Logically Speaking: Math, Science, and Logic for 7th Grade

Welcome to the second week of the 2015 Virtual Curriculum Fair hosted by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts and Minds and Laura @ Day By Day In Our World  This week the topic is Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and Science.   These are some of the favorite subjects in our house, but also it seems that they can be difficult topics to find the right curriculum fit. 

Math has always been a no brainier for us as Amber has used Saxon math since her very first years in parochial school and we continue to use it at home. I know it's not for everyone, but Amber has a mathematically wired brain and she does exceptionally well with Saxon. This 7th grade year she is in Algebra 1 and earning high school credit for it too.  However, we are a little off a standard school year schedule with math because Amber's dysautonomia causes severe brain fog and exhaustion some days.

At her current level if we did a book a year she would finish Saxon calculus at the end of 10th grade (maybe 11th grade if we spend 2 years on Advanced Math as recommended by Art Reed).  This means we still have at least a whole extra year and can spend slightly more than one school year per Saxon book. We are using the 3rd edition of Saxon math which still has integrated analytical geometry in Algebra 2 and Advanced Math, unlike the newer 4th edition which requires the inclusion of a separate Geometry book. Using the 3rd edition also helps us find the breathing room Amber needs. 

Lately, science has been a struggle for Amber, which is unexpected for this science minded family. Amber could not trudge through our previous curriculum even though it was covering her favorite science topics and she previously did well with curriculum by the same author. The style simply no longer suited Amber's physical abilities or learning style. There was too much reading and writing with too little hands on work to compensate. 

Bed School Math, Working on her Weather Log, and reading her weather book.   
Our new Science curriculum.

We were scheduled to have finished the current science topic by October so we could move on to the Chemistry book in the same series and then start Physics by August of 8th grade.  That didn't happen by a long shot. In late October we did a curriculum search and selected Real Science 4 Kids Focus on Middle School:  Astronomy and Geology sets. Then for good measure I bought the Apologia Physical Science that we decided to use next year, just in case we prefer to start early. 

We then spent the remainder of first semester on a mom-planned weather unit, complete with field trip to a NWS office, since Amber is currently interested in becoming a meteorologist.  It was a good way to decompress and get Amber interested in science as a school subject again. I knew something was terribly wrong when she dreaded science and the topic was astronomy! It goes to show how having a curriculum meet your child's specific learning style is so important. Unfortunately for me my child's learning style is changing as her condition progresses. 

In previous years we've successfully used a logic curriculum from The Critical Thinking Company called Building Thinking Skills and we do somewhat miss it. I did purchase the next level, Critical Thinking, and intended for Amber to start it last January.  We never got past the first lesson.  There is just no time in Amber's schedule for sleep, doctors, food, absolutely necessary subjects, flute, 1/2 day of co-op enrichment classes, and formal logic. I've still got the logic books and we'll pull them out when the time feels right.  For now our logic consists of the chess strategy class Amber took at co-op last semester, logic games, and the occasional brain teaser.  This past week while still on a school break Amber has been working her way through the Professor Layton 3DS games and she loves it. It's a relaxing way to keep her brain active and engaged without the stress or formality of book work.

Logic Games

This is how math, science and logic work in our school this 7th grade year. We are always adjusting and changing to meet the needs and current learning style of our girl.  If you are interested in a more detailed explanation you can view my 7th Grade Curricula page.

Come back next week to see how we have completely reworked our history lessons this year to still be literature based, but include more project and media learning. 

Other Weeks from the 2015 Curriculum Fair

Please check out how the other members of the 2015 Virtual Curriculum Fair are Discovering Patterns with their children.

