Something I've had to give up, as a teacher Mama to the intrepid Iggy, is that learning takes place in a linear way. The way I thought it went (and I think this is the way most schooling situations are set up) was....first you learn A and then when you really know A, you learn B and then when you really know B and so on. You did not skip to B or C until A was solidly known. Iggy's brain doesn't seem to absorb information that way. He doesn't want to interact with information in a linear way. We can't do A over and over until he seems to solidly know it and then go on to B and do the same thing. We do A over and over and he doesn't seem to "get" it, until we can go and fool around with B or even C. It seems like his brain can't grok A until he at least knows what B or C is.
I don't know if I'm making any sense, but addition and subtraction didn't seem to gel in his mind until we went far ahead and did multi-step multiplication. I showed him the procedure and he used an awesomely old fashioned tool called The Multiplication Machine for the multiplication facts that he hasn't memorized yet. He seemed to really enjoy something with so many steps. When we went back to simple addition and subtraction, he didn't seem to need his number line as much. Now, we just switch back and forth - from single digit addition with no carrying to multistep double digit multiplication. Sometimes we just hang around with manipulatives and place value. I wish I understood how this all works, but for now I'll take the fact that we're doing it at all as a success.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The last two weeks really got away from me. Recovering from our wonderful 10 day/1500 miles driven holiday vacation and then another 8 days out of the house, refugees from the gas leak, has taken me longer than I thought it would! I am so behind. We still have our Christmas (fake) tree up!
The week after we got back into the house was spent unpacking and getting back into our routines. Last week was spent fighting off some sort of cold/flu/crud that has been going around. None of us was terribly sick, but we all felt tired and crummy and took naps (when the 7 year old boy takes a nap, you know he's fighting something off!).
We joined the fun youngschoolers for a tour of The Oklahoman, the newspaper that has been printing the news in Oklahoma City for more than one hundred years. We saw the pressroom and the printing room, the giant rolls of paper, the plates used to print the paper (now laser etched). We smelled the oily smell of the ink - giant green metal barrels of ink. The Oklahoman has a very nice online version, but this isn't a city full of Nooks and Kindles and I don't imagine it will be very soon. The Oklahoman might end up being one of the last true, print version newspapers at some point.
After reading the Basher periodic table book, Iggy asked me some questions about why certain elements that our bodies don't naturally need (like helium) don't harm our bodies, while others (like mercury) do. I don't know very much about chemistry and I can say that, even though I took it in High School, I have NEVER really understood it. I went looking for a book like A Brief History of Everything - something entertaining, sciencey enough, but plebe enough for a brain like mine. And I found it. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean! A wonderful book! Totally engaging and funny. And full of enough science that I now (sorta) understand more chemistry and physics than I knew before, but gossipy enough that I stayed engaged and not frightened of the subject matter.
I can't answer his question - sounds like something he'll need to ask a real chemist, but it pleased me that I can support him in his interests by being interested myself.
The week after we got back into the house was spent unpacking and getting back into our routines. Last week was spent fighting off some sort of cold/flu/crud that has been going around. None of us was terribly sick, but we all felt tired and crummy and took naps (when the 7 year old boy takes a nap, you know he's fighting something off!).
We joined the fun youngschoolers for a tour of The Oklahoman, the newspaper that has been printing the news in Oklahoma City for more than one hundred years. We saw the pressroom and the printing room, the giant rolls of paper, the plates used to print the paper (now laser etched). We smelled the oily smell of the ink - giant green metal barrels of ink. The Oklahoman has a very nice online version, but this isn't a city full of Nooks and Kindles and I don't imagine it will be very soon. The Oklahoman might end up being one of the last true, print version newspapers at some point.
After reading the Basher periodic table book, Iggy asked me some questions about why certain elements that our bodies don't naturally need (like helium) don't harm our bodies, while others (like mercury) do. I don't know very much about chemistry and I can say that, even though I took it in High School, I have NEVER really understood it. I went looking for a book like A Brief History of Everything - something entertaining, sciencey enough, but plebe enough for a brain like mine. And I found it. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean! A wonderful book! Totally engaging and funny. And full of enough science that I now (sorta) understand more chemistry and physics than I knew before, but gossipy enough that I stayed engaged and not frightened of the subject matter.
