The week in review

I realized today that I had not posted anything since Monday. It was a good week. Both kids made progress. Grammar-they are working on different types of nouns. M-abstract and concrete; B-nominative and objective pronouns. Math-M is working on measurements-how many pounds in a ton, how many feet in a mile. B is reducing fractions. History-B is learning about the persecution of the Jews during the middle ages and M is learning about monks and nuns. During the week they played Spelling tic-tac-toe. They each had the others spelling lists and they had to spell a word correctly to get a space on the board. This entertained them for about 1/2 an hour. M has also been addicted to Mad Libs. She wants to do them all day long. I encourage it because I can't think of a better way to reinforce nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, and adverbs. Plus a dose of ultimate silliness.

Thursday we headed out to The Montclair Art Museum for a Figure Drawing class. Miss Peg took the kids through the galleries and they discussed different kinds of portraits and full figure paintings. Most of the kids liked Impressionism, quite a few of the parents did not. Realists. After the gallery they headed downstairs to try their hand at drawing a model.

Here is Miss Peg discussing foreshortening. She gave an overview of drawing shapes and then going back over them to give detail (along with a demonstration) and she taught one method of getting the correct proportions (fold the paper in half. Your waist is about at the middle of the page. Legs make up the rest of your body).

M working on the models leg.

B concentrating on his drawing. Trying to get those proportions just right.

Monday Update

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day. Mid-November and we did not need coats. The kind of late fall day that makes you say "Hmmm, maybe this global warming thing is not so bad." Okay, I know global warming is very bad but the weather yesterday was just really nice. We headed out to the park to play Bacci Ball. At least our version of Bacci Ball. We don't follow all the rules.

As you can see, the court was covered in leaves. They added challenge to our family game.

Today was the start of a new week. We hit our standard Monday lessons: Math, Grammar, Spelling, History, and Literature. We continued reading Aesop's Fables. You know what I have discovered......some of them are really not that good. Sure, we all remember the good ones but there are some that are just downright not so good. That is my opinion, the kids have enjoyed all the ones we have read so far. Then we headed off to the Y for swim and gym.

Tomorrow is a new day and we will see what it brings.

TGIF!

Yesterday lessons went well. We started the next chapter in chemistry (acid and base), the next chapter in Latin (nouns), M read a bit more about Charlemagne and King Arthur, B continues to muddle through The Door in the Wall. M is about finishing up multiple digit multiplication and reviewing measurements. B is learning how to reduce fractions. We also started a unit on Aesop's Fables.

We wrapped up our week with our monthly social gathering at a local Panera Bread. The kids always have a great time playing games, building with magnetix, and other imaginative games. It really all depends on what the kids bring with them. After the fun and games were over we went food shopping. At Trader Joe's M had the lesson "always count your change" reinforced. She purchased jelly beans with her own money and the cashier made a mistake when giving her change. It happens, we are all only human but that is why you always count your change.

Wednesday Update

We have made it to the middle of the week. This week got off to a slow start. The kids were up late Sunday night and this made for a very cranky Monday morning. I can't say Monday was a great day of learning. We did make it through Math and Grammar before heading off to swim and gym. The phys ed portion of the day went great.

Tuesday was a great day. Everything went of without a hitch. Bright eyed and engaged children. I think this was because they knew we would be doing the science experiment once we got through everything else. We are doing Chemistry this year. The chapter was about the different kinds of chemical reactions. We mixed common household ingredients together to see what would react. They loved mixing but were sightly disappointed that the only ingredients that reacted were baking soda and balsamic vinegar and baking soda and lemon juice. They were hoping that egg whites would react with something. No such luck. They did get over it when I let them make the lemon juice and baking soda fizz over the top of the jar.

