FW: John Taylor Gatto (Sudbury School in Houston, Tx)

The Sudbury School in Houston invited John Taylor Gatto to speak.  Is anyone familiar with that school?  It is a parent created democratic school where the children plan what they are taught each week.  They don’t turn anyone away and they are in desperate need of donations.  http://www.houstonsudbury.org/

 

One thing that John Taylor Gatto said that stuck out was that, “short answer tests are making us dumb.”  He said that when parents and teachers say, “No thank you, I’d rather not” that maybe that is how we could make a difference?  When he said, “No thank you, I’d rather not” everyone started clapping and standing up.  So I assume that the audience was against testing.  This is Texas after all and most teachers hate having to teach to the test. 

 

“Short answer tests are making us dumb.”  John Taylor Gatto seemed to solve the mystery of WHY Public Schools were making America stupid.  It was like an answer to the problems exposed by John Stossel.  How can short answer tests make us stupid?  That wasn’t a ‘true’ or ‘false’ question so we will have to think about the answer and use sentences and discuss, disagree, explain and maybe change some as we learn.  Make our minds grow.  Oh, we are going to THINK!  See!  We will have to use our brains. 

 

Short answer tests don’t allow us to think.  Retrieving information isn’t thinking.  Recall isn’t thinking.  Being able to discuss, debate, and convince someone of your opinion is really thinking.  Working an idea out verbally or in writing is doing more for your brain than simply answering , “Do you think a short answer test accurately measures knowledge?  Yes or no?”  To think we need the “Why or why not” and the “But Tammy doesn’t agree let’s try harder to explain it or maybe we aren’t finished thinking it out….”  That’s thinking.  Now we can be “man-thinking” instead of “man parroting.”  (Someone find the latin words for those two terms LOL)

 

Why don’t we allow daily Socratic (?) teaching and discussion in schools?  Because there isn’t enough time in the day and real knowledge can’t be quickly evaluated.  In a room full of 22 students how can time be given for everyone to speak?  Short answer tests save time and can be graded quickly and the results seem to please everyone.  It’s like learning in a microwave, only thoughts are half baked and nothing was marinated.  YUCK  But there is no test created that can measure real learning – just retrieval.  A scantron machine can’t think so it has to be fed mindless answers.  Our fast food society has already come to the place where people want learning measured quickly and in a way that they can compare their children to others and say, “Look, he learned something, because it says so right here!” 

 

As Homeschoolers we have the perfect opportunity to do what WORKS in the long run and not get caught up in and not model our homes after a failing method of “education.” 

 

Here is another thing that John Taylor Gatto said that stuck out in my mind.  “The homeschooling movement is the greatest populist movement of the last 2 centuries.”  So, be encouraged!  or scared of rocking the boat? 

 

Public school?  “No thank you, I’d rather not.”  (the “no thank you I’d rather not” quote had a story about someone who ‘said it all the way to jail,’ so there is a bigger story there that I can’t RECALL.  Does anyone remember that?)

 

 

 

Rebecca

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin

Homeschool Victoria

 

Teaching Reading Idea:

Let your child tell you a story. Write their words down on a piece of paper. Let the child (if they want to) illustrate their story. Then let the child read their own words back to you.

Let the child create many books to read. Take printer paper and cut it in half, fold the paper to form a little book. Maybe you could make a cover out of construction paper - the child can illustrate that too.

I think this helps them learn to read - because they are reading their own words.

And making books is fun! You have the crafty stuff, art, reading, and grammar in one swoop.

Just telling a story helps with language - formation of sentences etc.

we use our dining room table for school

Everyone pretty much does their school work at the dining room table in our house.  We have a dry erase board, books, maps, and a computer in our dining room.  Oh, and a fish tank.

 

Yesterday we caught Christian drawing on the dining room table with markers!  At first I got mad and said, “Christian, what are you doing??”  We use these markers for our dry-erase board – not the table! 

 

“It’s ok, it comes off,”  he assured me.  He erased the green scribble with his fingers and sure enough it came off!  I never thought of using our dining room table as a big dry-erase board!  It’s glass, after all. 

