Rambling #1 -- The Tour de France started yesterday in Monaco. I usually do not give a second thought to this bicycle race. It is not on my list of interesting things. This year, though, my curiosity has been piqued. It all started a few weeks ago with this thread on the4Real Learning forums. They discussed about doing a unit study of sorts on the TdF by reading books from the country or town that they cycle through, learning the geography of that area and making food that are well-know in that area as well. I loved this idea. I couldn't pull this off for this year but I thought this would be doable for next year.
I decided yesterday to just look at the race and see what it was all about. My kids were less than thrilled about having to watch it. As the cyclists sped their way through the streets of Monaco, though, Rocky's interest began to bloom. He was interested in Lance Armstrong's placing. After the race was over, he was still talking about it. Later on that afternoon we went for a walk down to the gate that leads to the creek. Rocky and Mia staged their own Tour de France on the way back. Rocky was really starting to get into this.
I had plum forgotten about the race this morning but my faithful race watcher reminded me. We had missed the beginning but was able to see the last five minutes of the race. It was different today. They all raced together rather than one at a time like they did yesterday. Obviously, I need to do some more TdF research to figure this all out. It didn't really matter before but now that I have a little guy who has interest in this, I need to pull my weight in the knowledge department.
Rambling #2 -- We continued with our 'fun math' on Saturday. We have reached Archimedes in our history reading. That guy was a very smart cookie. He came up with exponential numbers, buoyancy, Pi, the lever and the pulley. Whew! That is alot from one human. My two younger kids really could have cared less about Archimedes but I plunged ahead for Mia's sake. At least she pretended to care. We used a bagel to figure out circumference, diamter and Pi. We read the Sir Cumference story about Pi (I love those series.) We then played around with our math balance. This is when Missy came alive. She enjoyed putting the tags on the numbers and figuring out what numbers balance each other. We didn't do as much with this chapter as we have done with others but you can only do so much when the interest of your audience is low. My math mantra kept ringing in my ears: There is always next week. There is always next week.
Rambling #3 -- Yesterday, the news was filled with the murder of NFL star Steve McNair. This will come as a surprise to no one who knows me in real life, but I didn't have a clue who McNair was, but my husband, my obsessed avid sportsman, knew exactly who he was so I listened to the TV coverage right along with him, feigning showing interest. The two things that did get my attention was how everyone was saying what a great family man McNair was and how he continually gave back to the community. This seemed to be at odds with the news report. The man was found in his apartment with his girlfriend. Girlfriend / family man is a contradiction to my way of thinking. The actions of this man during the last 48 hours of his life are not those of a 'great family man.' He may have done amazying things for the community (and Yay for him for doing so) but maybe he should have given a little bit more to his family. Now, I am writing this only from what I have read in the news. I may not have the whole story. I sincerely hope that I do not. HIs family deserves much more than this.
So ends my ramblings.
I love getting homeschool packages in the mail--especially when they are books! 
I had to order some things for my change of mind in history. I thought that we were going to do Ancient History this coming year but, as usual, I changed my mind and now we are going to do a head-spinning tour through the entire history cycle. I have all of my resources for Ancient History for next year but now I have to come up with something for this coming year.
Enter Rainbow Resource. I love that place. It is my one-stop shopping place. I also love their short shipping time. It only took a week and a half for them to ship it to me. That is a good thing for a book-lover.
My Beloved brought home the package from the post office very late last night. Mia was still awake 
( I"m afraid that girl has inherited her mother's need for little sleep.) At least I had someone to share my excitement. In fact, I think she was more excited that I was. I know, hard to believe. The reason for her excitement was that I had bought a few books of paper dolls (Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I and Shakepeare characters) and colouring books (Kings and Queens of England, George Washington and Lewis and Clark.) These are some of Mia's favourite things. She wanted to wake up her siblings so that they could see the stash.
As usual, I am very happy with my purchases. Here is my list:
a book on King Tut
a book on Cleopatra, as well as the paper dolls
Sword and the Circle by Rosemary Sutcliff
Shakespeare for Kids as well as the paper dolls
Lewis and Clark activitiy book, The Seaman's Dog (a read aloud) as well as the colouring book and a unit study book
Spymaster: George Washington, Revolutionary War --activity book as well as the colouring book
a book on Queen Elizabeth I as well as the colouring book and paper dolls
4 CD sets (Tales of King Arthur, Back of the NorthWind, Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables.) These CDs are for a big trip that we have planned in Sept. It is really hard not to break open the wrapping and pop them into the CD player.
