Thursday, July 29, 2010
Car Seat Moon
I have been learning so much with Aidyn over the past two weeks as we've tackled the start of our homeschool year. I am trying to get a little ahead so we can take a nice break when Baby Landon is born. This week we are studying the moon (Did you know that the same side of the moon always faces the earth although both are rotating and orbiting? Interesting, no??) and we were reading a book that described the phases of the moon. It is very fun to see Aidyn say, "Gibbous!!" with excitement when she knows what phase the picture is showing. My favorite moment of the lesson was when she pointed to the crescent moon and explained, "That's the car seat moon." I guess "gibbous" is easier to say than "crescent."
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
I Need to Go Somewhere to Be Alone
At our ultrasound today we found out that our new baby is a BOY!! We were very excited and shared with Aidyn that it was a Baby Landon in there...the name she picked. She immediately crumpled to the ground, began to sob, and wailed, "But I wanted a sister! I didn't want your guess to be right!" And then more plaintively, "I need to go somewhere to be alone." Poor girl :-(
Later she did come up to my tummy and lay her head on it and whispered, "It's okay Baby Landon. I still love you."
Later she did come up to my tummy and lay her head on it and whispered, "It's okay Baby Landon. I still love you."
Waffles
On July 4th we went to see the fireworks in our town and Aidyn was walking back with us to our parking place from the Expo center along with hundreds of other people. We kept being jostled by other people walking not as carefully in the same direction and Aidyn suddenly piped up, "The whole world smells like waffles!!" Daddy replied, "Really, kiddo? I thought it smelled like fireworks and alcohol, but sure, waffles it is!!"
Grade Assessment
Recently Aidyn has been balking at going to preschool. She says that "It takes tooooooo long." As if dropping her off isn't hard enough already. I had a conference with her K3 teacher recently where she gave me the lesson plans that Aidyn's class has been going through and I was actually shocked. They are still working on individual letters. The next lesson plan down is three-letter words (which Aidyn has almost mastered on her own at home) and I asked why they weren't working on that yet. The teacher explained that only Aidyn and one or two other kids were ready to try those lessons so she was trying to keep the whole class together. I got a glimpse into what school must be like for a little someone who knew her letters over two years ago and what it might be like for her if she continues to be above average in her abilites.
I wanted to include some of Aidyn's abilities but if you are a sensitive parent who thinks I'm trying to compare my kid to yours you may want to skip this post. Call it a brag session, I guess :-)
Math:
Aidyn can count to 100, add and subtract simple sums, find patterns, build a picture with shapes (elementary geometry), match numerals to the correct number of objects, estimate, understand more and less/empty and full, and is beginning to understand ordinal numbers, the calendar, and the clock. She is also very good at dominoes, which I consider a math game. This puts her solidly in the Kindergarten range for mathematics according to the World Book grade standards.
This morning we were putting her hair into "fairy hair" as she calls it and she was adding and subtracting rubber bands in her head. It was cute to hear her little calculations: "Two rubber bands on this side plus two rubber bands on this side equals four rubber bands [done in her head]. If I had four rubber bands on this side and four rubber bands on that side [uses her fingers to count], I would have eight rubber bands! And if I had eight rubber bands on this side and eight rubber bands on that side....well, Mommy, I need help because I don't have enough fingers to count that many."
Reading:
Aidyn knows all her letters and the phonetic sounds attached to them, has an extensive vocabulary (as you know), can finish the sentence in a rhyming book without ever having read it before (Me: "Inside the creaky house lived a small and furry __________" Aidyn: "Mouse!"), listens carefully to stories (including those without pictures now) and can answer comprehension questions correctly, can summarize a story and understands beginning, middle, and end, can read almost any two or three-letter word that follows correct phonics and also many other sight words (look, the, and, he, she, go, I, end, me, see, etc.), is beginning to read informally (signs, etc.), can identify words that start with a certain letter or identify the letter beginning a given word, creates her own stories, is learning spelling and will picture the word in her head to spell it. This puts her somewhere in the first grade for reading.
