One Little Room... » Homeschooling

Catching Up.. Barely!

Pathfinder Mom — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 01:43:17 +0000

Since we last posted, Tornado Boy has:

Visited Wild Animals:

Taken Driving Lessons:

Played at many watering holes:

Played around with musical composition:
Music

Built himself into a sand castle:

Met Captain America:

Tried his hand at being a pilot:

Gave being a chef a whirl:

Rode a camel for the first time:

Had his first loose tooth:

What we have not done is very much “schooling”. We’ve learned plenty because it’s so much a part of our every day life. We took the summer off from anything formal. I had planned to do year round schooling, but we ended up moving at the end of the summer and the process leading up to that didn’t lend itself to much of anything formal at all. My husband has changed jobs and companies for the first time in 25 years. We also moved away from the town where we had both been for almost 25 years. We are in a much more urban area now and it really has meant many changes for us.

We opted not to pursue any formal classes for this fall. We are still going back and forth between the old house and the new one, plus throwing in some travel. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to find some appropriate classes for Tornado Boy in the spring. We’re still able to do some activities with one homeschool group that we were a part of and we’re about to give a new one a try in a couple of weeks.

We have a great new classroom space at the new house (a loft bedroom that’s about perfect), but we don’t have the boxes unpacked. We’ve been doing a lot of spontaneous lessons and a lot of things on the iPad in the meantime. Portability has been very important of late.

Anyway, we’re still around, still homeschooling and still hoping for a good 1st grade year. Thanks for stopping by!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Pathfinder Mom — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:42:47 +0000

One morning a couple of days ago, Tornado Boy came out to greet me when he was supposed to be changing into his clothes for the day. He was giggling mightily with his pants on his head. He said: “Look, I’m Picasso!”

Yesterday morning we went to the park for a nature walk. We happened upon this goose who clearly had a wounded wing. I asked Tornado Boy what he thought may have happened to the goose. He told me that he thought he was attacked by either “a jaguar or a piranha”. Evidently we have some serious predators that I wasn’t aware of in the park!

See what others are saying at Not Before 7.

Money – A Rabbit Trail….

Pathfinder Mom — Wed, 18 May 2011 03:53:02 +0000

One thing that I’ve definitely learned over the last couple of years is that Tornado Boy is very much an immersive learner. Once he gets interested in a topic, he will want to explore in great depth until he gets interested in something else. I sometimes feel that any long term plans that I make are a bit foolish because in the end we will end up following his chosen path anyway. We had a major rabbit trail this spring when we started to study money during our “Community” unit in the Moving Beyond the Page curriculum. The curriculum had some basics about skip counting by fives and tens, the value of different denominations of money, earning money, spending, saving and giving money. Tornado Boy wanted to know far more than that, so off we went on our adventure….

We Read Books:
We read a lot of books (all featured in the widget above) about money. The more we learned, the more TB wanted to know. I particularly liked Shel Silverstein’s poem “Smart” that’s featured in his book Where the Sidewalk Ends. It is a fun tale of all the great trades that a child makes with his money. It’s a great discussion starter for you and your child. There are several video presentations and lesson plans to go along with the poem online.

One of the things that really seemed to concern TB is that the value of coins doesn’t match their size. He is thoroughly convinced that the dime should be the value of a penny since it is the smallest coin. He’s also not a fan of the half dollar being larger than the dollar coin. One of the reasons that I really like the Coin Counting Book is because it shows the relative sizes and real appearance of the coins. TB has accepted all of the correct values of the coins, but he really dislikes the system. Can’t say that I blame him. He’s also lobbying for a metric system for time – good luck with that, little man!

We Played Games:
We played Triple Play Math Money as Alvin looked on – TB has a serious “Chipmunks” fascination. In this game, you compete against one another to get the most matches of coins and prize cards. TB learned a lot about sportsmanship playing games this spring because he didn’t always win and he wasn’t always happy about it. We had a lot of fun, and he learned a few hard lessons along the way.

