A Week in the Life of Legoboy: Tuesday - Upper Elementary Montessori

We started with a different sort of Monday, ending with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (Jesus) at the local parish from midnight to 1 AM - something we normally don't do at that time. We did get to hear "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" at the fastest pace EVER. No funeral dirges or slow meditative chants from this priest at 1AM with his favorite song ;)

And now - at 9:57AM, Legoboy sleeps. With this National Night of Prayer running form 9PM to 1AM, I am not sure how many other children were able to participate due to the need to be at school by 8AM. Blessing of Homeschooling.

By the time he woke up, USPS had been here to deliver some Christmas gifts for others. He made breakfast for both of us and we finished prepping and wrapping the gifts. We both found it funny that we received two mail deliveries today - one with packages, the other with regular mail.

Morning prayer

Watched some more Once Upon a Time - honestly, looking for plot holes to create a list of questions to send to the creators.

Confirmation card - on the effects and responsibilities of Baptism and the gift of Grace by the Holy Spirit.

EEME - Work on some of the follow-up questions/suggestions he received via e-mail from the creator of EEME. Legoboy created what EEME Dad calls a "dumb light" (gets brighter in bright locations and dimmer in dim locations). He is working on the suggestions and a response e-mail to EEME Dad


Clean up the hall and landing upstairs - we are mostly beyond the unpacking mode but are still in the "slowly getting specific items where we actually want them and find them the most useful". We are working in stages so we can keep going with the rest of life.

Missing two shelves from moving helpers...
Organizing still a work in progress. 

Eventually we'll have these games organized.
Apparently we like games around here. 

Free-time: Legos and tae-kwon-do practice

Come up with a thousand ways to ask about opening Day 10's Advent Calendar.
No.
(Can I blast a hole through an iceberg? Can I do light-saber target practice? Can I make a sky-light?)
The #10 slot in question is located above an ice-cave opening. On Day 1 he asked such questions as "Can I be-head Darth Vader? Can I give Darth Vader a new helmet?" and the like because the top of Darth Vader's helmet overlaps the Day 2 slot.

For the record - I do not see this as a sign of commercialism or materialism - merely a young boy who LOVES jokes. He will argue with ANYthing just to get people thinking and riled up.

Early dinner - LOVE tortellini here :)

Tae-kwon-do - running a bit late, ordinarily before class is hang-out time with friends. Just one class this evening. Because during Advent we have:
...Children's choir - Tuesday evenings leading up to Christmas. He'll be singing at the 4pm children's Mass Christmas Eve. He's not a singer in the spirit of having good pitch matched with others - he sounds great singing by himself with his own renditions though. So this was a surprise to me. He wants to sing at that Mass and serve the altar at midnight.
(the file below has now image - I had the phone facing down on the pew while recording - so it is a video, but it is ok you don't "see" anything ;) )

Get gas - pick up pizza
Yes, I let him go across the street from the gas station we were at, to one of our other local gas stations (their pizza is the BEST) while I pumped the gas. I then picked him up from there. I love this area - I can see his every step, we know on some level every employee of all 3 local gas stations (and both banks), and the sheriff was on duty watching traffic right there ;)

Home for bedtime prep and two of our shows (both in winter finales)
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
Forever
Watch the news to catch the weather (the ONLY time we watch the news - ever - is after our shows)

Evening prayer

Throughout the day we also played Quik-Sane and a few rounds of W'FF. Because yes, we do like playing games. Legoboy always has some set of cards out to play in between other stuff. Our latest favorite? Rivals for Catan.





