Jan. 23rd ~ Exploring our neighbourhood ~ ELK!

Just a week at home doing some exploring, math & reading.

Ellar and I like to go outside for walks during the day to explore our neighbourhood.  We live in a beautiful part of Northern British Columbia!  Our dog, June, comes along for the walks too.  We live about 10km from town on a small acreage in a log house.  This week we saw hundreds of wild elk bedded down in a field about a kilometre from our house!  Here's a photo of what we saw from the side of the road on our walk!

Elk on Radar Road!

Ellar was using base 10 for addition.  He learned to make two piles of the two numbers that he was adding, and he put the piles together to make one big pile and that was the answer!  He also learned how to take away a pile of cubes to reduce a number as in subtraction.  Ellar really enjoys Mathletics, too!!  He prefers using the computer or iPad for his lessons.  We play games, like war and also memory, using the Power of Ten cards so Ellar becomes more familiar with what a group of ten looks like and can easily identify 3 less than is 7 etc.

Ellar really enjoys Mathletics, too!! 

Base 10

Some of Ellar's Jump Math 1.2 word problems...

 

Ellar likes to read level b and c books.  He works on both and reads several every week. 

We started a new workbook for reading fluency. 

Next weekend :  Ellar's Pre-Novice Jamboree in Fort Nelson!

Jan.16th Martin Luther King Jr.

Ellar's first week back homeschooling!

Monday, January 16th, was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day so we spent the week talking about civil and human rights. 

We remembered back 18 months ago when we visited the Centre for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia!  We watched a YouTube I Had A Dream Speech of Dr. King.

 

I read MLKjr.'s "I Had a Dream" speech to Ellar and he did some great activities!

I have a dream that...there is no slavery.  I dream that there is no war and no being rude.  By Ellar.

We talked about maps, compasses and legends and how to read a map.

Ellar and I talked about peace in the world.  We discussed peaceful protests and why people might use peaceful means to communicate their message.  We talked about miscommunication.  We also discussed what happens when people aren't peaceful.  We talked about when things happen on purpose versus by accident, our intentions.  Ellar understood that some people do things because they don't know better, and when we know better most often we all want to do better.  We can't make people change because it's not our job to teach people a lesson (not to judge), but we can be a good example that people will want to follow.  He replied "just like Jesus did," that made my heart smile! 

We talked about how some people think they deserve things that aren't theirs.  We talked about people who have hate in their hearts for people they've never met, just because of the colour of their skin.  We talked about how some people are prejudice against others because of what they've been taught.  

Ellar asks a lot of questions about war.  He wondered who wins in a war.  I told him nobody does.  There are no winners in war because there are always hard feelings that are left behind and there are always lives that are lost.  He understood that even when there is a winner, we all lose.  Peaceful protesting is a way to have your voice heard and make changes without causing pain and suffering.  This lead to a lengthy discussion about Gandhi, but that will be a blog for another day.