funschooling.net

Oral Language Fair 2012

2012-02-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

The Date: February 7, 2012 at a venue near us.

The Event: An oral language fair organized by our homeschool charter.

Kids present a poem or short story (in kiddo's case an excerpt from a book) either individually or in groups. I grew up participating in a yearly, school-wide recital competition during my school days so I jumped at the chance when I heard about this fair through my charter's listserv. So glad kiddo was game to try it. It was such a great and fun experience and the kids who took part were so, so good.

The Book Kiddo Chose: My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

The Excerpt: The one about Mother's monstrous bathing costume (pages 133-134).

The Journey: Just 10+ minutes of memory practice a day (he read the 3.5 minute excerpt to himself three times each day), starting the week after Christmas. Some breathing, pronunciation and facial expression tips from Mom two days before the event.

The Pleasant Surprise: Kiddo won second place! Woohoo!

The Prizes: A certificate, $25 Target gift card and a kids' meal coupon.

In addition...Treats from Mom: Mars bars (kiddo's first time trying these, yum!), and these books:
The Hunger Games,
Here's Looking at Euclid: From Counting Ants to Games of Chance - An Awe-Inspiring Journey Through the World of Numbers and The Days are Just Packed: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

I always look for excuses to buy more books! The bookstore discount coupons I had been collecting helped too! :)

Kiddo's Transitive Property of Equality

2012-02-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Kiddo, after watching The Story of Maths for the second time recently:

"Mom! If the Bernoullis were Leibnitz fans, and Leibnitz was a Newton fan, then by the Transitive Property of Equality, the Bernoullis were Newton fans!"

For more on unsound applications of the Transitive Property, see here.

A Much Needed Change

2012-02-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

You had me at first buzz.

Look at you. Sleek, black and powerful. Ready to serve wherever and whenever I please. Crisp and clean and efficient. You needed a little tender, loving care when you arrived but once we had a connection, you throbbed into life, eager to please.

I will use you. Oh yes, I will use you. You complete me.

I still love you. You served me well. All these years. From our very first foray into homeschooling to these later years of printing schedules and monthly charter reports, we've been through so much together. After pages and pages of MEP and vintage books, how can I part with you without feeling a twinge?

But you began to hold back. You made demands each time I needed to print on both sides. You hesitated too often. I was patient. But you refused to budge.

Sometimes, a girl needs to move on.

Randomly Recent...

2012-01-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

This was a relaxed week at Funschooling Academy. We had a good time waking up late, eating breakfast for lunch and being general slobs most of the time. Kiddo needed the change in pace and it was one of those easier unschooled weeks than most.

"Sloop/ Speedboat/ Race Boat John B"

Improvisation is creative but loud and messy. There's many a missed note in the journey between the germ of an idea to the end product. I need to remember this. I didn't make this resolution this year, I know, but I want to write more posts where I am honest about how kiddo learns. It doesn't do anyone justice, least of all myself, to not be completely real about what happens here.

Here's kiddo improvising Sloop John B. He calls it Race Boat John B (although in my true control freak fashion, I'm trying to make him change his mind and call it Speedboat John B instead...I mean, speedboat starts with S like sloop so I thought...oh never mind). He seems very interested in checking out and experimenting with different chords. I wish I knew more about music theory to help him. But perhaps it's a good thing that I don't. I'll probably try to over-control that too!

The Racer Rover Project

Short story or long? I'll stick to the short. Dad bought an App-Controlled Wi-Fi Racer. Racing it around the house fired up the boys' imagination (watching Home Alone 3 helped too). Boys ordered a Wireless Mini Camera Kit. Havoc ensued. Camera's signal interfered with our wireless Internet. Kiddo googled it. Dad fixed it. Kiddo is brainstorming how to implant a light sensor should racer rover run into a dark room. I don't exactly know how that works or what it means. Short story ends. You can watch the video to see how the rover works. It's pretty cool. I've already told kiddo I will swat the racer if it ever, ever spies on me. You can't be too careful. You never know what these gadgets can or will do.

Other Stuff

We took a break from math, physics and German this week. Kiddo spent a lot of time on his beloved Irasshai videos and learning the butterfly stroke for swimming. He's officially graduated from Weeding 101. Weeding 201 begins today! ;)

His new debate session started yesterday. This time it's a public forum format with more emphasis on discussing national issues. Promises to be interesting!

Kiddo may decide to research the Ebola virus to present to our homeschool group in February. I'm trying my best to keep away from the whole business. My backing off resulted in no presentations for the past couple of months so that shows me that although he's very keen to present, the work is only done if mom does the urging. I'm curious to see if he'll do it on his own without any suggestions from me.(Jan 30 update: Ebola presentation not happening...kiddo is busy preparing for an oral recitation of a literature excerpt and it's due next week.)

I can't seem to remember if we did anything else this week. I really enjoyed the more relaxed pace and I know he did too.

A Whole Lotta Writing Going On

2012-01-25T20:46:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd be saying this but the kiddo is enjoying blogging very much these days. Oh I know it's just a passing fancy. Totally not kidding myself there. But I'm so glad it's happening and trying so hard not to look like I think it's a big deal. Why? Well, the quickest way around here to bring a passing fancy to an end is to make a big deal out of it!

I started his blog for him when he was five. We called it The Amazing Adventures of Lightning Dash because he really loved the character Dash from The Incredibles. I would ask him if he wanted to say anything and he'd dictate it to me and I'd type the post for him. We'd choose images together but I'd do all the other stuff, the copying, pasting, publishing etc. For a while, it was a wonderful novelty for him to know that something he'd learned about and dictated to me was on the world wide web for everyone to see. Then, the novelty wore off. Although we updated it now and then, we basically let the blog die for a while.

Last year, I suggested he write reviews for some of the books he reads. I gave him a choice to either hand-write them (which I knew wouldn't be completed) or to dictate them to me and I'd write them for him. After some discussion, we decided to try to resurrect the blog for book reviews. He seemed keen for a bit but it was obviously an effort. He might type a line or two but would often be frustrated by the slow pace. Instead of forcing him to go on, I volunteered again to be his scribe. It did upset me at times that he was struggling to type but I tried to be logical and remind myself that I wasn't typing when I was eight either. Over-focusing on a very frustrating activity has never been productive around here.

This year, we're trying another resurrection, under the name Math and Other Adventures. After the first two entries for the year, kiddo decided he wanted to type his own posts (Wooooohoooo!) and has been doing so every few days now. Of all things, he is motivated by his Google search ranking! When he first googled it, it wasn't even in the top 10. Google Math and Other Adventures now and it's there at 4th place. He wants it to be in first place. And I'd always thought this child will never be competitive. Who knew?

When I was a curriculum junkie, it pained me that we couldn't entice him to try a typing curriculum. That we quickly abandon every writing curriculum we begin. That we can't stick to a grammar program. I overcame the junkie bit but as a mom who likes to write, it did trouble me very much that my son hated writing.

I quickly assumed that this child will never write anything. I've despaired on many a homeschooling forum that my child is a reluctant and resistant writer.

I've wondered which teeth I'd have to pull to help him write his college application essays.

Ha! Today, he told me he really likes writing.

Never Say Never.

The Force and The Bark Side

2012-01-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Funschoolers love, love, love these ads. HT to our friend G for sharing The Bark Side and good ol' Dad for sharing The Force. Enjoy!

Randomly Recent...

2012-01-14T14:27:00.000-08:00

Baking butter cookies!

The FunSchoolers discovered a very yummy recipe and have so far experimented twice with it:

Once by replacing some of the flour with hazelnut meal and the white sugar with brown (and reducing the amount too).
Once using the recipe mostly as is but with less butter, flour and sugar (pictured here).

Both were delicious although the first batch was a little runny and couldn't be decorated satisfactorily. The second batch had a melt-in-the-mouth buttery flavor. Kiddo had tons of fun decorating it. Next time, we'll first plan the decorations before going trigger happy with the icing tubes. :)

Swimming lessons have resumed

After a difficult start when we first began, kiddo is doing very well and I'm very happy with how he's being taught. He's learning how to flip and push off between laps now.

Philosophy discussions

He is currently very interested in philosophy. We have chosen to read aloud and discuss Philosophy for Kids by David White once or twice a week during afternoon snack time. We really like the book so far.

See this post on kiddo's blog.We didn't have the time to record every single point discussed but it does give you an idea of how we are using the book.

Learning as usual

It's good to have our rhythm back after the holidays and the flu. Physics is going well with full marks in his grade book so far but the suggested pace is obviously too rapid right now. I'm not terribly concerned. It just means he may take longer to finish the course. I'm trying to keep my expectations neutral. Learning to stay out of the way is hard for this control freak, but I'm getting there!

Math and German are proceeding at a steady pace. I am enjoying learning this way and I can see kiddo is too. We have more time to learn and digest the information instead of rushing from one lesson to another. I wish we could somehow fit Latin into our days but we don't seem to be able to right now. I'm trying to work in 15 minutes of Latin three times a week. Since we don't do any "language arts", Latin is my back-up plan for grammar and vocabulary studies.

Debate finals!

The highlight of last week was kiddo's team debate finals. He was team captain for one of the teams. The teams were judged based on three mini-debate topics:

California schools should improve fitness goals (Kiddo's team: affirmative)
Ice cream would rather be 'poor' than 'rich' (An odd topic, I know! Kiddo's team: negative)
Environmental disasters should be classified as crimes against humanity (Kiddo's team: affirmative)

The teams were both tied in the end.

Kiddo is enjoying speech and debate very much and will continue with the next session of classes in two weeks. I couldn't be happier. He's learning many other skills through the class. He's learning to research and present his arguments coherently. He's learning the difference between fact and opinion. And he's learning leadership skills.

He's fond of the State of Debate game here. If you know anything else like it that can be played or followed online, I'd really appreciate a heads up!

Physics with Derek Owens

2012-01-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

It's much too soon for a full review as kiddo has only just started this program. But I wanted to mention how grateful I am for Derek Owens. Derek teaches math and physics live in person and via distance education (recorded lectures). Since we're not living close to Derek, we are using the distance education option.

Kiddo will be trying Physics I with Derek this year. I'm relieved because while I can research and compile lists and lists of resources for the subject, I cannot teach Physics. His Dad can teach Physics but rarely has the time it takes for consistent instruction. When I heard about Derek Owens' distance ed program, I thought I'd give it a try. So much of homeschooling is a journey of faith. You may find that when your child is ready for certain things, you'll be experimenting over and over again not only with curriculum but also with online programs and service providers so you have to be willing sometimes to take a risk and just go with it.

So far, Derek seems to be a risk well taken. Why I wanted to mention Derek today is because I am very touched and grateful to him for two reasons. First, he didn't pooh-pooh us about kiddo being younger than his usual target audience. Believe me, this may not strike you as being praiseworthy but I've come across folk who are miserably pedantic about such things. I am truly very happy that Derek was supportive and welcoming towards my younger student. Second, Derek gives you all the materials for just a $15 registration fee. I mean ALL the materials: all lectures, all notes, all homework and lab work links. Everything. You do have an option of buying the workbook instead of printing it and that will cost about $50 more (each semester's workbook at Derek's Lulu store is $22.31 without shipping). But if you don't mind the printing, everything is available to you after you pay the registration fee.

You will then pay the monthly distance ed fee when your student starts working on the materials and sends homework to Derek for checking and feedback.

After consulting Derek and kiddo, we'll be setting aside about 4-5 hours a week for this program. We may supplement where we can with additional labs (if kiddo wants them), Teaching Company Great Courses and various reading materials. If kiddo is truly able to handle the work and maintains a steady pace, I'll try to remember to write a more detailed review when he's close to completion. For now, I wanted to post my unsolicited gratitude because I strongly believe in recognizing a good service and passing on a good word when I stumble upon such a service.

Mmm...Tapioca Pudding!

2012-01-04T21:04:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not doing my waistline any good but oh, this was delicious! So yummy that I'm posting the recipe! :)

Brown Sugar Tapioca Pudding
Inspired by recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill Small Pearl Tapioca package.

2/3 cup small pearl tapioca
1 1/2 cup water
4 1/2 cups 2% milk
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs, separated
1 cup brown sugar (I added another tbsp because I'm naughty that way)
1 tsp. vanilla

Put tapioca and water in a saucepan. Soak for about 30 minutes. Beat egg yolks in a pyrex measuring cup, add milk and salt and stir into tapioca water mixture. Turn stove on to medium heat and stir until boiling (if you don't want to keep stirring every single second, at least watch the mixture carefully; you definitely don't want to walk away and end up with a burned pudding!). Once tapioca mixture starts to steam and boil gently (ours took about 10 minutes to do so), switch to the lowest heat setting. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring often.

Beat egg whites with brown sugar till soft peaks form. Fold about 2 cups of tapioca mixture into egg white-sugar mixture. Fold this combined mixture back into the rest of the pudding in the saucepan...gently, and a little at a time. Keep stirring over low heat for about 3 minutes.

Let pudding cool for about 20-30 minutes. Add vanilla, mix well and serve warm or chilled.

Makes about 6-7 cups.

A Wish For 2012

2012-01-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

2012....wow. The year kiddo will turn double digits. And my final chance to enjoy my thirties! What will 2012 bring? Excitement I'm sure. But challenges too and I wonder what kind of animal that will be.

I find myself watching kiddo furtively these days. He's at that age where he gets a little embarrassed if I stare at him lovingly for too long. Sometimes he seems so very, very grown up all of a sudden. And sometimes, he's still such a little thing (especially when he's in his jammies lol). He still says the darndest things. Still cracks me up. And still infuriates me too.