I can't answer his question - sounds like something he'll need to ask a real chemist, but it pleased me that I can support him in his interests by being interested myself.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Gas Leak!
Last Tuesday, ONG found a large gas leak next to the house and shut off our gas. They wanted all the lines in the house inspected and the meters moved to the outside of the house. So, the plumber came to do that work and found gas leaking from an old ceramic heater into our bedrooms. It wasn't an easy week - coldest week of the year and no heat or hot water - but we were very grateful that the gas lines were being replaced, that there would be no more natural gas leaking into our bedrooms, and grateful for our wonderful neighbors who took us in on the coldest nights.
Iggy was an excellent houseguest at the Chernausek's. They gave him a bag full of old Garfield comic books and Cathy had wisely saved Muppet videos and a VCR from when her kids were small. We discovered the Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Classics Theater. He was in hog heaven. We talked a lot about A Christmas Carol - I was relieved that, save for a few things like Jacob Marley turning into those two old guys that heckled at The Muppet Show, there was a lot of the original dialogue from the novel. We talked a lot about Scrooge's change of heart, and why Dickens had written the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future in the forms they appear in. Iggy had a lot of interesting things to say about that. He also loved the revised (Miss Piggy greedily made the wish for the golden touch!) King Midas story in Muppet Classic Theater. And he discovered the Far Side in his pile of Garfield comics and laughed a lot at things I assumed he wouldn't get. Who knows?!
We did manage to do some seatwork this week - practicing our writing in grammar workbooks. Iggy's writing is pretty amazing - he likes to do a typeset letter a and g. Don't try to talk him out of it. And he takes quite a bit of time writing, admiring the swirls of some letters and the sharpness of others. I almost wonder if we shouldn't start him off with calligraphy and then go back to printing. Because the printing is pretty slow and pretty painful to watch.
If I expected him to do the writing output of a regular class, he and I would sit in total misery all day, every day. I am glad that I get the time to help him learn in ways that are suited to his learning style while some things (like writing....a neurological and motor skills function that he is "behind" in) get to catch up. If writing fast and well had to be a component of his learning in every subject, I doubt he'd be able to learn anything. I wonder how many other kids are out there like that?
Lucy also began talking a lot this week. Water, carry, banana, not that, cheese, please, thank you, and finally....NO. She is now saying No a lot. Hooray! Not. Haha. Those wonderful twos aren't far away.
Iggy was an excellent houseguest at the Chernausek's. They gave him a bag full of old Garfield comic books and Cathy had wisely saved Muppet videos and a VCR from when her kids were small. We discovered the Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Classics Theater. He was in hog heaven. We talked a lot about A Christmas Carol - I was relieved that, save for a few things like Jacob Marley turning into those two old guys that heckled at The Muppet Show, there was a lot of the original dialogue from the novel. We talked a lot about Scrooge's change of heart, and why Dickens had written the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future in the forms they appear in. Iggy had a lot of interesting things to say about that. He also loved the revised (Miss Piggy greedily made the wish for the golden touch!) King Midas story in Muppet Classic Theater. And he discovered the Far Side in his pile of Garfield comics and laughed a lot at things I assumed he wouldn't get. Who knows?!
We did manage to do some seatwork this week - practicing our writing in grammar workbooks. Iggy's writing is pretty amazing - he likes to do a typeset letter a and g. Don't try to talk him out of it. And he takes quite a bit of time writing, admiring the swirls of some letters and the sharpness of others. I almost wonder if we shouldn't start him off with calligraphy and then go back to printing. Because the printing is pretty slow and pretty painful to watch.
If I expected him to do the writing output of a regular class, he and I would sit in total misery all day, every day. I am glad that I get the time to help him learn in ways that are suited to his learning style while some things (like writing....a neurological and motor skills function that he is "behind" in) get to catch up. If writing fast and well had to be a component of his learning in every subject, I doubt he'd be able to learn anything. I wonder how many other kids are out there like that?
Lucy also began talking a lot this week. Water, carry, banana, not that, cheese, please, thank you, and finally....NO. She is now saying No a lot. Hooray! Not. Haha. Those wonderful twos aren't far away.
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