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

Wake-up - he wants to snuggle with me for a bit (morning prayer) then play "throw me off the couch" which is where he requests and begs and pleads that I please throw him off the couch or down the hallway or (his newest one) "throw me down the stairs" - all to help him wake up. NO I do NOT do these things, though sometimes I will ROLL him off the COUCH. He is always so disappointed.

Speech at the local school - He is still has speech therapy for his /r/ sounds (minimally on /ch/, /j/, /z/). Note to all other parents - when your instincts tell you something is wrong with your child, don't let any evaluation or expert tell you otherwise. I was told he was in normal range until age 4 and the waiting lists for therapy were LONG at that time. Now, 6 years later, we are STILL at it. This is so much easier addressed with little ones.

Breakfast - cold pizza. Some days I should call him "Pizza-boy" instead of Legoboy ;)

piano practice - just review of past lessons. He's not been practicing as much lately, so needs to get back into it if he wants to move ahead (which he does - he keeps saying when listening to particular selections, "I want to play like THAT!"

Friends over for some elementary math tutoring - he helps or distracts depending on the day - today he helped - long division ;)

errands to the parish office - taking over a jumpdrive with a St. Nick video for the priest and a Sedia image for the CRE

re-organize electronic components - new storage container. He'll get there. Eventually.

Primary Grade Challenge Math - chapter 8 - "How many legs?" (lots of multiplication, intro into squaring/cubing/powers, careful step by step work)
He threw a fit about not having his facts memorized - he gets them, then he loses them - a throwback to not utilizing the memorization sequence properly in primary.

He is kind of tired of me taking photos ;) 

He also likes to rush through; with this work he needs to slow down and look at each step. He continues to do the math accurately for what he sets up, but continually skips a step from the original problem in his "rush".

lunch

more piano practice
He really wants to sound "excellent". He has not progressed too far, but is going back to more thoroughly perfect previous lessons.

Electronics - try out more ideas from EEME Dad's e-mail - and create more circuits, finding the one that makes the brightest light.

Confirmation notebook card - continuing work, reading from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and noting key concepts about the sacrament of Confirmation itself.

help clean up basement - sand spilled on the stairs, more baking soda for the old oil smell (from the oil heater that has now been replaced) and (shhhh! don't tell him!) we are looking to convert one half of one of the basement rooms into a tae-kwon-do practice area.

Magician's Nephew notebook and lapbook - slow but steady progress. He loves the stories and he really wants to do these studies, but they are just NOT as interesting as they could be. If these were ALL we were doing, we could probably focus on pulling in more interesting resources for the suggested activities... and they're not UNinteresting - it just doesn't pull together as well as we had hoped. He is adamant he wants to do it though. I think his goal is to DO it, then write his own version! We have been SLOWLY working on a Narnia cookbook of our own, since the only one published is currently not in print, unavailable at a reasonable price and the company refuses to re-print it, despite a list of over 1,000 purchasers --- because they say "last time we printed, it did so poorly" - well, the last time they printed was before the recently-made Disney versions of the movies, which only incite more interest.... people are BEGGING the company for a re-print. Seriously!? They won't re-print. Bad business practice, folks.


Battling invisible enemies. Yep. Our home is a safe, that is for sure - thanks to my valiant warrior. Today's weapon of choice? a curtain rod. Sigh.

Honey for a sore throat. Yelling at the bad guys will do that.

Free-time:
Legos. Why not. Then...
"Legoboy, what are you diong?"
     "Eating! Reading math!" I hear his voice from the library.
            I truly thought he said "Reading! Eating Math!" at first. Not an impossibility.

Hiding by the ONE empty bookcase.
No worries. We have boxes left to unload onto the shelves. ;) 

Evening Mass for him while I prepped for atrium; during atrium this evening he helped a bit with the level 1 children, but apparently mostly sat in the material-making room doing pencil fights with himself and napping. He was supposed to either play Minecraft, work on Consecration in Truth or offer further assistance. He does not join Wednesday evening level 3 atrium because I already have too huge a class and he attends on Thursdays in addition to helping me prepare materials and our home faith studies.

