Summer 2018
Our summer has been filled with a little bit of academics, a
lot of extra-curricular activities, fun times with family, some life-skills
education, and LOTS of reading.
Academics
Because of other summer activities, and to give us all a bit
of a breather during the summer, we have limited academic work to about three
days a week.
Everybody is continuing working MATH.
·
T (13) is working on fractions in Math-U-See
Epsilon level
·
H (11) began working on division in Math-U-See Delta
level
·
J (10) began working on multiplication in
Math-U-See Gamma level
·
B (8) is almost finished with learning addition
and subtraction facts in Math-U-See Alpha level
·
E (6) moved from working on addition facts to
subtraction facts in Math-U-See Alpha level
·
C (4) is working on number recognition --
counting and a bit of adding (very
low-key, as in a few games, counting biscuits as we cut them, silverware and
plates, etc., doing a few pages in some pre-school workbooks whenever he is
interested)
I cannot say enough good things about Math-U-See! For us, it has worked better than any other
math program we have tried (and we have tried a LOT). Though some of my children still do not like math, we no longer have pouting or
tears about it. They are learning,
practicing, and mastering it, one small concept at a time. If I could go back and start over, I would
have started with Math-U-See at the very beginning. It is well worth the expense!! We do reduce expense and paper waste by
putting the consumable workbook pages in a plastic sheet protector and letting
them use a fine-tipped white board marker to write in their answers, or letting
them use a separate notebook to work out longer problems. And they all enjoy watching the short videos
for each lesson, taught by Mr. Demme.
The older three have continued their GRAMMAR lessons. We are
using IEW’s (Institute for Excellence in Writing) Fix-it! Grammar program.
This program teaches grammar concepts through the process of editing a
story. Each week, a new concept is
introduced (e.g. recognizing nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs; identifying
prepositional phrases, differentiating homophones such as their/there/they’re,
and to/two/too, and your/you’re, and its/it’s); punctuation, capitalization,
and when to indent for a new paragraph.
Then they have four sentences from a story to edit and copy into a
notebook (handwriting practice too!).
They also have a vocabulary word to look up for each sentence. By the time we are done, they will have a
complete story. The story is engaging
and keeps their interest… we have to keep going to find out what happens! H tells people that grammar is her favorite
subject in school.
The three older ones have also been working on various COMPUTER PROGRAMMING skills.
·
T is continuing on with his work in Visual Basic,
through KidCoder Windows
Programming course (though we are using the older paper textbook
version rather than the online version).
·
H has been learning to program with Scratch, working through a book
called Coding Projects in Scratch
and another called Coding Games in
Scratch. It shows step-by-step
instructions for various projects, teaching all the important programming
constructs along the way (if-then statements, variables, loops, getting user
input, etc.) Scratch is a good language
to begin with, since there is very little typing involved. All the pieces of the code are contained in
color-coded blocks that snap together like legos. It teaches kids the logic and processes of
programming without requiring them to memorize and type all of the commands and
keywords.
·
J moved on from Scratch and wanted to try Python. He’s been working through a book called Coding Projects in Python. It’s a little more challenging than Scratch,
because you do have to type – and a misspelled word or variable name will crash
your program. But, hey, that’s the life
of programmer! 😊
·
And A has been trying to stay one step ahead of
each of them, working through the lessons in the books too.
For fun, the three older ones have also been learning to do LOGIC GRID PUZZLES. I purchased a set of grid puzzle books from Grids for Kids
that teach the kids how to work these kinds of puzzles, step-by-step. They start out with simple ones and gradually
increase the level of difficulty. They
have tutorials for each set of puzzles, and then lots of practice puzzles. The kids found them challenging and/or
confusing at first, but now they seem to have gotten the hang of them.
In addition to math, my next younger two have also been
working practicing their handwriting with workbooks from Handwriting Without
Tears, working on Phonics with AlphaPhonics, and working on
music theory and note identification with various notespeller workbooks.
