March 2011: What are they doing now?

[moominmamma]

What are your little ones and big ones up to these days? Need a place to brag? This is it!

[loraxc]

I posted in the old thread, but the big news here is that DD was admitted to the gifted magnet. Unfortunately, she is now feeling unsure about the switch. This is a really tough one for us and we only have a week to decide.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by loraxc 

I posted in the old thread, but the big news here is that DD was admitted to the gifted magnet. Unfortunately, she is now feeling unsure about the switch. This is a really tough one for us and we only have a week to decide.

Congratulations! (As if it was ever in question  ...)

But I feel for you on the pressure to make a decision. That must be really tough. Wishing you calm, big-picture perspectives and a sense of comfort with whatever you decide.

[moominmamma]

We've mostly been busy being sick around here, but I thought I'd post a link to the video of my little one's recent violin solo. It's a Vivaldi concerto slow movement, not showy or superficially impressive, but requiring a ton of focus, care and attention to detail to carry off. Tough at the best of times, and exponentially tough on an eighth-sized violin with a tiny short little bow. 

Fiona: Adagio from Concerto in g minor

Miranda

[whatsnextmom]

DD (14) is in a production playing a very atypical part for her both in character and voice. It's a good challenge and a great show. She went a little helter skelter beginning of high school (staying up too late, missing simple homework assignments and getting her grades dropped because of it, moping around the house and really self-absorbed.) The "brag" part is that it seems to be turning around. She has opened up and been talking about her feelings with me about school, friendships, her stresses. I know it doesn't seem like much but this is HUGE from intensely introverted DD.

DS (10) is gearing up for our county Mandarin competition. He is the only child from his school being sent and it's a big honor. He opens our school district musical as the lead next week and is rehearsing for a professional show to open end of the month. He's moving up to brown belt in tae kwon do. It's kind of funny. He was SOOOOO difficult as an infant/toddler/preschooler but this past year especially he's just become so easy and delightful.

[mom2ponygirl]

Dd, 12 took the ACT for the first time in February for 7th grade talent search.  She scored well enough to qualify for our state university's honor college. Hopefully that will make it easier to access dual enrollment classes when she wants them!

She's enjoying a Toastmaster's class with other local homeschoolers.  Doing lots of horseback riding and hanging out with friends!

[aishamama]

I watched your daughters' performance and it brought tears to my eyes; it was truly beautiful and touched my soul. 

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

We've mostly been busy being sick around here, but I thought I'd post a link to the video of my little one's recent violin solo. It's a Vivaldi concerto slow movement, not showy or superficially impressive, but requiring a ton of focus, care and attention to detail to carry off. Tough at the best of times, and exponentially tough on an eighth-sized violin with a tiny short little bow. 

Fiona: Adagio from Concerto in g minor

Miranda

[aishamama]

My 5 y/o asks a lot of questions, typically at 7am during breakfast, and I'm barely getting  a little coffee in. He was drinking water from a straw and related that to how does the water come out of the faucet. So, I gave him a one liner which ended up in me teaching him the entire process. I tested him on his addition math facts and he had already 3/4 committed to memory. I'm not exactly sure when. I quizzed him on his sight words and he knows through 3rd grade. I was going to use sight words for him to work on his handwriting. I think he could probably spell them, not sure.    I have an amazon.com prime membership and they just gave thousands of movies available instantly for free to prime members...so we are just thrilled about all of the National Geographic movies and other nature/science movies available. This is like...heaven for him. lol. j/k of course, but it's great. He loves these documentaries and loves everything about animals and nature. Since we have no place to go to around here to learn about things (no museums, zoos) this is the next best thing. He made me promise to make a weekly visit to the zoo & aquarium when we move to Pittsburgh. He wants to do a report about a selected animal each week or so. I thought that would be neat for everyone to do as a family and that the bulk of fact finding would be his; though his little brothers have to contribute somehow. Anyway nothing major or super spectacular here. Mostly working on routines of some sort.

[St. Margaret]

Aishamama maybe that's all normal but it's great to read and he sounds like such a fun kid. That is cool about prime!

[Greenmama2]

My four year old is on a mission to fully absorb the data from every single Magic School Bus episode ever made. This is lovely and it's amazing to see the connections she makes but it's also quite draining. Every waking hour of our home days this week has been absorbed with either watching MSB or reading/listening to MSB books or talking about/asking questions about what she has learnt OR (sweet relief, something slightly different) recreating the experiments we saw at the chemistry workshop our local homeschool co-op hosted on tuesday. We downloaded the only MSB ipad app we could find last Saturday and she'd memorised every fact in that by Wednesday so it's old hat now. I wish they'd make more. I know there are lots of cd-rom games but we mostly use computers that don't have disk drives like the ipad and the mini laptop I'm typing this on, the "big" computers are reserved for DH's work.

