Educating Risa

You may recall my post from a few months ago, discussing how expensive the new Calgary Science Centre was going to be. That blogpost got a fair amount of attention, and led to a reporter contacting me and doing an interview; the piece ran last Friday and you can read the online version (with pic of me and the boys) here. That re-ignited my passion about this subject, and I conducted two informal polls on a education forum I participate in, asking folks from across North America how much their science centre cost for a family membership. I had about 100 folks reply to the polls, and dozens more offer more detailed comments about the benefits their membership included, and what they thought of Calgary’s prices. You can see the poll results and discussion here and here.

This only served to confirm what I felt from the beginning: the prices at the new science centre in Calgary are EXTREMELY high. And the benefits we receive for our membership are LESS than folks receive elsewhere. For example, Toronto science centre “gold” members—at considerably less cost than Calgary’s “gold” membership—receive free tickets to IMAX movies. I understand that building a new centre has costs, and so I could understand our membership fees being somewhat higher than elsewhere in Canada (and North America) to offset this. But $204 for a family of 4 just to get in the door—no free parking, no discounts on movies, classes/workshops, cafeteria, gift shop, “special traveling exhibits”, etc.? And $288 for a family of 6? Want the “gold” membership instead, so you get free parking and discounts? That’ll be $320 (family of 4), and $460 (family of 6) per year! Because unlike every other science centre in North America (to the best of my knowledge—and I’ve had hundreds of people checking for me now), Calgary does not offer a “Family Membership”. Memberships are per person only, meaning larger families pay significantly more. Oh, and even that $320 / $460 doesn’t get you into the “dome” (i.e., IMAX-like) movies, or “special travelling exhibits”. You’ll get a discount, but still be paying extra for those. In contrast, last time we bought memberships to the old Calgary science centre, the cost was $160-ish for a family pass, and “Discovery Dome” movies were included. So for a lesser level of benefit, our cost has doubled. For larger families it is even worse—a family of 6 would have their costs almost triple, going from $160-ish to $460 for the ‘gold’ membership—and movies now an extra cost on top of that. Gah!

So after a friend suggested it to me, I started a facebook protest page: “People for an Affordable Calgary Science Centre”. It’s gotten over 100 “likes” in the first 24 hours, and continues to grow. I have a chart on there outlining Calgary Science Centre costs compared to both other science centres in Canada, as well as compared to other attractions in the Calgary area. The one that struck me in the latter category was the Glenbow Museum, which is the largest museum in Calgary, with a 2-year family membership rate of $160. For my family of 4, compared to the Science Centre “gold” membership of $320/year, that works out to one quarter—25%—of the cost. You can see the comparison chart under the INFO tab on the facebook page here.

Why am I making such a big deal of this? After all, given my science-crazy sons, we’d probably go to the science centre enough to get our money’s worth out of our memberships. But this isn’t about me or my family. This is about keeping science education, experience and enrichment accessible and affordable to all. And at current prices, it is out of reach for many Calgary families—many people, including several who have had science centre memberships in the past, have told me they won’t be buying memberships at these rates. And that’s a shame, because they would support the new science centre through memberships if it were more affordable. But for prices to double-to-triple, and for benefits to be reduced at the same time? I can’t say I blame them.

There are a few loose threads about the science centre I’d like to learn more about and see investigated. I’ve heard that according to the 2010 annual report from the Science Centre—a non-profit entity, by the way—the funding for the new science centre was 94% secured, between the Government of Canada, Province of Alberta, and City of Calgary, as well as corporate and community sponsors. So if the new centre was already pretty much paid for, why the high prices? If those high prices are required to offset the “running costs” of the new science centre, why can other cities—including expensive cities like Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Boston, etc.—run their centres for a fraction of the cost (going by what they charge for memberships)? Can anyone shed some light on this? Confirm, deny, explain, clarify?

