Ethan was away for the entire month of September. He was in S. Korea with Dong Eun to visit family and friends. I stayed home so it was a little challenging to keep up with the posting.
But now they’re home and it was a busy week adjusting to the time difference and getting back into Ethan’s activities. Here’s what happened…
Sept. 30
Living in Canada means less opportunity to hear and speak Korean, but this past month has been a sort of refresher course for Ethan. Whereas he would often speak in English to Dong Eun, it was very obvious that he his time in Korea helped him get comfortable with speaking to her in Korean.
Here, he’s practicing some writing in Korean while enjoying a tasty snack.
Oct. 1
Last day in Korea before heading home to Canada was spent meeting up with some of the other moms from Ethan’s community school.
Ethan brought some cubes to play with while on the way to meet the moms.
Ethan practiced solving and making patterns on different cubes using an app. He rekindled his love of cubing while in Korea, especially since he got some new cubes from his auntie.
While having a Facetime call, Ethan demonstrated a chess app that randomly chooses pieces so players can practice in a more challenging way. Notice how many of each there are to start the match.
It’s not the cubing while eating that’s interesting, but it’s the place. South Korea is famous for fried chicken and this was our favourite place, a small restaurant run by an older lady who has been making amazing fried chicken for probably 20 years. Ethan was lucky enough to have some considering Dong Eun or her sister don’t eat meat!
Oct. 2
Time to come home! A month went by a lot quicker than expected and it was time to come home. One cool thing about flying back to Canada is that the left Tuesday afternoon Seoul time and arrived Tuesday morning Vancouver time.
One last photo with Auntie Da Young. She was there when Ethan was born and has been an amazing auntie ever since. Ethan and she have such a great relationship.
Home! With presents!
Ethan was quite happy to be home and play with his cube collection.
He even made a new video to showcase his updated cube collection.
Doing some video editing before posting to YouTube.
Here’s the finished video…
Made a happy face pattern with his new 6×6 cube.
He also did some multiplication to figure out… something! I’ll find out from Ethan and update the post.
UPDATE: Ethan told me that this is the number of hours and minutes (he knows the math is wrong on the minutes) that he has for his own time, to do what he wants. So it’s 24 hours times 6 days, then how many minutes. This came about because, during their time in Korea, Dong Eun set the majority of their schedule. So now that they’re home, Ethan wanted to set the schedule.
We celebrated Ethan and Dong Eun coming home with a nice meal and a yummy vegan chocolate cake for dessert. So happy to have them both home!
Oct. 3
Second day back home and off to his first day of Soaring Eagle Nature School. Ethan packed up his own things and was pretty excited about going and seeing some friends.
Ethan had been wearing shorts and a t-shirt for most of September while in S. Korea. Little colder here.
Circle time to end the day at nature school.
Back home, Ethan wanted some ramen noodles so he made them himself while reading.
Ethan also has a job to do this week, as our neighbour Jane has asked Ethan to check her mail and water her plants while she’s away.
And something we haven’t done in over a month… pool!
Ethan made a video about possible combinations with different cubes. He played around with speeding up the video because he wanted to show what he was doing a bit more quickly. He wanted to record a voiceover but in the end, decided it was better to just upload the sped up video.
One thing that Dong Eun discussed with me is having Ethan read classic novels and do some writing or research about those books. We’re just starting this so we have to see how it goes.
Oct. 4
Ethan made a video about how to make an origami golden snitch like the ones used in the Harry Potter books.
First day back at taekwondo class. Mostly new kids but one of his friends from his previous taekwondo class was in this class.
Back at home, Ethan was very interested in estimating the square root of different numbers.
He wrote out his estimations until he found a number that was close to the number he was trying to find the square root for.
He then challenged himself to find the square root so that there were as many zeros as possible after the decimal point. He did this for several other numbers.
Another video that Ethan made about solving a Rubik’s Cube…
Finally, to wrap up the night, we did some Mad Libs. This was more fun than I expected.
It’s a great game to practice and learn about different types of words.
Oct. 5
Ethan started learning how to use Videoscribe to make videos with. This was a story about a character wanting to find his mother.
Some time outside.
Ethan started working on Canadian Reader stories and articles from Classroom Ready Science News again. We’ll also be looking at other subscriptions in the SelfDesign library for additional learning resources.
One thing that was apparent from this first day of writing is his use of complete sentences! Yay!
We also decided it would be a good idea to spend more time with each story or article, rather than finish one set of exercises related to a specific story and then move on. We’d like Ethan to deepen his learning by exploring the topics in greater details.
He learned about geometry from his math book and a video online.
He hasn’t practiced violin in over a month but he seemed to pick it up quickly.
Ethan has also joined the West Vancouver Youth Band Society and will be in the Debut Strings orchestra. We wanted Ethan to join because his violin teacher is leading the orchestra and she encouraged us to have him join.
Oct. 6
Little did we know this day would turn out to be a shopping day! It started with having dim sum for the first time in over a month.
