Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 8

This week's schedule is a busy one for us. The NC Science Festival starts this week and we plan on going to a bunch of events in addition to our regular classes.

Week of	English Reading	Math
March 31 - April 4
Monday	Phonics clue - Finger blocking Phonics - ai blend Sight words - like, was, have, one, what (review) Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - ch 11 Alice's Adventures in Math Land SpotIt Math circle - integration, slopes
Tuesday	Phonics clue - Finger blocking Phonics - ai blend Sight words - were, we, said, Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 12 Logic Links Alice's Adventures in Math Land
Wednesday	Words all over me (from Wordplay) Phonics - ai blend Sight words - use, how Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 13 Alice's Adventures in Math Land Yatzee!
Thursday	I SPY sounds (from Wordplay) Phonics - ay blend Sight words - review all as Nerf practice Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 14 Alice's Adventures in Math Land TipOver
Friday	Packing for adventure (from Wordplay) Phonics - ay blend Sight words - review all as a "make a story" card game Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 14 Alice's Adventures in Math Land Blokus

Reading - the tips from the Reading Rescue 1-2-3 book seem to be working! I'm very excited! Reading no longer seems to be a torture and an ordeal. So I read a paragraph first; then we re-read it together; then Monkey reads it by himself. His reading has become a lot more fluent. He remembers and understands the text much better. Most important of all, he actually wants to read. Sometimes he insists on going well past our 10 minute practice reading. Nor is he afraid to tackle Stage 2 early readers. He even attempts to read on his own (LEGO magazines) and does fairly well.

Writing - that one is still a struggle. I gave up on worksheets some time ago since he is one of those kids who is absolutely crushed by repetitive meaningless (to him) work. So instead he writes a journal. Except his is a story. He just finished his first story "Spy Kids Minecraft Adventure" and is working on his second, "Brain Attack" (fan fiction inspired by Lego Hero Factory). He dictates a couple of short sentences to me and then writes one or two down himself. Writing is still a huge struggle for him - the mechanics is so difficult that there's simply no energy/processing capacity left for spelling work. But at least he's writing a little bit every day.

Math - Monkey's math is very uneven. For example, he watched this "Measuring Coastline" video and, at 4:10 mark announced: "so, he's making a fractal. So, in math, coastline is a fractal." And a few seconds later - "the length will get longer and longer and will be infinity". Or like at today's math circle, where he showed a LEGO pyramid he made, except that it wasn't "filled in" (looked like 4 sets of stairs that met at the top). Another boy said it wasn't a pyramid since it was hollow inside. To which Monkey said that it didn't matter because you can imagine it filled in. Or when he takes just a couple of seconds to figure out how to quickly add "11+22+33+44+55+66+77+88+99". But doing arithmetic within the first 100 is still a struggle and he still gets 12 and 20 confused (names and symbols, not the actual quantities).

Extra stuff this week - the weather is very nice (finally) and warm, so we plan on being outside as much as possible. There's a small natural playground at a nearby park and Monkey loves it there. Plus we can go down to the creek and explore rocks there. There are also the usual fencing practices this week, although we will be skipping yoga. Instead of yoga, we will go on a rock hound tour in the Downtown.

More extra stuff this week - Exploring Energy and the Environment, Landfill Safari, a star party at a local park, a science and technology expo and the NC Literary Festival. Oy vey! Busy week, what did I tell you!

Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 7

With all the camping-related chores, I've just finished our schedule for next week (my cat seemed to have broken the Blogger's upload images function, so I'm using my Flickr account this time):

Week of	English Reading	Math
March 24-28
Monday	Train the ears - rhyming Phonics - ea blend - Let's Read Sight words - be, he, are (review) + for, have Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	5-a-day - one-digit subtraction Code.org - Stage 5, challenges 5-7 Math in your hands - ch 4, 5 Math circle
Tuesday	Train the ears - suitcase game, silly commands game Phonics - ea blend - Let's Read Sight words - be, he, are, for, have (review) Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	5-a-day - one-digit subtraction Logic links Math in your hands - ch 6, 7 Алиса в стране математики
Wednesday	Train the ears - same or different game Phonics - oo blend - Let's Read Sight words - was, or Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	5-a-day - vertical and horizontal +/- formats Code.org - Stage 5, challenges 8-10 Math in your hands - ch 7 Алиса в стране математики
Thursday	Train the ears - take words apart Phonics - oo blend - Let's Read Sight words - one, by, what + was, or (review) Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	5-a-day - vertical and horizontal +/- formats Math in your hands - ch 8, 9 Алиса в стране математики
Friday	Train the ears - put the words together Phonics - oo blend - Let's Read Sight words - review all Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - ch 10 Алиса в стране математики

