School is as intermittent as ever in our house... I am still searching for that elusive balance of schoolwork/cleaning/activities/fun. It seems that activities (actually the driving to and from) always wins.
The bulk of our school time has been relegated to the middle of the afternoon, while the little boys are napping. This is not our best time of day. It's actually the worst. We try for mornings, but schtuff always seems to foul up any momentum we get going. Jordan has taken to doing a lot of his workbook-type stuff in our bedroom, spreading out on our bed. I don't blame him. It's quiet and the little kids don't bother him nearly as much. I will pass through as I am shuffling laundry around, and he will read off Q&A's to me, we discuss and move on to next thing. It's hardly optimal, but we're getting the job done.
Math, however is an entirely different matter. I am locked in with MEP math. I have a love/hate relationship with it, but I think it is the best out there. No other curriculum spurs as much discussion (and at times frustration) as MEP. The lengths that we go to work through the theory and logic of the problems presented is quite extreme at times, but Jordan will not quit until he solves whatever it is he is working on. We have stretched a single lesson over 2-3 days at times, but we get there. Jordan is eleven and technically in the 6th grade. He is currently on Year 5, Lesson 56. There are 175 lessons per 'Year'. The program goes through Year 6. Rylan is working through Year 1 and is on Lesson 28. I started her in the Reception Year in June, and quickly dropped it and just moved on to Year 1. I should have started her much earlier. I am thinking that the 'Year' is advanced by one, when you line it up (skills wise) to the US grade level system. So, with Jordan doing Year 5 work, I think it lines up pretty well with what a 6th grader would be doing.
Jordan is currently working with negative numbers, absolute value and adding/subtracting positive and negative numbers. The previous topic was surface area and volume. By the final 2-3 lessons on that topic things were starting to click, but prior to that, those were the days we were at it for 2 hours or more (with lots of breaks) to get it done. Sigh. The current topic? Done in 20 min. I am so glad he is having success with this - I hope it boosts his confidence - he is going to need it in the coming years. He struggles when things move beyond two-dimensional. So do I, for that matter. When he is learning advanced Algebra, I will be there right along with him, learning as well.
Back to math... So, even though I was introduced Kahn Academy a long, long time ago (don't remember how or when, but I imagine is was a link that someone in our homeschool group posted at some point), I never really explored it beyond a 5 minute cursory overview, saved the link, and then promptly forgot about it. It took the urging of my husband to get me to go back and really look. Wow! What a great tool - and it takes some of the pressure off of me. I don't want 'my way' to be the only way that Jordan learns how to solve a problem. MEP does an excellent job of presenting multiple ways to solve a problem, but that is only if I can correctly disseminate to Jordan what they are trying to do. Quite frankly, because the program was originally Hungarian, translated into English and the piloted in English grammar schools, some of the methods are absolutely foreign (no pun intended) to me. That is actually what I LIKE about this program! Americans are stuck in a rut about there is only ONE way to solve a problem, and that solving multiplication problems the way our grandparents did should be good enough. It's not. Anyway, I digress. Again.
Kahn academy saved the day last week when it came to explaining the proper way to do a permutation - I couldn't even find the proper video at first because I was looking under the wrong heading- it is listed under the Algebra 1 heading - which just about gave me a heart attack. I'm not ready for this!!! That question didn't even come from a MEP lesson - it came from a Problem Solving review question on his weekly Math's Mate review sheet. He is currently working in the second book, the 'Red' book. This is an Australian program that is an absolute bitch to get a hold of, if you are a homeschooler. My nephews use it in their public middle school down in Broomfield, CO., and when I flipped through it, I knew I had to have it for Jordan. I contacted the one and only US distributor, who happens to live just outside of Denver, and he is an old curmudgeon who doesn't want to sell single copies to homeschoolers. There are 8 levels of workbooks or so, and he will only sell me one or two at a time, so I have to beg and borrow and lie about twice a year in order to get the next book we need. I told him that if he would just sell me the entire set, he could be done with me, but he won't budge. So I call him every few months, and we get along fabulously. not. My SIL (a teacher) has access to the workbooks the district purchases, so she may be my resource for the remaining 5 books I need. They are thought-provoking and TOUGH for some of the problems, and an overall good review to keep a variety of math concepts fresh. Jeez.. look at me. I digressed again!
So we watched a video about how to correctly go about doing a permutation. I love, love, love the simple, straightforward approach that Salman Kahn takes as he presents the topic. It isn't rushed, but it is short and sweet and to the point. Dean and I are set up as 'coaches' and Jordan has a log-in so that he can go on there and work through all sorts of different review problems and earn points for doing so. The site has now become the carrot at the end of the math lesson. Jordan watches a video or two about the topic we covered in the lesson, and then works on earning points by doing review problems. He loves it - which I am totally in awe over. I hope that with all of this review, Jordan will finally master his times tables. The kid can work a number line forwards and backwards, but ask him what 3 times 4 is and all you get is 'huh?'.
