This week was a great week for Me. I learned a lot this week. CC still thinks Dodge Ball is one of the best games ever invented for school kids, but decided chess isn't so bad either. We spent a good part of this week repeating that it is very easy to have a bad attitude, but good ones have to be worked at somedays.

CC is loving Take Me Back as a history book in addition to just a fun book to read. We read about Egyptian burial rites, Indus valley civilization, and Hindu gods, goddesses and social structure this week. Pilgrims who?


She memorized a very long poem, and then we spent an hour looking up words in a couple of dictionaries and the thesaurus so that she could get a firm definition on some of the words that she wasn't familiar with such as commission, postulate and misassemblage - thanks Bill Watterson for the wonderful poetry.

CC is also almost finished with Through the Looking Glass and just committed to reading Little Women which we have been using for copywork.

She happily took her first Saxon 5/4 test today so that we could find the right place to start the lessons. She started with Test 3 and only missed one problem which was a horizontal subtraction problem with borrowing. She thought it was cheating to write it vertically so we looked up the lesson in which that was taught and saw the solution which is to first write the problem vertically. Saxon got good marks for the first day from a skeptic. She is getting comfortable with the idea that if she doesn't know how to do a type of problem that it is because I have failed to teach her instead of because something is wrong with her.

I am treading very carefully through here. I've been too cavalier in my approach to math. I messed up way back in K math by rushing her ahead because the work was easy then I spent years trying to get her back to liking math and understanding it. The sigh of relief that she gave when she saw that Saxon 5/4 starts the place value name discussions at hundreds really scared me. I had completely missed the fact that she was afraid that she was "behind" and that she was embarrassed because she knew that her friends knew things in math that she didn't - even though she was ahead in other areas. It was bad enough that I had missed something in a math sequence. It is worse that she felt responsible

What else? CC's enrichment school had an Open House - poor teachers. LB has been reading some Sandra Boyton books to me. CC's been reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to LB. BB is getting ready for finals.

It was a good week.

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Yesterday, I was happy, sort of, with our math. CC loves Life of Fred, and she is tolerating Kumon to get those multiplication facts down. I was starting to think that all of our math problems were finally starting to work out.

Today. Today, ended with me picking up the Saxon that my math-teacher Brother had recommended. Our math lesson came to a screeching halt not very far in. CC doesn't know how to read the names of larger number values. She doesn't know what to do, and apparently she thought it was a failing on her part. She has known she didn't know and hid the fact from me. Man. I missed this one.


After explaining to her that it is not her job to know what she doesn't know, I explained that the failure was mine for skipping around in maths. I missed it in the shuffle - who knows what else I have missed. Luckily, she is young, and this is an easy fix. However, we are going to do math in a more systematic way. It was kind of my thinking when I went to Kumon, but that is only facts.

She told me that she is afraid to do math in front of other people because she might find something else that she should have known but doesn't?

Bad mom.


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Okay - Its Sunday again. I am trying to make plans. So far, my big plan is a big cup of coffee tomorrow morning then I have to call Sallie Mae.

Sallie Mae isn't my aunt or anyone's Aunt for that matter. The people that have answered the phone for me there have been amazingly helpful, but still. It takes all day and I have to find out where my payments to them went and find out what it means that BB's loans were bought by the Department of Education - the letter says its a good thing. Hmm - that remains to be seen. Mostly, I want to find out where my payments went, because they aren't reflected in the Late Notices I received this week. Did you know that college loans have changed? Now you have to pay the interest on them every month until you graduate then start paying them off. I think that change is going to put college out of reach for many kids, but that is a whole 'nuther discussion.

This is what happens when you put your kid's college money into a state guaranteed college savings thing that is terrific, but your kid decides to go to school overseas. Instead of having the tuition room and board all paid for, he is racking up debt every month. Big Debt. I have mixed feelings, but it has certainly changed how I look at saving for college.

I have already started telling the girls that I won't be saving any money for their college. And they need to start planning to compete for scholarships. BB always knew that he had college paid for so I think it affected how he looked at scholarships, SATs, everything. Then again... Personalities are different. He loves his school and as far as I can tell he is happy, learning, and being challenged. What more could a mom ask for? Besides not having to call Sallie Mae.


