At any one time I might have a dozen tabs open on articles I want to read for self edification or reviewing stuff I might want to teach Zoe. For example:
River of Time - NOVA
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III explains academic gifts
Japanese space agency set to make history with launch of the solar-sailing IKAROS probe
Whale diversity driven by diet
NOVA - teacher's guide on Sleep
Hamlet, a teacher's guide
Genie Scott talks with Skepchick.org's Sam Ogden about the evolution of creationism, the Texas board of education, women in science, and more.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response Resources
An one Twitter post might lead me down a rabbit trail of articles about the same subject
Healthy Intoversion
Caring for your introvert
Introverts - strength in lack of numbers
Introversion verse Shyness
I found these blogs - The Introvert Zone and Living Introverted
Which lead to some articles about being a gifted adult - Lisa's Ginormous List of Gifted Grown-up Traits and Exploring Grown-up Giftedness
All this doesn't include facebook, twitter and the blogs I read. Thank goodness I read fast.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Some movies and updates
Zoe's reenactment of Emily Dickinson's poem The Lost Thought
Zoe singing Pi Day at the math party
Community Research Project on Exploding and Collapsing Boxes (of numbers)
Other recent fun learning:
Science - Biology, Creative Thinking, Greenhouse Effect, Evolutions, Bacteria, Genetic Mutations, Basic Electronics, Cell Turnover, Optimization/Maximization, Opportunism, Ecosystems,
The start of the American Revolution - The Boston Massacre, The Battle at Lexington and Concord, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, and The John Adams HBO mini series
Reading - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, Emily Dickenson Poems, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and other fiction and non-ficiton.
Math - Programming JAVA, Quadratic Equations, and Fractional Bases
Music - Piano
Music History - Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Pushkin, Wagner and The Ring Cycle, Liszt, Opera - Puccini, Verdi, Giselle, Chopin, Mendelssohn
Language Arts - Greek and Latin word roots, aesthetics, analogies, Spanish Cognates, synthesis, divergence, analysis, evaluation, and intuition.
Dance - preparing for recital in June
Other - writing a couple books, a shot movie, songs for the movie, chatting, Skyping, playing, watching three versions of Hamlet and Looney Tunes.
Zoe singing Pi Day at the math party
Community Research Project on Exploding and Collapsing Boxes (of numbers)
Other recent fun learning:
Science - Biology, Creative Thinking, Greenhouse Effect, Evolutions, Bacteria, Genetic Mutations, Basic Electronics, Cell Turnover, Optimization/Maximization, Opportunism, Ecosystems,
The start of the American Revolution - The Boston Massacre, The Battle at Lexington and Concord, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, and The John Adams HBO mini series
Reading - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, Emily Dickenson Poems, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and other fiction and non-ficiton.
Math - Programming JAVA, Quadratic Equations, and Fractional Bases
Music - Piano
Music History - Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Pushkin, Wagner and The Ring Cycle, Liszt, Opera - Puccini, Verdi, Giselle, Chopin, Mendelssohn
Language Arts - Greek and Latin word roots, aesthetics, analogies, Spanish Cognates, synthesis, divergence, analysis, evaluation, and intuition.
Dance - preparing for recital in June
Other - writing a couple books, a shot movie, songs for the movie, chatting, Skyping, playing, watching three versions of Hamlet and Looney Tunes.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Japanese
Zoe is going to be taking a break from Japanese for awhile.
She has been studying Japanese for 4 years and is getting close to taking the proficiency exam, the JLPT. But, it is a struggle for her to retain all the vocabulary she has learned over the last four years, since she rarely has opportunities to speak Japanese.
She has an hourly lesson with her teacher once a week, of which little or no time is spent on vocabulary she learned 2, 3, 4 years ago. She spends 30 minutes a day, four days a week doing homework, but that is all new stuff. I have a Japanese girl come over for an hour once a week to "play" in Japanese with Zoe. But, you would be surprised how little actually get accomplished during that time.
Zoe is taking a college level class and the college kids have 4 1/2 hours a week of class time plus homework. Zoe gets one hour class time and 3 hours of homework and I am not really willing to spend more time on this at home. Not unless Zoe wanted to and she doesn't.
