Preparing to see Disney World

While we still "struggle" with the long division (Tammy can do it alright, but she takes forever), we have had great fun with language this past week:

Seats have not been booked yet, but it seems sure that Tammy's family will be off to the U.S. end of June. Disney World will definitely be on the intinerary, so Tammy and I have started to "study" this Disney World Guide. It loads faster than the official website and gives us everything we need.

I copy the text to a Word document and then we read it together, write down then new vocabulary and discuss the contents. Then we go back to the actual website and Tammy reads it to her family!! Great stuff!

So far we have done the home page on Disney World and introduction to Magic Kingdom. New vocabulary included words such as performance, recreation, destination, options, entertainment, unique, focus, specific, area, include, incredible. ("Incredible" is so "wow"! English is Tamerin's 2nd language and communication in either her home language or English has always been a very big challenge for her, so these words are "quite big"!) We practice the tongue twisters like specific by breaking them up into syllables as we have always done and she "reads" them aloud over and over until she can say them fluently.

For her spelling test on this weeks vocabulary, she scored 16/20! (Mistakes were: guid (guide), includ, (include) increadible (incredible) and imaine (imagine).

The discussion of the contents is very important. Tammy can tell you that 50 million people visit Disney World per year. She worked out how many visitors there are on average per day (50,000,000 / 365) and also what percentage visit Magic Kingdom. The practical math we have done at election time, is paying dividends! She can read thousands and millions and write down the numbers too! I am so proud of her. We also talked about Everest and checked on the globe where Nepal is. Will check tomorrow whether she still remembers what Everest is, but I am sure she does.

To reinforce the vocabulary (and facts), I make up sentences with missing words and give her the options to be filled in, in a box above the sentences. My aim is not to confuse or to test her, but simply to make language fun, to reinforce and to read with comprehension and focus! I use the same words again and again, but each time in a different context. Tammy has to read the whole sentence first and substitute the missing word with hmmm before she chooses the word from the box.

(I wish I knew how to blog word documents, but if I try to copy a word sheet, my blog refuses to publish it? Any suggestions?)

Anyway, typical sentences would be

entertainment / option / attractions / incredible / celebrate

There are many different things to do at Disney World. You even have the .............. to .................................. your wedding there.

The variety of shopping and ......................................... areas is simply ...............................................
One of the main ...................................... in Disney World is "Expedition Everest".

To help with choosing the right word, I refer to parts of speech such as verb, noun, adjective and adverb without making a big fuss. You need to know what verbs, nouns etc are when you use a dictionary and Tammy has to look up new words daily. When do children actually learn parts of speech in school? Grade 4? I haven't the faintest idea. We do not do "grade" work - we just do what seems necessary. Right now, being able to talk about the coming trip and to feel good about herself seem very, very necessary. (By the way, the looking up of words in the dictionary or telephone numbers, and fiddling with search engines form part of my vision of her working in an office one day. )

Homeschooling is the greatest!

Rugby, the National Anthem and the Olympics!

Tamerin's adding ability has slumped a little - when she works on paper, she usually does fine, but she is not really able to transfer her adding skills to every day life. She told me that she and her father were going to see the rugby test between S.A. and Argentina. I explained the game to her in very simple terms: How many members in a team, how they score a try (goal), what a conversion kick is, the basic rules and what happens if you break a rule (scrum / penalty kick). We then pretended on paper that there were two teams playing and added up the scores: The Springbucks scored a try and succeeded with the conversion kick: i.e. they got 5+ 2 = 7. points. They made a mistake and the Pumas (Argentina) succeeded with a penalty kick between the poles= 3 points. Which team was ahead? Then the Pumas scored a try and the Sprinbucks another try and so on and so on.

A lot of adding, but more importantly practice in the concept of more / less. Which team is ahead? How many points did the other team need to score to win? Tamerin has always been struggling with more, less, higher, lower (temperature/ price), etc. and subtracting is not her strong point. The rugby exercise gave us the opportunity to revise these basic calculations. I hope it helped her also to understand and enjoy the game more. Will talk some more about the rugby on Monday.