Recently Aidyn dictated a story to me for which she had drawn the pictures. The story was titled "Look at This" and went: "Once upon a time a little girl turtle, two turtles loved each other. They were having a party because they loved each other. We should have a Christmas party! I love you each other. This is my present. No, I want that present. They were having a nasty. Once upon a time an Indian was nice but he captured her and her name was A Pile of Crayons. It scared the poop out of them. The end." I especially liked the use of the word "captured." :-)
She also has been surprising me with her grasp of vocabulary. We all know she uses a lot of words, but I have found that she understands even more than she uses. We have started reading the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series of books (and I just discovered that there is a season of the show on Hulu!! Might have to check that out with her!!) and in one of the chapters we came across the word "immaculate." I stopped reading and asked Aidyn, "Do you know what 'immaculate' means?" She said, "Oh, yeah, it means amazingly clean."
Science:
Science is one of those things that I haven't laid out a lesson plan for or anything, but we have some great conversations about so many things that she has learned so much about science. She knows, for example, that the moon reflects the sun; that plants need sunlight, air, soil, and water to grow and that they have roots/leaves/etc.; that the stars are very far away; how different parts of her body work (senses, heartbeat, etc.); simple classification of animals (plant-eaters and meat-eaters, egg-layers, jungle-dwellers, etc.); weather and seasons; the different forms of water (ice/water/steam); temperature; and a beginning understanding of magnets. This has her somewhere in first grade science without ever cracking a science textbook. She does have a really cute set of Winnie the Pooh science books that I should probably bust out for her to learn a little deeper.
Just a few days ago she and I were having a conversation about water, ice, and steam and I watched it click in her head that other things can also freeze and melt. She couldn't quite get out what she had just learned though and when I asked her to tell me about water and ice she just said, "Yeah! Because ice melts into water!!" So cute :-)
I figure that based on just those three areas she is probably operating at about a first grade level. She would be going into K4 this fall, but we have decided to keep her home at least this year. I have an excellent science-based curriculum (My Father's World) and a children's book-based curriculum (Peak With Books) that I intend to use simultaneously over the next year. If she's picked most of this up just by "unschooling," I wonder how she'll do with some more formal experimentation and application?
I looked into Montessori and Waldorf schools, which I feel would be more beneficial to her, but I cannot spend $6000-$7000/year on private school. That is more than a year of my college education cost. So, now...my question is, how do I know when she's ready for mainstream education if she continues to be above her age abilities? At what point do I decide that her social education is as important as her academic one? If she is gifted, how can I give her the best opportunities? Pretty soon I'll be asking as many questions as she does!!!
I wanted to include some of Aidyn's abilities but if you are a sensitive parent who thinks I'm trying to compare my kid to yours you may want to skip this post. Call it a brag session, I guess :-)
Math:
Aidyn can count to 100, add and subtract simple sums, find patterns, build a picture with shapes (elementary geometry), match numerals to the correct number of objects, estimate, understand more and less/empty and full, and is beginning to understand ordinal numbers, the calendar, and the clock. She is also very good at dominoes, which I consider a math game. This puts her solidly in the Kindergarten range for mathematics according to the World Book grade standards.
This morning we were putting her hair into "fairy hair" as she calls it and she was adding and subtracting rubber bands in her head. It was cute to hear her little calculations: "Two rubber bands on this side plus two rubber bands on this side equals four rubber bands [done in her head]. If I had four rubber bands on this side and four rubber bands on that side [uses her fingers to count], I would have eight rubber bands! And if I had eight rubber bands on this side and eight rubber bands on that side....well, Mommy, I need help because I don't have enough fingers to count that many."
