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. 

Triumph, a page at the time

 It is a long time coming, but I'm claiming a cautious triumph today in reading.  I set a firm rule of 20 minutes of reading a day a few weeks ago for LB.  It has been painful to get her to complete that goal.  She is a terrific reader but lacks confidence.  Sunday,  she read Marley the Farm Dog because I wanted her to read a full story that she'd find easy.  Monday, she reread it, twice.  Tuesday, I picked up another Marley book for her to read and Trumpet of the Swan to use for copywork.  She asked if she could read Trumpet of the Swan instead which I agreed to but cautioned her about the small font.  She read two pages and was exceedingly proud.

Today, I offered Marley for reading again, but she chose Trumpet again.  She didn't want to stop after a page.  She didn't stop until she finished the chapter.  She asked if she could just read Trumpet of the Swan for reading until she finished it.  She declared that enormous is an easy word, but not as much fun to read as sizzled.  It helps that she's listened to E.B. White read Trumpet of the Swan to her a few nights a week for the past few years and that it is her favorite book in the world.  I should probably give him credit for writing such a terrific book, but I'm still claiming a small victory bringing another child into the literary world one page at the time.

Week 26

My school enrichment this week has included some wonderful recordings from the Society for Classical Learning's conference last year.  I spent a couple hours in the mornings listing to conference lectures to help re-inspire my homeschool.

Book Highlights This Week:
LB's favorite book this week was The Sailor and the Sea Witch.
CC's fiction read this week is A Drowned Maiden's Hair which is full of Gothic mystery.

Here's how our week went:
Monday -
CC worked on her application essay for a summer volunteer position.  It is a very different type of writing than she's done before, but it is coming along nicely.  She also worked on math, cello, history and memory.

LB is making great progress with her writing.  We've started WWE1 which she is loving.  I'm glad we didn't start at the first of the year.  She is also doing longer sentences in cursive and doing all of the writing in ETC5.  She's reading CLP1 and Little Bear daily.  I've been reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to her,  she's working on her CC memory work, and she's still making slow and steady progress in Saxon 2. She finished the day with tap dancing class.


Tuesday focus on  Fifth Grade-
CC and I had a great discussion about John Locke thanks to Jefferson's Truths from MCT.  CC had always thought that the ideals from the  Declaration of Independence where nascent (her words  :)  ).  She appreciates how the founding fathers turned the ideas into a rebellion and a revolution, but now understands that the ideas were much older.  We went on from our discussion of equality and the Divine Right of Kings to contrast it with the Mandate of Heaven and Locke's ideas of the legitimacy of government.  These discussions are my favorite part of homeschooling. 

She's  been working on research and writing using the Crusades as her topic.  She'd originally thought to base today's paper in Cairo and began researching "the history of Cairo."  After she'd been reading for a half hour I asked her how it was going to which she replied, "I've learned that Cairo has a VERY long history and this will take a while."  We pulled out Spielvogel's Western Civilization and read the chapter covering the crusades to help her refocus her research.  Learning to pick a topic is an important part of learning to write.

Other than our philosophy discussion, her history research and writing, math and cello, she spent the rest of her day reading more Horrible Histories.

Wednesday -
I'm so glad we now take Wednesday's off.  It is a relief to us all.  The girls made cookies, cake and jello for a spring party while I focused on my busy day at work.

Thursday - Focus on First Grade -
 The version of Rapunzel we have ends with  "they lived happy and content."  LB asked why they lived content instead of happily ever after which is a wonderful question.  We discussed what content means then went back through the story to find references to people who were not content and what the consequences were.  It was a great discussion.  We then read over the historical notes about the story and noted that the illustrations show scenes of an Italian countryside and are set during the Renaissance so we talked about the time and place of the story.  I think that every time we read one of these beautiful tales, we are enriched by the reading and inspired by our discussions.  Even in first grade, it is the discussions that I love most about homeschooling.

