Friday, October 17, 2008

Time to review the continents

So this morning Jonathan figured out a plan to keep Matthew and Christopher from fighting. His idea? Send Matthew to "ArtAfrica" where the penguins live and Christopher to the Polar Bears.

Obviously we need to review the word "Antartica" with him but hey, at least he knows that penguins are in the South and the Polar Bears are in the North. That's more than a lot of people seem to realize.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Scantron Fail

Well, CAVA insisted that all their 3-8 grade students take this K12 scantron test in the first two weeks of the school year. Matthew hemmed and hawed and did so only reluctantly and under great protest (ok, that goes pretty much for all schoolwork with that boy so it's not a big surprise). I finally got his test results today and discussed them with his teacher.

Here's the biggest suprise....his reading scores were out of sight. Seriously, lowest score (and this is testing for where he should be at the end of 5th grade which is what he's just started) was an 88. The computer could not come up with any objectives for him to work on. So the teacher asked the computer to throw out his grade level and it still couldn't come up with anything based on how far they had tested him. What's so amazing by this is that this is my child that HATES to read. Seriously. The fights to get him to read anything that isn't school related or a comic book are just amazing. He's finally reading the Animal Ark series a little more seriously but still, we both know it's well below what he's capable of reading. But wow, I think I may need to crack down a little harder on him on getting him to read at least slightly more challenging material. The biggest thing that drives me nuts is that he starts books and never finishes them. Ugh!!

His math scores were good but not as high as I would have expected tho that is also the test that I know he was wondering all around for and totally goofing around so I suspect that had a lot to do with it so I won't give him too much grief over it. Even there the only thing the scantron could come up with to work on was his figuring out what to do with the fractions in a word problem and this is a known problem for him and one we are always working on. The teacher is going to give us some additional worksheets to help address that one area but still, even that wasn't awful or anything.

Of course, I wasn't expecting all that much from it considering this is the same test they insisted I give Christopher last school year after he finished their 8th grade Literature and Composition class and they couldn't move him up to the next level so they needed to test him to find busywork for him. I gave them a whole write-up on what I thought he needed to work on but nope, they needed to have this test so they could tell me what he needed to work on. It came back with "needs work on identifying misplaced dangling modifiers". Um..yeah... ok, whatever. We worked on my objectives for him with the teacher's blessing after that.

But still, I do like having the reassurance that the boys are doing well so I guess it serves some minor purpose...so long as I'm not hoping for any great insight or revelations into what I should be working on with my kids.

Life Lessons in the Kitchen

Things that come directly out of a 425F oven are hot and don't feel good when you pop even a crumb into your mouth:
Yes folks, this is real life learning experiences right here at the Academy. LOL

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Just 7 Minutes

That was the verdict from Jonathan about how long to cook 3 cans of Campbell's Chunky soup. He opened all the cans, dumped them in the pot on medium heat, and then stirred every minute (using a timer). After 7 minutes, he asked me to come check and I showed him how to see that the soup was indeed done (steam rising off it, small bubbles when not stirred, feel the heat off the spoon).

It was only then that I noticed he had a piece of paper and a pencil and had been recording how many times the timer went off and he announced to me that it took 7 minutes.

His next announcement took the cake tho...

"See mom, now all I need is a cell phone and you can leave me home to make dinner!"

Don't bet on that happening any time soon honey, but good try anyway. LOL

Friday, October 3, 2008

We are official!

So it was a big day today here at the Academy. I filed the official California Sate R4 Affidavit to legally register "Davis Academy for Boys" as a private school in California.

Um, wow. We are really a school now.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Yup'ik Finger Masks

This was from Matthew's art lesson today.

The Yup'ik used finger masks like these during a dance ceremony that told a story. A dancer, usually a woman, wore a pair of them. She slipped them onto the fingers of each hand. Drums that looked like big tambourines kept the beat as she danced. Singers sang the words. She took tiny steps and moved her arms and hands. Her motions told the story.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

1 month done

Start of October and our first month of this school year is done. 20 school days out of 180. I thought it would be fun to ask everyone what they did or learned this last month:

Christopher - Algebra doesn't have to be hard and has learned how to calculate the area of trapezoids and parallelograms. Lord of the Rings is really cool. Learned about species populations and habitats, the rock cycle, and that many years ago you would be rewarded for killing a predator but because they killed off the predators but not the herbivores, eventually all the plant life was gone and that area is still desolate today. How to fill the gas tank and working on nutrition and following more complex recipes. Is having a great time at Young Actor's Workshop and can't wait for the Haunted House at Pumpkin Festival.

Matthew - Pre-Algebra is still review but he's hoping that it will pick up soon. Science has been fun with weather studies, atmosphere, and cloud types. We go around identifiying them while driving now. History right now is focusing on the founding of the original 13 colonies while in Literature he is learning about important people like Benjamin Franklin. He also just finished Tuck Everlasting and we'll be starting to read the Little House on the Prairie books together soon.

Jonathan - Learning how to make groups in math to multiply which is fun. We've been playing with tints, shades, and primary/secondary colors in art. In history we are studying Caesar and today we learned how he was killed by his old friend, Brutus (Et tu, Brute). Phonics is progressing along (as I've already talked about here) and soon we'll be starting back up on a regular Language Arts program again.

Nicholas - Is starting to work on identifying colors and numbers and letters. He is constantly pointing at all of those and we are helping to identify them for him. His favorite numbers to say are 'wee' (three) and 'ie' (five). He finally has 2 differing syllable words and he is getting more adept at getting us to understand his more complex ideas and games. We've also learned that the supersonic shriek is a powerful weapon that unfortunately is still being used for evil purposes. We hope that changes soon.

Me - I've learned that I really need to find more hours in my days tho I'm not sure how that's going to happen. Nico is going through a super clingy phase and while I'm trying to enjoy his nicer attentions, not having a schedule is wrecking havoc with getting things accomplished. Definetely something I need to get a better handle on (as always). I'm learning that we can homeschool without oversight and still learn things. I've learned that I don't like Upper Division soccer and all the travel it entails. I've learned that it's amazing hearing Jonathan read and know that I helped him with that. I've learned that I love going over a lesson with one of the boys and having them tell me "Hey, I already know that, we did it last year" and they can remember what they've learned. I love finding fun field trips for them and really want to attempt to organize some of my own for larger groups. I've learned to relax more and go with the flow (still need to get better at this but it's soooo much better than it used to be). And every day, I'm reminded of how much I love being a mom and how lucky I am for my four blessings.