I also find that my memory of his younger years is improving. There are so many things I'd forgotten that I suddenly remember now. Sometimes, I cringe about something harsh or stupid I said or did. Mostly, I'm thankful for the time I've had to watch him grow up to be the good kid he is.

If you are a parent of a younger child, who is often anxious and rushing from one thing to another trying to get it all done, just like I tend to, now is the time to stop and take a deep breath and slow down. And remember all those moments when you were both happy. Truly happy. Hold on to that thought. Aspire to achieve that happiness again and again.

Nothing else...curriculum, schedules, classes, school, social opportunities, fame, fortune...nothing else (except safety and good health) is as important.

I'm past making resolutions. But I will make a wish. Oh, please let me give him a truly happy childhood. One that will make moments when I lose it and do the things I shouldn't irrelevant. One with memories he will cling on to and hold precious and draw strength from when he needs it the most.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Last Days of 2011

2011-12-31T21:39:00.000-08:00

Apart from the horrid flu bug that hit us the weekend before Christmas, our last week of 2011 has been lots of fun! Here's our week in photos:

Opening Christmas gifts!

Archery in the backyard -- it looks like summer doesn't it? It almost feels like it too!

Being awarded an Andorian hat for nursing the flu like a true good sport.

And playing with his new favorite toys: this hop ball...

...and this marble run set.

Tin Tin at Tinsel Time

2011-12-25T23:37:00.000-08:00

Hmm, not a very catchy title but since we're very much into alliterative post titles over here, it'll have to do. :)

The Adventures of Tin Tin got off to a slow-ish start but made up for it with exciting action in the end. Kiddo is over the moon that this Christmas gift wasn't delayed due to his bout of flu. He was feeling so much better today so we decided to go after all. Luckily, not too many people opted to watch this show so I don't think he infected anyone. I was particularly glad that Snowy got so much attention from the filmmakers although kiddo and I were quite miffed that they didn't stick to the original tale.

Before the show, we caught this wonderful trailer. I can't wait for The Hobbit. Just can't wait. Had goosebumps just from watching this...

Also watched a trailer for Brave. Look out for 1:40! :)

Season's Greetings!

2011-12-21T23:54:00.001-08:00

Year 4 in Words and Pictures

2011-12-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Year 4 began in June 2011 and ended in December 2011.

Unlike previous years where I begin a new year of learning in June and wait till the following May or June to write a summary of our year, I decided to summarize our 6+ months of Year 4 today, the day after we ended a brief but interesting semester. We seem to have reached a point in our learning journey where it seems much more natural to begin a formal study in January, end in October or November, pursue a relaxed December and begin again the following January. This also means I will be renaming our course of study from Year X to simply 2012 or 2013. Year X is a misnomer anyway. I never liked calling him a 4th grader. And now, I don't want to use Year 4 either. We've homeschooled longer than 4 years and kiddo is by no means in "elementary" school any more. I think it's time to completely break away from the bonds of a school-ish system. I'm feeling liberated and bold and creative right now so after this post, I'll just keep things Gregorian and simple, thank you very much.

Summer of Year 4 began with swimming lessons, and a fantastic trip to Colorado.

At the Garden of the Gods in Co. Springs. Kiddo in orange tee and white hat. Dad in blue shirt and blue hat.


Learning the freestyle in May 2011. As of Dec 2011, he is working on the breast stroke. Since the pool is heated, kiddo takes lessons from this school year-round.

Kiddo discovered Zome Tools in summer.

Fun Play and Projects in Year 4 included building the glider in his Exploration Education kit, making a model airplane from scratch, chemistry experiments with Dad, playing with his bucky balls, and researching how a time machine might work and presenting his research to our homeschool group. We also had a couple of fun architectural field trips, one to a pretty church and another to the Stanford Medical Center.

Exploration Education glider.

Making cool shapes with bucky balls.

Electrolysis experiment.

Kiddo and Dad and friends discovered kayaking too!

For classes and learning resources, kiddo has had most fun with geometry, German and Latin and his weekly Debate class (one that we drive 70+ miles for!). We also love the excellent Lord of the Rings audio books we play in the car on our way to Debate. He has been appointed a team captain for the Debate finals in January and takes great pride in this. :) We've also enjoyed a number of Teaching Company Great Courses these past few months. Special shout out for Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge and Dr Schumacher's clear, engaging presentation skills (although a number of the concepts are above our ability to understand them, the lectures are very watchable!).

We very strongly recommend the LOTR audiobooks narrated by Rob Inglis and the
Impossible Physics Great Course presented by Dr Benjamin Schumacher.

Our Year 4 Curriculum included:

Algebra: Structure and Method Book 1 by Mary Dolciani et. al. (Year 3, Jan 2011 to Year 4, Sept 2011)
Introduction to Number Theory from the Art of Problem Solving (in progress)
Secrets of Mental Math and the Art and Craft of Mathematical Problem Solving (both Great Courses and both in progress)
A large number of the geometry resources bookmarked here.
Geometry by Ray Jurgensen et. al. (in progress)
Excavating English by Ellen McHenry (Year 4, May to Aug 2011)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (primarily via audio) plus misc. classic lit by Mark Twain and Jules Verne.
German I from OK State University's German Online program (in progress)
Visual Latin I (in progress)
Irasshai Japanese I (in progress)
Exploration Education Advanced Intermediate science kit (in progress -- I'm not sure if we'll ever finish this one, lol)
Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge (Great Course) and various physics and quantum physics-themed reading including the Secrets of the Universe series by Paul Fleisher, Mr. Tompkins in Paperback by George Gamow, Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore and Get a Grip on Physics by John Gribbin.
The Cartoon History of the Universe, and the Modern World series by Larry Gonick and misc. documentaries
The Lukeion Project's Bizzare Ancient Languages and Alphabets 4-week workshop
Art History videos linked here.
Piano Lessons, and Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion (Great Course)
Debate and Critical Thinking Lessons, and The Art of Public Speaking (Great Course)
Swimming Lessons

We're On Holiday!

2011-12-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

The Funschoolers are taking a much-needed break!

The Christmas tree is finally up, thanks to kiddo taking over the decorating this year. Relinquishing control was easier than expected for this one!

We're trying to make a few sculpey ornaments. Kiddo made a python and an atom bomb (don't ask) and I made a pig, a Santa and a Happy Feet-like penguin. I overbaked the figurines and they emerged looking black and a tad upset about it in our oven so we're trying to whitewash/ color them now lol.

A holiday isn't a holiday without a bunch of good books to read so up on the menu for the next two weeks:

1. A bunch of Freddy the Pig stories (thanks to P, N and L for the suggestion!), the first two novels from the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix and two physics books that looked interesting on the shelves of our library (and I hope will continue to look interesting in our home!).

2. The Geek Dad's Guide to Weekend Fun (kiddo and Dad are having fun choosing projects that look do-able with materials on hand). Kiddo needs to find a humorous passage to memorize for an oral recital in February 2012 (organized by our charter school) so we're revisiting our favorite Gerald Durrell memoirs plus the wonderful King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz for ideas.

3. Tons of Calvin and Hobbes, of course.

4. And for me, the satirical and moving The Elegence of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (suggested on one of the many e-lists I belong to) and because I seriously need to keep refreshing my understanding of basic physics, the easy-to-read For the Love of Physics by none other than the MIT Open Course Ware superstar prof, Walter Lewin.

For movies, we hope to watch Tintin! And on my Netflix queue, Love Actually (thanks Sheila!) and One Day.

Wishing you a lovely holiday season, dear reader!

The Great FunSchooling Video Veg-Out...

2011-12-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

What can I say? It's THAT time of the year!

I'm glad we broke the book-before-movie rule for Nicholas Nickleby. A smashing performace by all though a little sad in some parts and downright teary in others as you may guess from the trailer. So be warned if you have a sensitive, young viewer.

Wonderful 1960s TV. Sigh, they just don't make them this wholesome anymore:

And the latest brainy detective series we are addicted to:

An Unstructured Day In The Life...

2011-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Someone on my local list will start homeschooling her child soon and asked members for examples of homeschool schedules. I'm copying and pasting my answer to her here because I realize that this response is something I want to remember. As eclectic learners, we have quite an equal mix of structured and unstructured days. I really love the unstructured ones best although it's sometimes a challenge to remind myself to let things go. Perhaps including it here will help inspire me on another day. (Note: I've edited this slightly from the original version for privacy and accuracy.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi ...,

I have a 9yo only child, a boy. What's worked really well for us this semester is to alternate an unstructured day with a slightly more structured one.

Today was a good example of an unstructured day.

8.30: Woke up and showered

9-9.30: He made me breakfast (toast with cheese) - we take turns making breakfast.

9.30-10.20: He read (Twisted Tales from Shakespeare and The Poisoner's Handbook).

10.30: Play date with homeschooled 10yo buddy. This buddy is as crazy about math as kiddo is so the boys worked on developing kiddo's idea about building cubes using colorful blocks in such a way that two of the same colors don't touch each other on any face. They discovered some sort of pattern and I know I should ask kiddo to write it down before I forget to. This is one of the ways that I actually manage to have him write because if I gave him some meaningless prompt, he will resist it, so I should grab the opportunity while I can! ;)

About 1pm: he and I went grocery shopping, always a time for interesting discussions! I love taking my time in the store with him because there's always something fun to see or talk about. We used to be asked why he's not in school and is in the store with me but now all the cashiers know we homeschool.

After lunch: he did about an hour of speech and debate homework for a class he's taking (done voluntarily without prompting, hurray!).

3pm-ish: He watched two lectures from a Teaching Company math video and worked on some math problems. I gave him a choice for math and he chose the videos instead of his book.

4.30-6.15pm: Snack, more reading and folding some origami and creating various geometric structures with buckyballs while reading. If we hadn't been out today, kiddo would have chosen to read while creating various buckyball geometric structures the whole day.

6.30pm: Swim class. (On non swimming days he brisk-walks on the treadmill while reading.)

7-8.30pm: Came home, showered, had dinner. After dinner he watched CNN student news, and some TED videos, listened to a Librivox recording of one chapter from our classic lit selection of the month and then, was giggling to a Terry Jones history video on Netflix.

10.45-11.30pm: We'll probably read aloud from another book before he sleeps.

Since we took it easy today, tomorrow I may suggest a little more structure. On a more structured day, I aim for about an hour of math and an hour of foreign languages in addition to any debate homework and free-choice videos he watches or books he reads.

One huge blessing for us is not having to rush. The example of grocery shopping aside, homeschooling allows us to have valuable quality time with people we love to spend time with. Kiddo's piano teacher for example is able to give him a longer piano lesson for free because we always get there early and during the extra minutes, he always regales kiddo with fun stories from his younger days. It's almost like having a short living history lesson every week!

We actually started homeschooling in a much, much more structured way and soon found that we learned best with less. We also have cycles where we are so much more structured than the above or so much less structured too. It really depends on how we're feeling. When we sign up for online classes, we tend to be more structured because there's usually a regular homework schedule or deadline involved with such classes. We find alternating relaxed semesters with structured ones to be more manageable. The variety from one semester to the other is nice.

Randomly Recent...

2011-12-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Buckyball Challenge

Ever since kiddo received his box of buckyballs last Christmas, he's been trying to get them back into the original cube shape on his own (without googling or looking for youtube videos, I must add).

Success is sweet after almost a year of patient thinking and tinkering. Just hours later, he figured out how to make a reverse dodecahedron. These buckyballs and his silly putty have been godsends to help him focus when we do read-alouds, watch videos or generally do anything that requires him to be seated quietly for an hour or more.

Are Your Feeling It Yet?

I think I finally am. Still not enough to haul that tree and the decorations out though.

Can You Guess What This Is?

I finally found a set of cocktail-sized forks I'm happy with. And at just under $5 for a box of 48 forks, I don't think I can find a better deal. We're one of those families that keep running out of toothpicks when we want to serve guests cut fruit (blame those impromptu science experiments...and hey, you didn't think we pick our teeth that often did you?!) so I've been looking for a long time for affordable forks that I don't have to throw away afterwards. The pix above is a close-up of my beautiful forks in a soapy, hot water bath. Couldn't resist that pretty blur of colored bubbles. And here they are on the left, zoomed out, trying to get away from the heat (aargh, she's trying to boil us alive, she is!).

The Chortling Bard

Kiddo just loves, loves, loves Richard Armour's Twisted Tales from Shakespeare. He's reading it the second time now in a space of five days. Some of the language is obviously rubbing off on him. Today, he described the water boiling in our hot water kettle as "chortling merrily". :)

Cuneiform, You Say?

Cuneiform Funschoolers' style, actually. I don't think the Babylonians would recognize a wedge of it! These are supposed to read Man Eat Cow, Mountain, Ox To Plow and we can't remember what else and in what sequence lol. I couldn't resist adding the happy face. This was an activity from Chapter One of Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World with Art. The chapter was rather enjoyable.

A List of Things to Learn...

2011-11-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

I guess you could call this one of my random musings posts.

I like to search the web randomly for interesting articles and ideas. Today, I googled two search criteria: "what you wish you'd learned in high school" and "learning to write by imitating classics". I collected some of the results into a list to inspire me whenever I feel like giving things a crazy twist here at Funschooling Academy.

11 Things We Should Learn (in no particular order, mind!):

Critical Thinking - how to read deeply and actively question what we read.
Networking - how to make winning social contacts to further our career and life aspirations.
Personal Finance - how to consistently save for a rainy day. Also, how to be well-insured, and, why we should avoid using credit cards.
Growing Our Own Food - see number five.
Cooking - how to feed ourselves under any circumstance, and clean up afterwards.
Repair and Maintenance - how to prevent and fix basic troubles like flat-tires and plumbing fixtures.
Healthy Habits - how to live healthily, such as making daily exercise a routine we won't neglect...and to do this before it's too late.
Orienteering - how to know at all times where we are and how to get to where we need to go.
Knotting - how to tie a good knot in any circumstance...hey, a tight knot may save a life some day!
Writing Well - how to communicate effectively and precisely (and if possible, humorously too).

