April 2011: What are they doing now?

[moominmamma]

How did it get to be April 13th already and no one has started a brag thread?

Go to it!

Miranda

[loraxc]

I got out DD's old dry-erase learn to write your numbers/letters books for DS the other day, just to see if he was into it at all. He loves them and sits and does them every day. He traces the letters and numbers extremely well. I'm not totally sure how advanced this is for just-turned 3 because I forget the norms, but it was surprising to me.

He is suddenly showing signs of becoming sensitive, much like DD. He got hold of a magazine with lots of tsunami pictures and interrogated me about them, to my dismay. I have had to answer "What would we do if the big waves came here?" questions at several naptimes. I told him rather offhandedly that we could climb up a tree, and he was obviously skeptical. "I don't know how to climb trees." "I could put you up in the tree." "And then dada would help (sister) up into the tree and then you and Dada would climb up? And we would be high enough? And then would the soldiers come and fix all the buildings that were broken? But where would we live while they were fixing the buildings?" Oy. We call him our deep thinker because he really cogitates on things and processes them.

DD is always improving her birding skills. She's also become very interested in artist trading cards, so we've been spending a lot of time on that. I pulled out a lot of Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts books for her and am pleasantly surprised at their emotional and linguistic complexity. Peanuts actually is pretty deep.

[dessismama]

Yeah, time to go to it!:)

DS who just turned 12 got an honorable mention in a national composition competition (ASCAP). We are super excited about this! And encouraging him to work harder on his composition efforts. He is really in the midst of the audition season now... working hard on polishing his contrasting pieces. DS is also focusing on his chess efforts, competing here and there when it fits his busy schedule.

9 yo DD is somewhat of a teaching fanatic. She has developed a full curriculum for her K brother. It is amazing to watch and warms my heart since teaching is my primary job. What is coolest to see is that she seems to adjust her instruction based on observations and write her own lessons for reading, writing, arithmetic, and even PE.

5 yo DS had his first piano recital, and it was so cute...

[mom2ponygirl]

Dd, 12, got a gold medal on the National Latin Exam, mastered flying changes on her pony, came up with awesome science project ideas, and has generally been having a lot of fun.  :-)  She's also forgetting everything - books, coats, music for piano lessons, etc.  Oh well, it will all come together eventually!

[Greenmama2]

Wow, flying changes! I haven't ridden since I was a young teen but I clearly remember how exciting mastering those was. Cool!

DD who has only 4 weeks left of being 4 is in the midst of a numeracy spurt. I signed her up for mathletics two and a half weeks ago since our home ed association had a discount and I thought it would be fun for her. It is. She finished the K curriculum in one day (which wasn't that surprising since she works from Singapore 1B or Miquon orange when she feels like doing workbooks) and is 2/3 of the way through the 1st grade curriculum. At this rate I expect she'll move into the second grade level before her birthday.

ETA I should also say that my 22 month old is gifted at being incredibly adorable. This is what he said after neatly polishing off his dinner tonight;
"No more today. I finished mama. Thank you dinner mama. Bye bye mama. Thank you coming having dinner mama."
Then he toddled off for about an hour of independent play before finding me and letting me know he was ready for bed. When he's not making the world's biggest mess he seems like the most angelic child in the universe
Edited by Greenmama2 - 4/14/11 at 6:39am

[MJB]

We're struggling with school choice *again* for my 5 yr. old, who is currently in private kindergarten. There are about a million hoops to jump through to get him in public 1st grade next year, but it would save us thousands of dollars. Ugh. 

He's been surprising me with his math skills lately. He's always been way advanced in reading (he decodes anything, and probably comprehends at about a 5th grade level) but not so much in math. Lately he's been doing all sorts of math in our every day life, answering questions I pose to my 8 yr. old. I know no one has taught it to him, so I guess he's just worked it out on his own.  

I played chess against him for the first time in months the other day, and really had to work to beat him. He was terrible at it the last time we played, but has been playing his big brother a lot and improved tremendously. 

Soccer is his big passion, I think I mentioned last month that he made the under-8 team (up from U6) and he loves it. 

[physmom]

Originally Posted by dessismama 

9 yo DD is somewhat of a teaching fanatic. She has developed a full curriculum for her K brother. It is amazing to watch and warms my heart since teaching is my primary job. What is coolest to see is that she seems to adjust her instruction based on observations and write her own lessons for reading, writing, arithmetic, and even PE.

That's so sweet! I somethings thing DD would do a lot better if she had an older brother or sister to help her out.  I wish I had someone to help me design a curriculum for her!

