Narration: Secrets of the Universe Ch. 1-2

LittleLa (age 11) wrote this narration last week:

Federal laws.  They're not the only kind.  There are natural laws, like the Law of Gravity.  Who voted on that law?  Nobody!  It's a law of nature.  Some people break federal laws, like speeding.  You can't break Gravity.  Every time you drop a ball it will fall down.  Not up, down.  Gravity is unbreakable.  

Scientific laws are just describing science.  Many scientists discover brilliant things because of one person, like Newton and Einstein.  Very rarely scientific laws do change because scientists find information that is more accurate and sensible.  Natural laws are mostly written in math equations.  This way it is easier for scientists to compute their experiments. 

Archimede's Principle: If you fill a tub to the edge with water, when you put an object in the water, the equal amount to the mass of the object will overflow out of the tub. 

I like this narration.  I can tell by the sentences that she was trying to summarize paragraphs.  This is a great exercise and can be difficult.  My favorite part is the point she makes about scientific laws.  We will have a bit of discussion to clarify that scientific laws never change, but man's understanding of them changes, and then man needs to bring his definition of the law into harmony with the actual law.  I also think she needs a better definition of natural law than she comprehended in this reading, so I will bring that to her attention next week.

She misspelled four words:  they're, experiments, accurate and equations. I corrected them here for ease of reading.  These words, along with any others she misspelled last week in written narrations, will be her spelling list for next week.  She will study the correct spelling until she can visualize it correctly with her eyes closed.  Then I will have her run around the outside of the house singing a song and after that I will give her a spelling test.  If she misspells them again, they go on the list again.

CM and Math

The past few years, math and writing have been bees stuck in my bonnet.  I'm parking a few math links here for my own help.  Perhaps they will help others too.

Miss Mason:

There is no one subject in which good teaching effects more, as there is none in which slovenly teaching has more mischievous results...a child who does not know what rule to apply to a simple problem within his grasp, has been ill taught from the first, although he may produce slatefuls of quite right sums in multiplication or long division...Care must be taken to give the child such problems as he can work, but yet which are difficult enough to cause him some little mental effort.

(Give the child problems which are difficult enough to cause him some effort.  This is key in understanding so many of CM's recommendations.  CM is gentle, yet rigorous.  CM respects the child, yet challenges the child.)

More from CM on arithmetic:

The copying, prompting, telling, helping over difficulties, working with an eye to the answer which he knows, that are allowed in the arithmetic lesson, under an inferior teacher, are enough to vitiate any child; and quite as bad as these is the habit of allowing that a sum is nearly right, two figures wrong, and so on, and letting the child work it over again. Pronounce a sum wrong, or right––it cannot be something between the two.

On the beauty of mathematics: 

 We take strong ground when we appeal to the beauty and truth of Mathematics; that, as Ruskin points out, two and two make four and cannot conceivably make five, is an inevitable law. It is a great thing to be brought into the presence of a law, of a whole system of laws, that exist without our concurrence,––that two straight lines cannot enclose a space is a fact which we can perceive, state, and act upon but cannot in any wise alter, should give to children the sense of limitation which is wholesome for all of us, and inspire that sursum corda which we should hear in all natural law.

On examination-driven teaching of math:

Arithmetic, Mathematics, are exceedingly easy to examine upon and so long as education is regulated by examinations so long shall we have teaching, directed not to awaken a sense of awe in contemplating a self-existing science, but rather to secure exactness and ingenuity in the treatment of problems.

(I want to awaken a sense of awe in my students.  Math was created by God.  It cannot be denied that mathematical laws exist outside of man-made laws.)

On math and success:

...why should a boy's success in life depend upon drudgery in Mathematics? That is the tendency at the present moment to close the Universities and consequently the Professions to boys and girls who, because they have little natural aptitude for mathematics, must acquire a mechanical knowledge by such heavy all-engrossing labour as must needs shut out such knowledge of the 'humanities' say, as is implied in the phrase 'a liberal education.'... [Mathematics] may not engross the time and attention of the scholar in such wise as to shut out any of the score of 'subjects,' a knowledge of which is his natural right.

(Lord, please help me remember this!  Awaken awe, challenge the student, keep math focus in perspective relative to other subjects.)

LTW: Review and New

Mariel and I are a writing class of two this year.  We are starting with Lost Tools of Writing I Lesson 6.  We made it to Lesson 8 last year, but I wanted to review the persuasive essay before diving into the comparison essay which starts in Lesson 9.

Today she chose an issue and began defining terms.  We are reading Little Women in group time, mainly for her younger sister's benefit.  Since Mariel has already read the book, she decided to use it for her first LTW essay.  I encouraged her to choose a very simple issue, something that seems small in the grand scheme of the book.  I have heard that smaller issues often produce the best thought.  Her issue is:

Whether Amy should have bought Marmee cologne.

Stay tuned.  ;o)