Hope you’ll join the conversation on this issue on the facebook page People for An Affordable Calgary Science Centre. Please know you are welcome to do so even if you don’t live here. Sharing the costs and benefits you enjoy through membership at your local science centre would be welcome—and no doubt eye-opening to Calgarians. And if this is an issue near and dear to your heart, please spread the word—share, forward, tweet, “like”, etc. Thanks! I hope that by drawing attention to this, we can have a more affordable science centre membership option for Calgary families.

And don’t forget, science centres across North America participate in a “reciprocal admission” agreement which gets members of one science centre into any other science centre for free (provided the centre is over 90 miles / 150kms distant from the person’s place of residence). So Calgarians are the only ones paying the high costs of this new centre. Folks visiting from other cities who have memberships to their local science centre—memberships that cost less money and often offer more benefits—get to see our new science centre for free.

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Daegan is sooooo excited! Multiplication Vacation, the DVD from a company called Googol Power, finally arrived in today’s mail. It’s sold out at both the publisher and Indigo/Chapters (Canada’s biggest book retailer), so tracking a copy down was a challenge. I finally found one used on amazon. Daegan asked me to get it months ago now—we’d been listening to several of their math CDs in the car—and when my kid asks for a math DVD, I say ‘sure!’ Just like I do at the grocery story when he picks up a new fruit or veg and wants to give it a go.  Remember the pummelo?

The boys watched the DVD while they ate lunch, and were up and dancing around to the songs when I returned from doing some work in my office. You can watch some clips from the DVD here. They’ve got links to other fun math videos, from Schoolhouse Rocks to Tom Lehrer, on their site on well (see here). Here’s the boys groovin’ to math songs:

And checking out details written on the DVD case (notice Gareth is now reading the case himself, rather than passing it along to Daegan to read to him):

The other product from Googol Power that we’ve been enjoying lately is their Crazy 4 Math CD, which we borrowed from the library. We listen to it in the car a LOT, and I have to admit that even I enjoy the songs and goofy humour. This CD takes a math journey through time, meeting all kinds of famous people and their contributions to our world. Gareth’s favourite song is Track 12 (guess how I know the exact number? ), about electromagnetism. My kids have learned who Nikola Tesla was from this song, as well as Charles Jenkins and John Baird—men instrumental in the invention of television. All kinds of other names appear in this song, from Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell to Tchaikovsky! It’s just awesome! You can read more about this Crazy 4 Math CD here; I’ve excepted a chunk below:

…meet Cleopatra, Archimedes, Galileo, Benjamin Franklin, Amadeus Mozart, and Leonardo da Vinci. Discover how math has greatly influenced our world and that math, the science of patterns, is everywhere — in music, science, nature, art, and architecture. …

Includes 11 songs and dialogue, Pi, Phi, The Golden Mean, Fibonacci Numbers, sound frequencies, amplitude, electromagnetism, gravity, rhythm, skip counting, powers, math patterns, fact families, math questions, historical facts and cool ideas for practicing math.

I will say that Cleopatra with a Texan drawl and Mozart sounding like Schwartzeneggar only add to this crazy humour of this CD, at least for our family. YMMV.

Looking on their website I see they also have a Skip Counting Zone CD, which we’ve not listened to as our library does not carry it, as well as the addition one: Addition Celebration. My kids thought that one was ‘just ok’, so worth a listen if you can get it free/cheap somewhere, but I’d recommend Crazy 4 Math or Multiplication Vacation instead. I believe the CDs are available on itunes as well. Have fun learning your math—and a whole lot more (science, geography, history, etc.) besides! 

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We’re taking a ‘mental health’ day today as it has been a busy week, and we’re all fighting off colds to boot. But Gareth and I still spent a few minutes snuggling on the couch with him reading aloud to me, something we wanted more for the snuggles than the reading today, I’d think. Gareth picked up a book that has been kicking around the house for a while, called I’m Going To Boston To Visit the Ducks.

