Ethan still loves solving all of his different Rubik’s Cubes. That’s where this week of unschooling started and included his usual math and busyness.
January 13
Just like the day before, this was another Rubik’s Cube day, with a few other things thrown in.
Ethan made a video showing how to solve the mini skewb, also known as the skewbextreme.The weather has been bright and sunny so we went for a walk along the seawall. Ethan wanted to play at the playground for a few minutes.As we walked along the beach, Ethan was busy drawing happy faces into the sand. He also drew them near the water and watched as the tide washed the faces away.Ethan found these small pinecones and was intrigued by how shaking the pinecones could make the seeds fell out of them.We headed towards the mall to do some grocery shopping.It was a really nice day for a walk together.Back at home, Ethan continued his cube day by watching different videos about alternative ways to solve the 3×3 cube.He also learned how to put the Rubik’s Twist back into it’s original state. The Rubik’s Twist can be opened up into a long snake shape and Ethan hasn’t been able to put it back into it’s original ball shape until now.Ethan and Dong Eun got these cookies and noticed how under the net weight it says “of love.” So Ethan wanted to know how much love was in each cookie. He thought there were 10 cookies so he was able to quickly divide 312 by 10. But when he opened the box, he realized there were 12 cookies!He was going to use a calculator to figure out the new answer because dividing by 12 is more difficult. He then remembered learning about dividing two-digit numbers in Secrets of Mental Math.He was able to calculate how much love was in each cookie without a calculator. The answer was 26g of love in each cookie.Ethan made a video about his 10 easiest cubes and a couple other videos, too.He used my iPhone to film, as he does quite often. This is his set up.And here he is editing in iMovie.We noticed a spider on the arm of the sofa so we caught it and had a look at it before Ethan released it outside.Ethan did his 60-second exercise challenge before finishing the night. This was his second round of the workout.
January 14
Today was a music and math day, as Ethan was inspired to teach himself how to play an 80s pop song on his violin and he created a math formula for Rubik’s Cubes.
We were listening to a song that we all love, Take On Me by A-Ha, and Ethan wanted to learn how to play it on the violin. He previously taught himself how to play Despacito so this was a new challenge.He found the violin sheet music for Take On Me and started preparing it so he can read the notes. He then practiced and got better and better.Ethan wanted to find out how the factorial function, the one above the 4 key, worked on his calculator. He knows what factorials are from learning about them before.He watched a lesson about factorials on Khan Academy.Ethan watched this video about calculating the permutations of a Rubik’s Cube and wanted to write a formula for performing the calculation on any cube. Ethan did a lesson on giant tortoises to learn about the differences between turtles and tortoises.He learned about properties in math using his math textbook.And he did the quiz to check his knowledge.Here is the formula he came up with to calculate the possible combinations/permutations of any cube.Once he had the formula ready, he made a video about it.Time to play outside.Once back in, he drew Rubik’s Cubes.He also drew a 6×6 cube using whiteboard markers.We watched his video on how to calculate the combinations of any cube where he introduced his formula.He was watching a lesson about irregular verbs on Khan Academy and wanted to find out which verbs were irregular, so we printed out a list. Ethan and Dong Eun had fun testing each other and Ethan might make a game to practice irregular verbs.Watching his video.Ethan practiced Take On Me on the violin again while listening to other people perform the song on a violin on YouTube.Ethan did some editing of a video he made earlier about Rubik’s Cubes.60-second exercise challenge time. This was his second workout of the day. The last exercise is trying to hold a backbend for as long as he can. On this one, he went just over 1 minute and 10 seconds.The graph he uses to plot the average reps and times from his workouts is filling in nicely.And his chart showing his reps and times is also filling up.
January 15
Ethan had a dentist appointment today, as well as an eye exam, so we made it a family outing. This turned out well because Ethan needed to choose a new pair of frames and needed Dong Eun’s help.
Early morning. Everyone did a great job getting up and getting ready to be on time for Ethan’s dentist appointment. He had a metal spacer, which is like a ring, on one tooth to maintain a space for one of his teeth to grow. Long story, but he had a tooth removed before it was supposed to come out on its own, so that’s why he had the spacer.We played some Pac-Man while waiting in the reception area of the dentist.Ethan was pretty good. And when he went in to see the dentist, he went on his own. This was the first time I didn’t go in with him, so that was pretty cool.Spacer out because his tooth is starting to come up. He loves how it feels without the spacer in his mouth.After his eye exam, we did some grocery shopping and had sushi for lunch.We found a great glasses store that most of the other stores in town send their jobs to. We spent a lot of time looking at frames. It was tiring for Ethan but he eventually settled on a smart looking pair of glasses (not the ones in the photo). He had to be very patient because we tried so many frames.Later that night, Ethan had violin and taekwondo class. He was very excited about violin class because he started the second Suzuki Violin School book, as well as getting a book on reading music from his violin teacher. While shopping earlier at Costco, we got Ethan this book on coding with Scratch. Costco had a few of these DK books and always has the cheapest price.These two books we got from the library today to see if they’d be worth buying. The English one is of particular interest because the language arts book Ethan has is for middle school and it’s a bit beyond his ability at the moment.Ethan did two workouts today and also got me to work out with him.His progress, so far. He calculates and marks his performance on the graph at the end of the day’s workout.