I also bought Life of Fred-- Fractions. I will post more on that at a later time.
So that is all of my purchases. The girls were disappointed that we can't play with the paper dolls until much later. That spoiled all of the fun of getting packages in the mail.
I have been reading Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor (no, not the singer) this week. This book has been very inspiring for me. It is a hard read but a neccessary one. This book has motivated me to make some changes in our homeschool.
Poetic knowledge is the opposite of scientific knowledge. Whereas scientific knowledge is facts and information that is put into your head, poetic knowledge is feelings and emotions that are put into your heart. Poetic knowledge comes from knowing and loving various objects, be it a poem, a painting, a piece of music, etc. From knowing these things, your heart is filled by the beauty of it. I will post some quotes from this book later on to explain this better.
Reading this book, though, caused me to think about well I am doing in instilling this kind of knowledge in my children. Before this past year rolled along, I was doing pretty good in this area. We were reading poetry and memorizing it, we were doing picture study and composer study on a fairly regular basis and we were reading about 3 or 4 Shakespeare plays a year. We were doing pretty well. Then last year came along. Everything flew out of the window. I was so focused on getting Rocky reading and getting a handle on Mia's spelling; oh! and don't forget adding in another student, that the poetic side of life crashed and burned.
Mr. Taylor reminded me this past week that we need to get back into the swing of poetic things. I realized in reading his book that i missed reading the poetry and doing picture study. Those things were the fun things of our day.
I have decided that making changes should happen right now. Last night I printed off poems by Longfellow (for Mia) and Christiana Rossetti (for Rocky.) We read them today. I forgot how beautiful it is to read and discuss poetry with my children. We also read a book about Paul Cezanne. Once I get a refill for my colour cartridge, I can print off some of his paintings for study.
I told the kids that we were going to go back to the beautiful things of life. Mia had a great idea on how to handle all of these areas. She suggested that each day we do something different. On Mon. we would do math history, play math games and read math storybooks. Tues. would be for poetry (reciting, copying, etc.) Wed. would be for picture study and composer study. Shakespear would be done on Thursday and birds (our unit study ) would be for Fridays. Now, Mia thought this would be all that we did during the day but I told her that math and reading had to be done every day so as to not forget important points. She was okay with that.
I like Mia's idea, so we will run with this next week. If this works for the summer, we might carry on a similar idea for the rest of the year.
We have had a few busy days here on the Prairie. So much for the lazy days of summer. There hasn't been anything lazy about this summer so far.
Last Friday, the kids and I were invited to the fair by some friends. They have two girls whose ages are similar to Rocky and Missy's ages. I have never taken the kids to the fair before. It just has never been a priority for us. I decided this year to bite the bullet and take them.
We had such a blast! The kids were on major ride mode. The fair sponsors offered a deal where if you bought a bracelet for a specific number of dollars then you could go on an umlimited amount of rides. The cost really added up for 3 bracelets but it was worth it in the end. I think the kids had at least a hundred rides each. They kept going on a ride, getting off ang going back on. It seemed unending. We topped our great day off with the obligatory Candy Floss treat to take home. We had such a great day!
Saturday was our 11th wedding anniversary. My beloved and I went to Medicine Hat for a quick overnight get-away. My Beloved was able to get a suite of rooms that came with champagne, a rose and the best chocolate I have ever had. The bedroom had a jacuzzi in it. The last time I used a jacuzzi was on my honeymoon! I found it amusing that there were 3 rooms in this suite (the bedroom, a sitting room and bathroom) and there was a television in each room, even the bathroom. We had such a wonderful time. It is not too often that we have time to ourselves off of the farm. This was, indeed, a special time for us.
Then today we were invited to go to the pool with some other friends. There were 3 families in total at the pool. Again, we had an awesome day. We have made such good friends in the last year. It is an added bonus that these friends homeschool as well. It makes the conversations so much easier when you are like-minded. You don't always have to have a mental check on things that come out of your mouth. After our swim we went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. A perfect end to a perfect day.