Camping Skills

 This weekend, during a very brief warm-weather spell, we went camping to the Pilot Mountain. Monkey was very excited. He wanted to go camping ever since our last trip last October. Except this time he wanted to do it "survival style" which meant "not sleeping in a cabin" and "not buying food at a grocery store".

 So we did stay in the tent. Not the little "Minecraft tent" in the picture. But a larger red and grey Coleman tent. But Monkey was busy working on his DIY.org Camping badge. So he wanted to build a little shelter for himself (with Papa's help)

 Then we hiked the trail all the way to the top. Couldn't go no further from there but down. Let me tell you, it was a tough trail - 2 miles (each way) of steep incline, uneven ground, roots, rocks, lots of climbing. The park brochure says "strenuous".

 The view from the top was amazing. We watched the birds, ate sandwiches, said hi to mountain climbers.

 Back to the camp - another opportunity to work on the badge. Trying to make fire with some tinder and a magnesium block.

 Well, that didn't work so well (the tinder caught fire, but the kindling got stubborn).

Papa used the matches and some time later we were grilling hotdogs (and other, more gourmet food).

Then there was lots more exploring around the campsite and watching the fire until it got too cold and Monkey got too sleepy. And the next morning the weather turned bad with a heavy cold rain. So we went home. But we'll be back for more of the good stuff!

Week 6 Wrap-Up

I'm posting this late and in a hurry. The week went well even thought the weather was mostly between bad and horrible. Still, we somehow managed to have lots of playdates and lots of fun. And, once the weather finally got better, we even caught up on our outdoors adventures.

Monkey started regular writing practice this week. It's an uphill battle for now, especially since he gets so ambitious. For his first ever writing journal, he decided to write a story called Spy Kids Adventures in Minecraft. So far he's got two pages done, each with a sentence and a little xkcd-style drawing.

We started reading "Приключения Алисы в стране математики" (Alice's Adventure in the Math Land). Monkey doesn't know the original Alice in Wonderland story and wasn't very interested in the audio-CD. But, from what I understand, no prior knowledge is necessary to enjoy Alice's new adventure. In the first few pages, there's a little story about a knight and a 3-headed dragon. The knight chops the dragon's head off, but three more heads grow out.

I suggested we pretend-played this part with the Zome tools. So Monkey built a sword and I built a dragon (well, the neck and the three heads) and we got the epic battle started. Every time one head got "chopped off", I replaced it with three more necks and three heads. After a few attempt to circumvent the rule of chopping off just one head at a time, he said: "Ok, I need to build a better sword. It will be a fractal sword". Which was pretty cool, I thought.

Another cool memory from last week was playing the "black box" game. I would come up with a simple function and keep it secret from Monkey. He then would give me a number, I would apply the function, and tell him the result. His mission - to guess what function was inside "the black box".

The first function was adding 2 to whatever number. He figured it out very quickly, The next one was doubling. This too was done after 3-4 trials. We briefly discussed the idea of a variable, a symbol that is not a number, but can represent any number. The third "black box" was the hidden rule of a number getting subtracted from itself so that no matter the input, the output is always 0. Monkey thought a moment, then said "I'm going to put a number "x" into the black box". Which meant, of course, that I had to reveal my rule on the very first try. He was delighted.

Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 6

Once again the weather is throwing a wrench into our plans for park playdates and yardwork. I guess, we'll concentrate on the academics then. So here's this week's schedule (subject to change, as usual):

Week of	English Reading	Math
March 17-21
Monday	Let's Read 5 min of practice reading from a Stage 1 or Stage 2 early reader	5-a-day arithmetic - multi-digit addition (no regrouping) Math for All Seasons Kangaroo
Tuesday	Let's Read 5 min of practice reading from a Stage 1 or Stage 2 early reader	5-a-day arithmetic - multi-digit addition (no regrouping) River crossing puzzle See You Later, Escalator!
Wednesday	Let's Read 5 min of practice reading from a Stage 1 or Stage 2 early reader	5-a-day arithmetic - multi-digit addition (no regrouping) What comes next? (function machine + patterns) Visualpatterns.org - 1-2 puzzles
Thursday	Let's Read 5 min of practice reading from a Stage 1 or Stage 2 early reader	5-a-day arithmetic - multi-digit addition (no regrouping) Functions - reverse engineering Graph paper programming
Friday	Let's Read 5 min of practice reading from a Stage 1 or Stage 2 early reader	5-a-day arithmetic - multi-digit addition (no regrouping) Code.org - Stage 5 (artist) Алиса в стране математики

Reading: Yep, I know, I said I was going to switch to a different textbook. But then I decided against it. Here's why - at this point I think Monkey would be considered a struggling reader (if he was to attend school). His progress is very slow and very painful and our reading lessons have been torturous to both of us. Fortunately, I picked up Reading Rescue 1-2-3 book at the library. I read and felt like somehow Peggy Wilber peeked in on our daily struggles. So I made some changes to the Friday reading lesson and it worked! Monkey read flawlessly and, most importantly, enjoyed the lesson. So I'm going to continue using the same Let's Read book, but we'll use the techniques from Reading Rescue 1-2-3 in our lessons.

Writing: I haven't talked about writing we do because Monkey does so little of it. Essential tremors (and other fine motor issues) make it very hard for him to write well. And he knows that. And gets very frustrated. But this weekend we picked up an electric typewriter as a flea market. He seems very excited and has already typed a short (and full of typos) Classifieds ad for his new idea - a Minecraft Explorers club for kids.

Math: This week we will continue working on the arithmetic problems, doing 5 of them each day (plus a bonus extra-hard one, which is not mandatory, but he usually does it to show off). Monkey's been enjoying programming, so we will spend a lot of time exploring functions and doing some more Code.org classes. 

Today we had Monkey's friend over (the one he built a robot with last week). Monkey showed him how the typewriter works and suggested they would write a program for their next robot. Midway through pecking on the keys, Monkey stops and asks me: "Mama, please help, I can't find the "Repeat until" and the "If... then..." buttons!

Extra activities: This week we will have the math circle where the kids will continue explore objects of revolution and sliceforms. Monkey will also have his regular yoga and fencing practices and an engineering club. Since we plan on going camping next weekend, Monkey decided to put together a survival kit (with Papa's help) and a water filter (with my help). So this is also in our plans. And, if the weather gets nice again, we'll have more playdates and adventures at the local parks.

Week 5 Wrap-Up

The week flew by in a kind of blur, at least for me. Monkey had lots of playdates and some school. The highlights of the week, as far as I can remember included the first meeting of our Inspired by Calculus math circle, return of yoga classes, Pi day and programming.


Math circle - bodies of revolution was the topic and kids learned how some objects could be made out of rotating curves. He really enjoyed playing with the String Spin applet making some pretty cool objects. And then we sat down to figure out what would happen to a thick book if we were to open it so that its front and back covers touched. We used an old romance novel to model the idea. As a result, we have a pretty new math sculpture that so far has been a hit with our guests, kids and adults.

Yoga - yoga classes started again on Tuesdays. The group is a bit smaller this time, but all the old friends are there. And the kids have so much fun!

Programming - Monkey and his friend got out our old LEGO WeDo set and, unsupervised, built their first robot. It was to be a spybot. They added two sensors - a light sensor and a tilt sensor - to it and hid them very well in the bricks. Then they demanded to program it. I quickly showed them WeDo and they got to work. After about 20 minutes they had a robot that would do the following:

1. Whistle at you until you get closer to it.
2. Stop as you get within 6 inches of it.
3. Show a warning message on the computer screen.
4. Show a different message on the computer screen.
5. Show a third message and make shooting noises if you decide to pick up the spybot.

