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Everest Academy
February 2008
Daily Ramblings...
Feb 25, 2008
Hi Gang!
I enjoyed seeing so many of you this week. Once again, we had a ton of folks show up at McDonald's for our "park day". I am hopeful that soon we can actually be at the park again. The last two have been at McDonald's. We have been having a great mixture of veteran and new homeschoolers along with younger kids and teens. I also got to see many of you swimming on Wednesday at Jasper Natatorium. I love to go swimming in the winter. It seems so rebellious somehow. There is a new "play date" scheduled now every Wednesday at Jasper Natatorium at 1:00 p.m. The cost will be $2 per person for those that swim. I know my kids will want to go, maybe not every week, but quite often. I hope to see you all there.
Dae wanted me to let everyone know that she has a mouse that she would like to give away. It is a very sweet mouse, dark brown, but not sure of the gender. She said she had some food to go with it but wants to keep it's cage. They are easy pets to maintain, but for some reason she wants to give it away. If you would like to have him/her, please let me know.
This week we watched "Anne Frank, The Whole Story" by Disney. It is an excellent movie. It seemed like it might be a combination of "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Anne Frank Remembered" by Miep Gies. It really brought some things home for us. When we got through watching the movie, Dalton decided that he did want to read the book, which previously he had declined. We also checked out "Anne Frank Remembered" and a biography of Hitler. In the next few weeks, there are several lectures coming up around town from Holocaust survivors (see below). I think we may attend some of those.
Dae learned to crochet this week. She has only learned the very basic skills but has already made a scarf, a key chain, and a belt. She is currently working on making my mom a scarf. She says it is the "most fun thing in the world". She takes it to bed with her every night, watches T.V. with it, wants to take it to park day, etc... Who would have "thunk" it?
What did everyone think about Cirque Works: Birdhouse Factory at Alys Stephens Center? I thought it was awesome, AWEsome, AWESOME! We went to the Friday night performance and had great seats. It was a cross between the circus and STOMP. It was really awesome. Dae won an after party ticket, so they let us all come in. We were the first ones in, and Dae and her little friend were the only kids in there. They took a family picture of us, took a picture of the girls with two of the performers, and then had the girls get up on the podium with one of the "living manequins" for a picture. They also got to meet all of the performers. They were totally enthralled. It was really a good night for us.
I am going out of town on Saturday and will not be back until Tuesday. I will take my laptop with me and hope for a WiFi. If there is WiFi, I will keep a check on my email and have you the newsletter on time. If not, you will have the newsletter Tuesday evening. Where am I going? Gatlinburg!!! I am hoping for some snow. Either way, we are planning to hit Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, Ripley's Aquarium, the Arts & Crafts Community, and The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mainly though, I want SNOW!!!
Feb 18, 2008
Oh! Woe is me! Dalton took down his bunk beds this week. This was his first "big boy bed". He also gave his sister ALL of his Legos. My time is running out guys! Or...should I look at is as a new adventure or as one door shutting while another one opens? I remember at his age not being able to wait until I was an adult. Dalton gave me the supreme compliment of saying that he dreads becoming an adult and that he enjoys being a kid. I actually thinks that it shows a lot of wisdom. By the way, we are going to sell the bunk beds and one full size mattress for $50 if anyone needs them. They are red with a full size bottom bunk and twin size top bunk. They are in very good shape.
This week was an awesome week weather wise. I believe that we went through all four seasons this week. One day I had the fan in the window and that night had to use the electric blanket. One day the daffodils were beautiful, and the next day they were beat down by ice. We went out today and explored under rocks and found two adult slugs and about five babies. We also found a ton of baby roly polies. I noticed that the Trillium Decumbens were starting to poke up their heads, so we will probably start our native plant rescues in a couple of weeks. This is my favorite time of the year.
See you soon,
Deb Spradlin
Feb 11, 2008
Hi Gang!
"Mom! I just had a math lesson! I learned about measuring and fractions!" This is what Dae breathlessly said as she came running in the living room. Isn't it awesome when kids are so excited to learn something? David was working on our back porch and was teaching Dae about converting fractions and measuring the wood he was cutting. Does she remember that we went over that a few weeks ago in her math book? No. Will she remember it after it was applied and she was so excited about it? You betcha! That's what it's all about folks! That makes it all worth while... Oh, yes... Another worth while moment came with Dalton and MySpace. He was showing me a letter that he had written to someone, and you guys, it was like an adult had written it. It was coherent, articulate with proper spelling, and awesome punctuation...Yes, a moment to be proud of!!!!