And on the subject of writing well, I came across an interesting quote from W.H. Auden:

"In my daydream College for Bards,

the curriculum would be as follows:

In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
Thousands of lines of poetry in these languages would be learned by heart.
The library would contain no books of literary criticism, and the only critical exercise required of students would be the writing of parodies.
Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students,and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.
Every student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot."

'Twould make a fun homeschool curriculum for a language-lover, I suppose.

Anyway, I don't know about you dear reader, but my daydream college looks like this:

The long room of the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. Sigh, isn't it fabulous? A panoramic view here.

No. 11 on our List of Things to Learn? How to visit Dublin. Cheap!

Bloggers' Block Continues...

2011-11-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

This is quite likely the worst case of it that I've had so far. I believe in blogging without obligation but still, I've often felt blogging is my one true escape from the humdrum happenings of my life. Now, I don't even feel like blogging anymore. I feel as if I've talked to death about curriculum changes and new-semester planning and wondering how else to balance and challenge the kiddo's learning.

I could always talk about something other than homeschooling and book reviews, I suppose. What would you like to know dear reader? If you've been following Funschooling, what draws you to this blog? I'd love suggestions! :)

Till next time, here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend:

Kiddo learned about mulled cider and immediately
decided to make some of his own.

Happiness is a cheery set of mugs
to greet me each morning.
A lovely gift from my pal, SK. Thanks SK!

Math manipulatives are always age-appropriate in our home.

Kiddo helps clean up the yard.

Giggles With TED

2011-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

I'm bookmarking a few of kiddo's all time favorite funny TED lectures. He will spend hours watching these over and over and over again if I let him. Sometimes, I do let him! :)

If the kiddo was handing out awards, the prize would go to either Fleischer or The Raspyni Brothers.

He also enjoys Seth Godin's This is Broken.

Almost Wordless Weekend

2011-11-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Learning a new board game

Oh naughty, naughty girl! A crispy treat made from plain flour, brown sugar and milk.


A fortuitous US Constitution find at the bookstore.

So many people say Discworld is funny but I'm not feeling the love. The search for a good, hilarious series continues.

Randomly Recent...

2011-11-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Kiddo is reading (and re-reading): Bertrand Brinley's Mad Scientists' Club series.

and I am reading (extremely randomly, when the mood hits me):

Kiddo's glider from the Exploration Education kit is finally ready! We're going at a snail's pace with this kit (this is still only chapter 2 of 36 chapters) but that was the plan anyway. I'm happy to report he played a large part in assembling the glider and only needed my help with the more intricate gluing bits. We plan to test it properly at our neighborhood park (it's been raining here so we haven't had a chance to do so yet). Initial flight tests in our backyard have shown that we need to fine-tune the balance ever so often.

The beginning: assembling the template and front section (all the parts are included in the kit).
That meter stick with red guardrails is from another, unrelated experiment.

Halfway point: gluing balsa-wood sections together and reinforcing them.

Blow-drying the shrink-wrap.

The completed glider.

My latest project: Creative Journaling!

I was inspired to do this after stumbling upon some of the books below. I purchased the Artist's Journal Workshop and it's certainly revived my interest in expressing myself visually on paper.

The idea is to create a scrapbooky-journal feel without spending too much money on actual scrapbook supplies (i.e. to hand-illustrate as much as possible instead of cutting, gluing and pasting embellishments). So despite not having updated my paints and marker supply in ages, I decided that if I waited to buy more tools I'd never begin. Using some old markers and watercolor crayons plus kiddo's watercolor pencils, I struck while the inspiration was hot this weekend:

This was inspired by kiddo's profile while he was reading an online article on his laptop.

This was inspired by the quotation (from one of my notepads). The sketch of kiddo in the middle of the page
is based on a photo I'd taken of him when he was four years old. All hand-drawn except for the four captions.

Each page took about three or four hours to complete but it was so worth it. I hope I stay inspired enough to continue doing this for a long time. It's been too many years since I created art just for myself. :)

Helping Kiddo Manage His Learning

2011-11-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

We're trying something new at Funschooling Academy. We're trying to help kiddo take more ownership over his learning. I might say I wish I'd thought of this sooner but I can't. I think a child needs to attain a certain age or maturity to be ready for a responsibility like this. It just wouldn't have been reasonable to expect this of him when he was 8.5, for example.

Now at 9 however, the boy seems to be ready to handle this. Once quite an easy-going child about listening to Mom's plans, he is becoming a lot more insistent on things being done his way and I want to respect that. And I want to ensure he continues to have plenty of time to play and tinker and think about his various interests.

These are the steps we're taking as we try to make this plan work:

1. What to include. To begin, I needed some insight on what is important for kiddo to learn right now. So we started by looking at what he wants to learn and why. Next, we looked at what his Dad and I want him to learn and why. Finally, we pared down the three lists to the very essentials. I further divided the essentials into parts because it helps me to plan better this way. For example, when I list "science", I tend to forget about experiments, for example. I created this chart using MS Excel to help me remember what to plan for every week. The printed chart is placed on our fridge for easy reference.

2. Flexible targets. Until kiddo has the maturity to set his own targets, I will fill the chart with a reasonable weekly overview of work to be completed. I will work on it a week at a time. This overview needs to be simple and predictable so that neither of us feels stressed about unexpected deadlines. It needs to be open-ended so that we can drop everything for a day and go attend an interesting talk or take a field trip 60 miles away, for example. Yet, it needs to be meaningfully significant enough that kiddo learns the value of having free time after working hard.

To set a weekly target, I look at how much work kiddo is usually able to complete in a day. I then multiply it by three. We follow a four-day learning week (and take the fifth to visit friends/ the library/ park days/ attend classes etc.). So for example, if kiddo is able to finish one math section a day, I target three sections for the week. This allows him to use the extra day to complete one more section and feel as if he accomplished more than planned. Or it gives him the flexibility to use the extra day for living math learning, playing math games/ puzzles or spend the day reviewing what was learned. Or he could take that day off and pursue one of his many projects.

If you follow a more rigorous schedule than we do, you might look at how many sections each resource has and divide the work accordingly into 36 weeks or something like that. We, however, like to skip around too much so very detailed planning won't work for us. :)

3.Tools. While I help with the weekly targets sheet, kiddo will be in charge of the daily planning. His job is to break up one week's targets into manageable daily chunks and this is where I think he will learn most about being organized and responsible about his learning. I deliberated awhile over what tool to use for this. His Dad felt we should utilize an online planning tool. I felt kiddo wasn't ready to use an online tool on a consistent basis. Besides, I haven't come across an online tool that can tell us at a glance what he has completed and what he has coming without printing it all out on several sheets of paper. I use the free Skedtrack website for record-keeping and Skedtrack has planning and student log-in functionality but we don't always have connectivity when we're out and about.

I think it very important to have a clear, visual snapshot of how much he's learned. So for now, he'll be using a plain ol'2011-2012 planner that I bought at a bookstore for about $10. It's spiral bound and can be flipped and folded over and placed on his table right next to his computer. It's small enough to be popped into my tote bag or his backpack too. Easy.

4. Time. This may be the most challenging step of all. Challenging for me, I mean. I need to be patient and give kiddo time to make this work. We've set aside Sunday evenings to record the weekly target and then have him decide on his daily targets and write them into his planner. Throughout the learning week, I'm focusing on baby steps and gentle reminders but I hope he won't need to be reminded too often once he sees the benefits of having a say over the planning (what gets done when), keeping track of work completed and having the rest of the day free to do the things that excite him. Today, for example, it worked really well. He knew in advance what he (and not just Mom) had planned for the day and even added an extra task so he'd be done with it sooner.

5. Motivation. To be honest, I don't think this strategy will work without a child's buy-in. Before there's buy-in, the child has to know why he's learning Subject X, also, why he's being put in charge of planning his day. I feel very strongly that if a child doesn't have a say over "the what", he will not have any passion to see-through the "when"s and the "how"s. That's why I don't see this method working for curriculum that uses a lot of busywork or subjects that are not meaningful or interesting to the child. There's something to be said about a child excitedly filling in his planner for learning activities as opposed to a child filling it in because it's required of him or not knowing why he's doing it.

I've tried other ways of planning and I think I like this one a lot better. It's simpler and neater somehow. I honestly hope this works for us. I would also love to know if you are already using something like this in your home school and how's it's played out for you.

PS: I still manage the assignment blog I'd written about here but these days, instead of using it to assign work, I use it as a bookmarks blog for the online resources kiddo uses the most. I save the blog's URL on kiddo's favorites list (on IE) and the bookmarks toolbar (on Firefox) for a quick two-click access to his favorite sites.

Randomly Recent from Funschooling Academy...

2011-10-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've become too lazy to post these days so in an attempt to pick up the pace, I'm trying different post formats.
Please bear with me? :)

What do Sal Khan and James Grime have in common? They've both created wonderful windows of opportunity for the walls you hit with formal math curricula.

When the sun shines, paint a picnic table!

The trick to coaxing a reluctant writer to type/write? Provide free-writing opportunities with ludicrous themes!

Take a break from routine history with a documentary from Netflix! We enjoyed BBC's The Lost Kingdoms of Africa:

Enjoy the extraordinary! We've never seen pelicans flying in formation before.

A Gift Just For Me

2011-10-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

Listening to Hedwig's Theme brings to me this whole other place...I often want to close my eyes and pirouette with arms outstretched and lose myself in its melody. Kiddo worked really hard to be ready to play this piece by today because I'd asked especially for it. Loved watching him play.

When he gets better at it, he wants to improvise and create a jazzy version!

Year 4.0, The Halfway Point

2011-10-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

This post was inspired by...
The realization that we're about midway through our first semester of Year 4. Where does the time go?

Here's a look at what we've been doing so far.

Number theory...
Isn't going the way I thought it would. For one thing, I'm in no shape to facilitate kiddo's learning of this math topic, having done zero number theory myself and not having a passion for numbers like he has. So, I've left the choice to him. He may continue to use the Introduction to Number Theory book from the Art of Problem Solving or he may choose from his shelf of other number theory-themed books or problem solving books or explore his own ideas. I do leave an hour a day scheduled for math, and he's free to choose to use it to explore number theory, problem-solving or some other topic. For now, he seems to have decided to use the daily hour to begin high school Geometry, and focus on number theory (or not) during his leisure hours in the afternoons/ evenings.

Languages...
The German Online program from Oklahoma State University is okay. I give it a 3 out of 5 stars for the moment. We had some initial bugs (for e.g., the program works best on Firefox vs Internet Explorer) and the accompanying Skype sessions (OSU offers these free of charge) haven't presented the amount of conversational benefit I'd hoped they would but the video/ animation lectures and complementary worksheets are a success.

Kiddo prepares to sketch appropriate drawings for the German verbs he's learning.

Kiddo started Visual Latin a week ago. Took a lot of cajolling to get him to agree to this. Despite his reluctance, I've been quite persistent about doing Latin. I see its benefits for a child who loves vocabulary studies but dislikes learning grammar. Prior to finding Visual Latin, I decided to leave Latin for later. After finding this program, I thought I'd try to persuade him one more time. Having started it, he seems to like it. Always helps to have video and humor I tell you. I don't think he'd have agreed otherwise. So far, we both think it's a great way to learn Latin but we're only on Chapter 2 so it's early yet. If you are a secular homeschooler, do be advised that there are translation exercises involving biblical passages. I look at it as a way to enrich our limited knowledge of the Bible -- it doesn't feel overtly religious to us as a result. But again, only time will tell.

Science...
Kiddo has been assembling a glider made of balsa wood, using his Exploration Education kit. We've been watching Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge (a Teaching Company course) and he discusses the lectures with Dad. We're also reading aloud Mr. Tompkins in Paperback by George Gamow for fun.

And a few other things...
We've started a relaxed, informal study of art history using The Private Life of a Masterpiece series. I'd suggest parental guidance--or at least a parent who is present and paying attention--if you decide to use this series with a young child. We like the series, some "PG-13" warts and all--it offers kiddo a nice treat to look forward to in the afternoon after working hard every morning. So far, we've watched clips on Rembrandt, Vermeer, Boticelli, da Vinci, Uccello and a few others. It isn't available via instant viewing on Netflix so we use the DVDs instead. After this series, we'll move on to other materials listed in this post.

Kiddo (with raised oar) kayaking with buddy
under watchful eyes of Dad (left).

Our study of the comics-genre is progressing a little less quickly than I'd hoped but I'm also trying to tell myself that we've at least started (ha!). We call it Giggles and Gumshoes (because we have plans to study the detective-fiction genre next) and to make it more exciting for kiddo, we began with Calvin and Hobbes. The plan is to read a little Calvin together and then take full advantage of kiddo's happy mood to help him write creatively, using comics as inspiration for characters, plot etc. (insert evil grin).

We've dropped Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings. Although it was nice to see a fat bunch of completed worksheets in his binder, I decided that as thorough as the program is, it doesn't make me comfortable asking kiddo to fill in worksheets when he could be spending that time enjoying the story itself. There's plenty of time yet for literary analysis and vocabulary studies of that sort.

Kiddo continues to swim despite the cooling weather (thank goodness for the heated pool at his swim class) and he's started kayaking this fall at the pretty regional park about a half hour away.

Volunteerism...
We've been very fortunate this semester to participate in an online volunteer relationship with a bunch of kids in Honduras. We Skype the kids every week and usually precede the Skype session with ideas for a cooperative, hands-on project. So far, we've made some origami crafts to show them.