We also practised the National Anthem a little bit, but we did not have enough time to really learn it well enough to be able to sing along freely. We will continue with this: hopefully South Africa will get a gold medal in the Olympics, and hopefully we get to see the prize giving. Our anthem has four verses: one is Zulu, one is Sotho, one in Afrikaans and only the last one in English!)

This week we also talked a lot about the Olympics. Tamerin knows the alphabet and with a little help succeeds to find a word in the dictionary. However, she struggles to put words into alphabetical order. Last week I gave her six words (names of countries) each starting with one of the first six letters. (Angola, Brazil, Canada etc.)She easily ordered these alphabetically. This week we continued with the alphabet, but now I gave her two counties starting with the same letter, so that she had to look at the 2nd letter too e.g. Mozambique and Madagascar. She struggled a little more with these, but showed interest. She then looked if she could find the countries on the globe. Usually she found them quickly. I had thought that she would enjoy the Olypic parade when the countries come in in alphabetical order... only to find the came in in Mandarin alphabetical order! Oh well, I took her to play with a cousin on Friday, so I doubt that she even watched it. But at least, she had interesting practice in the alphabet and she knows about the Olympics.

I think it will be fun to watch some swimming or gymanstics with her next week (one of the perks of homeschooling), as long as we can combine it with numeracy (Who scored most points? Whose time was the fastest?)

We are also revising her Bible verses - a time of great blessing for both of us.

Fractions and dress patterns

Going to the shops, reading prices and counting money have been regular school activities. Amy knows that there are 100c in R1, that 1/2 Rand is R0.50, a 1/4 Rand is R0.25 etc. She also knows that if you have to divide 7 in half the answer is 7 1/2 or 7.5.

Part of her life skill plan is to learn to sew with a sewing machine. She has sewn a little: she practiced stitching without thread on lines on paper. She has also made a couple of bags - usually to put in Mother's Day cards etc. She is not fond of sewing because she dislikes the noise of the machine, but once we get started she actually enjoys it.

Amy and I went to the shop recently to search for a simple skirt pattern that she could make herself. She was not very enthusiastic, but agreed to a long A-line skirt with an elasticized waist. Her mother had long before bought material for a skirt, but they never got round to making it. I planned to let Amy use that material for making her skirt.

Today I let her read the back of the pattern to determine how much material was needed for the long skirt. (First I had to explain the difference between inches and cm and yards and meters and why we had to read the French side of the pattern. Fortunately my measuring tape has inches and centimeters) Anyway she could read that she needed 2 m for the long skirt. We then measured the piece of the material: 130 cm. It was not difficult for her to "translate" 130 cm into 1.3 m, since she is used to converting cents to Rands. She then had to see how much extra material she would need to make the long skirt: a subtraction sum and a visual measuring of 70 cm on the measuring tape. Once she realized that the material was not enough for the long skirt, she seemed quite happy to make the short one, and even showed her brother which pattern on the packet she was going to make.

Then we measured the width of the folded material: 72 cm. As the material was folded she had to add 72 + 72 to get the total width. The material is not the required the 150 cm, but what the heck, we cut out the paper pattern and tomorrow we'll lay it out on the material to see whether
the short skirt pattern will fit.

Once again I was amazed to see how much math's and reading go into a life skill like sewing a skirt. She had to measure and read the tape, she had to understand fractions, she had to subtract, she had to measure again, she had to add (double) and then she had to cut! There are so many opportunities to apply class room math's to every day life and each time it is fun. I can see how Amy blossoms each time when she succeeds with a new life skill!

I pray that the skirt will be a success and that she will be motivated to keep on sewing!

Holiday preparations - computer skills put to use

Amy's family are going to the coast next week. Besides counting the "sleepies" on the calendar each morning, she also worked out how many weeks there were i.e. she had to divide the days into 7. Besides the 2 times table, Amy does not know any tables yet, but with the abacus she was able to work out how many 7's there were in 18 etc. The 2nd 7 on the abacus (i.e. 8 - 14) is of course divided, so she had to remember that the group of 3 + the group of 4 make up one 7. She understood this quite well. We looked on the map where they are going and she looked up on the distance chart, how far that is (638 km). Then we worked out how long it would take to get there if one drove at 80 km/h, 90 km/h, 100 km/ h.

