St. George

The girls’ learning, this week in maths, has had a focus on correctly using decimal numbers. First of all they understood and recognised the value of each digit in the number when using the decimal point. We discussed where decimals are used. More notably with money and measurements. The girls got used to putting the numbers on a number line and then rounding the decimal number to the nearest whole number or tenth.

Jordi had practised his counting with adding small groups of number to make a total that is less than fifteen. He practised counting the squares to add and wrote the correct number digits. He is now beginning to learn to count back from ten to blast off.

Judit and Sara then learned some words that they practised with a spelling test. These are key words that the girls will be using in their story writing for next week as they will be writing stories that are based on the legend theme, this ties in with the current celebration of St Jordi or George, who fights a dragon to save the life of a princess. The girls did look at a retelling of the legend, they were able to pick out as many adjectives and descriptive phrases that summarised and described the dragon and George. To get their ideas underway for their legend stories the girls began to create their character profile for their main character they chose to use women as their main characters. They thought about their strengths and weaknesses.

Jordi was able to prove that he could spell words by breaking up the sounds and blending the sounds. He did brilliantly in knowing his CVC words such as man, pan, can, cat, hat and bat. We are definitely ready to try out some new sounds to read in the next week. Jordi’s writing is also doing very well, especially as he was able use his blending and checking to write letters.

Sergi was following instructions to recognise and colour in certain shapes correctly and to continue patterns. 

Ruta histórica: la guerra civil

Margarita Colomer es una gran historiadora que está especializada en la guerra civil, especialmente en la zona del Maresme. A través de la comisión de la memoria histórica de la gente mayor de la ciudad se organiza una ruta a través de los monumentos históricos, la cárcel, el ayuntamiento, el calabozo municipal, la caserna del regimiento de artillería, la caserna de la guardia civil, etc

La ruta dura entorno a las dos horas y Margarita va explicando los sucesos  que empezaron el fatídico 18 de Julio de 1936. ¿Cómo se pudo desencadenar una guerra civil? ¿Qué factores fueron decisivos? ¿Quiénes fueron los culpables? En las guerras todos son malos, cuando se toman las armas solo hay derrotados, terror, miseria y mucho dolor. Hay que conocer el pasado para aprender a no volver a caer en los mismos errores que cayeron nuestros antepasados. Armonía, diálogo, paz, perdón y mucho amor.

Adverbs and poetry

This week Sara and Judit learned how to break down a larger piece of text into a brief, to the point summary. They were proficient and felt confident in taking out the important elements from a piece of text and interpret them in their own words. To start, I gave them copies of “The Emperor's New Clothes”, after reading the story and discussing some of the unknown words we walked slowly through some steps in order to identify the characters and their qualities (i.e. the self-conceited emperor). Furthermore, we discussed what the character's goal is. Next, we worked to figure out the obstacle that is getting in the way of the character reaching their goal and lastly we discussed the way the character reacted to the problem. Following these steps, the girls were able to write a summary and familiarize with new describing words such as “vain” and “self-conceited”.

In math, we revised fractions, decimals and factors and they completed the tests on their math textbooks. They also mastered different ways to represent fractions on paper and adding decimals.

Jordi learned how to do simple addition and practiced numbers with “color by number” worksheets.

He also worked on word identification by recognizing sight words within sentences which helped develop his language and cognitive skills.

In science, Sara and Judit learned about the physical properties of the Moon. They compared these to the properties of the Earth to determine how life would be different for people living on the Moon. After reading a text which provided them with facts about the moon and after having gained an insight regarding the dissimilarities between Moon and Earth, they answered some questions which tested their comprehension of the text. They also had to fill in the gaps in a fiction text about gravity which gave them the freedom to pick their own scientific terms and come up with an imaginative narrative.

