L'Ecole a la Maison has moved to www.thethreecscheznous.blogspot.com.

I had planned to update my blog with a weekly daybook but it just didn't happen that way.  So, here goes, one month later...

Outside my window...the tree is gently waving in the wind - it's going to be a cool, mild day (which wouldn't mean a whole lot except this time last week, it was forecast to be 86 degrees and we had no air conditioning).

I am thinking...how devastatingly handsome my husband is going to look in his dress blue uniform today when they have a photo-taking session at work.

I am thankful for...friends, family and all the blessings the good Lord has bestowed upon us.

From the kitchen...there will be Blueberry Pound Cake later.

I am wearing...my nightshirt and flip-flops - after all, it is just past 7:00am!

I am creating...a scrapbook corner in the basement and it's almost finished.

I am going...to plan a fabulous vacation for when my friend Janet comes from England.  I know she's not coming until 2010 but I LOVE to plan and this is a big one - Niagara Falls, Gettysburg, Lancaster and Philadelphia.  Last year, she came for two weeks and said she didn't want to lie around by the pool so I took her at her word!  We visited five Newport Mansions, Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, Plimoth Plantation, the Mayflower II at Plymouth, Boston, Hyannis on Cape Cod, Harvard, and took a Rail 'n Sail trip of Narragansett Bay.  We also shopped at Providence Place Mall, sampled the finest of New England's cuisine (still searching for the perfect lobster roll), and found time to drink endless cups of tea!

I am reading...Betrayal at Cross Creek , (an American Girl History Mystery) as I continue in my quest to slot all of our historical fiction books into their correct era and Tears of the Moon, sure and don't I love the Irish lilt that's sprinkled across the pages; it's lost I am in the sheer joy of it!

 I am hoping...that I will be successful in getting tickets to Sarah Brightman's upcoming concert in Boston.  Tickets go on sale today at 9:00am and my fingers will be poised over the Enter key at 8:59:59!

I am hearing...only the ticking of the clock this morning.

Around the house...there are still things to do but there were some tick marks placed on the to-do list this weekend.  Vic connected the automatic pump to the dehumidifier, connected both air conditioners, fixed the curtain rods that smacked me in the head every morning for the last week as I pulled the curtains aside, and glued the leg back onto Sophia's collectible horse!

One of my favorite things...is to let my fingers fly across the keyboard as I do my scrapbook journaling.  I am almost finished with 1995 (no, I am not 13 years behind!  1994 and 1999-2005 are done; I only have a few major trips in that time frame still to do).  You see, they say you should start scrapbooking in the present and get caught up (right, like that's EVER going to happen!) and then go back as you have time to do prior years.  I started in 1999 and worked my way quite diligently (ok, over the next eight years) toward the present.  I got behind when we moved from Virginia to Rhode Island but I'm working on it.  At least all the pictures are printed and all the memorabilia is sorted in boxes by year.  I figured I'd better start on catching up those early years before I forget who was who and what was what in the pictures!

A Few Plans for the Rest of the Week...to meet with the window man today to get an estimate for a broken seal in a huge picture window, to take Sophia to Greenlock Therapeutic Riding Center for her volunteer job (and fill up with cheaper gas in Massachusetts while I'm over there), to take back the too-small bathing suits I bought for Sophia at Target, and to get ready for the second used curriculum sale in our area on Saturday.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing...

Sophia is busy latchhooking a rug for her room.  She's making it in 12 x 12 panels and then sewing them together.  She laid three panels on the floor to see how they looked and MudLynn immediately expressed her approval by going over and lying down on them!

Please see Peggy's blog to join us and read other entries.

What we're reading for Core 6:

Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

What we're watching (we're in the Middle Ages):

Just the Facts: The Middle Ages

The Crusades (The History Channel/BBC) - "...a thoroughly engaging documentary of the bloodletting of medieval Christian conquests and the ultimate result of Islamic fanaticism born from its crimson tide." - Editorial Review, Amazon.com

The Lion in Winter - starring Peter O'Toole, Academy Award Winner Katharine Hepburn, and a very young Anthony Hopkins

What Sophia is reading for fun:

The Saddle Club by Bonnie Bryant

What Pamela's reading for fun:

Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola (it made me want to run outside with my sketchbook, and I can barely draw a straight line!)

