Treetops Academy Schedule - Week 3

Coding a secret word in binary system at the Young Engineers Club.

Surprise-surprise, Monkey actually knows the name of our homeschool. Which is funny because I only mentioned it in passing a couple of times 2 months ago. It must had been really important to him.

Next week's schedule is ready. Here's what it looks like:

Week of	English Reading	Math
February 24-28, 2014
Monday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2	Homeomorphism - play with string/rope Three houses puzzle - try again, discuss Mathmania (pink)
Tuesday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2	Homeomorphism - letters, numbers Gauss's problem Mathmania (pink)
Wednesday	Progressive phonics - "ch" sound reader Explode the Code 2	Mathmania (pink) The Search for the Mystery Planet
Thursday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2	Mathmania (pink) The Search for the Mystery Planet Two-Dimensional Nim
Friday	Let's Read Explode the Code 2	Mathmania (pink) The Search for the Mystery Planet Rainbow Logic game

I've added Progressive Phonics readers to our schedule based on the tip from Natalie of the wonderful Afterschool for Smarty Pants (which is a terrific blog if you're looking for what to read to/with your child next). We tried one of the Progressive Phonics readers last week and Monkey liked it enough that I'm now adding this resource to our lessons. 

Math this week will be most about arithmetic, but also logic puzzles (all from an old issue of Mathmania magazine). I noticed that Monkey is spending lots of time tangling pieces of rope and twine (he doesn't tie knots yet). So I think next week we'll do a bit of topology/knot theory inspired by this old post on Moebius Noodles. Plus we'll look at the letters of the alphabet to see which ones can be morphed into others without cutting/gluing. 

This is this week's math storybook, The Search for Mystery Planet (another awesome find from our favorite thrift store). I'm not planning too many games for this week, but both the Two-Dimensional Nim and the Rainbow Logic are from the Family Math book. 

Finally, this week is the last yoga class. Monkey wants more yoga, but I'm not sure if it will be offered in the spring and if yes, what would the schedule/cost be. He will also go to at least one fencing practice (maybe even two). This is also going to be the last winter session of our Math Circle (we will take a month-long break from our little Math Circle so we can attend a different local Math Circle). On Thursday we will go to the Young Engineers Club. And on Friday... oh boy, the most exciting of all, is the LEGO FEST!

Week 2 Wrap-Up

Week 2 is over and we pretty much stayed on schedule. No more crazy weather, so all our extracurricular activities happened as planned. Plus we managed to have a few unplanned playdates.

One thing I added to the math schedule for this week was a few videos from a course I'm taking via Coursera.org. The course is called Symmetry: Beauty, Form and Function. The intro to the course starts with the words "Symmetry is everywhere". As soon as Monkey heard me read that he got very excited since he's been obsessed with symmetry for a while now. He exclaimed: "you see, Mom, that's just what I've been saying!" and wanted to watch the course's videos. He got through the first week's lectures although they started getting too formal too soon. But we are on a lookout for symmetry everywhere we go.

This is something we've explored in the past as well and it's interesting to see how Monkey's understanding of the concept deepens and becomes more complex. For example, a few months ago, if I were to show him my cell phone and ask if it was symmetrical, he'd say yes. But last week, when asked, he said a cell phone was not symmetrical when viewed from the front because the buttons on the opposite sides of the mirror line didn't have the same letters/symbols. I asked him what if all the buttons were blank and he said it'd still not be symmetrical because the camera lens was off to one side and so was the charger port.

We also talked about glide symmetry and rotation symmetry and how we can create tiling designs by reflecting, rotating and gliding the same image over and over and over. And we talked a bit about tessellations. I wanted to try making a few the old-fashioned way, with paper, scissors and some colored pencils. Monkey, on the other hand, had no interest in this approach, but spent a lot of time creating beautiful designs in KaleidoPaint app (he called the design above "Eyes")

In the Engineering club this week the kids were building bridges. The task was to build a bridge with a 2-foot span. They were given lots of clear tape, drinking straws, twine and 3x5 cards. The bridge had to hold as many pennies as possible. Surprisingly, Monkey went with a very simple solution (some kids started off with ambitious projects like building drinking straw trusses or suspending their bridges with twine). His bridge performed beautifully and held 130 pennies.