 

I told a friend about how the kids were drawing on our glass dining room table with dry-erase markers.  She told me that she knew of someone who would slide a workbook behind a plexi-glass book holder and let her child fill in the answers using crayons or dry erase markers!  The worksheets could be filled out without any marks ever being made in the book!  I thought that if we taped a picture under the glass table that the image could be traced – an image from a coloring book.

 

So today as Matthan works out Algebra problems with a black dry erase marker on the dining room table, Christian draws pictures and makes us guess what they are.  Kelsey is making up some math problems and solving them on her own.  When Matthan needs help with Algebra I can grab a dry erase marker and work out a problem right there on the dining room table with him! 

 

So we use our dining room table for school…..

 

Isn’t that fun?  I never thought of using the dining room table this way!  I guess we could do math on windows too!  Just so the marker doesn’t slip and hit the wall!

 

Rebecca

Teaching Math (number recognition) Idea:

My 4 year old, 9 year old, and 13 year old are playing darts (magnetic not the dangerous kind) right now. We are asking Christian "what number did you land on?" when he hits the board so that he can work on number recognition.

We don't ask him for every throw, or he would catch on, but every few throws and when he lands on a number that might be familiar with, like 1-9.

Anyway, I thought I would share that in case someone wanted to know a fun way to teach number recognition.

Of course, the older kids could keep a running score in their heads or they could add or multiply their HITS to have a total for each throw - to work on that.

What else? I guess you could pretty much use a dart board much like you use the game MUGGINS!

factoring trinomials with children

Matthan, my 13 year old, is factoring trinomials again today in Algebra. Remember how to do that? If you are an average person who didn’t major in math or go into pipefitting, you might not remember much about your advanced math courses or factoring trinomials! Don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal to have taken a course in high school or college and then not remember a darn thing after you’ve lived your life in freedom for a few years. Factoring trinomials is when you have something that looks like this:

x(squared) + 6x + 9

and you have to make it look like this:

(x+3)(x+3).

You will remember that a factor of 9 is 3? This is the same thing only with some parenthesis thrown in there just to trip you up. You are finding the multiples of a number only now the number has googely eyes and fangs.

When I asked Matthan, “What number gives you nine when multiplied by itself or 6 when you add it?” or “What numbers when multiplied give you 8 yet when added give you 6,” I realized how elementary basic Algebra really is. It’s all the other stuff that confuses me like the parenthesis and the ‘unknown variables.’ We can all add 3+3 and multiply 3 times 3; add 4 and 2 and multiply 4 and 2, so why do we get all tripped up when we see it in the context of Algebra?

I think I know why. When we were in elementary school we were taught that “X” means to multiply.

3X3=9

We were very impressionable and we accepted that fact and used it most of our little math lives. Then one day, we are told that the very symbol with which we have come to associate multiplication is now an unknown variable. “What?” Then we are told instead of using an “X” you can put 4 in a parenthesis and 2 in a parenthesis and that now means what the “X” meant all those years before. Oh, and your ABC’s are now coming to join us for math class – well, Algebra. We learn one thing and use it all of our lives and just when it becomes second nature we have to give new meaning to old symbols and learn all new ways to do the same old things. Algebra seems to be a whole new world and it’s not peaceful to some of us.

It shouldn’t be new or scary at all. In fact, it’s not new, it’s just playing around and rearranging and expressing numbers that we are familiar with in many different ways. Why did it feel different? Why did we learn that multiplication could be expressed by putting an “X” in between two numbers when the whole time we could have just put those numbers in parenthesis? If we are expecting children to grow up and learn Algebra why don’t we just start Algebra in third grade? Maybe I’ll figure the answer out one day. Until then, we are going to play around with Algebra from the get go.

When I asked Matthan, “What numbers when multiplied give you 8 and when added give you 6,” so that we could factor a trinomial, I looked at Kelsey and thought, “She could do what we are doing!” So, I wrote a trinomial out: “x(squared) + 6x + 9” and under it I wrote two parenthesis with an X in each one like this: (x + ) (x + ) and let her decide what numbers should go after the plus sign. She picked up on this pretty fast!