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LB and I had this discussion this week while she was in the tub:
LB: "When did the dinosaurs all die?"
Me: "Except for the ones that didn't die out, most went extinct about 65 million years ago."
LB: "Wow, that was a long time ago. It was even before Liam's birthday party."

In case you don't know Liam. His birthday party was last Sunday.


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Ever wonder what your kids will do when they get really hungry while they are away in college? Hopefully they will learn to be a better cook. I sent BB to school knowing how to make basics, but after almost a year of eating his own cooking, he is doing things like researching the best way to make make scrambled eggs. This is the result of that search.

Here is BB's recipe for College Scrambled Eggs. He uses potatoes in his eggs because he has discovered (like so many before him) that they are an inexpensive way to fill his stomach and stretch his budget aka. my money.

Ingredients:
3 eggs, 2 small potatoes, olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp fresh parsley, splash of low fat milk, salt and pepper

Peel and dice the potatoes into very small chunks. In a pan, heat up olive oil and add potatoes over medium heat. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on them. Let cook for 7-8 minutes, until potatoes are a nice golden brown and most of the liquid has left the pan. While the potatoes are frying, THOROUGHLY beat the eggs for 2 minutes. The eggs should have many bubbles in them when you are done. Add a splash of low fat milk, chopped parsley, and another pinch of salt. After the potatoes are done, pour the eggs into the pan.

He has also learned the importance of whisking and learned that proper scrambing isn't just pushing eggs around.

Egg cooking technique:
Let the eggs sit in the pan without touching for around 5 seconds. Then tilt the pan so that the runny parts fall towards the tilted side. Push the runny parts upwards. Continue doing this until there is no more runniness, then flip the eggs. let those sides cook then serve and add salt/pepper to taste.

This recipe feeds serves 1 hungry young adult if you add some toast and if you live in a country with real bacon, that is a great side dish.


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I must declare this week a failure. I think we did some school Monday, but LB was sick and CC was tired because the girls had along weekend. I am pretty sure we painted mom's room. I got LB's cold on Tuesday. After that things get a little fuzzy, and I don't remember what work we accomplished that allowed me to check off three days of school this week. I went to the post office to mail BB's Thanksgiving box. I took the dogs to the vet and to the kennel for a trial day. CC went to school thanks to hubby. I went to the doctor. I'm starting to feel better, but thanks to my asthma, every little cold is a big thing and every breath is precious to me.


I was feeling well enough today to leave the girls with a checklist of school work before I took my over-medicated self to the office. I explained to my girls that grownups don't get to stay home just because they probably should.

This throws a wrench in my theory that we are coasting right now. Right now, I want to switch to something with check boxes already planned out for me so that when I am feeling weak and the sharks smell blood in the water, they still do school. Hmm, Even with a half-mixed metaphors, my idea is still there. I need a more easily defended structure.

CC started Life of Fred Fractions today and liked it.

My big tip for the week - reading tongue twisters is great for fluency.


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There are going to be changes around here. I am going to plan for success. First, what is a successful week? Is it a week in which I have no days that end with me hiding in a corner avoiding my kids and swearing off education? or should I aim higher?

BB is counting down his weeks in this semester. He has a paper in Comparative Politics, a paper and questions about Socrates and the allegory of the cave, something about Freud and the analysis of something, and lots of Japanese. He's also planning an early Thanksgiving because he will have class that day and will be preparing for finals that weekend. My baby will be making his first Thanksgiving alone; it is his favorite holiday. He loves the cooking, the smells from the kitchen warm and inviting, and he is trying to figure out how to do that in a tiny apartment oven and a two-burner stove. I'm going to help by sending some spices and cornbread.


I passed by a '67 Shelby GT500 this morning on my way to work. I love the lusty sound of that engine. It was a beautiful car.

There is probably nothing sweeter than the sound of LB singing to herself while she cleans her toy kitchen and makes a wonderful chef's special for us.