After atrium he spent time with friends while a few catechists worked on a project.

Dinner Prep: Back at home, we made alfredo sauce with pasta, mixing in a bit of leftover Thanksgiving turkey. I love having his help in the kitchen and typically require it. We are a family - we do things together. He participates in all aspects of meal preparation to varying degrees on varying days. Sometimes he might put an entire meal together himself (he IS 10 and has been helping in the kitchen since he could sit in the sling and dump stuff into a bowl for me; and setting tables since he could walk while carrying an object) - most days we work together and I give him the opportunity to work on different aspects of meal preparation, so that he has experienced all of it, has practice with all of it, but in bits at a time. Then, when he started with simple entire meals, he had the confidence to know when to ask for help and when to get creative in problem-solving.

I always add leftover veggies of one kind or another to our alfredo sauce
he never notices the cauliflower though he claims to hate it. 

yummmmmmmmmm

Evening prayer

Now we are researching models of Jerusalem together.
I want this for our atrium:

Now if we could just find an affordable replica of Jerusalem - the entire city itself. I want something 100% accurate. We have representations in the other atriums, these older children want to really see it - experience it.


He fell asleep right at midnight, trying SO hard to stay up until midnight so he could open the next door on his Lego Advent calendar. Oh well - maybe in the morning ;)

Note on bedtime here: we do shift to a later than typical schedule - because of our evening activities and the desire to unwind at home before bed. We typically do not have morning activities (speech is at 9:30, so late enough we don't need an alarm; Sunday mornings we have atrium and do set an alarm; Tues-Fri he has the option of setting the alarm to be up for early morning Mass - some days he does, some days no). In the end, he sleeps no more than a child of his age SHOULD sleep (which yes means he probably gets more sleep than the average 10 year old in our area - they too have evening activities AND some have to be on the bus between 6:40 and 7 to be starting school by 8am).

This week is an exception because of how it started, but typically he is in bed by 10 (Tuesdays at 11:05).

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

We started with a different sort of Monday, ending with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (Jesus) at the local parish from midnight to 1 AM - something we normally don't do at that time. We did get to hear "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" at the fastest pace EVER. No funeral dirges or slow meditative chants from this priest at 1AM with his favorite song ;)

And now - at 9:57AM, Legoboy sleeps. With this National Night of Prayer running form 9PM to 1AM, I am not sure how many other children were able to participate due to the need to be at school by 8AM. Blessing of Homeschooling.

By the time he woke up, USPS had been here to deliver some Christmas gifts for others. He made breakfast for both of us and we finished prepping and wrapping the gifts. We both found it funny that we received two mail deliveries today - one with packages, the other with regular mail.

Morning prayer

Watched some more Once Upon a Time - honestly, looking for plot holes to create a list of questions to send to the creators.

Confirmation card - on the effects and responsibilities of Baptism and the gift of Grace by the Holy Spirit.

EEME - Work on some of the follow-up questions/suggestions he received via e-mail from the creator of EEME. Legoboy created what EEME Dad calls a "dumb light" (gets brighter in bright locations and dimmer in dim locations). He is working on the suggestions and a response e-mail to EEME Dad


Clean up the hall and landing upstairs - we are mostly beyond the unpacking mode but are still in the "slowly getting specific items where we actually want them and find them the most useful". We are working in stages so we can keep going with the rest of life.

Missing two shelves from moving helpers...
Organizing still a work in progress. 

Eventually we'll have these games organized.
Apparently we like games around here. 

Free-time: Legos and tae-kwon-do practice

Come up with a thousand ways to ask about opening Day 10's Advent Calendar.
No.
(Can I blast a hole through an iceberg? Can I do light-saber target practice? Can I make a sky-light?)
The #10 slot in question is located above an ice-cave opening. On Day 1 he asked such questions as "Can I be-head Darth Vader? Can I give Darth Vader a new helmet?" and the like because the top of Darth Vader's helmet overlaps the Day 2 slot.

For the record - I do not see this as a sign of commercialism or materialism - merely a young boy who LOVES jokes. He will argue with ANYthing just to get people thinking and riled up.