In between all of this gallivanting, I have tried to squeeze in gardening and yard work. I am hoping to be more successful in this endeavor as the week progresses. 
In reading books for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks book challenge, I have had the delight of reading some really good books. Dark, but good, books. There seems to be a trend in comtemporary novels--the darker the better. There have been some really interesting storylines and writing styles in modern books these days. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is no exception.
Bruno lives in Germany during World War II. His family is quite wealthy. Bruno is used to getting what he wants and living in luxury. They have to move, though, and everything changes. They move to a dark and dreary place called Out-With. The house that Bruno's family has to live in is very small. This is not at all what Bruno is used to. As it turns out, there is nothing about Out-With that Bruno finds satisfactory. There are no children here for Bruno to play with. As a result, Bruno becomes very lonely and wants to leave. His father, though, tells him that they can't leave as he is a soldier and it is his duty to take care of Out-With. If he left, he would be shamed by the Fury (the man who is Bruno's dad's boss.)
As time goes on, Bruno notices that on the other side of the fence, there are rows of men and children all wearing striped pajamas. One day, he goes on a trip of exploration and finds a boy, exactly his age, wearing striped pajamas, sitting by the fence. Bruno befriends the boy. The rest of the story is about this special friendship.
There are many stories out there about the Holocaust but not many of them are written from the viewpoint of a German, especially a young German boy. This book stands out due to the storyline. The ending is thought-provoking.
If you asked a homeschooler the hypothetical question of 'If you were stranded on a deserted island, what two things would you have to have with you?" Most homeschoolers (even though it would be practically impossible) would say a computer and the library. These two things are, for most homeschoolers, essential in giving our children a great education. These two things are important to us homeschooling parents.
I have written before how much I appreciate our local library. It is small, there are not very many books but I do alot of business through Inter-library loans. I almost always receive the books that I ask for. The librarians work part time there but there is one librarian who goes the extra mile. Recently, I asked about the Canadian Flyer series. (This is the Canadian version of The Magic Tree House books.) My favourite librarian said that she would order the next four in the series for me. Yesterday we went to the library to get our books. She had gone online and printed off a list of the rest of the books in the series so I would know what to order next. She is always doing things like this. I remember when I was first thinking about homeschooling and had ordered some books on this subject. My favourite librarian went online and printed off some information about homeschooling to 'help me out.' She is always giving my kids colouring pages and activity pages. Even though they are not involved in the summer reading program, she always gives them the materials that the other kids receive. She is always doing the extra things that make you feel special.
My favourite librarian is retiring next week. I feel like I am losing a member of my famly. My kids and I will miss her very much. Yes, there are other librarians, but they just don't make the cut, in my opinion. They don't go that extra mile. That is what gives you the title of 'my favourite librarian.'
We have been going through the Living Math History lesson plans very, very slowly. Don't let our pace fool you, though. I love these plans. Julie, at Living Math, did an awesome job with these ideas. We are having so much fun. My kids are being introduced to the Masters of thought, as well as to higher math. We are also discovering wonderful math books.
I wanted to post about what we did on Tuesday with the Pythagorean Theorum. Mia has already done square numbers but it has been awhile and she is a bit rusty in this area. Rocky is just beginning multiplication so we haven't reached squares yet so this lesson was an introduction for him. We have been reading about Pythagorus of the famed Theorum. Did you know that Pythagorus is also responsible for coming up with even and odd numbers. He also discovered square and triangle numbers. ( I have to admit that I didn't know about triangle numbers--never heard of them before. If I was taught this in school, I must have been daydreaming that day, which is very possible. )
To teach the concept of square numbers, the living math history plans have a few great ideas. The idea that I used was to draw a right angle triangle on the white board. I, then, placed 1 in. tiles around the perimeter of the triangle. One leg of the triangle had 3 tiles on it, so then I proceeded to make that 3 into a square with the tiles to show the the square of 3 is 9. The second leg of the triangle was 4 in. I did the same thing with that. The hypotenuse was 5 in. long and I made that into a square as well with 25 tiles. I, then, wrote out the Pythagoreum Theorum and had the kids figure out the formula with our triangle and its tiles. This was cool.