• Learning about Patterns in Our World Through Math and Science by Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
• Relaxed Homeschooling: Mathematics in the Early Elementary Years by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
• Using a Bible-Based Math Curriculum by Tauna M @ Proverbial Homemaker
• Math, Science and Logic for 2015 by Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses
• Playing with Numbers by Sarah @ Delivering Grace
• Unschooling Science by Kristen H. @ Sunrise to Sunset
• Logically Speaking: Math, Science, and Logic for 7th Grade  by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
• Numbers and Molecules! by Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays
• Math and Science in Our Homeschool by Jennifer @ A Glimpse of Our Life
• 5 Math & Logic Resources We Love by Becky @ Milo & Oats
• Giving Your Kids The Right Start With Math by Amy @ One Blessed Mamma
• Math in Our Classical / Charlotte Mason Homeschool by Sharra @ The Homeschool Marm
• Classical STEM by Lisa @ Golden Grasses
• Math, Science and Logic - How do we Tackle Them? by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
• The Physics of Delight-Directed Learning by Susan @ The Every Day of Education
• Tackling High School Science by Debra @ Footprints in the Butter
• Choosing Math Curriculum for Special Learners by Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
• Math for all ages by Denise @ Fullnest
• Middle School Monday - Math With Fred by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
• Learning With Math and Science Resources  by Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road

If you'd like to join the fair this week, use the linky below.

http://new.inlinkz.com/luwpview.php?id=483987

Some graphics created using elements from StoryRock

Our Artsy, Science-y, Fun, Learning Week.

The third full week of school has finished and we are finally, almost, maybe finding a rhythm.  We are still struggling with waking up on time when there isn't a pressing appointment outside of the house. So our goal for next week is to wake up on time Tues-Friday (because Monday is a holiday for us).

We were fairly productive this week and I am more confident about the amount of subjects we have scheduled for this year. I was afraid there might be too much, but it appears for now that all is going well and we have just the right amount of lessons each day.

Flubber bubble blowing. A sensory anxiety release tactic Amber learned in therapy. It seems to work too!

We've officially finished our study of the Civil War and will be moving on to Reconstruction next week.   While it was Amber's first time studying the Civil War and so learned a great deal during this unit, I also learned things that I didn't know before.  I hope the remainder of history this year is just as interesting for Amber.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh became the next book in our Literature study during our weekly book discussion time.   This was one of my favorite books in grade school and thankfully Amber is also enjoying it. She already at our first discussion point and impatiently waiting to read farther.

Amber can't ever stand to be without a book to read and currently has read all of her books in the house, so the impromptu library stop earlier this week was a welcome addition to our errands for the day.  She likes to read the Royal Diaries series of books.  They are quick little reads for her, usually under and hour, but she is intrigued by them.  The last one she read was on Elizabeth I of England.  This week she found Catherine the Great of Russia and Eleanor of Aquitaine.  

Turtle making his way to the rose garden.  Amber imitating the turtle.

We had a bit of excitement on lawn mowing day this week as well.  Right before I started on the yard, Amber spied a turtle walking across our back patio.  We have never seen a turtle in our yard at either house we've owned since she was born. Amber guarded it carefully, until it was safe in the landscaping and munching on my rose bushes. She really enjoyed watching the turtle and talked about it the rest of the week.  I think we may need to implement a nature walk into our schedule, or at least investigate our own yard a little more often.

While I mowed Tuesday evening Amber decided to do a bit of chalk drawing on the driveway.  She is not fond of drawing on paper and always mentions her poor drawing skills.  However, if you give her chalk and an empty driveway she will draw and color for hours.  Something about the nature of driveway drawing makes her feel more secure in her abilities or less pressured by expectations.   Whatever the reason, I'm thrilled she still has fun producing driveway art for us.

In science this week we continued the study of earthquakes and volcanoes.  Amber read a couple of encyclopedia for children books on the science topics that she found at the library too. These were entirely her idea and not even the reason for our trip to the library.  She learned a lot more from those books than from her text book.

Our science lab for this week was the much anticipated exploding volcano. I was lazy and not entirely enthusiastic about the detailed instructions in our science curriculum, so instead I bought the volcano kit from Michael's and it went much smoother than building the volcano from scratch.