It was a great week this week. We spent lots of time outside. We discovered a bumblebee on a daffodil that just sat still for us. We picked the flower, and it still did not move. We discussed that it had probably come out on Friday when it was so warm. It was very sluggish I can only assume because of the colder weather on Saturday. We put it back where we found it and hope that it makes it. Dae has been zooming through the Kirsten books. I am so glad after we had such a tough time of it with Josefina. She is already on book 4, and we have had to stop and wait on it to arrive from the library. Dalton is wrapping up World War II and is still doing great with Geometry. He only has about 10 lessons (maybe less) to complete the curriculum, but he says he wants to go back through the whole thing one more time to make sure he has it. His decision. Isn't that awesome? I went ahead and ordered him Math-U-See Algebra II at his request. He will start on that when he gets ready. Dalton also just got through reading Glenn Beck's "Inconvenient Book" and really enjoyed that. He also read Bill O'Reilly's "Kids Are Americans Too" but said that one was not on a mature enough level. He has now requested Lou Dobbs' new book. Where does he get this love of politics? His dad, definitely not me. Dalton is starting to look for his first "real" job. He is looking up the phone numbers, researching Alabama Law, and calling each job and asking what their minimum hire age is. Yes, I know about Alabama Law (it's on the website if anybody needs it), but he didn't ask me....so, I will let him research it until he comes to a point when he feels like he needs help with it.
Creatively speaking, we have been very busy. We have been cutting stained glass for our backsplash mosaic. We are working on sock babies, crazy patchwork quilting, painting, and dabbling in some gardening. I ordered Dae some fairy craft books, but I have not been able to find her any fairy gardening books. I am going to let her start a fairy garden if she wants to. She made her first stained glass mosaic this week. She did really well. I only had to remind her once to put on her safety glasses. Dalton will help cut glass when I ask him to but is not really interested. I think he may be more interested when we actually start laying out the pattern for the mosaic.
What do we have going on this week? Well, we "hopefully" (fingers crossed) are going to get to do the long awaited cake decorating class. I may also whip out the Kirsten craft and cook books as well. Dalton has McWane on Wednesday. Dalton has also expressed a desire to go and get his Driver's Permit. Yikes! He has also expressed a renewed interest in the learning to play the guitar and asked me to get him some resources. I will take care of that this week. I also have collected and cleaned about 10 soda bottles so that we can do experiments using "Bottle Biology". We will continue to work on our stained glass, sock babies, working on the back porch, and quilting. If I can get them from the library, Dalton will be watching "Saving Private Ryan", "Schindler's List", "Diary of Anne Frank", and "The Pianist" in the next few weeks.
Deb Spradlin
Feb 4, 2008
Hi Gang!
We had a terrific week this week! The American Girl Club went to Burritt on the Mountain in Huntsville on Tuesday. We had never been there before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As far as authenticity and structure goes, it was the best reenactment location I have been to thus far. There were not any activities going on that day, so we were free to walk around and explore, but I will be excited to go back when there is some sort of event going on. I really felt like I was back in the 1800s. They had several old cabins including one that they described as probably being a sharecropper's. As my family was sharecroppers back in the day, this was very interesting to me. Most of the cabins were fully furnished showing the economic statuses of sharecroppers all the way up to store owners. I have been to many historic locations, but I saw several items here that I had either not seen before or had not seen in a very long time. There was a smokehouse, a spring house, a loom, an old church that is still used today and many many other items. I really had a great time there. Thanks very much to Lisa McAnnally for setting this up for our American Girls.
This weekend celebrated my son's and my husband's birthdays. Dalton turned 15 and wanted to have a couple of his buddies spend the night. I took the three of them to the movies on Friday night and was very pleased to listen in on their conversation on the ride there. They were talking about global warming, earth cycles, past and present presidential candidates, the war, politics in general, etc... We watched a true story called "American Gangsters" (not for younger kids) and on the way home talked about honesty, crime, the harmful effects of drugs, and economics. Saturday morning these kids got up and cooked scrambled eggs and pancakes for the entire family AND cleaned up after themselves. I was very very impressed with these homeschooled young men. They had their silly moments, of course, but neither of these young men were hesitant at all to join in an adult conversation, insert his very informed views, show respect, or to help out. Go homeschoolers!!!
Dae and I attended a quilting class on Thursday. She has decided she wants to make a crazy patchwork quilt (among all of her other crafty artsy stuff she does), so I thought we would give it a try. All of the other ladies there had completely white hair and a multitude of talents ranging from quilting, pottery, embroidery, and crosstitch. They were absolutely thrilled that Dae was there. I have got to go and buy her some suitable material to work with, and I am going to try to take her to the class every Thursday. I think she will be an inspiration to the other ladies, and they will teach her much that I do not know. I have a ton of scrapbooking to catch up on, so I may take that to do while she is working on her project.
See you soon,
Deb Spradlin
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