The next day we looked up the road on the road atlas: she had to look up to which page to go, find the route, follow it, and then see to which page she had to go next. Amy typed the different towns on excel and the distances between the towns as indicated on the atlas. We also worked out how long it would take for each distance more or less. Afterwards she added up all the distances and times with excel - the minutes had to be divided into 60, to work out how many hours the minutes made. Because we worked with estimations, the minutes came to an exact 180, so it was not difficult to work out the hours! Of course she also had to work out what time they would arrive: if they left at 6:00 it is 6+ 7= 13 , if they left at 12 it would be 12 + 7 = 19. Then of course she had to work out again what time 13:00 is on her watch. She looked thrilled when she started to remember without calculating that 17:00 is 5 o'clock etc.

Amy also typed in all the different toll gates (5 between Johannesburg and Durban would you believe!). If we can find out how much each one charges, she can work out how much cash her Dad should have ready. It would be good for her to count out the money - she loves doing this.

Amy also used a search engin to search for things she hope to see (dolphins and whales), as well as the place they are going to stay. I am amazed at how well she can read words like "search", "print" "back" etc. on the internet, yet takes her time to read the same words in her story book. I have tried since the beginning of the year to make Amy aware of road signs. She took note, but not as much as I have hoped. Yet when she saw lists of road signs in the atlas, she was clearly more intrigued. Today we drove a short distance on the highway and noted many different road signs - also that the routes have numbers - then we checked on the atlas again, and so on and so on.

These holidays have given us much opportunity to learn. How wonderful not to be bound by a curriculum, but to use life itself as it happens, as the curriculum.

Current activities

I finally seem to have created a blog. I am really rather stupid with these things... Why did I bother? To bully myself into keeping a journal of a very special journey with a very special child. I should have started in January, but I guess one month late is not too bad.

Literacy:
In January we started to read My Secret Unicorn: she has mastered at least two hundred new sight words including words like "in particular" and "impatiently". We do it through the matching, choosing, naming, and building sentences method. This book is quite difficult for Amy, but she chose the book and is quite determined to master it. We promised ourselves that she will be able to read all of it on her own by the end of the year. At the moment she can read till page 9 on her own, but is not very fluent yet. She can read "Kathy and Mark" - a grade 3 reader on her own.
Her speech is poor and communication a problem. I find that she does not distinguish between different questions e.g. when and where. I am trying to address it through questions posed on simple sentences e.g. "Mary went to school yesterday." Amy's concentration is usually not bad (she is not ADD), but I am surprised at how poorly she responds to questions. Perhaps her hearing should be tested.


Numeracy
She is not a hundred percent sure of bonds until 10 yet, but we are getting there through lots of repetition - about 80 similar sums a day. Practice, practice, practice. She quite enjoys this. However, I try to make most numeracy activities very practical: she weighs herself nearly every day, she measures her waist in cm, reads the temperature on a big thermometre (has to count in 2's here), she writes down the weather forecast etc. Counting money is a major activity. We shop every week and she cooks part of the family meal on Thursdays. Through preparing the budget, making up the list, checking the prices of purchases, checking the till slip etc., we have made more meaningful progress than through the whole of last year.
There is also much numeracy along the road: "Amy, what does the sign say? How fast may I drive? How fast am I driving now? (What comes between 60 and 80?)"

Life Skills: Physical exercise
She watches too much television and is very inactive. How to get her to be more physically active of own accord?? When we go for a walk, she walks very slowly and when we do exercises, she quite willingly does them, but because she is overweight and has poor muscle tone, she tires quickly and so do I. Besides our usual exercises (a dance, tummy exercises, stretching and trying to achieve a crab stand), we walked for a little more than a kilometre today - we measured the distance from door to gate: 120 metres and we walked the distance 10 times!

For tomorrow I plan more comprehension, dividing in two (making halves), spelling (she types all spelling on the computer) and sewing - she has sewn little bags for valentine's day on my sewing maching.

I love my job!