As for what she's up to.  A lot of math as usual.  She's started counting by tens to 100 and can now route count to 30.  She also will answer very simple subtraction questions, so we're planning on exploring that further. 

We're kind of in a weird state with pre-reading skills because she's asking how to sound out works in Portuguese but sticks just to sight words in English (and seems to have zero interest in sounding them out!) Sometimes she's like an entirely different kid when it comes to language skills in the two languages.  But she's been pointing at signs and will ask what they say so it's at least keeping her busy on our long busy rides every day. 

Like I posted on another thread, starting preschool has been quite an adjustment so we're still trying to figure out all the ups and downs from that.  She's also been having a lot of nightmares and tells us that she doesn't like to sleep.  I've tried to ask her about her nightmares but she says she doesn't want to talk about them. 

[Rlin]

DS is now 2y9m and working on independance. He's with our nanny, me or DH and has never been in daycare. Today he wanted to try a crafts class for children 3-6y and it was without parents present. I talked to the woman that leads it and we decided to try it out. He sent me outside after 5 minutes. He did wonderful and had lots of fun. He even taught the other children some Dutch. The other kids were all around 5y old and he fitted right in. So I guess this will be a weekly thing from now on, at least until he starts Kindergarten in August.

He's still working on reading, but tells me he cannot read. He surprises us by reading random words, but doesn't like to demonstrate his reading abilities. He doesn't like counting beyond 10, but he can figure out amounts until 12.

He tried to play on a violin on an event from the Music school he's attending, and he loved it. He wants to take lessons when he's 5.

[A-time-to-live]

DD (25 months) is so excited about my pregnancy. She talks about what she is going to do to help 'our baby' after he/she is born. She loves looking through one of my pregnancy books and showing us how big/developed the baby is each week. We still have a long ways to go until November so - nut sure how that's going to play out as time goes on. Otherwise, her favorite thing to do these days is ride her tricycle.

Language-wise: She's begun to tell all kinds of stories which can get pretty elaborate and which, it turns out, may or may not be true. I've found myself having to fact check a couple of times with her daycare because I was concerned about some of the things she was telling me. She also has taken to calling my husband and I by our first names or by 'sweetie' or anything else she's ever heard us calling her or each other.

[Galatea]

Dh was hanging a shipment of BG 4.0 diapers in our store.  He left it incomplete, and dd (2y11m completed it all by herself.  Even though we didn't have enough pegs for all 12 colors, she made it work by putting the dark pink with the light pink, dark blue with light blue, etc.  We were both floored.  She also potty-learned in a day.  We had tried several times over the past 5 months but it didn't work, and then the other night, she just decided to do it herself.

[bec]

DD2 (7) is thriving in 2nd grade.  When the teacher decided to do a project that involved the kids using Power Point, she had the technology teacher train DD2 so she could help out.  She informed me yesterday that she will try to figure out math problems more appropriate for an 8th grader.  She now reads faster than I do (and I suspect with better comprehension) and is reading at a low high school level.  She has also decided to teach DD3 how to read, and has been giving her speech therapy.  DD2 spent some time a few years ago in speech therapy for tongue thrusting her 'S', which DD3 also has problems with.  I had worked a little with DD3, using the techniques I'd learned when DD2 was in therapy to no avail.  DD3 made a ton of progress with her, and she is working hard on self correcting her tongue position now. 

Speaking of DD3 (5).  She has decided (maybe on DD2's urging) she wants to read, and has taken the leap from BOB books to easy readers.  I am just following her interest, so it seems that she is learning it by osmosis.  She is also trying to learn math facts.  Oh, and while playing a chess game on an iPod touch, she forced a stalemate with the computer.  I can't do that!

[lucysmom]

... so last night, DD (6) says "Miss X [her teacher] did something kind of cruel."

[Me:] "Oh really?  What did she do?"

[DD:] "She made us sign contracts promising to practice our spelling."

[Me:]  "What's cruel about making sure you know how to spell?"

[DD:]  "Well, contracts have to be voluntary, and this wasn't."