Apparently, I am easily distracted and a bit sleep deprived. I plan to take a day off school on Monday and rest. We're painting my mom's room this week. I need to finalize everyone's travel plans for Thanksgiving and figure out what we are doing with the dogs and chickens while we're gone. I need to make some headway on the clutter, and I decided to put a few coats of wax on the woodwork around the windows instead of adding a toxic finish to them. I'm also looking for a couple of dozen houseplants to clean the air. I want to build at least one cold frame and plant some winter lettuce.

For school: more of those PILGRIMS, Mr. Revere and I, WWE, math, Latin, and something. I think we are in a groove with our work right now so it is on autopilot until after Thanksgiving at which time we will switch to Roman history for a month - hopefully.


I read Starship Troopers this weekend for the first time. It was surprisingly good and much better than the movie. There is one scene in which the main character's mother writes him a letter encouraging him to drop out of the Infantry and come home because "a boy is never too big for his mother's lap." Take a look at that picture of my boy. He's 6'5". I have been pondering that passage for two days. I think the point is that a boy isn't ever too big for his mother's lap, but a man is.


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Shh - that's my baby asleep with a book. Isn't that cute?
Anyway. Week 9 is in the bag. The girls went to Museum School today. Hubby had them up, dressed and lunches packed then it was off to the museum for four hours of directed learning in a class with kids their own age at the museum of natural history.

Poor kids having to do school on a Saturday.

It was LB's first time using her lunchbox. Sniff. Sniff.
They both had fun, and LB was excited to share all the things she learned about whales and sharks. She even got to touch a whale tooth, a baleen, and a shark tooth. They made some friends in their classes and liked their teachers. CC, as usual, didn't have time to eat her lunch and knew the factual stuff about the Great Khan but did enjoy the games, activities, and demonstrations.


History - We are doing PILGRIMS and colonies. This week the girls taped some art paper together and colored a background for a paper-puppet play they are going to do about the Mayflower. With Windmills on one side, deep blue sea in the middle, Plymouth Rock on the other side and room for a small village and forests beyond that. They also worked on drawing deer and eagles and pilgrims. Hey - I've got to do Kindergarten pilgrims and Third grade early colonies. I'm trying to get double duty out of this. CC also did some research on pre-history, hunter-gatherer societies, and some more on Genghis Khan.

English - WWE had an assignment from Mr. Revere and I. CC enjoyed it so much, I ordered the book for her to finish. It also inspired her to pick selections from One Thousand and One Arabian Knights for her copywork.

Latin - We began working on a Latin vocabulary game from Ellen McHenry.

Math - We have finished through lesson 12 of the Kumon Multiplication book. CC still loves it. She still loves being graded. She is working diligently and consistently and trying her best and even trying to not write any numbers backwards. I can't ask for anything else. I am glad she has a great understanding of multiplication from the conceptual learning we did before we got here, but I am also very happy with the quick-facts that she is accomplishing now.

It was an excellent week. I like the progress we are making. I also think we may take advantage of more of the museum classes.




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Hurrya - we managed most of 4 days of school this week. CC Missed one day of homeschool because of hives. She missed her public school day because of lingering hives. We visited with old friends. Wait..... I can't report this week on Friday. We have school on Saturday this week too. But I will say that Take Me Back is The best history book, ever. I haven't read it yet because she won't let me. She's had it two days and has started making a time line of the world and decided to make shoebox dioramas of each period in history - just for fun. This is outside of school time, because we are stubbornly doing PILGRIMS. :)

A real weekly report will come tomorrow after they finish their week.





When I left for work today, the girls were done with school and busily in the middle of their own school. They have a checklist they are following - yoga, art, cooking class, recess, lunch, and that is where I left for work. I think they had history, science, and p.e. still to complete. They were very busy.

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I like weekly summaries because over a week, I can get a lot done, but it comes in small bits some days.  On any giving day, very little may get done.  I try to keep the priorities straight so that even on days when my student breaks out in hives (today) or her long-lost friend who moved out-of-state comes for a visit (yesterday) that at least the important stuff gets done.  And that does depend on what is "important" to me.

