2 Field Trips

We went back to the Paley Center of Media (the old Museum of Television & Radio) on Monday for a great class.  It was called "The Fine Art of Persuasion" and it was all about advertising.  We watched and discussed different commercials - from different decades.  We learned about target audiences, how ads are the reason most TV shows are on at all, tricks of the trade, exaggeration, what companies what to convey, etc.  I learned a lot.  The adults enjoyed it as much as the kids did.  And the kids were so into it - all the kids had their hands raised constantly to ask and answer question.  After the class, I heard the instructor tell the trip coordinator that these were probably the smartest kids she's ever seen.

On Tuesday we did a guided tour of a local supermarket.  I love these kinds of trips.  It makes you pay more attention to what's going on in the normally boring places you regularly go to.  We were brought to almost every food section and the kids got a baggie of stuff to eat from each of them.  Topics included:  organics, artificial colors & flavors, locally-grown produce, types of bread/grains, MyPlate (which replaced the food pyramid), unit pricing, understanding ingredient labels, and healthy living.  I think W got a lot out of it.  Both of the trips this week were for 5th-8th grade.  I'm really happy there are so many trips and classes for this age group.

J's school is performing Guys & Dolls next month.  If you'll be in the city for any of the show dates, I encourage all of you to experience this.  It's Broadway quality and only $20/adults and $10/students - you can order them right on the website.  Other than that, J's doing really well again this year.  She still loves it more than anything.  At the dance studio, they're in the throes of new choreography for the 2012 competition season. There will also be plenty of workshops, conventions, and outside classes this year, too.  K is enjoying college and doing great and she's still in training at her new job.  Her birthday is next week - on Thanksgiving!    W is still going very strong with karate.  Three days a week doesn't seem enough for him.  I have every Friday off in December so all month he can do 4x/week if he wants.

Academics

We'll be staying with fractions now for a while.  First we're reviewing the basics.  He gets it and seems to like fractions (he's probably just glad to be away from all those multiplication and division drills, lol).  I'm using a lot of different tools:  online videos and games, workbooks, manipulatives, using fractions throughout our day, and we took out the big blackboard.  I don't want it to get boring.  Spelling Skills was another 20 words along with categorization and "if-then" exercises.  In the bridge book he did a page on synonyms and using a thesaurus and common abbreviations.  And we read about fruits and vegetables in Science Lab in a Supermarket which  went nicely with our supermarket field trip.  He he did a written narration with this.  We started reading The Landing of the Pilgrims (w/a narration).  W did more independent reading as well.  We mailed the first quarterly report out this week - same format since 2005.