Five Down, Thirty-One to Go

This is my camera? And you can see that I left it sitting on the table? Instead of taking meaningful and memorable photos of my students this week? Maybe I'll do more actual photographing next week? Let's hope so?

Ooo, good week this week. I came within an hour of my goal of 25 hours of actual teaching time. This is the first week I have come that close. So, I feel quite encouraged.

Highlights of the week: playing theater games with all my children on Tuesday morning. Kepler even wanted to get involved and he joined our circle. Since he is so short, we all knelt down to be closer to his level. The little mimic that he is, HE then knelt down. So we all lay on our stomachs, which of course he did too. He might not have understood everything we were doing, but he sure did have fun. I got the games from Lisa Bany-Winters' book "On Stage." Improv games, warm-ups, theater-in-the-round, and several other categories. I think my favorite moment was at the end of a circle game which involved clapping with the person next to you, when we all spontaneously broke into some very rhythmic, syncopated clapping, which went on for a couple of minutes. Everyone wanted to do more games but we just couldn't find any more time this week. I still have the book -- I think these would be fun games with adults too!

Keys to my year so far: having a curriculum I continue to love, five weeks into the year; taking time twice a week to see a personal trainer and really work hard physically; eating pretty well most days which means I avoid most of the foods that mess with my blood sugar and/or moods; realizing that I CAN do this; and it probably helps that Kepler is now TWO instead of ONE. Surely my strength must come from the Holy Spirit and how glad I am to have it!

Another highlight: beginning to read "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" and deciding to throw a bit of fine arts in after the first chapter. All of us drew an illustration from the first chapter. One of my students felt very unsure about being able to create a good picture, but ended up with such a creative piece with many fun little details in the drawing.

There's so much to learn and experience and do. And I'm really enjoying this school year.

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On My Bookshelf This Week

I'm always jotting down titles of books I would like to read. Periodically, I gather up all the little notes and go crazy reserving books at my public library. This week, on my shelf, you would find the following:

Raising Unselfish Children in a Self-Absorbed World - sounds like a noble idea; may be one of those books whose title catches my eye, but the book sits unread. better not skip this one -- i want to end up with unselfish children!

Flip - subtitle: How to Turn Everything You Know on its Head -- and Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings. Sounded interesting.

Sunstroke - The first novel by a brilliant writer named Jesse Kellerman. I am amazed at his writing and would love to sit and ask him HOW he comes up with the stories.

The Writing Diet - one of the many Julia Cameron books on creativity -- Writing myself Thin sure sounds easier than jogging.

On Stage - a super-fun book of theater plays -- you'll hear more about this on tomorrow's weekly homeschool post.

The Rhythm of Life - Matthew Kelly.

I Don't Want to Talk About it - another book by Terrence Real, a guy who knows his stuff

Resolution - Robert Parker's latest -- easy to read -- fairly mindless

The New Rules of Marriage -- Terrence Real has written an excellent book. I have read it once and love the concepts -- I'm going to reread this with an eye toward sharing it with some engaged couples I know.

Ritalin-Free Kids -- Like everyone else in the USA, we have a little ADD going on here, so I thought I might check into some "Safe and Effective Homeopathic Medicine for ADHD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems

What are you reading that you can't put down? I'm always on the lookout for more books to read!

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Today's Excitement - My Annual Eye Exam

No offense to Joann, the helpful lady at the eye doctor's office, but she sure had trouble with just about everything she did. First, she put my last name first and first name last, which was going to make it hard to find me next time. So, I asked her before she pressed enter if she wanted to change it. She did, but she got distracted so my last name ended up looking like a combo of first and last, which would also make it hard to find me next time. While she was distracted I reached over and pressed backspace until the field was clear. She finally got it. Just seemed like she was in a giant hurry. Sometimes that doesn't work so well with computers. And ironically, my appointment ended up taking longer than expected, so I had to surreptitiously text my sister to see if she could hoover Eli over to the orthodontist appt I wasn't going to be able to make.

Even less exciting was the fact that I think I decided to wait until the first of the year to get my sexy new glasses because we have a vision benefit that will be available then. Oh, but wait! What if The Big Company Greg Works For CHANGES the vision benefit? That would be a drag. OK. Glasses will be ordered really soon. Can't wait until the new year. You'll love 'em.

And least exciting of all, I am the proud new owner of a prescription for eye drops for dry eyes.

Aren't you glad you know?

