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June 20, 2008
Solstice?
Today is the Summer Solstice. I thought it was tomorrow. I'm completely at a loss. And Aidan seems to be sick.
I just ran to the store and bought ingredients for a pineapple upside-down cake. That's a little festivity, anyway.
Don't miss today's Astronomy Picture of the Day - Solstice Moonrise at the Temple of Poseidon, otherwise known as my new background screen.
Posted by lynx at 3:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 18, 2008
Band Names
Executive Pagan has been playing the imaginary band name game. Here are my favorites that I've come up with, over the years:
Blind Animal Magnets
Machine Gun Sheep
Monks in the Trunk
I'm very partial to Blind Animal Magnets. And it just goes to show that yes, you can take any three random words, and name a band. Which means that my favorite band has no excuse for their terrible name.
Posted by lynx at 11:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 17, 2008
How my kids spend their free time:
We played a game in high school history class, junior year, called "The World Game."* Did anyone else play this? We broke into teams and created countries. We earned points by creating different pieces of information for our countries, such as: climate details, history, government, constitution, national flag/anthem, educational system, etc. You can make treaties with other countries; natural disasters happen. In the end ...in the end you don't have to go to war, but my understanding is that our teacher never had a class that didn't. Jeff and I were in the same class. His group contained the two class overachievers. Mine did not. My country had a flag, an anthem, a complete history, and a fully-described educational system. His country had a constitution, and a fully-described military. My country fared badly in the world war.
Connor has spent this evening making a country for the world game. He's drawn up the basic geographical map and climate overview. He's chosen to give everything Arabic names, and has looked them all up to make sure he has the meanings he wants. Now, I think he's off designing the military vehicles.
Aidan, on the other hand, spent his evening making an Alien nest out of clay, complete with colonists in different states of being ... used ... by the Aliens.
*Yep, that was junior year history at my school. American history.
Posted by lynx at 10:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 12, 2008
Planning For Next Year
I've been mulling over our next school year. I'm not really happy with the way the last couple of years have gone. And so, I'm considering some changes.
First of all, I'm ditching my beloved Classical Writing for awhile. As much as I love and believe in the program, we need a break from it. I need someone else to work with my children for awhile, so we're planning to use some online classes from Home2Teach.
Second, I'm facing up the reality of teaching a child whose brain is just not going to work with my LCC philosophies. I firmly believe that studying quality narratives is far superior to reading a textbook; however, Connor actually retains more information, and has a better grasp of the big picture, when he reads the history encyclopedia. I can't do that. If I read the encyclopedia, my brain dumps the information as fast as I read it. It must be his father's DNA.
So, I'm dumping my lovely reading lists, and letting him do WTM-style logic-stage history. This involves him reading sections of our history encyclopedia; when he comes across something that piques his interest, then we pause there for him to find and read additional materials. Then we move on. There you go.
For the little boys, for writing, I am doing whatever Susan Wise Bauer says. I did not follow her recommendations for my older two, and I don't much like the results. I've gone back over her material, and I can see that it makes great sense. The younger kids are getting the full treatment in that area.
I am coming to realize that although I believe in and identify with the version of classical education outlined in the LCC, SWB has the better grasp of educational development of young people. For most things, this hasn't mattered. For writing, it has. So I think we're backing into The Well-Trained Mind for awhile, to see if her ideas and methods help us over these rough spots. In reality, we use what works best, no matter what it's called or how it's labeled, as long as we reach our goals.
So, for Connor's 7th grade year, we are planning:
Algebra I with an older Dolciani text. Jeff is teaching this, not I! The text is a bit beyond me, and will need someone who actually understands math to teach it.
Latin, continuing with the Galore Park Latin Prep series, and Lingua Latina.
Greek with Elementary Greek and this nifty, free resource.
Writing with Home2Teach; we might still do some grammar, and we'll use Megawords for spelling.
History the WTM way, early modern, 1650-1850, with an emphasis on American, and probably Virginian, history. Lots of field trips.