Ethan finished the night by reading his new coding book. It was quite the busy day today.
January 16
Nature school day, but we also ended up going out because Ethan’s glasses were ready to be picked up.
Off to Soaring Eagle Nature School for the day.After nature school, we went to pick up Ethan’s new glasses. He was pretty excited.He was also very patient when getting his glasses fitted. At first, he didn’t say that the adjustments were uncomfortable, but after letting him that the technician is there to help him, he opened up and communicated clearly how the glasses felt.His shoes had gotten pretty trashed so we went shopping for a new pair. Ethan wanted a pair of shoes with real laces, his first pair ever with laces! He had to practice tying them up a few times but eventually figured it out.We went for a pizza dinner at Whole Foods afterwards.After dinner, we stayed at Whole Foods for a bit and Ethan practiced solving his 3×3 Rubik’s Cube with a cube timer app.Back home, Ethan did his 60-second workout routine… twice! After a day of nature school and shopping, he was still motivated to do his two workouts. Nice work, Ethan!Not only did he do his workouts, but with some vegan chocolate cake in him, he also did his musical notation homework. Actually, he was looking forward to doing this because he liked the challenge of decoding the notes.We want to try some exercises to improve Ethan’s and my eyesight. We found a video with 10 exercises so we did them and will try to do them every night.
We also bought Ethan an easel with a whiteboard on one side and a chalkboard on the other. Ethan is already planning on using the easel in his next videos.
January 17
Ethan started the day with some trigonometry and learned about finding missing sides of a triangle. This video was from Khan Academy.He also read about finding missing sides in his math book.For violin practice, he listened to the new song he’s learning, Judas Maccabaeus.Practiced the songs he’s learned.Back to math. He took the trigonometric ratios quiz.He then taught Dong Eun about finding missing sides by using his new easel’s chalkboard.He then did some history and answered some comprehension questions about ancient Greece.He loves using the easel!He then started learning about ancient Rome from his history textbook.He also watched a Crash Course video about the Roman Empire.For language arts today, he started by learning about how and why we use italics, underlines and quotes.He also learned about adjectives again. Here, he learned on Khan Academy.He also read about adjectives in the grammar book we borrowed from the library called Help Your Kids With English. This is part of the same series of books like his Help Your Kids With Math book that he uses every day.Ethan was going to write a fictional story using as many adjectives as possible, so he printed out a sheet of “Fabulous Adjectives” to help him.Here’s his story, which continues the story about the Ball character. He did tend to repeat the same adjectives, but it was still good practice. He’s supposed to try the adjectives again tomorrow.We also borrowed Help Your Kids With Science and Ethan was reading a few things from that book, like what is inside atoms.He read about gravity.And he watched a Khan Academy video about gravity.In the same Help Your Kids With Science book, Ethan learned about the history of life on earth. He then taught Dong Eun what he learned.More violin practice.Ethan made these funny monster drawings.Ethan wants to make another video about Rubik’s Cubes, so he did some research tonight. He’ll make the video tomorrow. Ethan finished his day by doing a second 60-second workout. Here, he was doing burpees.
January 18
Ethan really likes the new easel. He used it to practice some drawing this morning. He also watched some videos about drawing and he also knows about sketchnoting, so perhaps he’ll find even more uses for his easel.Ethan learned about quadrilaterals today.He watched a Khan Academy video about quadrilaterals.And he drew this diagram to explain quadrilaterals. It seems like his writing has become much neater since using the chalkboard. It might be because he’s forced to be more deliberate with his writing when using chalk.He used the Help Your Kids With Science book to learn about circuits. Since he has a couple of Snap Circuits sets, this was probably a good way to dive deeper into how circuits work.And of course, he drew a diagram of how a circuit works on the chalkboard.He practiced some violin.He did some grammar practice using an article from Canadian Reader. He did some work on common nouns versus proper nouns.He did some more practice with adjectives using a new list of words.He wrote a new story using adjectives.He continued reading about Ancient Rome.He drew a story about the Romans on his chalkboard to talk about what he learned.He also wrote about Rome in his notebook.Time to play with his friends outside.Ethan made a video about the number of combinations for his Rubik’s Cubes. It was over 20 minutes long so he spent some time editing and trying to reduce the overall length.Since it was Friday night, Ethan wanted to play some games together. We played a bit of Battleship, then we played some Scrabble.
