Multiplication

A couple weeks ago, it was time for Kaleb to start multiplication in math. We finished up a unit on Friday and come Monday morning we started on 'times'. As I was getting things ready for the lesson I decided I would take Kalen along with us.
Kalen has basically been at the same place in math since her 4th grade year. Repetition is good for a child with learning disabilities, but at what point is she just not going to get it? For instance, telling time on a clock with hands is not going to happen at this point in Kalens life. It has to do with her visual spacial issues so why keep pushing it. Kalen knows her base 10 addition and subtract and anything passed that she knows how to use her calculator to figure it out. She understands money, but telling nickels, dimes and quarters apart is difficult for her. Once again, the visual spacial problems. At what point should you move on? I guess that's up to whoever is teaching.
I decided that my teaching had to be hands on for Kalen. So I cut up a bunch of 2" squares of fabric in different colors that we could put on my flannel board. Amazingly, Kalen caught on fairly well. The hands on approach was very good for her. We are up to facts of 5 and are doing a lot of repetition. Kalen has done very well.
The second day of multiplication Kalen said to me "mom, I was really tired of doing the same stuff in math." Hmmmmm!!!!!
So I thought about how I would feel if I was being taught the same thing day after day and I didn't get it? How much effort would I put into it? Not much. I don't know where we are going with Math and Kalen, but I look at it one day at a time. I hope to get her to know her math facts to 10. If she gets there, it will be time to celebrate. We will probably go back and review some of the stuff she hasn't gotten at this point from time to time and see if any of it clicks. However, I don't have a problem saying 'she doesn't get it'.
As for Kaleb, he has taken to multiplication like a duck to water. He has great reasoning skills and can figure out a lot of things out on his own. I end every math session with the bonus question. He is getting pretty good at that. It takes a lot to stump him.

The horse world......

A boy and his horse.

On Sunday Mark and Kaleb went to a horsemanship clinic that the WRCHA (Wyoming Reined Cow Horse Assn.) was having. The WRCHA is basically a group of people that live here in Gillette. There are several of them that put on clinics in the fall as a fund raiser for their organization it also gets more people interested in the WRCHA. Mark thought it would be good for Kaleb to get instruction from someone else. Which is true. Mark said that Kaleb was pretty shy there. Which isn't surprising, he tends to be shy when he is around people he doesn't know. Anyway, one of the clinicians is a lady. Kaleb told me that she said she liked his horse. He thought she was all right.

This is Mike and Annie scratching each others backs. Annie has been on hiatus since early August. She turned up lame right before Mark was going to show her at the state fair. Reining in hard on the joints and especially the hocks. Annie is 6 years old. At this point in her career, for her to go on she is going to have to be on joint therapy meds. We have resisted doing that. We had an equine vet check her out and her hocks are sore along with the suspensory (not sure how it spelled ) tendon in her left front leg. We put her on rest and have thought through the options. Annie is one point away from earning her Register of Merit in Open Reining. So the question is whether we want to put her back in the show pen knowing it could make her lame for the one point. It would be cool if she got her ROM, but definitely not the end of the world if she doesn't get it.

Annie seems to be sound again and we have decided to put her on meds for her joints to help aid in wellness. We also decided that I would start riding her to exercise her. I rode her for the first time the other day. She is totally awesome and fun to ride. Mark may not get her back.

This is Mark's latest project Will. Or Wilbur or Wilford, just depends on the day. When he first came here I thought we should change his name to Wild Eye. He would stand across the pen from you and he had a huge eye like he was scared of you. Mark spent a lot of time taking the spook out of him and earning his trust. Now Will reminds me of a puppy dog. He follows us around like a big goofy puppy. He gets in my personal space. Will has his days when he has 'spook' issues, he will probably always be like that, but he is definitely a different horse than when he came here.

It has been two years since we had a vacation and that was to Florida to Disney. Last year Mark's vacation was painting and laying flooring on the main level of the house. We took some long weekends for horse shows but other than that we haven't been anywhere. The thought of going away seemed to be a good idea. The budget is tight though. We have talked off and on about going to the NRHA (National Reining Horse Assn.) Futurity (its like the super bowl in reining) in Oklahoma City and driving it. I knew we had points on our credit card that could go to plane tickets so I looked into it and found we had enough points to get cheap tickets from Gillette to OKC. We will leave here on December 1 and come home on the 7th. We will be there to see the finals on the night of the 6th.
We are all looking forward to the trip, but especially Mark. Mark has only had 10 days off since August 1. On the weekends he didn't actually have to be in the field unless there was a problem, but he is on call which means he is on the phone and blackberry and sending reports. They have had a lot of projects going on and the hours and stress are starting to wear him down. He had worked his vacation so he won't have to go to the office from Thanksgiving until December 8. He has to fly to southeast Texas next week for work. They are moving a piece of equipment that goes on a gas well from here to one of their fields in Sweeney Texas. This is new territory for the Texans so Mark gets to go down and help with the installation and show them how it runs.

Abraham Lincoln

This picture was taken last summer in Keystone, SD outside of Mount Rushmore.

Last night the kids and Mark (I actually think he was asleep) were watching a documentary on the assassin of Abraham Lincoln before supper. We sat down to supper and Kaleb started talking about Lincoln and asking questions. This was a teaching moment. Several weeks ago Kaleb read a book about Lincoln for language arts. So, I brought up what we had learned about him. Kaleb remembered that Lincoln was the president professed that slavery was wrong and put a stop to it and that started the Civil War.

Kalen is studying the colonization of America in history. In the last week she has learned about how the settlers discovered they could make big money off of tobacco (which Kaleb has confused with Tabasco) and how they didn't like doing all the work themselves. So they brought ships of slaves from Africa to work on their large plantations. So the conversation went on about slavery and Lincoln.

It was pretty cool that since I know what the kids are learning in school that we could have a discussion about it in our everyday life. It's just another advantage of homeschooling. When the kids were in public school I never knew that much about what they were learning. I would ask everyday what they learned, but by the time the got home they were done for the day.

The Ghost of Halloween Past

We did our usual Halloween thing and went to Grandma house. We had pizza and Mark took the kids down the street to Trick or Treat. The weather was beautiful. It was 50 degrees.

Kalen is growing up. She did not have a costume this year. She opted for a shirt that had 'angel' written on it with wings painted on the back and it came with a halo that she wore.

Kaleb is totally into 'army', cops, military......... He wanted an 'army' costume this year. Knowing him and his history with costumes, I decided that it would be best to buy him the real 'camo' vs. a costume. I ended up having to go back and buy another camo shirt and pants because he loves them so much.

Kalen always liked to wear her costumes after Halloween as dress up. For many years she was a 'bride' or some kind of Disney princess. So they were always worth the money. Now Kaleb, he 'did' his Halloween costumes. When he was two he was Bob the Builder. He wear his Bob the Builder everywhere, including bed. Then he 'did' the red Power Ranger two years in a row and he lived in those costumes day and night. Kalen and I were telling him this and he just laughed and didn't believe us. I pretty sure he went a couple years that he couldn't watch Power Rangers with out being dressed in his costume. I finally had to hide them because they were getting to small for him.