Earth's rotation and revolution
orbit
axis
hemispheres
seasons
apparent motion
the Sun's apparent pathway
eclipses - solar and lunar
the moon (rotation, orbit, make up, why it can't have water, etc.)
phases of the moon
tides
craters
meteoroids (meteors and meteorites)
comets
asteroids and the asteroid belt
gravity
inertia
Copernicus
Newton
NASA
International Space Station
space probes
satellites
all eight planets (make up, moons, atmospheres, etc)
dwarf planets
stars
galaxies
light-years
constellations
telescopes
ALL FOR ONE FUCKING FOURTH GRADE SCIENCE TEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr F came home 2 hours into it and was like "WTF?! This is ridiculous. That is an unfair amount of stuff for them to learn for one test." And I was all "You missed the first 2 hours!"
All the acronyms and such that I can usually use to help Kid memorize things were out the window. I couldn't even rely on breaking things down into simpler concepts because they would still be in English and therefore not necessarily any easier for her to comprehend. Baby and I spent a lot of time physically acting out the concepts with a globe, flashlight, balloons, pistachio nuts.
I tried my best, I feel pretty confident that she understood the Earth-Sun-Moon concepts, but once we headed out into Space... I'm not sure she was following anymore. She has failed every Science test this year. When I found out... I was OUTRAGED that no one was helping her study or learn the concepts. I'm pretty flabbergasted that any teacher would feel comfortable flat out failing a 9 year old over and over and not make any efforts to set up some kind of learning help (and, ahem, the school is being paid to teach these Korean students and I think it is incredibly irresponsible to take their parents money and not actually provide the teaching that they specifically need while they are here). I would have done this earlier, but it never occurred to me that there wasn't some kind of tutoring already set up for her.
Baby kept illustrating the concepts and handing them to our friend:
A comet's emotional state as it hurtles by the sun, eventually melting into a pile of ice and dust.
A lunar eclipse.
On another note, I wish I could find a school (we could afford) that could handle the kind of awesome this little girl dishes out on a daily basis.