LB's phonics is ahead of her reading, but that is okay.  We had put the reading on hold because of her visual perception problems.  The reading is improving every week.  Her handwriting is wonderful - both print and cursive.  When we do handwriting, she and I will both practice the same sentence which encourages her to try to make hers prettier than mine.  My handwriting is improving too.

I waited until she was able to copy a complete sentence before we started WWE1 which seems to be perfect timing for her.  For math, we're still going slow and steady.  I'm much more focused on reading and writing at this time so the slow progress in math is exactly what I want.

Outside of school today, LB spent some time looking up information about horses on the internet and making  a presentation about an Arabian horse which she named Candy.  She also colored in a horse coloring book while listening to her Classical Conversations memory work. She watched part of Growing Up Wild, made meatballs for dinner, and went to judo.

Friday  and MATH-
Instead of our usual science with friends  today, we took a nature walk with our friends.  We also did our normal work - reading, writing and math.

CC and I had a discussion this week about math word problems because she'd found the ones in her test prep book boring.  She spent a good portion of her math time this week making word problems to see what kind of work went into making a good problem.  Here is her first try:

The Football Fiasco
84 people want plain hotdogs, 96 people want catsup on their hotdogs and 24 people want mustard on their hotdogs.  If 2/3 of the people buying hotdogs go to a football game and there are 1005 seats in the stadium, then 56 more people come, how many empty seats are in the stadium?  If there are 102 women in the stadium, how many men are there?

I started LB with the Life of Fred Elementary series this week as a supplement to our normal work.  We finished three chapters the first day and three the second day.   So far she is enjoying it and feeling very successful.  I can't yet judge how it would be as a main math program since Apples starts well below where we were but moves through different topics.

Overall,  today was a lovely end to a busy, but lovely week.  We're looking forward to some more beautiful weather this weekend and spring break next week.

Prereading books

Do you preread all of the books you give your kids? I try. This week I was caught off-guard by two instances of books I should have preread. One turned into a great opportunity and the other was a missed opportunity.

Let's start with Cinderella. There are hundreds of versions of this tale available. I have several of varying quality. LB asked me to read her one that I hadn't read before. It had cute pictures so we read it. It was terrible. It was just a summary of the plot with no depth or beauty. I've had this book for about 2 years and never read it. CC had told me it was terrible, but how bad can Cinderella be? It is that bad. At the end of the story, I asked LB what she thought of it. She made a horrible face and declared that it was the worst version of Cinderella ever and isn't even fit for babies. She asked if I could read the good version instead so I pulled out our K.Y.Craft version. It is everything that the other was not. The illustrations are amazing - they aren't just cute. The story is complex, rich, satisfying. At the end, we decided the bad version is going in the charity box.

The Cinderella incident turned out okay and gave LB and I a good point of discussion because if I had preread that book, we wouldn't have had something so terrible to compare our favorite Cinderella to. The next incident didn't turn out so well.

I ordered a couple of picture books about philosophers for next school year. When CC saw them, she pulled them out and read them. Last week she read the Diogenes and this week read the Socrates. I asked her how Socrates was this week. She started a conversation, "At first they seemed to be the same, but once you thought about it more their philosophies were very different. I thought I'd like Socrates better because BB does, but I really prefered what Diogenes said about virture." Great. She is starting a conversation comparing two brilliant philosophers, and I haven't read the book. It could have been a wonderful opportunity to discuss something meaningful. I could have been a lot of things that it wasn't.

If she had waited until I had read them... If had already had a deep understanding of them ... If I had just been better prepared...


I think a large part of learning takes place in interactions between people. It is forming ideas and opinions and discussing them with others that is one of the key ingredients to learning and one of the best parts of homeschooling for me. I love having things like this to share with my kids. I love watching them get excited about learning. I am a much better teacher if I have read their books so that I can share the learning with them and have those discussions that naturally follow.

There are lots of reasons to preread books including making sure the content is suitable, but prereading so that you can share the joy of discussion should not be forgotten.

