Olmec and Maya Exhibition in Tokyo

There's an exhibition of Olmec and Mayan artifacts in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro running just until this Sunday. It's not my typical thing, but we just studied about those civilizations a couple weeks ago in homeschool. If we're done with church early enough, we may go, if only to see the giant Olmec head, which is not to be confused with the Easter Island head from  Night at the Museum. (Hey Dum Dum! You give me gum gum!)

Olmec Head

Easter Island Head

New Grammar Text - Easy Grammar

T finished with four years' worth of First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mindand we started a new grammar curriculum with him called Easy Grammar. So far, we like it. Other than a few differences in terminology, the transition has been smooth.  It's fairly rigorous without being overwhelming. Unlike First Language Lessons, Easy Grammar isn't scripted for the teacher. That makes it easier for T to do on his own so we can spend our together time on subjects that need more input from me.

We've only been using Easy Grammar for a couple weeks now, so I can't say too much about it from experience. If my impressions change as we continue to use the curriculum, I'll come back and update this post. For a comparison of Easy Grammar and First Language Lessons from someone who has used them both more than I have, see "Easy Grammar Vs. First Language Lessons" at the wonderfully named blog, "Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Math Help Online

The web is full of great resources for supplementing our children's regular math curriculum. For example, one of my kids was struggling a bit with place value. Japanese is different from English in that there are words for ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, AND ten-thousands. Then it goes to ten ten-thousands (10,0000), a hundred ten-thousands (100,0000), a thousand ten-thousands (1000,0000), then another word for a hundred million (1,0000,0000), and so on. Add to that the fact that yen are two orders of magnitude different from dollars in value, and you've got guaranteed place value confusion for kids growing up bilingual (and their parents)!

All that to say why we needed extra math help, and how we found some wonderful math resources online. Sal Khan has hundreds of excellent, concise math video lessons, all for free at the Khan Academy. He begins with 1+1=2 and goes right through linear algebra. He has even branched out and done some videos on science, history, finance, and test prep. Here is his first place value video and links to his others. (Click the video to start it. Click it again to see it in a larger size on youtube.)

• Place value 2
• Place value 3
• Decimal place value
• Decimal place value 2

I'm all for teaching math through fun games like UNO, but sometimes you've just got to crank through a worksheet or two to solidify mastery. Softschools.com has help for several subjects including free math worksheets to cover subjects from pre-K through middle school. I like that you can set the minimum and maximum number of digits. Here are the ones I used for place value.

• Place value worksheet
• Numeral to number word worksheet

These are just two of the many, many resources out there. Please share your favorites in the comments.

Jewish Feasts and Crafts

In our first nine weeks of homeschooling this year, the kids learned about ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. They also studied the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and learned about creation, the calling of the Patriarchs and the Exodus. They learned about the Israelites' wanderings in the wilderness and the institution of the Law through Moses (including fun and meaning-filled feasts). Here are some pictures from the unit.

R's cereal-box ziggurat (the corn meal was meant to be mixed into the paint to add texture. She forgot, then sprinkled it over the top like snow).

A shelter for the Feast of Booths.

A shofar for the Feast of Trumpets.

The kids made a display about Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur.

Breaking unleavened bread (made by T and R) at our Passover feast.

Broken bread at Passover.

T made challah, a bread that is eaten at Sabbath and feasts other than Passover.

Our Homeschool Curriculum for 2010-2011

We are often asked about the curriculum we use for homeschooling. It changes every now and then but I'll share this year's lineup.

For our humanities and social studies subjects, we had been using whatever was recommended in The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. I still recommend that book highly for those thinking of homeschooling or supplementing.

After going through one four-year cycle of that, we have now switched to Tapestry of Grace for history, literature, Bible, art, geography, and writing. From their website, they claim to provide "a plan of study that helps parents provide a Christian, classical education using a guided unit study approach, with the history of the world as the core organizational theme." We are just in our third week but love it so far. If I could sum up the curriculum in a word, it would be convergence. We study the same topic through all  of the humanities and social studies disciplines, gaining a much clearer and deeper understanding than if we tackled each discipline individually. When I say "we" I include myself in learning with the kids. I am definitely on the journey too.


