I told her that much of their progress has been preserved on this blog!
Since we just finished Kumon's Grade 3 Math series, I figured that it was time to take a snapshot of this past 12-13 months accumulated *work*:
I also stacked them here for easier reading.
As always, any pic can be enlarged by clicking on it.
There are 25 books there - even the Prince, only 4.75 years old, can tell you that at 80 pages apiece....that he labored through about 2,000 worksheets between last summer and this one!
For the record, he did finish yet another book today. AND, my otherwise perfect wife whined that the books she did with him were omitted - chiefly a few Gifted and Talents books (by Flash Kids Editors).
I'm going to take a week or so off before resuming the Grade 4 math workbooks. I'm really trying to get my son as passionate about spelling and composition as he is about arithmetic. All day long he's asking me questions, "Dad, what's 90 times 50?...What's 2 million times 2 million?"
[I think he fired that last question after reading an article about Obama's new *public option*!]
I've started quizzing him on how to spell words we come across and but so far he's putting up a little resistance. After all, math was made relevant from *counting money*. THAT piqued his interest at first. If you remember, I kept giving him my change so long as he could count it accurately. So right now I am amidst figuring out how to make spelling properly (and expanding his vocabulary) an efficient and passionate undertaking.
Just as I was typing this it dawned on me that we could play Scrabble, or, one of my childhood favorites, Big Boggle!
THIS is why I blog. It forces me to think when otherwise I'd be vegetating in front of the color TV!
I'll get those games from my mother....as I'm sure she never through them out.
3 comments:
C,
What are you going to have him read? Will you challenge him to read "small letter books" right away, or start him on the big-font, picturefied kiddie books?
Will you focus on Am Lit or Brit Lit, give him a tour of fine literature from around the world, or avoid fiction altogether (I know you've had unkind words for it in the past) and focus him on high-level history texts and studies? Do you plan to give him a rigorous education in logic and philosophy and other 'specialized' disciplines or will you just let him develop his knowledge organically based upon what he likes to read?
I sure wish, looking back on it, I hadn't wasted my youth the way I did and someone had had the foresight to give me some Greek philosophers and science principles books back in the day.
Biographies of 'great people' maybe? Will you set down The Story of Civilization in front of him?
What about foreign language? I think you've said ixnay to that in the past? And do you plan to include much field-tripping in your strategy for the Prince (something homeschoolers are notorious for)? What about travels outside the country, for learning purposes and cultural enhancement? Or maybe you'll go the New York route and convince the Prince that where he lives is perfect and everything outside of his bubble is awful, pointless and full of inbreeding, racist rednecks?
These are all good, as-of-yet unanswered questions.
I am constantly questioning all aspects of what I think is an optimal education.
How much math?
Why literature? Why grammar?
In fact I've been googling these very queries this past week.
Pretty much I have to learn about literature, history, etc. BEFORE making any plans for my kids.
Right now I think my priorities are math, reading, composition, history, and etymology (Greek/Latin).
Science and foreign languages are low priority. Alright....maybe not science.
I still have to figure out how to get the fine arts in there; economics, public speaking,....
There's time aplenty. I want to get the basics - reading, phonics, arithmetic - out of the way as fast as I can, just so I can get to the fun stuff!
Will Durant would almost suffice for history. In fact, I think much could be learned from forcing him to copy the entire 8,000 pages out!
Heck, I should do that.
Totally serious here.
Travel will be a function of family income. Whatever happens, happens on that front. He's already been in 16 states or so. I was 30 before I did as much.
For sure it's a complicated and important decision - deciding on a curriculum for one's brood. Yes I am prone to a colossal mistake that could reverberate years down the road. Nonetheless, I'm obviously a quick study as a parent - and not at all short on confidence.
You may have run into a lot of academics in NYC with the mindset you described....
But for the most part, NYers don't think much about the rest of the world.
The bigots you were describing are more likely to be found througout the entire state of Massachusetts.
http://www.youtube.com/user/timhawkinscomedy#play/uploads/9/VM6uqj0_jQc
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