Cities of the World

Last year, Lu worked on an independent research project on fifteen of the world's most influential cities. He worked on it over several months. He had many technical difficulties: his computer breaking down, realizing that he had only downloaded the thumbnails of the hundreds of images he'd found for his presentation, and losing information several times. He continued working over the Christmas break and finally gave his presentation. It worked out nicely because grandma, aunts and uncle were visiting, so Lu had a good audience.

Famous Landmarks and Twelve Puppies

Lu can find pretty much any country in the world on a globe in seconds, and tell you what the capitals of many of those countries are. He has a solid grip on world geography, mostly thanks to this great site that he's been working with for a few years now.

This year, Lu is focusing on famous landmarks. 

By the end of this project, he'll have 40+ flashcards 

of important places in the world.

Here are some of them:

On the back he writes the landmark's name, location, 

when it was built (if it applies), 

and any fun facts he can find about it.

He's researching, developing his drawing,

and learning about some truly awesome human-made

and natural wonders in our world.

*   *  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

If you've been here before, 

you probably know that we're dog-crazy.

Last year, we added Izoxa to our pack.

She grew into a big, strong dog.

And then she met Ocayo.

It was love at first sight.

Last Sunday, she gave birth to 12 puppies.

Yes. 12!!!

 They get cuter by the day.

Lu was present for most of the three hours

that the birthing took. 

It was an amazing experience.

There are few things as wonderful 

as putting your face into a pile of twelve puppies, 

or having your chin sucked by one of them. 

We're in puppy heaven :)

A Productive Morning and a Chicken Bone

It's not something I do everyday, but this morning I laid Lu's work out for him to work through in whatever order he wanted.

He chose history reading first,

 and read about Ancient Mesopotamian

games, music, and sports.

 After math (which we did together)

he did his science reading.

Right now, he's learning about Food Webs with Mr. Q

Lu REALLY digs the way Mr. Q writes like he's talking to him, and makes funny jokes. He laughs while he's reading science! What better recommendation can there be than that?

3 baskets -

The top basket is for daily work,

the middle one is for once or twice a week work,

and the bottom one for finished work.

Finished packets are filed in the blue storage unit on the right.

Next, he moved on to Geography.

He's studying Asia.

We're using Sheppard's Software and  

Head of the Class videos for geography. 

I'm not a big fan of spending time on flags, but he insists.

 

By mid-morning, the daybed-couch is always covered in papers and books. Lately, I'm spending a lot of time on that one meter of floor space doing sit-ups and stretching. Lu is becoming so independent that I need something to do when I'm not needed, and sit-ups are a good thing to do while waiting for the occasional "Mama, I don't get this." And even then, most times, before I can even finish the explanation, he's already got it, and (not always) politely tells me to go back to my whatever I was doing, thank you very much. 

mmmm.... Yeah, just you wait until we hit algebra and essays, and then you'll need me again. Little Mr. Know-It-All. But I'm kidding, kind of. Cha keeps saying that it's a great thing, and that that's exactly what we want - a self-guided learner. But I miss working on stuff together and feeling needed :sniff:

Anyway...

 Back to our day -

 Lu decided to go out to the river with his snorkeling gear.

and found the most amazing...

CHICKEN BONE!

What???

 Okay, it could have been a vulture bone, 

or some other bird... but chicken is funny.

 Then we sat by the river and read a story together.

 A lovely, lovely story.

 Then one more dip, in the natural jacuzzi...

After lunch, there was knitting and cookies.

 Lu started Roald Dahl's The Witches this week.

I love that he loves to read. It is a wonderful thing.

Oh, The Places We Go!

We visited the Coral Reef.

We learned about rituals in Ancient Egypt
(with some fried plantains).

We went back to Khan,

and I think Lu is ready this time.

As I mentioned in a recent post, we're going to slow down on the math front - as far as learning new concepts goes. Lu had already used Khan, but he reached a point where it suddenly got too difficult, and the videos just went right over his head. But with everything he's learned in the last seven months - since he last tried Khan - and with a stronger grasp on English, he was ready to try again and has already earned several badges this week.

I'm not a big fan of the scratch pad, and would rather Lu used paper, 

but... whatever... he likes it because it's all hi-techy I guess.

At first he was kind of annoyed at having to do all the "easy stuff" again, but we talked about mastery, and he agreed that practice was necessary. 

Now, I'm no math expert, but I think Khan is best to start using after a person already understands negative numbers. So, around 5th grade. But that's just our experience, I've heard of people using it successfully with younger children. We started last year when Lu was 8, and it seemed perfect for a while, but like I said - it suddenly got way too difficult for him.

Back to the places we go...

We also went out to the backyard 

to practice poetry recitation 

with a friend from Youth Group.

They are going to recite a poem together

in a couple of weeks.

 It's a very sweet poem in Spanish

about the wind and a cloud playing together.

We went all over the world to look at different birds

with BBC's The Life of Birds series,

and we took a basket of jocotes with us -

our local fruit that is now ripe for the picking.

(I'll get some pics of the actual picking next week)

We went to the jungle

with Human Planet: Jungles

a series we are very much enjoying.

We finished up our tour of Europe.

Lu now knows the location and capital of each country, and has these self-made posters with all the flags and information on language and population for easy reference (the flags were his idea btw - it's not something I would have him do), as well as Europe's rivers and mountains.

We got on a slave ship and landed in Jamaica

where we learned the words to Bob Marley's

Redemption Song,

which gave us lots to think about

and talk about.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind. 

*    *    *    *    *

So, as you can see, we get around.

 

Where In The World?

Last year, for geography, we focused on the Americas. We mostly used outline maps, and Lu did learn all of the countries - north, central, south, and the Caribbean Islands - but, he didn't have as much fun with it as he is having this year.

We started European geography with Head of the Class. Lu really enjoys the short videos, and he's making a chart of each country's language, population, and flag. But then I remembered Sheppard Software's Free Geography Site, and gave it another go. Last year, Lu played with it a bit, but it didn't grab him like it has now. He was on it several times over the weekend, and has been on it every chance he gets these past two days. He learned all the capitals of Central and South America, and he's learned to locate all of the European countries.

 I mix in some homemade quizzes.

Each continent has different levels and keeps your score. Lu will do one level several times because he insists on getting 100% at least five times in a row before moving on to the next level. He's kinda wacky like that.

He takes it very seriously and likes to challenge us to geography battles to show off his superior geography knowledge. Cha was much impressed when he saw Lu locating Slovakia and Slovenia in the blink of an eye. And the great thing is, I get to play and learn too!

It's an awesome site, I highly recommend it.

 

If you're anything like me,
and you haven't done much world geography with your kids yet,
you might be thinking -
"OMG, that must have taken forever to memorize."
You will be surprised at how quickly they learn with this program.
Lu learned all of Europe in about 4 hours.