In English the girls learned how to distinguish verbs from adverbs. They were asked to locate the adverbs and verbs from ten given sentences. They also created their own sentences using adverbs of manner and frequency. We finished the week by doing poetry reading. We read out loud the poem “Sick” by Shel Silverstein which was really entertaining and followed a rhythmic pattern that the girls enjoyed reciting. Together with Jordi and Sergi we cut out our envelopes with our names that we tied together in a string and created a special place for sending mails to one another. Then we ended our lessons by writing letters to each other.

Dentro del Sistema Educativo

Las familias que optamos por la escolarización no presencial queremos estar dentro del sistema educativo para mejorar la oferta del sistema actual. Creemos imprescindible para garantizar una educación universal, flexible y abierta a todas las necesidades ofrecer una gama amplia y diversa de centros, proyectos educativos rurales, escuelas vivas, educación en familia y educación a distancia entre otras alternativas que puedan ir surgiendo de las necesidades de la población.

Me sorprendió enormemente la respuesta de una inspectora de educación con motivo de la invitación a la presentación del libro Fuera del Sistema Escolar, literalmente respondió: declino su invitación ya que aunque conozco su asociación, mis responsabilidades se centran en la mejora del sistema educativo de nuestro país. Y me pregunto ¿Las familias que optamos por educar a nuestros hijos integralmente no estamos dentro del sistema  educativo? ¿Y porqué no, acaso los padres no son también agentes educativos? Si las familias, los padres, los abuelos, hemos perdido la responsabilidad de educar, estamos perdidos. Desde el año 2002 a través de la asociación, primero con el nombre de ALE, más tarde con el nombre de Coordinadora Catalana pel Reconeixement i la Regulació del Homeschooling, las familias llevamos luchando más de 14 años para poder entrar dentro del sistema educativo, pero parece que la administración todavía no comprende que la educación puede darse de muchas maneras y que en todo caso se debe buscar la fórmula para regular esta modalidad y así hacerla accesible a todas aquellas familias que la necesiten, no únicamente a las más atrevidas, a las más ricas, a las extranjeras, a las más cultas, a las más alternativas. Regulación y normalización para formar parte del sistema educativo para que todas las familias, sin discriminación, puedan optar por el modelo que mejor se adapte a sus necesidades y a las necesidades de sus hijos.

  Además

Presentación proyectos Abril

El escenario para la presentación de proyectos en el mes de Abril es en Cornellà, el parc de Can Mercader. Marta trae un proyecto sobre magia matemática. Josué nos habla del río Llobregat. Mila ha realizado una investigación sobre las diferentes diosas de la antigüedad, Alan  nos habla de los dinosaurios. El proyecto de Ainara trata sobre los monumentos de París, Rita investiga sobre la vida de los elefantes. Judit y Sara realizan un stopmotion y finalmente Jordi con la ayuda de todos sus hermanos nos habla del mundo animal, las diferentes clasificaciones y características.

Reading comprehension

This week Judit and Sara focused on writing, reading and understanding stories (both fiction and non fiction) and poetry including comprehension questions. They learned how to analyze poems and locate the purpose of the poem by identifying the details that determine what the author meant. We focused on Shel Silverstein and they found his way of writing quite humorous, we learned that he used inference very often in his poems and it was like we were solving a riddle. They came up with very creative conclusions and justified their ideas thoroughly. In an effort to develop their creative writing skills they had to pick one out of three story starters and imagine a plot, setting, characters and resolution. Jordi practiced counting up to twenty and he managed to recognize and produce new sounds and new words. We focused on the sounds h, j, k and n. We also did story telling using finger puppets and Jordi was really observant and was able to reproduce the story immediately after hearing it once. Sergi focused on coloring the letters a, b and c and got familiar with their shape and also practiced basic handwriting with geometric shapes.

In science with Judit and Sara we learned about the population, volcanoes and chemical reactions. We did two experiments so they could visualize and better understand scientific concepts such as chemical changes. We turned milk into plastic by adding vinegar, and we learned that adding an acid, such as vinegar, to the milk changes the pH of the milk and makes the casein molecules unfold. We also learned that this chemical change was irreversible.

