Ra, Volcanoes, and Circle Graphs

Lu wakes up at 6:30 and we start school at 8:00. This morning, when it was time to start, I found him in Cha's office practicing his number-writing in Japanese. This came from a couple of workshops that he had with his Youth Group. The teacher asked them to write up to 100 in their notebooks, but he went all the way to 153. Both Cha and I told him that he might want to find a way to learn some words instead of spending so much time on the numbers, but he kept going. At least it's helping his handwriting, I figure, and he's doing it in his free time... He's such a weirdo.

 

When we finally did get started, we read an Egyptian creation story about the gods Ra, Nun, Geb, Shu, and Nut, and their roles in creating the world. We talked about how interesting it is that the Egyptians believed that everything came from the water, which coincides with our studies about evolution, and how we all came out of the sea.

 After our first math session, it was time for Science. 

Lu started his Planet Earth unit.

 He read about the Earth's layers, volcanoes, and earthquakes. 

 

 (should be plates, not continents)

Next, snack and break time. 30 minutes. Non-negotiable according to Lu. Doesn't matter if he went over-time finishing the assignment. He gets his 30 minutes and that's that.

After break, we're doing a second math session. Lu likes math, and he's good at it, but we're generally slow. I'm slow at understanding and explaining, and he can be slow at working through problems because he thinks a little too far out of the box sometimes. We'd been stressing over math so much that I figured we'd try having two shorter sessions every day instead of the one longer one which was driving us nuts. So our mornings feel a little math heavy, but it's working so far.

Today we worked on Circle Graphs.

After second math came Language Arts, where I've done the complete opposite. Instead of several shorter classes throughout the week, I've combined them and made 3 longer (75min) classes. Today we worked on the rough draft for a final Comparison/Contrast Essay - comparing and contrasting going to school, to homeschooling. I'll have Lu type his final draft and share it when he's done. 

Today was a particularly bad spelling day. They're not always like this, which makes me think it's purely a focus thing. When he focuses on spelling, it comes out much better. When he focuses more on writing style, his spelling suffers. 

Today's writing seemed pretty lacking in the heart department. Other assignments have come out much better. It seems like he was just trying to get it over and done with, which makes me sad, because it means he spent 60 minutes doing something just because I told him to, and not because he saw any point in it. I even told him to imagine that he'd been hired by a magazine to write an article, to see if that would motivate him. That kind of thing usually works for him, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference today. It becomes more and more evident that Lu is more of a math and science boy, which is not a very convenient thing for this math&science dummy.
Learn I will (with trembling knees)!