Early dinner - LOVE tortellini here :)

Tae-kwon-do - running a bit late, ordinarily before class is hang-out time with friends. Just one class this evening. Because during Advent we have:
...Children's choir - Tuesday evenings leading up to Christmas. He'll be singing at the 4pm children's Mass Christmas Eve. He's not a singer in the spirit of having good pitch matched with others - he sounds great singing by himself with his own renditions though. So this was a surprise to me. He wants to sing at that Mass and serve the altar at midnight.
(the file below has now image - I had the phone facing down on the pew while recording - so it is a video, but it is ok you don't "see" anything ;) )

Get gas - pick up pizza
Yes, I let him go across the street from the gas station we were at, to one of our other local gas stations (their pizza is the BEST) while I pumped the gas. I then picked him up from there. I love this area - I can see his every step, we know on some level every employee of all 3 local gas stations (and both banks), and the sheriff was on duty watching traffic right there ;)

Home for bedtime prep and two of our shows (both in winter finales)
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
Forever
Watch the news to catch the weather (the ONLY time we watch the news - ever - is after our shows)

Evening prayer

Throughout the day we also played Quik-Sane and a few rounds of W'FF. Because yes, we do like playing games. Legoboy always has some set of cards out to play in between other stuff. Our latest favorite? Rivals for Catan.





Not much math happening here - but lots of using it in real life

• cooking - measuring water and oats, adjusting for wanting 4 servings (the instructions have 1, 2, 6 servings)
• how many miles per gallon gas, how many miles can we go on a tank, how many gallons are left when the low-fuel light comes on. Yeah, we had one of THOSE evenings. While at choir practice, I also drove over to the choir director's home to get her reading glasses she'd accidentally left there, so we *really* needed gas after practice was over ;) 
• he wanted to know when the mail would be arriving; a friend texted to tell us their mail had been delivered, he calculated the miles, the speed of truck with it stops, added to the time of the text message. He was off by 10 seconds - "And that my son is called estimation. We can't predict every delay or package or which houses he can skip for having no mail that day."
• Estimating wood branches usage to see how many Friday fires we can have throughout the winter with current supply. Yes, this one was just plain hilarious - what if we want a longer fire, what if it burns slower or faster, what if we want a bigger fire? But at least he's trying - and thinking. 
• I weighed a package for a Garden of Francis order - he plays with the buttons every time to see what it is in grams compared to ounces then re-calculates to get me to believe that the scale is inaccurate. It's NOT inaccurate, but he "plays" with the numbers to get it looking that way. The thing is - to do what he is doing, he has to KNOW what he is starting with; otherwise he might happen upon the "right" answer and end up looking foolish ;) 

Writing these up, I don't feel like we're hitting on everything - that would take a book each day ;) All the little conversations we have, tossed in between and during everything else....

Interesting to see.

A Day in the Life of Legoboy

Caveat: We no longer have a work-cycle as such at all. We live according to the rhythm of life - so school happens when/how it happens, integrated with the entirety of our lives. This is not unschooling (we still have specific experiences and a guide to those lessons/experiences; I present key experiences, we discuss plans and outcomes together, while the ultimate responsibility is for Legoboy to take those key experiences and construct himself into his own person.

CAVEAT 2: I wrote and scheduled this post before having the bright idea to document a whole week. I will leave this post scheduled on the day it is, but with the note that these events took place the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Wake up and build with Legos. Yes, he really does that. He jumps out of bed, combs his hair, uses the toilet, gets some breakfast and reads - then does some work with Legos (or drawing out Lego or Minecraft plans).

This photo is actually from the Lego KidsFest. I need a
photo of Legoboy's Lego Cave ;) 

Review the interdependencies chart - Biology

He reviews this chart from time to time - just for the fun of it. Sometimes he draws pictures based on it or from other studies, adding more details. The first time he received this chart as a 6 year old, he re-created the chart on his own paper (tracing it to scale); at 8, he created it identically but smaller. At other times he has done a variety of other follow-ups. On this day (at age 10), he chose to simply talk it out with me, explaining how each component is interdependent upon each other - and how we, the humans, have created a supranatura that we are now dependent upon as well. This led to an interesting discussion about those people (Legoboy would LOVE to do this) who live off-grid, some attempting to be completely self-sufficient. What is the reality here?