TB used his Learning Resources Teaching Cash Register extensively. I like this toy because it has a bunch of different modes and can reinforce money recognition as well as adding and subtracting. I wish the cash drawer was larger, though. There’s only room for three kinds of bills, but it comes with four denominations. We also have a Teaching Cash Register Activity Book that I think I bought separately when we first got the register a couple of years ago. It has some good extension activities for writing prices, making change, multiplying to get prices of multiple items and the like. The cash register is definitely one of our most heavily used learning toys. Here’s TB working on adding coins for use in the cash register:

Tornado Boy played with coin cards. They’re a self-correcting set of cards that has the child match the coins shown to their correct total value. I love this type of exercise because he doesn’t need my help to know if he has them all right. This type of activity allows me to get other lesson elements prepped, unfortunately these cards (originally from Learning Resources) no longer seem to be available.

We absolutely loved Cash Cow for the iPod. This was where TB really had a breakthrough in how coins add up to other values. When you click on five pennies, they magically become a nickel in the game. The same is true for any other valid combination of up to ten coins. Here’s a preview of the game play:

We Watched a Few Videos:
There are several money related videos on Brain Pop Jr. if you have a membership or access through your school. Their content is top notch and they have additional learning activities based on the video content as well. If you have an iPod, iPad or iPhone or use Google Chrome, I definitely recommend getting the free Brain Pop daily featured movie app. The content is older than the Jr. site, but still done very well and worth watching.

TB watched Money & Making Change by Rock n Learn in the car several times. I never saw it in full, but he loved it. This video caused another small rabbit trail for us as TB was fascinated by the Golden Dollar coin featuring Sacajawea. We ended up reading about Lewis & Clark’s expedition and doing a side history lesson to learn more about her, including reading the Value Tales book about her called “Adventure”.

Here’s a preview of the Money & Making Change video:

We Used Real Money:
We reinforced the “rule of halves” that my Father-in-Law introduced to me last year. Tornado Boy desperately wanted a Crayola Magic Light Brush toy that the reviews were not very good on. Santa Claus failed to deliver back in December, so TB got to pay for half of it. Here he is counting out the dollars that he had in his piggy bank and then proudly displaying his purchase:

We talked about real money, its history and some of the new security features of our bills. Tornado Boy and his Dad designed their own currency – the $11,000 bill featuring a photo of TB (not sure where it’s wandered off to at the moment). We have started collecting the state quarters to learn more about U.S. Geography. Each time we get change somewhere it’s like a treasure hunt to see what kind of quarters we may have gotten. There are an amazing amount of free resources online if you Google “elementary school money lesson plans”.

We also opened a non-college savings account for TB. We were lucky enough to hit a special with an online bank that gave a $25 bonus when you opened an account so that TB could see “real” (though unrealistic) rewards of putting your money in the bank. We talked a lot about saving, spending and giving your money.

As TB’s money fascination was winding down, we had the following conversation in the car one day:

Me: TB, I have a question for you. If you went into the store and you wanted to buy something that cost 80 cents, but you only had a dollar, how much change would the clerk need to give you?
TB: (thinks for a moment) 2 dimes.
Me: Ok, what if the clerk didn’t have 2 dimes, what else could she give you?
TB: (thinks again) Well, she could give me a half dollar and then I could give her 3 dimes.

I was completely floored. I was totally expecting four nickels or twenty pennies. Nice way to think outside the box, little man! I was really, really pleased with this rabbit trail. It was not at all what I had planned for us, but I really feel like Tornado Boy learned some valuable lessons and had a lot of fun doing it. I’m curious to see what his next fascination will be.

I’m also linking this post to the math lessons on love2learn2day.

Science Weekly – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:00:48 +0000

The folks at Science Weekly sent a bundle of their leaflets to different TOS Crew members to review. We received the “fractions” topic edition to evaluate. We received a copy of each of the six levels (grade level editions) as well as the teacher’s edition/answer key of the leaflet. Each edition is a color paper 11″ X 17″, folded into four pages. The levels start at “Level Pre-A” (equivalent to Kindergarten) and go through “Level E” (equivalent to grades 5/6). You can preview a sample edition at each level on the topic of coral reefs here. The higher the grade level, the more involved the leaflet is.

Topics in Science Weekly for this past school year were:

I was glad that we had the opportunity to look at all the levels of the leaflets. I felt like the value of a subscription was much higher at the higher grade levels where there was a significant increase in content, despite the consistent page length. The upper levels had great experiments, vocabulary and relevant information in the issue. The lower levels were colorful and engaging, but the pricing seemed steep for what appeared to be a few Kindergarten worksheets. Science Weekly has done a great job in creating age appropriate content, but having the pricing be the same across all levels seems odd for what you get.