Why I don't use a literature program

Last night while I was waiting for LB to find some pajamas that were warm enough, I asked CC how her book is going. In the course of our discussion, she told me about a few chapters that had kept her awake into the wee hours last week. A family nearby had contracted scarlet fever. They were very poor and the whole family was sick. Her eyes teared up as she told how Beth had held the baby as it died then became ill herself. She noted that if the sisters who had already had scarlet fever had gone instead of her that she wouldn't have become ill. CC had picked up on and remembered all of the important things from those chapters and summarized the scene with enough detail to make it interesting but not repeating it word for word.

I asked if that was the saddest part of the book so far, and she gasped that she couldn't imagine a sadder chapter (I didn't tell her). She loves how the author makes you "cry when they cry and laugh when they laugh." She is truly living with the book.

Her librarian asked her this week why she hadn't check out any books in a couple of weeks. She told her that she was reading Little Women and didn't need any more books right now.

She is only a couple of chapters away from the saddest part.

What is your child reading?

Today, CC was reading 100 Things You Should Know About Ancient Rome when I left for work. Last night, hubby read part of one of the Roman Mysteries to her, but she's already read the book. She is in the middle of Through the Looking-Glass and has started Little Women. We are reading The House of Arden together, again. She is also reading Do No Open and Take Me Back plus some of her Calvin And Hobbes. I think that is all that she is currently reading although the Roman book changes sometimes more than once a day as does the Calvin and Hobbes.


Somebody asked me the other day what she was reading, and I just gave the short answer of "Through the Looking Glass" since that was the last book I had seen her tucking into her bed, but it wasn't alone. Sometimes it is good to check-in with the long answer instead of just the short one.

LB is at that stage where she is starting to read, but books at her level are just no fun so she has no interest in reading them most of the time. I am still committed to not teaching her to read. We'll have to see how that goes. My other two learned to read despite my best efforts to teach them so I refuse to teach her although I do forget occasionally and try. I'm a no good at teaching reading so I refuse.

So, what is your child reading? Long answer please.

Week 11 Report -

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.

Week 33 - Tatami mats, Thirsty 6's and Giants

This is the new apartment in Tokyo for the Big Brother in college. His space is eight tatami mats large or 12 x 12. That's a big step up from the 9 x 9 (4 1/2 mats) dorm room he just moved from; he even has a bed long enough for his 6'6" self to sleep in. He ended up sharing an apartment with two girls that are from our home state. The world often turns out to be smaller and more connected than you think.

This week at school we started bumping against those multiplication tables again.

I've been letting CC use a reference chart of multiplication facts so that she can continue to be challenged in math without waiting for her to memorize those facts. She has been able to do quite a bit that way, including figuring out division with remainders, prime number factorization, and two digit-multiplication with carrying. This week, I gave her a copy of Times Tales to read through to supplement her math. I think she liked it because she was not only giggling while reading it, today in math when factoring 36, she lit up and said, "Oh, Thirsty Sixes! That is 6 x 6!"

I am currently reading the girls a book of Norse Mythology and Knight's Castle . This week the two disparate works both talked about giants. I love it when things like that happen because it give us good literary ideas to discuss. LB woke me up this morning and asked if I would read Jack and the Beanstalk to her. It is one of those great stories for children that not only let them run around with a "Fe Fi Fo Fum. I smell the Blood of and Englishman.", they also reassure children that the giants can be defeated by children.


“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G.K. Chesterton

WR29 - Earth day

This week we went to one of our favorite parks with our friends. the lake has finally thawed and the kids enjoyed the sun, water, and just being outside.

Here is CC working on a slide for her playground she is building for her toys.

And LB is making beautiful playdough cookies.

I finally finished the second hole for my second apple tree and planted them (almost). I'll take lovely pictures when I have them all mulched. In the meantime, the kids had a great time with all of the intermediate steps of hole digging. This one was a boat, an island with buried treasure, and a castle with a moat. Notice CC is rigging the boat, and LB is chasing chickens with the would-be sails.

We did school this week too - but not on Monday. We have officially canceled Monday school. We just spend the day enjoying each other, and catching up on house work, gardening, or playing in the sunshine and not at work. That leaves us with 40 more days of our 180 to finish in 4 day weeks. I think school will last a while longer.