Not much math happening here - but lots of using it in real life

• cooking - measuring water and oats, adjusting for wanting 4 servings (the instructions have 1, 2, 6 servings)
• how many miles per gallon gas, how many miles can we go on a tank, how many gallons are left when the low-fuel light comes on. Yeah, we had one of THOSE evenings. While at choir practice, I also drove over to the choir director's home to get her reading glasses she'd accidentally left there, so we *really* needed gas after practice was over ;) 
• he wanted to know when the mail would be arriving; a friend texted to tell us their mail had been delivered, he calculated the miles, the speed of truck with it stops, added to the time of the text message. He was off by 10 seconds - "And that my son is called estimation. We can't predict every delay or package or which houses he can skip for having no mail that day."
• Estimating wood branches usage to see how many Friday fires we can have throughout the winter with current supply. Yes, this one was just plain hilarious - what if we want a longer fire, what if it burns slower or faster, what if we want a bigger fire? But at least he's trying - and thinking. 
• I weighed a package for a Garden of Francis order - he plays with the buttons every time to see what it is in grams compared to ounces then re-calculates to get me to believe that the scale is inaccurate. It's NOT inaccurate, but he "plays" with the numbers to get it looking that way. The thing is - to do what he is doing, he has to KNOW what he is starting with; otherwise he might happen upon the "right" answer and end up looking foolish ;) 

Writing these up, I don't feel like we're hitting on everything - that would take a book each day ;) All the little conversations we have, tossed in between and during everything else....

Interesting to see.

A Day in the Life of Legoboy

Caveat: We no longer have a work-cycle as such at all. We live according to the rhythm of life - so school happens when/how it happens, integrated with the entirety of our lives. This is not unschooling (we still have specific experiences and a guide to those lessons/experiences; I present key experiences, we discuss plans and outcomes together, while the ultimate responsibility is for Legoboy to take those key experiences and construct himself into his own person.

CAVEAT 2: I wrote and scheduled this post before having the bright idea to document a whole week. I will leave this post scheduled on the day it is, but with the note that these events took place the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Wake up and build with Legos. Yes, he really does that. He jumps out of bed, combs his hair, uses the toilet, gets some breakfast and reads - then does some work with Legos (or drawing out Lego or Minecraft plans).

This photo is actually from the Lego KidsFest. I need a
photo of Legoboy's Lego Cave ;) 

Review the interdependencies chart - Biology

He reviews this chart from time to time - just for the fun of it. Sometimes he draws pictures based on it or from other studies, adding more details. The first time he received this chart as a 6 year old, he re-created the chart on his own paper (tracing it to scale); at 8, he created it identically but smaller. At other times he has done a variety of other follow-ups. On this day (at age 10), he chose to simply talk it out with me, explaining how each component is interdependent upon each other - and how we, the humans, have created a supranatura that we are now dependent upon as well. This led to an interesting discussion about those people (Legoboy would LOVE to do this) who live off-grid, some attempting to be completely self-sufficient. What is the reality here?

The reality is that modern technologies, human progress, etc. have actually made it MORE possible to live "off-grid" - but that "off-grid" now looks VERY different than it would have 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 1000 years ago. Ancient people lived more in harmony with nature, to be certain - but consider that now we have an understanding of the microscopic world and what it can do for us (and against us), microfibers, and so much more. Thus "all-natural" living has a different understanding than it did centuries in the past.

Lots more to discuss there ;)



Outdoor work: 

• pull loose branches from the trees
• gather sticks and branches from all over the yard (we have 1.13 acre ;) )
• set up 2 outside burn piles (one next to the storage shed on the north side of the yard, one next to the compost heap on the other side of the yard) - and 1 indoor in the garage ---- we have a fire-pit already (although we might move it just slightly closer to the house)
• clean off the porch - clear storage tubs (some to compost pile, empty ones to tub to wash), sweep off the porch, clean out the big storage bin and organize gardening items on one side, outside toys on the other)
• set up the compost pile to our personal liking

He started before I went out so I could work on dishes -
trying to tease some loose branches out of the tree above

Errands across the street

Out the side-front window ;) 

He runs a variety of errands across the street, and to the landlord's house (kiddycorner to our back-yard) and other neighbors. I love this area - on the one hand, we are definitely rural, but we do have some people/places nearby.

Horses live beyond our back fence
(the fire pit, in this photo, is the brush-pile towards the right side)

Laundry
Because we can ;)



Apologetics class

He signed up for the monthly unlimited subscription - not doing the live classes, but watching many of the recorded classes. This works out more affordable, but limits access to immediate feedback from the instructor (although some instructors offer such feedback for a very small fee). Legoboy is currently working through a middle school introductory apologetics course, which is VERY good.


Herbal Cold Care















Continuing our herbal studies, we recently signed for Herbal Cold Care through LearningHerbs.com. A series of 10 videos walk through straight-forward use of herbs and normal foods for the prevention, cure, treatment and follow-up healing from colds and flu. AWESOME stuff here. And lots of downloads of recipes, monographs on particular herbs and more. We got in on about half-off the cost because we also participate in Herb Mentor. Among our other herbal studies from Learning Herbs and other resources, these two have been so straight-forward, real and useful. I can't say enough about using natural remedies for our health.




Sherlock

Legoboy and his godmother are both way into Sherlock. He has been reading the original stories for a couple of years now. We have been hearing talk of the BBC show - and finally watched it on Netflix (Seasons 1 and 2) - HOOKED.


Confirmation card
He is preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation and one of our resources we are using at home is a workbook I divided up into activity cards so he can create a notebook on various topics and experiences. Each week he does 2-7 cards, with 70 altogether, leading him through prayers, reading the Sacred Scriptures, studying sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, studying prayers in the Roman Missal, applying Church teaching to real life, etc.



Reading general books
He reads. And builds with Legos. And reads some more. Then asks for movies. Yes, we watch a lot of movies of late - all related to what he is reading in one way or another with LOTS of discussions. I love it :)


Locate Narnia binder and flip through previous work
He wants to re-begin a Narnia study we started quite a while back (which is actually what prompted the Sherlock reading above).
I think if this were the ONLY thing we were doing for school (adding in a math component only), it would be something we would work on more routinely. As it is, we are barely finishing up Magician's Nephew (first book in the study - it presumes you have read the books already, and are re-reading them for the study) and we started WAY back when (3 1/2 years ago???). we don't even do all the activities, we just get started down a rabbit trail or we have our other studies.



Some stuff w do together; some we do side-by-side with moments of cooperation. Some things we do in entirely different locations. We really work together - as a community - building on each other and around each other. Living life :)

"Education as an Aid to Life" - that is the them of Montessori - and the best place to do that is at home (home = with family).

setting up the bead cabinet for visitors and future co-op 

A Week in the Life of Legoboy: Monday - Upper Elementary Montessori

Monday, December 8 in the life of a Catholic family - Legoboy was on the schedule for 6:30 AM Mass for the Feast Immaculate Conception.

Our biology study of the day: recalling that a newly created baby girl in the womb of her mother already has eggs forming in her brand-new ovaries - all the DNA that will become her future children is already separating itself out into eggs. Indeed, those eggs are actually mature enough, even while their mother is in the womb of their grandmother, that a British group has had serious discussions about the feasibility of harvesting said eggs from the ovaries of aborted female babies for use in fertility treatments: in-vitro fertilization. 

The main drawback? that those children will grow up and find out that their "birthmother" was "never alive". 

Really. Wow. So the egg that has now become my son was created in my ovaries before I was "alive"? Eggs can grow in something that isn't alive? I had ovaries before I was alive myself? 

Tongue-in-cheek. In reality, I cry for all the pain that is out there because of mis-information about when life begins. 

In the end, science informs our faith. Life begins at the moment of conception. Period. 

Legoboy loves talking about this stuff. 

It was not this light when we left.
In fact, it was not this light when we returned home. 

I did not sleep well last night. In fact, I didn't sleep at all. No particular reason, I just couldn't sleep. Bleck. I couldn't focus on anything this morning when we got back, so Legoboy made himself some oatmeal and I laid down for 3 hours - and finally slept.

I am pretty sure we did not do morning prayer today. Since Mass is the greatest prayer we have, I suppose we are ok ;)

He worked on some Minecraft while I slept, working around the reality that he is not allowed to kill "humans" even in the game. Zombies and animals are fair game. The one is already dead and is attacking him; the other is needed for food and other commodities.

He also worked with Legos. You know - hands-on Minecraft ;)

I woke up and checked e-mails. We had a nice response from the gentleman who offers EEME - Monthly Electronics Projects. After each thing we do on there, we receive an automatic request for a survey/feedback. This last one I put in a couple of requests, pointed out what we loved and shared that Legoboy was having trouble getting the photoresistor to work properly in other configurations (it is actually going brighter when it should go dimmer, and vice-versa). Mr. Pien "EEME Dad" offered for us to send him a photo and he'd see if he could provide some feedback. He loves that Legoboy is experimenting with alternate methods. Very cool.

So he got a photo ready to send over (I just took care of responding this evening, so no response yet as of the time I type this).

 Randomly took a picture of himself walking. Cute.

We have been slowly working on our Jesse Tree ornaments for this year - set up the tree this morning, but have not yet hung the ornaments. Last year, Legoboy made paper ones each day. This year, we'll be doing wood-burned ornaments again.

For Advent, he has a Star Wars Lego Advent calendar. In the past, he has had a Kingdoms Lego Advent Calendar which was really neat. The City version never intrigues him for some reason.

He did use his St. Nicholas gift with some Legos today - after a couple of hours of experimentation, both yesterday AND today. He received a box with a battery pack with a switch that allows the current to go either way or off, a motor with a piston that turns either direction based on the switch, wires with 2 lights, and something else (can't remember off-hand). A few small extra pieces too. Anyway, today he built this - he says he has more to add to it to make a non-water boat.

Our Advent prayer table. Using a red candle for Gaudete Sunday - he can't seem to find the rose candles and I have not had time to look.

All the Legos he is getting for Christmas either from me or from others? I got some free packages mixed in ;) To be clear - those freebies? they're mine ;)

History: He and I reviewed his progress on his Mystery of History Wall of Fame. He was half-way done, looking forward to finishing up two months ago, then had the idea to convert all his images to the computer. He wants to learn how to use Paint.net really well and thought this would be a great to do so. He is about 20 images in so far (doing 2-3 a day, about 3-4 days a week) - and his skills are definitely improving! He won't let me share until it is entirely done.

Confirmation Preparation: He worked on a card in his Confirmation notebook. He does 1-2 a day, 4-5 days a week, with about 4-5 cards actually done each week. (more information in another post)

Outside to gather up more fallen branches and sticks, sweep away some leaves, before snow falls again.

Natural creations: Made new batches of deodorant and toothpaste. Yes, he helps make this stuff.

We did some afternoon chores together, cleaned up the living room, discussed the most recent episode of Once Upon a Time and how grateful we are to have the movie Frozen with substantially fewer loose ends now. Elsa, Anna and their aunt (who also has ice powers) have been on Once Upon A Time this season - the aunt is something else, and it came to a sudden conclusion that at first made us all think, "What!? That was IT!? That is all it took? That was WAY too simple!" But if you go back to the "Love Experts'" (the trolls') song in Frozen:

"People don't really change... People make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed, But throw a little love their way - and you'll bring out their best. True love brings out their best!"

We only watched the movie this past summer when there was an intro of Elsa at the end of OUAT Season 3. I LIKED the movie, surprisingly enough, but SO MANY loose ends.

Most of them are now tied up. Why the parents left. Yes they threw a message in a bottle before they drowned. Are the powers genetically passed on or was Elsa cursed? Does Anna's love really withstand all things? Could she ever do something to harm Elsa? What is Christoff like when HE is grumpy? These and so much more. Legoboy appreciates the further depth to the story now! He is NOT a Frozen fan in general.

Faith Formation: Two lessons of Consecration in Truth - below his actual grade level, but the teaching is so meaty that he asked to go back to where we stopped. He did level 1 when he was in kindergarten-age, but we've not used it since then. So he picked up with level 2 today and we did the first two lessons.


Then it was time for tae-kwon-do.

Mystery shop at Dairy Queen. My favorite mystery shop ;) Legoboy's too.


45 minute drive home - yuck. Stuck behind 10-15 mile per hour traffic for NO apparent reason (two police cars in front of the traffic slowing everyone down).

Evening prayer.

Considered a nap. We had adoration at the church from midnight to 1 AM, tonight, in honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the upcoming Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe when Mary appeared to St Juan Diego with the unborn Jesus in her womb ---- this vigil/adoration is for the sake of all unborn children in our world.

Legoboy took a nap. When I woke him up, he stumbled around for about 5 minutes, then came to me and asked, "Did I fall asleep?" Yeah, just a little, kid ;)

after everyone in front of us left

That was his Monday (and a small part of mine).
Lots of faith formation. Can't complain ;)


I'll add: I looked up Fractals and we both discussed them. People keep mentioning them and it IS in the Frozen song "Let it Go". My personal opinion? Totally cool, totally fun. No need to introduce lesson plans or new materials for Montessori-educated children - just have a book or a chart about them to entice interest. These seem more a follow-up, a connection to art for sure - not necessary as a "key experience" because the key experiences that already emphasize patterns and history and further studies will lead the children down that path.
And if the children don't go there in elementary - then they have adolescence for it. 

Electricity - EEME (Review Post)

We are still in the process of unpacking - well, not so much unpacking as making it all homey and cozy. Since we have more space and lots of projects, we are slowly and carefully working through each one, spreading out (did I just say "spreading out"!?!?!? Oh yes!) and actually enjoying the process!

Just to distract us from the joy of having a glorified walk-in closet (the master bedroom, with its three closets, holds only our clothes (a closet for each of us), holiday decorations, sewing projects, and laundry. Yep - walk-in closet.)...

So the distraction? Someone on a Montessori Facebook group (I wish I could remember who!) recently linked to EEME - curious, I clicked over. I was intrigued. We penny-pinch around here - so $8.95 for the first month to try out some electric projects, with lots of online videos and other resources? Yeah, worth it. 

And YES - WORTH IT. 

Legoboy has very limited interest in electricity, building a couple of kits (a robotic car and a traffic kit - both kits that I thought would entice interest - the light didn't work; the car was way fun for him (the crazy honking horn sold him - it sold me OUT ;) ) --- and there was some electricity with the LEGO Tower of Orthanc. Not enough to entice interest in further electric studies though. 

I shared the website with him, he watched a video - and he said, "I WOULD like to try it. We can always cancel if I don't like it or it's not worth it."

His first kit arrived today. It's been 4 hours. 

Here he is: 

At this point he has watched all the associated videos and is experimenting with this "Genius Light" circuit to assure he understands the concepts and can make it work. (he actually got it to work, but backwards - it lights up in bright rooms and dims in dimmer rooms - and now he is off experimenting to figure out WHY). 

This is everything the first set comes with: battery pack (with 2 batteries), 2 stickers (he put one on already), baseplate to hold the bread-board and the battery pack, bread-board (the white thing with all the dots), 2 resistors, LED, photoresistor, 2 1-inch wires, 2 2-inch wires. 

$18.95 normally - but $10 off if you use someone's referral link. Here is one: EEME with referral code. So $8.95 for all of that plus video instruction, plus additional free lessons on the website. 

Um. He's hooked. He has offered to pay half of each month's shipment for the duration. 

Legoboy is learning about negative and positive sides, how to arrange wires based on what is connected and what is not; that a current needs to complete itself in order to work, etc. 

So what all do we have here? 

• Each month for 7 months, you receive a package in the mail with the necessary components for that project (plus the requirement to use some of last month's stuff too). 
• Corresponding video instructions are given in short blips, with quiz questions inserted sporadically to ensure understanding. Not just blurt-back questions either - they are basic enough but you do have to actually think to answer them. 
• What you receive can be rearranged and used for other purposes. In the end, it is a LOT of stuff and LOT more learning, with lots of experiments, ideas and inspiration. 

This first month has "22 sub-lessons", the last few lessons actually build the Genius Light; the first ones lead the child through various styles of lighting up the LED, what will work and why; how the bread-board works, and more. 

You can also watch all the future videos when you first subscribe - to see what is coming up before you get your items. 

The DOWNside is the same as the UPside: they only mail each kit on the first of each month. So whenever you sign up, you wait until the 5th or so of the next month to receive your items. Then each month afterward... so no moving on quickly to the next topic. 

On the other hand - this then gives a month to really let the learning sink in, do some more experiments, have questions pop up --- then get started on the next lesson. 

Where do we find electricity in the Montessori key experiences? 

• The children in first and second world countries have been sensorially experiencing electricity their whole lives. Many children in third world countries don't need or use it. Thus electricity is NOT a key experience for the universal child. 
• For those children for whom it is a key experience: it would correspond with "Geography" - Earth Studies --- specifically it could come in with a review of "Attraction and Gravity" (magnetism comes in here - so an introduction to positives and negatives). Unless there is an earlier interest or an earlier experience that entices that interest, typically upper elementary and into adolescence is the time to really get into electricity studies - with lots of hands-on work. We want the children to understand what they are doing (electricity CAN be dangerous), so we want them to have a basic understanding of atoms, perhaps some exposure to the periodic table of elements. 
• If we are utilizing Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding with AMI-style key experiences, we have the following note included in Thread C where energy and electricity are studied: 

• This entire thread is interest-driven in the AMI Montessori albums. Come to it as your children are ready and interested. Always introdue concepts on the sensorial level first; at primary have the experience first, then add language. At elementary the language and experience can come together. These here are the concepts that are discussed in the AMI albums that the children in classrooms will find experiments in other books and resources and want to replicate in the classroom. Also, many of these areas are more upper elementary as far as going DEEP but can certainly be done sensorially and as fun activities in primary and lower elementary. (the download for a document correlating BFSU with Montessori key experiences is included at the link above)

An introductory study of electricity: 

1. Conversations about the electricity we use (as early as the child starts exploring with light switches and bulbs). 
2. Exploration based on interest: simple kits, books, etc. (as early as primary for those children interested; into lower elementary) Here is a great blog post from Montessori in Bloom about using electricity in primary.
3. Later upper elementary and adolescence: more concise conversations and explorations, with the scientific principles noted. 

Where does EEME fit in to this introductory study? 

• It is a great place to start and to build, but it doesn't give the "how does electricity work"? For that, we have books and videos - and BFSU. And they do ask for reviews as you complete a project - so we'll see if they don't add those details in soon ;) It DOES do a lot more than your basic kits that tell you where to put the pieces but can't really be built any other way (or minimal other ways). 
• They advertise for ages 7-12 - with what they have right now, I feel that is entirely on par. 

Resources linked: 

EEME (referral link)

Montessori Trails Post - utilizing Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding with Montessori

Montessori in Bloom on electric experiences with primary children

Montessori beyond Elementary

Are there Montessori options past Elementary?

MOST DEFINITELY.

And my son is creeping on 11.
ELEVEN.

WHAT!?

Sigh.....



Ok, stepping off the nostalgia box.... Or... trying....


As far as resources go - there is very little directly related to adolescence (the third plane of development).

But the elementary Montessori theory album contains some information the third plane of development - and the concepts of Cosmic Education continue into adolescence.

The elementary Montessori theory album, along with adolescent readings (mostly lectures from Maria Montessori) sold via NAMTA provide a few key points (with lots more details):

• cosmic education continues
• personal vocation (personal place in the cosmos) is coming into focus - so we want to hone in on finalizing personal skills such as the following: 
• personal economics
• small business economics
• hospitality (the adolescent practical life)
• essentially: time to practice those skills that will allow the adolescent to live independently as an adult, long before that independence is entirely necessary (lots of practice time)
• Now that those essentials are out of the way, the adolescent is freed in the final years of adolescence (ages 15-18) to explore his options for personal vocation: goals in life, mission, etc. 

So resources to DO all that? 

NAMTA is offering an adolescence "algebra" album - actually covers a LOT more than algebra. ;)
(this album is the one exception to my "no materials" comment below)

Otherwise, it is ENTIRELY necessary to follow the child. There are no specific materials to learn, which is both GREAT and scary at the same time (those materials become comfort zones for us - what do you mean "NO materials!?")


So - look at what your child needs in various areas to accomplish the tasks of personal economics, small business economics, and hospitality. Fill in those areas with resources that serve YOUR child.


Our ideas to come ;)