The reality is that modern technologies, human progress, etc. have actually made it MORE possible to live "off-grid" - but that "off-grid" now looks VERY different than it would have 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 1000 years ago. Ancient people lived more in harmony with nature, to be certain - but consider that now we have an understanding of the microscopic world and what it can do for us (and against us), microfibers, and so much more. Thus "all-natural" living has a different understanding than it did centuries in the past.

Lots more to discuss there ;)



Outdoor work: 

• pull loose branches from the trees
• gather sticks and branches from all over the yard (we have 1.13 acre ;) )
• set up 2 outside burn piles (one next to the storage shed on the north side of the yard, one next to the compost heap on the other side of the yard) - and 1 indoor in the garage ---- we have a fire-pit already (although we might move it just slightly closer to the house)
• clean off the porch - clear storage tubs (some to compost pile, empty ones to tub to wash), sweep off the porch, clean out the big storage bin and organize gardening items on one side, outside toys on the other)
• set up the compost pile to our personal liking

He started before I went out so I could work on dishes -
trying to tease some loose branches out of the tree above

Errands across the street

Out the side-front window ;) 

He runs a variety of errands across the street, and to the landlord's house (kiddycorner to our back-yard) and other neighbors. I love this area - on the one hand, we are definitely rural, but we do have some people/places nearby.

Horses live beyond our back fence
(the fire pit, in this photo, is the brush-pile towards the right side)

Laundry
Because we can ;)



Apologetics class

He signed up for the monthly unlimited subscription - not doing the live classes, but watching many of the recorded classes. This works out more affordable, but limits access to immediate feedback from the instructor (although some instructors offer such feedback for a very small fee). Legoboy is currently working through a middle school introductory apologetics course, which is VERY good.


Herbal Cold Care















Continuing our herbal studies, we recently signed for Herbal Cold Care through LearningHerbs.com. A series of 10 videos walk through straight-forward use of herbs and normal foods for the prevention, cure, treatment and follow-up healing from colds and flu. AWESOME stuff here. And lots of downloads of recipes, monographs on particular herbs and more. We got in on about half-off the cost because we also participate in Herb Mentor. Among our other herbal studies from Learning Herbs and other resources, these two have been so straight-forward, real and useful. I can't say enough about using natural remedies for our health.




Sherlock

Legoboy and his godmother are both way into Sherlock. He has been reading the original stories for a couple of years now. We have been hearing talk of the BBC show - and finally watched it on Netflix (Seasons 1 and 2) - HOOKED.


Confirmation card
He is preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation and one of our resources we are using at home is a workbook I divided up into activity cards so he can create a notebook on various topics and experiences. Each week he does 2-7 cards, with 70 altogether, leading him through prayers, reading the Sacred Scriptures, studying sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, studying prayers in the Roman Missal, applying Church teaching to real life, etc.



Reading general books
He reads. And builds with Legos. And reads some more. Then asks for movies. Yes, we watch a lot of movies of late - all related to what he is reading in one way or another with LOTS of discussions. I love it :)


Locate Narnia binder and flip through previous work
He wants to re-begin a Narnia study we started quite a while back (which is actually what prompted the Sherlock reading above).
I think if this were the ONLY thing we were doing for school (adding in a math component only), it would be something we would work on more routinely. As it is, we are barely finishing up Magician's Nephew (first book in the study - it presumes you have read the books already, and are re-reading them for the study) and we started WAY back when (3 1/2 years ago???). we don't even do all the activities, we just get started down a rabbit trail or we have our other studies.



Some stuff w do together; some we do side-by-side with moments of cooperation. Some things we do in entirely different locations. We really work together - as a community - building on each other and around each other. Living life :)

"Education as an Aid to Life" - that is the them of Montessori - and the best place to do that is at home (home = with family).

setting up the bead cabinet for visitors and future co-op 

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

Monday, December 8 in the life of a Catholic family - Legoboy was on the schedule for 6:30 AM Mass for the Feast Immaculate Conception.

