Thursday, November 12, 2009 - Saxon Math Strikes Again
Miss Dog Lover is on the final lesson in 7/6, wherein they introduce finding the volume of a cylinder by saying "Imagine pressing a quarter down into a block of soft clay. As the quarter is pressed into the block, it creates a hole in the clay. The quarter sweeps out a cylinder as it moves through the clay. We can calculate the volume of the cylinder by multiplying the area of the circular face of the quarter by the distance it moved through the clay."
At this point I stopped reading, looked at her blank face, and said, "Do you understand what they are talking about?"
Miss Dog Lover, "I understand but it sounds sort of useless. Who would want to put a quarter in clay? It's messy."
There really are no words to say how cool it is as a non-musically oriented mom, to have a son who is studying piano and can sit down at it and make something up and holler to you in the kitchen, "Hey Mom, doesn't this sound like seaweed?" and you realize that is EXACTLY what it sounds like.
This morning at breakfast I got to wondering: What would you miss if your dear children went to public school and you did not spend quantity time with them? I am looking for specific answers that don't readily come to mind. If you have some, post them in the comments, and I shall compile a list. I think they would make wonderful reasons to encourage others to homeschool.
My inspiration: the sudden realization that if Miss Dog Lover were not here with me, I would not hear her twanging a concert on the elastics the orthodontist provides for dental alignment. Not even iTunes provides that service, last I checked. :)
Arby reports that (he) "would miss Major Havoc’s long-winded explanations of those random ideas that roll around his noggin’ but take FOREVER to be explained, and the huge grin that he gets when he realizes that I understand him. Those are moments that classroom teachers rarely have time for, leaving the Major Havocs of the world frustrated and disappointed."
My friend Christina, over at JugglingPaynes, says she "would miss the endless random discussions that pop up in the course of a day. Most topics revolve around superheroes lately, for example why do Spiderman's villains seem unable to live through the end of a movie? Batman's villains are much better at surviving. If you kill all your villains, who is left to fight? New York needed something like Gotham's Arkham Asylum, where they may as well have installed a revolving door considering how easy it is to escape. ~~ Hang on, the conversation just picked up again over here... "
Cellomom feels she needs to read the comments as they come in "cuz right now, I'm the one with the blank look when ds talks to me sometimes, and I see his frustration. I'm longing for some quiet, and I'm tired of the mess. It's been a long week. I will say I would miss the closeness with my kids. There just seems to be an easy camraderie with them most of the time." Ah, I know that feeling.
Mrs Q may be on the other side of the planet, but her feelings are familiar, too: I would miss the conversations around questions such as, "How many metres of double-sided tape would it take to cover an elephant?"
I'd also miss having a good excuse not to have to stand at the door and listen to the salesperson explain why I should change to their telephone/internet/electricity provider. "I'm sorry I can't talk to you now, I'm very busy homeschooling."
A new friend at Eagle Eye Academy writes that she "would miss those pajama days. Y'know the ones where your kids never get dressed and run around all day from one activity to the next with the excitement of learning! I would miss the adoring "I did it!" faces that they have when sounding out a word or figuring out a math problem!! I can't imagine days without them."
And Kellie (BTW, go vote for her) has a home like mine. She "would miss my messy kitchen table littered with everything from a worn copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, thirteen pieces of broken chalk, a plastic ruler, a hot pink calculator, the empty wrapper of a Fruit-by-the Foot, and a smudged spelling test dated Sept. 19, 2009. I would also miss the grubby hands that left my table in such a state."
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - Melrose Takes a Day Trip
Tuesday Miss Dog Lover and Mr Gingersnap had medical appointments in the big city. So, we decided to make a day of it and visit the plant conservatory there. This was a pretty routine field trip with lots to see and Mom talking altogether too much instead of just letting the student body look. However, Mom was greatly relieved when Mr Music quit making Darth Vader sounds in his efforts to help the plants grow by exhaling extra carbon dioxide for them.
Melrose, of course, begged to go along. Here he is, in a banana plant.
And again, in a different one. He did not eat any bananas whatsoever.
And this is called a Flamingo Plant. I include this for the owner of the world's most amazing fish and who happens to love flamingos. Hopefully seeing this will make her feel better.
Late October starts my looking forward to Christmas. As a former elementary teacher, my mind moves through the year from one seasonal bulletin board to the next. By now I have things refined so that Reformation Day leads into the season of harvest and Thanksgiving, followed by Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. There is a sort of building that I think extends in my mind from the work of the Reformers that the Puritans and Pilgrims based some of their beliefs on, up through a Biblical understanding of Christ's coming.
I am offering a photo tour of early November at our place. :)
We received this unique Reformation Day greeting, now hung on a kitchen cabinet (quite an honorary position). It came anonymously ~ unsigned and even unpostmarked ~ though I doubt it would take us 95 guesses to come up with the sender.
Here are some of our family set of turkey handprints lining a stairwell. It's fun getting these out to see how everyone's grown since they were first made.
And here are my fun Thanksgiving shakers. Miss Dog Lover was just telling Mr Music that the salt shaker is a girl and the pepper one is a boy. Let's not go into any actual turkey anatomy, OK? They are allowed to kiss on our table but everyone knows things may not go beyond that. Decorum.
Here is our copy of Of Plymouth Plantation, an ear of the corn we grew this summer which startled us with its purple-ness, and a very lovely cornucopia we received as a wedding gift. Please disregard the hairball. It has been removed since I uploaded the photo and noticed it. But just so you know, we are thankful for hair.
And the last stop on this tour is to say hello to the turkeys: Blessings and Bradford. They can rest secure in the knowledge that their fiberfill stuffing will not end up on our table in any capacity involving knife and fork.
Monday, October 26, 2009 - Who Needs a Better Mousetrap?
What I would be delighted with is a better pencil. Pencils and sharpeners are the bane of my homeschool.
Miss Dog Lover demands sharpness. So, we sharpen pencils about every 18 letters. No kidding. And they break like crazy - really, I think they manufacture them out of 3/4 inch segments of graphite.
Anyhow. Last Friday I took a new 8-pack of pencils and sharpened them all, except leaving one full-length for comparison. This pack was typical of my recent experience.
As they get shorter and shorter without producing a point that does not fall out, my frustration builds. By about 2, I am not happy. By the time I reach 4, I have nothing good to say about pencil manufacturers. By 5 I have nothing good to say about anything.
You are bold with a dark side. You make clear lines wherever you go, though you color outside of the lines. Many people may just see the surface of you and think you are merely plain, but you have a lot of depth to you as well.
You can see if you recognize the colors of the 64 box here, though I must warn you this page is not quite accurate. They do not know that thistle has been retired, for example.
Or, if you are really bored, and have an extra 12 minutes, you can go here and see if you can identify all 64 colors by name. I guess that also depends how good the color on your monitor is.
Three questions to be answered in the comment you are about to leave:
#1) is there any invention greater than the sharpener in the bottom of the box, and if so, what?
#2) what is your favorite Crayola color?
#3) do you agree: Prang crayons smell greater than Crayolas. (Even without a sharpener.)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - Your Eyes are Getting Very Heavy...
Here's the problem: I want to take part in Arby and the Boss's contest over at Boarding in Bedlam. I've kicked myself the past two years for not playing find the wreath in the first annual game, and do not intend to repeat that mistake.
But, to play, I have to advertise. Which means, increase the competition for myself. So, keep reading...
Now just relax. Settle back in your chair. Take a deep breath. Relax your arms. Relax your legs. Relax your nerves. Relax all over. Look at the center of this page. Do not look off. Do not say anything. Keep your mind on my words. Think of nothing else. Gaze right at the center of the page. Soon your eyes will get heavy, and you wish to close them and go to sleep.
Your eyes are getting heavy, very heavy and tired. You are getting very sleepy. Soon you will be sound asleep.
You are now asleep. You can hear me. Go deeper asleep, deeper asleep. Take a deep breath; relax and go deeper asleep. I am going to lift up your right hand and when I drop it, you will go deeper asleep. Forget you read anything about any contest. Who cares about a stale wreath that's spent time on someone's hind quarters, anyhow. Who cares about handcrafted jewelry? or books?
When you click off this blog, forget all about the contest. Return to your original surfing of blogland.
You have been doing Too Much Math when you hear yourself saying things like, "Do the Right Thing with your decimal point" and it sounds like a moral statement.
And how I wish I knew how to make snazzy things like blog awards of my own. I am sure there are many homeschooling parents who deserve a Nobel prize for keeping peace under their own roofs.
