Esteemed Scholars!
As many of you have reported difficulty managing an
independent school work schedule, please consider the following as suggested guidelines. You’ll see I have also added some comments in blue, which I hope you will also
consider. Adapt as you see fit.
7 a.m. Rise and shine. Morning stuff – breakfast, etc.
8 a.m. Exercise – stretching and strength training –
practice math facts while exercising, if needed, or other memorization activity
– write down your activity. Get settled into work area.
8:30-8:40 Practice penmanship. Don’t rush. Make lovely
letters. Practice by writing a letter to a relative at least once a week.
8:40 Select your work for the day. Plan how long you think
it will take. Give yourself enough time, but set a time limit goal so you work
with purpose.
8:50 Begin work on one of your subjects. Skim over the WHOLE
assignment so you have a sense of what you are working on and what it is you
are supposed to learn. Try not to robotically just complete the task.
If you are doing English (reading and writing) read some of
it aloud to help you connect to it. Write down unfamiliar words to look up or
ask about when you come in.
When reading the text, again, try reading it aloud. Is there a mood? A personality in the text (not just of people, but of
the writing itself?) Is it dry, sly, detached, earnest? Funny? Neutral?
Make sure you ‘get’ it.
When you do the related homework, notice how some of it is
attached to the writing and some feels unrelated because it has to do with
vocabulary, grammar, etc.
When you do the writing assignment, make it interesting! I
will be sharing/publishing/posting a LOT of your work this year, so strive to
make it fantastic!
Use the writing rubrics I gave you to make sure you’re going
back over your work to make it as good as it can be. Don’t worry about spelling
and punctuation at all when you’re first writing! Use punctuation as best you
can to make it easier to understand, but don’t stress.
Read it out loud.
Let me repeat-
Read it out loud!
Revise your work: Are you missing anything? Does it make
sense? Will someone else understand it? Would figurative language help make it
better? Is it interesting? Did you do the assignment?
When finished – look back on your work. Are you proud? Is it
neat and legible? Is it titled/headed properly?
11:30 Break time!!!
10 push ups and 10 sit ups! Yoga stretches (write down time & what)
Drink water. Snack? Lunch?
Also, consider doing some chore or good deed around your
house. Tip: Parents love it when you keep your clothes neatly put away.
12:30 Back to work! If you did English in the morning,
you’re probably now going to work on…math.
The part below is for math haters only. If you love math, skip ahead to where the text is black again.
If you are a math hater, please take a moment to acknowledge
your antipathy, then do the following: pack it up in a little mental box, along
with self-doubt and all of the “How-does-this-apply-to-real-life? I’m not a
math person. When-am-I-ever-going-to-use-this?” stuff and SET IT ASIDE.
I used to be like you.
Then one day, I caught a glimpse of
how math is the language of the stars. All the math I knew suddenly made sense
and connected into a big matrix in my mind that was like The Matrix movie.
(I’ve actually only ever seen scenes where Lawrence Fishburne is spinning
around in space and I thought it was really cool ) I think what happened is
that a part of my brain that might have been dormant got activated and it now contributes to other parts of my brain,
such as the parts that write, analyse, combine ideas, categorize information,
consider architecture, understand instructions, etc.
When you ask, “how will I ever use
this,” my answer is,
“I DON’T KNOW, but you will!”
Quit asking and just
BE OPEN TO LEARNING
If you can learn math well, you can
learn anything well. It really is just about effort and making mistakes and
growing.
Math lessons are the Gold’s Gym of
school: see how much you can press!
And by the way, you know that
epiphany I told you about, where I saw how math was the language of the stars?
It only lasted a couple of seconds. Like you, I’m still learning, but what is
different is that now I know I’m working out my brain in an important way,
whether or not I have a need to calculate slant asymptotes.
Fun fact: Did you know that MANY of the comedy writers on
the Simpsons and other funny shows have advanced MATH degrees? Hmmmm.
Okay are we done talking about why we do math?
Let’s talk
about how we can do independent study math.
Again,
reading the explanations out loud to yourself can help. If the topic is giving
you trouble, try looking it up on khanacademy.org and watching a video about it,
then trying the practice set.
Hotmath.com (login: angels123) can take you step by step through all the odd
numbered ones.
Try doing your work at different speeds. Sometimes it will
be easy for you and you’ll move though it quickly. Other times you have to be
patient and go over the problem slowly and repeatedly.
Don’t try to do it all in you head. If it has many steps,
work the problem out on paper step by step. Pay attention to where it goes on
the page.
Okay, done with math?
2:30 ish. stretch for flexibility for 5 minutes.
Time to get lost in a book! Find a cozy place where you
won’t have too many distractions. Couch? Bedroom? Porch? Read for at least 30
minutes. If thirty minutes go by and you’re not ready to stop, keep reading!
If math is the Gold’s Gym of school, the reading is the camping trip, the spa,
the lake, the top of the Eiffel Tower. Not sure if these are helpful metaphors
but you get the idea.
3:00 So now it’s 3-ish and you’re done for the day! Of
course, you can always read or exercise or go on khan, but now take a moment to
straighten up your work. make sure it’s headed properly, and be proud of
yourself!
Last problem for you to solve (it's MATH!!!!): If you did about six hours of work today (and every "school" day) and you go to school 180 days a year, what percentage of the entire year are you spending on school? How did you solve that problem, and how does the answer make you feel?
Last question (not math!): Was this helpful to you? Understandable? What could make it better? If you want, write comments down on actual paper and let me know when next we meet.
Thanks for reading!