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Four Down, Thirty-Two to Go

Started out this eventful week with no electricity thanks to Hurricane Ike losing his way and ending up in Ohio. Public schools were off as well, so I gave in to my stressed-out feelings and let the kids have a day off. Power came back on at our house Monday evening, so I was all set to go Tuesday morning. Got a call late morning from my parents who were still in the dark asking if they could borrow the generator we had borrowed the day before from a friend. OF COURSE! So, instead of teaching Tuesday morning I spent time getting the generator moved, gas bought, etc., so another slow day.

Wednesday I got on the stick though and did some homeschooling in the few minutes I was home. Also, took the kids along on Thursday to Kepler's play group and used all that time including the travel time to teach the little sponges. Friday we did a nice long day of work, although we stopped a little early. Overall, it was a productive week, even though the schedule got all thrown off.

Highlights. Let's see. I truly wish I had had the presence of mind to find the digital camera and video Eli and friend Nathan sailing down the street on their skateboards, holding a big tarp between them which was completely filled with air from the hurricane force winds we were having.

Finished one of our Sonlight readers, and we are coming close to finishing another. We are learning very interesting stuff about the human body. I am STILL happy with the curriculum I have chosen. I STILL like my students. A lot.

I love homeschooling. I learn so much. Probably some of this stuff I heard in grade school myself, but it's cool to be learning it again. Ferdinand Magellan, Balboa, Ponce de Leon -- gotta love those guys -- so brave and willing to figure things out by putting their whole selves into the activity.

So far, so good. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment next weekend.

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where in the WORLD has siouxsie been?

So much to tell. So little time right now. We were without electricity from Sunday at 3 pm to Monday at 6 pm. My parents and sisters were without electricity for an additional 24 hours beyond that, so there was some time spent on Tuesday helping with a generator, ice, dinner, etc. Even after our electricity was restored, our internet was not working until I finally called the provider tonight and found out that a relatively simple remedy was available, of which I availed myself, and fixed the problem.

I've missed you all (yes, ALL of you) and will be updating you in the next several days about the many adventures of the past several days.

Love,
Siouxsie

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Three Weeks Down -- 33 to Go

Or, Sleep-Teaching -- I Recommend It.

So, we've completed another week of homeschooling here at Siouxsie's house. Things were not QUITE as smooth this week. People had questions about why they have to learn grammar if they are going to be professional skateboarders. "To raise the perception of the intellectual level of the sport" growled Daddy in response. People cried when they had to figure out how many pounds and ounces the zucchini in the picture weighed. They cried even harder when I suggested they figure out the difference in their birth weight (11 lb 7 oz) and their little brother's birth weight (8 lb 12 oz), even when I made a mistake and said "their" birth weight was 11 lb 12 oz). We had people telling me they can't do the program I selected for their language class this year. We had people making humorous videos of homeschooling with lots of photos of their own face making bored looks and emitting huge sighs. And we had small people unloading every shelf/box/container they could get their little two-year-old hands on. And then there were the people who felt very poorly treated for having a long day of school in spite of the fact that there are days when we do almost no school -- they just didn't see that it isn't possible to have an exact 5-hour day every day. And they didn't like that.

Ah, but we read some great stuff and really did make some progress. And my students made some awesome connections -- one of them listened to me read about being optimistic and later commented during a read-aloud that a particular character was very optimistic. I love stuff like that. I'm reminded of how much I like the curriculum I am using this week. I'm reminded of how much I love teaching my own children and what a privilege it is to do this. And how great are kids who will continue on with their work when their tired mother just HAS to have a nap right now? Pretty great, I'd say.

Ever onward, always improving. Looking forward to next week.

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Scribbling about Scrabble

There's Scrabble you play with your emerging child speller where you cheer the word "duk" because she is sounding out words and trying to spell them. No score is kept in this game and most rules are either bent or completely disregarded.

There are the Scrabble games you play online with friends, or sometimes with people who have nothing better to do, evidently, than play Scrabble online, as evidenced by their used of the word "vquex" to score 114 points on a triple word play.

There are the Scrabble games that someone somewhere must play where you use a board, tiles, and the actual rules. I don't know anyone who does that, though.

And then . . . . there is Northwoods Scrabble. The board pictured here is an actual game I recently played (I promise, Iris) with two of my children. In Northwoods Scrabble, the idea is to create a word using the tiles on your rack, giving the definition for it after you put the word on the board. While this may suffer from a bit of 'you had to be there' syndrome, here are a few of our definitions:

eieio -- Mr. McDonald's first name.

boqapowa -- bonfire lit by Norwegians making sandwiches for a trip to Germany.

utanlui -- animal which a cross between an Utan and a Lui. Found only in Pakistan.

eicoolie (i-chew-lee) -- trout disease which turns scales yellow.

and finally

vepzuneri -- a Swedish boat constructed from dried utanlui skins and colored with eicoolie-infected trout oil.

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