In maths the girls practiced adding and subtracting fractions, they found out that the tricky part was when you add or subtract fractions that have different denominators. They used visual models of fractions so that they could think through pictures. Moreover, they found factors a little bit easier and more fun than fractions, they learned that one number can have many factors and factors are the numbers we can multiply together to get another number. We ended the week by reading the history of chocolate and Milton Hershey, the man who founded the Hershey chocolate company and the company town of Hershey. The girls learned new words like 'apprentice', 'expand', 'afford' and 'refreshment' and they understood the difference between common and proper nouns.

Presentación del libro Fuera del Sistema Escolar

El pasado miércoles, junto con Judit y Sara, presentamos el libro en la biblioteca pública de Can Fabra, Barcelona. Ayer estuvimos en Lleida, en la biblioteca pública. Y el próximo miércoles 20 de Abril estaremos en Mataró, la sala de actos de la fundación Iluro. Las presentaciones son un lugar de encuentro para presentar el homeschooling, dar a conocer este modelo educativo e intercambiar opiniones y dudas que pueden surgir de las personas interesadas. Judit y Sara han preparado un vídeo explicativo y exponen de primera mano cómo aprenden y las diferentes metodologías que utilizamos.

Fotogramas

Jordi y Sergi les encanta dibujar y pintar. Judit y Sara se inventan una historia con sus dibujos y les sacan múltiples fotos creando una historia. A través de Pinnacle editan un vídeo con las fotografías y realizan el montaje, buscan la música que mejor se adapta a las secuencias, graban la narración y los efectos especiales. En unas horas han conseguido su primera película a través de sus dibujos animados. Para ellos es un simple juego pero en realidad es un gran proyecto educativo, favorece el trabajo cooperativo y se mezclan aspectos artísticos, lingüísticos e informáticos. 

Arte Fractal

Con un poco de pegamento, jabón y tinte realizamos un experimento para observar el arte fractal. El tinte se ramifica en pequeñas figuras geométricas similares a los helechos. Los niños prueban con diferentes colores, con más y menos cantidades de pegamento y jabón para observar como la propia naturaleza tiene una perfección natural y geométrica artística. Marc Boada también nos enseña el espectro tridimensional de la magnetita, con una caja de plástico transparente lleno de arena magnética y un imán potente. La arena se adhiere al imán y al voltear la caja las líneas magnéticas siguen el imán, con lo cual se crea un espectro magnético de gran belleza artística. 

Con armonia

Sara interpreta una canción de Mozart mientras Jordi continua progresando con la lectura. Judit está trabajando en un proyecto a través del ordenador, Sergi se divierte haciendo puzles y Sílvia duerme la siesta. Así de manera conjunta, trabajamos, cada uno con su proyecto, su actividad, su centro de interés. Las salidas semanales marcan el ritmo, si hay grupo de lectura, o grupo de proyectos, alguna visita al museo, o alguna entrevista nos centramos más en esa temática, sin prisas, pero sin pausas.

The Aztecs and the Egyptians

This week there has been a strong focus in getting Sergi and Jordi to count objects and their numbers up to ten. Both boys have been working hard to do this and with the help of Sara and Judit, this week, the boys are beginning to know the order of the numbers to twenty, they are especially noticing a pattern with the last ‘teen’ numbers. We need to practise these everyday as we want to move towards using some taking away skills with counting backwards with ones very soon like the countdown at launch of a space rocket.

Jordi has gained a huge amount of confidence now in reading individual sounds and blending these sounds together to make familiar words. He recognised the separate sounds such as b-a-ck and put the sounds together to make the word back. It comes as a bit of a shock to him how many words he is getting correct now and so rapidly, what is really important now is that he fully recognises the context of what he is reading which was why when he read the word ‘back’ he could hear the example of how the English word was used in the sentence as well as pointing to his back whenever the word came up. He has to keep at this everyday though until he can read whole sentences of words.

