The first week of February included Lunar New Year so we spent time with family, but much of Ethan’s week was as busy as usual. It never ceases to amaze us what Ethan does and learns as he continues on his unschooling journey.
February 3
Ethan cooked the scrambled eggs we had for breakfast this Sunday morning. It was actually snowing and he was excited about that, but the snow didn’t last long. Eggs were great, though.Ethan checked out xkcd.com, the “What If?” book author’s site, as they have more recent questions and answers there.Ethan practiced solving his 8×8 Rubik’s Cube but only for a short time.The Empire Strikes Back became more interesting than the cube. Ethan loved watching the movie and eating his lunch from the coffee table, something we normally never do.After the movie, Ethan did some music notation homework.After staying home all morning and watching the movie, we headed out for a walk and to pick up some groceries. Ethan was busy trying to gather enough snow to make a snowball.After we got home, Ethan and I played Gravity Maze.And then we played some chess, something we haven’t done in a while.We watched Return of the Jedi to complete the Star Wars trilogy. Ethan got to have his dinner at the coffee table, which he again liked. After the movie, Ethan had some dessert and read about the Colosseum. He spent some more time on the xkcd.com site before getting ready for bed.
February 4
Ethan started the day checking out the xkcd.com website again. The question he was looking at was about how long it would take a 7kg bowling ball to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench.It was another beautiful day out, so Ethan and Dong Eun went to the beach.Ethan plotted a graph in the sand.Back home, Ethan learned about finding missing angles.He worked on slides to help him with a video he wanted to make about finding missing angles.Heading outside to play.Learning about the moon from Classroom Ready Science News.He learned about the decline of the Roman Empire today.And he wrote a story describing the decline of the Roman Empire.He learned about relative clauses and wrote a fun story to illustrate how to use relative clauses. Notice the joke in the drawing?Today’s element that he worked on was technetium.He also learned about inverse trigonometric functions today and taught what he learned to Dong Eun.He then worked on remixing a game in Scratch before we read Math Explained with Bad Drawings. He wanted me to record the parts that he liked so he could listen again on his own.
February 5
It’s been colder here for sure, but these sunny days have been amazing. Ethan and Dong Eun spent the morning outside enjoying the beautiful weather.Ethan always finds a way to entertain himself at the beach.He made a sort of track to walk on but there are dead ends. The track goes all the way until the end of the beach that we can see in the photo.He has started up his 60-second workout challenge again.He learned about inverse trigonomic functions.He learned about photosynthesis.He practiced violin.He learned about personal pronouns.He then wrote a fun story using personal pronouns.Ethan made FIVE videos today about inverse trigonometric functions.The element he made today was atomic number 44, ruthenium.He worked on remixing a platform game in Scratch.And he went outside to play with his friends.He had taekwondo class and violin class. His violin teacher said that he could start learning a new song, Musette. Ethan was very excited about that.He worked on his music notation homework.He then spent the last part of the night working out again and reading some of the questions from xkcd.com. The question he read tonight was about what would happen if a powerful jet of water could be continuously aimed at the sun. Interestingly, the sun would get hotter!
February 6
Today was nature school day so we only saw Ethan when he came home. He was very tired. According to his fitness tracker, he walked over 12,000 steps today.
Since he was tired and hungry early, we went out for sushi.
February 7
Ethan and Dong Eun went for another walk along the beach this morning. We’re really fortunate to live so close to the water.There were all kinds of water birds gathered today.Ethan worked on rhodium for his element today.Ethan learned about sequences today for math and taught us what he learned.Practiced violin.And learned more about math while having his snack.He learned about auxiliary verbs today.Ethan drew arrows on this mini Rubik’s Cube to turn it into a super cube. You can only move the pieces in the direction of the arrows, which makes solving the cube much harder.Answering questions about Rome and the interesting or unique things that they did in ancient Rome.He went out to play with his friends.And he learned about prepositions.He did some work on a platform game in Scratch.He wrote a story using prepositions.
Later on, Ethan had his taekwondo class and after dinner, he watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
February 8
Ethan got to work this morning and tried to finish up his tasks early because we were going out early. He learned about the Byzantine Empire today.He wrote a story about the Byzantine Empire.He learned about compound-complex sentences and wrote an explanation for what they are.For math, he learned about chords and cyclic quadrilaterals.And he practiced violin, too.Ethan came to my client’s office with me today and continued his work. He started with simple and compound sentences.He also worked on a Canadian Reader article and learned about using quotation marks.He also finished making the next element in the periodic table, silver.I was at my client’s to take some headshots for some new team members so I took the opportunity to take one of Ethan, too.Amy loves it when Ethan comes to visit. She loves kids and Ethan likes talking to her, too. He showed her how to make the paper airplane that set the Guinness World Record for distance.They tried out the plane in the hallway.We met with my parents, sister and cousin for Chinese New Year dinner.Once we got home, Ethan used some electrical tape and cut arrows to stick onto my old Rubik’s Cube from the 80s to make a super cube. We were going to try and buy some arrow stickers but Ethan found his own solution.And before he went to bed, he got to number 71 on his Perplexus puzzle.