Science Weekly is available for $19.95 per year for 15 issues for an individual student. Classroom orders can be placed for $4.95 per student with a minimum of 20 students. The individual subscription includes one level of the leaflet as well as a teacher’s edition. You have to select the specific level that you want to subscribe to. A classroom order can include multiple levels, plus one teacher edition per 25 student editions.

Science Weekly also has a new section of leveled interactive activities that we really enjoyed. These electronic versions are similar to the leaflet that I received, but they can be used online or downloaded (see page 8 after you choose a topic) for later use. The teacher’s edition can also be downloaded on page 8 of each topic.

Overall I felt that the Science Weekly materials were well thought out and interesting for both children and teachers. We didn’t do a lot of formal science this year and I’d like having leaflets like these to base some of our schooling on, though I’d probably order a grade level up for Tornado Boy. He really enjoyed the combination of math and science that several of the issues seemed to have.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of Science Weekly, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

Disclaimer: I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew for 2010-2011 and receive free products and services in exchange for a thorough and honest review. Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews. My reviews will always reflect my honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences with the products and services that I have received.

KinderBach – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:00:25 +0000

KinderBach is a music program geared to the preschool to early elementary (ages 2-7) crowd. You’ll need a piano or electronic keyboard in order to use the course, which is available either online or as a CD-based program. I can’t say enough good things about KinderBach. While I thought it skewed a little young, Tornado Boy absolutely loved it and asked to do a lesson most days. There are plenty to do – the online program has 240 videos.

KinderBach uses engaging characters (shown above) and kid friendly lessons to teach beginning music theory. The child meets new friends along the way, starting with a little boy named Frisco and a donkey named Dodi. They teach him things like sounds, rhythm, high/low, loud/soft and where the notes are on the piano. The characters are also featured on printable materials that go along with the program.

Besides the keyboard or piano (which should be close to the computer or TV – depending on the program type), you’ll need other instruments to keep the beat like a cup and drumstick, plus paper, crayons, etc. Each lesson has printable companion pieces like coloring pages and activity pages that reinforce the lessons. I really like that the printable that correlates with the lesson can be printed from the same screen while the child is watching the lesson. One of the really nice things for us is that the lessons are short and active. They are a great fit for Tornado Boy. I’ve wanted to get him into music lessons, but I was very concerned about his limited attention span. We’ve actually been able to do several lessons in a day because they are so short. I love that he wants to do more.

To purchase the lessons that KinderBach has, you can first do a free trial, and then choose from online lessons from $19.99 per month ($7.95 monthly if paid in advance for a year) or DVD packages, starting at $40.95. You may also want to consider becoming a KinderBach Friend on Facebook as they run specials there from time to time. We liked KinderBach so much that we went ahead and ordered a years worth of lessons – the program was just that good. I feel that it will give Tornado Boy a great foundation if he decides that he’d like to take piano lessons or learn to play another instrument in the future.

Also available for purchase are e-coloring books and music CDs that complement the curriculum.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of KinderBach, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

GoGo Kabongo – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:00:10 +0000

Kabongo is an online gaming world that allows your child to practice pre- and early reading skills. Skills are developed by playing in the three different Kabongo habitats (Laughter Lake, Twister Top and Galaxy Gardens). Each habitat contains three different learning games. Each game has six different levels of play. Kabongo uses the games to help foster cognitive development skills that help with reading. Integrated into the games is a rewards system containing virtual items like stickers, decorations and trophies for the Kabongo environment.

For each week that your child spends time in Kabongo, the parent will receive a progress report update via email. The email shows which areas of the site have been used, the level that the child has attained in each area and what skills they’re working on developing. Tornado Boy’s favorite game is called Crazy Maze. According to the progress email, its focus is on Spatial Awareness: Being able to visually determine the placement of objects in space helps readers begin to identify sight words and particular letter groups as representing certain sounds. Progress information is also available within the game’s parent dashboard area. It gives level and skill information for each habitat. Here’s a snapshot on the in-game progress report:

Kabongo is recommended for kids ages 4-7. Since Tornado Boy’s reading skills developed so early, the games are somewhat easy for him. I do like the ones that challenge him to pay attention to details like “Design-a-door” in the Twister Top habitat. The group that created Kabongo has also created another gaming environment (currently in beta) for older children called Skatekids. I’d be curious if he enjoys it as well as he does Kabongo. I rather like that he can use Kabongo so independently. It’s nice for me to be able to get a short break once in a while.

