Hello!!
I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend. It was cold and rainy here, so we didn't get to do anything too fun. Hubby did grill several times over the course of the weekend (mmmmm, Hubby-burgers) so that was a nice break for me. We are going to have fajitas tonight -- I've already made the guacamole. Mmmmm.
BEAN FINISHED STATES OF THE UNION TODAY!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!! This has been a much more involved project than we anticipated when we started it last August. But, it is finally finished and she is so proud of her notebook about the 50 states.
She tested out of Lesson 28 in Epsilon today, so we only have two lessons to go to finish up Math for the year. That day will be a cupcake-worthy event, for sure. I wonder if it will be the the swim team or the softball team that benefits from that?
Not much else going on here. It is still cold and rainy and I am SO ready for the sun to come back. It's going to be June tomorrow!! People in Texas have been wearing shorts for 3 months!! The high temperature really needs to get out of the 50's here. Sigh.
TTFN!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
EUREKA (or "how I got my daughter to get her math done quickly!")!!!
Ever since the beginning of our homeschool journey, math has been a struggle for Bean. Our first year, we made a BAD curriculum choice (in my defense, we did make the decision to homeschool on the fly and I didn't really get a chance to research curriculum before we started). Their approach was too fast, too abstract for my kinesthetic learner. Every day there was yelling and screaming and crying about math (and sometimes Bean would get upset too ). Anyway, by the time we attended our first homeschool bookfair at the end of that school year, I KNEW we had to make a change. I wandered into the Math-U-See booth with Bean in tow and suddenly we could see the entrance to the tunnel (no light at the end yet!) Hubby leaned over to me and whispered, "I don't care what it costs, we are getting this one!"
We are almost finished with our 4th year of MUS. It has been a joy to see Bean master concepts in Math that I didn't even get exposed to until well into junior high school. BUT, every time she is faced with the most basic concepts (the ones she was first exposed to during that disasterous first year) she freezes up and gets very frustrated. Since those concepts are addition and subtraction, it has turned math time into an exercise in "adrenaline management". And, rather than following my suggestion to just "get it done and over with", her approach has been to see "just how long can I drag this out?". We have tried doing Math first in the day, but that was taking time away from other subjects that needed to get done. We tried doing Math last in the day, but with our busy schedule, that often meant she didn't finish it at all the day it was assigned. Then, one day I noticed that her handwriting for the advanced concepts was very clear and her numbers, when faced with adding or subtracting, became illegible. I began to wonder if it was all related? Could the fact that she was trying to master making pretty numbers at the same time we were using that "awful" curriculum (for her) be causing some of the stress?
So, I decided to try an experiment. I told her that I would act as the driver of her pencil during math. I would be there to offer help if she needed it during exercise days, but during test days I would just be the pencil. What a difference!!! Suddenly math is getting done in about 20 minutes (versus 2-3 hours) and she is getting 100% correct on every page. Add to that the fact that she is mastering concepts at light speed and that is how we have finished two LESSONS in MUS this week!! It is amazing and, better yet, she is starting to see that she really IS smart in math. And, finally, instead of always proclaiming, "I HATE Math!!", we have progressed to, "It's okay." If you ask me, that's the greatest thing ever!! And, it totally reinforces all the reasons that I love to homeschool. We were able to fix our problem on our own time-schedule, we had the freedom to experiment to find the solution and we have the option to use our solution until she no longer needs it.
Amen!!
We are almost finished with our 4th year of MUS. It has been a joy to see Bean master concepts in Math that I didn't even get exposed to until well into junior high school. BUT, every time she is faced with the most basic concepts (the ones she was first exposed to during that disasterous first year) she freezes up and gets very frustrated. Since those concepts are addition and subtraction, it has turned math time into an exercise in "adrenaline management". And, rather than following my suggestion to just "get it done and over with", her approach has been to see "just how long can I drag this out?". We have tried doing Math first in the day, but that was taking time away from other subjects that needed to get done. We tried doing Math last in the day, but with our busy schedule, that often meant she didn't finish it at all the day it was assigned. Then, one day I noticed that her handwriting for the advanced concepts was very clear and her numbers, when faced with adding or subtracting, became illegible. I began to wonder if it was all related? Could the fact that she was trying to master making pretty numbers at the same time we were using that "awful" curriculum (for her) be causing some of the stress?
So, I decided to try an experiment. I told her that I would act as the driver of her pencil during math. I would be there to offer help if she needed it during exercise days, but during test days I would just be the pencil. What a difference!!! Suddenly math is getting done in about 20 minutes (versus 2-3 hours) and she is getting 100% correct on every page. Add to that the fact that she is mastering concepts at light speed and that is how we have finished two LESSONS in MUS this week!! It is amazing and, better yet, she is starting to see that she really IS smart in math. And, finally, instead of always proclaiming, "I HATE Math!!", we have progressed to, "It's okay." If you ask me, that's the greatest thing ever!! And, it totally reinforces all the reasons that I love to homeschool. We were able to fix our problem on our own time-schedule, we had the freedom to experiment to find the solution and we have the option to use our solution until she no longer needs it.
Amen!!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
My new blog!
It seems strange to be starting a new blog just as our homeschool year is winding down to an "end". Bean will finish up her last few "States of the Union" pages by early next week. Hopefully, we'll wrap up our last 3 lessons in Math-U-See Epsilon by the time we go to Scotland so Hubby can run his first marathon. :o)
We do have some "enrichment" activities planned for the summer. We'd like to work our way through Famous Men of Rome for some historical help on next year's National Latin Exam. Bean has also decided that she'd like to do a notebook on dolphins this summer. She's almost 11, so I think it's time to set her free on that kind of project and let her decide where it will lead.
We'll be heading to the Eastern Hemisphere next year with Sonlight's Core 5. It will be our last year with Sonlight, but we are very excited to be going on to Tapestry of Grace the following year. We plan to use TOG throughout the rest of our homeschool journey.
I guess that's enough for now, so I'll just close with a "Happy Homeschooling, Y'all!"
We do have some "enrichment" activities planned for the summer. We'd like to work our way through Famous Men of Rome for some historical help on next year's National Latin Exam. Bean has also decided that she'd like to do a notebook on dolphins this summer. She's almost 11, so I think it's time to set her free on that kind of project and let her decide where it will lead.
We'll be heading to the Eastern Hemisphere next year with Sonlight's Core 5. It will be our last year with Sonlight, but we are very excited to be going on to Tapestry of Grace the following year. We plan to use TOG throughout the rest of our homeschool journey.
I guess that's enough for now, so I'll just close with a "Happy Homeschooling, Y'all!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)