Keeping it real...
I've realized that I often don't discuss the nitty-gritties of our home learning journey on this blog. I guess as an inherently cheerful person, I rarely remember to when typing the post into the blog editor but the reality of it is that every day, I face an inevitable routine of trying to balance dawdling with results, or my nagging with my internal fight with myself to nag less. Today in particular, I made it clear that if we are going to continue to homeschool, I need him to do more for himself and not depend on me to do it. That it's his wholehearted choice to stay home from school and that I am giving up some of my own wishes by staying home with him. So together with everything else we are focusing on this year, I want to add that kiddo is going to be learning about responsibility. And I hope to learn to get out of the way more often so that he will have a chance to exercise that responsibility.

Wish us luck! :)

Cozying Up Our Learning Space

2011-10-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I'd posted photos of our school space. We'd just moved to our new home then and with a tiny budget and little time, I put together a learning space centered around the dinette area in our kitchen.

We've made many changes since then. We'd decided that learning where we also have our food was probably not a good idea and I soon got tired of hauling the wicker baskets and stationery caddies around when it was time to clear the table to eat. So we moved everything to our family room which faces the kitchen. We got bookshelves for kiddo's leisure reading so it made sense to also do math, read alouds, puzzles and audiovisual learning on the floor next to the brown couch, facing the bookshelves. I soon decided not to use the baskets and Sterilite drawers too. They were easily re-purposed to hold kiddo's origami work and miscellaneous household paperwork respectively. I prefered to keep the curriculum in magazine holders. It was less bulky and less cluttered overall and this arrangement worked well for close to two years.

Day by day during the two years, it became clear that focusing learning in one space wasn't going to work for our family. So we spread out. Science experiments happened mostly in the kitchen. Serious discussions took place during lunch or dinner or in Dad's library/ study upstairs or during bedtime. The family room coffee table though remained as the preferred spot for the bulk of our learning activities.

The dinette area wasn't ignored. The table happened to be the same size as a large world map I had so, using some trusty Blu-Tack, I tacked the map onto the dinette table and covered it with a clear table cloth. We have done a lot of dining table geography this past year and a half!

This year, I've realized that the boy, growing so rapidly, will soon feel less comfortable sitting on the carpet to write on the coffee table in the family room. So for his birthday, I bought him a study table for computer/ writing work and an armchair for independent reading time. We have plans to replace the couch we've been using for read-alouds. For now, I've used a cottage-style quilted throw to make it look cozy and comfy and add some much needed color to the room.

To personalize his study space, I made a little clothespin holder to show case kiddo's geometric drawings. It took me less than five minutes to hot glue gun craft-sized clothespins on an old wooden ruler and then position it on the wall next to his table using Blu-Tack. I plan, in the near future, to make more to adorn that wall space.

For audio-visual learning, the Teaching Company videos we reach for most sit in a pretty box on the coffee table. The box also conveniently holds stationery, remote controls, silly putty for fidgety fingers while we read aloud and so on.

Since I hate clutter, the majority of the main curriculum we use for home-learning will be stationed at the nifty operations center" near the dinette in the kitchen. This semester, we are trying out an alternate-day routine so books for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays have been placed in magazine holder A and books for Tuesdays and Thursdays sit in holder B.

Either kiddo or I will carry the specific holder to the family room's coffee table and we'll work from there, using the study table when he has online lessons, the couch when we do read alouds, the coffee table, his study table or propping the 3' x 4' whiteboard on our laps (can you see it under the couch in photo up above?) for math depending on mood.

We'll use the formal dining space in the front living room when kiddo wants to do science or crafts or other activities that need larger table space.

We tried this updated arrangement this weekend and it was welcomed heartily. Only time will tell whether it will remain or change again. :)

Happy Birthday Kiddo!

2011-09-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

You turn 9 tomorrow!

Some of your favorite things right now:
Math, roti prata with spicy curry, The Fallacy Detective by the Bluedorns, the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley, MacGyver, critical thinking puzzles, drawing geometrical shapes especially pentagrams, and your new armchair.

How we plan to celebrate your day:
With math puzzles at The Julia Robinson Math Festival and a chocolate mousse cake afterwards.

Year 4 Scheduling Update

2011-09-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

This year's home-learning schedule has been an experiment from the get go. We've abandoned our afternoon schedule in favor of getting work finished and out of the way before lunch so that post-lunch, kiddo is free to follow his various bunny trails without interruptions.

The hardest part previously was waking up early. We're not morning people. But perhaps due to the warm weather, or perhaps because I'm beginning to freak out more now that kiddo is approaching the tween years, it's surprisingly easier to wake up early these days. I also, err, tweaked my alarm clock so it's about an hour ahead -- he, he nothing like a shock factor to force me out of bed!

This year has also been different in that kiddo's using high school materials much more so now than before. Still isn't producing junior high or high school level output (except in math and science). So it's a balancing act all the way. For example, in literature (we're trying Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings), he completes the paraphrased passage, looks up vocab words and discusses the literary elements with me but isn't yet ready to write all the answers to discussion questions. So we either discuss them orally or leave them be. I figure we'll just catch up to these areas with an Online G3 class in the future or by re-visiting the Lord of the Rings when he's older. What's important is that he's enjoying the work and is holding his own recognizing themes and appreciating Tolkien's engaging writing style.

I purposely included a mid-week "flexi-day" in our schedule to enable kiddo
to pursue fun, hands-on activities he loves, like beeswax or clay modelling, cartooning,
patty-paper geometry, origami and building.

So far, after a shaky start, our schedule is going well. We try to set aside three hours in the morning to get the staples completed: math practice, foreign language online classes and then after a break, alternating projects, science, literature lessons depending on interest/ urgency. After lunch, kiddo has a lot of free time to be silly, read and attend classes like piano and swimming. My plan to begin grammar studies had to be postponed. We may put it off till next summer. I hate to not begin a curriculum when it's sitting on my shelves looking so pretty. But hey, it's not about me. Drat.

You may also have noticed that I've been blogging less frequently. We're still sharing a laptop kiddo and I and his online lessons demand more laptop time these days so I've had to resist the urge to blog, browse and brood over how much WTM-ers are getting done on the WTM forums. Less computer time has meant some productivity around the house. I'm finally finding time to devote to laundry and also, preparing meals in a timely fashion. :)

And I'm working on setting up a dedicated learning space. The time has come for kiddo to graduate from using the coffee table or dining table to a study desk of his own. I'm trying to rearrange our family room (the brightest yet coziest area in our home) to accommodate a desk and chair for the kiddo in addition to our sofa and bookshelves and kiddo's toys and games. Perhaps if the result is to my liking, I'll post photos when I'm done.

Hope your year's been a great one so far, dear reader!

Ardenwood Renaissance Faire 2011

2011-09-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have only a few precious minutes to blog today since the kiddo needs the laptop. So here's a quick account of how we spent our Saturday (which was also DH and my 12th wedding anniversary).

The Funschoolers had a wonderful time at the fair yesterday, despite being a little late getting there (darn GPS brought us to the wrong spot) and missing some of the fun morning events.

We went dressed as ourselves. Except for dad, who was time traveling with the Doctor.

After buying tickets, we were greeted by none other than ol' Will himself.

The costumes some of these folk were wearing were beautiful. I would never have spent this much effort and attention on something to wear. There were very many wonderful peasants and noble men and women of all ages. I couldn't take my eyes off this gentleman's err..."sheathed" behind. And Queen E the first was there with her lady-in-waiting, handing out favors to young princesses and pages.

There were lovely weapons on display.

I was very smitten with these bone pins. The Dark Side has always tempted me. Arrrr, they were too expensive.

Kiddo assaulted some nuts and grew very fond of a certain brass rubbing.

After a sumptuous lunch of chicken on a stick (we decided that the jumbo turkey legs were too much for us), we headed to the highlight: the royal joust. Kiddo and I cheered for the Green Knight. Dad as usual, cheered for the "bad" guy.

Many laughs, applause and much good cheer (bloodthirsty spectators that we are) later, we headed to a park near home for some biking and peaceful reflection, followed by naan, lamb biryani and mixed grill for dinner.

Why I Love Online Bookstores...

2011-09-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

A lame post title, I know. But I couldn't think of anything else upbeat to call this post. Funny how a post title can help inspire an upbeat ramble instead of a miserable rant. Besides, we don't live close to a good library so checking out library books instead isn't a reliable alternative for us.

When kiddo and I discussed studying comics as a project, I honestly thought it would be easy. I mean, we're talking about comics here. The boy lives and breathes Calvin and Hobbes. Granted, his hair isn't yellow and his favorite stuffed pet isn't a tiger but he has everything else down pat, including a striped red t-shirt and a mom whose kitchen experiments, especially the ones involving greens, often turn out looking like monkey brains.

What was I thinking? Insert perfectionistic tendencies and the ever-nagging anxiety (What! How did you let him talk you into this? Comics? Not Shakespeare?). Insert sleepless nights worrying about not being able to wing it. Two days into the week and it stopped looking like a good idea. But I couldn't bear to tell him so. I am ~~cursed~~ blessed with stubborn genes. My desire to take full advantage of the fact that we homeschool--that we should take full advantage of our academic freedom and be creative in the way we approach our learning--has me in a Gorrila Glue grip.

It looks like I needn't have worried so much. Searching my favorite online stores for ideas (why have docs not considered this as a Prozac substitute?), I found what I think are sure winners. I'm amazed by what I've learned about Bill Watterson in two days. I'm also looking forward to learning more about Charles Schulz and understanding the comics medium better over the next few weeks.

So, as usual, online bookstores to the rescue! Will read and discuss snippets of each book with the kiddo and take it from there. I don't feel flustered anymore. In fact, I now think it will be fun after all.

As for the rest of our week, math went according to plan but this was the only planned subject that did. German started off slow due to glitches that come with adjusting to a new program but I think we might get the hang of it soon enough.

A pleasant surprise is that kiddo is enjoying the Lord of the Rings on audiobook (he loved reading The Hobbit a few years ago but wasn't eager to begin LOTR till I found this audiobook). Rob Inglis does a lovely job narrating the tale, much better than I could have if I'd made it a read-aloud. Since we take long drives about once a week, we've been able to listen to several chapters in one day. I like that we plan to listen to it only in the car. It provides the opportunity to relish the story, digest it slowly and then look forward eagerly to the next installment.

In a nutshell, it was the same ol' start to a new school year i.e. not everything went according to plan (ha! does it ever?).

Starting Soon

2011-08-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling jittery with the thought of beginning a new school year, never mind that we school year round, never mind that I've been doing this a while aleady. Why does every start of the official school year make me feel this way? Never mind.

Anyway, while our lessons-in-the-afternoon plan has been working well for the past couple of semesters, I'm tempted to see if we can give lessons in the morning a try again. This will mean waking up a little earlier and trying to finish math and German in the mornings to help us have less to worry about later in the day. I have no idea if it will work. But *I* love an experiment.

Also new this semester will be setting aside more time for creating. I have stumbled upon some nice beeswax and clay modeling ideas from various Waldorf-y sites and hope to implement some of that when we have time. We're not Waldorf homeschoolers at all but kiddo loves working with clay and it's such a therapeutic thing to do. I like that we're becoming even more eclectic too. Should have thought of it earlier. We might also give cartooning a try since kiddo is picking up some interest in this. Don't expect anything "sequential" to happen. We'll just do it our way and see if it helps us relax and if kiddo will create something he will be proud of.

A Theme-based Approach for Year 4.0

2011-08-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

We began our Year 4 summer session in June. We're having a more relaxed two weeks finishing up the final bits of summer work while waiting for our Year 4 proper to begin on August 29.

I feel another change in the way I'm approaching his learning. I'd felt this in Year 3 and now, feel it even more strongly. I'm more inspired and confident that following my child's lead is most beneficial to his homelearning journey but of course, with some direction from me on fleshing out the learning so that it is both enjoyable and challenging.

My definition of being an eclectic homeschooler too has changed. The yearning to use the "regular stuff"--and by that I mean popular WTM/CM style homeschool curricula that is heavily discussed on well-known forums--isn't as compelling as it used to be. Eclectic to me now means using even more of real-life experiences, whole books and the multitude of offerings from audiovisual and Internet sources than before.

Kiddo will take math and German classes online on a regular schedule. That's the thing with online classes. Helpful though they are, you have to work regularly--which usually means daily. But he likes this stuff and we chose the providers based on his input so hopefully, it will go well.

For other areas of learning, I've been debating and scheduling and re-debating and re-scheduling it all in my head and on my Excel spreadsheet. I think I finally have an idea of what will happen. I will ~~definitely~~ quite possibly change my mind a hundred times by the time we begin (and even afterwards) but for now, here's a rough draft of what's on the drawing board (in other words, a rough draft of the rough draft!).

Theme or Project-based Learning Plans (on a block or rotated schedule):

Theme 1: Geometry - Lots of playful exploration with geometrical constructions before moving on to a formal, proof-based Geometry program. I like Michael Serra's Patty Paper Geometry because it's rich in examples. The text is to the point without fluff and builds good conjecturing. I might suggest geometry-based stitching or craft projects and construction idea-books for added enjoyment.

Theme 2: The Physics and Math of Machines and Motion - Kiddo loves making models so for this semester, he will use Exploration Education's Physical Science kit (that we began last year but didn't get past Chapter 1--yikes!). I might try to introduce applied math in physics by adding the appropriate TOPS math and science booklets and activities, googled articles, videos and real-life observations.