She had her second ballet lesson for the year on Thursday and her teacher says she knows the entire syllabus (after a whole two lessons) and she wants to move her up to the six year old level. She is looking forward to learning something new. We could have chosen for her to continue at this level and take an exam in May but a) the teacher and I both think she'd be bored and b) she has huge anxiety about me possibly needing to leave the room during her class, I doubt she'd be ready for an exam situation by May

[Tigerle]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

We've mostly been busy being sick around here, but I thought I'd post a link to the video of my little one's recent violin solo. It's a Vivaldi concerto slow movement, not showy or superficially impressive, but requiring a ton of focus, care and attention to detail to carry off. Tough at the best of times, and exponentially tough on an eighth-sized violin with a tiny short little bow. 

Fiona: Adagio from Concerto in g minor

Miranda

That is a lovely video! I am so impressed by her bow control (listening to and thoroughly enjoying Erin play Bach as I type...)

[moominmamma]

Thanks all for your kind words about Fiona's violin performance.

This just in: Erin was just accepted into Canada's National Youth Orchestra. She's 17 and the age-range of the orchestra is 16 to 28. The majority of professional orchestral players in Canada use NYO as a major part of their training. It's a 10-week intensive college-conservatory-like training program from June to August with 8-12 hours of programming / lessons / rehearsals a day, BIG repertoire, staying in university residence, travelling on tour to perform. And even better -- it's entirely funded, full scholarship. Students need only bring spending money and food money for their tour days. All the instruction, room and board, is free otherwise. A program like this would likely cost $6000 if we had to pay for it. So this is huge! She is over the moon.

Miranda

[aishamama]

Today my 5 y/o son took a placement test for appropriate starting levels for Language Arts and Math. He scored 2nd grade for LA and 1st grade for Math. For the LA he had to read the sentences and fill in the blank with the right word. He was giggling at some of the possible answers and saying they were silly. This is about where I thought he was. I think I'd still like him to start off with 1st grade for both subjects to fill in the weaker areas. He can move faster than the curriculum year and into 2nd grade materials, so I think it's alright to start him off in 1st.  At least we have an official idea of where he is. Plus that'll give him some time to work on his spelling, one of his weaker areas since he doesn't practice writing much. 

---

Congratulations to your daughter Miranda. That's awesome! I think it'll be a wonderful experience for Erin. She deserves it; both of your daughters give touching performances.

[Tigerle]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

Thanks all for your kind words about Fiona's violin performance.

This just in: Erin was just accepted into Canada's National Youth Orchestra. She's 17 and the age-range of the orchestra is 16 to 28. The majority of professional orchestral players in Canada use NYO as a major part of their training. It's a 10-week intensive college-conservatory-like training program from June to August with 8-12 hours of programming / lessons / rehearsals a day, BIG repertoire, staying in university residence, travelling on tour to perform. And even better -- it's entirely funded, full scholarship. Students need only bring spending money and food money for their tour days. All the instruction, room and board, is free otherwise. A program like this would likely cost $6000 if we had to pay for it. So this is huge! She is over the moon.

Miranda

Congratulations - it sounds perfect for her!
 

[no5no5]

Wow, lots of great news!  Congrats to all on their achievements.

We are having a great month so far (knock on wood).  DD had been a bit of a terror, though I can hardly blame her, as she'd been sick for months and I'd been sick for months and it was pretty rough getting out in the cold, which is something we're not at all used to.  But she's well again and I'm at least somewhat improved and it's warming up, and she's like a changed person, helping me with my housework and listening when I talk to her.  Most of the time. 

Let's see...she's been really surprising me with her knowledge lately.  Today in the grocery store she pointed at a magazine and said, "Oh, look at the cute beluga whale!"  And when I looked over there it was, on the cover, but with the words "beluga whale" nowhere in sight.  Granted, they're pretty unique looking, and she did have an interest in whales a while back, I just didn't think she'd necessarily be able to identify whales by their images alone.  Basically there have just been a lot of incidents like that, where I'm just sort of like...'oh, I didn't know you knew that.'  And we've been having these beautiful, intense discussions, like the one we had today about what you'd be able to see if you were traveling at the speed of light.  She has been waking up very early in the morning lately, and she told me this morning that she gets up so she'll be able to hear the birds. 

