A New Year – A New Curriculum

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Hamsters and Homeschool

Squeker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have a new addition to our home and homeschool, and he is a rodent! His name is Squeker (not a misspelling) and he is a Golden Syrian hamster about 9 weeks old. He was not a sudden or spur-of-the-moment aquisition, either. My hubby said he wanted to see a one page typed paper explaining why Dana should have a hamster and how he would care for it. With a little help, that was accomplished.

Much research, thought and careful planning went into his choice. Dana researched online before announcing that he thought a hamster would not only be a good pet, but a neat 4-H project as well. So our first purchase was made at the county extension office, where we bought the two 4-H Pocket Pets Project books. After reading a lot, he decided that a Golden Syrian would be the best choice for him, and we were off to the pet store for equipment and supplies. That was a hefty dent in the pocketbook, but Dana has agreed to earn money to help pay for it and to buy future supplies. 4-H doesn’t start up until February, but he has a head start so there will be less pressure later to complete the project book and required activities.

(Photo above was taken by Dana on his 3DS.)

 

As a homeschooling project it is already paying off in learning (research, reading, record keeping, planning and writing). As a life skills learning opportunity it is also showing results already. He is learning some things that are very hard for an Aspie, like empathy, patience, responsibility, planning ahead, and more.

 

Maybe every prospective parent should be required to do all this with an animal before being allowed to have children!  I do know that no baby has ever been more wanted, prepared for and lovingly nurtured than Squeker.

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Homeschool Excursions Planned

Our studies are moving along now, so we want to add some field trips and take advantage of learning activities around us. Fortunately, I have found three that look like fun educational opportunities for Dana.

The first one on the calendar is a science workshop provided free for 6-8 graders (homeschoolers welcome) by Kenyon College, which happens to be very near where we live. The LADS (Learning And Doing Science) session for boys will be from 9:00 am to 1:30 pm, Saturday, October 22. This free session called “Chemistry All Around You” will include”  “KABOOM! Come see the hidden powers of common household items. How can you tell if a liquid has enough acid in it to burn through a table? You don’t want to touch it to find out, but a food in your fridge can tell you. We’ll watch candy blow up, and make and eat delicious instant ice cream. Come learn how chemistry can be cool! Registration will be open from September 1 to October 14, 2011.” If this one goes well, we will also register him for one in February on light particles. For more information, if you are anywhere in Knox County, Ohio, go to: http://www.kenyon.edu/physicslads They already held the first session for girls, but another will come up in March (http://www.kenyon.edu/x58103.xml )

Then, on Saturday, November 5, from noon until 4:00 pm, we will be taking a “Walk In the Past” at Mohican Outdoor School in Butler, Ohio. This is a family event giving the opportunity to experience what life was like in Ohio in the 1800s costing only $5.00 for the whole family. Click here for more info and to download flyer:  http://www.mohicanoutdoorschool.org/events/view/56/169.html No registration required.

On Tuesday, November 15, Dana and his granddad will be attending Mohican’s Fall HOOT (Homeschool Opportunities for Outdoor Training).

The website says: “Join us for the Fall 2011 Session of HOOT!, from 10 am – 2 pm.  Let’s start digging – that is, digging in our mock archaeology dig site!  We will explore the geology of Hemlock Falls, and learn about archaeology during this HOOT! session.  Cost per child: $5.00.  No fee for parents.  Please bring a packed lunch for child and adult, something to drink, and outerwear appropriate for the weather, as we will be outside for most of the class times, rain or shine.  Pre-registration required.”
Click here to register online

Hopefully these will all be great experiences and are all either free or extremely inexpensive. If you don’t live in my neck of the woods, check your own area for great activities. Happy Fall homeschooling!

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Big Changes: Experiments in Homeschooling

With the influence of comments made by Dana’s psychiatrist and from reading the first few chapters of John Taylor Gatto’s book, “The Underground History of American Education” (online), I decided to make changes in our homeschool to not only allow Dana to follow his interests, but to make them the focus of his education. 

In particular, I was impressed by the psychiatrist suggesting that we should have different expectations of Dana than we would for other students and should encourage his strong computer, electronics and robotics interests and above average abilities in those areas. I was also affected by what Gatto said about reading, which is a strength of Dana’s that needs to be built on.

Gatto said: “Reading, and rigorous discussion of that reading in a way that obliges you to formulate a position and support it against objections, is an operational definition of education in its most fundamental civilized sense. No one can do this very well without learning ways of paying attention: from a knowledge of diction and syntax, figures of speech, etymology, and so on, to a sharp ability to separate the primary from the subordinate, understand allusion, master a range of modes of presentation, test truth, and penetrate beyond the obvious to the profound messages of text. Reading, analysis, and discussion are the way we develop reliable judgment, the principal way we come to penetrate covert movements behind the facade of public appearances. Without the ability to read and argue we’re just geese to be plucked.” –

Some of this is way beyond Dana at present, but we will try to lay the groundwork. Reading lessons on Time4Learning and grammar study address some of this, also, so we will likely return to that later.

For at least the next two weeks, and likely for a long time, we are going to try this experiment. Dana is to learn what he is interested in learning and do it the way he wants to do it. I discussed this with him and we came up with a curriculum that he agreed reflected this. If it turns out to be too much influenced by my expectations and uncomfortable for him, we will make adjustments. If he has over-estimated his readiness to learn scripting programming, I will provide more assistance or we will hold off for a while. 

The curriculum starts off with learning scripting because that is what Dana said he most wanted to learn right now. And since scripting, like other programming languages, requires at least basic math, we will cover it when he needs it, thus avoiding the usual battles.

Dana’s Curriculum beginning February, 2011

1. Scripting on ROBLOX using the Lua 5.1 programming language, a simple scripting language that can be embedded into games or programs (parent applications). A scripting language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. John K. Ousterhunt, in “Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21^st Century,” says, “Increases in computer speed and changes in the application mix are making scripting languages more and more important for applications of the future.” Roblox developers have added in functionality to Lua so that users can create interactive content. Lua tutorials are available on ROBLOX. One important feature that nearly all programming languages use is math. Lua uses basic math, variables, conditional statements, random numbers, and more. So math will be included in scripting lessons. Dana will mostly learn and apply on his own, with help as needed. He will share what he learns and applications he develops.
2. Mechanical principles of physics applied to building robots and Power Funtions constructions, plus programming Lego robots. Dana will mostly build and explore on his own and will share with  me what mechanical principles he applied and demonstrate programs by running the robots.
3. Reading for pleasure and sharing and discussing afterwards, beginning with “The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow” followed by other books of his choice.
4. I will continue reading classic literature to him and discussing it as we go. We will finish reading “The Secret Garden” and then “read “Huckleberry Finn,” followed by many others.
5. I will continue reading history to him, and discussing and referring to maps. We are finishing reading about explorers and will learn about pirates next before beginning the founding of the U.S. Dana will read the “Little House” books at the appropriate time in our study.
6. Dana will observe and work with my husband and our handy man in work around the house and property to learn a variety of useful skills, get exercise and develop positive attitudes to work.
7. Dana will continue to tutor a boy at karate as long as needed, as well as continue his karate lessons, daily practice and exercise.
8. Dana will likely continue his membership in 4-H, complete a project and do community service with the group.
9. Other lessons will be at his request only.

Comments are not only welcomed, but requested.

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“Socialization”

Like many homeschoolers, I am tired of the old “socialization” issue coming up. Recently, it has been coming from Dana’s counselor and child psychiatrist wo are trying to help him deal with anxiety, behavioral issues and Asperger’s Syndrome in general. Because he often does not want to talk or interact much with them, they tend to assume that he is always like that, despite what I tell them.

I won’t go into the many excellent arguments and discussions concerning what “socialization” really means and the pros and cons of learning social skills in brick and mortar school versus in homeschool. There are many blogs and websites that cover this quite well. I am just going to share a recent page I made for his scrapbook/portfolio so that I have something to show them as proof that, yes, he does interact with kids his age, as well as adults, and yes, he gets along just fine with them, thank you, and even has a small circle of special long-time friends.

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Chemistry: Mysterious M&Ms

Scrapbook page

 

The cup on the left contains two M&Ms. The cup on the right contains two gumballs. We also experimented with colored light corn syrup. In all cases, the colors did not mix as Dana predicted, but formed a pretty clear line separating the colors. In several cases, one color pushed over the top of another color, but no mixing occured. Next we will investigate whether the temperature of the water affects how fast the colored coating dissolves from an M&M. We have to hurry and finish these experiments before we discover how fast we eat all of the M&Ms!

Dana is also reading “Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom” and has done some related pages on Time4Learning.

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Accidental Unschooling

I have been concerned that while my 10 yo can read quite well, he doesn’t seem to read for pleasure and only reads stories when I put it on the schedule. He loves for me to read them to him, however.

Yesterday I went into his room to have a discussion with him about how to help him choose to read on his own. I couldn’t talk with him, though, because he was on his computer reading a detailed tutorial on how to add laser light shows to the fireworks displays on Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and did not want to be interrupted.

LOL. I forgot that he actually prefers reading for information (reading to learn, not learning to read) and does it when there is something he wants to know. He tests his own comprehension by following the instructions or using what he learns in some unique way. And I had been worrying that he didn’t seem to be pursuing knowledge on his own lately! I just need to remember that what I want him to learn and what he wants to learn are not always the same, but may get him to the same point. For example, he is learning problem solving, logical thinking and physics while he is “playing” at designing and building robots.

Now I just need to figure out how to work enough math into his interest areas!

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Better a Goat Than a Sheep

I just read the most amazing valedictory address I have ever seen! Rather than recapitulate it here, I will give you the link to read it for yourself. It was given this year by an amazingly wise young lady, Erica Goldson, who recognized that the difference between herself and the other students in her class was that she had learned to follow the rules and learn for the tests better than the others, at the cost of not exercising her creativity and pursuing her own personal learning interests. She does not believe that this is the way education should be and expresses it most eloquently.

It reminds me of a college student I once taught. For a while, I taught an art education class at a fairly well known university. The course was required for education majors and the artistic abilities and interests varied greatly. Naturally, the course included both some understanding and “doing of art” and some philosophy of art education as well as different models of teaching. While one or two students were fair in creating art,  nearly none excelled at thinking about how to teach and how to encourage creativity. One student actually asked me what I wanted them to say when asked to write his own opinion about two very different models of teaching.

 There was one exception. One young lady, who was not knowledgeable nor talented in creating art, was truly exceptional at independent thinking. She greeted each art project assignment with enthusiasm as a challenging and fun assignment. She shared that enthusiasm with her classmates and sought out partners to work with her on grand projects which she envisioned. But more than that, she tended to challenge me often on statements of “fact” and opinions I might express in class. She interrupted with questions frequently, which, of course, threw me off my planned presentation and made ME think!

One day, I showed up for class a bit early and found the classroom door still locked. She also came early that day, so I took the opportunity to talk with her privately. I began by saying, “Do you know how you are always questioning me in class?” I saw her take a step back and take on a worried, almost frightened expression, so I hurried on to explain that it was a very good thing and that she should always do that in all her classes, although some instructors might not appreciate it. I told her that her enthusiasm and ability to think independently would make her an excellent teacher, especially if she could pass that on to her students.

Later, I remembered that a favorite English professor of mine had held a similar conversation with me in my freshman year at college. He said that most of the other students were like sheep. They blindly followed where he led, accepted every thing he said, and wrote down every word he uttered in case it showed up on a test. He said that he was tempted sometimes to make some outrageous and off-topic statement to see if they unquestioningly wrote it down. I, on the other hand, often challenged him, and even argued with him over some points. My fellow students thought I was crazy to disagree with the instructor and I became self concious about being the only one who spoke up, so I stopped doing it so much. That was why he talked to me about it, to encourage me to continue being a model of independent thought. Indeed, most students give no thought at all to what they are spoon-fed. They simply hear, accept, and try to memorize it for the next test.

That is exactly what Erica spoke about in her valedictorian speech, “Here I Stand”. Bravo, Erica!

As homeschoolers we have the freedom to break this pattern. But not if we accept any book or text at face value and teach our children to never question, simply memorize the facts and only do things the way they are taught. If we do “school at home” (following some out-of-the-box curriculum verbatim) we indoctrinate and will get the same sheep. Whether you unschool or follow some middle of the road model (a little unschool, a little traditional, a lot of interest led learning), as I do, you can encourage and enjoy flexibility, creativity and critical thinking (as opposed to acceptance and memorization) and involve your children in decision making about how and what they learn.

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Home Chemistry Lab

MAD SCIENTISTS INVADE HOMESCHOOL!

Since I seem to have focused on some great free chemistry books lately, I though I would share some pictures of our new home chemistry lab we are setting up for next fall. Our upstairs, which was originally added to our house to be an art studio for me to work in and teach classes, has morphed several times to meet changing family needs. Originally, I had a photo darkroom with a deep sink (and a toilet) up there, too. Since I long ago swtiched to digital photography, it is now being transformed into a home chemistry lab. While we could do most of our experiments at the middleschool level on kitchen counters or work tables, this allows us to go a little bit further and keep things stored ready to use comfortably and safely. There is no window, but ventilation is provided by a ceiling exhaust. We won’t be working with any noxious fumes, anyway.

We still need a couple of lab aprons, some lab-type rubber gloves, and a few other things before fall. But the lab now includes a balance scale, an alcohol  burner, test tubes, stands, a test tube holder, beakers and bottles, stoppers, funnels, glass and rubber tubing, a Teaching Tank, chemicals (including household products we will use) splash goggles, a table of the elements, and safety signs and instructions. My make-shift chemical storage could use some upgrading. I am thinking a wide medicine cabinet with or without doors might work, if I can find an old one somewhere.

We probably have more books than we need, including those pictured below, which includes those written about elsewhere on this page. But we can choose some great lessons and experiments from them to help Dana really begin to understand and experience chemistry.

If you are having trouble finding supplies and chemicals for home chemistry (or materials for other science fields), you might try HomeScienceTools. I have found them to have decent prices and fast shipping. But by all means, search on eBay or Google for what you need.

Happy “Mad Sciencing”! Be safe! Have fun!

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Hilltop Heaven

At last a cure for HDD (Homeschool Desperation Disorder)!

What a wonderful day! There was nothing much special about the day, except that everything was special. The weather was glorious! The air smelled sweet, the sun was shining, the grass was green and the Spring flowers are blooming. We got in plenty of learning activities including spelling, math, grammar, and science. Dana practiced his karate moves for his orange belt test tomorrow and did them well. Then, because I have a bad case of Spring fever and could not do a lick of housework, we spent most of the rest of the day outside together enjoying our woods and grounds, just Dana and me and the dog makes three. Ahh! If every day were like this, I would think I was in heaven.

I received an email today from Diane Keith at Clickschooling, in which she discussed HDD – Homeschool Desperation Disorder. I can really relate to that. I suffered enough days this Winter with HDD. It is so wonderful to find relief. Her remedy involved doing outside activities learning about and just enjoying nature. So if you suffer from HDD, try it. It really works! Hope you can find your own little bit of heaven, even when the indoor homeschooling causes desperation.

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