Theme 3: The Psychology of Crime Fiction and Comics - We're excited about this! I'd be happy if we can get it started though lol. When I posed the question to kiddo whether we should combine three of his interests into one theme-based study, he tartly asked "do you think I'd ever say no to that?". The cheek, lol! I will create our study from scratch with MIT Open Courseware for inspiration, using not only related fiction and web research but hopefully also, some thought-provoking discussions on various angles and POVs of authors and characters. I'm hoping it will tease some writing out of him too. He is already compiling a list of fun books to read or read again for this study. If it's successful, I'll post details when we're done!

Will continue as-is in other areas: co-operative learning with friends; Japanese and drawing/ sketching for fun; audiovisual learning, discussions and good literary works; and the usual piano and swimming.

Excavating English: A Review

2011-08-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'd promised to review some of the materials we've been using this summer so here is my review of Excavating English: A Hands-on “Dig” Into the Multicultural Roots of English from 4000BC to the present. Quick disclosure: I do not profit from promoting or reviewing this curriculum on my blog!

I will begin by saying that the kiddo and I generally enjoyed our 5-month-ish experience with this curriculum. To be fair and honest, I will say that I did not read it as thoroughly as kiddo did. Also my purpose was not to study word roots as much as it was to introduce a fun history supplement for our loosey-goosey Middle Ages history studies and this curriculum fit the bill quite well. We'd previously had good experiences with one of Ellen McHenry's science curricula so I felt we couldn't go very wrong with another sold under her Basement Workshop banner.

Excavating English was written by Ruth A. Johnston and Ellen J. McHenry. It contains many of Ellen's quirky illustrations which kiddo has enjoyed in the past (a sucker for cute illustrations this boy!). It's divided into 17 chapters and according to my Homeschool Skedtrack records, it will take him just about 40 lessons to reach completion (he is supposed to work on chapter 17 this week). If you go to the link above, you'll be able to view the table of contents and sample two chapters for free. Kiddo used one day's lesson to read the notes followed by one or two days to complete the activities for an average of two lessons per chapter.

The curriculum progresses in chronological order, starting from about 4000BC to the present day and offers an entertaining overview of how much the English Language has changed, or not changed over the years.

Every chapter begins with about three pages of historical notes and anecdotes, followed by two or three pages of activities to promote understanding and retention. Although some of the activities could be described as fill-in-the-blanks in format, they are not so simple in spirit or style. There's some good, old fashioned thinking involved, especially when you're trying to classify present-day words with their origins (is this word from Danish? Old Norse? Norman? Anglo-Saxon? etc).

Kiddo checks our OED to solve a word puzzle

Kiddo didn't complete every single activity but did a good amount of them, especially the ones involving word search, crosswords and other word puzzles. Although he read them, he didn't care too much for Olde English/ pidgin etc. excerpts but if you have a learner who loves that level of linguistic detail, go for it! Ruth and Ellen have included audio tracks in a CD to go with these excerpts too (CD included in curriculum). We'd finished reading Geraldine McCaughrean's retold version of The Canterbury Tales just before beginning this study and he'd enjoyed it so he was familiar with any mention of Chaucer's work in the notes. Our foray into British history late last year and early this year also provided a good background for this curriculum.

In toto, for my specific goal, I will say I'm happy I chose this product.

Price at time of this blog post:
$28.50 for hard copy (in binder) incl. CD
$19.95 for a CD containing pdf files and audio tracks
$15.95 for instant, digital download

I must however, caution you that the curriculum has a number of typos and that the answer key has suggested answers that either do not match the question or feel counter-intuitive. I've forwarded our list of typos and possible errors to Ruth. Hopefully, they will be checked and the errata corrected in a future edition. Email me if you are interested to see the list!

ETA: It's a good idea to have a high-quality dictionary and if possible, a globe or atlas handy when using this curriculum.

Two Architectural Field Trips

2011-08-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

Source

On August 3, we visited the Sunnyvale Congregational Church to sketch their pretty roof structure. The roof features a very interesting geometrical feature: it's basically a bunch of triangular prisms cleverly put together!

Our tour group was made of up of just 4 families so it was really casual and cosy. It was an experience I'm hoping we'll repeat at other architectural marvels around the SF Bay Area. We were also lucky to bump into the pastor who slipped us into the sanctuary to view the delightful stained glass windows inside. Beautiful!

I'm not able to post all the photos publicly without the church's permission so I haven't used mine but on the right is a snapshot of the facade taken from the church's website. Below, kiddo sketches the back roof portion of the church.

An intriguing anecdote: the twin twisters that struck the church in 1998. Tornadoes are rare in the Silicon Valley!

On August 10, our little homeschool group joined the architectural walking tour of Stanford's medical center and campus. We had a good look at how the architecture has changed over the years, starting from the "Stone" period, below center, to the more modern period, including the eyecatching Li Ka Shing Center, below right.

Source

Two interesting things we learned:

The use of color to unify different architectural styles within the same campus.
The use of "accordion" like fillers between buildings to make them structurally and seismically sound.

Geometry Resources for Ages 8-Teen

2011-08-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

This is my geometry round-up for the near future. I'll add to this as our geometry explorations grow.

First, what kiddo used this summer:

String, Straight-edge and Shadow: the Story of Geometry
Hands-On Geometry: Constructions with Straightedge and Compass, Grades 4-6
Savage Shapes (Murderous Maths)

He loved Savage Shapes (the edition we have is called Vicious Circles and Savage Shapes) for its tongue-in-cheek writing style. Savage Shapes may be paired with trigonometry-themed Fiendish Angletron for fun reading. Both are from the Murderous Maths series and will likely be cheaper if purchased from The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide).

He also liked Hands-On Geometry for the step-by-step guidance provided for constructions. He took about 30 days (30-40 minute sessions a day) to complete the workbook.

For creating constructions, kiddo used the Alvin introductory bow compass (pictured here with other construction tools and patty paper).

A lesson from Hands-on Geometry

String, Straight-edge and Shadow is what you'd call a living math book and introduces one to how the ancients discovered angles, patterns in nature and the use of geometry with nothing more than string, a straight edge and shadows! I suspect though that the kiddo didn't appreciate the book as much as I did (because it was an assigned read lol).

A page-spread from String, Straight-edge and Shadow

Coming soon...
He's expressed interest to try Patty Paper Geometry next and once he completes algebra, we'll jump into this book with the required box of patty paper (the translucent square paper used in between frozen burger patties so they won't stick together). You should be able to find the set for cheaper here. Note: I've heard that the student book isn't needed in a homeschool setting.

I have to say I'm quite excited! It will be a very tactile approach to geometry with lots of folding and rotating and sliding of patty paper. All the better to understand angles, transformations etc!

A few pages from Patty Paper Geometry. Zoom in for details.

Once he has good experience with hands-on geometry, we might explore proof-based geometry using either Art of Problem Solving's Introduction to Geometry, or the Jurgensen, Brown, Jurgensen Geometry text. I say 'might' because things are always unpredictable here at FunSchooling Academy (nothing ever goes 100% according to plan you know?). If you're interested in using the Jurgensen text, solutions are available here and here or you might wish to purchase Duke TiP's video lessons CDrom and workbook set.

Along with the texts, kiddo will be sharpening his skills in Geometer's Sketchpad (visit the Learning Center for teaching ideas using this software) and the free GeoGebra download. I don't think he needs a graphing calculator yet and when he does, I'll update this post.

Other geometry resources that may be of interest:
Books and manipulatives:
Right Start Geometry panels
Zome Geometry
Expeditions in Your Classroom Geometry
Life of Fred Geometry

Online/ video courses:
Derek Owens (uses Harold Jacob's Geometry, 3rd ed.)
Kinetic Books
Thinkwell

The Great Courses:
High School Geometry
Mathematics from the Visual World
Shape of Nature

Year 4 Summer Update

2011-07-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

I've been planning this post for a while. Finally found the time! We've been having a productive summer so far. We took a 2-week break for our Colorado visit and decluttering our home a little but are now back on track. Some of our activities this summer:

Movies! Yes, latest and not-so-latest flicks are very much a part of our summer curriculum! We watched Kungfu Panda 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Captain America: First Avenger. Kiddo watched The Green Lantern with his dad too. At home, the boys have completed their Stargate journey through Netflix instant streaming and are now watching Star Trek Voyager.

Juicing: This is a newer pursuit so I can't say we've been doing it all summer :). I blogged about our inspiration here. About a week ago, a friend lent me her juice extractor and I'm really loving drinking freshly juiced fruits and vegetables every day. Kiddo likes eating/ drinking the results too.

Physical Education: Kiddo has been taking 30-minute, twice-a-week swim lessons since late April. His swim coaches have had to be extremely patient, believe me. While he could swim enough to save his life, he wasn't doing it efficiently. Lessons have helped him learn to breathe correctly and cut through the water more smoothly.

From taking ages to learn to position his arms and then pivot his head properly for air, the boy has now progressed enough to earn praise from his instructor for his freestyle technique. He finally moved on to the backstroke last week. He's also gaining more stamina on the bicycle now. Every couple of weeks, dad and son cycle to the grocery store and back, and this gives kiddo at least 10 miles of cycling a month. And oh, he has finally learned to climb a tree! (A short one, but still, it's a tree!) :)

Creating: We bought a small Zome kit while in Colorado. He's using it to make cool structures. His dad has been taking advantage of the cheaper model airplane kits in Korea (he flies there for business often) so both the guys have been painting parts and assembling them. Kiddo and I made a number of kaleidocycles from the Escher book pictured on the left and one paper pet (a goat) from the Rob Ives book on the right. The boys tried woodburning last year; experimenting with woodcarving now!

From L to R: painting the parts of a Hawker Seahawk airplane, Scowly the paper pet goat and a Zometool creation.

Homeschooling: I had planned for some summer learning to bridge to what he'll learn in the fall. So he's been spending some dedicated time on Ellen McHenry's Excavating English (to better appreciate his German studies) as well as the following books:

Since we have done very little of formal geometry and geography, the two workbooks on the left have been useful to prep him in these subject areas. The Answer Atlas is a good supplement to the Map Reading workbook as it provides more detail than our kitchen table map and Smart Globe.

He's also been playing with more number patterns and has been watching The Great Courses' The Art and Craft of Problem Solving for fun. Here's a snapshot of what he and dad doodled on the whiteboard in early July (we're calling it hexagonal numbers exploration for now). I'll write separate reviews of the homeschooling resources he's been using when I can!

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

2011-07-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine clued me in to this program and I must say it's made me take my health a lot more seriously than I thought it would. If you have a Netflix subscription, you can watch the docu-movie instantly. Here's a trailer:

That same friend lent me her extra juice extractor! Juicing has become a very enjoyable pursuit and I had to mention it here because you just never know! It could be something you might love too, dear reader.

I eventually hope to begin a juice-fast (have already taken the first step by replacing my morning coffee with fresh juice). What's great is that kiddo is embracing this new routine too. I was afraid he'd be put off by the less sweet taste of some of the juices vs store-bought options but he's really taking it in his stride. It also helps that I include sweeter fruit to balance taste lol.

We've been drinking plenty of apple and carrot combinations, tried a delicious celery and watermelon recipe and have also made pure fruit popsicles using ripe mangoes. Mmmm...delicious stuff! He eats regularly while having the juices (not recommended for growing children to juice-fast). I find myself feeling satiated enough by juice to reduce food intake (yay!). And the energy burst is amazing. I won't say it's a miracle or anything like that. I've only been doing it for about a week and still tire easily but I feel lighter (despite not having lost any weight yet) and somehow, more enthusiastic about doing physical work lol.

It's All About The Little Guy

2011-07-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

Captain America: First Avenger...what can I say? Definitely many more thumbs up than Transformers: Dark of the Moon (TDotM was so disappointing!). Really enjoyed the message of the weak valuing strength more than the strong. Loved Steve Rogers' powerful message to never quit. Chris Evans offered a much more grown-up, mature protagonist than when he played Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four.
PG-13 for intense violence.

Movie Time For Mom

2011-07-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

This summer, I've been fortunate that the hubby has had some quality Dad-Son time to spend with the kiddo. So, I'm using my newfound leisure time to catch up on movies on Netflix, declutter the house and research more young adult fiction for me (and kiddo) to read. Decluttering is going well. I tend to declutter often whenever I can but this time, I finally managed to find a few hours to clear up a larger portion of the garage and also consolidate more books to sell. I've managed to sell enough of used homeschooling materials to save up for a tidy sum in Amazon giftcards. Hurray!

I have a what we're-doing-this-summer post to write but till I can gather enough inspiration to write it, here are two movies I wanted to quickly blog about.

Princess Kaiulani (PG)

Billed PG but if you're watching with a young one, do be aware that there're lots of kissing scenes and some disturbing moments involving rifles and a young man being killed in battle. I loved the whole period-piece setting and of course, the gorgeous Hawaiian natural scenery (not that there was a lot of it). Acting was good but I'd have liked it better if they'd chosen a truly Polynesian young lady to play the titular role. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie wholeheartedly and was inspired to read about the true Princess Kaiulani afterwards.

Battle of the Brave (PG-13)

Original title: Nouvelle-France

This one was a bit of a tearjerker and I woudn't suggest watching it with a child younger than 12 or 13. I watched it alone and loved every minute of it. But I will try to remember to choose a romantic comedy the next time. Let's just say the movie was too romantic and sad for one of my sentiments to sleep at ease.

The movie is set in 18th century Quebec at the time when the English were taking over French-Canada. The movie features strong female leads but the one who captured my attention the most was Juliette Gosselin who plays young France, daughter of Marie-Loup. The bond between mother and child, wow, it was beautiful to watch and I found myself tearing up very often. At the heart of the story is the love affair between Mari-Loup (Noémie Godin-Vigneau) and Francois (David La Hay). Very well cast! The chemistry between the actors was palpable.

