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!
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!
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!
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!
The Thief Lord By Cornelia Funke
Cassius got The Thief Lord audio book out of the library a few weeks ago and has listened to it non-stop ever since. I mean non-stop, even I have it memorized. I have to admit it crossed my mind that perhaps listening to the same story day after day was a waste of time. I suggested the other day that we go and buy the book since he enjoyed the story so much.
As soon as we got back to the car he took the book out and read the first chapter out loud – fluently! The last thing he had read to me before this was Dr.Suess, anything harder he was intimidated by. He wasn’t intimidated by The Thief Lord because he had heard all the words already. There are lots of Italian words and other tricky vocabulary that he otherwise wouldn’t have the confidence to guess at.So far he has read me four chapters. The writing is beautiful and Cassius reads it very theatrically. It’s amazing how in one year he went from not reading to reading novels. He’s very proud of himself and I’m very happy for him. And I thought he was wasting time!
Oh yeah – and the story takes place in Venice so we spent an hour researching all the locations on the internet. We even found a real picture of the bridge on the cover!
Cassius & Paris 