I'm not sure DD's reading ability is much different (at least in terms of grade levels, as she understandably lacks interest in fiction beyond the fourth or fifth grade level), but she has adopted a very dramatic style lately.  The last time she read to DH he was convinced that she must be copying the way I'd read the book to DD, until I told him that I hadn't even seen it since I'd picked it out at the library.  Oh, and then she wanted to write a sequel of the book with DH (she dictated). 

We went to a dance recital at our local university recently, and DD actually answered two of the director's questions (one of only two kids who spoke at all, though there were probably 25 in the audience).  She also asked the grocery store clerk for a sticker, of her own volition.  She has no trouble at all speaking up in her dance class these days.  These are little things, I know, but I have often wondered whether I'm doing enough to encourage her to become more outgoing/less shy, so I'll take what signs of progress I can get.

[zebra15]

HI- I'm usually not on this forum but I have a DS 10 who is taking classes via JHU-CTY. He just finished up a middle school science class (that bored him to death, the method-not the material) and now he is taking a fun review math class that should be done in a couple weeks before he takes pre-algebra(another review but we need to follow their course list and he is getting credit for them).  He is reading library books like they are going out of style and creating models from legos and Kne'x.

For 'fun' he is working on stop-motion movies with his camera.

CTY has been my life saver over the past 15 months or so and DS has learned so much from them.  Everthing else we unschool!

However today was a rough day... the mind of of a high schooler and the emotions of a toddler... UGH

He just started swim classes and is on break from drama club.  He applied for spring session at our local state university for the kids program and Im sure he will get in but I think we are going to decline.  Its just too much driving and the director and I dont see 'eye to eye' on alot of things.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by zebra15 

HI- I'm usually not on this forum but I have a DS 10 ....  He is reading library books like they are going out of style and creating models from legos and Kne'x.

For 'fun' he is working on stop-motion movies with his camera.

CTY has been my life saver over the past 15 months or so and DS has learned so much from them.  Everthing else we unschool!

He sounds delightful, and also like he would fit right in with my 8- and 12-year-old dd's, who are also into math, science, the non-stop reading of library books, K'nex, stop-motion and drama programs. And who unschool except for the [accelerated] math & science coursework they've opted to do this year through our local school. 

Miranda

[joensally]

Originally Posted by aishamama 

Today my 5 y/o son took a placement test for appropriate starting levels for Language Arts and Math. He scored 2nd grade for LA and 1st grade for Math. For the LA he had to read the sentences and fill in the blank with the right word. He was giggling at some of the possible answers and saying they were silly. This is about where I thought he was. I think I'd still like him to start off with 1st grade for both subjects to fill in the weaker areas. He can move faster than the curriculum year and into 2nd grade materials, so I think it's alright to start him off in 1st.  At least we have an official idea of where he is. Plus that'll give him some time to work on his spelling, one of his weaker areas since he doesn't practice writing much. 

---

Congratulations to your daughter Miranda. That's awesome! I think it'll be a wonderful experience for Erin. She deserves it; both of your daughters give touching performances.

Ditto the congrats to Erin!  That's lovely.

Aishamama, is this placement for next fall?  I'd be concerned about where he'll be in six months if his LA is already at 2nd grade and you'll be placing him in first.  LA in the first three to four years of school is generally focused on learning to read, phonics and basic grammar. It's not that engaging for a strong LA kid.

[expecting-joy]

Miranda, that is awesome news about Erin and Fiona's piece was so well-executed. I'm going to share it with my daughter. You're girls seem to really love music! So cool!

[aishamama]

joensally, yes, he scored in LA 2 for placement in this coming Fall school year at this point. I've slowed down his book reading this past year or so because he moves quickly. I was thinking to enrich him during his readings and projects. But the positive side is that the teacher will adjust his curriculum (subject by subject) over the year and will retest him when school starts. They do 4 assessments each year.  The thing is that he's hard to get into a routine and to make do his work and this may give us some space for adjustment for the new baby and the move all happening at the same time. 

Originally Posted by joensally 

Ditto the congrats to Erin!  That's lovely.

Aishamama, is this placement for next fall?  I'd be concerned about where he'll be in six months if his LA is already at 2nd grade and you'll be placing him in first.  LA in the first three to four years of school is generally focused on learning to read, phonics and basic grammar. It's not that engaging for a strong LA kid.