We found a new way to do grammar.


I give CC a dictation sentence that exemplifies a grammar or punctuation rule, and she rolls her eyes and explains how she already knows that rule. Isn't that fun? Well, instead of letting it get to me, I have embraced it (only not the eye rolling part). I looked at the next dictation sentence (from WWE workbook 2), told her what the rule is going to be and asked her to look for examples in her reading. Then when I give her the dictation sentence next week, I'll have her explain the rule back to me. It will accomplish the same thing, but with more style and hopefully less eye rolling.

For writing this week, we did dictation one day, copywork one day, and she worked on a story she is writing two days. She worked on her cursive with the dictation and the copywork.

For math, we have finished up through lesson 112 in MEP. This week, she told me that she loves math.

For history, she learned about the Great Dust Bowl at her cottage school, read about Roman homes and villas on her own, and we read up through the Moghul empire in Story of the World.

In spelling, she finished the Group 2 words. LB decided to join us at spelling so I started her on the List A, group 1. I call the words just like I do for her sister, but then I spell them for her and she write them down. Later in the car, the girls were quizzing hubby on spelling words, she told him to ask her how to spell MAN. He asked her, and she spelled it, "MAN. M-A-N. MAN. Daddy, you are a man." Now, guess what sentence I used when I dictated man. She actually wrote about 8 words that during that spelling lesson.

All four of us went to see Earth on Earth Day. It was a terrific movie. The girls would have happily skipped the scary scene at the watering hole at night, but the rest of the movie was amazing. We were the people in the back of the theater talking through most of the movie, but we really couldn't help it. There were too many reasons to say 'Wow.'

We read a beautifully illustrated version of Ivanhoe this week. At the end, CC declared that she wants to grow up to be like Rebecca, and before she went to sleep, LB was wishing she could be like "the princess" Rowena.

And that was our week.

Weekly Report - Week 14 Frabjous Day!

BB was exploring Shibuya, Tokyo yesterday.

As soon as CC was done with school today she ran up to join her sister in their room. Hubby did the hair braiding today since GMa wasn't feeling well.

LB had pulled out boxes of things and was getting dressed - this was her third or fourth costume.
LB's first math worksheet ever.
The books on the school table this morning.



LB playing while CC was at school.
CC out in the wind learning about mapping.



BB is registered for classes - English, Math, Japanese, and Government Systems and moved into his dorm room. He is majoring in International Affairs. We miss him tons, but we were all relieved to see his smiling face on Skype. He is off this weekend and starts classes Tuesday. He has learned a lot in the last week alone in Japan. He is getting some downtime for a few days for sightseeing in Tokyo and hopefuly he will get a chance to finally upload some pictures and catch up on his lost sleep.

We did not read Alice in Wonderland as planned this week, but CC read the Shakespeare Can be Fun version of A Midsummer's Night Dream and didn't have anything good to say about it. She preferred the Nesbit version, but wants something more detailed. Next I will try the Corville version and the No Fear Shakespeare. She got interested in Shakespeare last year when BB and I were reading Hamlet - actually at first she covered her ears when we were reading for the first few times then started to like it. She started liking A midsummer's Night Dream thanks to The Sisters Grimm which is her current late-night obsession.

Our first day back, she spent more than 30 minutes copying 4 lines of poetry. On the bright side, she now knows all of Jabberwocky. She did Magic Squares puzzles for math all week to get her brain back in the math groove. We also took turns skip counting with GMa as the referee. Growing With Grammar was awesome. We did one and a half chapters of history. She also worked on learning the first twenty of the "Very Short Words" from The ABC's and All Their Tricks. She is working on spelling so that she can be more competitive in the family Boggle games. She's mapping out the neighborhood, and we are learning a bit about Japan and Basho.

LB joined us at the school table and was very proud to do a math worksheet from WorkSheetWorks. She also pranced around the house today saying "Oh Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callah!"