They had so much fun and wanted to program more. Now they are talking about how they will build a robot that they can race.

Pi Day - Monkey and I explored the relationship between radius of a circle and its circumference. We measured (with string) lots of circles - a cup, a plate, a pot, and tried to predict how many diameters would fit into each circumference. It was interesting how Monkey originally thought that a larger circle would have more diameters in its circumference. So, for a cup it was "3 and a little bit" diameters = its circumference, but for a plate he predicted 4 and a little bit and for a pot - 5 and a little bit. We tested and found out that it was always 3 and a little bit. At this point, Monkey seemed really impressed that all spheres and circles would have the same ratio, "even stars!" So we got him a Bayblade to celebrate. But when I asked Monkey what would the ratio be for the Bayblade, he said it was going to be 2 and a little bit or even 1 and a little bit. So turns out, he generalized pi for all circles larger than the one we started with, the cup, but not for all the ones that are smaller. So we got to work again and measured Bayblade with a string.

And the weekend was filled with even more playdates with friends, a trip to the nursery (he built ramps and roads out of rocks and sticks while we chatted with the owner), helping Papa with a project, and wrecking all sorts of havoc in Minecraft.

Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 5

Another week and it looks like the spring is really here to stay. But who knows. We've been fooled before. Still, I'm leaving plenty of room in the schedule for playing outside with friends, working in the yard (me - on pulling poison ivy; Monkey - on digging up and exploring rocks), and on trips to various creeks in the area.

Here's this week's schedule:

Week of	English Reading	Math
March 10-14
Monday	Let's Read - Lesson 67 Explode the Code 2	Funny Arithmetic MindWare Logic Links Treasure Quest game
Tuesday	Let's Read - Lesson 68 Explode the Code 2	Moscow Puzzles Labyrinth game
Wednesday	Let's Read - Lesson 69 Explode the Code 2	Funny Arithmetic Moscow Puzzles Connect 4
Thursday	Let's Read - Lesson 70 Explode the Code 2	Kangaroo Yatzee! Roads, Rivers, Rails game
Friday	Let's Read - Lesson 71 Explode the Code 2	Kangaroo Board game of choice

We are finishing up the second Explode the Code workbook this week! Hooray! This will also be the last week (I think) that we're using the Let's Read book. I like it ok, but if we follow it, we'll only get to long vowels sometime this summer. And without long vowels Monkey can't begin to read all those Stage 1 Early Readers we now have about pirates, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, treasure, and such. So we'll switch to a different book next week.

Math this week is mostly going to be a combination of puzzles and games. We will do some arithmetic word problems from the Russian book that he really enjoys. The new game that I want to try with him is Labyrinth (got it at the flea market for $5 this weekend). He seems excited to play it. Oh, and our calculus-inspired math circle starts this Monday.

Yoga starts again this week! And fencing continues (he's the shorty with a fencing foil on the pic above).  And we continue with the Engineering club on Thursdays. 

Does It Make You Smarter?

Last Friday I took Monkey to a Teen Science Cafe for a talk on wearable robotics. Since Monkey's only 7 and the talk was actually very involved (even for fairly well educated and intelligent adults), I wasn't sure he got anything out of it. The talk was essentially about the research on and the design of a device (a boot of sorts) that helps stroke victims to walk easier.

On the way back, Monkey mentioned that now he wants to invent a robotic exoskeleton arm that would steady his arm and give it more punching power. Urghh, I thought. Here we go, the only thing he seemed to remember is the mention of the Iron Man at the beginning of the presentation.

Then today we met with some friends for a hike and a playdate at a park. The kids got to run around, splash in the water, and occupy a small rocky outcropping in the stream that they called their pirate island. Monkey's friend, D., was limping a bit (a sports injury).

Later tonight, hours after the playdate, Monkey asked me if there was an expression in Russian that went "хромой всегда умнее" (the one with a limp is always smarter). I was intrigued. I told him that as far as I knew, there was no such expression. Then I asked for his own take on this matter.