For math we use Saxon Math, currently at the end of levels 3 and 5/4. Different approaches to math work for different students but we appreciate how Saxon Math's incremental approach and constant review. For 5/4, we use the DIVE instructional CD.

We use Spelling Workout for spelling. I haven't used other spelling books so I can't compare but I am satisfied with the kids' progress. The teachers' books are sometimes hard to find but you can get by without them. If you really want them, you can find them used online.

For grammar, we are using Jessie Wise's First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, levels 2 and 4. These are great, but they require a lot of teacher time so we might switch to Daily Grams in when we are ready for new books later this year. (Any advice?)

We use Wordly Wise 3000 for vocabulary, but to be honest, the kids don't like it much. I'm trying to decide if we should try something else or just call it good with the vocabulary that the kids pick up from their reading.

The kids also study Japanese through a combination of reading library books, doing kumon worksheets, and working through the public elementary school textbooks.

I'd be happy to take any questions or ideas in the comments. (For the sake of disclosure, most of the links above have affiliate code in them. If you purchase anything through those links, I get a portion of the purchase price. The prices aren't any higher than they would ordinarily be.)

Edit: I forgot to mention our science curriculum. We use Real Science-4-Kids from Gravitas Publications. We are doing chemistry now. The lessons are simple and the experiments make use of commonly available items (except that we can't find purple cabbage in Japan to use an acid-base indicator. Grrrr). The kids look forward to our Friday "lab days."

Ancient Egypt Unit Study

This year we are using a unit-study homeschool curriculum called Tapestry of Grace. The first three weeks are about ancient Egypt. T and R are engrossed in their reading (Who knew that part of the mummification process was pulling the brain out piece by piece through the nostrils?). The activities are fun too. Below is the play dough land mass they made to learn geography terms. D contributed the island in the top right.

After dinner tonight, I shared what I know of Egyptian ambulatory customs.

There was dancing.

The First Thanksgiving

Here's a good Thanksgiving web site to check out with your kids while you eat turkey sandwiches and leftover pie. T, R, and I just spent some time looking around and learning things like "each pilgrim family was allotted around 800 square feet--about the size of a small apartment." (But a couple hundred square feet bigger than our apartment in Tokyo. Hmmm.)

(Scholastic Thanksgiving)

Tips on Raising Bilingual Children

I just read a good article called "Raising a Bilingual Child" (it's a pdf) by Julia Gariel and Jo Bristow. It gives good, common-sense tips, many of which we follow with our own children and those at the preschool.

Here's an excerpt.

For language learning to be successful it is essential that all exposure provides positive experience. There is no room for destructive criticism or negative comments. What the child needs is praise for effort, celebration of success, joy and laughter. Don't worry if he makes mistakes in grammar or pronunciation. Try to avoid correcting negatively. Just repeat the sentence back to him accurately, model it for him. In time he will automatically use the right structure which the language-learning area of his brain will have stored away for future use. For example:

Child: "Want go now park."

Adult Solution A:
"That's not the right way to ask. If you want to go to the park learn to ask properly. Say it like this . . . No, like this . . . ."

Result A:
Child feels wrong, gets bored repeating words, loses interest in going to the park, loses confidence in his ability to make his needs known. A learning opportunity is lost.

Adult Solution B:
"You want to go to the park now? I want to go to the park now, too. We'll go when we're ready."

Result B:
Child hears his sentence modeled correctly and stores it away. His needs are acknowledged, he feels good about the communication. Further language learning opportunities will take place in the park.

There are several other articles too. Check them out here.

Mitsumasa Anno - Picture Books that Teach Math

We recently found a few really delightful children's books by Mitsumasa Anno. He is (was?) a Japanese math teacher turned author of children's books. The ones we read were Anno's Magic Seeds, Anno's Counting House, and Anno's USA. I love studying and teaching other disciplines through literature, which is part of what draws me to Anno's books.