Today, it was hives, and all we got done was a math.  It happened like this.


We ate breakfast in my bed this morning and watched Krypto which is some superdog cartoon, then we went down for me to get more coffee while CC went for a mile run on the treadmill.  After her quick run, she sat down for math feeling great but couldn't sit still.  She was itchy and quickly breaking out in hives.  After 4 of her 30 math problems, I gave her an antihistamine and put her in the shower.  My mom and I decided the new fabric softener could be the culprit so we stripped her bed and gutted her closet and drawers so that all of her clothes could be rewashed.

After her shower, she sat down again for math and finished 20 of her problems before the second antihistamine I gave her started to kick in - Uh - OH.  Too much medicine.  I let her tell me the rest of the answers, and I wrote them for her.  Then I tucked her into the couch with a supply of 5 hours worth of Popular Mechanics for Kids and started to make lunch.  By this time, LB is quite tired of getting no attention and asks if I can do astronaut training with her outside.  I make lunch for her and me while her sister's lunch is cooking.  When everybody has food, blankets, shoes, jackets, water, anti-itch cream and such, LB and I go out for astronaut training and lunch.

I'll save the rest of details, but we ended the day with pasta e fagoli and homemade basil pesto crackers for dinner and homemade shortbread cookies for desert.  CC still has hives.  LB is back from outerspace.  My mom has washed all of CC's clean clothes.  Hubby managed to work from home all day with us all here.  We did math.  I think I have my priorities straight.  I'm not going to mark this as a day of school, but school isn't everything. It isn't even the only reason to do math.



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I found my son today by googling zombie attacks Shibuya. He was the first thing that came up. Love that boy.



I love the internet, and wow. I would have fun in Tokyo.
I have pictures of the girls too., but I took them today in my timezone so they aren't uploaded yet. Halloween in Tokyo was yesterday.


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First let me tell you that Genghis Khan is really cool. My mom, a friend, two third graders, a 5 year old, a 2 year old and I all invaded the local history museum this week to check out the Genghis Khan exhibit. We all learned a lot and had fun. There were gold doubloons, bronze passports, giant-screen invading hordes. It was just awesome - oh and educational. We stopped by the outer space, sea mammals, butterflies, and dinosaur exhibits too. It was a long day, but most excellent. My history book choices may be falling flat, but history museums two weeks in a row have been terrific choices.


Now on to that most dread of subjects. Math.


I cannot tell you how many times I have reevaluated my math plans and found that they weren't working. Last week, my thoughts that our multiplication facts were slowing down the progress of math were reinforced, again. I am so opposed to drilling facts. I really thought we could get by without it. But I have given up that ideal. You should start hearing Another One Bites the Dust playing in your head now, because I do. I purchased the Kumon Grade 3 Multiplication book for CC and the Kumon Numbers 1-30 for LB. There will now be at least one page of math imposed on my family 7 days a week - yes, seven. Guess what? CC loves it. She loves the single topic. The mastery. The Self-Checking. The Grades. Yes, she even discovered grades. Now she wants me to get a grade book. Another One Bites the Dust How many of these ideals fall prey to reality? I loved grades as a kid, why shouldn't she?

We had two glorious days of snow, followed by warm and sunny today so we had to hurry to the sledding hill before it melted. Yum. Its not the beach, but it is FUN.

Oh, and back to history. Wow, I love E. Nesbit. CC read House of Arden earlier this year and became an instant fan of English history - even owning her own book of Kings and Queens of England and Scotland. Now, I'm reading it to her at bedtime. Every morning, we hurriedly search through our history encyclopedia to find out more about the who/what/where/when's that were referenced in the reading. I used to think Enchanted Castle was the best Nesbit, but House of Arden wins because of its historical references and excitement.

I more fully understand why she dislikes the books I have been trying to force on her - they just don't come near the beauty of what she likes to read. I still don't know what to do about it, other than keep on with what we're doing now, just adding more historical background information to a wonderful book that she loves.


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First, Fractions are fun and easy at the third grade level. You should do them every day for a couple of weeks along with some real math. Eventually, you get enough meat to start doing challenging things with them.

Second, skip counting is wonderful but doesn't easily translate into knowing how to divide. I realized that although CC can divide when she's doing word problems, she quickly loses confidence when faced with a page of division problems. This morning, we had glorious fall weather so we did math on the swing set. I'd ask her a division problem, and she groan that she couldn't do it. Not the best approach to math. So, we tried skip counting through the table of the divisor which still didn't translate into her popping an answer. Eventually we took turns running through the multiplication tables while we were swinging "4 times 2 is 8" "4 times 3 is 12".... until we got to the number we needed and then she would jump out of her swing and write the answer. It is a slow way of doing it, but beats the stubborn refusal to divide.

Third, a child that excels at reading, enjoys quality literature, and makes great connections between historical events will really hate most history books. Really. They are either below her reading level, poorly written, dry, not engaging, or assume that the kids have no previous knowledge of the subject. I had high hopes for our three failed books this week, and I enjoyed reading each of them: Eating the Plates, Roanoke, the Lost Colony, and The Adventurous Life of Myles Standish. CC loves history, but she already knew most of what was in these books. I really liked the Myles Standish book - it has a great time line at the bottom. The problem with my history lover is continuously supplying her with challenging and interesting books that are appropriate. I am going to rethink our history again - I think she will hate the rest of the books I have for this unit.


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Some small moments in your life really let you stop and see yourself from the outside. This morning, I had one of those rare moments.

At 9:30 I roll myself out of bed so that I can get the trash out before the trash guy comes by. I pull on jeans and decide to keep on the pajama shirt, because I have to shower later. Then I go downstairs, put the dog out, put out the trash and recycling and notice that the neighbor has about 14 bags of leaves on the curb next to her trash can. Her car isn't in the driveway so I don't even bother to knock and ask. I just grab two bags and walk them back across the cul-de-sac and toss them over my fence. Two people are walking their dogs, and I say "Good Morning" but they don't seem to hear me.

I go back for more and more dog-walkers come by. By the sixth bag and the fifth dog-walker, I start to feel conspicuous - is it the pajama shirt, jeans and snow boots or the uncombed hair or maybe the fact that I am stealing garbage bags and throwing them over a fence? By the eighth bag, I decide that I am actually quite weird and I still need to empty the trash cans inside. I pause on the way inside to pull some cereal boxes from my trash, take the bags of crumbs back inside to feed to the chickens and tuck the boxes in the recycle bin. Like I needed the eight bags of stolen trash to tell me I was weird.

And in case you were wondering, once the girls, and I emptied the leaves into the chicken yard, we jumped in them piled them up and jumped again and again. It was certainly worth the theft, I only regret that the trash guy came before I could go back for the rest.




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CC did a whole chapter in math and completed a whole week of WWE3. She learned all of the words to America the Beautiful - all of the verses including the one about pilgrim feet. She also did 4 lessons in Lively Latin and a lesson in Minimus. Yes, we rounded out today by hiking and going to the park with our friends then watching Word Girl and Mythbusters on tv, but really it was a very full week. And LB and I even helped chaperon CC's field trip to the aquarium and carpooled with friends.


It was a mighty, mighty week. I also cleaned part of the basement - or is it partially cleaned the basement? CC and I are setting up a craft room for her in a corner. We made chocolate candies one day too. Yum. And of course the best part of making chocolate candies is dipping strawberries in the leftover chocolate. It is important to remember to teach all of these little things to your kids too.

I knew I was ready for more structure. I even made it through the week without running out of toilet paper again. You gotta appreciate the little victories as well as the big. I made and lost a great grocery list, but I didn't run out of toilet paper or sugar.

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We took the week off after our loss last week and spent most of the time out of the house. We went to the zoo twice and for a long hike in the mountains. It was a good week, but I am ready to put some structure in our days. Of course structure calls for a spreadsheet. I opened up Excel and made a little general schedule with time slots and everything on it. I need to get more done no matter how much I prefer sitting in my pj's, drinking coffee and watching the girls play all day.




Here is my basic schedule, and I have already changed it since I took this screen shot. On Thursdays, CC goes to a public school enrichment program for Science, art, music, Spanish and PE so the daytime schedule is just for me and LB. I also don't have any reading scheduled for CC, but she reads about an hour every night.

Let's raise a mug to schedules. I don't generally stick to them, but I think it will help me get back into a more productive rhythm.



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I sent my son to college. I'm sure that is where he went.

Do you know what he did? He checked out books from the library that were not for a class. Here is his list: Camus' The Plague, Heidegger's Being and Time, and Rice's The Vampire Lestat. We'll all ignore the fact that I had him read The Plague in eleventh grade for modern world history and literature, and he doesn't remember being assigned it. That is not the point.

The point is that he just finished reading Genesis along with essays from Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, and Kierkegaard for a class and decided to pick up Heidegger for something challenging.


I suggested that he would like The Stranger by Camus next if he liked The Plague and told him to let me know if he thought Heidegger was worthwhile for me to try to struggle through.

He has always been a deep thinker and a strong reader, but really. Where did he come from? And, to think he's reading and thinking in college? I know that's why I sent him, but you can never be sure they aren't up all night partying and skipping school. I'm popping with pride at the idea of my baby thinking all of these deep thoughts and looking for challenges. I do love that boy.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to drop Melville for a while and pick up Camus.


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There was never a happier puppy or a couple of girls that loved a puppy more.
It is going to be a hard week.


"Its not fair." - correct
"She had so much more to live for." - correct
"She was just a baby" - correct
It's just not fair.

This is really hard. A true part of life that we will work through, but really hard. You should never wake up as a small child and learn that your cherished puppy died for no reason while you slept. It is a very difficult thing that we are going to work through. Inu was loved and was happy for the few short months that we had her. She woke up frisky and in love with life everyday until this one. That is a great way to live.

















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Drum Roll please.... Here is a sampling of the thousand + pictures we took on our little field trip.












































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I will really make a post with pictures once I sort through the thousands on the digital camera, but for now imagine.... Buffalo, Elk, geysers, beaches covered in obsidian sand, waterfalls, dormant volcanoes, ancient redwoods, waves crashing against rocky shores, jumping waves on sandy beaches in the sunset, picking berries at a lighthouse, a bustling market called Pike's Place, a cheese factory, yummy bakery after yummy bakery followed by rows of fruit stands and people throwing fish, a ferry to an island, a rescue at sea, killer whales, days in an RV, a long flight home in time for enrichment school yesterday. That was our last two weeks.

I had felt that our trip was very educational but lacking in math until CC came home from her enrichment school last night declaring that no one in her class can "Even Multiply." "Really?", says I. She said that during their science block, the teacher was talking about whales - one type of whale is about 25 feet long. Since the teacher is 5 foot tall, how many of her would it take to be the length of that whale? CC though it was easy so waited until others had a chance to answer.... Nobody knew so she said 5. I just smiled. I'm glad she can divide. Math is a huge struggle with us - and has been for years. Its nice that she gets to feel smart about it sometimes.

LB spent one afternoon reading the names of all of the geysers in Yellowstone. When exactly did she learn how to read?

I struggle constantly with balancing my belief that people learn best through authentic experiences and my desire to provide a "rigorous education." My girls are studying Latin. They do math. My third grader tossed out the abridged version of Alice in Wonderland last night in favor of the original. She is reading it as her free choice reading. I don't usually get through the lessons I had planned, but that's okay. I think that what we end up doing is usually far better.

A little at a time. We'll just keep moving forward.

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I think I love just about every stage of watching my kids grow up. Some are very hard, and some seem sweet and blissful even before they are tempered by time. Today, I had a great conversation with BB at college after he returned home from the local grocery store with ingredients for Alfredo Sauce.


BB: ugh my roommates are starting to annoy me, there's a half chopped onion and open can of refried beans just sitting on the counter accumulating flies

BB: its a sad sad thing when I'M the cleanest and most organized person in the house...

I almost fell out of my chair laughing.


My baby is growing up. I sure do miss him. I even miss that smell of teenage boy that hung over his room and used to encourage me to promptly close his door. I miss all the little things that I don't get to see anymore, like the beautiful smile he has when he stretches and says, "Good Morning, Mother." Baby boys growing into men right before your eyes. One little step at a time.

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I think that my week needs serious work when I sit down to type up my report and can't remember what I did. Its a good thing I took a few pictures.

I'll start with K4/PreK. LB learned that four quarters makes a dollar so that you can get four gumballs at the school store. She also climbed trees, waded in streams, wrote her numbers to twenty in chalk at the park, swung on a rope swing and the swings in the yard and at the park, had a picnic, and learned that subtraction is a great way to procrastinate at bedtime.

And Third Grade? Well, CC is working on her multiplication, learned about fractions and equivalent fractions (I bought a Fraction Wrap-up for practice on our trip to Washington State). She also declared., "I can't go to bed now. I'm doing math, and I love math." She really likes those Wrap-ups. LB was doing the Subtraction Wrap-up when she learned a new form of procrastination. I think that maybe I'll just quit doing math during school, move bedtime up thirty minutes and try to trick them into doing it.

CC already read through one of the books about Lewis and Clark that I bought for our trip. I'm glad she liked it, but I think she preemptively reads the books I have planned just so that I won't be able to teach from them as effectively. - Paranoid much? But really, she prefers to be the one explaining things instead of being taught. I'm glad that I bought more than one book, and we are both looking forward to doing the crafts in the book she read.


What else? I'm sure we did more. Asthma is still beating me down which probably explains more about my week than anything else. Little by Little.


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I remember when I first read the Dialogues of Socrates when I was in college. I thought he was deep. I am trying really hard to read the trial and death of Socrates to keep with BB in his Intellectual Heritage class. I really am.


Today I was reading it while the kids were playing at an indoor playground I was waiting for our friends. I just kept thinking that it would be annoying to have him as a friend. I fear that by the end I will be cheering for him to take that fateful drink.

BB has suggested that I am too old to study philosophy because I'm already set in my ideas and not open to seeing things in a new way. I am really trying, but there is nothing like an annoying old philosopher to prove that your son just might be right.

I remember a few years ago reading something about how wonderful it is to use Socratic dialogue in a classroom to lead students to discovering answers for themselves. Right now, I can't imagine why I had thought that that was a good idea. I just looked up that article again - here it is The Socratic Method. I'm going to reread it after I finish reading Socrates to see if maybe I like his methods better than I would actually like him. Of course, I just might end up liking him before the end.



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This morning after cleaning a raspberry soda explosion off the wall, I finally settled down for a my cup of coffee. LB started setting up her little toy kitchen, and CC starting to try to see how quickly she could get her sister to go from a whine to an outburst. I asked to please not antagonize her sister.

CC: "What is antagonize?"
Me: "It's a good opportunity."

So I got up and dug out the student Thesaurus (note to self, I really do need a Dictionary). I showed CC how to look up words in the dictionary/thesaurus using the guide words. I also pointed out that it shows the parts of speech to help her with Mad Libs. She spent the next half hour reading the thesaurus. I remember doing that when I was a kid. Now she wants a dictionary for her birthday - a big one.

We were expecting thunderstorms for the afternoon so I packed up the Ray's math books and lunch and spent the next couple of hours at the park.

Right now they are trying to learn to Flamenco dance from an animated character on Kid Pix. Is that music, art or computer time? Does it matter? Probably not. Life around here just seems like a good opportunity to learn.


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This is Bo. He is LB's son, and he wants to be a spider for Halloween. CC is making him a costume.

I wanted her to use a pattern, but of course we couldn't find a spider costume pattern in his size so CC had to make one. She has a book on sewing that she has been reading and a book on doll making and a yard of black satin. Yesterday, she sketched out what the costume should look like, and this morning I helped her measure the Bo's sister, Princess, for a pattern. Since I left for work, she has created her pattern, cut it out and done the first fitting. Right now, she is creating the pattern for the spider legs, and next she is going to make pants to match.


I'm proud of her creativity, ingenuity, sewing skills, and sisterly love - after all this is something she is doing for her sister.

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