List 1-6 Feb 2009

List

February 1 - 6. 2009

Maths:
1) Make a loaf of bread
2) 2 pages in work book (comprehension one)
3) Work with tutor
4) Percentages with dear mother
5) 3 and 4 times tables PROPERLY

English
1) Reading every night
2) Comprehension pages in book
3) Spelling words (at the bottom of the page)
4) Put them in alphabetical order
5) Write a sentence for each word in the spelling list below
Look them up in the dictionary
6) FIND THE PIRATE PRINCESS BOOK - we will start reading it together.

Science

1) What is an eco system? Draw an example of one and write a paragraph about it.
2) Are insects or frogs part of eco systems? Give 5 examples of the part they play.

Technology

1) UPDATE YOUR BLOG
2) UPLOAD PHOTOS TO JOYOUS CHILDREN and post every day
3) JOIN RAT FORUM - Get Beth to join too

History and art

1) Use the museum pamphlets to create a cool collage in your art book
2) Visit the Australian Museum and detail the four stages of human evolution in your book.

Spelling words:

1) Science
2) Effort
3) Maybe
4) I’ve
5) Conquistador
6) Astronaut



Percentages:
25% is the same as ¼
50% is the same as ½
75% is the same as ¾
100% is the same as 1
10% is the same as 1/10
20% is the same as 1/5




Maths sheet created by brilliant mother and presented to brilliant child for completion before the end of the week.
Lets have fun while we do it?????

The pet shop is having a sale. How much will these items cost when they are reduced?
1)Rat food- normally $10 now 50% off
2)Rats - normally $12 now 25% off
3)Rat houses - $100 now 10% off
4)Cats - normally $400 now 20% off

What percentage are customers saving?
1)Dog food is 1/10 of it’s normal price. What percentage are customers saving?
2)Worming solution for rodents is ¼ of the normal price, what percentage are customers saving?
3)Animal bedding is half the usual price, what percentage are customers saving?
4)Ferrets are 1/5 of the normal price, what percentage are customers saving?

General questions for brilliant home schoolers!!! (who are allowed to use calculators)
1)If I eat 10% of a pie that was cut into 10 pieces, how many pieces are left? What percentage is that?
2)What is 50% of $5.00, $500, $5,000
3)Use a calculator to work out what 30% of 100 is.
4)Use a calculator to work out what 10% of 1050 is
5)What is 50% of 220
6)What is 50% of 440
7)Use a calculator to work out what 30% of $15 is.
8)Draw the calculator buttons you pressed for each of the above questions.

I also generously provided a graph for the daily work to be ticked off as it's completed.

a great article

The article (actually a speech) was given by an American but it's still really relevent in Australia. I have put a link at the bottom of this exerpt so you can read the rest of it. Enjoy!

QUOTE:

Our children were being prepared in school to step boldly into the only fully human life that had ever existed on this planet. The skills they were acquiring in school would bring them not only success but deep personal fulfillment on every level. What did it matter if they never did more than work in some mind-numbing factory job? They could parse a sentence! They could explain to you the difference between a Petrarchan sonnet and a Shakespearean sonnet! They could extract a square root! They could show you why the square of the two sides of a right triangle were equal to the square of the hypotenuse! They could analyze a poem! They could explain to you how a bill passes congress! They could very possibly trace for you the economic causes of the Civil War. They had read Melville and Shakespeare, so why would they not now read Dostoevsky and Racine, Joyce and Beckett, Faulkner and O'Neill? But above all else, of course, the citizen's education--grades K to twelve--prepared children to be fully-functioning participants in this great civilization of ours. The day after their graduation exercises, they were ready to stride confidently toward any goal they might set themselves.

Of course, then, as now, everyone knew that the citizen's education was doing no such thing. It was perceived then--as now--that there was something strangely wrong with the schools. They were failing--and failing miserably--at delivering on these enticing promises. Ah well, teachers weren't being paid enough, so what could you expect? We raised teachers' salaries--again and again and again--and still the schools failed. Well, what could you expect? The schools were physically decrepit, lightless, and uninspiring. We built new ones--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them--and still the schools failed. Well, what could you expect? The curriculum was antiquated and irrelevant. We modernized the curriculum, did our damnedest to make it relevant--and still the schools failed. Every week--then as now--you could read about some bright new idea that would surely "fix" whatever was wrong with our schools: the open classroom, team teaching, back to basics, more homework, less homework, no homework--I couldn't begin to enumerate them all. Hundreds of these bright ideas were implemented--thousands of them were implemented--and still the schools failed.

http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Writings/unschooling.shtml

AS the new year begins I find myself in an awkward position. I have done NO FORMAL RECORDING for re registration in October, or assessment in July. As such I have begun making up bullshit and recording it in a word doc. Such garbley mumbo jumbo.

Last week was the first week school went back for 2009. I finally got around to telling my father than Stylish isn't going back to school this year. I was about to tell him that we're home schooling but he hung up the phone on me - oh dear! I haven't bothered to tell him since then because he's clearly a bit challenged by the idea anyway. He's heading for 80 (76 turning 77) and he was a school teacher for 30 odd years. He thinks the edumacation system is bright and wonderful.

So anyway, as last week began I gave Stylish a list of things to do. They included

• updating her blog
• updating her children's forum
• learning 3 and 4 times tables (she never learnt a single one at school)
• reading in bed every night
• Aboriginal artwork

She seems to have completed it without too many hiccups, although we're going to do the times tables again this week coz she's not really quick enough with them when tested. I figure that times tables are one of the useful things schools teach - or should I say ATTEMPT to teach - she attended the institution for nearly 6 years and still doesn't know them.

I'm about to start a new list and then I should get back to the arduous and absurd task of inventing edubable to impress the person - whoever they will be - who comes to reassess us - GROAN!

Holiday season - was it silly?

So 2008 has been and gone in a blink! We spent giftmas with family in Sydney on xmas eve. A great feast was had - as always! And then on giftmas day we jetted off to the wilds of Tasmania to stay in an unpowered, unplumbed shack, about half way between Port Arthur and Sorrell. At the very bottom of the island basically. 

The holiday was a brilliant natural learners trip! We had to use gas lights and candles, and it was freezing so we had a wood fire burning in an AGA style oven 24/7!  The wind was so wild it was almost frightening at night. It howled around the shack like a tornado and kept temperatures below 18 or 19 most days.

The kids Stylish and her three cousins and Spikee) went fishing with Uncle Richard everyday and we had fresh flathead in copious amounts - sooo good! We also sent the kids mussel hunting off the jetty a couple of times, the mussels were huge and delicious. Most of the vegetables were home grown in Grandma Anne's garden, and there were even home made kangaroo sausages - kangaroo once again provided by Uncle Richard.

The kids spent many hours, which ran into days, playing cards, running around squealing, fetching water from the tank (brilliant conservation lesson for our city slickers!), rowing the canoe about on the water, and generally being kids all together. It was lovely watching them play and get along together. Some of the activities children come up with when they don't have a tv are so clever. They spent an entire evening drawing faces on partially inflated ballons and playing games with them.