When I told her that she was doing high school Algebra she became very excited. Her confidence in Math was boosted. I hope that when Kelsey enters the world of Algebra and is greeted by my googely eyed monster, that it won’t be something frightening for her.

She can factor trinomials now because that takes basic elementary math! And of course, as her understanding of math expands so will the complexities of the trinomials.

A few years later, as my daughter was learning how to convert Fahrenheit into Celsius, my six year old was inspired to play around with equations and variables. Here is the post.

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin

Teaching Reading idea - Dictation:

Let your child tell you a story. Write their words down on a piece of paper. Let the child (if they want to) illustrate their story. Then let the child read their own words back to you.

Let the child create many books to read. Take printer paper and cut it in half, fold the paper to form a little book. Maybe you could make a cover out of construction paper - the child can illustrate that too.

I think this helps them learn to read - because they are reading their own words.

And making books is fun! You have the crafty stuff, art, reading, and grammar in one swoop.

Just telling a story helps with language - formation of sentences etc.

Greek and Latin Roots (weekly activity)

Equus = horse (latin) equine

Caballus = horse (latin) cavalry

Hippos = horse (greek) hippology-study of horses (a hippopotamus was literally a "water-horse")

I got these from English from the Roots up vol II. Of course, there are more words associated with each root.

The big children can use the words for copywork, handwriting, vocabulary, and spelling as they write the derivatives and their definitions and thesmaller children can draw a picture to illustrate the meaning.

We usually just take one root a week, but we took these three for the past two weeks.

Rebecca

http://www.homeschoolvictoriatx.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HomeschoolVictoria

Darts for Math! Making Math FUN!

Matthan just reminded me that for many throws you are required to multiply your hit by 2 or three and the whole game you are adding your totals. A family game of darts could be educational for all age levels. An older child could keep score for the younger child who is focusing on recognizingthe numerals.

I know that when we play darts with Rodney he is able to keep a running total of everyone's score in his head. He played darts competitively and I bet that helped his brain store those numbers that way! He got used to doing math in his head and keeping a total for multiple sets of numbers. Mental math! So a game of darts will work on more than just multiplying andadding - there is something else going on!

And you are doing a family activity and teaching (modeling) taking turns....

Hey! When you guys catch yourself or your children learning on accident share your ideas!

A family game of darts can help with number recognition:

My 4 year old, 9 year old, and 13 year old are playing darts (magnetic not the dangerous kind) right now. We are asking Christian "what number did you land on?" when he hits the board so that he can work on number recognition. We don't ask him for every throw, or he would catch on, but every few throws and when he lands on a number that might be familiar with, like 1-9.

Anyway, I thought I would share that in case someone wanted to know a fun way to teach number recognition.

Of course, the older kids could keep a running score in their heads or they could add or multiply their HITS to have a total for each throw - to work on that.

I guess you could pretty much use a dart board much like you use the game MUGGINS!

Cured picky eaters?

My children are so picky.  I don’t know how that happened because I will eat anything, even if most people claim the food is not edible.  For example, I love sardines and canned smoked oysters.  I love raw oysters dripping in horseradish.  I sometimes wish I didn’t, but I do!  I even enjoyed the “bitter herbs” at a Passover Seder I attended once.  Guess the lesson wasn’t the same for me as it was for the other people who attended. 

 

When my children won’t eat things like my taco soup or my pizza casserole I am deeply wounded and offended.  They are better than anchovies, sardines, horseradish, and bitter herbs?

 

Recently, there has been a breakthrough.  I noticed that at least the meat portions from their plates have been eaten.  I was so excited!  Did I also mention that we had recently acquired a few extra cats?  I would never make a good detective.

 

Tonight, as I was commenting on how much food my children had been eating, I looked down and noticed half of a steak finger.  Two cats were licking their lips.  I guess the cats will be healthy. 

 

I don’t know how children know to only eat as much as their bodies need to survive and not a DROP or MORSAL more!  How do they do that??  I wish my body had that type of gage.  I eat even while FULL!  L

 

Oh well, thought I would share that. 

 

Happy Holidays.

