Bionicle Writing
MAKUTA ZETH
Makuta Zeth had been a loyal servent to Makuta for many years, but was banished when he fell for a trap the Toa had set. Ever since then he has been trying to take down the Toa, this has been made hard by the fact that Makuta has taken away his mask power.
MUTATED MATORAN
Ever since he was mutated, this Matoran has been trying to seek his revenge on the Matoran who fear him and attack him. His desire is to live with them and rule them. He has poison breath and can duplicate.
Bionicle come to the rescue once again. Cassius has been spending time on the lego network. He calls it Lego facebook. He has been posting pictures of his Lego creations and writing descriptions of them. He tells me what he wants to write and I write it out for him. He then copies it out on paper or types it – so he has been getting some writing practice I was so worried about!
An Unschooling Dilemma
How do you learn basic skills that don’t come up in daily life? If they don’t come up in daily life are they as necessary as we think they are?
Basic math seems to come up quite often. Contrary to popular belief I also believe algebra also comes up in daily life. I see algebra as a kind of way of using your brain to solve problems where you only have part of the information. You use the information you do have to figure out what the missing information must be. I’d love to find a concrete example of this.
How often do you use handwriting in a day? I noticed that I use it mostly to write lists and fill out forms, besides that I do most of my writing on a computer. I have also noticed that most people’s handwriting is elegible – which explains the PLEASE PRINT on most forms. We all know that although Doctors are very educated, but no one can read their writing besides pharmacists. (My mothers handwriting is beautiful, but she has written in a journal everyday for a few decades.)
The question of “How do you learn basic skills that don’t come up in daily life?” came up for me last week, after I asked Cassius to write down a grocery list of food he would like . He was complaining that there wasn’t any food he liked in the house. He insisted it was too hard for him because he couldn’t spell any of the words. He did make a short list which was all capitals and spelled incorrectly.
I had an unschooling panic moment “Oh no! I haven’t made my child do spelling tests, book reports, and write in a journal every day. He’s not going to know how to write or spell unless I make him! (more…)
P is for Paris
A much loved Christmas present from Auntie Tara
Paris is now three and a half. He is still taking things apart, but has developed a new obsession as well: The Alphabet
When I first put starfall.com on for him he couldn’t figure out how to use the mouse – but by two weeks later he had figured out not only how to turn the computer on himself, find starfall, work all the controls, and dump my hard drive into the trash – and he also managed to learn his alphabet too. I was a little worried about how much time he spent watching it – but had to admit his interest was high and he was learning super fast all on his own volition.
Just to make myself feel better I pulled out all the letter puzzles, cards & magnets, that every unschooler has at the back of their closet. We started doing the puzzles together and reading the books and he is thrilled. I am amazed about how much somebody can talk about letters. He talks about them non-stop.
Paris asks me to put my finger under the word I am reading in his Dr.Suess books.
Paris has added the Cat in The Hat to his beloved list of cats.
He is also interested in counting and has developed a very interesting strategy . He orders me the count things in a chant at the same time as him over and over again. He’ll count up to four then make the rest up but I can tell this is his way of figuring it all out.
Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic
Cassius: “I think all the characters are awsome. It’s a really good adventure story and most of the drawings are amazing. I like Bone’s cousins, Smiley Bone and Phoney Bone. They are funny.
The story is about Fone Bone and his two cousins, who get chased out of Boneville and get sepperated in the middle of the desert. Fone Bone meets a young girl named Thorn, who tries to help him find his cousins and get back to Boneville. They go on crazy adventures till they find his cousins. But when they find his cousins, his cousin Phoney Bone gets them into a lot more trouble. Then they have to save the valley as well as themselves.”
Artemis Fowl
Cassius and I are really enjoying the Artemis Fowl books. Cassius’ interest started by listening to a few of the audio books and now he wants to read the books himself. He’ll have to wait until I’m done the Opal Deception before he can read it though!
The First Artemis Fowl Book
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Cassius and I fell in love with this story told in pictures and words. We both read in a 24 hour period, separately, fighting over it.
Before turning the page into part two Cassius exclaimed, “Oh I got a that excited feeling in my heart – when I know I’m going to find out the answer to the mystery when I turn the page!” He turned the page and his eyes lit up. Then he turned the page again, “Oh I got that feeling in my heart again, all has been revealed to me!”
I don’t want to give away any of the story, except to say much of it is based on fact. We spent the week watching old black and white movies featured in the book and researching automatons.
Our Ultimate Tree Fort
our ultimate tree fort design
We have a very rickety tree fort in our back yard that we we have dreams of rebuilding. Cassius was telling me his good ideas and Paris brought me a pen and paper and told me to draw it. So we all sat down and decided what we wanted together. This is a very rough design obviously. We know we want a drawbridge, trap door, two levels, zip line, a pulley lift, a ball run, a catapult & a sandbox.
We found some great books on the web and ordered them from the library.
treehouse books.com
Eragon
Our present bedtime story is Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It is a story of good verses evil. We are finding it a little slow, but are still enjoying it. We were excited to find out that Christopher was homeschooled. He started thinking about the plot of Eragon when he was ten and wrote the first draft when he fifteen!