[moominmamma]

My 8-year-old is on an academic kick lately. She wanted a science course to work through, like her older brother and sister, and when she discovered the publisher of the school curriculum materials they're using has offerings as low as 6th grade level there was no talking her out of it. So we ordered the books and in the past month she has worked through about 60% of the year-long curriculum. She's done the projects, demonstrations, experiments, reading and workbook stuff and is sitting pretty with something like a 98% on the quizzes and tests. She's been loving the electricity section and has been wiring all sorts of interesting invented circuits using Snap Circuits and squishy circuits (using conductive and insulating playdough). She's plugging away through Singapore Math 5B and doing really well with it now that her enthusiasm for math has returned. She recently read "The Number Devil," a children's novel about number theory, combinatorics and other conceptual math, and has been having great fun exploring those ideas. She's moved into Suzuki Book 6 on violin and is doing a good job with the huge and challenging first piece in that book. Next week she'll be joining the Grade 4's for the local public school's Arts and Writers' Festival, which will give her about 2.5 days of school attendance. These little snippets of school experience a few times a year are just right for her as a homeschooler and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to include her in occasional field trips and extra-curriculars. The 4th grade placement seems about right for her as she fits well socially with those kids and the academic expectations, while not challenging, at least aren't eye-rollingly irrelevant to her. She has no interest in attending school regularly, but appreciates having a bit of a connection with local kids and the chance to do things like the downhill skiing program and poetry workshops now and then.

My 12-year-old is not producing much brag-worthy these days. She's busy dealing with early adolescence. That's probably enough right now. But she's taught herself the Monti Csardas on violin this past week and is really enjoying its showy gypsy style ... and the chance to play really really fast. She's taking a babysitting safety course and an on-line course in pet-sitting and baby-sitting, and is planning to generate herself some income this way. Very much on her own initiative. She's got a dog-sitting job lined up already and is looking for other ways to gather references and launch her "business" in a professional way.

My 14-year-old has really shone this past month. He played in a professional symphony orchestra for a concert which included some pretty big pieces (Dvorak Symphony No. 8 and the Dvorak Cello Concerto). This is a second-tier small symphony that brings in professionals from the big city for weekends of intensive rehearsing and performing, and includes an occasional advanced student or two. He played at the back of the viola section and did really well. (I put together a short video as part of his virtual portfolio for his high school orchestra course, if you're interested. He's dead cute in his suit and bow tie!) He's also really being appreciated lately for his computer prowess. There's a community group that runs a weekly Gaming Night at the community hall. Three hours of video and computer gaming and social time for kids, and then three hours for teens and adults. My ds has become the de facto co-host and has been put in charge of tech support, game selection and installation for the kids portion of the night. He also blew away his InfoTech teacher at the local school with some of the programming he'd been doing. It was the first time he'd brought some of the code he had written from scratch (rather than just mods of existing programs) and showed it off in detail and the teacher was amazed at what he'd been doing ... and, even more so, with his ability to explain clearly through the use of creative metaphors and simplified demonstrations the complexity of his programming. His teacher gave him credit for Grade 11 InfoTech on the spot. It's a project-based course, with the requirement for one major or two minor projects, with presentation and defence/discussion. What ds had been farting around with for fun turned out to be considered equivalent to a Major Project and his total off-the-cuff presentation of it so impressed that teacher felt it satisfied the course requirements in one fell swoop. Very gratifying!

My eldest dd is planning to move to Montreal next fall and live on her own while doing her final year of high school through independent study. She made a trip there last month with me and managed to convince one of the teachers at her university of choice to take her on as her sole private student during her pre-university year. She has pretty much secured a position in the advanced local youth orchestra there. We're still working on a place for her to live, but she's got her budget drawn up and long lists of apartment supplies and such. She will be heading off to National Youth Orchestra before school finishes (it's built more around the university calendar than the high school one) so she's working busily away to finish her courses in time to take the provincial exams during the May sitting. She's on a big health and fitness kick which is probably the most amazing change I've seen in her in the past few months. She gets up early, cooks herself interesting, whole foods vegetarian meals, and also does an hour of strength training and an hour or more of aerobic conditioning five days a week. She looks great, and she's so strong and fit! She's turned into a great running and mountain-biking buddy for me. She's busy polishing up the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 and is looking forward to sinking her teeth into the Bach Chaconne soon.

Miranda

[LynnS6]

Dd is working on 2nd grade-3rd grade math. She learned borrowing and carrying in a day and was able to immediately apply it to numbers in the 100s and 1000s. She is "officially" reading at a 5th grade level. I haven't a clue what school is going to do with her next year when she's in 2nd grade reading at about a 6th grade level (she seems to be moving up a grade level every 3-4 months).