Week 12 Weekly Report

You have to love any week that includes words from your student like "Don't worry about the schoolwork in the morning. I'll take care of that."

Last night, we were doing a pre-bed planning for the things we had to do this morning before I went to work. We have the BIG party tomorrow so we had yard work, the coop to clean, the playhouse to vacuum, cakes to bake, and stuff like that in addition to normal schoolwork. When I came downstairs for my coffee this morning, my second-grade student was looking for her math book. That is a nice.

We are up to lesson 20 in Singapore 3A and have completed the corresponding lessons in the Intensive practice book. She has learned the first four parts of Jabberwocky, and we have been using it for copywork. We compared two versions of the story of King Arthur getting the sword from the stone. We also completed the first chapter of the Alice in Wonderland comprehension guide. She made a really amazing picture of a frumious Bandersnatch so that I could share what she was visualizing. She is working really hard to help me get over my dislike of that poem.

My little preschooler, enjoyed listening to Alice in Wonderland, and she has a floor puzzle based on the tea party from Alice which she put together after we read our chapter. She has been working on her phonics on her own and is surprising everyone by spelling a few words. She also made a wonderful picture of her sister complete with pearl earrings.

The soon-to-be overseas college student is off to Florida for two weeks to visit family before he leaves. He finished the Algebra 1 book and took the Algebra 2 book with him in addition to his Japanese books to help get him ready for placement tests.

I cleaned carpets for two days and have been generally trying to ignore the fact that there is so much happening and so much that is going to change very soon.

Thinking Language Arts

First that is a picture of ME working on the car - but its a metaphor, really.

I am trying to figure out what makes a great "Language Arts" program for a kid attending The Magic School House. Our first graduate, loves language - English, Japanese, Italian, German, Spanish, French, persuasive, poetic, fiction, fantasy, cartoon, comedic, written, spoken - it doesn't matter. It looks like the second student has a similar love of words. Her early fascination with Edward Eager has grown to a love of E. Nesbit and Shakespeare. She is currently enthralled with Lewis Carroll. She spent about two hours yesterday reading a book of Roman history outside of school time. She also kept herself up reading for over an hour in bed. She has started memorizing Jabberwocky and is struggling to understand the middle section so that she can remember it, and she loves every word of it.

So what should "Language Arts" look like for a child like this in a school like this? I want to follow Classical Writing. I was advised that most students hit a wall with grammar in the higher levels so I think that instead of changing what we are currently doing for writing, we will add Growing with Grammar to our current routine and continue with copywork, dictation and narration. I have decided to use our own models instead of following the WWE workbook so that I can choose the more challenging material for her.

I'm going to get the core book for the first level of CW so that I can start to learn it then we will see where we are in a month or so with grammar and more copywork and dictation. We are using the study guide from Veritas Press for Alice in Wonderland and we are enjoying it so far. In addition to comprehension questions for each chapter, there are recipes, crafts, and some interesting writing projects.

Week 11 Weekly Report

Even after a short break for Thanksgiving, it was hard to get back into the groove.

Math - Monday, I was reminded why we normally do math 5 days a week year-round. CC took about 20 minutes to wind up to math and then longer than that to actually do it. She said her brain was too asleep for math. I'm glad I had planned to drop back to a page of addition and subtraction review. It was just where we need to start. By the end of the week, we were doing two-step word problems! I was happy. She thought they were hard, but just hard enough to make her think not get frustrated. I like it. Have I said lately how much I love Singapore Intensive Practice?

English - I have been loving WWE. CC has learned to summarize her writing instead of just repeating all of the details. Copywork and dictation have really helped her writing and spelling. It has been great, but I have noticed a trend. She has started complaining that the copywork selection is too easy, and has started memorizing the selection instead of needing me to tell it to her for dictation. I am now on the hunt for something more for our writing. I think she is ready for a bit more challenge. Classical Writing Aesop is what I had planned to use starting in third or forth grade before I found WWE. I think maybe I will take another look at that. I'd keep narration, copywork, and dictation. I'd just add to it.