It’s one of the “I’m Going to Read” series, from the first level (50 words); the series has 4 levels, with stories at the levels using 50, 100, 200, and 300 different words in their telling. You can see all the titles in the series here. Gareth is past this beginning reading stage now, but being under the weather I decided to simply run with it. I’m glad I did, as it turned into a fun little journey into the world of literary allusions. Once he finished reading me the story, I ran downstairs and got our copy of Robert McCloskey’s classic Make Way for Ducklings.

As I started reading, the boys grew more and more interested: “Hey! The duck is called Mrs. Mallard in this book too!…”Hey! They’re going to the Public Garden, just like in the other book!…”There’s the swan boat!”…(much giggling) “The ducklings are called Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack!” and so on. I mentioned briefly that doing what had been done in the first book Gareth read—referring back to a story from another author—is called “making an allusion”. I told the boys that the more they read, the more they’d start seeing allusions and connections all over the place. And not just in books. We recently watched a Bill Nye episode (The Heart, I think, but it might have been Respiration) in which Bill talks about how our heart keeps pumping and pumping and going and going with no thought from us, while a giant pink bunny banging a drum walks by in the background. The boys HOWLED with laughter—we’d spent some time one cold and dull winter’s night showing them old commercials on youtube, and the Energizer Bunny featured prominently. They got the comedic allusion.

Some more in depth side-by-side comparing followed:

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Over the weekend the boys and I tried out one of the games we have the in house that connect in with our Human Body unit. This Somebody game (most recent version available, see here) was passed on to me from another homeschooler (thanks, Lisa!) whose kids have outgrown it. In this game we built a human body, one organ/bone/muscle at a time, by answering questions:

There are 4 cards with a child’s body outline, and 4 reusable sticker sheets, but we decided to play cooperatively and build one body together. So I flipped over a card and read questions (which ranged in difficulty), like:

Which body makes the chemical substance called insulin? Insulin controls how much sugar enters your blood. (pancreas, PAN kree us)
Which body part is about 5 feet long and finished digesting your food?
What body part attaches to your bones and moves your other body parts?

and the question Gareth actually got in the following picture:

Which body part cleans itself with tears?

Since Gareth was able to answer this correctly, he got to add the “eye sticker” to our body:

Both boys really enjoyed this game; it was simple enough not to be frustrating or go on too long, but some questions were challenging enough to keep it interesting. We even learned a few things! Here’s Gareth with our finished body. That kid is such a ham!

You should see the silly grin on his face on the pics of him pointing at the bladder—which I told him I would not post!  Oh, well—at least he’s learning, right?

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This afternoon the boys and I headed to Evergreen Theatre to watch a dress rehearsal of their show “Lost”, about endangered species. It is shortly going on tour to countless Alberta schools, so they wanted to do a run-though with an audience and some child volunteers for some roles, as they do in all their productions. The boys were super-keen to go and we got their early to ensure they could have a role. Here they are taking the ‘actor’s oath’:

I do solemnly swear
On my favourite underwear
That I will take care
Of the costume I am about to wear.

The kids then chose their costumes. Daegan opted to be an elephant, and Gareth a scarlet macaw. (He chose the right colour of shirt to wear to the performance, eh?)

They then spent some time with the actor / actress learning what they needed to do for their role:

They were in the scene set at the city zoo:

Gareth’s job (as a scarlet macaw) was to copy the zookeeper, imitating what she said. He did it perfectly! He illustrated one reason some animals are becoming endangered: illegal pet trade. He came to the zoo after his owner, who received him as a gift at a birthday party, grew bored with him and did not take care of him properly:

Daegan (the elephant) came to the zoo after being hurt when hunted illegally for his ivory tusks. Daegan’s role played to his strengths, as he was required to trumpet (what? my 9-year-old make loud noises? ) and flex his muscles, showing what a strong healthy elephant he’d become with the zoo’s focus on conservation:

After the show the boys got to ask questions of the actors, see how one of the key props worked, go backstage, etc. Many thanks to everyone at Evergreen for today’s wonderful free show, and a special thanks to Jacqueline who teaches the HS drama class for harnessing my kids’ love and enthusiasm for theatre. And for being so understanding of Daegan in particular, who wants/needs to touch everything—props, costumes, sets. In Jacqueline’s words, “That Daegan is a tactile learner.” Yup!