Anno's Magic Seeds is about a wizard who gives a young man named Jack two seeds and tells him to eat one and plant the other. He promises that Jack won't be hungry for a whole year and that the seed in the ground will produce two more seeds the next year so he can repeat the process. Jack obeys and the wizard's words come to pass. For a few years Jack continues eating one seed and planting the other but one year he decides to plant both seeds. That's when the fun begins as the seeds begin multiplying geometrically. Jack eventually has so many seeds that he starts selling some. He plants more and more each year and always eats one each year. It is the reader's job to figure out how many seeds were planted, harvested, etc. Other complications arise when Jack marries and has a baby. Of course his wife and child eat some seeds also. All goes well until the hurricane. Jack, thankful that his family is spared, begins anew with just a few seeds.

The book, besides being a fun, beautifully illustrated story and a challenging math puzzle, teaches about risk, compound interest, the importance of diversification and the fact that good things, especially family, mustn't be taken for granted.

Anno's Counting House is a wordless book about people moving from one house to another. The old house gradually empties and the new house gradually fills with the people and their furniture. The reader (or readee) needs to predict and count who and what moves from one house to the other at each stage in the story. Attention to detail is important.

Anno's USA is one of a series of journey books. Wikipedia describes them better than I could:

In the "Journey" books, a tiny character travels through a nation's landscape, densely populated with pictures referencing that country's art, literature, culture, and history. Anno's illustrations are often in pen and ink and watercolor, and occasionally incorporate collage and woodcuts. They are intricately detailed, showing a sense of humor as well as an interest in science, mathematics, and foreign cultures. They frequently incorporate subtle jokes and references.

There are three pages of Anno's work on amazon.

An interesting web site with math lessons based on literature (including some of Anno's books) for grades K-8 is called SMaRT Books. Check it out and if you have any other reading recommendations, please share in the comments.

First Stories

About a month ago T had an assignment to fill in the missing vowels in a story I wrote. It was standard drivel about a dog chasing a cat. T did the work well. Today he blew my mind by writing his own "book" while he was waiting for Tomomi and me to come out of a meeting. All the pages are stapled together. The cover has a picture of a dog chasing a cat up a tree and is titled "Dog cachis cat: bifrent storea" [Dog chases cat: different story]. Next comes a table of contents:

1. Dog and cat
2. The cat and fish and frog
3. The dog and the bird
4. The chikin

Here are the stories:

Dog and cat [An improvement on my story]

A cat wus in a Tree a dog wus borking at the cat skracht the Dog the Dog wus angree the dog chast the cat the cat ran and ran The Dog ran and ran the Dog got the cat The Dog took the cat to Dog's hows the cat is skerd the Dog Let the cat run in the Dog's hows The Dog made a hows for The cat

The cat and fish and frog [A T original]

A cat wus drining water The cat fawnd a fish to eat The cat didint wunt to go into the water beakus cats dont like water The cat sed to a frog go jumq into the water and get the fish but wen the frog trid karea the fish the fish wus to heve beacus the fish is big so the cat is angrea

The Dog and the Bird [Inspired by The Mitten?]

a Dog fawnd a hat But a Bird livd in it so the Dog look for anather place to liv the Dog fawnd cote But a goat wus eating it so the Dog look for a hows the Dog fawnd a skorf ther wus nobuddy living in it ther so the Dog wus lucky Is winter it wus code and worm

The chikin [Inspired by Chicken Little; work in progress?]

a chikin felt sumting fel on the chikin ced its raneing I beder fin the King

I'm really impressed with the initiative T took and with his creativity. I like how the dog in the first story began as an angry cat chaser but then was moved by the cat's fear to let the cat run in his house and even to make a house for the poor cat. I also like the persistence of the dog in the third story who didn't give up on living in an article of clothing even though the first two didn't work out.

T did well spelling the words he already knows phonics rules for and he took educated guesses with other words. I need to teach him how to end sentences with periods. Overall I'm very pleased with his efforts. He just started first grade two and a half months ago.

Illustrated Life of Joseph

I read the story of Joseph to T this morning and suggested he draw a picture to illustrate it. I came home from work and found this. I love the detail and thoroughness. Click the photo to see it larger, then go to the photo's page on flickr (here) and mouse around on it to see a frame-by-frame commentary.