They have also been practicing their read-out-loud skills
with a series of books I discovered about a pig named Mercy Watson They are cute and funny stories, and most of
the words are right at their reading level.
You can find a review of them at
this site.
Extra-curricular
Besides our usual piano lessons, horse riding lessons, and
nature center field trips, the kids each participated in some day camps this
summer. The girls went to horse camp at
the same stables where we take lessons.
T attended two sports camps at a local community college. J attended a robotics camp and a “treasure
hunt” camp (learning how to use maps, compasses, etc.) at the same community
college. And B attended a Lego robotics
camp at another location. All in all,
it meant that for 5 out of 6 weeks in June and July we were getting up and
driving one or two kids somewhere every day.
We were glad to take a break when it was over, but I think it was fun
and profitable for all who participated.
B and E took swim lessons at Houston Swim Club for 3
months. It was really the boost that B
needed to really take off and become confident, even learning to swim and dive
in the deep end of our neighborhood pool.
We participated in
our church’s annual Vacation Bible School at the end of July. The theme was “The Fruit of the Spirit”. The kids helped decorate, while Amy managed
the technology (videos and music on the computer and projector) and directed
the daily skits. The four older kids
also participated in the skits, along with other members from their drama class
earlier in the year. They all did a
great job memorizing their lines, creating props, acting with emotion and
expression, working together as a team, critiquing their performances, and
making improvements for the next day.
We took advantage of a “Kids Bowl Free” program at our local
bowling alley. We only managed to get
there twice, due to our other activities, but everyone had lots of fun. Next summer, maybe we can make it more of a
priority and do it more often.
Family
Family fun included birthday celebrations for 3 of the kids
(one of ours, and three of the cousins).
One of the cousins has birthday on July 4th. We
enjoyed spending time at their house, splashing in the blow-up pool, visiting,
eating, popping firecrackers, and listening to a mariachi band. Since most of the guests there speak Spanish,
and our kids don’t, it was the perfect experience to motivate several them to
tell me, “I wish I knew Spanish.” Guess
what is on our school schedule for this year?
Also in June, we celebrated my parent’s 50th anniversary. We met at Olive Garden and had a fabulous meal with an awesome waitress
who just couldn’t get enough of the kids and kept giving them more chocolate
mint candies.
August brought a special treat: visiting with Ronnie’s
cousin from Holland. Ronnie was able to take the kids to Galveston and the
Kemah boardwalk to spend an entire day visiting with his cousin and other
relatives.
August, and summer, ended with our 4th annual
Cousin Camp. It was a low-key week, just
letting the kids enjoy playing with one another and the moms talk.
Life-skills
This summer, we have also been working on “life
skills.” The oldest boys have been doing
the mowing the grass and weed-eating the yard by themselves. Everybody has had increased responsibilities
in the kitchen (getting their own breakfasts, helping with cooking, and
cleaning up after meals) and in the laundry room.
In addition, we’ve added jobs to the house-cleaning
rotation. We divided the whole house
into 5 areas and 5 teams to tackle the vacuuming, dusting, mopping and
bathrooms. Each section has a checklist
of tasks to accomplish in order to get full payment for their work. Mom has to inspect and make sure everything
on the checklist was done – and with a good attitude – before paying up. Each team rotates to a different section each
week – so nobody gets stuck doing the same thing every week. When everyone works diligently, we can get it
done in about one and a half hours! Another
benefit is that the kids are earning more money and learning more money
managing skills.
Reading
We’ve made a lot of trips to the library, and often have
60-70 books checked out at one time. In
addition, we have read or listened to the entire Little House on the Prairie
Series and Justin Morgan Had a Horse. We also began listening to the Rocky Ridge
Years series (about Laura’s daughter Rose growing up in Missouri). We’ve also been reading the Life of Fred
series of math books and Pages of
History: Ancient Times.
Amy has been plowing through stacks of books. Some were adult books for her own benefit.
Some were pre-reading for the kids: Morgan Horse Series,
Horse Diaries series, Dog Diaries series, as well as books by Patricia St. John
and Jean Craighead George.