Our biology study of the day: recalling that a newly created baby girl in the womb of her mother already has eggs forming in her brand-new ovaries - all the DNA that will become her future children is already separating itself out into eggs. Indeed, those eggs are actually mature enough, even while their mother is in the womb of their grandmother, that a British group has had serious discussions about the feasibility of harvesting said eggs from the ovaries of aborted female babies for use in fertility treatments: in-vitro fertilization. 

The main drawback? that those children will grow up and find out that their "birthmother" was "never alive". 

Really. Wow. So the egg that has now become my son was created in my ovaries before I was "alive"? Eggs can grow in something that isn't alive? I had ovaries before I was alive myself? 

Tongue-in-cheek. In reality, I cry for all the pain that is out there because of mis-information about when life begins. 

In the end, science informs our faith. Life begins at the moment of conception. Period. 

Legoboy loves talking about this stuff. 

It was not this light when we left.
In fact, it was not this light when we returned home. 

I did not sleep well last night. In fact, I didn't sleep at all. No particular reason, I just couldn't sleep. Bleck. I couldn't focus on anything this morning when we got back, so Legoboy made himself some oatmeal and I laid down for 3 hours - and finally slept.

I am pretty sure we did not do morning prayer today. Since Mass is the greatest prayer we have, I suppose we are ok ;)

He worked on some Minecraft while I slept, working around the reality that he is not allowed to kill "humans" even in the game. Zombies and animals are fair game. The one is already dead and is attacking him; the other is needed for food and other commodities.

He also worked with Legos. You know - hands-on Minecraft ;)

I woke up and checked e-mails. We had a nice response from the gentleman who offers EEME - Monthly Electronics Projects. After each thing we do on there, we receive an automatic request for a survey/feedback. This last one I put in a couple of requests, pointed out what we loved and shared that Legoboy was having trouble getting the photoresistor to work properly in other configurations (it is actually going brighter when it should go dimmer, and vice-versa). Mr. Pien "EEME Dad" offered for us to send him a photo and he'd see if he could provide some feedback. He loves that Legoboy is experimenting with alternate methods. Very cool.

So he got a photo ready to send over (I just took care of responding this evening, so no response yet as of the time I type this).

 Randomly took a picture of himself walking. Cute.

We have been slowly working on our Jesse Tree ornaments for this year - set up the tree this morning, but have not yet hung the ornaments. Last year, Legoboy made paper ones each day. This year, we'll be doing wood-burned ornaments again.

For Advent, he has a Star Wars Lego Advent calendar. In the past, he has had a Kingdoms Lego Advent Calendar which was really neat. The City version never intrigues him for some reason.

He did use his St. Nicholas gift with some Legos today - after a couple of hours of experimentation, both yesterday AND today. He received a box with a battery pack with a switch that allows the current to go either way or off, a motor with a piston that turns either direction based on the switch, wires with 2 lights, and something else (can't remember off-hand). A few small extra pieces too. Anyway, today he built this - he says he has more to add to it to make a non-water boat.

Our Advent prayer table. Using a red candle for Gaudete Sunday - he can't seem to find the rose candles and I have not had time to look.

All the Legos he is getting for Christmas either from me or from others? I got some free packages mixed in ;) To be clear - those freebies? they're mine ;)

History: He and I reviewed his progress on his Mystery of History Wall of Fame. He was half-way done, looking forward to finishing up two months ago, then had the idea to convert all his images to the computer. He wants to learn how to use Paint.net really well and thought this would be a great to do so. He is about 20 images in so far (doing 2-3 a day, about 3-4 days a week) - and his skills are definitely improving! He won't let me share until it is entirely done.

Confirmation Preparation: He worked on a card in his Confirmation notebook. He does 1-2 a day, 4-5 days a week, with about 4-5 cards actually done each week. (more information in another post)

Outside to gather up more fallen branches and sticks, sweep away some leaves, before snow falls again.

Natural creations: Made new batches of deodorant and toothpaste. Yes, he helps make this stuff.