Schools Are for Fish

This comic by Jason Holm was linked to on a mailing list that I read. Homeschooling isn't for everyone and has its drawbacks but so far socialization hasn't been a problem for us. T has great friends of various ages and backgrounds. And he doesn't have the pressure to conform that he would if he were at school.

See the original page for the part of the comic I edited out. It's funny but a little negative towards people who choose traditional education.

Child Raising

"Be sure that your children each day have:

• Something or someone to love
• Something [worthwhile] to do
• Something to think about"

That's a quote from a book I'm reading called A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola. She expands on each of these.

Something or someone to love can be a family member, a friend or even a pet. "There are opportunities for love in every home. there also many ways to provide services (labors of love) to others if you look for them."

Something to do: "Amusing oneself with idle pastimes all day is not really doing anything. A little amusement is fine, but boredom will be transformed into real interest when your children are given meaningful tasks of recreation or of service."

Something to think about: "Thinking is quite impossible without something to think about. It is enjoying other people's ideas and thoughts and jokes . . . noticing beauty in music and pictures. . . enjoying country sights and sounds, birds and flowers. [. . .] ideas to grow on are present in books--real "living" books. And it is we as parents who are responsible for giving our children a taste of the finest, so that they will acquire a taste for the best our civilization has to offer. The power of finding joy and refreshment in reading is an incredible resource!"

Charlotte Mason was an English turn of the century (19th turning to 20th century that is) educator whose ideas are very influential in parts of the homeschooling community. (Click her name in the preceding sentence to read more about her on Wikipedia.) I appreciate her view of the liberal arts as central to quality education. I also like that she advocated "living books:"

Probably the best known of Charlotte's methods is her use of living books instead of dry, factual textbooks. Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The size of the book does not matter nearly as much as whether it is "alive" and engaging. Textbooks are allowed if they meet that criterion. "Twaddle" refers to books or information that is dumbed down and insults the child's intelligence. Living books should be used with as many subjects as possible. source

A good next step if the Wikipedia article sparks your interest is Simply Charlotte Mason.

Home School Hassles

We are in week two of homeschooling T and everyone is having a good time so far. I teach him for an hour first thing in the morning before leaving for work and then Tomomi takes over for a couple hours. He's usually done by lunchtime.

We've had an interesting series of correspondence with the public school board and the principal of the school he "should" be attending. The principal told us he thought homeschooling sounded good for our situation but that he had no authority to release T from school (compulsory education) so we should contact the school board.

The school board, acting in typical bureaucratic fashion sent us a form to fill out as to why our child wouldn't be attending public school. Here are the choices:

• child is too handicapped even to attend a school for the blind, the mute or the disabled.
• child is in jail (juvenile hall).
• child is missing or not living at home.
• child is a returnee from abroad and needs tutoring in Japanese before being able to attend school.
• child has dual citizenship and is attending an approved international school.

Obviously none of these apply to T. When we called and brought up that fact the person at the school board said if he didn't fit any of those criteria, he would have to enroll in public school.

We called the principal again today and explained the current situation. He said that T is in fact enrolled in first grade class #3. He has a desk and a set of textbooks waiting for him. By law the principal can't "officially" release T from school, but he wished us luck and implicitly gave his blessing. He said T is welcome any time and we can drop by to pick up his books if we want to use them at home.

We are expecting a pesky postcard when T misses seven days in a row but hopefully it will end there. The board should be satisfied that he is indeed enrolled in school, and the principal can't say anything but he has given us a nod a wink to indicate that he is on our side. I'll post more if anything else occurs.

Big Change Tomorrow

Spring break is finished and tomorrow we begin our second year at the preschool. (Japan's school year goes from April.) R will be one of the bigger kids.

T starts elementary school tomorrow in the living room. We're going to homeschool him. I'll do English with him for an hour early in the morning, then breakfast, and when I leave for work Tomomi will cover Japanese and the other subjects. We will mostly using recommendations from The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. It's a classical approach and what I like about it, besides the fact that they emphasize literature, is that the history curriculum is very broad in scope. Most of the other stuff we looked at was very, very American. As a binational, we think T will benefit from a more universal approach.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be posting a lot about our homeschooling experience and the specific challenges of doing it in Japan.