Tag Archives: curriculum

Curriculum, Homeschooling, Journal

Weekly Wrap up: We now Return to Regular Programming

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In my life this week…

I am finally caught up on my my vacation posts, Pender Island and Sasquan the World Science Fiction Convention and my curriculum posts, Philip Grade 8, Margaret Grade 6, Ian Grade 2. The vacation posts I like doing because they provide a way for our family to look back and remember past trips. The curriculum post besides being my most popular every year are also used as my submitted plans for our support teacher. She has to document a SLP (Student Learning Plan) for all the students. She does that with what we tell her that we are going to do. I fulfill that requirement by writing the posts. Two birds with one stone and all that.

Walk View
Walk View (Click for full size)

For the past several months I have been trying to eat better, eat less and get more exercise. The result is I am down 25 pounds and feeling better than I have in years. This is just a random update as I hate regular check-ins. One thing I have been doing is going for morning walks. I started out with 2km, worked up to 4 and I am now walking 6.5km every morning. One of the nice things is that it is a beautiful view from on top of the bench I climb up to. You can see most of Kelowna in the photo and Okanagan Lake in the background.

All the kids activities have started back up. So we have swimming, catechism, Beavers, Scouts and music lessons.

In our homeschool this week…

We are actually finishing our fourth week. We started a week early with a lighter schedule. We decided to use Homeschool Tracker this year. Christy over at Unexpected Homeschool has mentioned it several times positively. After four weeks of it I both love it and hate it. I believe that the kids are getting more done, particularly me and Ian but I have gotten less housework done. Philip is behind as always, Margaret is pretty much on schedule as is Ian. I am finding it more stressful on average as I can see exactly how far behind Philip is. I am hoping that it will mean that I am less stressed out at portfolio time.

Gear Box
Gear Box

The exciting thing has been building our robot. We bought an Arduino based rover kit from Robot Shop. It came completely flat packed which I wasn’t expecting. Building the gear box looked intimidating especially since the sheet of paper was in Chinese but then we found they have a video online that went through the whole assembly. It still took us longer than I expected. I also took the time to back out a few steps and solder the connections to the motors. Technically it wasn’t required but I could see them coming loose over and over. That would have loosened the connection more and eventually we would have broken the tabs on the motors. Now they are very solid.

DF Robotshop Rover
DF Robotshop Rover

Right now we have it running with just the on-board program. I have Philip experimenting on how far it goes forward within a given time. The commands basically turn on the motors and run until it is given another command. So we have been seeing what different run times result in. We also figured out how to make it do a 90 degree turn.

I do have an ultrasound range sensor with a range of about 3 meters and an accuracy of about a centimeter. Hooking that up will require attaching a prototyping breadboard and wiring it up.

Margaret wrote a post about her experience at Sasquan that is worth a read. This is her first blog post. I am hoping to get more from them. Philip still owes me a post.

Linking up at:

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Curriculum, Homeschooling

Margaret Grade 6

Margaret is in Grade 6 and she is exactly where she is supposed to be. She is the easiest of mine to handle mainly because she is not ADD, the rest of us are.

Margaret Curriculum Grade 6
Margaret Curriculum Grade 6

Math

Margaret will be working through Rightstart Level E. If she finished that we will start in on RightStart Geometry.

Science

Right now we are working through ‘Extreme Environments’ which has a number of experiments. We are also using ‘The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope’ which is very hands on. As with all our science I expect we will be supplementing with our knowledge and the Internet.

Snap Circuits
Snap Circuits

The second semester we will be doing electronics and mainly using Snap Circuits. We will probably also involve her in a robot building.

The third term we have a book, ‘Diversity of Life’ and nothing else at this time. We will figure that out more as it gets closer.

English

We are changing books again this year and going with ‘Lightning Lit’ and ‘Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of all Ages’ She will also be taking part in Reader’s Theatre with Grandma. We are planning on using the book ‘Sabotage’ for a book report and probably one other.

Social Studies

Margaret is currently working through ‘Canada Through Maps – Map book 4’. For the rest of this year she will be using ‘Global Citizens – Outlook 6’. This is the year that I found most complex for Philip and she does better with a little more structure than Philip.

Art

Margaret will also continue to learn the Piano. She will also sing in the choir and the Irish group that my wife is part of.

Second Language

For Spanish we will be continuing with Duolingo.

Linking up at:

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Curriculum, Homeschooling

Philip Grade 8

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Philip is in Grade 8 and is for the most part is where he should be. I would like him to be farther ahead in math but that is mostly because the course load get heavier at this point if you want to do pre-calc in high school.

Philip Curriculum Grade 8
Philip Curriculum Grade 8

Math

Philip is starting with Right Start Geometry. We have had success with that program. In January we will switch to Video Text Algebra.

Science

We only have the first semester of science planned. We are using Crash Course Biology, The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope and will supplement with our knowledge and research.

He will probably help with the erosion experiment with Ian. That fits in with one of the other section but we will need a lot more.

English

We are changing books again this year and going with ‘Lightning Lit’ and ‘Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of all Ages’. He will also be taking part in Reader’s Theatre with Grandma. We are planning on using the book ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ for a book report and probably one other.

Social Studies

For Social Studies we have ‘Exploring Canada’s Geography – Map Book 5’. We are also going to use the parts of ‘Crash Course World History’ that correspond to the years that we are covering. We also found an e book online for the BC outcomes called ‘Pathway’s Civilization through Time BC Edition’. It looks good for covering all the outcomes.

Art

Philip will be continuing his violin lessons.

Second Language

For Spanish we will be continuing with Duolingo.

Technology

Aurdino Robot
Arduino Robot

For technology we are currently building an Arduino based robot. We also have a kit to teach him how to solder components to a board. In the Fall he is going to do some woodworking with Grandpa. The robot will also involve some programming and we may do more programming later in the year.

Linking up at:

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