Ds seems to have put academics on hold for sports enthusiasm. Well, not entirely true, he blew away the state reading test (scored at something like a 10th grade level), and did well above average for math. He did declare "I like long division" but he's not as quick at math as his sister is. Instead, he's busy following every sport that's going on. He and dh are doing a fantasy baseball team together, which is pretty cute to watch. Baseball is definitely his favorite sport to watch. He was disappointed that you have to be 13 to have your own fantasy baseball team. I can just tell he's going to be the kind of baseball fan will track all the obscure stats (he's already memorized the lineups of his favorite teams and was in tears last night when the Twins lost in the 10th inning!) I think this is good for him, because he's now got a topic that other people can understand. It warms my heart to see him down the street playing basketball with the 'boys' -- the two kids he plays most with are a 6th grader and an 8th grader (both really sweet boys), and I know they'll look out for him a bit.

[Casha'sMommy]

Lately dd has become much more curious and this is how a short convo went last night:

DD: "Mom, where's God?"

ME: Not having been prepared for this question "He's in Heaven."

DD: "Mom, there is no Heaven."

ME: "What makes you say that?"

DD: "Well, there's Earth, then the sky, and then outer space. There's no Heaven."

ME:

LOL

[dessismama]

This is one great book. DS read it at about the same age and loved it!!

Excellent!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

 She recently read "The Number Devil," a children's novel about number theory, combinatorics and other conceptual math, and has been having great fun exploring those ideas. She's moved Suzuki Book 6 on violin and is doing a good job with the huge and challenging first piece in that book.

[stlmomof2]

DD has recently developed impressive math skills.  She can add double digit numbers in her head, even numbers that would require regrouping.  She adds the tens first and then the ones.  I don't know how she decided to start doing that--I don't remember adding that way as a kid.  She's developing a good understanding of fractions.  She understanding multiplication and has memorized some of her times tables through listening to multiplication rock.  I gave her a state assessment test for 3rd graders (released item from 2006) and she got 74% of the questions right.  All I did to help her was define words like perimeter and she's never even looked at bar graphs before that.  I was pretty impressed and even more nervous about her schooling options.  She's currently in gifted preK and often says things like, "I don't learn things at school.  We just do activities."  After taking the test, she wanted to make graphs and so I showed her how using the NCES Kid Zone create a graph program online.  She made graphs for stuff like how many pets different people have. 

[pranava]

Originally Posted by lucysmom 

[DD:]  "Well, contracts have to be voluntary, and this wasn't."

That's an awesome observation!
 

Originally Posted by dessismama 

9 yo DD is somewhat of a teaching fanatic. She has developed a full curriculum for her K brother. It is amazing to watch and warms my heart since teaching is my primary job. What is coolest to see is that she seems to adjust her instruction based on observations and write her own lessons for reading, writing, arithmetic, and even PE.

 

Teaching is the Best way to learn!  I remember torturing my little sister with the same thing at this age.  LOL  she was not an enthusiastic student.

 

Originally Posted by mom2ponygirl 

Dd, 12, got a gold medal on the National Latin Exam, mastered flying changes on her pony, came up with awesome science project ideas, and has generally been having a lot of fun.  :-)  

Oh, flying lead changes are So much fun!!!   Really feels like you're flying :)

Every time I think DS 24months is talking like a little adult, he takes another language leap.  Now he really sounds like an adult.  Asking me questions, initiating long back and forth conversations, using words like actually, because, and where is he getting all the Spanish?  The bathtub is now "el rio rapido!"  I need to start some Spanish lessons with him.  Maybe there's a preschool curriculum you all would know about for Spanish?

We're also scheduled for a EI visit next week for my concerns about delayed motor skills.  Best case scenario - they tell me I'm totally crazy and he is perfect :)  What I don't want to happen - they find that he's 10% delayed in gross and fine motor and self care skills, but not delayed enough for services.  That would be frustrating to be told that he has some issues that could benefit from some help, but they aren't going to help.  Fingers crossed that I'm crazy

 

[A-time-to-live]

PraNava, do you speak Spanish? I would really like to introduce DD to it as well and pick it up myself in the process. I have looked for mommy and me classes without success. Would you let me know what you come up with if you do pursue this?

[Stephenie]

DS turned four last week. He picked out a new book to read today, one he's never seen before. He's been reading quite well, I had him pegged at about an early second grade level. This book was quite a bit harder than the other books he'd been reading. He read it nearly flawlessly, making only one mistake, so I checked out the reading level to see where he was and it's mid-third grade. This kid shocks me all the time :) 

He's really into dinosaurs and he's been running around spouting out facts about them. IE "The Tyrannosaurus was a Therapod. His teeth were as big as bananas! He lived in the Cretaceous period.Did you know that he ate the Triceratops" A lot of this I have to look up to confirm he's right and he always is :) 

I love reading what all of your kids are doing :)