That's a long gap. I guess things have been quiet and routine with nothing much happening. I was always bad at recording routine things, as the quality of my university notes shows. I'm attempting to make sure C is better at this than I was. It's the curse of a good memory and knowing part of the subject. It's only later that one realises that memory is not quite as good as one thought, plus in amongst all the known bits in a lecture was buried an important nugget of information that was missed due to inattention.
On to more recent things.
When starting at his swimming club almost eighteen months ago, C declared that he wanted to learn to swim better but didn't want to do competitive stuff. Since then, we've observed him checking out the children next to him to see how well he's doing, so he wants to be first despite his competition claims. The club has an internal gala over a couple of weekends at the end of the year and we encouraged C to take part. "It's against your friends, a chance to see what it's like" and various other forms of encouragement. He ended up entering for every race for which he was eligible, which was the four age-group races plus all the open events. The competitive urge is there, albeit well-hidden, because he was twenty seconds faster in his butterfly race than when I was timing him the week before. He came away with three silvers and a bronze medal from the age-group events, and declared he wanted to get a gold medal and a trophy in future. Cue some motivational talks about working hard and getting rewarded for effort.
He had a chance to compete for the club in February, but it coincided with a family holiday in Cornwall, so we declined that one and didn't mention it to him. He got another chance at the start of April, and got very stressed about it and didn't want to do it. We had lots of talks about it all, to determine why he didn't want to do it. It was complicated by the fact that he's reached a level where he was good enough to move up from one group to another at swim club and he was also having trouble with that change, even though we could see he was better than some of those in the higher group. He agreed to do the competition, and we had a stressful week or two leading up to it. He was also placed into a group a year older than him, the club being more interested in giving experience to those who want it rather than those who stand the best chance of winning (not all the local clubs are like that). In a way it was a compliment because if they had to bump someone up, it suggests that they think he's better than the others who were available. He did his couple of races and decided it was really good fun, so he's over that hump now, and signed up for an open event for a couple of months' time.
In other things, C is noticeably more comfortable doing basic arithmetic, and is doing sums in his head with no prompting, he's well into reading, and we're working on his spelling. I saw mention of a DS game called Scribblenauts on one of the home education lists and we got that for him. His spelling has improved noticeably since he got it, so I guess I can recommend it. He's had a play with his chemistry set that he got for Christmas, and is progressing with other science stuff. We even touched on religious education, explaining why I was at home on a Friday today. A while back he read us the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours and I dug out a YouTube video of the song from the musical. I remember singing that at school.
We had fun in Cornwall in February, off season so we ended up with personal tours of places and got to see and do things that wouldn't be possible in the busy season. C had chance to feed penguins which he loved, and to see seals at a sanctuary, and visit the Lizard Lighthouse. Land's End was a disappointment, we didn't stay long. It just seemed too commercial compared to the wilder environment at the Lizard.
So, things progressing happily and mostly smoothly, on all fronts.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Friday, 22 April 2011
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Drive and Motivation
One of the articles of faith of autonomous education is that the child wants to learn and will do so happily with minimal coercion, provided there is interest in the subject and appropriate materials and assistance are provided. Even 'downtime' spent playing computer games or watching TV is part of the process, where the brain can organise what it has accumulated. Some computer games and TV programmes are also useful learning in their own right, or can serve as a foundation for a new or renewed interest.
One of the milestones I've looked for in C is a willingness to sit and read non-fiction books for fun, which I remember doing when I was at school, at least in the subjects I enjoyed. It was therefore pleasing to discover that C stayed awake in bed last night until nearly midnight, reading a Horrible Science book from cover to cover. He even remembered it and showed me some of the experiments that he found interesting, so we'll have to do those to reinforce the big step forward. It's also a cue to get some more books at an appropriate level and leave them where he can find them.
One of the milestones I've looked for in C is a willingness to sit and read non-fiction books for fun, which I remember doing when I was at school, at least in the subjects I enjoyed. It was therefore pleasing to discover that C stayed awake in bed last night until nearly midnight, reading a Horrible Science book from cover to cover. He even remembered it and showed me some of the experiments that he found interesting, so we'll have to do those to reinforce the big step forward. It's also a cue to get some more books at an appropriate level and leave them where he can find them.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
How to Start
One of the things I find hardest, but most satisfying, about unstructured education, is the question that appears at short notice, related to something that C is doing. Then I'm struggling with the 'where do I start?' problem, trying to explain something that is now second nature to me because I've known it so long. Trying to remember back to how I was introduced to the subject is almost impossible, not least because I probably read the text book and learned it that way. C is still a bit young to take to that sort of thing though, so we improvise and try to lay the groundwork for when he's ready to come back and tackle the subject some more.
Over the weekend the HotWheels track came out of wherever it had been stored. This is the one that hooks over the top of a door, with a track that drops down steeply and then angles up so the car flies off the end of the track and hopefully through a hoop some distance away. From this we got to some physics equations, namely v=u+at, s=ut+0.5at^2 and v^2=u^2+2as [*] As a bonus, I managed to link in C's experience of playing the lunar lander game at the National Space Centre as another example of using the equations. In the absence of graph paper (must find some) to add in a lesson in how to plot graphs, I fired up OpenOffice and set up some equations and a graph on the spreadsheet. This gave a nice demonstration of things such as having the launch trajectory at 60 degrees landed in the same place as having it at 30 degrees, and the fact that 45 degrees gave maximum range. We also covered the time taken for the 30/60 trajectories and discussed which one would be easiest to get through a vertical hoop.