The boys are soooo looking forward to homeschool drama classes starting up again next week. Details are here; there is still space left if you are interested. These have honestly been one of my kids’ favourite classes ever, and at $99 I think they are a superb deal as well. (And for the record, I am in no way affiliated with Evergreen Theatre; my kids just love their programs and as a Mom I’m going to do everything I can to ensure they continue to be offered. If you want to see what the kids ended up performing in last years’ classes to get an idea of what Evergreen offers the HS community, see my blogposts here and here.)

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This afternoon the boys and I started one of our new subjects this year: French. The boys have asked to learn some other languages (Daegan French, Gareth Spanish), so when we were at the library last night I checked out the relevant DVD section and picked up a few. I decided to start with French because I took it all through school and even in to university; I’m not exactly fluent, but I am quite functional in French. We started today with Language Tree’s French for Kids, Beginner Level 1, Volume 1 DVD. You can find more info including sample clip here:

We watched the first few scenes which contained greetings (‘Bonjour’, ‘Je m’appelle…’ ‘Comment ca va’?’ etc.), family members, colours, and body parts. The clips contained a scene with Penelope (the young girl on the cover) and her friends/family speaking their native French, then a section where each phrase was shown separately with the English translation below (often in a game/quiz format), as well as the occasional song and/or game (like French ‘Simon says’—Jacques dit—involving touching body parts, like eyes, mouth, arms, legs.) My boys absolutely loved it and didn’t want to stop! They repeated the French phrases back during the quizzes; liked the fact that when you got something wrong you got another chance “essayez encore!" immediately; and they were playing French Simon Says and dancing around during the songs. For what I am looking for—a light, gentle introduction to French, with a multi-sensory approach to appeal to my wiggly learners—it looks great so far.

Other topics covered in this first DVD at the Beginner level include: food, counting, and countless other common phrases: please, thank you, may I have…, what is it, etc. all set in the context of Penelope’s birthday celebrations. The next DVD covers a few more common topics. If we like them, we’ll be checking out the Spanish series as well (also at our amazing public library. Calgarians, my eyes have been opened by talking to those living elsewhere just how lucky we are to have such a resource. How’s that for some more late Thanksgiving thankfulness).

What are your favourite second-language (French, Spanish, other) resources for young kids?

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Today I signed the boys up for xtramath, an online math fact drill site. Do you know about this site? It’s a really well done free site (and ad-free too!) where kids get guided practice in mastering their basic math facts: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, through the 10 by 10 grid. The program tracks your child’s answers, creating reports so you (and your child) can see at a glance which facts are solid and which are needing more work. And the program adjusts to your child’s particular answers, giving him/her more practice on those facts needing more work. For what it is—short, focused math fact drill that adapts to your child’s strengths and weaknesses, and that your child can do entirely independently—it looks very good, and has garnered lots of positive feedback from various HSers I know. Note that this site is open to anyone—you can create accounts for your children as either a teacher or a parent—so it is great for ‘after-schoolers’ too.

Now, a few caveats. If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you’ve no doubt learned that I do not think quickness at basic facts is all that important at the end of the day, though I do think knowing the facts solidly and with a certain proficiency helps. And if knowledge of the basic facts lags too far behind the child’s other math skills, it causes problems. I am starting to run into this more and more with Daegan, who has very strong problem-solving skills, but who gets tripped up on the basic math facts in solving them. So today, for example, our Math U See lesson was about averages—a logical topic in Delta, the book focussed on division. I gave him some enrichment problems from the Math Olympiad book, which I’ve been enjoying vicariously via videos (also found on youtube) from Mike’s Math Page, like:

You are play 5 levels of your favourite video game, and defeat an average of 10 zombies per level. On the first 4 levels you defeated 7, 8, 11, and 20 zombies respectively. How many zombies do you defeat on the 5th level?

