school? What School?

I felt the need for a schoolish-type entry.
The J-term entries and the Fun Science entries are, well, fun. Entertaining. Great Blog-Fodder.
But it seems that often our educational experiences of the day just aren't as exciting as those cool posts like about Autopsies or Smoke Bombs or even just awesome plans & schedules.
I sometimes fell not much school happens. But I guess that isn't true. or maybe it is. A lot of learning, fun, research, and freedom to find their passions & goals happens. But maybe not lot of 'school' happens; not a lot that looks like typical-school, anyway.
So, here are some things that are going on at our house:
KI -

• Ki has not been too interested in Life Of Fred (for math). It is a great math book, written as a story. I think Ki is just taking a break from it. Though I not require certain things to be done at certain times for math, nor the completion of something that's not working for them at the moment, math. of some sort, is required. Ki is doing some Aleks Quicktables online daily. It's a TimesTablePractice. I have been looking over KHAN Academy lately and had the boys try it out. It has a great math area; videos and exercises, tracking of progress and earning of badges. It was not assigned to do the math, I just asked them to register and try it. Ki went through a couple sections and earned a few badges. (check out the Khan Academy- it is really good and free)
• Ki has decided he wants to read Lord of the Ring books, finally. Brian has a rule of 'read it before watching it'. Ki's very eager to watch it, but has not been ready to read it. A few weeks ago he asked for the LOTR books from the top shelf so he can read them. He's also reading books from The Series of Unfortunate Events and a Warriors series. Plus he reads his Bible daily. He's more consistent at it than I am.
• He likes to watch Doctor Who on Netflix or NCIS online. (we still do not have a working television)
• Ki loves acting and cooking. they are his passions. He is in a play. He has practice twice a week. This is his 4th or 5th acting session since we've been here. Sometimes he reads skits or watches acting 'lessons' on YouTube. He was a Junior Chef at the local cooking school, but they moved. Now he just has fun planning meals or treats to make for us. I sent a video to him yesterday. It's from Molecular Gastronomy. It is awesome! He lloved what they did and wants to give it a try. I'll be ordering the Molecular Gastronomy kit for us to make creative culinary confections. Seriously- Watch This!

CONNOR-

• Connor's been plugging away at his ALEKS math. I assign a certain numbers of topics to be done each week. Sometimes he gets stuck, so I tell him to have his dad help him. Next thing I know he's figured it out on his own. He also tried the KHAN Academy. I think we'll switch from Aleks to Khan when C & G are done with their current ALEKS. Probably in 2 weeks I guess.
• He's been using Gavin's Bamboo Pen Tablet to do some drawing.







• He's looking up stuff online and reading his books (and from Proverbs).
• He's enjoying acting and is the play with Ki.

GAVIN-

• I don't know what he is reading.
• He is spending a lot of time with his Bamboo Pen Tablet- working on his sketching. He's looking into getting 2 online illustrator programs. He & Connor are thinking about making a mini-animation video.

• He's doing his Aleks Math and has earned a few KHAN Badges.
• He likes to read current events and tell us about it.

ME- I send the boys an email with what I want them to work on through out the week. I also write a few things on our Dry Erase Board- but not this week. This week I just sent the email and some links.

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