Free trials of Go Go Kabongo – Laughter Lake are available, and the standard price for an additional individual habitat is a one-time fee of $4.95. The Kabongo website also has activity suggestions and printables like coloring pages and dot-to-dot puzzles.

As of now, Kabonga is a “beta” release, meaning there are a few technical issues that they are working on.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of GoGo Kabongo, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

BigIQKids – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:22 +0000

BigIQKids is an online learning program for elementary and middle school children that has four different focus areas – math, U.S. geography, spelling and vocabulary. I was asked to review BigIQKids through the TOS Homeschool Crew. There are a few different membership levels – free, free with upgrade and a premium paid account. The free with upgrade option adds additional game content. The paid premium account adds additional lessons and quizzes for most topics, along with parental tracking and full game support. There is also more limited advertising on the premium account. For the purposes of our review, we were given premium accounts for all topics to use on the site. I really appreciate the vendors generosity for this review.

Here is a video that gives a quick overview of the BigIQKids website:

The site intends for the child to complete one lesson per day in each area of instruction. The site works well when learning specific sets of facts (spelling, geography or math) to mastery. The premium membership in particular allows students to complete different types of lessons and quizzes and then rewards them with coins that can be used in their game section. Parents are notified via email message or on-site reporting about their student’s progress. The intent seems to be to allow the student to work independently online to reinforce lessons that they have already been taught elsewhere. This paradigm works well for things like math facts.

Pros:

In the spelling and vocabulary programs, the parent can set up their own word lists to use with their existing curricula.
In the premium math program, the parent can select the areas of math that they want the student to work on, and the program will automatically move them up as they display mastery.
The parent can control access to the reward coins that the child gets for completing lessons. The default is that the child earns one coin (that they can trade for game play) after each lesson. The parent can also opt to only shows game content on the weekends, or not at all.
The site is actively growing their content. The free section of the site has a new eBook preview, vowel reviews and quizzes on measurement and time.

Cons:

The program doesn’t seem to always mirror the student’s level very well. In the Geography program, the intro section throws so many facts at the child and there doesn’t seem to be any way that a young child would have good comprehension given the pace. Also, 50 problems is the default math quiz setting regardless of the grade level of the child.
I found the digitized voices on the pages very distracting. There are some pronunciation issues and also the phrasing is often awkward.
I had a few issues with site areas not working. At one point, the screen said “double click on the word below and Jake will say it”, but I couldn’t click on the word. I was using Google Chrome for my browser, so that may have been a problem. The site recommends using Firefox or Safari. The technical support section of the site seems to be a little bit out of date. Windows 7 is not listed as being supported, but it does work on my system.

Pricing:
Free account – Free!
Free account with game access upgrade – $9.98/yr.
Premium account for one subject -varies by subject.
Premium account bundle for all four subjects – $19.99/month or $99.99/yr.
Classroom pricing plans are also available.

Tornado Boy enjoyed the math practice areas when I reset the problem sets down to 20 problems rather than 50. I felt like the rest of the site was over his ability level at this point, mostly due to the pacing in the areas. This may be a site that will be a better fit in six months or so. Tornado Boy is currently age 5 and in Kindergarten. I think that this would likely be a better fit for kids in later 1st grade and onward.

If you would like to try a free trial of the premium account, you can sign up here for 7 days free. This will allow you to test out all of the premium features on the site.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of BigIQKids, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

Reading Kingdom – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 07:36:02 +0000

Tornado Boy and I have been evaluating an online program called “The Reading Kingdom” for the past six weeks or so. I had expressed interest in being a reviewer for this product through the TOS Crew because I was curious how the program would evaluate Tornado Boy as a reader. The program states that it customizes itself to the child and it adapts to their particular strengths and weaknesses. I will be honest, a lot of our experience with the program was a real struggle. The first part of the program is an assessment/skills survey. What I found was that it seemed like they really penalized the child if they didn’t type quickly enough. Tornado Boy was placed in a pre-reader sequencing section of the program that was incredibly repetitive. The program wanted him to select specific letters from a group, and in order. The section was supposed to take FOUR to SIX weeks to complete and we were both ready to pull out our hair when TB finally worked his way through it. We did multiple lessons (that required exiting the program and going back in to actually advance) in order to complete the section.