We, then, read Sea Squares by Joyce Hulme. This is a cute story that does a great job of introducing square numbers to the younger set.
I love learning how to introduce higher math concepts to my kids using simple, hands-on methods. This is what living math is all about. This is why I am enjoying this so much.
I was in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast and listening to the silence. Something was definitely wrong. The kids were on their way to go outside. That endeavor does not ever elicit silence. My curiousity was quenched when I heard Missy tiptoe into the kitchen.
"Mommy, come quick. We see a bird!"
I followed her tiptoes to the back door. The rest of the crew were huddled by the back door looking out the window. There on our back lawn was a black bird. My first thought was "We need to do some serious birding so the kids know that a crow is not a big deal." On further inspection, though, I realized that it was not a crow because it was not a true black. Mia commented on this as soon as the thought traipsed across my mind.
"It looks like it is black, but it's head looks purple and the rest of his body looks green."
Sure enough, the bird was a translucent purple and green. If you looked at it one way it looked black, if you looked at it a different way, then you could see the purple and the green. My kids were mesmerized by this. Missy ran for her handy, dandy bird book. She looked up all of the black birds. By process of elimination, we decided that the beautiful bird on our back lawn was a Brewer's Blackbird.
We stayed at the back door for about 15 minutes, admiring him (it was a male) and listening to his call. The kids observed that when he made his call his little tail jerked upwards. The kids were fascinated. All good things have to come to an end, though, and the kids barreled outside to play forcing the Blackbird to fly to parts unknown. I went back to the kitchen satisfied with our spontaneous nature study lesson. I think Charlotte Mason would have been proud.
Three months ago, when we were choosing our unit studies for the summer, Missy exuberantly chose 'birds' as her choice of study. She has been very patient waiting for her turn to pop up. When you are doing 3 and 4 week units, though, the time moves very slowly, especially when you are 6 years old. Every few weeks I would be asked, "Mommy, when are we going to do my birds?" I would say in my best Mommy voice, "Soon." Well, 'soon' has finally arrived and I have a very happy little girl.
I decided that we would do an abrupt end to our Ocean unit and dive into birds this week. I gave Missy a taste of what the unit would be like by going on a bird hunt on Friday. We went for a walk around our farm yard looking at birds with our binoculars. Missy's excitement was contagious. Well, it was contagious to me. I started to feel the her excitement whenever we spotted a new bird. We tried to figure out what kind of bird it might be. I am not a bird person so I didn't have a clue as to what some of them were. I can spot a crow and a robin but after that I am clueless.
We had to go town on Saturday for Rocky's soccer tournament so I squeezed a visit in to the book store and found a field guide for Saskatchewan birds. You would have thought I bought Missy the original of The Iliad. She was bubbling over with happiness. She hasn't let that book out of her sight since I gave it to her. Everytime there is a bird in the yard, she dives for her book to figure out what kind it is. I have never seen Missy so interested in anything before. It is encouraging for me to see her excitement.
We started our bird unit today. We read about what makes a bird a bird. Do you know what it is? No! it is not that they fly. No! It is not that they have beaks. (Did you know that octopuses and squids have beaks? We learned this today. All I can say to this is: Huh!) Feathers are what makes a bird a bird. Again, huh!
We also drew a picture of a bird then labeled its anatomy. The kids got the biggest giggle when they had to label the bird's rump. They thought that was pretty self-explanatory but they humoured the instructions and labeled it anyway. Then they made a bird from potato prints. I got this idea from The Usborne Art Skills book. We used cardboard edges dipped into brown paint to make the tree outline and then dipped quartered potatoes into red paint for the bird's body. There was more finagling done to make the head and the tail but it was a cute looking bird.
Tomorrow, Missy has informed me that she is going to finger paint a bird. She has many plans for this unit. This scares me.
There is another controversy in the book world. Yes, it involves a child's book again. Yes, it involves fantasy again. This kind of genre for the younger set always set people off. First, there was Harry Potter, then the Twilight series, now it is the Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I have just read the first book in the series, The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan. I really liked it and was looking forward to reading it to my kids this summer. I guess, though, that some people have problems with it because it deals with Greek Mythology.
