to the book to write "7".

I think he did "4+4=8" in his head and used "3 comes after 4 counting backwards" to come up with his question, but maybe not. Anyway, I thought the whole interaction was VERY COOL. We had lots of fun with numbers yesterday.

Actually

Here is a list of observable characteristics of gifted children. Actually, I came to it from a Sonlight Forums thread of someone wanting to know if there was a connection between giftedness and kids saying "actually" a lot. Just a few weeks ago DH commented about DS1 using that word frequently. Perhaps DS1 just uses is a lot because I do also. If he states something that is not quite accurate, I often say "actually, blah-de-blah" to correct him. An example of that happend Tuesday talking about the US flag being at half-staff. When he told me why it was down half way on the pole, he said "when someone dies", and I corrected with, "actually, only when the US president dies". It can be a polite and concise way to say You're wrong, I'm right, and here's why or perhaps just the confidence behind Believe me, I'm right, and here's why.

Trampoline

We now have an indoor 38" trampoline. At the Sonlight Moms group last Friday I asked about how the others help their kids use up energy when the weather is bad. The first suggestion was to bundle them up and go outside anyway. We have roofing debris in the yard right now, so the backyard is not very safe. Also, DS2 runs off in an unsafe way, so I asked for indoor ideas. Someone suggested a trampoline.

While I was helping a friend pick through the lumber from our garage teardown, DH and the boys played nearby. DS2 wandered over to the neighbor's yard (we no longer have a "fence" because of the garage being down). When I went to get him, we saw their mini tramp next to the play fort. I called my neighbor and asked to buy it. She offered to loan it to me until spring to see if I really wanted it, and so she could ask her kids (since it is theirs, not hers).

This morning I brought it inside. The boys had a WONDERFUL time. We count jumps for fun. It took a little practice to get used to balancing, but now they can each do 100 jumps without stopping. They were very excited to show Daddy when he got home from work today. I think my couch cushions and their beds may survive the winter, after all.

More dreaming...

Families on the Road

I've heard that a goal is a dream with a timeline. I have a goal to climb Long's Peak with my boys in 2016. I dream of RVing. Someday it will become a goal, too.

RVing With Kids

I dream of RVing with our family. I think it would be so cool! I want to take some time to read RVing With Kids to get their perspective.

Flags at half-staff

While we were waiting to go into the Rec Center for playgroup today, DS1 pointed out that the flag was only half way up on the pole. I explained to him that it was on purpose because a man who used to be president of our country died recently. Everyone flys their flags at half-staff for 30 days to show respect for him. Over an hour later, as we were leaving, he explained to me why the flag was only half way up.

New Skills

Both boys demonstrated some new skills today. DS1 played a computer game where you have to find the differences between 2 pictures. He found some of them faster than me! Some of them were tough enough that together we still couldn't find all 6 differences. DS2 used scissors for the first time (to my knowledge) today. He cut a lot of slits around the edges of some paper.

Gifted

From a TAGMAX email:

A person does not cease to be tall because s/he is not playing basketball.

A person does not cease to be gifted because s/he is not performing according to some external measurement - or even his or her own internal ones.

Tortillas

We had homemade tortillas with lunch today!

Wednesday at playgroup we moms were talking about food, and one of the other moms gave me her tortilla recipe. I tried it out for lunch today. I burnt the first one, but the second was good enough that I made another pair. The boys agree that they are good.

Learning all the time!!!

Maybe next time I'll let them help. :-)