The next section of the program was supposed to be “Letter Land” but according to the chart, TB had tested out of that section of the program due to his skills assessment. Except that the program put him in Letter Land anyway, but it wouldn’t advance, it just kept doing the same lesson over and over again. I contacted Colby from the Reading Kingdom and she was able to put me in touch with their technical support team in order to fix our problem. I found their support to be very courteous and helpful. They resolved our problem within a day. We were moved into the Reading/Writing Level 1 section of the program. The downside to this was that Tornado Boy bypassed a second assessment that should have placed him at his natural reading level within the program. For review purposes, this wasn’t a big deal, but I would have preferred that he actually do the assessment.

Once we got to the Reading/Writing section, I really started to see that value that The Reading Kingdom can offer. I was a bit disillusioned up to that point because the program seemed far too focused on typing and that can be very difficult for really young children. It is very helpful to have a basic idea of Marion Blank’s beliefs on reading development in children when you are using the program. The program is very different from any other reading program that we have used so far. Ms. Blank’s book The Reading Remedy describes what she believes is the best process for teaching children to read. She is not a proponent of phonics. The Reading Kingdom uses a multi-faceted approach that is designed to teach an integrated reading and writing program based on word recognition. The following graphic shows the key aspects of the Reading Kingdom program:

We have a year to use the Reading Kingdom program and I really wish that we’d had another month or so to use it before this review was due. So far, I really can’t evaluate how it is as a reading program, but it is definitely one heck of a spelling program. The games that the program uses are really well developed. One of my favorite is a pattern recognition game where the child has to pick out the pattern that can become the target word:

The games really reinforce the spellings of the target word. Later the child has to pick the word out of paragraphs. This is one area where I’m really not sure if the program expects the child to be able to read the entire paragraph or just the target word. One of the things that concerns me about the program is the lack of instruction offered to the child. It often expects the child to just “know” to capitalize a word or use specific punctuation without really introducing it or explaining the rules for it.

My biggest concern about the program is one of security – there is a “parent” link in the left column of the online program. If you click on that link, your password is displayed and there is no security on the link. I DO NOT want my child having access to my password. He is far too curious as it is and this is a real problem as far as I’m concerned.

The Reading Kingdom is a subscription-based online reading program. To get your subscription sign up for a 30 day free trial. After you’ve created an account you can purchase a subscription. Subscriptions to Reading Kingdom are $19.99/month with no monthly minimum, or $199.99 if you purchase a 12 month subscription. If you have multiple children using the program, the cost per each additional child in your family is $9.99/month.

Overall, I feel sort of neutral about The Reading Kingdom. I can definitely see the positive impact on Tornado Boy’s spelling skills, especially with irregular words and I’m happy about that. I wish that we could have bypassed the introductory sequencing section. One of the reasons that I homeschool is because it allows me a great deal of flexibility in how I teach my son. This program does not allow for any flexibility. You are forced to follow their exact sequence. If I had the ability to select what my son was working on, I’d like it better.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of The Reading Kingdom, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

MathRider – Product Review

Pathfinder Mom — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:00:21 +0000

MathRider is a program that helps your child to drill/study their math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. This program, which is based on the Adobe Air platform can be on Windows, MAC and Linux system. The program was created by an Australian company called Sharper Edge Pty Ltd. The standard price is $49.95 (U.S.), but it is currently (as of 2/24/11) on sale for $37 via instant download. In order to purchase the program, you must be able to pay through PayPal. The program includes a 30 day money back guarantee. Any child requiring help in learning their math facts could use the program, but it’s probably best suited to children ages 6-10.

The following video will give you an idea of the structure of the program. Each child is given a magical “quest” and then is rewarded when they are able to correctly complete 30 problems in a given area with a time limit. The product recommends you pick one type of math subject and work through it sequentially – through the easy/medium/advanced levels and then to master. Here’s a sneak peek at how it works:

As a parent, my very favorite part of the program is the visual progress chart that you can see for your child. The chart gives you a quick way to assess how your child is doing what they still need to work on. It also shows you the specific facts that are a challenge for your child, so that you can work to reinforce them.