 

Rebecca

checking in (on Rita from Rita's)

After hearing horror stories from friends about what
evacuees are experiencing trying to get through
Houston or Dallas, I feel petty and selfish about not
being more chipper. My gal pal's aunts have been on
the road for 24 hours! (If I understand correctly,
they were only trying to get from Lake Jackson to
Houston – usually a one hour trip that turned into
20??) They lost their dog after they had to turn off
the a/c so that the car would not over-heat. The dog
died from the heat. (That's Houston) I’m hearing the
same thing about people trying to get to or through
Dallas! People having blow-outs and ditching cars?
Stations being out of gas! One family went from
Victoria up 77 and it took them twelve hours to get
from Hallettsville to Waco??? Once they hit I35
traffic picked up to 40mph? It only took me four and
a half hours to get to my destination - usually a 2 -
2 1/2 hour drive. We had it easy! (Victoria to San
Marcos)

At one point, a girl ran by our car and then ran back
by with some cokes (pops? for you Yankees). I jokingly
told the children, "Look! That lady is out-running all
of these cars and the speed limit here is 70 mph!" Of
course, those of us not-on-foot were only going about
2 miles per hour, at the time... I've heard of
families (in Houston) that waited until evening to
evacuate and were told to go back home, because of the
grid-lock on the interstate. They will be heading to
the VICTORIA area - where I drove FROM. So I might
just go back home tomorrow!

Rita (the hurricane, not my mother in law) is
projected to hit Beaumont. If people from Houston are
going to the Victoria-area, then I think I can go back
home! RIGHT?

My husband stayed behind. He was told that if he
didn’t show up for work that it was “his butt.” Now,
all the stores are closed in Victoria because people
had to leave town by 7:00pm and there is a curfew. He
works in a town RIGHT on the coast. He called the
police station and they told him that he would get
pulled over but if he was going to work, it would be
ok. I’m thinking, and don’t get any ideas, that
anyone could SAY that they were going to work??? I
took the food from the refrigerator so that it
wouldn’t spoil! Good thing we are a family that “opens
cans, we open cans…”

Oh, my car is acting up! That’s not a big deal to me,
but to my husband, it is. I’m thinking, “So it makes
a subtle grinding noise when I hit the breaks?” “So
what if it is having a tough time getting into the
next gear when I accelerate, I’m patient.” I’m hoping
that these problems are ONLY because of having to stop
and start for 4 ½ hours….. The car will cool down and
be ok tomorrow? So, you guys who were planning on
toughing it out back home in Victoria, give me your
phone numbers in case we get stranded and you need to
come and get us??? Surely I can make it home
tomorrow!

How are the evacuees who end up grid-locked in Houston
able to sit in traffic for 20 hours?????? I wonder
what percentage of cars are breaking down trying to
evacuate there! I heard Rick Perry say, “I’d rather
people be in their cars, than experiencing the winds
of the hurricane…” (Something like that) and I’m
thinking, “Why would it be safer to sit in the Texas
sun all day, on black tar and asphalt, breathing
everyone’s car exhausts!?!?!” When the winds hit
them, will they fare better in their cars?” They’ll
be ok. Has anyone else heard from friends or family
stuck in grid-lock?

Were we so scared of the complaints over the ‘lack of
preparation’ during Katrina that we overcompensated
and experienced the flip side of the coin - panic?

Just thinking…. I wish I didn’t leave Victoria! I’ve
never missed my town. I was just starting to wish I
could escape it, but then I had to evacuate it.
Nothing like being told, “You CANT” that makes you
say, “I WANT TO.”

Rebecca
Too often we give children answers to remember rather
than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin

Homeschool Victoria
www.homeschoolvictoriatx.com

FW: Mandatory Vacation (evacuation)

We are getting ready for a mandatory road trip!  I had to wait in line to ‘top off’ my gas tank for the first time in my life, today!  My husband stood in line for over three hours to get some plywood so that we could board up our windows.  He was lucky!  We’ve never done that in all of my life, and I grew up right on the gulf.  RIGHT on the gulf; we had a pier in our backyard.  Now that I live 30 miles up coast, I find myself boarding up windows? 