History - We finally started history! The middle ages are coming. Watch out!

Other - We went swimming with friends. We're studying states of matter. CC's class is doing art with glass. She has decided to learn the poem Jabberwocky as her next poetry project. I have never liked that poem - maybe because I think words should have meaning. She just enjoys the way it sounds. We are studying Alice in Wonderland for our next literature project, so I guess this is a good time to enjoy Lewis Carrol

BB picked up his visa today. His flight leaves in 29 days.

Good Books

I love the way that good books can inspire people to think, question, and struggle with what is known.

Last week when I was reading CC a chapter from The Time Garden, she encountered the Predestination Paradox again. The basic issue in this chapter is that children go back in time and save their parents. The first time we read this chapter she was excited to find out who had saved them - since the story from the parent's point of view had been told in Half Magic and we had never known who the kids that saved them were. Anyway, she didn't notice the paradox the first time.

Next time we read it, she was puzzled. This time she was inspired and confused. I explained to her that the feeling that it goes in circles and doesn't make sense is called a paradox. She asked if Albert Einstein was ever confused by paradoxes. I explained to her that yes he was not only confused by them , but discovered several in math. I explained as well as an old physics major can explain relativity, quantum mechanics, and "spooky action at a distance" to someone in first grade. She declared that she wanted to hurry to learn more math so that she could understand special relativity better and maybe travel beyond the speed of light.

We got all of that from a children's book. Don't you just love good books?

Week 24 - Weekly Report

This week we went sailing on a ship in a far away tropical ocean. LB was catching fish for dinner. CC was cooking, and I was handling the sails. We had a few problems such as sharks, sea snakes and an iceberg. We sailed for about two hours in the swing in the backyard until a cold, north wind blew in a mighty storm and we had to dock in a safe harbor. It was a nice break from our typical winter routines.

Academically, this week went well. Basic, Basic and more Basic - I really like basic. My first grader read, did handwriting and math everyday. This week, she actually did 5 extra lessons in math for a total of 10 math lessons this week. I am thrilled - I paid her for the extra work, but shh don't tell anybody. She also read an entire chapter book at bedtime - it was only a Judy Moody book, but it was free-choice reading, and she read the whole thing.

Co-op was very good this week too. CC really enjoyed her face-painting class. It was the first time they did full-face paint. LB also had fun being a model for the class after her story time class was finished. Hubby even joined us for lunch and helped out in the human body class.

I think BB is getting a bad case of senioritis. He and his ps friend were both complaining that they are tired of high school and ready for college. I have 4 more books I want him to read for British Lit. I think that I will assign comprehension and essay questions for each and just let him run with them - right after I finish reading them and come up with the questions. Note to self - don't be so picky about literature programs for future students. Doing your own literature class is a lot of work.

I have been working through the IEW with BB and making CC sit in the room while we do the class. Yesterday, I had to pause the dvd several times so that we could discuss things. It is amazing to listen to my 7yo and my 17yo discuss story elements together. We discussed conflict, characters, setting, and types of stories. Little moments like this are what I really love about homeschooling.

Week 24 - The Plan and some grammar

This week I am planning to not be as busy as last week. I really am. However, we are doing a thing for Girl Scouts on Monday, co-op on Tuesday, and gymnastics on Wednesday. Thursday is of course Valentine's day and hubby and I are going OUT for an early dinner then maybe a movie. We have reservations and BB is babysitting. Nice.

My recent realization that the basics need to be our focus for the rest of first grade has left me with a big problem. In a word - grammar. That horrible G-word. I was pretty certain that we could continue to slide without it, but it has recently moved in my mind from something that is pushed too early on kids, to something basic and fundamental. I was all set to do grammar as part of Latin and as part of writing (Writing Tales), but I am not starting those until next year and I want some grammar before this year is finished. CC is a great reader so I am looking at higher levels of grammar than I would normally look at for a first grader. I am not sure what I am going to do. I'll keep thinking about it. Here is my current criteria:

• I don't want something that requires too much writing.
• I want something that incorporates more than just grammar - I like multipurpose.
• I would like to cover things like parts of speech, commonly misused words, plural rules including irregulars, noun-verb agreement, helping verbs, punctuation, abbreviations, and alphabetizing.
  