Daegan’s basic reasoning is strong, and he tells me that with 5 levels and an average of 10 zombies per level, that’s 50 total zombies defeated. So what we need to do is add up how many zombies you defeated on the first 4 levels, and then figure out how many short you are—which would be the total for the 5th level. So he writes:

7+8+11+20=

and then goes, “7 plus 8….uh, uh….I don’t know!?! Is it 13?” Sigh.

Hence, the xtramath site for extra math fact practice. Daegan liked the ‘addition placement tests’ he did today, and said he was happy to practice on this site “twice per week…maybe more, but let’s start there so I don’t get sick of it.” Okay by me, son. Some things Daegan particularly liked:

-you get a checkmark if you get the answer right within (a generous) 10 seconds. So his first goal is simply getting a checkmark on all his facts (displayed on a grid at the end of each session). You get a smiley face if you can do it in under 3 seconds.

- If you get a question wrong, or run out of time (10 seconds), the answer is given to you to type in. This is a HUGE deal to Daegan who cannot stand programs that do not allow him to correct his mistakes quite quickly.

- It can be done entirely independently, and is short. Today’s intro videos and 3 addition placement tests took him less than 10 minutes, with no help from me other than showing him how to log in.

Things I like:

- It tracks progress and creates reports. We can see quickly which facts are mastered (under 3 seconds), known (under 10 seconds), and need work.

- The program automatically adjusts to give him more practice with the questions he needs it on, and less on those mastered.

- I too love the difference between the smiley faces and the checkmarks. (There is also an ‘x’ for those got wrong, and an hour glass symbol for those where the child did not answer and ran out of time). So many games and programs I have found are “all or nothing”—you either know the math fact, and quickly, or you don’t succeed. Xtramath, in contrast, breaks success into two distinct phases: accurate answers and speed. I like that simply getting accurate answers—even slowly—is rewarded.

Gareth also wanted to try the program, so I set up an account for him too, and he did the same three placement tests (though the questions began to differ). He too said he likes it—though right now he likes anything his big brother gets to do—and wants to do it ‘”once per week or so”. As Gareth is still learning his basic facts; any practice he does is a bonus in my eye. And if he decides he doesn’t want to right now, fine as well. He’s six!

Anyways, if you are looking for a no frills option for basic math fact practice, that tracks your child’s progress and adjusts to their strengths and weaknesses, give this one a try. You’ve got nothing to lose: It’s free! Again, the link to xtramath can be found here.

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This afternoon the boys and I took advantage of this sunny fall holiday (it is Canadian Thanksgiving today), and went for a long nature walk at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. This gave Jim a quiet house in which to get some recording work done—and I am choosing to be grateful that he has so much work right now he’s busy even on a holiday. Being self-employed is feast or famine; last year at this time we were definitely not feasting!  

The weirdest thing that happened on this outing—and which unfortunately happened so fast I didn’t get a pic—is I had a muskrat run under my feet! I was sitting on a bench by the Bow River, watching the kids throw rocks and such, and there’s a path connecting where I was to the Jeffries Pond. Out waddles this muskrat—I thought it was a squirrel at first out of the corner of my eye, and then once I saw the long tail I thought, “Eek! Rat!" both of which prevented me from grabbing my camera in time. Before I knew it he’d scooted past me, and dove into the river. I caught the ripple of the splash on my camera…sigh. Too late!

Anyhow, here’s the pictorial highlights of our Thanksgiving (hover your mouse over the pics for details):

After our walk I cooked up our Thanksgiving dinner. It was decadent and delish! We had BBQ chick’n cutlets, twice-baked potatoes, stuffing, ‘shredded brussels sprouts’ (OMG! I finally, after 40-odd years, have found a way to like brussels sprouts!), and chocolate-coconut pie for dessert. Not quite your traditional turkey and pumpkin thing, but we all loved it!