 

The children loaded up the car today with toys and clothes.  I caught Kelsey walking by with an armful of clothes and she was just walking up to the car and throwing them in!  So, we had to clean the car out…  My mom said that when we evacuated for a hurricane when I was a child that she told me to pack only what I couldn’t live without.  When she looked at the car, I had filled up the back seat with all of my plush toys (stuffed animals.) 

 

Some of my family members in Port Lavaca are going to stay and tough it out.  They stayed through Carla.  Older people are harder to convince to leave!  My cousin drove down from San Antonio to try to talk them into going back with her, even though she already has 15 people at her house!  The city officials in Port Lavaca said, “If you refuse to leave, please write your name and social security number in permanent marker on your body so that you can be easily identified.”   (I think it was PL)

 

My gal pal tried all day to find a hotel to stay at and everything in Texas was booked!  Their word of advice, “Try Oklahoma.”  

 

Anyway, I thought I would keep you guys up to date on what we are going through over here….  I’ll have access to my e mail at my mother-in-law’s house, coincidentally named, Rita.  Hee hee

 

Oh, on our homeschool group’s webpage I put some links to our local news station, newspaper, and a few local web cams, just in case you want to take a peek in where the hurricane is projected to slap down.

 

http://www.homeschoolvictoriatx.com

 

 

Hurricane Rita

Headline Stories - Wednesday, September 21st 2005

Golden Crescent Hurricane Preparations
Newscenter 25Web posted on: September 20th, 2005 - 10:43 pm
**All Golden Crescent residents are urged to make hurricane evacuation plans now -- just in case mandatory evacuations are issued in the coming days.**As of Tuesday night, only Jackson and Refugio counties have issued voluntary evacuations.

Victoria County: A hotline has been set up for Hurricane Rita Information. Call 485-3600 or 572-2711. Full Story

KAVU NEWS
http://www.kavutv.com/

Family Camera: Kelsey's Self Portraits

My digital camera is docked by the family computer and the children are welcomed to it anytime, without having to ask for permission. This 'open camera' policy means that I am always happily surprised by the lively unconventional images that I find on my camera when I finally pick it up to use it.





Each child documents their play through photographs. Kelsey likes to take self portraits or mug shots. She will take about 10 pictures of herself in various poses making different faces. She is our little family photographer. But, her subject is so cute, how can she go wrong?





Oh, to be a child!

Multiplication FUN FUN FUN!

Memorize your multiplication facts by playing fun interactive games! (I think the multiplication.com was posted through the Texas Home Educator’s List)

http://www.multiplication.com/index.htm - Links to interactive games, free downloadable software, and ideas to help give your child added practice with multiplication! Why do the worksheet when you can play games to learn or master the same skills while having fun?

http://www.multiplication.com/interactive_games.htm - Learn Multiplication through FREE interactive Games, including Multiflyer! (remember that game that was sent out months ago?)

I would rather a child appear "behind" in Math and LOVE Math than for a child to be considered 'on track' while hating it.

I feel like such a fruit loop! I hope there are no cereal killers out there! All the cool little worksheets and activities that I was planning on doing today are just not her "thing!" I keep forgetting that she has her own natural scope and sequence and that we should follow hers and not someone else's - or the one I imagine for her. She completed the silly math worksheets that I printed out for her (up to the 12’s) in just a few minutes. She completed them just to show me how beneath her they were. Oh well, we are having some good laughs at my expense! I guess I should go back to letting her interests determine our activities and her interests guide our day – I need to be more trusting. But it is really hard! She seems to learn more and “higher level” stuff when I am able to follow her lead. Repetition insults her.

For example, my idea of school was to do some fun little work sheets that I had found on the web. She thought they were silly (actually, she's more creative than the worksheet allowed) and she decided to do some work out of her brother's 5th grade math workbook that he used years ago. By letting her do what she wanted to do, we ended up doing something that was above her 'age-level.' She loved adding and subtracting 3 and four digit numbers and asked me to create "more" each time she would work a page of problems. So, we are keeping a Math journal.

Today, August 23, 2005, I gave her several equations and she had to find the different variables (a, b, or c) to make the equation true. 2+b=7, b=? a+6=13, a=? 8+4=c, c=?

She loves adding and subtracting four and five digit numbers. This is what she wants to do for Math. I started to "stack the numbers up" by giving her about 4 four digit numbers to add. This naturally led into multiplication-division and I showed her the many different ways that you can express "division" including fractions. She believes that Math is fun, and that is my goal!

I would rather a child appear "behind" in Math and LOVE Math than for a child to be considered 'on track' while hating it.

The child who loves it, will not be “behind” for long! I was "on level" and I hate it to this day! Maybe I would have loved Math if I would have been allowed to focus on the things that I loved about it and to spend more time with Mathematical concepts, instead of just busy work.

I remember when she Kelsey learned to read; she would lock herself in her room because she didn’t want me to know that she could read. Sounds silly, but I think she had a fear of not being 'perfect,' as if she was still working on the skill and she was not ready to take it public? I caught her reading a book to her beanie babies and that’s how I found out that she could read. Back then I felt like a fruit loop too, because at this same time I was trying to teach her "a apple...." It insulted her because she already knew how to read, but she wasn't letting on to it! Has anyone else experienced this?

Who's doing the teaching?

I always start off the year with fantasies of the perfect day filled with learning and excitement. Well, I’m the one learning today! I gave Kelsey our little Fact Family Graphic Organizer Math worksheet that I mentioned a few blogs ago, and she rolled her eyes like I was stupid. She exhaled and said, “Mom, this is too easy.” I didn’t mean to insult her with the worksheet, just to live out my school-room fantasies! To me, easy is fun.

I said, “Oh, it’s just for fun, really! You just start with the answer and think of all the equations!” Then she said, “There needs to be more spaces because I can do 1+1+2 to get four.” I felt really stupid because I had never thought of that! When I read ‘fact family’ I imagined 2+2, 3+1 and 1+3….. as did the person who designed the worksheet?

She is more creative than I am. Talk about thinking outside the box! She thought of more answers than spacing allowed! I saw the directions as a “no-brainer” and she saw them for people with ‘no brains.’ She saw the directions as limiting her where I saw them as obvious. So, once again, my kids are teaching ME!

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin

Create Your Own Worksheets! (hey, they are free!)

You could create individualized activity sheets for free! It is easy to make up little "work sheets" to go along with anything that you read with your children. This only takes a few minutes for YOU to create and only a few minutes for your CHILD to complete!

I took a few paragraphs from our Nature Reader and designed an activity sheet around them. I selected some words that could be used for Spelling, took a few informative sentences that could be used for copywork or handwriting practice, and then created a little activity to demonstrate one of the concepts that the selection taught. I combined Spelling, Handwriting, Science, Reading, and Drawing into one! Less time, less stress! You could even go to Puzzle Maker to make puzzles with the Spelling words that you have selected! Collect these activity sheets in a three ring binder if you feel you need to document what your child has learned....


Example:

“A Look at an Ant”

insect

living

creature

divided

feelers

family

outstanding

curious

flight

firmly

carefully

quite

Copywork:

The body of an insect is divided into three parts. The first part is its head which contains the mouth, eyes, and feelers. The back part, or abdomen, of the body of many insects is fastened to the middle part, or thorax, by a small joint. God Created insects in this way because they need to bend, or even double up, to do some of their work.

Draw an ant to show the three parts that make up an insect:

(Reading selection from Christian Liberty Nature Reader)

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Math with Graphic Organizers!

Today, for Math, I printed out the 'math facts' graphic organizer sheets from this website: http://math.about.com/od/addingsubtracting/a/facts.htm

For example, the “facts that add up to 4” page: Instead of working from the ‘bottom up’ and having Kelsey review by completing the math equations, I want to have her think ‘top down’ and come up with the equations herself! This is just a twist on the standard way we did Math in school. The ‘worksheet’ actually looks really cool as it has the number four in the middle of the page surrounded by cute shapes where the equations can be added.

It allows her to be a little more creative! Instead of finding the answers, she’s going to give the questions!

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin

Our Greek root for this week is SAUROS "lizard."

 

 

dinosaur

tyrannosaurus

allosaurus

stegosaurus

brontosaurus

ankylosaurus

 

 

Rebecca

Homeschool Victoria

 

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. -Roger Lewin