Punching above His Weight

I know this sounds like a classic story of expecting too much out of our children, but we decided to continue home school through the summer. The rationale was to get a little bit ahead now, so that when Senia gives birth to our little one, she can take some time off from school and give the kids a relative break. That would still be less than desirable to the children if it meant losing all the fun of summer.

So, when I say "summer school", we, as a family, made sure it was something enjoyable. Many months ago, the children had expressed interest in amateur radio. So, we decided to use the study of amateur radio this summer to delve into mathematics, radio theory (which is a part of everyday life with our cell phones), some basic electronics, and even a social studies emphasis as we studied the national and international laws and how they interact.

They worked really hard...especially Silouan (Silas), since he is younger. That leads to the really ironic end of this segment of the story: when the three of them took the federal licensing test, only Silouan passed. When taking on the practice tests, they each struggled from time to time if they happened to receive more questions that hit their individual weak points. Ioann and Elena will take it again next month, but it is really encouraging to Silouan that this turned out the way it did. If he had been the one to fail, he would have thought that he was too young to do it; judging from all the good work he had done, I knew otherwise, but I am glad his passing score confirms his ability to him. As for Ioann and Elena, not only do they already know they can handle the material, but now, they know that if Silouan did it, they obviously can, too.

There are also learning experiences that have presented themselves this summer. Senia and I were trying to figure out where to put our bed and the baby bed in our small room, and how late night feedings are going to work. I mentioned something about the possibility of moving to the kids' room, and the children immediately ran with the idea. They started creating a measured map of the rooms, but were struggling with keeping it accurate. When I suggested they switch to using the metric system and just turning meters into centimeters on the map (that is, using a 10:1 scale), they realized how much easier it was...and more accurate.

So, they created very accurate representations of both rooms, all the furniture, and even some representations of themselves to see how much room they would have to play on the floor. They realized on their map that their triple bunk bed would fit sideways in our room, gaining a lot of extra play space. It was hard to believe, but their map was right. Looks like we will be doing some in-house moving.