School Records

I just filled out our school records/grades. We just "officially" finished our school a little over a week ago (it seems we took a lot of extra weeks off during the year, so our school year dragged into the end of July - so, while everybody else is talking about what a great summer they had and gearing up for the new year, we're just starting our abbreviated summer vacation!)

I enjoy planning for school, and I feel like we're doing okay, covering lots of material, and I know my kids are learning . . . but when it comes time to fill out the grade reports, my confidence wavers and I begin to envy people doing a 'standard textbook' curriculum that gives quizzes and tests to base grades on and 'prove' that such-and-such was learned. What exactly are my kids supposed to know about geography, anyway? I know we've never memorized the 50 state capitals. My kids are reading about interesting people and places, but we have no flour-and-water relief maps or unit book reports to show. How do I know what kind of a grade my kids should get??

Anyway, grades are done, for better or worse, and it's another half year before I have to think about it again.

Wake Up!

This morning, as usual, Miss Moana was the first one up. I told her to go and wake up her brothers, as usual. Generally, she goes to their door (it has a baby-gate to keep her out) and she calls, "BRUDDERS! Wake up!" This morning I told her to "go wake up your brothers." And she said, "You mean T. Kekoa and J. Keola and L. Kahoa? I love them. They're mine. They're my brudders." Then she went to wake them up. :)

CM on the Brain?

This week I was making a green smoothie in the blender - I wanted it to be blended really well, so I let it run for a couple of minutes. And as I was letting it run, I was watching the mixture going around and around through the side of the container . . . I could see little dark specks kind of collecting together on the side in a few places, it must have been apple peel, and I started thinking of like attracting like, coagulating together like . . . apperception masses?

I think maybe I've been reading too much of Charlotte Mason's criticism of Herbart and his "apperception mass" theory.

New Dancing Dress

Miss Moana has loved the skirt I made her out of her old baby sling, but she wears it every day and I'm getting tired of looking at it and it clashes with some of her clothes. So, last night, instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing, I made her a new skirt. I bought some silky material at Walmart in a pink that will match almost everything she owns. I used a similar method (not really a pattern) that my mother showed me for making a pa'u hula skirt so that it would be really, really full for the best twirling effect. I was pleased that, when it's on, it looks like a ballet skirt. Perfect to go with "Donkey Honkey!" Here are some pictures of the skirt in action. She makes her own music when she dances, so she's singing "daaah-dah-dah!" in most of these pictures.

When Christendom Produces Cultists, Mockers and Atheists

Dana at Principled Discovery [I've spent a lot of time there this afternoon! ;)] has been blogging about an article called "The Descent Into Unbelief." It examines why Christian Victorians failed to pass on their faith to the next generations. Charlotte Mason must have seen some of this coming because she advocated exposing children to ideas -- instead of sheltering them from things like evolution, Biblical criticism and immorality, she thought they should be taught to think through difficult issues. Dana's posts confirm CM's advice.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Are Homeschoolers Guilty of Abandoning Ship?

I followed a link from Principled Discovery's blog to this post at Street Prophets titled "Homeschools offer no guarantees." It was interesting, and the debate in the comments is even more interesting. This, from one of the very last comments posted by a "Jeff G," struck me, it reminds me so much of CM's warning about utilitarian education:

"...big business--big corporations--are having a horrible impact on education. I fear we may be turning our schools into career grist mills, and to me that smacks of social engineering. Career prep is important, but education is about much much more than what you wanna be when you grow up. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, education is critical to the functioning of a democratic republic. The ability to think critically is of enormous import. An electorate that cannot deconstruct the media, analyze and detect bias in news and information, think and analyze logically, and communicate clearly and effectively will not be able to sustain a democratic system."

The debate is interesting because, while I've thought about homeschoolers being guilty of abandoning the mission field by refusing to be "salt and light" in public schools, I'd never really considered that homeschooling is, in a sense, a self-centered action that leaves everyone else's kids to their fates in the system. Not that it makes me reconsider homeschooling - I don't think that having my children in the system would help the system or any of the other victims of it. I just hadn't heard of that argument before, or heard of people leaving their own children there, even when they're not doing well, for that reason.

Pool Pix

Miss Moana with her Daddy in her little pool. This isn't the only picture; I posted a few more on her picture page.

Miss Moana's Favorite Videos

Miss Moana gets so upset when her brothers and Daddy all leave to go to piano lessons or violin lessons, but she's so difficult to take out, so I usually stay home with her. Last week I discovered that she's much less upset if I let her watch videos while they're gone. So she's been watching more videos lately - a scripture song one called Hide'em in Your Heart for kiddies, Riverdance, and a Don Quixote ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov that a friend loaned us (Miss Moana calls it "Donkey Honkey").

It's easy to tell what she watched last - after the song one, she'll be singing. After Riverdance, she asks to put on a dress, and then she puts her hands on her hips and jumps and kicks. After "Donkey Honkey," she asks for a pink dress, and then she twirls and does a lot of big arm movements.

Her other favorites are Winnie the Pooh, Bambi and the old Lassie TV series - but those are for special occassions.

Looking Closely: Answers

Here are the full pictures that the close-ups were taken from. (Original post here.)