The first day we put together the framework for the volcano and layered the plaster strips on the base.  After it had dried, on the second day, Amber painted the volcano to her liking.  She had ideas in her head of where side vents needed to be located and the amount of lava flowing from those vents as well.  We did wait for the paint to dry, and Daddy to return home from work, before exploding the volcano.  Amber was a little afraid it was going to be a huge eruption, so in the end we decided to have a Hawaiian style "runny nose" eruption. This suited Amber perfectly fine and she loved every second of the lab.

(Top, L-R) Designing volcano on paper;Painted volcano; Adding lava flows to paint.
(Bottom, L-R) Making volcano with plaster strips; Finished volcano ready to go; Beginning of eruption.

Last week on Friday afternoon we did attempt our art appreciation study and first creative writing lesson.  Art appreciation went quite poorly and we have since decided to find a different curriculum. There are lots of good ideas in the curriculum we were using, it is just very dry and doesn't get to the appreciation part very quickly.  Amber lost interest fast.  We will try art appreciation again next week, after I have the new curriculum ready. 

Creative writing, however, went splendidly.  Amber happily talked through the first lesson in the preparation for writing her novel and even completed the exercises without any complaint.  We are going to try to sneak in another creative writing lesson during the long holiday weekend.  Today, Friday, was too busy to do much in the way of school.

Today, we were caught up in school so had the whole day for fun time out with my mom.  As Amber has gotten older my parents preferred to celebrate Amber's half-birthday in July instead of a big celebration on her actual birthday in January. My dad felt her birthday was so soon after Christmas that she was missing out on truly enjoying her birthday.  This year my dad was in the hospital on her half-birthday and died soon afterwards.  Mom wanted to continue the tradition, even though it was a little late. So, today we spent the day out shopping and eating with my mom.  It rained the entire time, but we had great fun anyway and laughed the whole day. 

Giggly girl at lunch with Grandma and Mom

We are due for rain all weekend, and this post was interrupted by a tornado warning for our little municipality, but we desperately need that rain!  I hope everyone has a fun and safe Labor Day weekend and gets their share of the rain too.  :-)

Linking with:

Earthquake and Volcano Week

Our second week of school has been just as hectic as the first week.  We never intend for it to go this way, things just seem to happen.  I've spent this week analyzing our schedule to see how I can make it fit our life a little better.

Short of dropping a lot of subjects and racing through the curriculum, there isn't a lot we can do with the schedule anymore.  I did minorly adjust the schedule, however it appears our life needs the adjustment and not the school schedule.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  We seem to agree to do too many "fun" things each week lately.  Many people know that Fridays are our elective subject and catch up day and so expect us to have availability all day Friday. I'm just going to need to put my foot down.

Goofy girl - hiding from the camera during
our Tom Sawyer discussion.  She finished it too!

The week started with us rushing through subjects on Monday so that we could finish before leaving for Amber's first chimes choir practice of the school year.  She could barely contain herself all day and kept asking how much longer until chimes.  It turns out we had no need to rush and would have made it just fine. We felt pressured by the time constraint and I'm not sure why since we dealt with the same schedule all last semester and it was never a problem.

Our best day of the week was definitely Tuesday.  I actually thought ahead to document the day so that I can use it for a "day in the life" post.  We made it through all the subjects, in the scheduled order, and never ran too far behind timewise.  We are not so rigid that we must finish at the appointed times. Our schedule times are more of a guideline so that we know if the schedule is viable. Our main problem right now is that we simply can't get moving in the morning at a reasonable time yet. 

This week in science we have been studying earthquakes and volcanoes and Tuesday was the first non-demonstration science lab / activity of the year.  Amber was given fettuccine noodles, marshmallows and a foam board to use in simulating a building.  The idea was to design a building that could withstand an earthquake of predetermined type and magnitude.   Not only did her design remain standing when the "earthquake" occurred, but it suffered only minor tilt damage to one side.   Amber loved this activity so much that she created a second structure with a different design, after seeing the results from her first test.  I didn't make any design suggestions either time, Amber knew just what she wanted to do.  The second structure didn't even sway.  That's my girl!