Some of the best features of MathRider:

The child can use the “practice” mode to learn the program without impacting their scores/statistics.
You can use the program for basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
The child’s status is shown after each round. You can see how long it took them to answer each question in relative terms. If you hover of the bar for a specific problem, you can see their performance on that question vs. past answers for the same problem.
Over time, the game remembers which problems were missed and will continue to repeat those problems as you progress through the quests.
Multiple players (up to ten) can each have their own accounts.

A few things that give me a bit of concern:

You can’t be working on two different operations at once. If you want to work on a new division quest, any work on your current quest will be erased.
The number of required problems to complete a quest can’t be adjusted – 30 problems per round is a lot for a really young child.
I ran through several of the multiplication tests to see how the program adapted to me. It did speed up the individual questions that I saw, but even though I showed full multiplication mastery for all problems through number 12 according to their chart; I still had to answer another 300 problems to complete the quest.
The placement of your typed answer vs. the problem that you’re given is a little awkward. You can’t always really see both the problem and the answer at the same time, so you may mis-type and answer and not know it.

Overall we enjoyed trying out MathRider and it definitely helped Tornado Boy continue to learn his addition facts.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of MathRider, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

Inside the Tornado Mind…

Pathfinder Mom — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:58:23 +0000

I am having so much fun with Tornado Boy lately. I truly never know what to expect from him. I feel exceptionally lucky because although he has boundless energy, his base disposition is incredibly cheerful. That goes a long way in helping me to weather the storm on days where he is such a whirling dervish.

I wanted to share this video, and I apologize in advance, because the quality is pretty horrendous. We were in a diner and it was loud and I’m definitely not cut out to be a cinematographer by any means. I just really feel that this shows so much of TB’s innate personality – outgoing, friendly and incredibly curious.

I’m getting more and more glimpses lately into how TB’s mind works. The wheels are always turning, from the moment he gets up until the time when he finally rests at night. He plays hard and he sleeps hard. He is getting more creative as the days go by. The other day he called Tornado Dad and I into the bathroom to show us his new “hat”. Besides the fact that he couldn’t see it from the vantage point that we could, I thought that this was pretty clever:

My final tidbit actually happened tonight. We were playing around with Dreambox Learning. It’s a K-3 Online Math program that I’d read several reviews of recently. Tornado Boy is totally loving it. He’s spent about 5 hours with it and is still doing their “assessment” exercises. So far their program has him in the early 2nd grade area. I’ve been sort of surprised at some of the things that he’s been able to speed through – like comparing 3 digit numbers. I’ve also been somewhat surprised at some of the things that have been more challenging – like working with a number line. It is interesting for me to watch. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with him from a math perspective. I’ve been pretty resistant to just drilling the facts with him because I don’t want him to get bored. He also seems to have a more natural grasp on multiplication than his does on addition. He seems to like to play with the mental math facts more with multiplication.

Anyway… the Dreambox trial has a countdown that it shows each time that you log in and it tells you how many days are left in your trial. It also is on display on the top of the play screen as well. This seems particularly troublesome to TB. I think that he’s worried that Dreambox will just disappear at the end of the trial. I told him that we’ll consider purchasing a membership if we like it enough. Tonight after we finished our work, he asked if he could play with our Math-U-See blocks and I said sure. About a minute later he asked me to come over, that he had something to show me and I found this:

Tornado Boy decided that he wanted to show me exactly when Dreambox was going to go away. We have ten days left in our trial, and he represented each day with a corresponding Math-U-See block. He told me that the blue 10 block was today, and after today, we would only have 9 days left, the day after tomorrow, we would have 8, then two days after tomorrow we would have 7 and so on. I was intrigued, so I asked him what today was, and he said “Monday”. I said if today is Monday, what day will our trial run out? He counted out the days by name, through next Wednesday and then announced dramatically that on next Thursday, there would be no more Dreambox. I told him not to worry about it just yet.

I was truly impressed by TB’s conceptual understanding of math and dates. He’s still using his fingers for most addition problems, but he clearly gets how it all works together. I love that he’s really enjoying and soaking in math, but I’m really wondering what to work on with him next. I’m going to link this post to the Hip Homeschool Hop. Please feel free to leave me any suggestions! Thanks!