February 9
Ethan made another super cube. This time, he used his 4×4 cube and again, cut out the arrows from electrical tape.Ethan had skating lessons and had a great time. He’s progressing quite well and was practicing crossovers today.For lunch, we headed to A&W because everyone was craving A&W.Ethan received a Wal-Mart gift card for Christmas so we decided to find a new board game.He also checked his blood pressure. He was fine, btw 🙂He got the latest issue of Bark!, a magazine that the BCSPCA puts out for kids. Ethan has a free subscription because of the money he donated last year after our yard sale. He wanted to learn about the algorithm to solve the 2×4 cube.He watched about half of Rogue One before getting ready for bed. We read from the xkcd.com website and recorded it so he could listen anytime he wants.
And that was Ethan’s week! He had a busy week with a lot of outdoors time because of the great weather.
I talked about Ethan’s experience as an unschooler to a couple of parents this week and felt grateful that we can do this with Ethan. It’s great being able to spend so much time with him as a child, especially because he’s now 10 and growing up fast.
Direct Contact: Zoom
I had a Zoom session with Ethan and his parents this week. I will be including all of their mid-year reflections in the Winter Connection posted by Feb 24th. Here is a summary of what they shared as highlights so far:
Chemistry: Ethan made his own version of the periodic table, he got the idea from a science book, and had a the thought to make his own. He wanted to explore what the atoms look like and made a big one.
I shared ideas about the elements that go into making a cell phone. Ethan is wondering what do new elements look like, and how they have not discovered them yet.
We discusses his recent explosion of writing. I asked Ethan what had shifted? He explained that writing kind of like drawing using specific symbols. He enjoys writing about things which interest him. He considers writing as a way to show you know. A means to express something. His parents added that his writing is increasingly neat and Ethan is putting more energy into.
We talked about how he got his new chalkboard. It helps him express ideas better than on paper, he can erase quickly and it is a fun feeling to scrape chalk into meaning on the chalkboard. He says getting the chalkboard was his idea. He had seen it few times. And then it was only $19.99 on sale. He absolutely loves it.
I asked them about all of the videos ethan has been making in the last few months and which apps and programs he uses. He explained that he is making videos using powtoon to make animations, like in the climate change video. He is drawing on the computer drawing tablet, and the app graffic for mac. He can use the tablet and the recording app screen flow making those math videos, And he uses keynote to make slideshows. Apple imovie to edit the videos.
Ethan talked about violin, he sees his violin teacher on Tuesdays, then he practices until the piece feels complete. The teacher tells him how to improve, lets him continue for the rest of the week.
Ethan says playing the violin is just fun. His parents see him always very motivated to play the violin. He is teaching himself to play other songs. Despacito, aha take on me, spring from four seasons. He recently was inspired to take the digits of pi, link them to notes and create a new song. It is a work in progress. I can’t wait to hear what he creates! Wow!
Ethan explained his learning process in math, “I find what’s in the book, what’s interesting. Sometimes I learn a bit more, continue it to the next day.” Right now he is learning how to solve algebraic equations on both sides.
Lately he has been working on lots of cubing stuff, challenging himself adding arrows on the pieces, makes it harder, not just colors but get arrows in right direction. The 3 by 3 cube is easy, 4 by 4 really hard. He says he will watch youtube if he gets really stuck.
Ethan is having fun! Enjoying every moment, into every single thing. He is very inspirational and a very good teacher.
Going outside and playing, weather so nice, find a way to express himself drawing lines in the sand, track, like a road, dead end
His parents spoke about feeling more comfortable with unschooling and that they are no longer concerned about ethan’s home learning experience. The experience has been eye opening for all of us. They are confident about what he is doing, and getting to know him better. Home schooling provides special time and they all cocreate that time together.
They talked about how they want to share their success with other families and not sounds like they are bragging, but if they hear of a kid where school is not working they feel compelled to share their experience with Self Design and Ethan unschooling. They have to try it.
When his parents ask him, “Do you want to go back to school? He says, “No” right away. They respect his decision and also feel like they might need to find someone else to work with him, in math particularly. Also they have looked into summer camps for science, space camps in the states, but it is far away. There is a possibility that they might go to Florida in september, if so they will definitely go to the Kennedy Space Center.
Ethan encouraged me to t try to push him as his LC. I can ask lots of good questions. I will write to Ethan directly.
Spring goal by Ethan is open ended and quite profound: “To learn things and see where it takes me.”
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