Friday, October 23, 2009

homeschooling stuff

Zoe is finishing her end of year test on her 6th grade math. She is all proud of herself for starting "algebra." *grin* We'll start Life of Fred algebra next week.

She is doing very well in math. I know the time she spends at Math Center helps her to think of herself as a "mathy person." I am also appreciative that there are so many women and girls at Math Center. The program director has a PhD from Boston University. She's brilliant! She spends some one on one time with Zoe every week. This week she sent Zoe home with a DVD of the movie Flatland, based on the book.

Zoe still loves her Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts. Seriously, she asks for extra assignments even. She loves anything to do with writing, creative or even the five paragraph essay. :)

She is doing lots of writing for Lightning Literature too. I am impressed with what she is learning about good writing in that class. And she LOVES participating in the online forums. Getting to communicate and write with other gifted kids is her favorite thing to do these days. She gets up at 7:00 a.m., which is the earliest I let her get up, and runs down stairs, jumps on her laptop and checks her Forums first thing every morning. (except Saturday. Saturday morning cartoons still win out over the Forums.)

She also loves her reading assignments from Lightning Literature. She is reading MY Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell and Treasure Island now.

This week we started the second volume of History of US. I like this series. Our readings yesterday led us to a conversation about how knowledge of life on other planets would change the beliefs of people on Earth.

In science we are studying the cell. She made models of eukaryote and prokaryote cells yesterday, with mitochondria, Golgi, nucleus (not in the prokaryote obviously), cytoplasm, endoplasmic reticulum, etc.

We are also loving a new supplementary science book we got called Open Me Up It is very well written with great illustrations.

We are studying the Human Genome Project and it's ethical implications.

Zoe has a piano recital this weekend and she is getting ready for the AIM competition.

3 comments:

  1. V. is loving the Durrell book -- can't wait to read it myself!

    Sounds like everything is going so well -- I envy you! Feels like we are slogging through jello lately, mainly b/c of the move and my work. Glad things are going well for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it does sound like it is going well. Best wishes to her tomorrow.

    We have Treasure Island too, but we haven't started. Ami thought the scorpion story was hilarious in Durrell, however she said some stories were boring and moved slowly. She really enjoyed the previous book. DD saw that anatomy book somewhere and wanted it, but I said she already had a couple.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad Zoe is enjoying all of her subjects. I'm sure it helps a lot when she is enthusiastic about learning. It's great she's found a female math role model....it's so reinforcing in the development of a young girls self image- especially in science and math.

    ReplyDelete