January 19
Ethan started the day with symphony practice and skating lessons. The skating lessons went much better this week because Ethan didn’t have to worry about his helmet or glasses. After some lunch, we went out to the playground. I wanted to practice riding the skateboard and Ethan wanted to make paper airplanes.The playground’s big slide is a great place to launch paper airplanes.There were two younger kids there who wanted to try the paper airplanes so Ethan let them.He tried several designs and kept tweaking the airplanes to make them perform better.This last design worked the best. Ethan said it was like a ship from Star Wars.Back home, Ethan worked on a couple of birthday cards for his friends Nico and Paulo.The finished cards. Ethan also used Scratch to code an online birthday card, which can be found here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/280931103/After finishing the cards, he was reading Help Your Kids With Science and was curious what https stood for. So we looked it up online.Ethan used his chalkboard to draw the red and gold hearts for Dong Eun. In turn, she drew the one on the left for Ethan. The Korean characters are Ethan’s name in Korean.Ethan then did some learning about graphing linear equations and gave us a short lesson about it.One of Ethan’s videos on his YouTube channel has over 4,900 views. I mentioned to him that part of the reason is that the title is clear and searchable by Google. We encouraged him to start rewriting his video titles, adding a short description of the video and including the correct tags. I also suggested that he should make custom thumbnail images for his videos to attract people to the video. Here’s the first thumbnail he made.After dinner, it was time for some board games.The chalkboard is such fun for Ethan. He wrote this message before bedtime.And then he erased it and made this one. It refers to how Ethan and Dong Eun say “I love you” to each other. They always say their love is bigger than the sky and bigger than the universe.I wanted to teach Ethan about how and why he should use the camera’s flash to bounce light off the ceiling when it’s dark. The photo above was taken by Ethan with the flash pointed up at the ceiling. This photo was taken with the flash pointed straight ahead.
And that was Ethan’s week! As usual, it was full of activities and learning and is a constant reminder of how much Ethan enjoys unschooling.
LC Response
Well another incredible week Ethan. I apologize again for being so late in this response. Moving someone else on a timeline is much more work than I even expected. So I gathered some of the highlights below from week 20 and responded to them…I am back in Nelson on Sunday and hope to get back to my regualr routine right away!
Ethan found these small pinecones and was intrigued by how shaking the pinecones could make the seeds fell out of them.
Pinecones are so intriguing. They vary so much in size from the tiniest cones to giant sugar cones. It could be a fun activity to hunt for different kinds of pinecones when you are out on nature adventures and even collect them. Then learn how each cone type is specific to different species of trees.
These are species of pines alone!
He can also begin to look at the needles to help determine what kind of conifer it is:
He was able to calculate how much love was in each cookie without a calculator. The answer was 26g of love in each cookie. Ethan sees the world through a much more mathematical perspective than I do :). It is just adorable that he actually calculated the amount of love in each cookie and then used mental math when there were actually 12 cookies.
We were listening to a song that we all love, Take On Me by A-Ha, and Ethan wanted to learn how to play it on the violin.
I love this song too! It was a hit right when i was his age grade 4 or 5. It is still so good. I have never heard a violin version, but I think it would be very moving. The song has such a feeling of impetus behind it. I attached a video of a lovely version with several players…
Violin book 2 in sazuki
Actually, he was looking forward to doing this because he liked the challenge of decoding the notes. Has he made any other connections between math and music in terms of decoding music? Just wondering
For violin practice, he listened to the new song he’s learning, Judas Maccabaeus.
Ethan is progressing well in violin and he is so excited about it, which is what a musician really needs. Passion and practice.
Ethan did a lesson on giant tortoises to learn about the differences between turtles and tortoises.
Looks like he can identify all of the major differences and similarities. Does he have a preference towards one or the other? Has he seen turtles in the wild around Vancouver?
He was watching a lesson about irregular verbs on Khan Academy and wanted to find out which verbs were irregular, so we printed out a list. Ethan and Dong Eun had fun testing each other and Ethan might make a game to practice irregular verbs.
Great idea Ethan was going to write a fictional story using as many adjectives as possible, so he printed out a sheet of “Fabulous Adjectives” to help him.
His writing and natural curiosity in language is blooming right now. How fun to find those irregular verbs and then quiz each other.
Making the list of adjectives is a fantastic way to get people of all ages to make their writing more interesting and descriptive. It is very helpful to have those tangible lists available. You could also show ethan how to use online thesauruses in case he is writing on the computer and does not have the list handy.
