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March 28, 2008
Weekly Report
This will be interesting, because it feels like we spent most of the week alternately glaring at each other and looking out the window only to yell "What? It's snowing again?"
Yeah, snow. At least three times this week. Last night we had four inches dumped on us. At least it's sunny today. Soon, I believe, the traditional Michigan spring rains will set in. Sun is scheduled again in June.
I'm not complaining, though. Honest. I'd still rather this than tornado sirens.
Anyway. Math. Aidan made it to lesson 85 in Right Start E, despite much grumbling about division. In fairly typical Aidan fashion, he refused to be taught, but figured it out himself. Lachlan did lesson 41 in Right Start B, and Griffin spent the entire week on Lesson 75, adding two two-digit numbers with a sum greater than 100. That was a tough lesson for him, and we'll probably either have to keep working on it next week, or take a breather and do something else for awhile.
Grammar - Griffin completed through lesson 55, and Lachlan through lesson 12, in First Language Lessons. Lachlan's lesson involved me reading "The Lion and The Mouse" to him, for him to narrate back.
Me: What did the Lion think about doing to the Mouse?
Lachlan: Nom, nom, nom, nom ....
Greek - I don't really know where we are in Greek. I made assignments, but Aidan worked ahead and Connor did not quite finish what was assigned. I forsee more private tutoring in the future. These combined classes never work out for us. I think Aidan has launched into Week 4, and Connor is somewhere in Week 3.
Latin - Connor completed through 6.17 in Latin Prep, doing very well, He always amazes me with how well he remembers vocabulary. Aidan and I read through half of Cap. II in Lingua Latina (we're moving quickly right now because we've done these chapters before); Connor tagged along.
We only did history once this week - Story of the World, the Diaspora. Plus, Connor read several chapters of The Story of Europe. We did watch the Kevin Costner "Robin Hood." My goodness, why didn't any of you warn me? That was far worse than I remembered.
For science, we watched a documentary about dinosaurs, and one about volcanoes. We also watched "Alien" and "The Time Machine." Does that count? Aidan really liked "Alien." I'm sure we're terrible parents.
Aidan is still reading Just So Stories, and Connor is reading The Two Towers. Griffin and I read many Greek Myths ... I think the last one we read was about Io. Just two chapters of The Long Winter - this wasn't a good reading week, as you can see. Griffin and I are also reading lots of Jack Prelutsky, though Lachlan has temporarily regressed to Sandra Boynton.
I also started Connor back into Classical Writing today, with Week 2 of Homer B. Instead of the workbook model, he's rewriting the scene in which Deagol finds the ring and then meets his death, in medias res.
Here endeth the week.
Posted by lynx at 4:48 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
March 26, 2008
No Homeschooler Left Unknown
The State of Michigan, in its infinite wisdom, has put forth a bill to require homeschoolers to register with your local school superintendent.
HB5912 says thusly (new, proposed material in bold):
(4) For a child being educated at the child's home by his or
her parent or legal guardian, both of the following apply:
(a) The exemption from the requirement to attend public school
may exist under either subsection (3)(a) or (3)(f), or both.
(b) The exemption from the requirement to attend public school
exists only if the child's attendance is appropriately reported to
public school officials as required under section 1578.
Sec. 1578. (1) The appropriate authority of each nonpublic
school at the beginning of
theeach school year shall furnish all
of the following to the superintendent of schools of the school
district in which the nonpublic school is situated or the
intermediate superintendent:
(a) The name and age of each child who is enrolled at the
school.
(b) The number or name of the school district and the city or
township and county in which the parent, guardian, or person in
parental relation resides.
(c) The name and address of the parent, guardian, or other
person in parental relation.
(d) The name and age of each child enrolled in the school who
is not in regular attendance.
(2) The parent or legal guardian of a child being educated at
the child's home by his or her parent or legal guardian as
described in section 1561(3)(f) shall at the beginning of each
school year furnish all of the following to the superintendent of
schools of the school district in which the child's home is
situated or the intermediate superintendent of the intermediate
school district in which the child's home is situated:
(a) The name and age of each child who is being educated at
the home.
(b) The number or name of the school district and the city or
township and county in which the parent or legal guardian resides.
(c) The name and address of the parent or legal guardian.
HB 5912 was introduced in the state
house on March 19, 2008, by Reps. Clack (D), Hammon(D), Constan (D), Johnson
(D), Hammel (D), Vagnozzi (D), Alma Smith (D), Meadows (D), LeBlanc (D),
Simpson(D), Robert Jones (D), Virgil Smith (D), Jackson (D), Leland (D),
Bauer (D), Kathleen Law (D), Polidori (D), Corriveau (D), Ebli (D),
Sheltrown (D), Wojno (D), Farrah (D), Miller (D), and Dean (D).
