We started on the flight unit this week. My work schedule right now isn’t very good time-wise for in-person teaching, so I assigned Steven some independent work this week.
I started the week with a Bill Nye video and a worksheet to complete while watching it. Fun fact: Flight is Season 1, Episode 1 of “Bill Nye: The Science Guy”. Another fact: I can’t read “Bill Nye: The Science Guy” in any voice other than the one in the intro to the show.
Continue reading “Flight”
Sometime last month we got so focused on NaNoWriMo that I stopped posting here. And this month it’s been a struggle to get back into the school routine with all the Christmas excitement going on. Binky, our elf on the shelf, is back, and shopping is a whole different hassle this year (we are not going to any malls or even most stores – we’re in a red zone now), and my work is busy, and I’m trying so hard to get some school work done with Steven before his chosen Christmas Break starts December 21. I might do a couple more short posts for Yule and Christmas but I mostly won’t be posting until the new year.
Continue reading “December”
I was just going to update my previous post. But this deserves its own.
Biden finally got past the post! Of course Trump is saying it’s all lies somehow. Now we just have to wait and see what schemes he tries to pull. But if I understand the U.S. electoral process correctly, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
In my eagerness to start writing a novel last weekend, I kind of completely forgot to post on the blog! But honestly, I didn’t have much to say. We finished our NaNo prep and we’re on to writing!
Steven ended up setting the bar high. The “default” NaNoWriMo goal is 50000 words, and Steven’s goal is 67860 words. And here I was thinking it would be easier to write to his goal this year! We’re both a little behind, but we’re planning on catching up this weekend.
Continue reading “NaNoWriMo and U.S. Election”
I hope whatever you are doing to celebrate this weekend, you are safe and have lots to be thankful for. Some things that I am thankful for this year:
One of the science units for grade 6 is space and the solar system. So this week was focused on learning about the rest of the planets. Steven had already read about a couple of them over the last couple of weeks. They were easy to fall back on when he was struggling with math and I had to work.
This week, Steven completed the solar system reading comprehension activities found here this week. He also completed the key terms and solar system worksheets in this workbook. I bought the bundle that covers all the science units for grade 6. I then had him use these worksheets to make a plan for building a model solar system. I’m sure I’ll have lots of photos of that next week.
Continue reading “Exploring the Solar System (week 5 homeschooling)”
This Wednesday was Steven’s 11th birthday. Luckily he doesn’t mind not being able to have a party this year. Last year, knowing that parties aren’t his favourite thing, we suggested doing something else. Maybe a shopping trip or just taking a couple of good friends somewhere. He chose to spend a whole weekend shopping, eating out, playing board games and video games… He now refers to his birthday as his “reign of terror” because as long as we don’t go over budget, he can do and make us do whatever he wants. This year I apologized that we couldn’t take him and his friends out somewhere and he said he’d rather have a “family time birthday” anyways. Apparently, until last year, he thought birthday parties were some kind of unavoidable social obligation.
Continue reading “Birthday and week 4 Homeschooling”
Steven finished reading “The Lemonade War” by Jacqueline Davies last week, so I purposely didn’t assign time-consuming work at the beginning of this week so he could work on an after-reading assignment. He made a comic strip of a part of the book. Maybe not his best work, but he did do some sketches before doing the final copy. Next time I’ll give him more direction before he starts.
Continue reading “Week 3 – randomly generated math worksheets”
We’re still doing French, Music and Phys Ed every morning. This week we did some French worksheets that focus on the sounds letters in various French words make (beginning sounds, hear the sounds). I think they’re meant for a younger audience, but they get the point across without being boring. I had Steven google each word to find the French translation and then listen to the pronunciation and repeat it.
Continue reading “Week 2 homeschooling reflection”I’ve been trying to think of ways to make this year more fun, ways to keep Steven engaged and motivate him to keep trying instead of getting frustrated and arguing with us all the time (which happened a lot last school year, first with home schooling and then with the distance learning provided by the school). Motivating him has been hard over the years. He willingly tries everything, but if he doesn’t get it right away he often gives up. Sometimes he’ll get really into something and he’ll get past the “I’m not good at this” stage and start to improve, but then he reaches a harder part and gives up. We all do this sometimes, and we’ve talked about how this is normal and you just can’t give up, but often it ends in arguing.
Continue reading “Motivation”