I may put together a gadget with a couple of light beams and a timer so that he can set the beams at different heights and record the time taken between the beams for each height. He loves gadgets, and I'm sure that making a few would encourage the learning process somewhat. At some point I might even let him assist in building, if I think he's OK using a soldering iron. One learns very quickly which end to hold and picks up useful tips such as not trying to catch it if it gets knocked off the bench and to pay attention when using it.
[*] no doubt known to those who did physics O-level. The modern GCSE equivalent is probably to write an essay on the evils of speed when it comes to motor vehicles.
Over the weekend the HotWheels track came out of wherever it had been stored. This is the one that hooks over the top of a door, with a track that drops down steeply and then angles up so the car flies off the end of the track and hopefully through a hoop some distance away. From this we got to some physics equations, namely v=u+at, s=ut+0.5at^2 and v^2=u^2+2as [*] As a bonus, I managed to link in C's experience of playing the lunar lander game at the National Space Centre as another example of using the equations. In the absence of graph paper (must find some) to add in a lesson in how to plot graphs, I fired up OpenOffice and set up some equations and a graph on the spreadsheet. This gave a nice demonstration of things such as having the launch trajectory at 60 degrees landed in the same place as having it at 30 degrees, and the fact that 45 degrees gave maximum range. We also covered the time taken for the 30/60 trajectories and discussed which one would be easiest to get through a vertical hoop.
I may put together a gadget with a couple of light beams and a timer so that he can set the beams at different heights and record the time taken between the beams for each height. He loves gadgets, and I'm sure that making a few would encourage the learning process somewhat. At some point I might even let him assist in building, if I think he's OK using a soldering iron. One learns very quickly which end to hold and picks up useful tips such as not trying to catch it if it gets knocked off the bench and to pay attention when using it.
[*] no doubt known to those who did physics O-level. The modern GCSE equivalent is probably to write an essay on the evils of speed when it comes to motor vehicles.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Music
When I was single, I usually had music playing from some source of other. I didn't own a TV at the time, so radio and recorded music was it. This tailed off once there were two of us, because other things occupied the time. When there was a small child around, music-related stuff tended to be aimed at the younger age bracket, although it was also a good excuse to play some Mozart.
More recently, I've been playing stuff and asking C what he thinks of it. He seems to enjoy punk and rock music, which is good because that seems to be what we've got a lot of. I have a bunch of classical stuff as well, but I need to organise a project to put that onto the computer from CD so we can listen to it more conveniently. Longer-term, encouraging C to listen to more music is going to be good. He's being taught piano and recorder and can read music, so there's a start to it. At some point I set up my old copy of Cakewalk on his computer and connected it to the Yamaha keyboard. He had some fun writing his own music, and seems to have an ability for it that should be encouraged. I did ask him how he did it and he showed me how he would try different notes until he found the one that sounded 'right'. He shows every indication of being much better at it than I ever was.
Today I decided to answer one of his questions (what's opera?) by playing Carmen. He stuck around for the first CD, but has now vanished off to play. Later, I'll go and ask him a bit about it and see what he thought. I always disliked opera until I got to see Carmen on TV, although I've since realised that what's bad about opera is the excessive vibrato of voices that makes them sound like cats in heat. Not all opera singers are like that, so it's very much a case of choose performances carefully.
It occurred to me that C is probably a bit young to understand the nuances of the story, but it's the only complete opera in the house. The next best thing is a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan, so I might try him on some of that as well if he has the patience to listen.
I'm sure that somewhere it should be possible to work in some history of music, working through different composers, and even expose him to music theory and see if that helps or hinders his tune-writing efforts.
More recently, I've been playing stuff and asking C what he thinks of it. He seems to enjoy punk and rock music, which is good because that seems to be what we've got a lot of. I have a bunch of classical stuff as well, but I need to organise a project to put that onto the computer from CD so we can listen to it more conveniently. Longer-term, encouraging C to listen to more music is going to be good. He's being taught piano and recorder and can read music, so there's a start to it. At some point I set up my old copy of Cakewalk on his computer and connected it to the Yamaha keyboard. He had some fun writing his own music, and seems to have an ability for it that should be encouraged. I did ask him how he did it and he showed me how he would try different notes until he found the one that sounded 'right'. He shows every indication of being much better at it than I ever was.
Today I decided to answer one of his questions (what's opera?) by playing Carmen. He stuck around for the first CD, but has now vanished off to play. Later, I'll go and ask him a bit about it and see what he thought. I always disliked opera until I got to see Carmen on TV, although I've since realised that what's bad about opera is the excessive vibrato of voices that makes them sound like cats in heat. Not all opera singers are like that, so it's very much a case of choose performances carefully.
It occurred to me that C is probably a bit young to understand the nuances of the story, but it's the only complete opera in the house. The next best thing is a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan, so I might try him on some of that as well if he has the patience to listen.
I'm sure that somewhere it should be possible to work in some history of music, working through different composers, and even expose him to music theory and see if that helps or hinders his tune-writing efforts.
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