The final structure, building the first structure, and the first structure before
earthquake test.

At the end of the activity, she declared her goal was to become an engineer / architect.   Actually, she declared it was to be a "teacher, historian, archeologist, writer, engineer / architect type person".  The list changes weekly.  But the best moment of the day, for me, was when she added "I love being able to learn about all these things I can become".   Ok, goofy schedule is worth it all now.

This week also included our first official field trip of the school year.  Wednesday we picked up my Mom and took her with us to the Missouri History Museum to tour the Civil War in Missouri exhibit.   It was utterly fascinating. There was an array of real uniforms, guns, swords, flags, the random amputation kit - with graphical instructions, and preserved bone pieces with identification of their original owner.   Other than the gruesome portions, we all really enjoyed ourselves. The interactive displays were especially entertaining as we guessed the verdict for many Missourians, Loyal or Disloyal to the Union, and their punishment.  We had about a 40% accuracy.

Latin homework in the car.  MO History Museum. Missouri Guard
banner made by women's auxillary.  Amber in front of Museum.

I usually let Amber get a little souvenir from each field trip, and this time she selected a small toy cannon that doesn't fire a thing.  After we returned home on Wednesday, I found her playing with her Strawberry Shortcake dolls and the cannon.  She was playing "Border Skirmishes in Missouri" with the dolls and they were Union loyalists who needed to defend their home.  There was quite a bit of detail to her backstory, but it all sounded fairly accurate.  At least she learned something about the Civil War the past couple of weeks.

We did have an almost normal day on Thursday, but I had a couple of absolutely necessary errands which had been continually postponed and created a delay in our Thursday school schedule.  Eventually, all subjects were finished and I even thought of a movie for Amber to watch about volcanoes.

Now, don't laugh. I mean it, do. not. laugh.  We had an hour long science discussion about volcanoes where Amber had a ton of questions about every little detail.  At one point I was trying to describe a pyroclastic cloud and started to say "like in Dante's Peak".  Then it hit me. She hasn't seen Dante's Peak. Gasp!  I have a strange obsession with that movie.  Not enough to buy the DVD, and considering our rather large and random collection, that is strange in itself.  Still, anytime I see it listed on a TV guide, I just have to watch. I know, it's a crappy movie but it sucks me in everytime.

This sent me on a hunt for the movie, which is harder to find than you'd think.  Short of ordering it from Amazon or another online site, it is impossible to get older movies around here. All of our Blockbusters and other video stores closed.  We are dependent on the powers that be at RedBox.   Again, here is another duhh moment for me.  I could actually sign up for Netflix as we have a PS3 and all kinds of cool devices that can stream video.  Yeah, my mental power is astounding, isn't it? 

I successfully signed up for Netflix and made all of our cool devices access the various Netflix apps.  After dinner on Thursday we sat down and watched Dante's Peak stream through the PS3.  It wasn't as good as watching an HD bluray, but it works for an immediate need.  I also found a ton of Civil War and volcano documentaries that are now in our queue to watch.  

In case you are wondering, Amber wasn't fond of Dante's Peak.  Yes, she liked the science-y bits and the pyroclastic cloud was cool.  She found the rest of the movie stressful, yet boring and definitely does not want to be a volcanologist.  

Obviously, my favorite resource of the week is Netflix.  Seriously, why did someone not hit me over the head with it before now?

They just love each other.  He is never far from her.

Our first art appreciation and creative writing lessons are scheduled for this week too, but since I'm writing this on Thursday night I have no idea how they will turn out.  I may just chicken out and postpone them. Friday looks pretty hectic from where I am sitting right now.

I hope everyone else had a productive and relaxing week.  Thanks for reading my long mindless post this week :-)