Week 7 Mermaids and Neutrinos

Ultra Deep Field Hubble View of a speck of a the universe

I really love watching children become storytellers.  Monday after LB was finished with her schoolwork, she excitedly pulled out a bunch of her stuffed animals to decide who would be the damsel in distress, the hero and the villain then told a cute story of a fair maiden captured by a dragon and rescued by a brave knight.  She wasn't satisfied with the story so she pulled out more characters and things to use as costumes, drafted dh and I for parts and spent the next hour preparing a production of Rapunzel inspired by Zelinsky's beautiful telling.   She even wrote a script for daddy since he didn't know what the handsome prince was supposed to say.  It all turned out exactly the way she wanted it to.   She spent the afternoon telling a wonderful story that has been told many times before, but this time, she told it with her own voice.

A quick snapshot of my life because this moment is strangely typical:
It is 5 pm.  I have an hour or more left to work.  CC is home from school practicing a Bach piece on cello so she can relax before she does her homework.   I just finished helping LB make a mermaid tail for herself so she's stranded in her room for a while - I do know better than to just answer "Where is the duct tape?" without first asking "Why?".  It is Tuesday, so there is taco meat in the crockpot.  All I need for dinner is to find the spinach and tortillas and grate some cheese.  Hubby is at work but should be home soon.  Wait...CC is alternating Bach with the theme from Jaws.  It was a long but good day; we have about 4 more hours before I send the kids to bed and one more after that before I can hopefully sit quietly for a minute with hubby.

Thursday morning, CC had a hard time getting up.  She was tired and disgruntled.   Once she came down to sausage and waffles for breakfast we started chatting.  I shared with her the newest Hubble deep field photos then we talked about the scale of the universe.  She'd learned about neutrinos in morning assembly and was explaining to me the relative size of things in the universe.  Apparently, compared to neutrinos, we're unbelievably large although looking at space through the deep field, we feel very small.  I love curious minds.

By the end of the week, LB has done 4 lessons in R&S Math.  She's doing great and has been getting the math without the stories this week.  I still like the amount of practice that she is doing daily because I see that it is helping her to remember the problems instead of having to work them out every time.  She illustrated and copied "The Eagle" again and copied two more short poems this week.  She's still doing the Daily Science workbook.  I like that she is writing full sentences for her answers and learning to use and spell science words like marsupial and germinate.   I think of it more as writing than as science, but it is a bit of both.   We started reading Little House in the Big Woods in the mornings for our literature.  For history this week we read A Year in a Castle and enjoyed reading about the history of Caerphilly Castle which has some family ancestry ties. From the point of Vikings to modern day, I should be able to link in an ancestor or two into each time period.

CC has been doing great at school until Thursday.  I had to pick her up because of her asthma Thursday morning after orchestra then she came down with a stomach virus in the wee hours of Friday morning.   When she went to public school, I was concerned about a lot of things academically and socially, but I had forgotten the stew of germs that simmers in public schools.   I'm just trying to remember that this is good for her immune system.  I guess limited germ exposure is both one of the benefits and negatives of home schooling.