The fact that it is about Greek Mythology is what drew me to the book in the beginning. Mia loves Greek Myths, so I thought this would excite her to read these books on her own. I did want to pre-read, though, to be on the safe side. My mommy radar saw no problems with this book. Yes, it is dark. Yes, it is about monsters. Yes, it is about gods (plural.) Yes, there is fighting. But, as with all good literature, there is a clear line between good and evil (at least in my opinion.) In the end, good overcomes evil. This is what I have been taught about fantasy literature. If good overcomes evil in the end, then it is okay for your children to be exposed to these kinds of books. There is evil in real life, but good (God) will overcome. The problem comes about when the lines between good and evil get murky and you cannot differentiate between the two. This is when red lights should flash for the parents. I did not have those red flashing lighits when I read The Lightening Thief.
Now that I have debated its content let me tell you about the content. Percy Jackson finds out in the beginning of the book that his father is Poseidon, the God of the Sea, and his mother is human. This makes Percy a demi-god or a half-blood. Percy does not know his father at all. He goes on a quest to prove his bravery and to find out more about his father. His friends go with him on his quest and it is full of adventure.
I really liked this book and I am going to let my kids read it, but if you have problems with teaching Greek Myths to your kids then stay away from this book. It is as simple as that. End of controversy.
It has been awhile since I did a post on our read alouds. We have been reading fools here on the Prairie. We have been reading some really good books.
Family read alouds-- The Last Battle by C.S.Lewis. We have now finished the entire Chronicles of Narnia series. I have never read the entire series before. What an amazing set of books! My kids were on the edge of their seats while we read these books. They were always asking for more. This is a sign of a good book. We finished this book last week. We are now on The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. This is a recently written book and it is, surprisingly, a well-written book. It is full of puzzles, secret codes and spy stuff--my kids' favourite things. This is the first book of the series. We have the second book waiting in the wings. My kids love the character Sticky Washington, aka bald boy and George Washington.
Mia's read aloud--Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. We are going through his book very ssslllooowwwlllyyy. This is not my most favourite book but I am determined that Mia be familiar with it.
Rocky's read aloud--Robin Hood. Rocky requested this book. After I recovered from my shock, I thought that it would be a good thing for us to read the Howard Pyle version. If anyone is familiar with Pyle's writing, you will know that he uses Old English. He is a very good writer but you can get hung up on the language if you let yourself get distracted. I should have known that a boy who is a Winnie the Pooh affecionado might not be ready for Pyle. After the first chapter I knew that I was losing the boy so we changed to an abridged version. I don't like doing this but I didn't want to ruin his excitement for Robin Hood. We will try Pyle again later on down the road.
Missy's read aloud--Charolotte's Web by E.B. White. This might very well be the last time I ever read Charlotte's Web aloud to my kids. Don't mind that noise, it is just me sobbing. I can't imagine a life without a read aloud of Charlotte's Web. I might have to read it to the dog next year to calm my heart.
The time that I have been dreading for the past 5 years has finally arrived. Mia is halfway through Level E of RightStart Math. RightStart only goes up to Grade 4 so this is our swan song with RightStart. I have been thinking about what we were going to do when we came to this bump in the road. If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you are well aware of the relationship between math and Mia. It isn't a pretty one. Mia dislikes math strongly. Very strongly. Hence, the choosing of math programs is an arduous and sometimes painful experience.
A stricitly workbook-based program would not work for Mia. She sees all of the questions and she quickly hyperventilates. This is the reason for choosing RightStart. They use games and manipulatives to teach math with very few worksheets (at least in the younger levels. Worksheet use increases as the levels go on.) This had to factor into my decision. After researching and scouring websites, i finally came up with Math-U-See. I was a bit weary about this one as well because I kept hearing that there were alot of worksheets for each lesson. I was assured, though, that you can choose how many worksheets you do so there is flexibility in that area. I decided to finally bite the bullet and order MUS. I bought the Delta level which focuses on division. I don't think that RightStart gives enough attention to division so I thought some review wouldn't hurt Mia. I am hoping to get through Delta in the summer and early fall so that we can start Epsilon (fractions) in late fall. That is my plan, anyway.