My goodness, look at all the "D"s.
I'm not that worried. This is stupid and unnecessary, but the homeschoolers are rallying and I don't think it will go anywhere. Apparently the government tried this 10 years ago, and failed. Still, if you homeschool in Michigan, you can use this link to contact your representative and let them know that Michigan can bite your shiny metal you strongly disagree with such legislation.
Posted by lynx at 11:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Partial Trees
We saw the sun! It exists! It's real! Though as you can see from my sketch, Spring is still not quite here yet. Still, we were able to go outside, without coats! Or mittens!
As for the sketch ... it's a start.
MMV's entry today made me laugh.
Posted by lynx at 4:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 25, 2008
How To Know You're Doing it Right
My 10 year old came to me, before I had breakfast, and asked to do Latin.
Honest.
Posted by lynx at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Give it Away
Amy at Good Soil left this in my comments, but it deserves more notice:
Stephanie,I’ve been stewing over the “tax rebates” for a while - are we really so greedy as a nation that during the biggest economic downturn in recent memory we’ll go buy new MP3 players? Do we really want to subsidize Walmart and China with our tax dollars? How much is this plan costing us over and above the amount the checks are being written for? Well, I’ve decided to act on my thoughts. I’ve started a new blog about the topic focusing on what I believe is the best response to the Economic Stimulus Plan – giving it away. Please visit and let me know what you think.
Give It Away
www.giveitaway.typepad.com
Posted by lynx at 9:33 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 21, 2008
More Eggs!
I'm playing around with the fact that iPhoto can export my pictures onto a webpage. How cool is that? So, here are more of our pysanky eggs.
I know it looks like I only did two eggs; however, I was also the one helping all the children with theirs.
iPhoto also exports a slideshow, which I'm going to try out right ... here!
Hmm. That didn't work so well.
Posted by lynx at 11:01 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Return to the Weekly Report
My husband requested that I keep doing our weekly reports; if nothing else, they give him a guide to go by should I be ill, or, gods forbid, worse. So on that cheery note ... ;-)
I have finally figured out the best, easiest and smoothest way to get through school tasks with the little boys: First thing in the morning, I gather up ALL our school books, math manipulatives, workbooks, copybooks, everything; I dump it all on the kitchen table, and we just work until we're done. (For the little boys, that's 30-45 minutes of work, altogether.)
This week Lachlan did up through half of lesson 35 in Right Start Math Level B. This is a cool lesson. It has the student build three four-digit numbers with base-10 cards, and add them together. The point of the lesson is to teach the concept of trading, and it works amazingly well. He finished through Lesson 8 in First Language Lessons, and the first half of his handwriting workbook. He also played on Music Ace, and learned to make pysanky eggs.
Griffin worked up through half of lesson 75 in Right Start B. This lesson involves adding 2-digit numbers with sums over 100. This was very hard for Griffin, and we'll probably spend a few days on it. He finished through lesson 50 in First Language Lessons, and the first half of his handwriting workbook. He's into the long "u" sound in Phonics Pathways. He also played Music Ace for hours on end, and listened to me read from Chapter 19 of Story of the World ("A New Kind of King"), a couple of chapters from The Long Winter, and myths 27-32 from Atticus the Storyteller's 100 Greek Myths* ("The Starry Hunter," "The Terrible Feast," "The Dolphin Messenger," "The Bee of Wisdom," "The Robber's Bed," and "The Sharp-Eyed King.") He colored some coloring pages and did some map work for history. He watched a documentary about dinosaurs, and made some pysanky eggs by himself. He worked very, very hard on a tough piano piece, and made amazing progress.
Aidan finished through lesson 82 in Right Start E, which involved finding remainders. This was very easy for him. He also did exercises 7 and 8 in Singapore 4A, dealing with estimation and factoring numbers. Factoring is new to him, but I think he's got it. He did the Singapore exercises because he was in a bad mood, and preferred to go work in his room away from people, than to do a lesson that required human interaction. A wise choice, I think.
He completed through exercise 5.4 of Latin Prep 1, which involved a short reading of the story of Niobe. You would think that a kid whose mother has read him both Atticus and D'Aulaire's Greek Myths would have some idea of who Niobe was, but no. He did well, but he really very much dislikes it when they throw words at him he has not encountered before, even though they also provide a glossary right there, on the same page, right next to the work he's translating.
Aidan also listened to my reading from SOTW and The Long Winter. He read Diane Stanley's Saladin, and some selections from Just So Stories.