Monkey said that he doesn't think a limp would make anyone smarter. In fact, he said, it would do just the opposite because "some of the brain processing would go to figuring out how to place the foot so it wouldn't hurt". As a result, a person with a limp would not have as much brain power left to for other thinking.

When I mentioned Grandpa, whom Monkey absolutely adores and who happens to limp, Monkey said that the rule only worked with children since Grandpa, like other adults with a limp, has been limping for a while and "his brain got used to it".

Turns out, D (who also speaks Russian) told Monkey about this "saying". I think we'll discuss the Russian word хитроумный (cunning; keen) tomorrow.

Week 4 Wrap-Up

The week started so awesome! We had a beautiful warm day on Sunday - worked in the yard, then when on a discovery stroll at a nearby park, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. By the way, the picture above is from the park where Monkey got to have a real adventure crossing a creek, first - over rocks, then - over fallen trees.

But on Monday it was like Winter: Part 2 here, complete with icy rain and SNOW. Schools got cancelled. The first meeting of our calculus math circle got cancelled. The rest of the week was just as bad even when snow was replaced by lots cold rain. Although Treetops classes don't get cancelled because of the weather (one of the benefits or drawbacks, depending on whom you ask, of homeschooling), I made a few changes to the plans. Mostly because I was getting through a mild cold this week. And also because the book I co-authored was featured in The Atlantic. So yeah, lots of stuff going on.

We officially signed Monkey up for fencing classes. He's very happy and ready to be there four days a week. He also got real gear, including a mask, a glove and, most exciting of all, a real fencing foil!

Monkey's favorite this week, as far as homeschool goes, was working on different math puzzles (I've downloaded the Moscow Puzzles book), logic puzzles by MindWare, and playing with Zome tools. We worked on a Zome contraption and then he used it to blow bubbles - always fun. Along the way we discussed symmetry and figured out that our contraption had a glide reflection symmetry. Afterwards, Monkey came up with a "glide symmetry" dance, the "just symmetry" dance, and the "no symmetry at all" dance to the tune of "Everything is Awesome" (from the Lego Movie).

His other project was a new comics. This one was called "Bakugans against Pirates". He staged everything and I helped him take pictures and write down the story. Sometime later this month I'll get the pictures printed out and he'll work on a new book.

Finally, he got a chance to make some money (and practice some math) today when he helped us pack all those Moebius Noodles books we sold after the article in The Atlantic came out (and got picked up elsewhere on the internets). He's going to help us some more tomorrow he said.

Some of Monkey's Lego Builds

This week's big adventure was a trip to the LegoFest. Last time LegoFest was in our city, Monkey just turned 4 years old. And he wasn't all that interested in Legos. Sure, he had a couple of sets and some loose pieces. But he really wasn't into building things. And then, after that first LegoFest his Lego building just exploded.

He still builds almost every day. Most of his models are pretty small. Some can get rather elaborate like this one above where he built Treasure Island with a cave, a bunkhouse, a swamp and a zipline for Jim Hawkins and Doctor Livesey . And he still dreams of building a Death Star from scratch (he tried, but ran out of Legos).

Part of a very large and very elaborate space craft manufacture and astronaut training facility.

Space command troop carrier.

Must be a frat house for clone troopers.

TIE-fighter.

Robot-explorer (with the mandatory laser) and a Moon buggy.

Another version of the astronaut training center. Centrifuge is in the background.

Hero Factory Hero (from lots of loose parts, assembled at LegoFest 2014)

A pyramid to be placed in the Creation Nation Nevada during the LegoFest 2014.

Multi-purpose space vehicle built out of whatever loose parts were not too deep in the bins during the LegoFest 2014.

Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 4

Spring is here! Neither Monkey nor I want to wait 21 more days to welcome it. Not with the nice sunny warm weather like we've been having lately. So this is our schedule for next week, the first week of spring.