Then it was clothes shopping for Ethan to find some warm and waterproof things for nature school.
Reading break while mom shops.
It doesn’t look like it but this dinner was after almost 5 hours of shopping. Great job, Ethan!
This upcoming week we’ll try implementing some of the ideas mentioned, such as going deeper into aricles and stories. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving!
Ethan was away for the entire month of September. He was in S. Korea with Dong Eun to visit family and friends. I stayed home so it was a little challenging to keep up with the posting.
But now they’re home and it was a busy week adjusting to the time difference and getting back into Ethan’s activities. Here’s what happened…
It looks like a lot happened on his first week back! I am impressed with his rubic’s cube solving and videos wow!
Sept. 30
Living in Canada means less opportunity to hear and speak Korean, but this past month has been a sort of refresher course for Ethan. Whereas he would often speak in English to Dong Eun, it was very obvious that he his time in Korea helped him get comfortable with speaking to her in Korean.
Here, he’s practicing some writing in Korean while enjoying a tasty snack.
Nothing like being immersed in the language and culture again.
Oct. 1
Last day in Korea before heading home to Canada was spent meeting up with some of the other moms from Ethan’s community school.
Ethan brought some cubes to play with while on the way to meet the moms.
Ethan practiced solving and making patterns on different cubes using an app. He rekindled his love of cubing while in Korea, especially since he got some new cubes from his auntie. Lucky Ethan! I can’t believe how many cubes there are. He has quite the collection and knows how to solve them to boot!
I found a neat article on the benefits of solving cubes, I wonder what Ethan would say if he reflected on his own process? Maybe this is a possible writing assignment for him…and an interesting way for him to reflect on his own learning process.
What are the benefits to solving Rubik’s Cubes?
It depends on whether you solve it yourself, or just learn to solve it by using additional information (like books or videos).
Anyone who solves it by themselves (without outside information), has created their own little science-of-the-cube. I solved it back in 1980-1981 when the cube first hit the US, in about 10 hours, in two un-interupted sessions. It takes a mixture of skill and determination for anyone to solve the cube on their own. And the nice thing about the cube is, it’s a puzzle with no hidden information. Everything is right there in the open and it’s all about observation, experiments, noticing patterns, etc… Although it takes determination, there is absolutely no luck involved in solving the cube. It’s virtually impossible to solve the cube “by luck” as opposed to understanding. So one obvious benefit of solving the cube on your own is that if you have any doubts you’d be a good engineer, computer programmer or science guy in general; solving the cube should alleviate those doubts.
Another benefit is that once you’re done solving the cube, if you had fun doing it, then the fun is just beginning in that there are many, many, many, way too many…variations of the cube as well as interesting things to find out about the cube as well. I’ve discovered a couple of things about the cube that I know the odds of anyone else knowing them are exceptionally low. One such discovery (just to prove a point) is – R2 L2 U2 D2 F2 B2 R B L F R.
That gets you to something I called at the time “the most random state of the cube” because on each of the 6 sides, 3 of the colors occur twice and 3 occur once. I can’t tell you how I discovered/noticed that. However, I then asked the question…can my most-random-state criteria be met as well as having each side show mirror-symmetry. Turns out, it can. And that state I called “the most random non-random state of the cube”.
Back to the original question.
Pleasure, fun, enjoyment for starters.
Conversation starter (anywhere, anytime)…bring out a cube and show people that you can solve in 30 seconds or so (even though that’s a lousy time by today’s standards) and I guarantee you’ll start-up a conversation (even in Job interviews it works).
Pride of accomplishment.
Optimism – most day-to-day personal problems are easier to solve than solving a Rubik’s cube (especially if you remember that day-to-day problems are not necessarily “puzzles to solve”).
The cube is the opposite of an open-ended puzzle (like a treasure hunt or adventure game). Everything there is fair and out in the open. You don’t have to understand a designer’s intent to solve the cube, there are no tricks, the cube is just the cube. If you solve it on your own, it’s because you learned about it, and understood it (on some level). If you have fun while you’re reaching partial solutions (all one side, just the corners, just the edges, first two layers…etc…) then keep going and keep working at it. The sense of accomplishment alone is worth it.
After that, if you want to get faster or find your own patterns or discover different ways to solve it, then it can keep being fun for years and years.
Lastly, if you’re learning to solve it by reading about it, or watching videos about it then that’s ok too. Even that is a skill that at least half the population doesn’t have the patience for. And if you find that fun, go for it.
It’s been 34 years since I solved the cube….and even in this past two years I picked up variations that interested me. Most noticeably, the Bandaged Cube which I solved on my own; the Latch cube which I did not solve without help and the Constrained (90) cube which I enjoy solving for speed.
If you’re enjoying trying to solve it on your own (and you keep progressing and learning new things), then keep at it. If you’re not having fun and you just want to solve it, then go find a video on it (or one of the books).