Connor worked through Exercise 6.12 in Latin Prep 1, this week covering questions and pronouns in the accusative. He read more of Lord of the Rings, and all of Geraldine McCaughrean's El Cid.
We're taking a break from Classical Writing right now, but both older boys are working on creative, descriptive paragraphs. They also both completed through week 2 of Elementary Greek.
I worked through Cap. 8 of Lingua Latinaand week 4 of EG, and continued reading 1066: The Year of the Conquest.
We made the pysanky eggs as a family, and celebrated our spring holiday on Thursday. We also watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" this week, a family favorite, in honor of Arthur C. Clarke.
Tonight we're going to watch the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood. (Yes, I know, I know, but I can't ever pass up Alan Rickman as the Sheriff.) I'd like to get a movie about the Crusades, but don't know which are good. How is "Kingdom of Heaven?" How is the Charlton Heston version of "El Cid?" How is the Terry Jones series on the Crusades? Or the History Channel's "The Crescent and the Cross?"
* A million thanks to Poppins for leading me to this book, many moons ago. It is still my favorite way to introduce the Greek myths to children.
Posted by lynx at 11:32 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 19, 2008
The Ostara Bunny Cometh
It's that time again! This is the second year we've made pysanky eggs, and we're definitely improving. This is one of Jeff's from this year.
And this is one of mine. Many more to come, because we did some very, very cool eggs. However, I do have to work on the art of photographing them:
Posted by lynx at 10:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 18, 2008
R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke
ABC - Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke. They filled and expanded the imagination of my childhood.
Here's what Ira Flatow of Science Friday had to say about Mr. Clarke's passing:
Arthur C. Clarke, author of more than 100 books including the one that made him known to many more millions, "2001: A Space Odyssey," has passed from us.Thank you for your passion and your prose. Thank you for your vision.
Thank you for speaking out on important issues, for not keeping silent.We all have favorite scenes, chapters or quotes from his novels or movies.
But my favorite remains this one not published in any novel: Years after missions to the moon had ended, Clarke was asked what he thought was the most amazing part of the whole race to the moon.
What's most amazing to me, he said, was that we could go there...and not go back.
Posted by lynx at 9:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Holy Cow!
Ostara is not next week. It's Thursday!
Why doesn't someone tell me these things?
Posted by lynx at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2008
Greek!
We've finally taken the plunge, and have started learning Greek.
My wishes are to teach the boys Attic and/or Homeric Greek. However, I've bombed out in my Homeric Greek course. And after a great deal of thought, I figured that it's better to use the easy Koine course I can buy, than the difficult Attic or Homeric course I'd have to work out myself. And so, we have started Elementary Greek.
For those of you who are considering Greek but are afraid, be of good cheer: Elementary Greek is easy. The lessons are short. Very short. Which is good. So I can give my kids very short lessons in Greek, and feel that we're doing Greek. I'm totally fine with that.
The downside is that all in all, the program is a bit dull, on the same level as Latina Christiana: It's mostly vocabulary and grammar, with little translation. I would prefer something more on the lines of Galore Park's Latin Prep series, but no such thing exists. Galore Park is working on a Greek program, but it will not be available in the near future. So.
The other downside, from our perspective, is that Elementary Greek specifically teaches you to read the Bible. All the memory work is Biblical. That's fine, I want my children to be familiar with the Bible. However, alongside the Bible verses, I think we're going to learn some of these. Look at that list. There are 147 of them. Ten Commandments are certainly easier to remember.
And hey! We're learning Greek!
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March 16, 2008
Lesson Of The Day
Don't wear your iPod headphones while you are working with static-filled blankets.
Posted by lynx at 3:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 15, 2008
Things are looking up!
Look, now the entry is next to the sidebar, instead of beneath it! That's progress, folks.
Posted by lynx at 11:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New Look
As you can see, I’m trying out a new look here. I originally created the new style using Apple’s iWeb application, which makes it terribly easy to create a web page - provided you want to do something Apple has already decided you want to do. It’s easy and nifty, sure, but not exactly amenable to user choice, or control. Modifying the included templates is difficult at best; in some instances it’s impossible.
I thought I'd use iWeb because I'm tired of messing around with css and coding things myself. I tried to be sneaky and transfer the iWeb css into my MT stylesheet. Don't do that. I still don't understand what happened, but it created URLs and took over my main index page. The I had a pretty blog with no way to actually add content.
So here I am, doing exactly what I did not want to do. In my typical style, I didn't bother to get the page fixed first, and then go live with it; oh, no. It was going to be fast and easy, see. What I didn't realize is that I've apparently forgotten everything I ever knew about css.
I'll work it out ...
Posted by lynx at 11:24 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
test
test
Posted by lynx at 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack