Summer 2016 Homeschool

Another school break upon us so it's time to kick it up with the homeschool thing.

Writing.

I decided to continue the writing lessons that we had been doing every holiday break. So far, we've done simple diary-keeping, creative writing winter, and started a bit of essay this time. We still have a long way to go in making a headway in a proper essay that should be useful in the coming years ahead.

Math.

Aside from writing, I can only add a bit of math review for this summer since the writing part really take some time to complete. I had planned on reviewing and solidifying (if I can) the "fraction skills" and cover the basic geometry (equations and all) before moving up to pre-algebra for next year. It's getting harder but I hope that I can still cover the basics in English coz he's learning everything now in Korean. This has been evident in some part of fractions (i.e. GCF, LCM) and solving for geometry equations. It seems that they don't use equations. Whew! I had a hard time wrapping my head around it as I tried to help my son a few weeks ago. I figured, I had to teach him this in English.

There are other topics that I think they missed like converting between the metric and imperial measurement system. This we learned when when we were in grade school so I pretty much have an idea using both. Of course, proper computation would mean knowing the conversion tables for such but I am more flexible in estimating smaller distances to say the least. I mean, at least, inches and cms. But km and miles are a bit off for me though. I want my son to be more flexible and not grow up with just one way.

Geography. 
I would love to do geography this summer but I have yet to find a good resource for this. We only have 5 sessions and I am not sure when we can squeeze it in.

Typing
This one is inspired way into the summertime already and I have to find a schedule for this. But this can be fun if done every other day.

That will be all for today. I'll write more about the writing journey, geography and typing later. Gotta to do quick chore for now before I head out for my gig.

Science, Math and Arts on Korean Liberation Day!

The highlight of our summer, I guess, is our Suwon overnight at a friend's place. P's friend took us to see the Gwacheon Science Museum and Seoul Land. We spent almost twelve hours in the area, almost half at the Museum and the rest is at the outdoor amusement park. I am not really a bit fan of amusement parks so most I hardly took any photos from there.

Since it was a national holiday, there were a lot of special activities going on in the museum. There was even an international math conference along with an art exhibit related to math. It is actually International Congress of Math which we had no idea about before. All I can say is it's a cool geeky thing. hahahaha..I just hope that P had something taken away from that experience since he met one of the exhibitors who had a written a book that looks like a guide in creating cool geometric stuff. That part of math is all I can dig. 

The photos below are the other art/math stuff we found interesting.

origami made from paper bills

posted from Bloggeroid

Almost Direct Tax on a 7 Year Old

10/21/11

My seven-year old son is also being taxed by the government in the least expected place, his kiddie bank account.

After a few days of being sick in bed, I finally got around to updating my financial excel file. I was perusing the grocery receipts, as well as atm and other bank papers when I chanced on his bank passbook which I had updated the past few weeks. I was glad to see that he’s cash has earned, albeit little interest. I know beforehand that the bank interests in the country are not that big really. The ultimate goal is teaching the kid the value of saving and not really to earn big interest, yet.

Upon a second look, I also noticed another column of a slightly smaller amount which, upon a correct guesswork, is the withholding tax. Now don’t get me wrong here about the notion of nobody is exempted in taxes. I know that everything can be taxed even a preconceived child. It starts from the pregnancy test kit that a lady buys at a drugstore up to the milk, diapers, and school supplies that the kid will consume. This is a harsh reality of taxation.

I have recently read somewhere in the papers that the BSP has been trying to encourage children to open their own savings account since Filipinos are not really big savers but more on big “loaners/londoners.” But how can one encourage these young people to be active savers if even they would see right there on their passbooks that almost 20% of the already meager interest that they get. Again, we are not really after the earnings that they’ll get here but to encourage them to save up. But how would you be encouraged to save up in a bank if you’re money will only be slapped with tax? Wouldn’t there be any tax exemptions for these children in their savings accounts just to invest in our country’s possible future savers?

Learning the Multiplication Table of 2 for K2?

P is learning the multiplication table of two at school. Isn't it a bit too early for this gen? I've never heard of multiplication until after I was in grade school.

Simply put, this is actually skip counting in two's and they sure can do that. But I think, they should focus more on building the foundations on addition and subtraction families before moving on to multiplication. They should first be adept at simple addition and subtraction so as not to be overwhelmed to face higher maths. This makes me a bit apprehensive.

Bring out the flash cards!

End of the Month, Feb 2010

Math:

TM made Lola's goodies into useful props for the Math lesson on money. Just a little set up to practice addition, decision-making etc. It also doubles up as a reward and snacks after a play/study session.


Wrapped up Half-hour Clock lesson for now. We managed to find some paper play money and this had helped in mastering the 10's, 20's..At least, he can now add in tens (up to 100) and perhaps a bit of 100's. We haven't got the 1000 bill yet. We have yet to collect and wash real coins for our class use. We should have started with coins but what's the big deal. It's quite hard to collect the coins and use it when we need loose change. :)

Here's what our limited paper money resource bought at 1 peso each in front of a school.

10 - 5 pcs.
20 - 5 pcs.
50 - 2 pcs.
100 - 2 pcs.
500 - 1 pc

Finally managed to print out the Singapore Math 1B placement test. Addition skill is improving, and we still need to work on subtraction. After browsing other resources to work on subtraction, we started a bit of MammothMath samplers on addition and subtraction. The latter is still a sweet and slow work of progress.

Science:


As planned, we finished the five classes of vertebrates: Birds, Mammals and Fish

Even if TM wasn't really planning to do the invertebrates, we decided to start the starfishes and introduce the echinodermata.

The science part were thru a lapbook. We are still working on it. Hopefully build it (finalize in the lapbook) by mid-March.

Reading:

No lapbooks for language this month. Instead, we worked on Reading Starter 1 and Reading Spectrum 1. P finds the first one quite easy. He generally can answer every part of the post reading questions. The format is very consistent in every post-reading questions.

As for the Reading Spectrum, the selections are also easy but the post reading exercises varies every now and then. Different approaches on vocabulary, thinking skills and phonics. P finds it a bit challenging sometimes when the question format is a bit unfamiliar. But so far, he manages alright.

We haven't had a lot of bedtime stories since we got sick at the start of the month. Hopefully, we can get back to it by next month.

Geography:

Not much Seterra Geo this month.

Art:

Got a chance to do a little t-shirt printing with Tita B's last Feb. 22. P designed his own shirt, a heart and two frogs. He was really proud of his handiwork ;)


Thanks Tita B!

Baking time with Uncle Duds

One Sunday afternoon when my bro dropped by for lunch, I got them baking some sinful cookies. It didn't turn out so great...but we were able to eat it anyway. Hopefully, they'll try another one next time.