Free Audiobooks
Cassius and I have really been enjoying listening to these audio books from the University of Florida. They have stories for ages kindergarten to grade twelve. Cassius transfers the stories onto his little mp3 player and listens to them has he builds Lego and before he falls asleep. He really enjoyed the Invisible Man by H.G.Wells and is looking forward to Dracula and Frankenstien (a little light summer listening).
go to http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
or if you have iTunes:
– Open iTunes program
– Click to go to the iTunes Store
– Click on iTunes U on the left sidebar
– On the lower left sidebar is a list entitled, “Universities”.
– Find and click University of South Florida
– Click on the icon of the little boy, “College of Education”.
– In the center bar, find Lit2Go:Audio Files for k12
– It automatically opens the Spanish language resources. Click the
grade above.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Longfellow, Bronte, Austin, Dickens, Twain,
Frances Hodges Burnett, Bram Stoker, Aesop–it’s quite an extensive
collection. Plus lectures on mathematics and logic for high school
students. There are 24 universities listed, so if it’s a lecture on
Science, Technology and Society from MIT you’re wanting, this is the
place to go.
Murderous Maths
Cassius’ wonderful learning consultant forwarded us this message from another Self Design Parent:
“Murderous Maths – we have them all, and my son LOVES them. He does not understand all the concepts as they are quite sophisticated, but he enjoys reading the cartoons and jokes and he is getting the basic ideas behind the concepts as a result. When I purchased these, it was mainly for my own interest and I did not expect my 7-year-old would look at them, let alone walk around for days on end giggling whilst reading them. But he has – and I feel that some huge step has been taken for making Math fun and interesting and not about worksheets, or “boring sums” as per the back of each book (i.e. no boring sums are in these books).
The actual math in each book is clearly explained on this site: http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/. You’ll need to scroll a little. You’ll see why this is not Math for a 7-year-old – but he is getting the idea.
For some bizarre reason, these books are only published and distributed in the U.K. You can get them through Fun Books in the states.”
Since Cassius loves the horrible histories and I know he learns through humour I thought we’d try them out. They are wonderful! I’ve been up to midnight every night this week because I can’t put them down. Cassius has been reading all the cartoons and we’re half way through reading the first book together.
We actually can’t stop ourselves from working out the problems. In the first book Colonel Cancel needs to buy back his men’s clothes from Thag the Mathemagician. He has 13 pieces of clothes buy back. He can either pay a penny for the first and and double the amount for each following item (1 cent , then 2 cents, then 4 cents and so on), or he can pay one dollar for the first and one dollar more per item ($1 , then $2, then $3 etc.). Which way do you think would be the smartest way to pay?
These books aren’t just funny, they are intelligent. They really make math seem interesting and amazing. If Cassius reads all these books he’ll know more than I ever learned in school about math, even if he never does one boring sum.
Whatsthatdo?
When he’s not looking at tractor and train encyclopedias, Paris enjoys looking at How Things Work . He points at all the parts and asks “Oh! Whatsthatdo? Whatsthatdo?”
Working
While Cassius has been playing games Paris has been hard at work. When he hasn’t been leafing through Tractors of the World: 220 of the worlds great tractors, he’s been to breaking the toilet (again) and permanently locking the oven controls. But his favourite activity is to take the screws out of all of our toys, chairs, and cupboards. I don’t know where he finds the screwdrivers. I can never find one when I’m looking for one, and I don’t know where he’s hiding half the screws. If only I could get him to put the screws back in!
Chess
I have been trying to get Cassius to play chess with me for years. By the death of his first pawn he would become frustrated and decide he wanted to make up the rules himself. So we never got very far.
The other day he said he wanted to play, so we sat down for a game. I prepared myself for a miserable time. I didn’t get what I was expecting. I couldn’t believe I was playing with the same person who a few months ago would stomp off in anger after five minutes. He beat me good. I didn’t even see it coming. We played three games in a row. (The really amazing thing was that Paris let us play.) I did win once, and to my surprise Cassius just said “Lets play again!”
When exactly did he learn how to play? It certainly wasn’t by practicing. Again, my feeling that a lot of learning happens when we can’t see it, has been confirmed.
I was afraid to give him any tips because I know he’s going to be better that me before I know it. It’s great to play with someone who keeps me on my toes! We’ve left the board on the table, and play a game when we get up,before we go to bed, and many times inbetween. It’s really fun.
Unwillingly, I must admit that I suspect that Cassius’ recent obsession with Gameboy is to thank for his sudden transformation of abilities. Chess and Zelda both take concentration, strategy, and a willingness to fail and try again. Perhaps he was practicing chess by playing on his Gameboy. It’s very possible, but I still hate the thing!
The Tree
What has a big round bark but cannot bite?Any size it can go,Tall, high, or low.With the sounds of birds and other things,The sounds of birds flapping their wings.With creatures like snails and slugs,It is something that keeps us alive,Things hang off it like birds nests and behives.What is it?