Don't get me wrong. Japanese is a fine language to study. It is extremely difficult. The U.S. Gov rates it as the hardest language for native English speakers to master. And, depending on where you live and your personal situation, there can be limited opportunities for speaking in Japanese.
If Zoe wanted to continue Japanese I could have her supplementing with Rosetta Stone, watching Anime with Japanese subtitles and language options on, and writing to a Japanese pen pal. There is more we could do to help her retain everything she learned. It would require devoting more time to the subject each day.
But, Zoe is losing interesting in Japanese. She and her teacher are not totally clicking and I know that is affecting her. And I don't want to force her to pursue a language that she chose when she was 5 years old. Even if she forget everything, which I doubt, I believe it has developed some important pathways in her brain and she has enjoyed herself most of the time.
Recently she asked if she could take a break from studying Japanese and try Spanish and Latin. Sure! Why not? I know she has invested years in Japanese and is close to gaining at certificate, at a very young age, but I think it is important to allow her this choice. I can tell she is not as excited to study Japanese as she used to be and I think 4 years of Japanese is a good enough accomplishment.
Zoe has always had an interest in languages. I remember, when she was 2 or 3, asking how to say different words in Spanish, French, Japanese and even Russian. I remember her taking language dictionaries to her room for some "light" bed time reading. Zoe also takes Hebrew twice a week and we will continue with that. But now she is asking to learn Spanish and Latin. She is excited about it. So we are going to switch to that for the summer and see what she want to continue with in the fall. Maybe she will want to go back to Japanese, maybe she will want to get more proficient in Spanish or maybe she will want to try something else.
I am excited too because delving into a new language is fun!
She has been studying Japanese for 4 years and is getting close to taking the proficiency exam, the JLPT. But, it is a struggle for her to retain all the vocabulary she has learned over the last four years, since she rarely has opportunities to speak Japanese.
She has an hourly lesson with her teacher once a week, of which little or no time is spent on vocabulary she learned 2, 3, 4 years ago. She spends 30 minutes a day, four days a week doing homework, but that is all new stuff. I have a Japanese girl come over for an hour once a week to "play" in Japanese with Zoe. But, you would be surprised how little actually get accomplished during that time.
Zoe is taking a college level class and the college kids have 4 1/2 hours a week of class time plus homework. Zoe gets one hour class time and 3 hours of homework and I am not really willing to spend more time on this at home. Not unless Zoe wanted to and she doesn't.
Don't get me wrong. Japanese is a fine language to study. It is extremely difficult. The U.S. Gov rates it as the hardest language for native English speakers to master. And, depending on where you live and your personal situation, there can be limited opportunities for speaking in Japanese.
If Zoe wanted to continue Japanese I could have her supplementing with Rosetta Stone, watching Anime with Japanese subtitles and language options on, and writing to a Japanese pen pal. There is more we could do to help her retain everything she learned. It would require devoting more time to the subject each day.
But, Zoe is losing interesting in Japanese. She and her teacher are not totally clicking and I know that is affecting her. And I don't want to force her to pursue a language that she chose when she was 5 years old. Even if she forget everything, which I doubt, I believe it has developed some important pathways in her brain and she has enjoyed herself most of the time.
Recently she asked if she could take a break from studying Japanese and try Spanish and Latin. Sure! Why not? I know she has invested years in Japanese and is close to gaining at certificate, at a very young age, but I think it is important to allow her this choice. I can tell she is not as excited to study Japanese as she used to be and I think 4 years of Japanese is a good enough accomplishment.
Zoe has always had an interest in languages. I remember, when she was 2 or 3, asking how to say different words in Spanish, French, Japanese and even Russian. I remember her taking language dictionaries to her room for some "light" bed time reading. Zoe also takes Hebrew twice a week and we will continue with that. But now she is asking to learn Spanish and Latin. She is excited about it. So we are going to switch to that for the summer and see what she want to continue with in the fall. Maybe she will want to go back to Japanese, maybe she will want to get more proficient in Spanish or maybe she will want to try something else.
I am excited too because delving into a new language is fun!
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