We did some afternoon chores together, cleaned up the living room, discussed the most recent episode of Once Upon a Time and how grateful we are to have the movie Frozen with substantially fewer loose ends now. Elsa, Anna and their aunt (who also has ice powers) have been on Once Upon A Time this season - the aunt is something else, and it came to a sudden conclusion that at first made us all think, "What!? That was IT!? That is all it took? That was WAY too simple!" But if you go back to the "Love Experts'" (the trolls') song in Frozen:

"People don't really change... People make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed, But throw a little love their way - and you'll bring out their best. True love brings out their best!"

We only watched the movie this past summer when there was an intro of Elsa at the end of OUAT Season 3. I LIKED the movie, surprisingly enough, but SO MANY loose ends.

Most of them are now tied up. Why the parents left. Yes they threw a message in a bottle before they drowned. Are the powers genetically passed on or was Elsa cursed? Does Anna's love really withstand all things? Could she ever do something to harm Elsa? What is Christoff like when HE is grumpy? These and so much more. Legoboy appreciates the further depth to the story now! He is NOT a Frozen fan in general.

Faith Formation: Two lessons of Consecration in Truth - below his actual grade level, but the teaching is so meaty that he asked to go back to where we stopped. He did level 1 when he was in kindergarten-age, but we've not used it since then. So he picked up with level 2 today and we did the first two lessons.


Then it was time for tae-kwon-do.

Mystery shop at Dairy Queen. My favorite mystery shop ;) Legoboy's too.


45 minute drive home - yuck. Stuck behind 10-15 mile per hour traffic for NO apparent reason (two police cars in front of the traffic slowing everyone down).

Evening prayer.

Considered a nap. We had adoration at the church from midnight to 1 AM, tonight, in honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the upcoming Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe when Mary appeared to St Juan Diego with the unborn Jesus in her womb ---- this vigil/adoration is for the sake of all unborn children in our world.

Legoboy took a nap. When I woke him up, he stumbled around for about 5 minutes, then came to me and asked, "Did I fall asleep?" Yeah, just a little, kid ;)

after everyone in front of us left

That was his Monday (and a small part of mine).
Lots of faith formation. Can't complain ;)


I'll add: I looked up Fractals and we both discussed them. People keep mentioning them and it IS in the Frozen song "Let it Go". My personal opinion? Totally cool, totally fun. No need to introduce lesson plans or new materials for Montessori-educated children - just have a book or a chart about them to entice interest. These seem more a follow-up, a connection to art for sure - not necessary as a "key experience" because the key experiences that already emphasize patterns and history and further studies will lead the children down that path.
And if the children don't go there in elementary - then they have adolescence for it. 

Elementary - Sample of our Day

Here is our Monday morning thus far:
(please note, we have late evenings, so we also have late mornings - today was actually an early one!)

Rise at 8:30, morning prayers, morning chores, breakfast
(today he made wild blueberry fritters for us both)

Go over the contract for the week (this was already written out this past Saturday) - scheduled events for the week, any changes to chores or other routine tasks, mark down if particular academic items need to be done on a particular day, discuss questions, concerns, plans.

He's off to work on his Narnia unit study (a self-chosen project that incorporates many subjects) and a history timeline he is putting together; I've been working on an atrium project and two Garden of Francis orders. We are about 4 feet apart and come back and forth for occasional hugs, quick snuggles, he'll read to me favorite quotes he is writing out for his binder or show me the maps he's making.

Right now (11:40), he is preparing himself a snack of apple slices - he prefers to use a sharp knife rather than the corer/slicer because it wastes less apple and he can get thinner slices for sharing purposes. I do have to remind him that it is not a weapon as he likes to stab the apple as if he is hunting an animal.

When he is done, he plans to work on his faith formation lesson and practice for speech therapy.

This afternoon, he'll have speech therapy, then we meet with some ladies at the local atrium, followed by tae-kwon-do.

It doesn't look like we'll get to math today, but he'll have had history, practical life, geography, art, time management, grace and courtesy (interactions with me while I'm working; and with the ladies at the atrium as he assists us with our project there), family business (part of his morning chores was to take packages down to the mail-box), language arts, and organized movement. To make up for the "lack" of mathematics, we will likely play WFF: The Game of Modern Logic this evening before bed.