• I want the lessons to be short.
• I would like a workbook, but I don't want it to be a "self-teaching" program, I want to teach it to my student.
• I want the lessons to stick. I don't want to finish the book and wonder what the point of it was.

I have seen a few that would work. I just need to make up my mind and get one.

Here are the simple details for next week.

First grade - Five more math lessons. Five more handwriting sheets. Five more books from FIAR. Learn about the history of Valentine's Day and read about Cupid and Psyche.

High School British Lit. We are going to work through another lesson in IEW, and we are working through Paradise Lost still. I came up with some questions for BB. These will be essay and discussion questions. I like having something specific to talk about for the books we read.

What ideas does the poem convey – and how is the form of the poem related to those ideas?
Is there a moment of change in the poem?
What is the poem’s subject? or What is it about?
Do you feel sympathy with this poem? Does it resonate with you or is it foreign?
What is Milton’s view of man? Does man have any power in this poem?
Describe Milton’s God.
Describe Milton’s Satan. What drives him?
Which character was more sympathetic - Satan or Christ in this poem? Do you think that Milton intended you to react that way? Why.
Eve seems to have been deceived. Was Adam deceived? Give a reference to support your position.
What is your favorite quote from this poem?
Give an example of a description in this poem that was very vivid to you.

This week are are also finalizing the application for yet another college. BB decided this weekend that there is another place he wants to apply.

Literature Ponderings

I woke up this morning thinking about literature and it has been on my mind all day. What do we want our kids to know about literature? Why do we read to them? Is it really important that we read "good" books to them and if so, what makes a good book?

Mortimer Adler in How To Read A Book said, "You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn." He also said that the highest class of books are books that seem to grow with you. The more you read them, the more you get from them.

Trying to teach high school literature to my son has changed how I discuss books with my girls. I am much more careful about what we read, but that is only a small part. We generally read books multiple times and in different settings. We read more than one book by the same author and we try to read two or more different versions of the story of two or more similar stories. We discuss the story - what was the author trying to say? why do you think this happened? did the author make a good story? would you like to live in that world? what is different from our world? was this a good story and if it was, why? I am still amazed at the connections my kids make between books.

For example, while CC and I were picking up books in her room this week we had an interesting discussion about literature. She commented that Morgan Le Fay was very different in the Magic Tree House books than she was in Half Magic. I asked her what was different about them. Next we discussed why she thought that one author might use her as a good guy and one might use her as a bad guy (note to self: reinforce protagonist and antagonist lessons next week while they are fresh). We also compared each author's description of Camelot and King Arthur. I'm not sure I could have planned a better discussion if I had tried, and I never considered using the Magic Tree House books for anything other than fun reads for fluency.

I was planning to try to read some books that were challenging for me then I realized that many of the books that I am reading with BB are on all of those lists of "good" books. So I guess I will read the ones I have to for school first. However, I am excited to read Milton's Paradise Lost next with my ds. I have never actually finished reading it. It always seemed like it was beyond me - maybe because I don't like epic poems? However, I am dedicated to finishing it and being an active reader. I am ready for my mind to be stretched. It is supposed to be good for me. Right?

Literature for BB

This semester BB is taking Japanese, Physics, and an art class at the local cc. I am only teaching literature. We will be using Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings from HomeScholar Books for the first semester and British Literature from Hewitt Homeschool for the second semester. I am very excited.

I have to confess that although I love to read fantasy and even epic fantasy, I have never read Tolkien. I think I was afraid to be dissapointed. So far, I am not.

The other thing that has me excited is that Beowulf is covered twice. Beowulf was the first really "important" work that I fell in love with. I am hoping that BB will at least find it interesting.

We will start LOTR Tuesday. I am hoping to be about four weeks ahead of him in the study by then.