And my niece still isn't here! :( Her mom has been having pre-labour/false labour on and off for 3 weeks, and still no baby. The doc will let her go one week overdue and then induce.
Other than that... Ds is on this learning to read kick. It is soooooo cool. He's learned sooooo much so quickly--that or he's absorbed so much in the past that is just kind of placing itself together now. He brought me a Blockbuster receipt yesterday. I asked him if he could tell me which movie it was for (I only keep those that have been shown with the other kids as it counts as a business expense). I show him where it says the movie, he figures out "Meet the...", sees the R and knows it's "Robinsons". He was SOOOO proud of himself, unfortunately, that he whooped and flung his arms up and slightly back and whacked dd in the nose. :-
I had a slight panic over the 16yo and her learning this week--she just has times where everythig shuts down. I got some advice from the Montessori-L plus just did some of my own thinking and am really looking forward to this week because I'm feeling confident things will work. One thing that has really been sticking with me is how well the 16yo did with algebra when she was using materials. Then she stopped using the materials the year after, because, I guess, we both kind of felt that she "knew" the stuff, but she'd forgotten some things and some stuff has been a struggle ever since. She falls more on the tactile/kinesthetic/global side of learning and I've really realized how I need to show her how to incorporate that style into her learning. My initial worry was, how in the WORLD do I have her learn quadratics while learning to incorporate her learning style??? Then I realized: colour coding and little "tiles" with the variables and symbols and showing her how to draw up a table for the comparisons the text is going through... I need to think more about her other subjects, too. For chem, I think tiles will be great for working out how to rearrange equations. For social... I think I'm really going to have to encourage her to work on mind maps or visual posters--oooh, how about visual timelines? This one book I found on learning styles recommended role playing, too. I don't know how comfortable she would be with that, but I know she sort of role played through writing for one of the industrial revolution topics she worked on and it really stuck with her. She's about to start a theme on World War I (which, unfortunately, she has to cover in a week) and the more she can put herself in the position of those involved, the more it'll stick.
Another thing I've realized this week is how much her struggle with texts is the reading comprehension. She can understand every word in the sentence, but the way the sentence is put together, she's not attributing the right things to the right part of the sentence. I think she needs to learn how to do sentence analysis! Of course, that means I've got to improve my skills in that first. Last time I really did sentence analysis was in jr. high--for French class. Fortunately, I've got some resources here. I feel too unsure of the Montessori style to do it that way at this point.
For the 13yo, he did his first essay this week. :) He said a whole bunch of things, I wrote down what he said, added a couple of tips here and there and had him choose between some transitioning options and ta-dah! He copied it all down and feels very proud. :) This coming week's writing assignment: his own report card. :D I've been reading a book whose name I can't remember at the moment and there's something in it about how kids need to be involved in the evaluation process more. That, combined with dh working on report cards and me needing a new writing assignment for this week, led to me deciding to give this as an assignment. I think I'll assign it for dd, too, but hers will be in French.
Other than that, haven't really figured out this week's plans yet, but do need to print off my first little French reading booklet for ds. Dd has agreed to do the drawings for me. Yes, my 10yo dd draws better than I and has probably done so since she was 6! I should also come up with some new words for him to do. (Shoot, that reminds me that I never took a picture of what I've prepared for him to share here.)
No comments:
Post a Comment