What Doug is Learning
Friday, January 30, 2004
Doug is doing really well in math right now. He gets sloppy and doesn't get all the problems correct when he does the practice questions, but he DID get an "A" on his last test. And when we sit down together and do the practice problems that he missed, I know that he really does "get" it. Today he finished Saxon Algebra 1/2, lesson 19. I know that he doesn't like the repetition, but when he takes a test and gets an "A", I know that the program is working!
He has watched a couple of videos about egypt, and wrote me a note using Egyptian Heiroglyphs. Today he is reading the book Tutankhaman's Gift. We are still going to work out of the book Ancient Egypt and it's Neighbors, but for the most part we are going to go a bit slower on the Ancient Egypt thing for a bit, and in place we are going to start doing handwriting practice. I bought "Handwriting Without Tears" on ebay the other day, and it should be in the mail soon.
He is also doing a quick refresher in U.S. Geography. I printed him a large map on the plotter here at work, and he will be attaching little tags to each state. There are three types of tags:
- Names of states
- Names of state capitols
- An item associated with the state - for example, a tag that says "pineapple" on it would go on Hawaii.
Once Doug is done with the US Geography refresher, we are going to do a unit on Elections. Not just a dumbed-down public school version, either. We're talking constitutional basis for elections, amendments prohibiting poll taxes, suffrage, and race, etc. Even the Electoral college. I didn't know much about that myself until the last election.
Oh, and on Monday, Doug will officially get his promotion to First Class (he passed his board of review last week). So when troop elections happen next month, he will be either a Troop Guide or an Instructor. That will keep him busy teaching other boys the skills he knows, which of course re-inforces the skills, and helps his communications skills.
Monday, January 26, 2004
I'm sure I'm going to backpedal a bit, but I am going to start dumping stuff in here about what Doug is learning aside from his standard curriculum.
For instance, he is learning about Ancient Egypt right now.
- He is building a pyramid of his own.
- He learned about theories of how the ancients built pyramids without cranes like we have (The likely used inclined planes). He has also compared the earlier forms of pyramids (mustabas) with the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- He is going to cook some Mesopotamian food, make jewelry, do Egyptian writing, etc.
- He has learned a lot of vocabulary relating to ancient Egypt.
- He has learned about some of the wonders of ancient Egypt.
- He learned what the Rosetta Stone is.
- He learned that ancient Egypt had three kingdoms, and could name achievements for each kingdom.
- He has read a book about Tutankhaman