Both movies are available for instant streaming on Netflix!

Our Week In Colorado

2011-07-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

We're back! Thank you so much for all of your well-wishes. The FunSchoolers had a roaring good time from June 28 - July 5, visiting Denver and Colorado Springs. Here's a recap of all we did.

First stop: Denver. We visited the Botanic Gardens. I was swooning over the beautiful stone/brick houses on the way. Living in the sunny Central Valley, we don't see many homes built with sturdy brick facades strong enough to withstand plummeting temperatures like those near the Rockies so I drank in the sight as much as possible. At the Botanic Gardens, kiddo enjoyed the shady promenade of tropical plants and also the Japanese garden. He was disappointed there weren't any visible carnivorous plants on display. Therefore, although the Denver Botanic Gardens is definitely pretty, we prefer the Botanic Gardens in Berkeley.

Also in Denver, hubby couldn't pass up the opportunity to ogle at planes. Being an ardent WWII aircraft fan, he was very captivated by the Wings over the Rockies Air and Space museum. Kiddo and I not so much but the boy did enjoy the chance to "pilot" a simulated Wright brothers plane.

We drove to Colorado Springs on the second day. It was a gorgeous drive with views of snow-capped Rockies in the distance. We visited the awe-inspiring Garden of the Gods first. Haven't seen so many uniquely-formed red rock structures in one place. And the area is just teeming with photo ops. One time, we spotted a pigeon peeking out at us from a hole in the rock way up. Another time, we spotted someone climbing up the sheer rock face and I refused to look for too long because I began visualizing all sorts of ways the guy could lose his footing lol. There are some really brave folk out there! Kiddo and hubby did some light climbing for a more up close and personal experience of Balanced Rock (photo below, on right). I stayed on flat ground as much as possible lol.

Our second day in Co. Springs was spent in the Manitou Springs area taking the cog railway up to Pikes Peak (I skipped this as I was a little wary of altitude sickness, hence no photos) and visiting the nearby Cave of the Winds. If you'd like to try the train ride up, I'd strongly recommend reserving ahead of time and also, to bring along some warm clothing (yes, even in summer). I loved the walk through the cave. We chose the flashlight discovery tour (and got to keep our cute little flashlights too). Our 16-year-old tour guide kept us giggling throughout with her dead-pan jokes (look real close at the photo on the far right below for a glimpse of our guide). Trips like these are most enriched by the people we meet, regardless of who or how old they are, don't you agree?

The next day, feeling adventurous, we drove to the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park about 60 miles southwest of Co. Springs.

Built in 1929, the bridge has a main span of 880 feet and towers over 1,000 feet above the raging Arkansas river. We first took a cable car to cross to the other side (a very smooth ride considering we were many, many feet above ground) and then walked back to the visitor center using the bridge. Hubby and kiddo also took the incline railway ride (the blue contraption pictured above) to visit the depths of the gorge. We voted not to try the world's scariest skycoaster because we had budget constraints but the boys surely were tempted!

After Royal Gorge, we headed to the Glen Eyrie conference center for four full days of delightful dorm-style room and board and excellent cuisine. Kiddo joined other kids there in a number of cool activities including playing with zometools and solving logic puzzles. We established some wonderful friendships at Glen Eyrie and left with a heavy heart, feeling as if we should have stayed longer.

We returned to Denver on the last day for our flight back to the SF Bay Area. But just before heading to the airport, we visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. We had very few hours to spend and decided on watching a show on black holes at the planetarium, visiting the gems and minerals exhibit and taking a tour of National Geographic's Pirates of the Whydah exhibit. Despite the rush, I felt that this is one of the best museums I've visited. We really hope to return some day to enjoy other exhibits and offerings here.

Well, like all good trips, it ended too soon. We're slowly getting back to routine now. It was great to have the break and I feel rested and recharged. Will probably need it in the coming days as I try to figure out some semblance of a plan for the rest of Year 4.

Hope you're having a lovely summer!

Colorado, Here We Come!

2011-06-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Bags are packed. We leave early tomorrow morning. Can't wait! :)

Garden of the Gods. Source: Wikimedia Commons

A History of Art Through Videos

2011-06-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm bookmarking some of the audiovisual materials we hope to use in Year 4 to take a leisurely spin through the history of western art. We might supplement as seen fit through museum visits. This list is of course, by no means exhaustive. I'll add to and edit the list as we watch the videos (mostly via Netflix) and will add comments to the ones we like or don't like.

I'd love suggestions if you have any!

The Private Life of a Masterpiece: The Complete Seasons 1-5

Cezanne in Provence
A Model for Matisse
Van Gogh: A Brush with Genius

How Art Made the World
Simon Schama's Power of Art
The Impressionists
Landmarks of Western Art: The Late Medieval World
Landmarks of Western Art: Romanticism
Landmarks of Western Art: The Renaissance

When kiddo is ready for it:
The Great Courses: A History of European Art

Summer Fun

2011-06-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

Notes for the month of June:

Splashing around. It's finally looks and feels like summer over here. The fact that I'm still in a good mood indicates it hasn't hit triple digits like it did last year at this time. We still have some cloud cover these days but the weather is balmy and our pool is finally at a comfortable temperature for kiddo's favorite cannonball dives. He's also been practising and improving on the swimming techniques he's learning at the twice-a-week class he takes.

More backyard camping fun. Hubby says kiddo actually rigged up the six-person tent by himself yesterday. Coming from hubby that's rare praise and so I will believe him. I'm relieved kiddo was able to do this. I now feel as if I can check one anxiety off my list...lol...yes, rigging up a tent was one of the primary life skills I wanted kiddo to learn. I have some interesting priorities don't I? :)

Gardening fun. Last summer, we planted George Burns roses and this spring I added a wildflower seed mix to a few containers. I think I've mentioned that we also salvaged a broken bird bath by using it as a container to plant chrysanthemums. Caring for these beauties is becoming a hobby I look forward to very much every day. I've been a little ambivalent all this while towards gardening. Perhaps I will grow into loving it after all.

Simple catapult-building. I purchased this desktop-sized cutie as a Father's Day gift for hubby. I wanted the boys to have fun building something together and so we gave it to him a day early.

The kit was really easy to assemble and the boys finished it together within an hour. It includes a ball of clay to use as a projectile. The boys have been experimenting using other little things we have around and outside the home as projectiles too and I'm often kiddo's favorite target (ack).

What we're reading and watching. Kiddo's been re-reading all his Mysterious Benedict Society and Hercule Poirot stories. He's enjoying a few of the older Martin Gardner logic puzzles as well. I've been reading the Earthsea Cycle and John Carter of Mars series.

We're watching Merlin through Netflix instant streaming. Just finished Season One today and have started Season Two. I'm quite irritated with the Arthur character. But love Merlin and Gaius. And that cute CGI ol'dragon!

We'll be in Colorado in about ten days and I may not post till we're home again the second week of July. Wishing everyone a lovely summer filled with fun, revelry and laughter.

Organizing Assignments with a Blog

2011-06-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd explain how I use Blogger for homeschool assignment tracking and to some extent, record keeping. Blogger of course, does not give you the full flexibility of tools created especially for lesson planning or record-keeping. I've blogged before about record-keeping tools I've tried or heard of and since then, I have also attempted a trial version of Simply Charlotte Mason's $99/yr online planner. Apart from tracking and organization, these tools provide a helpful report function to print a day's, week's, month's or year's worth of work.

However, in the end, these web or software-based tools became either too expensive or too unwieldly for me to use for longer than a month or two. They didn't have the level of flexibility I wanted so I switched to pen and paper record-keeping with a planner.

Lately, thanks to a post by Tracey at Leaners at Home, I have started a private blog to "suggest" (because I don't "direct" anymore) learning trails to the kiddo as well as to help him keep track of his daily routine (e.g. piano practice) and assignments due for his online classes.

Of course, my FunSchooling blog continues to be a major record-keeping resource for me. But I don't envision it to be suitable for listing assignments. Therefore, our new private assignment blog was born. The blog has been a fabulously helpful, visual tool for kiddo not only to keep track of his assignments but also his favorite links. Every month, just before we meet with our charter school education specialist, I'd quickly look through a month's worth of recorded work. This helps me prepare a simple report for her using a one- or two-page Microsoft Word document.

This is a snapshot of what our assignment blog looked like the last few months of Year 3.

If you're curious or wish to start one of your own, here's one way to do it. Please note that if you already have a Blogger account, you can simply sign in, and from your dashboard, click on the Create a Blog link. If you don't have a Blogger account, signing up is free. WordPress, TypePad etc users may want to adapt these steps according to blogging platform of choice.

Step 1: Create a new blog, choose your prefered template (you can tweak it later, see Step 3), choose a blog ID/URL.

Step 2: If you look at my example above, I wanted a template similar to FunSchooling's. So I went to the Dashboard and under my new blog's name, clicked on Design.

Step 3: Under the Design tab, I chose Template Designer. I played around with the Templates, Background, Adjust Widths, Layout and Advanced tabs until I got a look similar to FunSchooling's.

Step 4: Some of you may want to explore using free blog backgrounds. Hot Biggity Blog is one that comes to mind.

Step 5: Once you have a look you like (in my case it was one main body in the middle and one sidebar on the right and three footer columns), click on Apply To Blog and save it.

Step 6: To make assignment planning easy, go to the Settings tab and click Formatting to create a Post Template.

Step 7: As seen above, scroll down to Post Template. List all (yes, every single one) of the materials you've planned for your child to use. I'll explain why below. Since we are often semi-unschoolers, I also listed some of the most frequent delight-directed materials he likes e.g. his favorite historical fiction of the month, his favorite puzzle books etc. You can make the list as simple or as complicated as you want. And you might revisit this step often as your child completes materials and you add new ones. If you are a HTML pro, add your line break etc tags here. Otherwise, see next step. Don't forget to Save Settings.

Step 8: Now go to the Posting tab and click on New Post. If you've saved your Post Template in Step 7, your new post should auto-list everything you typed into the Post Template box. However, it will look a little run-on like this (unless you're a HTML pro!):

To keep it clean and easy to read, you may want to use bullets or a numbered list. So...

Step 9: Reformat the post box so that all your text looks neat and tidy, each resource or assignment in its own line. Next, highlight all the text and click on the numbered list icon (three lines with 1, 2, 3 next to them) as seen on the left. Check to see that everything looks okay.

As seen on the right, click on the Edit HTML tab (top right of post). Highlight all text and right-click to copy. Press Save Now (unless you intend to publish the post as it is). Saving will help ensure you don't have to repeat this step if you make a mistake or your computer hangs etc.

Step 10: Go back to Settings/ Formatting/ Post Template. Highlight everything in the Post Template box to delete, then right-click and choose Paste to paste the copied text with the HTML tags. Don't forget to Save Settings.

Step 11: Return to the Posting tab and choose Edit Posts. Delete the saved draft from Step 9. (Skip this step if you prefer to keep the draft).

Step 12: Click on New Post. It should show a much neater, run-on free, numbered list of materials/ assignments.

Now you'll see why it's easier to list everything. I use the day of the week for the title and the year of study as the label. I then delete all the materials that I don't think we'll use for that particular day, leaving only the materials or classes we *will* use. Easy-peasy! This helps you avoid all that typing every single day! Deleting all the unwanted text is so much easier than typing it all over and over again.

Step 13: You may want to add specific instructions now to the remaining assignments. E.g. things like "Read pp X - Y" or "Do 30 minutes of A" etc. Click on Publish and then View Post.

Step 14: Place the link to your assignment blog's URL strategically on your desktop or somewhere easy for the child to access.

Step 15: For the sidebars, simply go back to the Design tab. Choose Add a Gadget. Scroll down to Link List or Text or the relevant gadget to the sidebar space. Start placing links. Now your child will have all the links handy for his or her lessons in one place and right next to the day's assignment post too.

Step 16: Every morning (or if you're able to, a week in advance), prepare a day's (or week's) worth of posts, click on Post Options/ Scheduled at and select when you want the post to publish.

If like me you prefer to keep this blog private, go to Settings/ Permissions. Under the heading Blog Readers, choose the radio button next to Only blog authors. Click the orange button that appears to save your settings.

Be sure to explore other gadgets (like the Search box) that Blogger offers as well. There are also widgets like Library Thing, Shelfari etc that you can use as you would with your usual homeschooling or personal blog. You'll need to find the HTML/Javascript codes and use the add HTML/Javascript gadget for these.

Do be aware that this idea may not be your cup of tea if a specific homeschool record-keeping tool already works well for you. The reason this works extremely efficiently for us is that it's free (hooray!) and because I have the flexibility to park all of our most-used links within the same interface. I also like changing plans at the drop of a hat and tend to be more and more delight-directed as kiddo grows older and more aware of what he wants and doesn't want to do. I found record-keeping software more rigid for this purpose. I can also see this method working beautifully for very structured homeschoolers because of the convenience of the Post Template feature. However, if printing reports is your thing, record-keeping software may do a better job for you.

The key disadvantage I can think of is that it requires me to spend about 5-10 minutes every morning deleting unwanted resources for the day's post and then another 5 or so minutes editing it in the evening according to how much kiddo accomplished. I do forget to do this sometimes as well. But we don't do so much every day that remembering to do it a few days later is a chore.

Hope this is helpful to someone!

Shoes, Pandas, and Other Musings

2011-06-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

Random happenings at FunSchooling Central...

On a whim today, I tried on kiddo's sandles. They fit! Exactly! With some room around the sides too. And I have wide feet. Some useless personal info: I remember my brother's shoe size reaching my mom's when he was 10. And I used to think my brother has large feet (till I met hubby). My mom's shoe size is one less than mine. Kiddo is eight. He reached one shoe size larger two years earlier than my brother did. I'm very glad we live in the US because if we'd stayed on in Malaysia or Singapore, he will never be able to buy shoes when he is a teen. So hurray for large American shoe sizes.

