Conversations on Twice Exceptional Homeschooling
As I talked about previously, I don’t feel that modern maths really enters into the classroom, or general maths curriculum very often. But that doesn’t mean it can’t! In fact, some of this maths is so easy, you can start learning and playing and thinking about it with your preschooler or primary-school aged children.
Here’s some cool maths ideas we’ve done at home.
Continue reading “Modern Maths to Do With Your Primary Schoolers: Fractals”
You know, I had a post planned for Christmas. I had it half-written. All I needed was an hour or so to polish it off….and then wham!
We were derailed by ‘Le Grande Project’. You see, we’d been asking the kids, particularly C, ‘what do you want for Christmas?’ for a while now. And received the dreaded shrug. Variations on ‘is there anything you really want?, elicited similar responses….until three days before Christmas. Yes. Three Days. That was when he wrote his letter to Santa. And oh boy, what a letter. Go have a look at it. Go on. It’s no particle accelerator, but – oh boy!
Continue reading “Derailed by ‘Le Grande Project’”
There is quite a difference between the way I thought I would teach chemistry compared to the way C prefers to learn. C is very visual-spatial in his thinking. He absorbs knowledge when he can see it and touch it. He doesn’t mind listening, but he can’t just listen – there has to be a visual component, or lots of space to wiggle and jump around. And when he’s excited by a new idea he gets very loud! Which is a joy. He also loves to play with an idea – to absurdity if possible.
This makes putting together a chemistry curriculum in the more formal way a problem. But it also gives us great scope for experimentation. Afterall, where else can you go? Continue reading “Putting Together A Chemistry Curriculum”
Today I thought I’d go in a different direction to usual. In the course of homeschooling, sometimes I come across really cool ideas when looking for lessons that I wouldn’t otherwise have known anything about.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we could fix the problems of global warming, not by cutting down on our lifestyle, but through replacing old products with new ones? Cheaper ones? More humane, more economic, safer products? Well. here are three that I think could rock our world.
Continue reading “Three Inventions That Could Change Our World, By Not Changing Us”
I have decided to write a piece on how to read articles on science. Because, quite frankly, most (but not all) science journalism sucks. The more mainstream the website / newspaper / TV the news appears in, the more the contents are awful and removed from reality.
It doesn’t matter what the topic – climate change, GM foods, vaccines, or ‘gee whizz we’re going to the stars!’, journalists by and large are science and maths illiterate, and will usually get it wrong. Even the good ones are prone to exaggeration and hyperbole.
The thing is, it’s really, really easy to make sure you’re getting the truth. And this is how to do it:
Continue reading “How to Read Science Journalism”
