Montessori Elementary Homeschool Blog - with documentation of our infant Montessori, toddler Montessori, and primary Montessori experiences; as well as preparation for the upcoming adolescent Montessori homeschool years.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

A Week in the Life of Legoboy: Friday - Upper Elementary Montessori



wake up in a mood (don't tell me boys don't have PMS too)
straight to breakfast - took FOREVER (reading Life of Fred Geometry - AGAIN)

morning prayer, bit too quickly for my liking.

Primary Grade Challenge Math - chapter 9 on Percentages - again with the math facts not solidified, but he won't take up any of my ideas or come up with his own ideas for how to solidify them. He will learn them all great for a day. Then they are gone again. He has a great memory... so just not really really sure what is going on. 6% comes up a lot in this chapter - after a while he says, "UGK! I am SO tired of 6 perCENT! I need a NEW number!" So dramatic. I had to laugh at him. Probably not the best thing to do based on the grimace on his face afterward ;) 


Piano - for a LONG time - this helped him. A LOT.

Made lunch: scrambled eggs --- got to work on the clean-up part


I guess it did turn into a Math week though! ;)
(he even took the book "10 things mathematicians should know" (or something like that - by Ed Zaccaro - see review post here) along in the evening car-ride until it got dark enough to see the Christmas lights)

We spent 45 minutes this afternoon organizing a few shelves in the library - got more boxes emptied anyway. 
The goal was to gather the rest of the faith-related books onto the far two shelves - I had already set up the childbirth books (considering becoming a doula in the future), the adult faith books and the Montessori/Catechesis of the Good Shepherd resources on the upper shelves. 

But it is a 'give a mouse a cookie' deal - one thing leads to another - so we ended up also working on most of the math, some of the science and some geography, art and music. 

Not bad ;) We even ended up with several empty boxes. Haha. Ignore the stacks of books now on the floor that WERE in boxes. ;) Hey, now we can see what we have. That's a purposeful purpose for having stacks of books, right!? ;) 

he found a couple of books he wanted to read - one a book of Christmas stories and poems ("Christmas Tales for Reading Aloud"), and Advent devotional he forgot we had, and another faith-based books I can't recall off-hand. This is where I found him: 
This is the GUEST bed - yet he's been in it almost every day this week. 


Early evening, I finally read through this week's messages from Educents and came across a set of Minecraft math guides. Using my credit with them (from purchasing a mod class we've not been able to use yet) and the sale already on, we got three guides for $3.49. Legoboy is excited to try them out, even though his original reaction was "there is NO math in Minecraft!" Hm. We'll see ;)  Every once in a while Educents offers something really neat and useful. I consider it useful for browsing for interest units. 

Gathered up some wood from the backyard, but needed a LOT longer of outdoor time today that we did not get. 


The day ended with me posting this on Facebook: 


3 hours of Christmas light touring; ice cream eating; song singing; great conversation with my awesome son. Sitting in the car that long makes me sore. Worth it. 
We did some mystery shopping, enjoyed the Christmas lights in this darkest time of year, and talked a lot about the Amish specifically and the Anabaptists in general (we were driving through an area with a large Amish population; their night-time buggies are still required to have functional green, red and white lights). We discussed our similarities and differences and Legoboy developed a stronger understanding of where various pieces of the Christian puzzle fit together. He even deduced some of their beliefs based on particular things I shared with him - spot-on every time. We have a few things to look up that I was unable to answer for him.



Not sure I can see anything in this one. It was all lit up though. 

Then we got to talking about the other images on our Facebook page:





Thank you for spending the week with Legoboy! It was pretty exciting on this end, but with so much to write up on top of my regular work - I am not sure I made it sound as exciting as it really was. 


My goal: to provide a glimpse of what 5 days of a week looks like in the life of a Montessori homeschooled child. Especially at upper elementary, it is not so much about the materials anymore - but about the real life experiences, the planning, the follow-through.

He has plans going on in Minecraft and with his Lego creations that I do not get into - I monitor to keep things "moral" but otherwise, these are his world. His two other big projects right now are the Further Up, Further In Narnia study and Confirmation preparation. But other rabbit trails criss-cross continuously. We love it. :)


For more days from the past week: 
Friday of "Week in the Life of a Montessori Homeschooler"
Thursday of "Week in the Life of a Montessori Homeschooler"
Wednesday of "Week in the Life of a Montessori Homeschooler"
Tuesday of "Week in the Life of a Montessori Homeschooler"
Monday of "Week in the Life of a Montessori Homeschooler"

In the midst of this series, I also posted a "day in the life of a Montessori homeschooler" from about 2 weeks previous:
A Day in the Life of Legoboy

Any particular day or week may not be representative of what goes on in the grander scheme of things - that particular week would have made an interesting write-up - he ran in his first-ever 5K that Thursday (Thanksgiving) - VERY proud of him!


Saturday, right after this posted week, he has a 3 hour study at the local-ish museum on "Geometry in Nature". We will also watch their current IMAX film again (we have a year-pass to the IMAX theater there - we can watch as much as we want!) - and do more mystery shops on the way home. Not sure what he will do in the morning - could be school work, could be Legos, could be hanging from a tree... I'll be working. Lots to get caught up on now we are in a house. Legoboy is an awesome helper, taking out packages, locating good packaging options, weighing packages, printing labels and more. 

Sunday we have atrium and he serves at the Traditional Latin Mass - he is a bit nervous because it has been a while since he has been to Mass there, let alone served! He will do great! 


:) 

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