What we've been watching for fun ---- an Errol Flynn marathon!

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Sea Hawk (led to a great discussion on the difference between a pirate and a privateer)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Sherwood Forest scenes filmed in Bidwell Park, Chico, California - my old stomping ground)

We finished up our week with a field trip to the Slater Mill Historic Site, a National Landmark Historic Site, in Pawtucket.  Who knew that Rhode Island was the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution?  All visits to the site are by guided tour only and we began our tour, after a brief film, at the Sylvanus Brown House, a typical dwelling of the mid-late eighteenth century.  Most of the information given here was a refresher for Sophia and I after our many tours of historic homes in Virginia.  We had already heard of the origins of "Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite" and "Don't Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater", the uses of flax, and the workings of a colonial kitchen.  We moved on to the Wilkinson Mill, where mechanics built or repaired whatever machinery the mill required, and finished up the tour at Slater Mill, a museum dedicated to the history of textile manufacturing in America.  I had purchased a copy of We're There! Rhode Island at my local bookstore and was able to complete the brief quiz on identifying the machines that are used to make cotton into thread for future reference.  Special thanks to our guide, Michelle, for the awesome two and a half hour tour - we were so enthralled that we didn't notice how much time had passed until we exited Slater Mill and looked at our watches!

Sylvanus Brown House - rear view with kitchen at the base of the house and kitchen garden to the right

Colonial Closet - today's teenage girls gotta love this one!

Pamela

Outside my window...the tree is blowing in the wind and the occasional bird flutters by.

I am thinking...that although it is grey and gloomy outside, it reminds me of England and I'm never happier than when I'm thinking of England.

I am thankful for...my daughter, Sophia's, gentle and creative spirit.  She can sit for hours with a piece of latchhook or cross-stitch or a knitting project.

From the kitchen...waft the smells of Beef Caldereta in the Crock Pot.  How I love the Crock Pot, for its convenience and for the way it fills my kitchen with a lovely aroma.

I am wearing...leggings and my L'Ecole a la Maison sweatshirt.  I hope it lasts another year as we plan to change the name of our school for 2009-2010 and I don't want to buy another sweatshirt until then!

I am creating...this entry for my friends and family to have a peak inside my life today.

I am going...to find a place to set up my scrapbooking.  Since we moved, "I've just closed my eyes and shoved it all into the cabinet" (I borrowed that phrase from my friend Jodie, a fellow scrapbooker who has also just moved).

I am reading...More Charlotte Mason Education (again!) by Catherine Levison, The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell and A History of the English Speaking Peoples - Volume I: The Birth of Britain by Winston Churchill (had to go to www.amazon.co.uk  to get this one).

I am hoping...that Vic will not have too tough a Summer Semester.  It 's supposed to be a six week course (which would be tough enough on its own) but he's just found out that with the Memorial Day holiday and his instructor out of town on Wednesday of that week, it will only be a five week course.

I am hearing...the lilting Irish melodies playing in the background of the DVD, The Little Horse That Could: The Connemara Stallion, Erin Go Bragh, that Sophia is watching in the living room.

Around the house...there are still things to do - it seems never-ending when you move to a new house!

One of my favorite things...is to have such a productive homeschool day that we can curl up on the couch with a cup of tea (or cocoa) and a good book for the afternoon.

A Few Plans for the Rest of the Week...to take Sophia to her first volunteer session at Greenlock Therapeutic Riding Center, to pick up our copy of "El Cid" at the library, and to spend an evening with friends at the movies watching the new Indiana Jones movie.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing...

How to solve those rising gas prices and parallell parking issues all in one!

Please see Peggy's blog to join us and read other entries.

What Sophia is reading in Sonlight Core 6:

Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray - a cultural journey through medieval England - 1943 Newberry winner

What Pamela's Reading:

A Promise for Ellie by Lauraine Snelling

My Mother's Day present - a continuation of the Bjorklund Saga which began with An Untamed Land - a must-read for American History - life in the early 1900's for Norwegian immigrants and life on a farm in the Red River Valley of North Dakota.