I was quite surprised to find that my MUS package came in the mail yesterday. I am enamored, so far, with this program. I like that you can skim through a lesson quickly if your child ''get's it' or you can stay as long as you need to using the extra practise sheets. This is a good thing. The only concern I have is the way they multiply (this is carried over for division so this will effect us.) I don't know if this will confuse Mia or not. Time will tell.
Mia did the first lesson yesterday. She sailed through it (it was review.) She said that she didn't mind it. This is high praise! This morning, she woke up at 7:30 and asked if she could do her math lesson for the day. Who am I to stand in the way of math? She watched the little DVD blurb on her lesson with her dad then she proceeded to do three worksheets. It only took her 25 min.! I like this! I really like this! Now, I do know that the interest is due to the novelty of the program but I don't care! I'll take it anyway it comes.
I do think, though, that we made a wise decision in our math choice. Now I have to do the same thing with Rocky when it is his turn to switch. I don't think he will be doing MUS, but is for another blog post.
Sunday was Mia's 10th birthday. You hear every mom say it, but it is so true. The last 10 years have gone by in a blink of an eye. I know that the next 10 years will act in the same manner and it scares me. 
We had a nice family celebration on Sunday. Yesterday we went with some friends to Sask Landing to do some more celebrating. After some chilly, rainy days, yesterday was beautiful, hot and sunny. It was a great beach day.
The kids had great fun. They were able to go swimming, make sand castles (I have to say that their sand castle-making abilities have improved quite a bit over the past year.) and climb up a sand cliff. We also had a picnic lunch. A lunch combined with healthy food and not-so-healthy food. What would a picnic be without potato chips?
It was a grand sight seeing my kids running up and down the beach with their friends doing cannonballs (their own Sask Landing version) in the water with mud clinging to their limbs and spots of red skin peeking through. It didn't take us long, though, before we became fried from the sun and declared Beach Day officially over. That sun can really drain a girl. Whew!
I love that feeling after you have been in the sun all day; that crispy but satisfying feeling that the sun's energy gives you. I think we might have to do all of this next week. I have already had requests, so who knows?
The kids and I had an interesting conversation yesterday. We were talking about learning knowing no time limits. They had made a comment that we don't do school on Saturday and Sunday because that is just the way it is. I responded by saying that learning does not happen during specific hours. Learning takes place 24 hours a day, 7days a week. Mia mulled this over for awhile then said, "Mom, I have an idea. Why don't we do fun math and stuff from our unit study on Saturdays and Sundays, so we will still be learning but it will be fun learning." I wasn't implying with my comment that we needed to do school-like things every day, but I liked her idea. So we did fun stuff today.
Fun math is the term that Mia uses for living math. Mia dislikes formal math with workbooks and textbooks, but she loves living math, complete with drawing, storybooks, games, etc. This is quite enjoyable to Mia. I have tried to incorporate more living math into our days but the insecure part of me always takes over and we seem to turn back to the math program. It's funny, though, I don't have this insecurity with Missy. I do living math with her all of the time. In fact, very rarely do we use a formal math program with Missy. I wish I could be this way with Mia. Curse of the oldest, I guess.
We have been using Julie's math history lesson plans very loosely this year. I thought today would be a great time to drag them out again and put them to the use that they deserve. We are up to the lesson on Pythagorus. We read the accompanying chapter on this mathematician from Mathematicians are People, too. There is so much in this lesson to do. There is no way that we can get through it in two days (today and tomorrow.) Today we just concentrated on even and odd numbers. Missy and I, interestingly enough, has been learning this concept this past week.
Today we read a number picture book about how to determine evens and odds. I gave each child a dish of beans. I told them to count out 6 beans, then asked them to pair them up. I asked them if every bean had a buddy. Yes, it did. Then that means that 6 is an even number. I did the same with the number 5. Once they had paired up the beans, they realized that there was one bean left over who didn't have a buddy, hence, an odd number. We did the same thing with the teen numbers. We made a chart listing the even and odd numbers.
