Cai's Home Learning

The big event this week was a Christmas picnic with other homeschoolers. Cai fit in and joined in really fast, and everyone was really friendly. It was wonderful. And he came home with new friends and a play date appointment.

You can't tell, but that giant tree is full of homeschooled children, including my son.

He also had a session at day care while we cleaned for an inspection, and seemed to love it. He wants to keep it as part of his routine.

Games and free play

I picked up an awesome game/pretend play set this week, a mostly cardboard diner set. One of Cai's favourite games is to run a restaurant, taking orders, cooking and serving the food. This set has menus, food and drinks, plates, an order pad, and pretend money. It's been a big boost to his favourite game, and we've started using it to develop money skills-adding up bills and giving change. Money well spent.

Tummy Trouble continues to be best loved of the board games. There's been a lot of Lego, both small bricks and big Megablocks, and his fine motor skills are improving, which will hopefully help with his writing. He was very proud of the improvement: "Usually I can't make them stick together, and now I can!" He has been playing with wooden blocks a lot too.

I also tried a salt tray, which was a success, and something I should incorporate more. I also loved playing with it, let's face it. I need to make more playdough as well, to keep his little hands moving. It's something he adores at playgroup.

The weather has meant not a lot of outdoor play because of heat and rain, but thankfully the picnic was perfect weather, for lots and lots of running around.

He also got some facepaints and had a lovely time painting his entire body, something he hasn't done since he was little.

Game Design

Last year or so I took an edX course on Game Design Fundamentals. This week, Cai was creating levels in Mario Maker, and I took the opportunity to teach him some of the principles involved--not the big words like "iteration", but the concepts.

Cai planned his levels, playtested to see if they were too hard or easy, and iterated--made changes--to balance difficulty and improve fun. It was only when he was happy with them he let me play them, and I was kind of amazed at how good he was at making levels I could beat, but only after I'd had a couple of tries and learning.

I also had a go at making a couple of levels--and then Cai hopped in and made them much better.

App Reviews

Skoolbo

One of the biggest changes was shelling out for the new version of  Skoolbo, with an early adoption price of $25 a year.  It's been incorporated happily into our every day life: the way it rewards kids with an animal mascot if they finish the day's tasks has been a huge incentive. Well, except for the day he refused to do the tasks because the day's animal, a bunny, "looks like a boring dog". :D

From the parent's menu, I customise tasks that will be offered on rotation, and can look at his metrics. Then he gets some sets tasks every day, but can do *all* the games and lessons at any point. There's a good mix of stuff: easy Mandarin lessons, drawing lessons, games to practice numeracy and literacy, learning money skills, and best of all loads and loads of ebooks. There is a huge amount of variety.

I particularly like that at the end of each set he gets a chapter of a read-aloud book, with only one picture. His eyes track the words beautifully as it's read (he sits on my lap or beside me and I remain engaged the whole time.) It's a great way to expose him to longer form, less picture heavy reading.

The library of ebooks is his favourite thing, though--he goes straight to Science and Geography and picks out books. He loves learning facts from them and bringing them up when out and about.

I need to make some themed badges for all his learning. :)

It's been a huge success, and I'm really pleased with it. Cai actively asks for it. And he is learning so much. It's taken over from workbooks a bit, and I think it's a good change.

As always, I think the real key is to make it special, engaged, cuddly time, no matter how many times you have to share an ebook about supermarkets or flamingos.

Gus on the Go: Japanese

I'm learning Japanese, self-taught, and Cai asked this week to learn it too. He's a big Love Live! School Idol  fan as well as a gamer, so it's a natural fit for him.

As well as informally teaching him words myself, I've been looking around for child friendly apps. Mindsnacks is highly recommended, but isn't compatible with the current iOS system, so I downloaded quite a few to try out. Apps are a big part of my own learning, but he is too little for the ones I use.


The one for which  I ended up shelling out a small amount for the full game is Gus on the Go: Japanese. It teaches about 90 basic vocab words through interactive pictures and games, and is a really pretty app. It's obviously not going to teach a child the full language, but for a kindergartener first showing interest, it's perfect.

Cai finds loan words hilarious.

Pizza Fractions 1

One last new app to mention: Pizza Fractions 1. It's simple, free, and seemed to drop the idea of fractions into Cai's head immediately.  He got the idea straight away.

Also it makes silly noises and the chef's eyes spin around when Cai enters his answer, so as far as he's concerned, it's genius.

Mobymax

We started playing around with this only today. Cai completed the entire unit on what cultures are, and was really engaged. He also read and answered comprehension questions on a story about cows. He seemed quite amused.

Next week

Next week we have a museum excursion planned, and a playdate with new friends, as well as daycare. I want to finish off his Pizza Badge, and get started on a Japan badge and an Animal Badge. Can't wait!