We also made it to an intro to fencing lesson and Monkey loved-loved-loved it. It was difficult for him, but he tried real hard and declared that he wants to continue with fencing. This is the only sport practice (other than yoga) that he wants to participate in. Anything else we offer - gymnastics, soccer, karate, swimming - is met with a resounding "no".

Treetops Academy Schedule - Week 2

From the last week's snow and ice-storm, Monkey came up with a new word - "ice-o-lated" as in "Look Mom, every twig got ice-o-lated and makes a cool jingling noise when I shake it!" 

The full name of our little home school is Treetops Free Learning Academy. I think the "free" part is a good description of our attitude toward specific curriculum choices. We don't follow any. Or rather, we don't follow any specific curriculum for any length of time or with any strictness. 

I can't say we do the whole unschooling thing, but we are definitely leaning that way. The only two classes that are mandatory here are English reading and math. The rest follows the interests of Monkey. 

But even when it comes to English and Math, our schedule is like a multi-colored quilt and much of it is shaped by Monkey's own ideas, like this one. Although English lessons tend to be more regimented (and, possibly because of that, are less loved). I'm still trying to figure out a better way of going about teaching a 7-year old the insane rules of English grammar.

Week of	English Reading	Math
February 17-21, 2014
Monday	Let's Read - Lesson 54 Explode the Code 2	KenKen app MathMania - 3 logic/reasoning puzzles that aren't very heavy on arithmetic How many ways to fold a square into halves, quarters? Imagine that a teapot had two spouts game
Tuesday	Let's Read - Lesson 54 part 2 Explode the Code 2	Yatzee IQ Fit puzzle DIY pattern guesser game
Wednesday	Let's Read - Lesson 55 Explode the Code 2	TipOver puzzle How to make 12 Make your own tesselation, add mirror books Tesselation scavenger hunt around the house Math Circle
Thursday	Let's Read - Lesson 56 Explode the Code 2	Yatzee The Story of Chu - play with tangram The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure - Sailing, Sailing
Friday	Let's Read - Lesson 57 Explode the Code 2	Treasure Quest puzzle The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure - Sea Star Calculations, Underwater Wheel of Fortune

We will also have yoga and our regular family game night on Tuesday (I'm hoping we get to play Settlers of Catan or Tsuro), a Math Circle on Wednesday, and the Young Engineers Club and fencing on Thursday. Unless we get another snow storm or some other unexpected event.

Way Official Week 1 Wrap Up

Once again, this is NOT really our first week of homeschooling. Not by a long shot. But it's the first week since Monkey turned 7 and had to be officially schooled. So let's pretend it is our first week.

Remember our schedule for this week? We pretty much stuck with it except for the extras like the Math Circle, fencing, and the Young Engineers Club. That's because we had a snow and ice storm and everything else got cancelled. We're just happy we've made it to yoga this week. But we did make up for it by going sledding and walking around in the snow. And the Young Engineers club... Well, Monkey got to watch Denise the Menace and ended up working on making traps.

So here's what we actually did this week:

Week of	English Reading	Math
February 10-14, 2014
Monday	Let's Read - Lesson 50 pg 140 Explode the Code - pg 50-51	Funny arithmetic Kangaroo 2012
Tuesday	Let's Read - Lesson 50 pg 141 Explode the Code pg 52	Yatzee, SpotIt Kangaroo 2012 Flow app, Bloxorz app
Wednesday	Let's Read - Lesson 51 Explode the Code pg 53-54	IQ Fit, SpotIt Kangaroo 2012 Living Math book - The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure
Thursday	Let's Read - Lesson 52 Explode the Code pg 55-56	Living Math book - The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure Kangaroo 2012
Friday	Let's Read - Lesson 53 Explode the Code pg 58-59	Kangaroo 2012 Tuna Wiggle (from The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure) KenKen

That's pretty close to plan. Some time this weekend I'm going to post a list of books/curriculum we use on a separate page somewhere here. In the mean time, a few notes on math.

