Learning By The Way

I was feeling quite blah today, fighting off a virus that has been going around. I think maybe Elsie and Peter have a touch of it as well, as they have been tired and cranky. So I decided to stay home from the library with them, and Samuel elected to stay with us. Raquel took Moriah and Toby to the thrift store, and then on to the library. They participated in an event there, a homeschool fun day. The theme was New Year’s Day celebrations around the world. They learned about how different cultures celebrate New Year’s, made a calendar, planted a bean, and ate cinnamon buns.

They then returned home full of excitement over their fun time, and eager to show me their thrift store purchases. Moriah bought a present for Noah’s birthday, one for Elsie’s, a bag of yarn, and an elegant cup and saucer shaped like flowers. (She fixed herself a cup of peppermint tea to try it out). Toby was thrilled to be able to buy a terribly macabre sword, adorned by a spiky toothed skull and filled with a red liquid reminiscent of blood. I tried to be thrilled for him, but find myself unconvinced that it has a purpose for existing. (He started a loud, rambunctious, game with his brother to try it out. I believe they find it quite satisfactory).

An important learning moment occured yesterday which I believe I should record. I’m not sure if I can do it justice, but I will try. While working on his story, Toby said “Oh, mum, what’s a square root?” I told him I would explain in a moment, and he went on to tell me why he wanted to know. A boy at church starting spouting numbers and asking him what the square root of the number is. Of course, Toby didn’t know and he remembered to ask me. It’s not difficult to understand- I explained ’squaring’ a number, complete with a sketch of squares (!), and then of course the root of the square is the original number. Toby, Moriah and Samuel grasped this with no problems. “Oh, and Toby? You don’t need to tell any of the boys at church about this. Because learning things is for helping people, not for showing off how much we know.” Toby flashed me his trademark grin and I knew he understood. This is truly the more important and more difficult lesson. Even as a little child it is to easy to become prideful in our knowledge, to use it to gain an edge or status over other people. How much more beautiful to use what we know to help people, to heal, to encourage, to love. If my children learn to use what they know for God’s glory and not to toot their own horn, then I will be blessed indeed.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” I Corinthians 8:1b

Moriah, Samuel and Toby did some addition review, adding strings of single digit numbers. (Can strings of single digit numbers be fashioned into a mathematical necklace?)

I gave all the children a list of adverbs, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, and verbs to use in making a story. This is Samuel’s.

THE MONSTER UNDER MY BED

A stinky monster came out from under my bed unexpectedly one night! “I will put you in a pot and make you bubble.” he said hungrily.

“I will chase you and when I catch you I will tickle you with a feather below your ear!” I said in a lazy tone.

“Are you serious?” he asked in a suspiciously shrill voice.

“Yes.” I said.

Then he went away.

A spaceship landed very fast near my house! A stupid alien slowly walked down the ramp. He had fingers that looked like they could mightily tickle you, and poky hair. He crabbily spit on the sidewalk. He went in our house to throw out the oven! I told Papa and he got his gun. Right when the alien was throwing the oven in among the rest of the garbage, he killed it.

THE END

Here is Moriah’ word list:
ADVERB- gladly, shakily, suddenly
ADJECTIVE- long, mysterious, courageous
VERB- walk, think
PREPOSITION- down, off
NOUN- horse, policeman, ticket

Here is her story:

One day, I was walking down the road to my friend’s house. On the way, I passed a poster that said: THE MYSTERIOUS MEG!! Please come!

The poster also said that she would make a horse disappear! I told my friend about it. She said, “I think my mom can drive us there. ” The next day we turned off the lights and went. Suddenly, my friend started yelling gladly. “Go faster!” And her mom did, too fast. A policeman came and gave us a ticket. It cost so much we could not get tickets to see Mysterious Meg.

It wasn’t long until my birthday came. When I came in the house everybody yelled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANN!” And there was Mysterious Meg, looking courageous and wearing her long cape. “Thank you.” I said shakily. We had a wonderful party.

THE END

Elsie has lost her first tooth. She came down the stairs yesterday evening, frantic, blood streaming down her chin, sobbing “My tooth fell out. My tooth fell out.” I immediately realized that she had forgotten that this was a normal part of growing up, and in fact had forgotten that she had been looking forward to this rite of passage. I reminded her that baby teeth DO fall out, and her big tooth will grow in that spot. She calmed down considerably, but really brightened when Daddy brought a bottle of non alcoholic champagne. He popped the cork and led us in a toast to lost teeth and growing up. She gloried in her spotlight moment while her older siblings regaled her with their favorite lost teeth stories. Hurrah for Elsie and her newly gap toothed smile!

This morning, Toby worked a really looooong addition problem (”Mama, I can’t add numbers that big!” “Yes, you can. It’s just the same as when you add two numbers, only you keep going.”) and was quite pleased with himself when he completed it. He then did a graph of various dinosaur lengths. Moriah and Samuel held flashcards for each other to practice their multiplication. Elsie and Peter did a phonics worksheet on the letter ‘F’ and a counting worksheet.

We picked up our traditional half price gingerbread kit at the after Christmas sales, and finally got it out to complete today. Of course the children had a rioutous good time!

In addition, Samuel decorated a gingerbread person of his own invention. He wanted to decorate one of the gingerbread boys in the kit as a vampire, but this idea was booed by his siblings who did not want to add this element of danger to their gingerbread tableu. So I cooked him a special gingerbread man to decorate as he saw fit. There is no need to be alarmed, despite the bloody fangs. This gingerbread vampire has a sharpened candy cane stake squarely through his heart.

Twice yesterday Elsie came up to me and showed how she could count with her fingers the Chisanbop way. This morning she wanted to know if she could do Chisanbop again. I hadn’t been planning on it, but told her I would. Peter said “Awwwww!” in a dissatified grunt, so I let him do his regularly scheduled dot-to-dot while Elsie had her special Chisanbop lesson. Today we did single digit addition.

Elsie then completed a rhyming words and a missing sounds worksheet.

Toby got his Chisanbop lesson this morning. He already knew all the stuff Elsie did, because he had been eavesdropping. He caught on like a spark in dry wood, and crackled quickly through his two digit addition practice. Some of the problems were so easy he knew the answer immediately and didn’t work the problems the Chisanbop way. I’ll have to find some more challenging worksheets tomorrow!

Moriah and Samuel worked together to fill in a 10 by 10 multiplication grid.

Moriah, Samuel and Toby all had ‘finish the sentence and illustrate it’ worksheets. Quite suddenly today Toby decided he wanted to learn to write lowercase letters, and did a neat and careful job writing his sentence “Ten tarantulas tickled a dog and it laughed.” Samuel, of course, printed his sentence using block letters. (Our theory of handwriting is that children must be able to write neatly at least one way, read other peoples handwriting, and sign their name. Time spent doing worksheets in varying methods that the child is uniterested in is nearly useless, as they will revert to writing the way that comes naturally when grown).