Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Backbone

Jacob and I have been working the last few days to help him catch up with his Italian homework. In the course of one month's time, he has hopped from one country to another, from one language to another, from one city to another, from one school to another, from one teacher to another, from one set of textbooks to another...you get the picture.

I am so proud of him for facing the challenge and sticking with it. Tonight he was introduced to the difference between vertebrate and invertebrate animals (vertebrali/invertebrali) and definite and indefinite articles (articoli definitivi e indefinitivi). His grammar homework involved reading a two-page story and underlining 20 article/noun combinations (all of this in Italian) and then in his notebook to label each one. For those of you who are going, 'huh?', let me illustrate. This is what he had to write for each one:

la fata (the fairy)

la = articolo definitivo, femminile, singolare (the = definite article, feminine, singular)
fata = nome comune di cosa, femminile, singolare (fairy = common noun, feminine, singular)
___________________

I'm so proud of him. After eight long hours of school, he still has the strength, the stamina, the willingness to hammer out a long assignment and learn in two languages the words and terms for indefinite articles and vertebrate animals.

2 comments:

Brian said...

Chloe had trouble with viventi, non viventi. I tried to help her look at the different pictures and decide if something was living or non-living. She pointed to a picture of some kind of plant, and she said non-living. I told her that plants are alive and her teacher said that it couldn't be alive because it doesn't move.

Uhhhh...

Anonymous said...

Oh, what a sweet kid. My heart feels for you guys about the whole education thing with your kids. Wish Heather and I could just teach all SIX kids together--what a hilarious academy that would be. :) Love you guys!