Funny Arithmetic is a Russian book we have. It's full of word problems and most of them are hilarious (to kids at least). Here's an example: 

Pyotr Petrovich came for advice to Masha's Dad and had to take his shoes off at the door. As soon as the three-year-old Masha saw Pyotr Petrovich's shoes, she promptly put 6 spoon fulls of cream of wheat in each. How many spoon fulls of cream of wheat did Pyotr Petrovich discover in his shoes after he received helpful advice from Masha's Dad?

There are also problems about rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes, hamburgers thrown from a window, broken toys, kids eaten by dragons, angry janitors, and, of course, about parents and grandparents. 

Math Kangaroo is an annual competition. We don't plan on entering it, but the problem sets are a good practice, particularly the ones that rely less on arithmetic and more on problem-solving skills. You can find problem sets from previous years online. Monkey usually does a couple of problems at a time from the 3-point and 4-point categories. 

The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure - it's a math adventure book we found at a local thrift shop. It's an out of print book, but available used on Amazon (in case your local thrift shop is not as awesome as ours). There is a fair share of arithmetic there (like the Wiggly Tuna game we played today where a player rolls a pair of dice, doubles one of them and adds another to the result to catch numbered tuna fish). But there are also sets, patterns, tessellations, symmetry, graphs, exponentiation, and a story about a boy who tricked the evil guard, told with pictures made out of tangram shapes. 

Monkey also got to play a few math apps - Bloxorz (also available for play online here), Flow (also available online for free here), and KenKen (lots of online options for it). KenKen seems like a mental arithmetic game, but it's really a logic game. For now Monkey stays in the 4x4 space with only 4 numbers - 1, 2, 3, 4 - and addition only. But seeing how he was just fine with mental math as we played Tuna Wiggle, I think he'll be just fine in the more difficult levels of KenKen.

Treetops Learning Academy Comes to Life

As of January 16th, the Treetops Free Learning Academy is officially recognized by NC DNPE as a home school. Hooray, hooray! I'm a bit peeved on the name. For the last couple of years my heart was set on the "Duct Tape Rocket Academy". The kid had a few ideas of his own, including "Liberty Science School" and "Booger Academy for Pirates". Treetops seemed like a reasonable middle ground.

Besides, the name came to me as I was relaxing in the hammock. Meaning, of course, it ought to be a good idea. 

Now, being an official school, albeit a school of one, means we must perform some academic work every day for at least as many days as kids in regular schools. Fine. We've been doing that for years already. But now I have to keep better record of all that we do. So, in addition to a Way Official Sounding School Name, I now have a Way Official School Schedule which I started last Fall. 

I'm not gonna post our old schedules though 'cause it'd be very boring. In fact, I didn't even need those records. Not until Monkey turned 7 anyway. But now that he's 7 years old (7 years and 3 days, to be exact), I do need them. So I keep them. Ok, I'm rambling... But here's what's going on at our Academy this week:

Week of	English Reading	Math
February 10-14, 2014
Monday	Let's Read - Lesson 50 pg 140 Explode the Code 2	Funny mental math Kangaroo 2012
Tuesday	Let's Read - Lesson 50 pg 141 Explode the Code 2	Yatzee Kangaroo 2012 Flow app, Bloxorz app
Wednesday	Let's Read - Lesson 51 Explode the Code 2	IQ Fit Kangaroo 2012 Living Math book - The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure
Thursday	Let's Read - Lesson 52 Explode the Code 2	Connect 4 KenKen app Living Math - The Mystery of the Sunken Treasure Kangaroo 2012
Friday	Let's Read - Lesson 53 Explode the Code 2	Yatzee Kangaroo 2012 KenKen

At least that's the plan. In addition to this, we have PE in the form of weekly yoga classes. Also, this week Monkey was going to start fencing. But we've been hit with an Epic Snowstorm and it looks like fencing is cancelled this week. We'll just have to fill our req'd PE hours with lots and lots of sledding.

Other things that got cancelled because of the Epic Snowstorm are the Math Circle and the Young Engineers Club. More on those - later.