Lastly, if you solve the Rubik’s cube then you’re at least fairly smart. However, there are plenty of really smart people that can’t solve the cube on their own (or even with help). It’s just one type of smartness. (and it also requires secondary skills such as patience and perseverance).
While having a Facetime call, Ethan demonstrated a chess app that randomly chooses pieces so players can practice in a more challenging way. Notice how many of each there are to start the match.
It’s not the cubing while eating that’s interesting, but it’s the place. South Korea is famous for fried chicken and this was our favourite place, a small restaurant run by an older lady who has been making amazing fried chicken for probably 20 years. Ethan was lucky enough to have some considering Dong Eun or her sister don’t eat meat!
Oct. 2
Time to come home! A month went by a lot quicker than expected and it was time to come home. One cool thing about flying back to Canada is that the left Tuesday afternoon Seoul time and arrived Tuesday morning Vancouver time. I loved that when I flew home from Japan. I ended up having the longest Valentine’s Day ever! I wonder how i iwll feel when I fly back from Kathmandu at the end of November. I would like to visit with Ethan again while I am in Vancouver. I will be in touch as I know more about my dates.
One last photo with Auntie Da Young. She was there when Ethan was born and has been an amazing auntie ever since. Ethan and she have such a great relationship.
Doing some video editing before posting to YouTube. What is his favorite program to edit with?
He also did some multiplication to figure out… something! I’ll find out from Ethan and update the post.
UPDATE: Ethan told me that this is the number of hours and minutes (he knows the math is wrong on the minutes) that he has for his own time, to do what he wants. So it’s 24 hours times 6 days, then how many minutes. This came about because, during their time in Korea, Dong Eun set the majority of their schedule. So now that they’re home, Ethan wanted to set the schedule.
I would be interested to see the schedule he has created for himself. Does he consider all of his homeschooling time to be his personal own time as well? If so that is pretty neat!
We celebrated Ethan and Dong Eun coming home with a nice meal and a yummy vegan chocolate cake for dessert. So happy to have them both home!
I love vegan chocolate cake! There are some pretty delicious quinoa chocolate cake recipes out there: https://www.nestandglow.com/healthy-recipes/quinoa-avocado-chocolate-fudge-cake
http://makingthymeforhealth.com/best-ever-chocolate-quinoa-cake-gluten-free/
Maybe he will be inspired to try making one…
Oct. 3
Second day back home and off to his first day of Soaring Eagle Nature School. Ethan packed up his own things and was pretty excited about going and seeing some friends.
Ethan also has a job to do this week, as our neighbour Jane has asked Ethan to check her mail and water her plants while she’s away. This is an excellent opportunity to take on more responsibility, help others and even make some extra spending money or at least some trades of favors.
Ethan made a video about possible combinations with different cubes. He played around with speeding up the video because he wanted to show what he was doing a bit more quickly. He wanted to record a voiceover but in the end, decided it was better to just upload the sped up video.
One thing that Dong Eun discussed with me is having Ethan read classic novels and do some writing or research about those books. We’re just starting this so we have to see how it goes.
Do you have a novel or two in mind with which you want to start?
I know you asked me about teaching poetry to Ethan. Are you interested in having him write different kids of poetry or doing a study of poems. I looked at a few resources, but I am not quite sure how you would like me to narrow the focus?
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/bringing-poetry-to-the-classroom-grades-6-8.html
A poetry unit plan, there are alot of ideas and direct links here, check out the unit map towards the end for day by day lessons and activities:
http://break2012.weebly.com/poetry-unit-plan.html
First day back at taekwondo class. Mostly new kids but one of his friends from his previous taekwondo class was in this class.
He then challenged himself to find the square root so that there were as many zeros as possible after the decimal point. He did this for several other numbers.
Finally, to wrap up the night, we did some Mad Libs. This was more fun than I expected.
It’s a great game to practice and learn about different types of words. One of the best for learning different parts of speech and so funny!
Ethan started learning how to use Videoscribe to make videos with. This was a story about a character wanting to find his mother
Ethan started working on Canadian Reader stories and articles from Classroom Ready Science News again. We’ll also be looking at other subscriptions in the SelfDesign library for additional learning resources. Great let me know what else he finds interesting. I had a student that would read articles from the Guardian and BBC which she found interesting especially in the Science section. Just another option…
One thing that was apparent from this first day of writing is his use of complete sentences! Yay!
We also decided it would be a good idea to spend more time with each story or article, rather than finish one set of exercises related to a specific story and then move on. We’d like Ethan to deepen his learning by exploring the topics in greater details. Definitely, maybe reading a few articles and sources on the same topic…
He hasn’t practiced violin in over a month but he seemed to pick it up quickly.
Ethan has also joined the West Vancouver Youth Band Society and will be in the Debut Strings orchestra. We wanted Ethan to join because his violin teacher is leading the orchestra and she encouraged us to have him join. Wonderful news!!
This upcoming week we’ll try implementing some of the ideas mentioned, such as going deeper into articles and stories. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving!
Recent Comments