Literature - I hope we'll tackle the Iliad. Other than that, early modern selections, to include "Johnny Tremain," "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch," "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," Perrault's fairy tales, Grimm's fairy tales, Washington Irving stories, Poe, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." We might read "Common Sense." We'll see. This is all assuming I can get their noses out of Orson Scott Card books. I guess eventually, they'll run out. We are not tied to this list; we'll read what we can, and use books on CD for some. My focus will be on the Iliad, and, if we get to it, "Common Sense."
Science - ....
I have to decide whether or not to add Spanish. I want to. The kids want to. If only it required no effort on my part!
Aidan will actually be doing the same history and literature (probably not the Iliad, though if he wants to try it, he's welcome), and maybe even the same writing, switching out where necessary for his abilities. Same Latin, but slower. He's actually ahead of Connor in Greek. He'll be finishing up Right Start E, and moving into Singapore 4, for math. He'll be in 5th grade, but I suspect he'll be happier using "Story of the World" rather than the history encyclopedia.
Lachlan and Griffin will be doing "First Language Lessons," SWB's "Writing With Ease," Right Start B, and "Story of the World," and listening to lots and lots of fairy tales, myths, and tales of Egypt and Pirates, as always.
And piano ... though the boys have asked that I teach them this next year, so that we can use the piano money for swimming lessons instead. We can do that. I know I can teach them, but I hope I can help them maintain their enthusiasm. And Scouts, and hopefully we'll find a First Lego League team, and did I mention the field trips?
I'm tired already.
Posted by lynx at 10:25 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
June 10, 2008
Sweet Electricity!
We just spent the last 52 hours without power. I hear, though, that we were lucky; some of our neighbors aren't expected to get power back until Friday.
On Sunday afternoon I went to the grocery store. I knew there were storms due, so I checked the radar before I left. They were severe, but they were still several counties away; I had plenty of time to get to the store and back. I took my two little ones with me, but left the older two at home.
While we were in the store, the power went out. I went to the front to look out, and saw torrential rain. How did I not manage to beat the storm home?
This store was able to check us out even without the main power. While I checked out, I kept trying to get my older kids on the phone. There was no answer at the house. I got a little nervous.
Finally, we made it through the checkout line and to the door of the store. The rain had slackened considerably, but ... there was the tornado siren! The woman next to me said that she'd heard a report of a tornado at a very nearby road. That was enough for me. With the tornado siren blaring, I pulled the two little kids out into the rain and into our car. On the surface that might not sound like the smartest thing to do, but experience tells me that the siren is more likely to sound once the actual danger has passed.
I drove home through streets that had suddenly been transformed. HUGE trees were down everywhere; they had simply been pushed over, roots and all. Debris was all over the road, and I had to keep pulling over for emergency vehicles (not the kinds of things you want to see when you're trying to get home to your kids). The boys finally reached me with their cell phone, to tell me they were okay, but the power was out. They had done what they were supposed to do. When they saw the storm coming and realized it was going to be bad, they grabbed the cell and headed into the basement.
Our subdivision was fine - some siding and roof tiles blown off, a couple of smaller trees blown down. The bad stuff was just a block away (one patch of it, anyway - there are several patches all over the area).
Apparently it wasn't a tornado. Looking at the damage, that makes sense. None of the trees are stripped of their leaves, and I don't see other things I associate with tornado damage. It simply looks like these trees have been pushed over by a giant hand. The weather service says it was a type of storm called a derecho, which basically means a tornado without the rotation.
I haven't gotten any pictures myself, but you can see some here.
We were without power from Sunday afternoon until sometime between 6:30 and 9:30 pm tonight. That's always a fun thing to do with your four kids, when your husband is out of state, right? Actually, the kids handled it extremely well. Since we have a gas stove and hot water heater we could still cook and take showers. It wasn't too hot. The only problem was that it was so very humid - 70-100 percent the whole time. Ugh. I packed our freezer so well with ice that if we lose any food, it will be because I froze something that wasn't meant to be.
Most of the rest of our neighborhood had generators, which means the nights were loud and I haven't slept much since Sunday. So goodnight - I'm off to bask in the air conditioner!
Posted by lynx at 9:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 3, 2008
Rapunzel!
I have finally figured out who Connor reminds me of:
I gave the child his clean laundry tonight. He immediately began struggling with it, and called out to me: "I'll hold them off! You make a break for it!"
Posted by lynx at 10:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack