Kindergarten weeks 32-33

[entirelysonja]

Last week, we were on vacation in Arizona, while this week, we got back into the swing of things academically.

The Arizona trip was mainly for my cousin's wedding, but we also managed to get quite a lot of sightseeing in.

English

While we were on vacation, Erika didn't do that much reading of books, but she did read more than half of a BrainQuest deck and quite a lot of information on displays at zoos and the like. She also wrote postcards and did other incidental writing.

After we got back, she finished reading The Nine Lives of Aristotle and read two Young Cam Jansen books. She also started writing a "chapter book" about the six lives of Meowy.

Math

Erika continued work in Math Mammoth Add & Subtract 2a, completing through page 38. She also did work on geometry, fractions, and money this week.

The coolest thing that happened in math was our discovery of Reiner Knizia's Yoku-Gami for iOS devices. It is a fun game, and provides LOTS of practice with addition. To my mind, this is the ideal type of educational game, in that it's worth playing regardless of its educational value.

Social Studies

We did a bunch of Social Studies things while we were on vacation, including:

• Continuing Erika's education in the ways of airport maps, terminals, gates, and departure/arrival boards.


• Looking at petroglyphs at Saguaro National Park.
  
  
  
  
  
  


• Visiting the Titan Missile Museum and learning about the Cold War.

Back at home, I read out loud from A School Like Mine.

Science

In Arizona, we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Saguaro National Park, Reid Park Zoo, Kitt Peak, and Kartchner Caverns. Whew! Erika learned about the plants and animals of the desert, the climate of the desert, astronomy, and the formation and preservation of caves.









Back at home, we continued our studies of South America by watching more of a documentary, and I read out loud from Der Regenwald. Today we went to the Natural History Museum and paid special attention to South American animals.

Erika also watched several episodes of Beakman's World this week, and saw interesting insects at the Natural History Museum.

Art

Erika did enormous amounts of drawing while we were on vacation. We had to buy her more drawing paper! She also drew with me at the Natural History Museum today.



I thought this drawing was quite good, considering that she drew it entirely from memory and we have not practiced drawing the earth. Some places are labeled in English and others in German, which I find amusing.

Music

A weak point, though Erika has been playing Pluto plays Music on the iPad.

Physical Education

We did a lot of swimming in Arizona, plus some hiking. Back at home, we've visited playgrounds, and Erika has had Karate and Soccer this week.

Health

At our co-op this week, the topic was muscles. Erika also watched a segment in the German children's news about healthy diet and exercise.

German

Erika finished book 5 of Einsterns Schwester 1 this week, and moved on to book 6. She read one of the stories in the accompanying reader. She also did some copywork, and a lot of homework for her class. She attended German School on Saturday.

Comments

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[(Anonymous)]

THX that's a great anwser!

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[(Anonymous)]

a few things.regarding eqedereugnr/trans issues: perhaps you can count up all the bio (maybe even straight) males and then put everyone else together in an other category, instead of forcing them to pick female. i prefer not to have to pick between one of the two standard genders, but i definitely don't fit under bio male. second, i really appreciate what you're doing. it is incredibly difficult to get people to be aware of their prejudices. often, i notice that people think they are not being prejudiced or discriminatory just by keeping the status quo. however, i think the status quo tends toward prejudice. to truly challenge this, we must act to change things. i'm glad to see you call out specific methods for changing behavior in the OSS community perhaps you could add some more questions that individuals could ask themselves to reveal their prejudices? not easy, i know but perhaps worth looking into for future presentations where you have more time.as many of the posters have pointed out, there is a definitely a ton of posturing going on. i work in IT (there are NO women programmers at my company) and i've been in grad school for cognitive science. the amount of work i've needed to do just to prove that yes i can and do understand what's going on .well it's truly a waste of everyone's time. i'm not sure how to change this general attitude other than to make people more aware of it when they do it and to constantly challenge their prejudices by bringing more minorities/women/etc into the technology fold.finally, i wish all my coworkers and all schools would read through this and try to understand it. that would be a major success in promoting some level of awareness. at least this is out there now and hopefully more and more people will stumble upon it, as i have.