The two girls have had a big practice in reading and solving word problems. We went through the problem solving routine of using RUCSAC (READ the question, UNDERSTAND the question, CHECK which number operation(s) you would use, SOLVE the problem (use a system to work towards the answer so you can explain what maths you are using), ANSWER the problem and finally CHECK again to see if the answer matches what the question asked for.

In their English work the girls were focusing on using descriptive writing to first describe a picture in as much detail as possible which led on to them writing a narrative for a short animated film called ‘Home sweet home’ which is about a house that decides to move away and have an adventure.

In science the girls focused on the effects that Earthquakes can have and how people should protect themselves in the event of one taking place. The girls had a short historical visit to the early history of Spain during 1492. They learned that parallel to what was happening in Spain, a very different history took place in England that grew up around a royal family called the Tudors. This led us towards the philosophical and logical thinking of two different cultures, thousands of miles apart through physical geography and time. (the Aztecs and the Egyptians) It is unlikely that both civilisations ever encountered one another yet there was a bizarre similarity – both civilisations built pyramids. It is still considered to be a great mystery. The girls went through all the possible ways that the civilisations could have possibly met in some way but they realised that none of these could be possible (no messages in a bottle, flights, letters, boats, or the chance of someone swimming to and from the countries)

We finished the week by creating welcome cards for a new teacher. The girls worked on their communication skills through their writing – when writing in the second person (you, your). The boys had a go too in writing the cards as well.

Educación, Democracia y Libertad

El homeschooling, o cole en casa, es una modalidad educativa donde se aprende sin asistir regularmente a una escuela o institución escolar. Podríamos pensar que es algo nuevo que nace en EEUU en la década de los 70, pero también podríamos pensar que siempre se ha hecho así. Es difícil establecer cuando se inicia el proceso para conseguir una escolarización obligatoria en España. A lo largo de estos últimos siglos el Estado ha mostrado grandes intereses para conseguir una escolarización estatal, masiva, laica y obligatoria para todos los niños despreciando el gran papel que había tenido hasta entonces la iglesia en la educación y arrebatando a los padres el derecho legítimo a educar a sus propios hijos (Fernandez, R.C. 2005). En la ley Moyano (1857) se regulaba el homeschooling en el artículo 7  cuando dice que los niños asistirán a la escuela de los seis a los nueve años a no ser que se les proporcione la instrucción en sus casas. La Ley General de Educación (1970), más conocida como la de Villar Palasí, en el artículo 5 dice que las entidades públicas y privadas y los particulares pueden promover y sostener Centros docentes. La familia tiene como deber y derecho primero e inalienable la educación de sus hijos. En esta ley de educación el Estado todavía permitía el homeschooling. Será con la LOGSE, en 1990, en el artículo 5, cuando finalmente se confunda el término educación con escolarización donde dice que la enseñanza básica comprenderá diez años de escolaridad y se suprime literalmente a la familia del artículo 5.

Así pues el deber de los padres de proporcionar una educación a sus hijos quedará reducido al deber de escolarización  y el derecho primero e inalienable de los padres con la educación de sus hijos quedará reducido a escoger el centro escolar que mejor se avenga a sus intereses o creencias, siempre que en ese centro, claro está, queden plazas disponibles, esté dentro de sus posibilidades económicas y se sitúe en su ámbito geográfico.

Referencias bibliográficas

Fernández, R. C. (2005). Felices y escolarizados: crítica de la escuela en la era del capitalismo. Octaedro Editorial.

(2011). Descargar versión en PDF. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from http://www.historiacontemporanea.com/pages/bloque5/la-construccion-del-estado-liberal-18331868/documentos_historicos/ley-de-instruccion-publica-de-9-de-septiembre-de-1857-ley-moyano?theme=pdf.

"BOE.es - Documento BOE-A-1970-852." 2010. 29 Mar. 2016 <https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-1970-852>

(2011). logse - Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from http://www.educacion.gob.es/mecd/oposiciones/files/logse.pdf.