We watched Kung Fu Panda 2 last weekend. Me thought there was a bit more of a bounce around Po's middle than there was in KFP1. Tigress just oozed Jolie. That pooping dragon thingy? Sheer genius. And I felt a hug in me for Ping (Po's adopted dad, the goose). I had to regretfully admit the show was hilarious. Why regretfully? Because the hubby went off on his own to watch X-Men First Class without us! XMFC's PG-13 rating was the culprit. It wasn't fair! But KFP2 was worth it in the end. Kiddo and I both sniffed a bit and laughed a lot. I'm SO glad we caught the non-3D version. Here's a trailer if you haven't watched it yet.

My thoughts have been lingering on unschooling again this past week or two. Today, I stumbled upon this quote from the TED Blog:

"You can't stumble upon something new and wonderful if you don't have time to stumble."

Beautifully said. Describes so well the wonder I notice when kiddo is fully engaged in some discovery of his when I give him the time to run around (or sit around) and discover. I do tend to kill it sometimes by insisting on structure and scheduling...lol. We're reaching our fifth year of homeschooling and I'm still figuring it all out.

We leave for Colorado Springs in about 2.5 weeks! I've been planning this trip since last year. But now that it's here I'm too lazy to even book a hotel room! We have our air tickets but still haven't decided where to stay. Hope it's not too late.

After the gray, gray skies of a pseudo-winter, we're now having scorching temperatures. Sigh...I knew it was too good to be true.

How's your summer so far?

Memories Of This Week

2011-06-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

Camping in the backyard. Don't know why it took them two years to do this but the boys finally gave it a go last night, despite the forecast for rain. Armed with tent, pillows, comforters, inflatable mattress, flashlights, cuddle toy, two flasks of hot Milo, sandwiches and iPad for watching Sherlock (yes, again!). Coward that I am, I settled for sleeping in my own, plush bed upstairs lol. It was a treat, I slept so deeply and well!

Beautiful geometry with Kaleidocycles inspired by Escher. I also realize I have too many paper strips demonstrating tangle number investigations all over my study table, many still in various stages of err...being tangled.

Gray, gray skies and plenty of stormy weather. Looks like winter almost. All this in June! I'm actually quite happy as I don't quite enjoy temps in the 90s and 100s anyway. But the cool weather is making me so sleepy! I'm drinking way more coffee than I should.

Yearning for a simpler home-learning adventure. Every summer, I tie my neurons up in knots thinking and rethinking curriculum decisions. For the coming year I really want to keep it as simple as can be. Apart from math and foreign languages, I hope to spend more time reading quality books together. Reading aloud gets left out more than I want it to and this time I want to make it a priority. Yes, it makes me hoarse but he enjoys the snuggle time (as long as it's a book of his choosing). I also want to be seriously committed to continuing to build character (being resilient especially) and learning as much as we can about emergency preparedness.

A realization: "Mom, may I listen to some Pandora now? Otherwise, I hum and sing so much that I really annoy myself." I don't know whether to be relieved that he finally realizes it or wistful that he may cease to hum and sing happily. Reminder to myself...be mindful of what you wish for.

Fiction, Fantasy and Sci-Fi

2011-06-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

Updating (June 2011) a list originally compiled in November 2008. I've included ideas for appropriate age but please note they are only suggestions. You may want to preview some books if you have a particularly sensitive child.

Note: I'm sure someone will ask so I'm going to say it first (lol). I haven't included the Harry Potter series because the kiddo isn't as keen on them as I thought he would be.

Roald Dahl

Timeless classics, appropriate for any age imho although I've heard reviews against some of Dahl's themes.

Gerald Durrell's childhood memoirs and other books

Durrell's childhood antics in the Greek island of Corfu are marvelously captured in My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives. The other three are about his adventures collecting animals for his zoo. Suggested for ages 8 onwards. Some mild, bawdy humor.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Rumor is that it is a rare child who doesn't adore this 13-book series. It's a huge hit in our household mainly because the kiddo is very much into mystery and mayhem. Age 7 onwards, maybe even younger if you have an advanced reader.

Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series

Mystery-loving boys and girls alike will enjoy this very intelligently-written series. Kiddo's read the three and often bids me to keep a look-out for more novels expected to be published soon. Perfect for 7-year-old advanced readers and up.

The Mad Scientist Club by Betrand R. Brinley

Another one of his frequent reads! Decent fun for any age. For books of a similar flavor, also check out the Alvin Fernald series by Clifford B. Hicks.

Leon Garfield

Absolutely brilliant renditions of the classic British ruffian. Perfect for the anglophile child (about 7-8 years old if he/ she's an advanced reader).

Another two Anglophile-friendly series we've loved:

PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie novels

The following fed his mythology/ fantasy craze for a bit:

Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

The Bartimaeus Trilogy + Prequel by Jonathan Stroud

Not very cerebral but entertaining. I would classify this as young adult rather than for kids.

Philip Pullman's Dark Materials

Kiddo read the first two books of the Dark Materials series and was fine (at 8 years old). He read about half of the third and I suggested he not finish as the themes felt a little too deep for his age. I will wait a year before suggesting he read it again.

Grooming young heroes and young villains: two series kiddo is still working through:
The Mysterious Benedict Society (3-book series) and HIVE (6-book series)

OTHER BOOKS we've entertained at some time or other on our night stands (or hope to entertain in the future) -- all likely to be appropriate for ages 8 onwards (possibly younger):

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (kiddo read this series only once which tells me it isn't extremely popular with him)
The Time and Space of Uncle Albert and others by Russell Stannard (recommended for its living science appeal, hit-and-miss with kiddo)
The Tale of Despereaux and other books by Kate DiCamillo (we found most of her books wonderful if a little sad)
L. Frank Baum's Oz Series
Mrs Frisby and The Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien and A Rat's Tale by Tor Seidler (both are absolute delights!)
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (a little too dry for kiddo but I enjoyed it)
The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin (a little too dry and heavy for humor-loving kiddo but I enjoyed it. The fourth book, Tehanu, has mature themes, including a sex, mention of rape etc.)
The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald (fun for any age)
Homer Price, Centerburg Tales: More Adventures of Homer Priceby Robert McCloskey (fun for any age)
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
Knight's Tale and Squire's Tale series by Gerald Morris
I, Robot books by Isaac Asimov
The Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer
Books by E.L. Konigsburg (more young adult in flavor so perhaps age 10+ onwards might be a better bet for some of the books)
Books by Arthur Ransome

Historical fiction by Henry Winterfield
Books by Alexandre Dumas (we will start with The Three Musketeers)
Books by Jules Verne

The Graveyard Book and others by Neil Gaiman

Abarat and sequels by Clive Barker (supposedly violent and bloody so please preview)

Ender's Game and sequels by Orson Scott Card

The Warlock in Spite of Himself (Gramarye series) by Christopher Stasheff (supposedly has mild sexual theme, please preview)

Norby the Mixed-Up Robot (Norby Chronicles) by Janet and Isaac Asimov

Comet in Moominland and others in the Moominland series by Tove Jansson
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet and others by Eleanor Cameron

From One Odd Private Eye To Another

2011-05-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

Our quest to find odd and affected but scorchingly brilliant celluloid detectives continues.

I wrote recently about our obsession with Monk. We've almost completed all eight seasons on Netflix. Yesterday we watched all three episodes of Sherlock series one in one day. Scorching. Brilliant. Thrilling. And it ended too soon. Just as Shalhoub wowed and tickled us with Monk's obsessive compulsiveness, Cumberbatch portrayed a convincing, slightly Aspergerish Sherlock Holmes.

I've become quite resigned to the fact that the kiddo gets all the snide sexual references and isn't too troubled by the violence so he watched it with minimal censorship. There was no full blown expose of skin. Only some wordplay so I didn't mind him watching it either.

Here's a trailer for series one.

Here's the soundtrack which we liked. Not as catchy as Monk's but quite appropriate to the dark, cerebral theme I thought.

Not sure when series two is expected. We can't wait!

Year 3 in Words and Pictures

2011-05-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

Year 3 began in June 2010 and ends May 2011. It has been a most unbelievable year in terms of learning. However, it's also been the most relaxing, accepting year for me yet. Now if that made sense to you count me grateful. :) These are the highlights of kiddo's learning journey this year.

A large part of summer (June to August 2010) was unschooled and included reading more about the brain and behavioral disorders, performing kitchen chemistry experiments, learning to make smoothies and improving his balance and stamina on the bicycle. In July, he learned how to blow glass at the Bay Area Glass Institute and that sparked keen interest for a while in abstract glass art, fusing and the science of glass blowing.

He likes the Peanuts comics and in July, August and September, decided he would work on learning the Peanuts theme song, Linus and Lucy. This video shows an early attempt to read the music and master the song. He plays it a lot better now! :)

Scheduled academics in the first semester was loosey-goosey and I remember having this feeling as if I was waiting for something to happen. We'd always circled and circled around math curriculum and this time it started becoming obvious that I had to look for an alternative soon. But he was only just starting to develop interest in online channels of learning and I didn't want to start a program and overwhelm him just yet. So we kept using math literature and the Life of Fred and Key To Algebra workbook series for fun math and I threw in other curriculum like Singapore Math and Math Mammoth for catch up with math gaps. I ended up selling many of the materials before they were well used though.

Similarly, we had a wait-and-see period for his writing skills to catch up.

While all that waiting was going on, the kiddo began learning German, experienced a fun year of solving logic puzzles, and also attended the prize-giving ceremony for the Johns Hopkins Talent Search test he'd taken in Year 2 (totally cracked the audience up with his goofy waving to Dad who was taking photos). He toured the Bunge Lab at UC Berkeley too!

In addition, he gave several presentations to our homeschool group: one on the effects of isolation/ solitary confinement on a prisoner's psyche, one on Watership Down by Richard Adams and a very fun one on Jeopardy!, the game show. Towards the end of Year 3.0, we began learning Japanese together.

Our second semester saw the kiddo working one-on-one with a math tutor who is flexible and accommodating of the asynchrony between ability/ interest and difficulty with writing. I help oversee the homework his tutor sets and ask kiddo to show his work about 10% of the time to get him used to the habit of writing his math down instead of always solving it in his head. Other times, I compact the already compacted homework or just have him do it online with his tutor if we've had a particularly busy week. As you might have noticed, I've learnt a lot from experience not to structure his learning as much as I used to.

Kiddo completes his live Intro to Counting and Probability class through Art of Problem Solving this month. Since the objective is for him to keep loving math and not make it tedious, I complied with his wish not to hand in weekly assignments. I would say it's been a successful but tiring math journey--the classes are very fast-paced and since I'm learning along, I'm forcing my slow-mo-ol' brain to relearn concepts I was learning at 14 or 15 years old.

For science, we continued with simple, mostly unschooled kitchen-science projects. He baked cookies and continued coming up with his own food and beverage recipes, built and tested a circuit section for his Funnel-o-tron contraption, created buckyball sculptures galore (of mostly platonic solids), studied basic genetics, built an electromagnet from scratch, watched lots of MythBusters and science-themed videos, and read, read, read anything he wanted to.

Other significant highlights of our year:

February - we finally met with, in real life, my bestest buddy Kerrie and her similarly 8yo son, B and her hubby Pete. I'll always be grateful to Kerrie for seizing the opportunity and making the trip from Australia possible. When it was time to send them off, I remember just dropping them at their hotel and driving away so I wouldn't bawl in front of her (lol). Happily, I think Kerrie has forgiven me for it.

Kiddo also took the Explore test via the Belin Blank Center in February. It was proctored by his charter school education specialist. He received a percentile ranking at the upper 5% nationwide (woohoo!), despite not being able to finish the math section on time.

February to April - Kiddo learned how to sell his bike on Craiglist. Feeling offended by the MetroPCS Ranjit and Chad TV commercials, he conducted a survey via Survey Monkey, used the analysis tool to make sense of the results and typed a letter to MetroPCS, asking them to drop their campaign. As of today, we don't know if his request will be successful but it was a pretty unique experience!

April - Kiddo worked on a math pattern that he'd noticed in square and triangular numbers. He spent weeks plugging numbers in to see if his theory worked and finally came up with an equation for it. We googled it and found he'd been working on this one all along (the one about Square Numbers). In true-kiddo-fashion, he's not disappointed that it's a well-known idea but is psyched to keep discovering patterns where he can. :)

He's enjoying Mark Kistler's online art academy instructional videos.

Before I wrap up, I wanted to share this video of him proving a basic trigonometry identity. This is a good example of how he likes to work and learn, i.e. casually and non-sequentially. Note also how difficult it is for me to resist asking him to write more than he's willing to (evil grin).

What jumps out at me is how he's moved from being passionate about chemistry in Year 1, to loving anything neuroscience in Year 2 to now adoring math in Year 3. I can only hope and wonder for what Year 4 will bring.

What I know for sure...things rarely turn out the way I plan for them to!

Our Year 3 Curriculum (what's worked best)

Mathematics
Life of Fred
Key To Series
Math Mammoth
Algebra: Structure and Method Book 1 by Brown et. al.
Introduction to Counting and Probability (The Art of Problem Solving) by David Patrick

Science
Delight-directed science projects
The Happy Scientist
Thames and Kosmos Genetics Kit
Horrible Books
Lots of BBC/PBS science shows and documentaries

History
Medieval-history themed literature
Horrible Books
He began reading Ellen McHenry's Excavating English (we're using it as a history curriculum). He will continue using it through summer of Year 4.