Wishing all my Canadian readers a Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you got to spend time with your friends and family this weekend, doing something that you love.

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Our family went to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, presented as part of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s line-up this year. It was wonderful, and all of us—from the 6-year-old to the 41-year-old—enjoyed it. We got there a bit early to pick up tickets from the box office, and they had some live rabbit entertainment for the kids. The Canadian Rabbit Hopping Club was doing some demonstrations, and there was a petting table as well. This certainly kept all the kids happy during the wait for the doors to open!

We then headed inside, and found our seats. Daegan and I read through the program notes. I was pleased to see several familiar cartoon titles; the boys and I spent some time yesterday afternoon watching Bugs Bunny DVDs with high music content to get in the mood for the performance. “Rabbit of Seville” and “Long-Haired Hare”, two absolute classics, were among them.

Here we are, all dressed up and raring to go:

The show looked like this: a large screen with cartoons playing on it, with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra playing the score (most of the time—they did take a few breaks).

So what did I like about this show? So many things. I liked that the show included well-known clips you’d expect (Rabbit of Seville, Baton Bunny, What’s Opera, Doc? aka ‘Killed the wabbit! Killed the wabbit!’), some song bits (Pepe le Peu singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips, Avec Moi” and Michigan Frog’s “Hello My Honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal…”) but also lesser known clips. I liked that it wasn’t all Bugs Bunny; there was a Sylvester and Tweety short, a coyote and roadrunner one, as well as cartoon’s outside Looney Tunes: Tom and Jerry competing to conduct an orchestra; as well as Scooby Doo and Flintstone montages. I loved watching these cartoons live with an audience with three generations present(grandparents, parents, and children)—it gave me a sense of what it must have been like seeing these shorts as part of the movie-going experience in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I liked learning about some of the history of Looney Tunes / Merry Melodies, and the making of this ‘Bugs Bunny at the Symphony’ show, which is now 20 years old. We were all impressed that the original slide guitar which makes the initial sound in this clip:

was part of the show, and played by the regular pianist of the CPO. He had to learn only one chord to play the part! The guitar was found in the ‘deepest basement’ of the Looney Tunes/Warner Brothers building, and was damaged, but was restored by a violin maker. Good thing too: the show had tried all kinds of modern slide guitars, from honky tonk to Hawaiian, and nothing replicated the sound properly. I have to admit I was blown away when the CPO played the opening theme live: it sounded spot on, but sooooo much richer than anything that ever came from my TV set.

I also enjoyed learning how the performance was managed, with the conductor and all musicians wearing headphones to hear the ‘click track’. A click track is a sort of metronome synched to the cartoon, keeping the musicians in perfect time to what you are seeing on the screen; you can read more about it on wikipedia here. It was used all those years ago to score the original cartoons, and is still used today whenever an orchestra is used to do the score for a movie. I’d never even heard of a ‘click track’ before. Learning something new makes it a good day.

I’ll leave off with one of the more amusing moments of the afternoon. After an introduction to the show was given by a a member of the CPO, the orchestra picked up their instruments and began making odd sounds. Concerned that Gareth would be frightened (we’re still overcoming his fear of going to see a movie in a theatre, after previews for Jim Carrey’s Scrooge scared the living daylights out of him when we went to see a G movie), I leaned over and asked him if he understood what they were doing. “No,” he said. “Why are they making those strange noises?” “They are tuning,” I told him, “so that all the instruments sound good together.”

“Yeah,” quipped Daegan. “You could say they are ‘Looney Tuning’”.

If this show tours your area, I highly recommend you go check it out for yourself. It’s not always easy to find good quality entertainment that all ages enjoy, but this fit the bill perfectly for us.

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Just a quick post tonight with a link to an article I really enjoyed about socialization and homeschooling. From ‘Nance’, a woman I ‘met’ on the Well-Trained Mind boards. One of the best I’ve seen on this topic, with superb pics throughout, and I love the quotes she chose for the end. Enjoy!

So What About Socialization?

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