“The teacher is crazy; I love that”
My kids are giving me such rich material to write about lately. Today I asked my oldest how he’s progressing on biology. We are trying Thinkwell’s online biology course. My son replied, “Dad, you don’t have to worry about me doing my biology, the teacher is crazy and I love it.” We were in the car and I laughed, turned to look at him with a crooked eyebrow, and before I could ask him to explain, he expanded upon his statement, “he’s really excited and passionate about biology. He gets so excited sometimes he trips over his own words. It gets me excited about it.”
Wow, just wow. I can’t say whether the teacher is faking it or not, I have no idea, but what I will say is what a testament that my son basically said ‘I got this course taken care of dad’ because he enjoys it, in no small part because the teacher is having a good time teaching the material.
Hats off to Thinkwell and to the biology teacher George Wolfe, you have new fans, my son and me!
“Latin doesn’t feel like work!”
My 9 year old daughter just said that as she put The Critical Thinking Company’s “Word Roots” software in the computer. She went further, “it feels like a totally awesome computer game,” (okay, my daughter likes hyperbole, but still.)
This is what a parent loves to hear, a child diving into learning, knowing it’s learning, but loving it like a game. My daughter loves Indiana Jones, and this game helps her pretend she is an archaeologist, but she’s digging up words instead of treasures.
From the back of the CD box:
In the late 5th century A.D., many Roman cities are destroyed by earthquakes. The ruins are buried and lost for centuries. A brilliant archaeologist (your student) comes along and finds documents written in Latin that explain how to rebuild city. Your student must learn Latin word parts, assemble words from parts, and apply words in context in order to decode the documents and rebuild.
This is our first product from The Critical Thinking Co. and surely not our last.
Summer School
I asked this question on Twitter this week and got back a wide variety of answers.
What do you do during summer in terms of homeschooling? Reply via twitter or in the comments.
We keep math going about 3 times per week as well as music practice and some required reading (although our kids love to read so that’s not a challenge.) The reasons we keep math going is that it builds upon previous steps more so than other subjects, and we love NOT having to waste the fall going through the review process. Our first year that we homeschooled, when we jumped from one grade level book to the next in math for my daughter, we couldn’t believe how far into the book we had to go to get past the review from the previous year.
I look forward to hearing what you all do.
Review: Life of Fred Math books
My wife has graciously agreed to guest post again, and she writes this week on the “Life of Fred” math series. She writes:
All three of our children weren’t as fond of math as other subjects. That doesn’t mean that they were not good at it, but they did not think they were. They would much rather have read a book than do math, actually they would rather have done anything than math.
I heard a recommendation that the Life of Fred math books were good for children who love to read and dislike math. So I figured that I would try them. After all, what we were doing wasn’t working at all. When I first picked up one of the books, I was surprised because it didn’t look like a math book. Stanley F. Schmidt, the author of the books, uses humor and fun pictures throughout the books. Each book is divided into chapters (lessons) that tell Fred’s story and how Fred needs mathematics. In the early books, there are problems that they need to complete in every chapter and at the end of every four or five chapters they have to pass a bridge to move on. In later books, they have “cities” to work through at the end of each chapter in addition to the problems in the chapter. Each concept is clear and easy for my children to understand on their own without any help. The books also explain the why behind many of the math concepts being taught. So my children have a great grasp of the material when they are finished.
When I handed my children their first Life of Fred book, they actually asked me if they could do another chapter. More math? What had happened to my children? I wasn’t sure what to think, but I told them yes! Now as they are doing math, I hear them laughing. And they call me over to them, not because they need help, but because they want to share something funny that Fred did or said with me. We have completed Fractions, Decimals and Percents, and Beginning Algebra. We are getting ready for Advanced Algebra. After that we have Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, and Statistics. So we won’t run out of math anytime soon! Sometimes, they even choose Life of Fred over a good book.
Website for Life of Fred math books: http://www.stanleyschmidt.com/FredGauss/index2.html
Podcasts for Middle Schoolers
Let’s start with the basics in case you don’t know what a podcast is. A podcast is an audio ‘episode’ that you can listen to on your computer or download to your music player. For most, that means downloading via iTunes to your ipod. Many podcasts have recurring episodes so you can subscribe and get new episodes as they are ready.
Depending on your student’s learning style, podcasts can be a wonderful way to augment your lessons with your kids. My kids have especially liked history or science podcasts. One son watches video podcasts of Nova and other science related casts. My other son listens to history.
Here is a list of podcasts we listen to:
History of Rome – The author goes into great detail on each podcast and my son finds it riveting. He’s had some breaks in between podcasts but generally does them weekly or bi-weekly, and the podcasts last around 20 minutes.
In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg – These cover a wide array of topics from The Great Fire of London to Neuroscience to Dante’s Inferno. The site says it best: “The history of ideas discussed by Melvyn Bragg and guests including Philosophy, science, literature, religion and the influence these ideas have on us today.” These are usually produced weekly or bi-weekly as well, and run about 40 minutes.
Photo used from here with cc license
TPN :: Napoleon – The Napoleon podcasts, well you can imagine what they are about. The authors cover Napoleon’s reign in great detail. The podcasts generally run an hour or so, and the podcasts are updated frequently. Note: the authors often relate things that occurred during Napoleonic times to the current US administration, so if you are offended by that, caveat emptor, but I think it’s worth it regardless of your politics, they do a great job.
The History Network (military) – With military in the name, my son loves this one. It is updated ‘fortnightly’ as they say and the topics are usually about a specific battle and covers the battle in detail. Very well done.
Carpe Diem: put a little Latin in your life – This is an audio book that costs 8.95 and is about 5.5 hours long, but I’d be remiss not to list this. My son takes Latin once a week, and this book seems to be made just for him. It is not a boring litany of translations. The author tells funny stories with Latin tie-ins (including quoting a Monty Python bit) and then jumps into Latin lessons, the classic head fake.
All of the above are available on iTunes, but the links I’ve provided are to their respective web sites. If you have podcasts your homeschool students listen to, please list them in the comments.