Reading:
Aidyn knows all her letters and the phonetic sounds attached to them, has an extensive vocabulary (as you know), can finish the sentence in a rhyming book without ever having read it before (Me: "Inside the creaky house lived a small and furry __________" Aidyn: "Mouse!"), listens carefully to stories (including those without pictures now) and can answer comprehension questions correctly, can summarize a story and understands beginning, middle, and end, can read almost any two or three-letter word that follows correct phonics and also many other sight words (look, the, and, he, she, go, I, end, me, see, etc.), is beginning to read informally (signs, etc.), can identify words that start with a certain letter or identify the letter beginning a given word, creates her own stories, is learning spelling and will picture the word in her head to spell it. This puts her somewhere in the first grade for reading.
Recently Aidyn dictated a story to me for which she had drawn the pictures. The story was titled "Look at This" and went: "Once upon a time a little girl turtle, two turtles loved each other. They were having a party because they loved each other. We should have a Christmas party! I love you each other. This is my present. No, I want that present. They were having a nasty. Once upon a time an Indian was nice but he captured her and her name was A Pile of Crayons. It scared the poop out of them. The end." I especially liked the use of the word "captured." :-)
She also has been surprising me with her grasp of vocabulary. We all know she uses a lot of words, but I have found that she understands even more than she uses. We have started reading the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series of books (and I just discovered that there is a season of the show on Hulu!! Might have to check that out with her!!) and in one of the chapters we came across the word "immaculate." I stopped reading and asked Aidyn, "Do you know what 'immaculate' means?" She said, "Oh, yeah, it means amazingly clean."
Science:
Science is one of those things that I haven't laid out a lesson plan for or anything, but we have some great conversations about so many things that she has learned so much about science. She knows, for example, that the moon reflects the sun; that plants need sunlight, air, soil, and water to grow and that they have roots/leaves/etc.; that the stars are very far away; how different parts of her body work (senses, heartbeat, etc.); simple classification of animals (plant-eaters and meat-eaters, egg-layers, jungle-dwellers, etc.); weather and seasons; the different forms of water (ice/water/steam); temperature; and a beginning understanding of magnets. This has her somewhere in first grade science without ever cracking a science textbook. She does have a really cute set of Winnie the Pooh science books that I should probably bust out for her to learn a little deeper.
Just a few days ago she and I were having a conversation about water, ice, and steam and I watched it click in her head that other things can also freeze and melt. She couldn't quite get out what she had just learned though and when I asked her to tell me about water and ice she just said, "Yeah! Because ice melts into water!!" So cute :-)
I figure that based on just those three areas she is probably operating at about a first grade level. She would be going into K4 this fall, but we have decided to keep her home at least this year. I have an excellent science-based curriculum (My Father's World) and a children's book-based curriculum (Peak With Books) that I intend to use simultaneously over the next year. If she's picked most of this up just by "unschooling," I wonder how she'll do with some more formal experimentation and application?
I looked into Montessori and Waldorf schools, which I feel would be more beneficial to her, but I cannot spend $6000-$7000/year on private school. That is more than a year of my college education cost. So, now...my question is, how do I know when she's ready for mainstream education if she continues to be above her age abilities? At what point do I decide that her social education is as important as her academic one? If she is gifted, how can I give her the best opportunities? Pretty soon I'll be asking as many questions as she does!!!
Gunned
Aidyn's favorite animal has been the hippopotamus for the longest time. I'm not sure what prompted this choice, but it's pretty firmly ingrained in our little one's head. No puppies or kitties here, I guess. While visiting my family in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago she noticed my brother's gun safe. "What are those for?" she asked. My mom explained that Uncle Joe likes to hunt and Aidyn replied, "What does he hunt?" My mom gave the list--deer, squirrel, and others--and Aidyn began to get teary-eyed. She solemnly looked up at Mamie and said, "Hippos are not my only favorite animal. I don't want the deers to get gunned." Maybe we'll have a vegetarian on our hands in a few years?
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