Science experiments

My daughter loves the ARVA science experiments. I'm not so keen on them but she's a scientist at heart and loves to make the messes. Here she is with a modeling clay model of an oxygen atom she made yesterday.

She took modeling clay and made 8 blue balls and 8 green balls for the protons and neutrons, and wrapped them up in plastic wrap to represent the nucleus. Then she made 8 small yellow balls and attached them with toothpicks to represent the electrons surrounding the nucleus.

Multiplication

We've been being introduced to multiplication in a sneaky kind of way the past couple of weeks, and the past couple of days we've been doing full-blown multiplication, all without memorizing the multiplication chart! That will come in time (probably sooner than later) but now she's learning it by drawing it out in grids and other visual ways and by using small shaped pieces to line it all up on her desk. She's enjoying all this playing!

She's been studying ecosystems in science, which is pretty fascinating for her. She's working on a report on jackals for the composition part of language skills, and whenever we finish that I'll print that here. We just finished up a unit in adjectives in the GUM (grammar, usage and mechanics) segment of language skills. She's working on test readiness in literature and Italy in history. She's been painting and making clay models in art and I have a photo or two of that to show. Music is hopeless because although she's quite musically inclined, I'm not and I struggle to figure out the simplest things I'm supposed to be teaching her. On one lesson this week I gave up on trying to teach "crescendo" to her from the book and the supplied music and found a YouTube video of a fascinating performance of the orchestra classic (and childhood love of mine) "Bolero." Ahhh, much better!

She went on a field trip this week to the Governor's Mansion and learned more about their pets than anything else I think. I keep hearing about the Beebes' dog Viper and the Clintons' now-deceased cat Socks. Her dad went with her on the trip and it seemed more interesting to him than her!

We are looking forward to a few days off this coming week!

More on independence and working ahead

We are making good progress with working independently now that we are very familiar with how all the lessons work. We learned something in our conference with her teacher last week — if she knows the subject matter well, it is okay for her to not complete each lesson in the unit or all of each lesson. We also learned something else. It is okay for her to work ahead. Being able to skip parts of some lessons has enabled her to do a little more catching up and working ahead. Here is a picture of her working with her teacher and the other kids in her class during the conference last week.

Earlier this week she did an entire unit of science in about an hour. It was something she had already covered in school and we were having fun so we kept going until we were tired of it! She really enjoys science. We did some extra work on spelling and language this week as well. With her not starting in the school until a month and a half after everyone else did she has a bit of catching up to do but a good portion of this material she already knows because she had it at school.

A friendly letter

My daughter was working on a short unit on writing friendly letters and she wrote a letter to her grandparents. They've received it by now so I'll share it with everyone else:

(Written just as she wrote it, with all the corrections made, notice the date :D)

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2010

Dear Ma and Pa,

I want to tell you about how I am doing in school. I am doing very well on everything except math. I have a little trouble with it. I think it is because I don't like it as much as I do everything else. I do very well on everything, and because of that I get stickers on every worksheet almost! And best of all I'm home schooled. Well see you next time I come to your house or next time I write a friendly letter.

Your granddaughter,
***

Independence

Schooling at home is going great now that we are on our fourth week. She is really enjoying it and I'm learning how to do her school and my work at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago I spend a day or so working on improving her speed and independence, but quickly gave that up in favor of encouraging independence. Her pace is quite unhurried and I thought I'd gently nudge her into working quicker in areas where she knows the subject matter, but it didn't really work out that well. I know her well enough to know to back off before she got flustered, which happens easily when she is hurried. We'll pick that up later (I guess).

Encouraging independence is working out well and of course my being more familiar with how the program works helps in that area too.

She is going to speak with her teacher tomorrow for the first time and she's excited about that. In the meantime I have to make sure the computer has whatever programs it needs for the conference and that I know how to operate them.

She has a paper that she's been working on for about a week and when it is finished I will publish it here.

What I learned in third grade today

I learned a lot in third grade today. The lessons include:

1. It's very easy and kind of expensive to have a very impressive collection of whiteboards and pens. But you need them all.
2. Ditto on the "post-it" products.
3. Teachers ask for plastic baggies on the school supply lists because they are excellent for storing everything.
4. If your science lesson that you started yesterday during school hours didn't go so well then, it's probably not going to go much better if you resume it after school hours today.
5. Math is much more fun when you can play with cubes and cards while you do it. And had I been able to play with neat stuff during math class way back when, I might have learned something.

Lots of assessments!

My daughter had lots of lesson and unit assessments today and did really well on all of them! We have added a large whiteboard to our growing collection of whiteboards and it was really useful today for displaying the assignments and checking them off. Tomorrow I will do a better job of organizing it and making it look more cheerful.

The school day went really well but afterward we tried to finish up a science lesson from yesterday but could not. It had an unusually large amount of information and an uncharacteristic lack of materials for her to read and study so we are going to work through it the rest of the week. That one lesson is about a week's worth of information for a third grader and the school normally has not seemed to put very much in one lesson so the whole thing was kind of odd. I made her some study sheets and practice sheets and am looking for photos online. Until now the school has provided all the study materials she has needed and then some.