Stage fright is a real thing, even when your face isn't on the camera this time! ;)
Poor foot!
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Monday, July 20, 2020
New Video Partner for Keys of the Universe
My darling niece is taking the place of Joshua (Legoboy) for making some of our Keys of the Universe videos.
Here is a blooper sample from our first set of videos filmed in over 9 months.
She needs a screen-name.... Hmmm.....
Despite being a temporary invalid, all-new to Montessori and we're not filming in my normal location, she is a great video partner so far!
There was a hair stuck in her stress ball - looked like it was growing out of the ball.
Here is a blooper sample from our first set of videos filmed in over 9 months.
She needs a screen-name.... Hmmm.....
Despite being a temporary invalid, all-new to Montessori and we're not filming in my normal location, she is a great video partner so far!
There was a hair stuck in her stress ball - looked like it was growing out of the ball.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Legoboy's Schooling - What did he actually use?
The first Great Lesson story we tell in elementary is The Creation of the Universe or God with No Hands. This story tells of the creation of the universe and the formation of the earth, with the ultimate goal to demonstrate the laws of nature and the utter obedience of all particles to these laws.
Just about every child studies volcanoes so of course we did too! No particular resources used - videos, trips to our local museum, books.
He did fall in love with all things POMPEII! And as luck would have it, our local museum center had a special exhibit, so we picked up a few resources there: videos, books, cards.
The Story of God with No Hands opens up the Geography album. Within geography, we have studies on the universe, nature of elements, sun and earth, work of water, work of air, human geography, and economic geography. In addition to the Montessori experience, Legoboy utilized the following the most heavily:
- Trail Guide to World Geography
- Signs and Seasons (astronomy)
- Cycles: An Introduction to Astronomy and Time
- Solar System: A Visual Exploration of the Planets, Moons, and Other Heavenly Bodies that Orbit Our Sun by Marcus Chown
- Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe by Terrence Dickinson
- lots of videos, museum, outings
- Tuttle Twins
- various atlases and encyclopedias
- Home Science Tools for science supplies and the microscope
- Economic Geography Stamps - Montessori AMI-style
Monday, April 27, 2020
High School Work Plan
Legoboy and I have had a few life experiences in the last 3 years. These experiences have ranged from absolutely amazingly wonderful to the most terrifyingly horrific.
Needless to say, schooling had to work around and through life, as it always has for us: fully integrated and meeting our family's unique needs.
Legoboy and I worked together to develop his high school work plan. Way back when, we started with a daily work plans, moved to a weekly and a monthly (click on the "work plan" tag at the bottom of this post to see our other work plans through the years). Now, we can start looking at mapping out a multi-year education plan.
Legoboy was looking at college studies in architecture and started his high school plan with what those kinds of colleges were looking for in a potential's student's history. Together, we then compared those to the local high school requirements and developed a personal transcript form.
We then went through it and filled in names of courses and resources used for each. He organized which items he wanted to do in each year, if there was a preference or an order, so he could get a feel for where the non-preferences would naturally fit in.
A notebook contains our notes for each course, which flesh out the names of the resources on the transcripts, describe the required areas of study in each subject, desired areas of interest in each subject, final project for each subject and any other pertinent information.
Legoboy finished up all but one of the final 9th grade requirements in October of 2019, having already begun some of his 10th and even 11th grade plans. The plan was to take the month of November off, with the exception of finalizing his research paper which was more for fun than for academics.
He took the resources he was going to use for 10th grade and organized them out by the months of the school year. This wasn't a perfect document because some of the bolded main headings didn't make it onto the printed page from the Excel made he had created.
He really wanted to organize things into something akin to a block schedule. Fewer areas of focused study, more intensely, then swap it up. Just a few things were every month, including literature and apologetics.
Each month we were to read together at least one book of extra-cultural origin, with the goal of reaching around the world, with representative samples from each continent.
He was also continuing with his taekwondo (working towards second degree black belt) having started discussing 28 hours earlier about opening a school with his first instructor. Service projects and involvement in our church community as well as the community at large through various venues.
He had started applying for jobs and would have started driver's education in December.
The specific resources don't matter at this age as much as the planning, the organization - the personal responsibility and integrity.
But for those interested, here are some highlighted resources that suit Montessori educated students:
Needless to say, schooling had to work around and through life, as it always has for us: fully integrated and meeting our family's unique needs.
Legoboy and I worked together to develop his high school work plan. Way back when, we started with a daily work plans, moved to a weekly and a monthly (click on the "work plan" tag at the bottom of this post to see our other work plans through the years). Now, we can start looking at mapping out a multi-year education plan.Legoboy was looking at college studies in architecture and started his high school plan with what those kinds of colleges were looking for in a potential's student's history. Together, we then compared those to the local high school requirements and developed a personal transcript form.
We then went through it and filled in names of courses and resources used for each. He organized which items he wanted to do in each year, if there was a preference or an order, so he could get a feel for where the non-preferences would naturally fit in.
A notebook contains our notes for each course, which flesh out the names of the resources on the transcripts, describe the required areas of study in each subject, desired areas of interest in each subject, final project for each subject and any other pertinent information.Legoboy finished up all but one of the final 9th grade requirements in October of 2019, having already begun some of his 10th and even 11th grade plans. The plan was to take the month of November off, with the exception of finalizing his research paper which was more for fun than for academics.
He took the resources he was going to use for 10th grade and organized them out by the months of the school year. This wasn't a perfect document because some of the bolded main headings didn't make it onto the printed page from the Excel made he had created.
He really wanted to organize things into something akin to a block schedule. Fewer areas of focused study, more intensely, then swap it up. Just a few things were every month, including literature and apologetics.
Each month we were to read together at least one book of extra-cultural origin, with the goal of reaching around the world, with representative samples from each continent.He was also continuing with his taekwondo (working towards second degree black belt) having started discussing 28 hours earlier about opening a school with his first instructor. Service projects and involvement in our church community as well as the community at large through various venues.
He had started applying for jobs and would have started driver's education in December.
The specific resources don't matter at this age as much as the planning, the organization - the personal responsibility and integrity.
But for those interested, here are some highlighted resources that suit Montessori educated students:
- Cover Story and One Year Adventure Novel
- Mike Waski's Algebra and Geometry resources
- Life of Fred
- Ramsey Solutions - Foundations in Financial Peace
- Generation J Camp
One thing he was REALLY looking forward to and we were starting to case out a few options:
Speech. Read: DEBATE. He wanted to master the fine points of debate. ;)
I wish he had lost the final debate of his life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)