Week of	English Reading	Math	Other
March 3-7
Monday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2 Intermediate phonics - S blends	5 problems - addition/subtraction to 100 without carrying over The Search for the Mystery Planet	Coding lessons at Code.org
Tuesday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2 Intermediate phonics - R blends	5 problems - addition/subtraction to 100 without carrying over Yatzee! IQ Fit
Wednesday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2 Intermediate Phonics  - L blends	5 problems - addition/subtraction to 100 without carrying over Look Both Ways: City Math Zome Tools (free build and bubbles)
Thursday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2 Phonics Tales - Sleepyhead Sloth	5 problems - addition/subtraction to 100 without carrying over Look Both Ways: City Math Zome Tools
Friday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2 Phonics Tales - Stan the Pest	5 problems - addition/subtraction to 100 without carrying over Yatzee! Look Both Ways: City Math	Coding lesson at Code.org

So pretty much things will stay as they are. We'll continue working on consonant blends, including th-, ch- and sh-. We'll use more early readers this week, primarily the ones I download from the Progressive Phonics website. 

Math - the first couple of weeks we spent a lot of time on arithmetic. Then last week we did more puzzles and stories. This week I plan on a mixture of both. There will be 5 daily arithmetic problems plus Yatzee! But the rest of the time we'll do puzzles, play with Zome Tools, and read math stories from the Look Both Ways: City Math book (another awesome thrift store find). Also, this week we will start another math circle. I co-produce it and Monkey gets to attend it. This math circle is called Inspired by Calculus and the first week's topic is Surfaces of Revolution. If you are interested in the course, follow its progress on Moebius Noodles.

At last week's Engineering club the kids were introduced to coding via Code.org. Now, Monkey's always been interested in programming, ever since I showed him Scratch when he was 4. But only now he really wants to play with it. And he's thrilled to have found Code.org because it feels like a game (and it has Angry Birds!) So he asked to work more on it during homeschool. No problem! Adding it to this week's plan.

Other things scheduled for this week are our weekly Young Engineers Club, StormFest (an annual event organized by the Museum of Natural History), and a Science Cafe about wearable robotics (again, at our highly awesome Museum of Natural History). The Science Cafe is geared toward teenagers, but given Monkey's deep interest in everything robots, I think he will really like it.

No yoga this week, but we will continue with fencing. Monkey is still super-excited and is trying very hard. The practices are long, two hours each. So he's really tired at the end. Last time he actually got to practice with a foam "sword" (and wear a REAL fencing mask - a dream come true for him). So at the end of two hours his hands were visibly shaking. But he's happy and wants to keep going. Hooray!

Week 3 Wrap-Up

Looks like winter is over and done with and so is Week 3 at the Treetops. We wrapped up our cozy math circle on Wednesday with a few more challenges and, finally, a long-anticipated search for treasure. We also wrapped up our yoga sessions. Next block will start in mid-March. Monkey played with Silk and created this mandala for his yoga instructor, Mrs. T.

Homeschool was a bit bumpy this week. Lots of "do I really have to do this?!" and complaining about school in general. But we also had some terrific moments. Like when Monkey decided to start his own comics production and publishing company. He immediately set to work and created 2 issues - The Lost Treasure Map, followed shortly by The Lost Math.

Or when I picked up a copy of the Indiana Jones: Indy's Adventures Step 1 reader at a used books store and Monkey read almost all of it by himself and asked for more. And, as if reading my mind, he started his own exploration of homeomorphism with rubber bands and Legos. He built a mini-geoboard out of Legos and showed me how he could turn a rubber band circle into different shapes. The three handcuffed minifigs led to a little algebra investigation - how many pairs of handcuffs would Monkey need if he wanted to cuff every minifig in his collection (we estimated that to be around 40) if he used 1 pair for 2 minifigs.

Then later in the week he worked very-very hard on one of the Mathmania's puzzles, tried lots of different approaches until he finally figured it out. The problem was to place numbers 1-8 on the grid in such a way that no two consecutive numbers touch vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

When we played Catan Jr, Monkey came up with a pretty sophisticated strategy that allowed him to catch up to me first and then turn the game around so that every time it was my turn, only he would get the resources, trade or build. His previous strategy was built around getting Coco cards and no paying much attention to anything else in the game.

So all in all, it was a good week. On to the next one!