Which brings us to today. Today we headed out to our bi-monthly discussion group. The kids listened to a radio show (The Shadow). It was interesting to see this visually oriented generation figuring out what to do with themselves while listening. They did pretty well. They liked some things about it but overall they did not love it. One of the kids made the very astute observation that it was probably really great for it's time but the content was not timeless. They discussed the similarities between The Shadow and Batman, the sound effects, the abilities of the actors, difficulties following the story (it wasn't easy to follow), and so on. None of them want to listen to a radio show again but they all agreed they like listening to books on CD.

NY Philharmonic

Saturday we attended a concert at the New York Philharmonic (http://nyphil.org). They do a series of Young People concerts. It was really interesting. This segment was about variations of the same piece. There is a professor who walks the audience through the different sections of the orchestra. There was an actress you demonstrated variation using the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. She told it the way we all learned it and then told variations. Then they showed a photograph of people on a staircase. Then a painting of the same subject. Then another, and another. All the while discussing and pointing out the variations between them. Which leads The orchestra then plays the original piece. Then the professor talked a bit about the composer. Then talked a bit about the composer who wrote the variations we were going to listen to. Each section gets to play a variation written for them. The kids really enjoyed it.

An hour before the concert they set up the Kidzone all through the hall. The kids have an opportunity to listen to music, try out various instruments, learn a bit about the different types of instruments, meet the musicians, and more.

Here we are entering the Kidzone.

B trying out an instrument in the Kidzone.

In the Kidzone B is trying to win a prize in the game show about the orchestra.

After the concert, on the way back to the parking garage the kids wanted to climb this staircase to nowhere at Lincoln Center.

Moving Along

This week has been going quite well. I thought the field trip would really mess up the week as past experience has shown me. But, the kids have been doing great. Although this morning was a little tough since they stayed up to watch the Yankee game with dad. A historic moment watching the Yankees win the World Series in their brand new stadium. That was educational, right?

In math B is working on finding the greatest common factor. He is enjoying this lesson a lot more then dividing fractions. He also started doing the Life of Fred book on fractions. A friend loaned it to me to see if he would enjoy it. He is. For History, this week he is reading The Door in the Wall. He hates it. Thinks it is incredibly boring. Truthfully, I thought it was incredibly dull when I had to read it too but I think this is a good exercise in how sometimes we have to do things we don't enjoy.

M started her next lesson in math-prime numbers and multiplying by 12. I thought multiple digit multiplication was going to go on forever but she finally got it. For History she did some reading on Charlemagne.

Science-we concluded our chapter on the different types of chemical reactions. Next week-the experiment. Seeing how different things react-lemon juice, baking soda, balsamic vinegar, etc.

Latin- I have totally not been consistent with this one. But, we finally reached the end of the first chapter. Lots of moaning and groaning when they had to copy their 20 vocabulary words and study them. Happy smiles when they realized they already knew quite a few of them.

Literature-we read Romeo and Juliet. No, not the long original Shakespeare version. This was a well done children's version by Michael Rosen. The play was presented as a story but with original passages and references to the act and scenes. The kids really enjoyed my modern day translations (i.e.-All those fancy words meant Romeo thought she was a one hot babe and Juliet thought he was a hunk). We had some good discussion on true love/lust and OMG! They were only 14.

Monday Update

Today has been a very busy day. We started with a field trip to Seeing Eye (http://www.seeingeye.org) where we learned all about seeing eye dogs. It was very interesting learning the history and what is involved for the dogs to become seeing eye dogs. First a family fosters a puppy (I so want to do this but I don't think I could give the puppy up) and then the dog is returned to Seeing Eye for training. It takes 4 months of training before the dog is ready to be matched up. One of the facts I found the most interesting was that only 2-3% of the blind population utilizes a seeing eye dog.

After our field trip we headed off to swim and gym class. A typical day of freestyle, back stroke, and breast stroke. The last couple of gym classes the kids were introduced to the basics of fencing (the kids loved it) this week they played steal the bacon and then did numerous runs through the obstacle course. Each time having to use different footwork on the ladder, the hurdles, and the hula hoops. All the kids were T-I-R-E-D.

Tonight B has book club at the library. A non-stop Monday today.