A Tree
by Cassius
The Mountain
What grows but cannot move?
It’s high tops blessed with snow,
Covered with trees and rocks,
High to the clouds,
Nothing can travel to the top.
Those that do,
Are blessed with a magic nobody has.
What is it?
A Mountain
by Cassius
Paris’ Favourite Words (age 2.5 years)
Toot toot!
This means train. He chants “toot toot ride”, “boat ride” and “bus ride” like a mantra.
Guy
That’s Cassius
Big Guy
That’s what he is. If you say the word baby or you’re a (insert anything here), He’ll say I a big guy! If you won’t let him do something, he throws himself on the ground protesting, I a big guy. He really wants to be big.
Nooooo Waaayyyyy!
This means No.
Okaaay Mom or Okaaay Dad
This means Yes, but just because I’m feeling generous.
Mow mow & Bow wow
Cat & dog respectively. This morning he said tittytat for kittycat. He also likes to pretend to be a dog, especially when we are walking down the sidewalk. I’ve actually had people ask me if he can walk.
Caaww Caaww
This refers to a crow or any other bird
I do it!
This means he wants to do it himself- it meaning everything.
A Bee
I kept thinking he was terrified of imaginary bee’s, then I figured out he was saying help me!
Rat can cook?!
He said this after watching Ratatouille. He seemed to be thinking if a rat can cook, so can I!
Rome
Rome is another BBC/ HBO series that we really enjoyed. We watched two seasons in two weeks! Cassius is totally into Rome now and is going to be a Roman Centurion for Halloween. The week after we finished watching the series we had a no TV week and Cassius spent all his time reading about Rome in his 
Usborne History Encyclopedia.
The series is extremely well written. It really shows what the day to day life of a Roman would have been like. The story is also much more accurate than many past stories about Rome which have been portrayed on Film. Of course, I think they did take many dramatic liberties. And I wouldn’t recommend it for every kid; there’s lots of swearing, violence and sex in it. I love history, and a good story always inspires to me to go find out what really happened!
DK Ulimate Visual Dictionary
In the last seven years we have used this resource book more than any other. In fact it has been so loved that the cover is about to fall off. This week Cassius looked up the structure of a human eye and of an atom. Paris likes to find all the boats, trains & cars.
Blueberries for Sal
Our trip to the berry patch reminded me of one of our favourite children’s book: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McClosky
Amphibian or Reptile?
What’s the difference between an amphibian and a reptile?
We found the answer to Cassius’ question The Children’s Animal Encyclopedia which we have been using since Cassius was very young. We have sat for hours reading it together.
Microscopes
Lately we have acquired two microscopes. A small mirror one & a larger electric one. We experimented with both of them and definitely prefer the electric one. We are dreaming of getting a digital one that show the image on your computer screen
We have the microscopes set up permanently and Cassius often takes a look at things he’s found out side. Cassius has assembles quite a collection of bees,hives and butterfly wings. We’ve found that the smaller and flatter we make things the easier they are to see. Human hair has worked well. We would be like to be able to see even closer then we can (not all the lenses work so we have limited choice.)
We have been using this book which I recommend:
We did the first activity where you make your own microscope with a piece of board with a hole in it, plastic & a drop of water. It worked!
Earth
Cassius likes to create characters and stories for movies he would like to make. The following is some notes he dictated to me about a character he calls “Earth”:
- His eyes look like the earth and he can turn them all the way around. He causes the actual Earth to turn by turning his eyes. When people look at him a lot he blinks so they notice his eyes turning.
- He can transform into different animals – but he must act like that animal
- He has long black hair.
- He is as old as the earth, and actually created the earth, but looks like a teenager.
- He controls the weather. He can blow a storm out of his mouth.
- When he is angry there is a hurricane in the world. If he sad, it rains. When he’s happy, it’s sunny. When he’s in a bad mood it’s cloudy. When he’s sad and mad, there is a cyclone. When he is sad, mad, angry, and grumpy all at once you definitely don’t want to be around him because it’s crazy.
Comicbooks
Cassius loves comicbooks. They have really helped his reading skills and his money skills. Comics are a good for beginner readers because lots of the bubbles have large print sizes and simple words in them. There are lots of visual clues and you don’t need to be able to read everything to enjoy the story. Cassius started off by reading the POWS! & BANGS!
Kids love to collect things. Cassius started collecting comicbooks and all of a sudden money had value and meaning to him. He’s gone into the comic shop on his own three times. The second time he tried to buy something he didn’t have enough money for – so he was reluctant to go by himself again. Paris was asleep in the car so I said, “Here let me explain it to you?”. He had $15 dollars so I explained that as long as the numbers before the decimal point added up to $10 he should have enough money. (Not necessarily true I realize now – but oh well). I wrote some examples on a card of what he might see on the price tag. I’ve tried to explain money to him a thousand times and he’s never got it. Motivation makes such a big difference. He said, “Let me take that card with me,”and came back with a comic for $9.75!
Cassius & Paris 