English/ Literature
We mostly unschooled English by giving him access to well-written literature. Apart from the mandatory writing assignments from his charter school (four a year), I decided not to structure English lessons this year. It seems to have worked fabulously--at least if you believe achievement scores. He scored 100% on the reading and language mechanics subtests of his Explore test and also received a perfect score in the reading portion of the charter-school administered Scantron test (more woohoo!).

World Languages
Irasshai Japanese (plus fortnightly practice with a tutor)
PowerSpeak Middle School German

All Year 3 posts: Year 3 Journey

Stand Aside Supes!

2011-05-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

Thor was a surprisingly sciency flick although they did go a tad overboard with the Tesla coil effect methought.

In case you haven't heard, Thor's just the first of a slew of superhero movies planned for summer. There's also Green Lantern, Captain America, X-Men First Class (with James McAvoy!) and the dubious-sounding Cowboys and Aliens.

We were shown trailers for three (except X-Men) and also trailers for other coming-soons. What excited me most was this...

and this...

Me heart's a thumping real hard waiting! But I'm upset they've 3D-fied everything. Bound to give me headaches these 3D movies. Oh well, I guess they'll be worth it all the same.

Math and Science Books Recently Found!

2011-04-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

New books (new in the sense of something different to add variety to your day, not necessarily brand new) always excite me. I sometimes think it's a good thing I wasn't born rich and didn't marry rich. I'd have blown all my money on books! Useless personal info aside, I often wonder if there's some kind of book-alert service out there that'll help remind/ notify me about books I might like. Hmm, this is something to google for the weekend. I know Amazon has a similar feature but I don't know if they actually send you emails about it. Anyway, here is a quick update of a bunch of finds I made on Amazon and elsewhere on the web!

Crossing the River with Dogs: Problem Solving for College Students (Key Curriculum Press). Yes, it's from Key Curriculum Press! I love those guys. Some of kiddo's favorite math workbooks were from Key Press and we also have Patty Paper Geometry, a great geometry curriculum, at about upper middle to high school level. I haven't had a chance to peruse a copy of Crossing the River yet (ordered a used copy and it hasn't arrived) but Amazon allows you to search inside and although it says college student on the cover, the initial pages look as if a middle schooler (or interested elementary schooler) will appreciate them. I am quite sure that kiddo will like them. I'll report more if kiddo decides to use it! It looks like there's a teacher guide available too. When I report back I'll tell you whether I think it's doable without the teacher guide.

M. C. Escher ® Kaleidocycles: An Illustrated Book and 17 Fun-to-Assemble Three-Dimensional Models. I plan to use this in the summer for fun. Kiddo has been a bit of an Escher fan for a while now. He knows this one will be a delicious finale to his spring semester and is excited. It actually comes as a box containing a black-and-white illustrated paperback with some background info on Escher, his art and also information about the geometrical pieces you'll be assembling. Included of course are instructions on assembling the models. The flattened models are scored and seem to be easily detachable. You will certainly need glue and very possibly, a discerning eye. :)

I've been looking for a long time for an affordable way to practice/ play with physics using paper. Now if you haven't heard of Arvind Gupta, check this out. He shows you for free, how to create cool physics toys out of recycled materials.

I also stumbled upon Rob Ives a while back. If you have a paper toy fiend at home, it's good to know that Robs' paper animation models are reasonably priced for download. If you don't feel like printing them out but want to buy something similar (who has the time to print these days?), Rob has a book that carries pre-printed models of his animated animal models.

And speaking of building, animating and physics, I also stumbled upon Making Things Move by Dustyn Roberts. This 2011-published tome is clearly a book for the more serious inventor and hobbyist. It even says so on the cover: DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists and Artists. Screams "possible supplementary living physics text for high school" to me.

It's not a visually colorful book like Physics, Fun, and Beyond and tends to be closer in style to books by the Make folk. However, it doesn't seem as complicated (to me at least, I'm no "hobbyist") as the Make books. It really feels like a cross between a living physics text (the author asserts it is not a textbook) and a builder/ hobbyist's manual. It's not yet the right book for kiddo. He's certainly not ready for this. But it looks like one of the better ones for him when he IS ready. I like that each chapter comes with a list of books for further reference!

Zeum Claymation and Some Arty, Earthy Pursuits

2011-04-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Meet Galileo and Signor Rosso! In an alternate world, Galileo wore a conical hat and conducted his famous experiment atop the Leaning Tower of Pizza using pepperoni and olives. This was the theme of the stop motion animation movie kiddo and his two friends made today at the Zeum in San Francisco.

Signor Rosso (Mr. Red in Italian), created by yours truly, meanwhile, had his own adventures with a tiger, cowboy, his lady love and an arm that kept falling off (don't ask). Each of us took home the character we made so I unfortunately am not able to show you the Tower of Pizza or the tiger or other characters and props. Suffice to say we had a blast with our homeschool group.

Other notable pursuits so far for the month:

Continued exploration of math patterns, a nature class he loves, art lessons with Mark Kistler's Online Art Lessons (cheaper if purchased from Homeschool Buyers Co-op) and a sudden, deep interest in the contrast of light and shadow in photography.

Pictured here, product of Mark Kistler's Egg Yolk Expedition and Moon Crater lessons. Kiddo's on the right, mine on left. We enjoy the lessons very much because they are very stress-free, even for perfectionists!

And ah yes, he-who-won't-step-outdoors-unless-threatened-with-book-deprivation is now nurturing a bunch of wildflower seedlings planted in our former-birdbath fountain. Baby steps ya?

We also happily celebrated his half birthday with a yummy tiramisu cake and four and a half candles. :)

Shakespeare, err...Slapstick On Steroids

2011-04-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

The Reduced Shakespeare Company is crazy, bawdy, definitely over the top but side-splittingly hilarious to the point of leaving you in physical pain (still rubbing my jaw from laughing so hard). Kiddo unfortunately caught all their humor, PG13 ones included, so keep in mind if watching with younger ones! He's still laughing although it's been an hour since we watched it. :)

RSC is available for check out on Netflix.

Here's a brief skit from the MacBeth section.

We're so hooked, we may check out their American History DVD too.

The Joke That Wasn't

2011-04-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

An April Fool's to remember this one! Kiddo's voice turned all hoarse and for one stricken moment, I actually thought it had cracked. That puberty was hitting sooner than expected (he sure has been acting prepubescent!). Turns out poor kid had a hoarse throat and all the sneezes he'd been producing from a few days before were not due to the dust that's been collecting at home. He started burning up soon after.

I'd planned for him to finish a little math homework today so those plans were of course (happily for him) abandoned. It was a lovely, sunny day outside (feeling bad for the East Coasters who are still under layers of snow!) but he was only able to enjoy it for a few minutes. He spent the morning doing what he likes best. Cuddled up in his blanket and reading his math, puzzle, and Horrible Books.

The day away from planned lessons turned out to be quite interesting because we (or rather he...I'm just his sounding board) discovered a really cool concept called cyclic numbers. Take for example, the number 142857. Multiply by two and you get 285714. Notice how they are both made of the same digits and that the digits "cycled" through? Multiply it by three and you get 428571. Isn't that neat? For a nice layman's explanation, read this. He read about cyclic numbers in his Number Freak book (highly recommended!).

Another fun activity we did, when he began feeling better today, was to play a Needle Pie game. Instead of needles, we used toothpicks. The idea is that if you drop 100 needles (see why we used toothpicks?) arbitrarily over a set of parallel lines, then divide 100 (the number of needles) with the number of needles that end up touching a line, you'll get a ratio that will come close to 3.14!

The lines have to be drawn two needle lengths (toothpick lengths for us) apart. It's supposed to be more accurate when you use a larger number of needles. So we dropped 100 toothpicks and that got us to 3.03 but dropping 115 toothpicks got us to 2.33. We decided that we hadn't thrown the toothpicks arbitrarily enough (lol). Being the curious, not easily satisfied souls we are, we plan to buy another box of toothpicks to see if dropping 500+ toothpicks works better. Idea from one of the books in Fabrice Mazza's Big Book of Puzzles series.

Well, this is the kind of fun kiddo likes getting up to when he's sick but not too sick.

Hope you're having a healthier beginning of April dear reader!

An Ode To The Brain

2011-03-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's another goose-pimple worthy video from Symphony of Science. If you have a special place in your heart for Oliver Sacks, he appears in 2:50. ;)

A sampling of TED Talks by scientists in this video:

VS Ramachandran On Your Mind

Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight

Oliver Sacks: What Hallucination Reveals About Our Minds

Neuroscience-themed books by scientists in this video:

A Month Of Honing Life Skills

2011-03-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

It's a little early in the month to post a monthly snapshot post I know but March has been busy so far and I strongly feel the urge to not to do anything next week so here goes.

This month, he managed to see two projects to completion. Kiddo normally doesn't complete his multitude of project ideas as I may have mentioned before. I know it's all about the process. I tell myself that a lot. But you know it's nice to see some completion once in a while. Anyway, this month, he honed some of those life skills by learning how to sell something online through Craiglist and also how to create an online survey using Survey Monkey.

The Craiglist transaction was such a fun experience. Kiddo was given a new bicycle this month as he'd very obviously outgrown the last one. He decided that he'd sell his old bike and use the money to buy a book. I showed him how Craiglist works and he researched used bike prices, typed a short description of his bike and took photos. He posted the ad and waited eagerly to see if he'd get responses. There was one slightly creepy response which we ignored but it offered a good lesson on the importance of online safety. Hubby had meanwhile sent the ad's link to colleagues who have younger kids. One of them responded with an offer. Kiddo was over the moon! He negotiated the price a bit, sealed the deal and then proceeded to create a receipt based on some samples he researched online.

Last week, he cleaned and polished the bike till it looked almost new and hubby took care of the delivery. I've already posted about how he used his earnings here.

The survey project was to gauge public response towards the MetroPCS "Ranjit and Chad" commercials on TV. Kiddo watches these commercials not out of choice but because he can't bear to miss Jeopardy at 7pm on weekdays and that's one of the spots used for these ads. In his opinion, these commercials are extremely demeaning to Indians (South Asian Indian -- I really wish someone had corrected Columbus). He finds them offensive and racist and extremely silly. Mid February, he decided to do something about it. He wanted to write to MetroPCS to ask them to stop the commercials from being aired on national TV.

We weren't sure if simply writing a letter would be useful so he decided to poll people he knows and use any supportive info he received to "beef" up his letter. I helped him brainstorm questions for the survey and he created it (quite a painless process) and we sent it out to our homeschool group and other friends. He received 107 responses!

Enthusiasm dwindled for a while to follow up on the matter and then this week, with a little ahem, "gentle" nudging, he began using the free analysis tool that Survey Monkey offers to compose his letter. He's almost done. He still feels strongly enough about it to type it himself so I am not doing much other than helping him format his information for easier reading.

Other post-worthy activities this month:

New friends at new swimming class

Creating a simple electromagnet from spare materials and ideas on eHow

Lots of improvement in typing speed and independence for projects and online classes

A quick word about the new blog look. It's Spring and I really need to see some color on this blog and in other areas of life. The old header felt too plain. Hope the new one is pleasing to your eyes! :)

Salutes, Stoicism and Survival Kits

2011-03-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

Last night, the kiddo and I spent a frightening three hours listening to our windows being lashed by almost tropical-storm-quality gusts of winds measuring in the 60 mph range. The storm left many trees in our neighborhood uprooted and our yard a mess. With hubby away on business, it'll probably take at least a week to clean things up. But you know what...this is barely a millionth of what the Japanese are going through.

You may not realize it but there's been a lot of sadness over here at FunSchooling Academy over what's happening in Japan. We have no family there but have long felt connected to that beautiful country in spirit. The fact that we learn Japanese as a foreign language is not the only reason for this.

I've been feeling this big, gaping hole-like thing inside me over all the news. In fact, our recent book-shopping trip wasn't just to feed our love for books. It was an attempt to cheer myself up and get myself away from the computer and those sad, sad, headlines.

Somehow, what's happening in Libya has totally escaped me and I was stunned to read a headline this evening about the recent bombing campaign. Wait, when did *that* begin? I'm so lost because all my attention has been on our distant neighbor over the Pacific, what I'd do if I were ever in that situation and how helpless I feel because I'm not doing more to help.

Remember 2004? Hubby, kiddo and I were supposed to be in a beachside hotel (and very possibly the very beach) in Phuket at the exact time the tsunami hit. It was a stroke of very good luck that prevented us from visiting Thailand that Christmas. The latest tsunami not only makes me tear-up for the Japanese people but also brought those memories, the complete horror of possibly watching my loved ones die, crashing back.

More than anything my respect for the Japanese people has grown a hundred-thousand-fold. I have never witnessed such calm acceptance. There have been no stories of looting. Little report of mankind's uglier side rearing its often violent head despite all that's been happening. If such a triple-whammy ever hit my neighborhood, I don't know if I could trust myself to keep my head or my heart in the right place. I'm so amazed.

I also realize how unprepared and naive I am about such dangers. It's only after what happened in Japan that I've taken steps to assemble an emergency kit for our home. I take things like electricity and gas and cooking healthy food, eating healthy fruit so much for granted. I don't even keep spare bottles of water handy because we have one of those convenient sinktop filtered water dispensers. Well, all that will change. Apart from ordering some emergency food and water supplies, we will also stock up on dust masks, blankets, sleeping bags, waterproof matches and anything else that will make sense and yet not be too heavy to carry around.

Each time I scan sites to research survival kits, my mind keeps going back to what's happening in Japan.
If I prayed, I'd pray for them. But I don't. So I'm just sending all the positive vibes I can. Do you think you could spare a minute to do that too? If you have, thank you so very much dear reader.