Roman Numerals and Cartoons

Well, a pretty cruisy day so far. As usual, it started off with Gordy spending til about 10am in bed reading (finally finished book 1 of "The 39 Clues", and with the 2nd one not being released for a few weeks at least, he's now got to find something else...oh dear! LOL!), only coming out of his room to ask a few questions in relation to the clues he was trying to solve with it. One of these questions was about trying to read the roman numerals written on a pile of skulls. Now we'd talked about them not all that long ago, but only up to the number 10 (X), but Gordy thought he needed help with it. He started off showing me which ones he remembered, and it quickly became clear that he was able to figure it ALL out by himself, and really didn't need my help after all... just needed a little confidence in himself, something that seems to be lacking with quite alarming regularity!!! Guess that's another area we're going to need to work even harder on. He's a bright, intelligent young lad, who doubts himself sooooooo much! Has it been the school system that's caused this, or me failing somewhere in his parenting? All I know right now, is that it is something I seriously need to fix in my lil man, before it causes any further damage!
But anyway... after he'd figured them out himself, I decided that that was another topic we could cover more of, and find other ways to bring it into his work. Doing times tables using Roman Numerals maybe?? Guess we'll see how that one goes.
Yesterday, 39 Clues led onto discussions on the "square root" of numbers, something I haven't worked with in YEARS! But Gordy seemed to get a reasonable handle on it pretty quickly, so that's also helped to open the door onto exploring that further. Wish they'd hurry up with the next book, as this series has already been VERY helpful in teaching him quite a bit! With his interest in puzzle solving, I've also been thinking about seeing if Sudoku catches his attention. With the way his brain works, I think it wouldn't take much for him to get a pretty good handle on it! I've just found this link - http://www.websudoku.com/ - online, so think I'll be using this to help him (and me, LOL) get into it, once his computer ban's lifted, that is!
The other thing we worked on today, was art. Having seen a couple of drawings he's done at school, I know he's quite a talented lil artist, when he's given a bit of help and he actually puts some effort into it. He also LOVES drawing (usually Ben 10 Characters, or Spiderman), but when left to his own devices, his drawins are quite rough and very much "kid-style", where as I know he's capable of a lot more, if he but tries. So with the huge stack of drawing books I've collected over the years, I decided that it was time to start working with him on his art, and show him different types of drawing. So... out came the cartoon books!! Letting him flick through the 4 cartoon dedicated books I had, I got him to pick the style that caught his interest the most, then we started working on copying the eyes and mouths in that style, and trying to get him thinking creatively, and finding other shapes etc that can be turned into cartoon mouths and eyes (all the while trying to feed a rather impatient Xani his mushed apple, which got spat over the highchair tray whenever no-one was paying him attention! Although he seemed to find it funny when his big brother turned his attention onto Xani, and started doing a drawing of him. *sigh* Little Lord Xani! LOL!). We ended up with quite a few interesting results, and I think drawing will become part of the DAILY schooling (and for me as well, since I've been wanting to get back into my art properly for the last few years, but just keep putting it off for one reason or another! There I go, stomping down barriers again! Eeek! LOL!).
Ok, so not a LOT done today, but it was fun, and it all brought good results... and so far, Gordy seems to be having fun. I dunno if I'm just wishful thinking, but he seems a happier kid in general, more relaxed, far more willing to try and think of new things, and just...well... yeah, happier, bouncier!
After reading up a lot more about "unschooling", I'm starting to think that's the way we need to head. Letting Gordy pick the topics (with maybe the occasional one thrown in by me as well, just to try and broaden things a little), and adapting his learning to use those, I think, is going to be one of the best ways to keep his interest, and get him enthusiastic about learning again. Seems to be working with 39 Clues so far!! We're also starting to find lots of other little ways as well to bring learning into every day life, and I think he's slowly starting to realise that this learning thing ain't so scary after all!! Fingers ever so tightly crossed it continues!!