Then we played a game to instill evens and odds. Each child rolled two dice. If each dice had an odd or even number, then that person gained a point. If the dice each had an odd and an even number then the other person got the point. The first person to reach 15 wins. I got this idea from The Missing Mittens by Stuart Murphy. This is part of the Math Start series. I love these books. They always have such great ideas to teach the various concpepts and operations.
This took us an hour to do but what alot of fun we had in that hour. Hence the term 'fun math.'
Tomorrow, we are going to explore the Pythagorean Theorem and square numbers. I am so excited. I agree with Mia, this is fun math. 
True to form, Beautfiul Boy by David Sheff is a dark and depressing book (see post below.) I didn't think it would be wise to make such a radical change to my literary system as to pick a book that was light and airy. Well, I didn't disappoint myself with this book.
Again, this book is extremely well-written but it is firmly on the side of depressing. David Sheff introduces us to his son, NIc, who is brilliant, funny, thoughtful and just a great kid. This boy has so much potential to be all that he can be and so much more. As it turns out, Nic becomes a drug addict as an adult. Beautiful Boy takes us on Mr. Sheff's journey as he tries to save his son from the ravages of drugs and alcohol. This journey is a rollercoaster ride of continual recovery and relapse. I found myself, towards the end of the book, getting a bit weary of Nic's relapses. I can only imagine how those in Nic's life endured it all.
Sheff examines what the causes might have been for Nic's drug use, as well as, what he could have done differently. But with all 'shoulda, woulda, coulda's' they don't matter because you do what you know when you are in the middle of that particular situation. The book ends with a year of Nic's recovery. This is not a happy ending because, due to Nic's previous history, you aren't sure whether this is going to stick. Welcome to David Sheff's world.
Next book: The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan.
I have been doing very well in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks book challenge but I am seeing a disturbing thread in my booklist. Many of the books that I have read so far are dark and depressing. I don't know whether that is a sign of the literary times or whether I am a dark and depressing person who is drawn to the same kind of books. I would rather think it is the times.
In following in my dark and depressing footsteps, I have just finished a fantastic book by Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones is a quirky (again, a pattern in my book reading as of late) tale that is narrated by a 14 yr. old girl who has been murdered by a pedophile. The girl, Suzie Salmon, has already been murdered when she takes up her job as narrator.
Suzie follows her family as they deal with this grisly crime and the grief that accompanies it. She watches as her family slowly falls apart. She is comforted, though, that her father, in true bulldog fashion, does not give up in trying to find her murderer. His tenactiy for justice is proof to her of his love.
Someone told me that this book was a study on grief. I agree with this statement. Ms. Sebold accurately, and beautifully, portrays the effect that grief plays on family members.
We had such a great day yesterday. We celebrated the end of the year with our fellow homeschoolers by having an old-fashioned field day. Do you remember having those when you were a kid? You would run through an obstacle course, participate in creative relay races. It was just a fun day for the non-athletes as well as for the athletes.
What made this day even better was the setting for the Field Day. We gathered at the beach at Sask Landing. For an Ontario girl, the Sask Landing beach can indeed be called a beach without any sarcastic snickering. There is sand (lots of it) and there is water, so a beach we will call it. Sask Landing is a very beautiful place. You look out over the water and you see the rolling hills. Even Rocky noticed its beauty yesterday.
We started our time together with the three-legged race, the wheel barrow race, the egg-on-a-spoon relay, the egg toss, tug of war and a water balloon toss. Moms and kids were all intermingled throughout the races. It was great fun.
We, then, all shared in a picnic lunch and then the kids went down to the beach for the sandcastle contest. It was interesting to see the kids in their self-appointed groups working vigorously on their sandcastles. They were all quite beautiful and creative. I was impressed. I was also impressed with their stick-to-it-iveness in building the castles. They stayed at this for about 45 min. It was fun to see each of them working within their groups to make the best sandcastle of all.
At the end we had a water balloon fight and then a play on the playground equipment while the moms visited. I always like visiting with this group of moms. We always seem to have the same families that participate in these events. While it would be nice to be able to reach out to other families, it has been encouraging to build strong friendships with these women as we see them often. I think, as a group, we compliment each other. When we are doing a group activitiy, some of us have leadership skills, while others of us are quite comfortable in being behind the scenes. Our strengths mesh together to make the events a success.
On the way back home, I asked the kids what was their best part of their day. They unanimously said that the whole day was the best part. I guess that means that our first Field Day ever was a resounding success.
Our 3 week break is over and we are back in the saddle, so to speak. Even though we school year round, our learning time looks much different in the summer. I have fooled around with our summer routines over the years and have found a rhythm that works well for us. We started implementing this yesterday and the kids appreciated doing school this way as a change from the 'same old same old.'
This is how our day looks:
Breakfast
Chores
Kids can play or do whatever they would like to do, Mom gardens
Read aloud and Five in a Row book
Lunch
Kids play, Mom cleans up
Learning time
Free time for both Mom and kids
Mom and kids clean up house
Supper
Free time
Bed
As I said before, this has been working out very nicely. When the weather gets a bit warmer, the kids don't like being outside in the afternoon as it is too hot for them, so it works to do our learning then. This way they can play outside in the morning and I can get my gardening done before the heat of the day descends upon us. I should clarify that the heat does't really get here until July, but we are practising for it until then.
Also, our learning time consists mostly of math, reading and read alouds. We are still using workboxes so I may put in some extras things like writing so they can get done periodically. It only takes us about 2 hrs. max to get our school work done. Even mom is liking the summer schedule.
My word! It has been a long time since I have posted last. We have been on break the last three weeks so I haven't had much to write about. Hopefully that will change this week.
I have been a bit slow in posting the books that I have been reading. I am going to do one post for the last three books that I have read and just give a brief snippet about each, as per usual, I am short on time.
Book #21-- Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have always been intimidated to read this book. I always thought it would be a difficult read, like the Father Brown Mysteries, so I have put this book farther and farther down on my 'to be read' pile. I finally plucked enough courage to open up the cover. I say! this book is such an easy read and to top it off, it is an enjoyable read. I love Sherlock Holmes. You read about the good and the bad in his character, which is refreshing these days.
Book #22-- Amazing Grace, the Life of William Wilberforce by John Piper. This starts out as any other biography; full of anecdotes of his childhood and his adult years. Then in the last three chapters, it delves into his spiritual life and that is where this book takes a turn from other biographies. These chapters study as to why Wilberforce had so much joy in his life. The author examines where it comes from and how Wilberforce nurtured it. Those last three chapters were an interesting read.
Book #23-- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I have read The Kite Runner by Hosseini and I enjoyed that book very much. It surprises me, then, that A Thousand Splendid Suns could be so much better than the first book. I was hooked from the very first page. The book is set in Afghan in the 1960's and follows its political unrest up to present times. The story is told through two women who are unrelated but are attached through events of their lives. This is a spellbinding story.
There are two areas that I always welcome ideas. They are homeschooling and food. I have had a few ideas that have worked for homeschooling (workboxes and unit studies) and now I have received a great idea for food.
My kids are forever eating. We could be done a meal and within half an hour they will be asking for more food. Missy is the worst one for this. She is my grazer. She eats little bits and pieces all throughout the day. I have come to cringe when I hear the words, "Mom, can I have something to eat?" This usually means that I have to stop what I am doing and go cut an apple or spread peanut butter on toast.
Last week, though, I read of an idea that has caused both myself and my children great delight. It has cut down on the pleadings for food and the level of my frustration. The idea came on one of my elists (see? these are good for something.) The title of this brain wave is Snack Platter. Yep, it is just as the name implies. It is a platter of food that the kids can graze on for the day.
I have been making two snack platters a day-one for the morning and one for the afternoon. I put a serving tray on my kitchen island and fill it with snacks. I put everything that the kids need to make the snacks (cutlery, napkins, bowls, etc.) so they can be independent in this endeavor.
I have only been using the platters for this week but, so far, it has been successful. Our morning platters are more healthful,while the afternoon ones may be more carb and sugar oriented.
Example of morning platters: 1) oranges and apples (cut up) and raisin biscuits 2) yogourt and bananas 3) yogourt tubes and granola
Example of afternoon platters: 1) salsa and nacho chips, 2) veggies, dip and muffins 3) hard boiled eggs and flavoured rice cakes
The rule is that once the food is gone, that is it until the next meal. So far this has worked.