Saturday, March 13, 2010

Week 9 Complete

Whew! What a week this has been. As I am planning ahead for Week 10, I was looking over the last 9 weeks to see what we've accomplished and how much more we need to cover. Anyone familiar with Alpha Omega LifePacs know that each year's study has about 10 packs. Since I started mid year, completing 5 Pacs is probably a good goal. We've only completed one. It was a good in depth study but still one in 9, well really 8 weeks. I notice that JW needs more time to go over lessons so some things I just can't rush through. I knew she learned the Human Body unit when she had a cut on her arm and said "come on white blood cells do your job!"

We've done quite a bit in Math as Saxon does an excellent job of giving plenty of practice in each lesson for concepts learned in previous lessons. So as we are building in new material she doesn't lose what was learned in previous lessons. I don't think we will have much of a problem completing this book by summer.

As I become more aware of the way my child learns I have to change the way I do things. One day this week I stopped mid way through a history lesson, somewhat in frustration because I couldn't understand why she couldn't remember what we had just read. She has to re-read sections of text to understand what she's reading. I notice she only does this with textbooks. If she is reading a storybook (novel) she is engrossed in the text to the point where she doesn't hear you talking to her and she remembers the content. This was a huge "aha" moment for me. I don't think you can learn about the constitution in story form so we put all the facts from our text on flashcards to commit this information to memory. When possible we use biographies to learn about the founding fathers and other notable people in history.

Speaking of the founding fathers, we had an opportunity to visit Monticello on Wednesday, the home of Thomas Jefferson. What a wonderful trip and the weather was beautiful. I was able to envision Thomas Jefferson standing on that mountain looking at the wonderful landscape all around his home. No wonder he never left Monticello in his retirement. If I had thousands of acres on top of a mountain I wouldn't leave either. Thoughts about slavery on that plantation wasn't far from my mind either as we walked the underground passage ways "the dependencies" of this great house. I spoke with my mom who accompanied us on this trip about how their lives must have been. We discussed the children of Israel and how their slavery in Egypt compared/contrasted with slavery in America. That would be a good high school paper to write. I didn't realize James Madison lived not far from Monticello at Montpelier. Umm maybe another trip at another time. I can't believe all this history is in our backyard. All the kids went on this trip and learned a great deal. I don't think they'll soon forget the lessons learned on this trip. Neither will I . . . how about I didn't even realize Thomas Jefferson was on the back of the nickel along with a picture of Monticello! I love my 2nd education.

I forgot the battery to the digital camera on this trip so we took pictures using the cell phone. I will be creating a page titled Monticello to post the pictures we have.

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