What Pamela's Pre-reading for Sonlight Core 7:

The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell - the world of the conquistadors.

What We're Watching:

A History of Britain - written and hosted by historian Simon Schama

What Sophia's reading:

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

What Pamela's reading:

The Longest Night by Gavin Mortimer

What Pamela's Pre-reading for Sonlight Core 6 - "What is the mystery behind Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting?":

The Second Mrs. Gioconda by e. l. konigsburg

We are finally settled in our new home!  The furniture is in place, and pictures are on the walls.  The closets are full and if there wasn't a space for something, it went down into the basement so I won't tell you what the basement looks like right now!  With Vic busy wrapping up his spring semester of classes, there hasn't been much time to organize the basement but I have been promised that that day will come - one day!

After a month of living out of boxes at the old place while we waited with bated breath to make sure everything was on track with the closing, and then going through two weeks of upheaval as we moved from one place to another, cleared out of the old place, and got ourselves organized in the new, school has finally begun again.  With a lovely magnolia tree in the picture window staring at us each morning, each day is truly a beautiful creation.  We are working our way through Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, Learning Language Arts through Literature (Green Book), PowerGlide French, Sonlight Core 6 (World History Part I), and A Beka's Science Order & Reality (Science 7).  After a few false starts this year with science curriculum, we have finally settled on A Beka.  We have been using FireFighters for Christ's Bible Curriculum, working our way through Genesis, accompanied by this book for Devotions:

We've been using a weekly planner from Donna Young, although I've been playing with Homeschool Tracker and really like it so that's what I'm going to use next year.  We'll be making a few changes to our curriculum to implement more Charlotte Mason methods (more on that in another post!), but in case you can't stand the suspense, we'll be adding Nature Study, Shakespeare, Artist Study, Composer Study, Hymns and Folksongs.  How we'll be doing that and where we'll fit it into our schedule TBD and TBA soon.

Next year, we'll continue on with Teaching Textbooks Algebra, A Beka Science 8 (Matter & Motion in God's Universe), PowerGlide French, and Sonlight Core 7 (World History Part II).  I'm still deciding on Language Arts and Bible materials.  We have two used curriculum sales coming up in our area - one in June and one in July so I need to get my list finalized so I can look for some bargains.

That's about all L'Ecole's news right now, so I'll leave you with this to ponder:

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire" - William Butler Yeats

Pamela

Symbol:  Christmas Cards

Carol:  The First Noel

Movie:  Christmas in Connecticut - 1945

Christmas Around the World:  Finland

Sophia:  Christmas in Finland is when the people get very busy. Families spend hours cooking Christmas foods and cleaning the house for Christmas. They go out to chop down fir trees and tie them to sleds to take home and decorate. The Christmas tree is decorated with apples, cotton, tinsel, paper flags, and other types of fruits.  They all tie a sheaf of grain to a pole along with nuts, berries, and seeds for the birds to eat during the winter. In other countries, Santa Claus comes when the children are in bed, but in Finland he comes in person to the children. Tulips, hyacinths, or poinsettias are given as gifts to friends. When the children go to bed, the parents stay up until midnight talking with their guests. The carol called “The First Noel” is a beautiful carol to listen to and to sing along with the choir. The Christmas cards through the decades were very beautiful. In the 1950’s, they made mechanical cards for children.  These days, Christmas cards are very popular. “Christmas in Connecticut” was about a woman, who wrote cooking recipes, had a baby and a husband when she didn’t actually do any of those things. When her boss tells her to entertain a sailor for Christmas, she doesn’t know what to do. Her friend Felix was a cook, so he helped her. She pretended to be married to a man who had a farm in Connecticut, and the housekeeper babysat an infant, so she pretended it was her child.  My mom and I, and some friends, went to the ballet; it was about a doll called Coppelia.   Franz was in love with Coppelia, although he did not realize she was a doll.  Swanhilda was his girlfriend, and she was jealous.  I liked the part when Swanhilda and Franz were fighting; she would pretend to kick him in the chin when her foot was only inches from his face.  The dancers wore such beautiful costumes!

Pamela

We spent four out of five days last week out of the house.  Monday we headed off, with our friends Mary and Alisha, to the Museum of Natural History at Roger Williams Park for Homeschool Adventures:  Archaeology.  It was a dismal day, and when we arrived, it didn't look very promising.  The front door was locked as we were a few minutes early and there were very few cars in the parking lot.  We waited, sheltered from the rain, under a doorway, until 10am and still the doors didn't open!  Thinking that we were at the wrong door, I called the phone number listed for the museum and lo! the doors opened.  The museum appears small and we couldn't imagine how we were going to fill four hours.  We had signed up for the Planetarium show at 1pm and a dig at 12noon - what were we going to do until then as there appeared to be no other activities available?  I had envisioned stations for the students to explore archaeology concepts but that didn't appear to be the case.  The docent directed us to a table in the corner that held a variety of pamphlets.  I picked up two scavenger hunt sheets - All Things Connected, Native American Creations and Pacific Explorers and off we headed to the galleries.  Sophia and Alisha really enjoyed working together on the scavenger hunt sheets as they read the display cards on the exhibits and hunted for the answers.  It was amazing how much more we stopped and actually learned from the cards, rather than just walking through the museum and giving a cursory glance at the exhibits.  Time flew by, as we completed the Native American sheet and headed upstairs to the Pacific Explorers gallery.  Sophia was able to show Alisha her birthplace, Saipan, on the large map of Oceania, and the variety of wood and shell artifacts was really amazing.  We were headed in the direction of the Orchards in the Ocean State gallery when we stopped to listen to a presentation on some of the artifacts held by the museum.  The girls actually were able to touch the some of the artifacts which I thought was amazing and there were some very fine shabtis and scarabs.  All that watching of The Mummy has, in fact, been educational!  While we were listening to the presentation, the museum educator came up to us and said that the Planetarium show was being moved up since there were so few homeschoolers present.  So, we headed off to the Planetarium show which ended up like so many others - give us a warm, dark room with reclining seats after we'd been walking around for a while and what do you get - naptime!  It was really hard to keep my eyes open and Mary didn't even try - we woke her up when it was time to go!  The girls proceeded downstairs for their dig which involved carefully searching through tubs of sand to find buried artifacts, putting the pieces together, and then figuring out which was the earliest artifact by a means know as stratification - in other words, what came where in the layers.  One of the pieces was a picture of the Rosetta Stone.  Another set of tubs yielded clues about a particular civilization - had they had tools and did they hunt, etc?  I could recognize details from our readings from The Story of the World, Volume I in Sophia's answers.  After the dig, we decided to leave and eat our lunch on the way home.  We would leave Orchards in the Ocean State and the remaining gallery for our next visit which will focus on fossils.  I'm not sure we're going to do the whole six sessions in the series, unless there are some changes to the galleries, but we enjoyed the first session and look forward to the next one.

Tuesday saw us at the co-op and then off to ice skating.  This session of the co-op is winding down - Rainbow Science has been very interesting and a great learning experience as it is done in a group setting.  I've certainly learned more about science than I would have otherwise.  I led another session of the Home Economics class and we made Christmas ornaments - round, gold balls painted with a variety of themes based on the girls' interests.  Sophia's, of course, was covered with dog paws and bones!  It was freezing at the rink as usual although Sophia and Alisha didn't complain and the moms keep busy chatting about homeschool curriculum and Christmas.

Wednesday was another session of Zoo School at Franklin Park Zoo.  This month's session focused on primates and the students made an enrichment item (from cardboard boxes) that they took to the Tropical Forest where the zookeeper placed them in the tamarinds cage.  It was cute to see the little creatures cautiously approach the boxes and then explore them once they found that there was food inside.  There was quite a bit of snow on the ground so we were glad to be inside the warmth of the Tropical Forest.

On Thursday, we headed to Providence for the State Ballet of Rhode Island's presentation of Coppelia.  We had not seen this ballet before and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  The morning was made all the more interesting by the fact that it was the company's final dress rehearsal and the whole presentation was a teaching ballet within a ballet type of experience.  Herci Marsden, the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the State Ballet of Rhode Island, appeared before each act to give us an idea of what we would see and all set changes were made with the curtain raised so the students (and parents) could see what is involved in staging a production.  She also enlisted the help of the dancers to demonstrate a variety of ballet positions and moves and explained that the language of the ballet is French.  The State Ballet of Rhode Island is the state's first classical ballet company in residence.

Thursday evening found us at the Rhode Island Christian Home Educators (RICHES) monthly meeting and holiday cookie exchange.  There was a great turnout and lots of cookies and we enjoyed a (late!) evening of fellowship.  Needless to say, we slept in on Friday and we busy doing chores as we got ready for Vic's return from Florida that evening.

So, here we are with another week ahead of us.  There is the usual sprinkling of events - sewing on Monday, co-op and skating on Tuesday, and planning meeting for the next session of the co-op on Thursday evening.  We are getting back on track with our Christmas Unit Study and looking forward to our trip to Boston this weekend to see "White Christmas" at the Wang Theatre.

Pamela

This afternoon, Vic, Sophia and I enjoyed the Trinity Repertory Company's performance of "A Christmas Carol" in Providence.  If you're in our area, you can find out the details here.

Pamela

Symbol:  Advent Calendar

Carol:  O Holy Night

Movie:  It's a Wonderful Life - 1946

Literature & Poetry:  A Reading from Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury, "The Quiet Little Woman"

Christmas Around the World:  Denmark

Sophia:  In Denmark, Christmas is when the mischievious elf Nisse can have his fun by playing jokes on the people.  The families will leave him a bowl of rice pudding or porridge to keep his tricks within limits.  When the children eat the pudding, there would be a magic almond in someone's pudding, and whoever got the almond would receive a prize.  In Denmark, they have a tradition called the Christmas Plate when rich Danes give plates of fruit and biscuits as a present to their servants.  Their Santa Claus figure is called Julemanden.  The main Christmas celebration is on the 24th of December.  The movie "It's A Wonderful Life" was a very good movie.  The way everyone dressed was much more formal.  The carol "O Holy Night" is a very nice carol.  I've downloaded the song by Celtic Woman.  We went to see "A Christmas Carol" in Providence, RI.  It was a very good play, it was scary and funny.  In a small town in Germany, their Town Hall has twenty-four windows.  On the first of December, they put pictures in all the windows and open them one by one.  The Advent Calendars I have are very nice ones.  One is a Playmobil Calendar that has boxes with little pieces that go to the display on our table.  The other one has little doores that you open and see a work of art in each window.  I love them both.

Check out Gengenbach's Rathaus, or Town Hall, here.

Pamela

Symbol:  Advent Wreath

Carol:  Angels from the Realms of Glory

Movie:  Bells of St. Mary's - 1945

Literature and Poetry:  Poem:  An Old Christmas Greeting, author unknown and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, (Stave 2)

Christmas Around the World:  Belgium

Sophia:  Today's reading was the second part when Scrooge is visited by the first ghost.  The ghost takes him into Christmas past to show him the Christmasas he had as a boy.  Scrooge doesn't like some of the things the ghost shows him.  I wonder what the next ghost will do.  Today's Christmas in other countries was about Belgium.  In Belgium they have two Santa figures.  In the north, he's called St. Nicholas and in the south he's called Pere Noel.  St. Nicholas comes on Dec. 6 to deliver gifts to those that speak Flemish and Pere Noel comes on Dec. 6 to those who speak Walloon (which is French).  The carol "Angels from the Realms of Glory" is also known as "Angels We Have Heard on HIgh".  The words were written by a Scotsman and it was composed by an Englishman.  Today's movie, "The Bells of St. Mary's", is about a school run by nuns that is in a bad way.  It is costing them a fortune to keep it running.  When Sister Superior is found with a stage of TB, she was sent away because it was contagious.  The Latin version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" was sung in the movie "The Bells of St. Mary's".

Pamela

No symbol today as we're focusing on Christmas vocabulary.

Carol:  O Come All Ye Faithful

Movie:  I'll Be Seeing You - 1944

Literature and Poetry:  The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry and A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (Stave 1)

Christmas Around the World:  Austria

Sophia:  At Christmas in other countries, I learned that in Austria they have nativity scenes that were carved by hand and handed down from generation to generation.  When the children were out, the parents would decorate a tree and put presents under it and then lock the room.  When the children came home, the parents would unlock the room so the children could open their presents.  Today's carol, "O Come All Ye Faithful", is my favorite because I sang it at a school play.  Today we have a lot of types of music, and if someone liked country, they can listen to an artist's Christmas album.  I downloaded a version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" by Toby Keith.  Today's movie, "I'll Be Seeing You", was set during World War II.  During the war, people didn't have such elaborate things like we have now.  A lot of metal was sent to the troops to use for tanks, helmets, bullets, and guns.  Sugar was very scarce during that time so people couldn't have a lot of plum pudding.  Today's reading, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, was about a man who wasn't very nice to others, his name was Ebenezer Scrooge.  He is going to be visited by three spirits who show him what will happen to him if he doesn't start being kind to others.  I think it will be a great story.  The first part is a bit spooky.  I wonder what will happen to Scrooge in the next part.

Pamela

My friend Jodie and I have written a Christmas Unit Study, using a variety of different resources and we are indebted to all those who have written studies and shared them on the Internet.  Our study consists of history (Christmas symbols, their meanings and application), music (carols), art (masterpieces with Christmas themes), geography (Christmas Around the World), math (story problems with a Christmas theme!), literature and poetry, visual arts (Christmas movies), and home economics (crafts and cooking).  We planned to start on Monday, December 3, however, since we are out of the house four out of five days during that week, Sophia and I will begin our study on Monday, November 26 so that we are on track by Friday, December 7.

Jodie and I have had a lot of fun putting together this study - more fun, perhaps, than our daughters will have actually doing the study!  We will endeavor to study Christmas through a variety of media, and to delve deeper into some of the things that we have come to think of as commonplace during the season.

Stay tuned for the fun!

Pamela

We have been blessed to have had a great homeschool ice skating opportunity.  A ten-week session of group lessons was scheduled at the Driscoll Rink in Fall River on Tuesdays with a free skate period following the lessons.  It was been great fun!  Tonight was the Family Skate event, an opportunity for the students to show their Dads how the lesson are proceeding.  It was also the time to announce the winner of the "Name Our Group" contest.

The winner is "SHINE" (Skating Homeschoolers in New England) by Sophia!

Photo to follow when I figure out how to reduce the image!

Pamela

I'm making a New Year's Resolution early - I resolve to update my blog at least once a week, on Saturdays, unless I am out of town.

Our goal to complete a Veterans Day Unit Study during the week before Veterans Day failed miserably.  Well, ok, maybe not failed miserably, but definitely did not conclude as successfully as I had intended.  If I tell you that we ended up out of the house every day during the week I planned the study, you should have some idea why we didn't get everything accomplished!  Monday was sewing class and baking for a meeting that ended up being cancelled (isn't that Murphy's Law?); Tuesday was co-op and then ice skating; Wednesday, Zoo School; Thursday, field trip to Petco, and Friday, Passport to the World - India presentation and potluck.  We did, however, in our many trips in the car, talk about Veterans Day, veterans, war, peace, remembrance and patriotism.  We may not have memorized "In Flanders Fields" as I had planned, but we do know a lot more about Veterans Day now than we did on November 4th.

This week has been just as chaotic - November 12 was a federal holiday, in observance of Veterans Day, so there's no school on the days that Dad is home, it's impossible.  Tuesday was co-op and ice skating and Wednesday was a full-blown baking and cooking day in preparation for our Fall Open House on Thursday.  Friday was spent recovering from Thursday!

On the subject of the Fall Open House, does everyone know the meaning of RSVP?  If not, please go and look it up and make a vow never to not RSVP when you receive an invitation that requests an RSVP.  I sent an invitation to seventeen families; ok, so it was an e-mail invitation but that's a sign of the times.  In return, by the deadline I requested, I received five RSVPs, four planned to attend and one couldn't make it.  I'll be gracious and give credit to the one other family who RSVP'd on the day of the event, saying they had forgotten to flag the invitation.  They are a busy family and they had out of town company, so I'll be gracious THIS TIME.  And I'll be even more forgiving to the second family who called, when asked if they were attending by another family, and said they didn't remember seeing the invitation but could they stop by anyway?  There my graciousness and forgiveness ends.  It does not extend to the ten families who, in my opinion, were just flat-out rude for not responding at all.  What do they think RSVP means?  If I'm going to invest time and money and energy to welcome people into my home, entertain them and serve them food and drink, do they not think that they should at least let me know if they are going to be there?  What has happened to our society in this day and age that makes people think that common courtesy has become a thing of the past?    I take as my text for this sermon, page 173, July 26 Responding to Invitations, from 365 Manners Kids Should Know by Sheryl Eberly, the following:

"When your child receives an invitation, it's courteous for him to respond."

It's sad that books have to be written to teach our children how to be mannerly.  Wasn't there a time when children learned from the example of their parents?  Isn't that our job - to set an example?  Before I get too firmly entrenched up here on my soapbox, let me just say that if someone thinks enough of you to issue an invitation, do them the courtesy of responding.  Accept or decline, but let the host/hostess know - PLEASE!!!

All that being said, the families who attended enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of refreshments and fellowship.  I sent each family a thank you note, not just for the hostess gifts some brought, but just for their presence in our home.  After all, isn't a guest's presence present enough? 

Pamela

It's been a hectic couple of days - mostly carschooling as we travel back and forth between our co-op, ice skating and Zoo School at Franklin Park Zoo.  We have been talking about Veterans Day but not doing much reading or writing.  Sophia is working on her poppy "Lest We Forget" cross stitch project which is coming along beautifully.  You can find the directions here.

Our co-op is going well with the Rainbow Science experiments a big hit with all the class members.  We are working on electromagnetism and even I am enjoying it!  That's saying a lot for me, the loather of all things science-related!  The Home Economics class has finished up its final week working on cross stitch, and I will now take the class through the holidays for a selection of Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts.  Sophia is really enjoying her ice skating lessons (translation:  P. E.!) and the class is working on a presentation for Family Skate Night on November 18 when we will welcome the Dads to the rink.  She is progressing well with her turn, and the lunge is getting a lot easier since she started stretching at home.

Zoo School is an awesome program - a cooperative effort between the Family Resource Center and Zoo New England's Franklin Park Zoo.  There are about ten students in the class and they are working through a variety of zoo-related themes in a classroom session and in behind the scences at the zoo visits.  Today we discussed diet and toured the commissary and the Childrens' Pet Area.  The students played a food web game to see the interdependency of our ecosystem and then prepared the AM and PM food bowls for the prairie dogs.  Precise weighing is paramount, as well as the correct combination of foods to provide a nutrionally sound diet.  It's a two-hour trek to get to the zoo but well worth it every month.

And tomorrow is another day in the car as we head over to Warwick to tour PETCO!

Pamela

Today I learned that the correct spelling is not Veteran's Day (as in belonging to one veteran), nor Veterans' Day (as in belonging to more than one veteran), but Veterans Day (no apostrophe at all), since it isn't a day that belongs to veterans, it's the day for honoring all veterans.  We began our study with a good surf through the Internet and were especially intrigued by this site for the Flanders Fields Museum.  The audio track is beautiful and the character sketches really give you an idea of the men and women who were so affected by The Great War.  I highly recommend In Flanders Fields, The Story of the Poem by John McCrae by Linda Granfield.  We found stacks of websites with facts, figures, maps, games, coloring pages, and even a cross stitch pattern and had a very enjoyable morning.  Sophia is busy working on her Theodore Roosevelt paper - he's our Patriot of the Day and she turned out this piece as her description of a military veteran:

An American military veteran is a man or woman who served in the armed forces. They are men and women who fought for their country or performed support roles at home or overseas. They are remembered along with others who died fighting. Veterans Day is in honor of these veterans and the poppy flower has become its symbol.

Pamela