Wow Ethan can do a really good backbend!! I did not know he was so flexible. His exercises are coming along! He is so motivated. I forget how or where he discovered this routine he is following? Was it recommended by his coach or did he find it on his own? I do backbends in Yoga, but need to really warm up first, they are challenging for me.
His progress, so far. He calculates and marks his performance on the graph at the end of the day’s workout.
I appreciate how the charting and graphing (adding that bit of math) to his workouts is so motivating! Very detailed graphs I have to say.
And when he went in to see the dentist, he went on his own. This was the first time I didn’t go in with him, so that was pretty cool. This is wonderful for ethan to build independence. Going to the dentist can be a bit intimidating, but also a very good place to practice those growing up skills of going to appointments, waiting in the waiting room, advocating for yourself and interacting with health practitioners. Looking back I think going to the dentist on my own as a child did make me feels quite grown up. My mother had 4 children so there was no way she could go to each dentist appointment.
Ethan finished the night by reading his new coding book. It was quite the busy day today.
Ethan wanted a pair of shoes with real laces, his first pair ever with laces! He had to practice tying them up a few times but eventually figured it out.
He is quite capable of making incredibly intricate and quick origami so tying shoes will be a breeze for him. Giving children a pair of lace up shoes at 5 and 6 years old is another story. I taught kindergarten for 10 years and laces where a pet peave of mine unless the child could tie there own haha.
New chalk board is a pretty great medium for Ethan.
And he drew this diagram to explain quadrilaterals. It seems like his writing has become much neater since using the chalkboard. It might be because he’s forced to be more deliberate with his writing when using chalk.
Ethan then did some learning about graphing linear equations and gave us a short lesson about it.
He also wrote about Rome in his notebook.
And of course, he drew a diagram of how a circuit works on the chalkboard.
He used the Help Your Kids With Science book to learn about circuits. Since he has a couple of Snap Circuits sets, this was probably a good way to dive deeper into how circuits work. And on his chalkboard
The chalkboard is such fun for Ethan. He wrote this message before bedtime.
The new chalkboard is may favorite part of this whole week!! It is so versatile. I will share more on chalkboards next week, but here is a start. There are so many benefits in my opinion:
It gets him up and moving as he spends a lot of time on the computer editing and researching.
It is a wonderful medium to develop ideas and make outlines and diagrams
A tool to teach others
An easy place to get creative and write quick messages or lists
It is erased with ease
It improves his hand writing
It encourages a way to delve deeper into what he is learning
He gains a sense of ownership of his learning and the ability to share it with others
You can photograph and document all that he creates on the chalkboard
It saves paper!
Back to math. He took the trigonometric ratios quiz. WOW the development of his math understanding is stunning!
He then taught Dong Eun about finding missing sides by using his new easel’s chalkboard.
Some thoughts on using chalkboards for teaching others:
Using technology in today’s classroom is a given. Far gone are the days when slide-show presentations with attention-grabbing graphics were the classroom’s technological zenith. We live in the age where blogs, chat rooms and podcasts are common teaching tools. Yet a classroom can still thrive when stripped down to the basics — chalk and a chalkboard. Using chalkboards in teaching improves teaching effectiveness, classroom management and student academic success.
Teaching Effectiveness
Teachers have a better chance of reaching students if they have a structured teaching style. Much of a teacher’s style is based on how she presents information to students. Teaching too fast or too slow loses students’ attention. Writing on a chalkboard makes it easier to control the pace of a lecture because it encourages writing while talking — a task that requires instruction at a moderate speed. According to Barbara Gross Davis’ book, “Tools for Teaching,” “students need time to assimilate new information and to take notes, but if you speak too slowly, they may become bored. Try to vary the pace to suit your own style, your message and your audience.”
Regulating the pace of a lecture helps control the amount of content students receive. Teaching with chalk allows content to unfold naturally. It eliminates the urge to force-feed information.
Ethan made a video about the number of combinations for his Rubik’s Cubes. It was over 20 minutes long so he spent some time editing and trying to reduce the overall length.
One of Ethan’s videos on his YouTube channel has over 4,900 views. He must be delighted! I mentioned to him that part of the reason is that the title is clear and searchable by Google. We encouraged him to start rewriting his video titles, adding a short description of the video and including the correct tags. I also suggested that he should make custom thumbnail images for his videos to attract people to the video. Here’s the first thumbnail he made. He is so motivated by numbers that I am sure your lesson on searchable words and thumbnails will sink in. He will watch those video views climb rapidly in his future videos. Along with editing to make them shorter and many people do not want to watch a video for more then 5-8 minutes I imagine.
And that was Ethan’s week! As usual, it was full of activities and learning and is a constant reminder of how much Ethan enjoys unschooling. No doubt about it he is thriving!
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