1. Dandelion

2. Leaf with dew

3. Morel mushroom (I believe this is a yellow morel)

4. Orange day lily

5. Dandelion seeds

6. Iris

7. Chicory

8. (To be truthful, I don't know what this is myself. It's a fairly common weed around here, but this is the first time I've seen one with this sort of coloring.)

9. Mushroom (this is in its youth; I have other pictures of it fully-grown)

10. Chicory again

Exam Time

We're just now finishing up our final term of the school year, so we'll be doing exams next week. I've come up with exam questions based on Charlotte Mason's exams, except that I'm only assigning ten questions per student. It's summer and we're all ready for a break, I didn't want to tack on a grueling week of exams to a vacation that's only starting in the middle of July. Summer's going to be short enough as it is.

Kahoa - Year 3.5

Bible
1. Tell about Gideon and his three hundred. (Judges)
2. How is Jesus better than the angels? (Hebrews)

3. Writing/Dictation (poem by Christina Rosetti)
Look over first, then write:
The city mouse lives in a house;--
The garden mouse lives in a bower,
He's friendly with the frogs and toads,
And sees the pretty plants in flower.

History (A Child's History of the World)
4. Tell about "Bibles made of stone and glass."
5. What do you know about Napoleon?

Literature
6. How did Myles help his father? (Men of Iron by Howard Pyle)
7. What happened to Gobo? (Bambi by Felix Salton)

Geography (Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason)
8. What do you know about the surface of the earth? Name some continents.

Science (All About Famous Inventors and Their Inventions by Fletcher Pratt)
9. Tell about the invention of the cotton gin and who invented it, OR the airplane.

Math
10. 232 x 34
6x + 4 = 40
Write three ways of dividing 28 by 4. How much is that?

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Keola - Year 6

Bible
1. Tell about Gideon and his three hundred. (Judges)
2. How is Jesus better than the angels? (Hebrews)

3. Writing/Dictation
So Gandalf went on with the tale until he came to the fight in the dark the discovery of the lower gate, and their horror that Mr. Baggins had been mislaid. (The Hobbit)

History
4. How/why did Augustus get his title, and what was his name before? (Augustus Caesar's World by G. Foster)
5. Describe a Roman triumphal procession. OR tell what you know of Cleopatra.
6. Tell what you admire about Churchill OR Galileo's contributions to science/math. (Never Give in OR Galileo and the Magic Numbers)

Geography (A Child's Geography of the World by Hillyer)
7. Tell about "the land of the new moon" OR the place where there are "man made mountains."

Natural History/Science (The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson)
8. What do you know about waves or currents?

Citizenship (Plutarch's Lives)
9. What good did Romulus do for Rome?

Picture Study
10. Describe Waterhouse's painting "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius"

---------------------------

Kekoa - Year 10

Bible
1. Tell about some of Israel's judges (Judges)
2. Compare Jesus with the angels. (Hebrews)

History (Churchill The Great Democracies)
3. Tell about American Reconstruction after the Civil War.
4. What do you know of the rise of Germany OR the struggle for home rule in Ireland?
5. Why was Victoria so beloved by her people? (Queen Victoria by Sarah Tytler) OR Describe Frederick Douglass's "escape from slavery." (Essays)

Government
6. What is the role of government in a free state? (On Liberty by John Stuart Mill)

Geography
7. Describe the terrain of Scotland (In Search of Scotland by H.V. Morton)

Citizenship (Plutarch's Lives or Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin)
8. Contrast the leadership of Theseus and Romulus. OR explain "all literature and all education are only useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and THEREFORE kingly, power--first, over ourselves, and, through ourselves, over
all around us."

Science
9. Tell about "winter animals" (Walden by Henry David Thoreau) OR How does physics relate to biology, astronomy, geology, or psychology? (Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman)

Literature (Silas Marner by George Eliot)
10. Describe the character of your favorite person in Silas Marner OR compare the characters of brothers Godfrey and Dunstan.

Years 7-11

Tim and I went through Ambleside Online's booklist and picked our top choices for if we needed to pare down the booklists for years 7-10 (he hasn't done Year 11 yet!) This is what we would pick for each Year if we had to whittle it down. (Not everyone would agree with our choices!)

I'm calling it "Plan B."

This post was too long. So I moved it. Now each year has a page of its own.
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10

Dishes

I love dishes. I love looking at patterns. The dishes I have are Corelle because I wanted one set I could use every day that would look good twenty years later, and something nice enough that I could make them look more formal when I wanted to. The pattern I settled on is called English Breakfast. I love them - they're pink and blue (my favorite colors) and they have a nice border with ribbons and roses. They're simple and plain enough that I don't get tired of them. I plan to have these dishes for the rest of my life.

But I started noticing that all my plates and bowls are getting shaved around the edges. I wondered if it was my dishwasher, so I called the company and they said "your washing arm is cracked, we can send someone out to replace it for $200." I took a close look at the arms of the dishwasher, top and bottom, no cracks. I decided not to spend the money to replace something that doesn't seem broken. A friend suggested that maybe my water is too hot. So I switched the water setting. It didn't help. In fact, my glasses were starting to have nicks and slivers missing on the edges. That's dangerous, but not a huge deal, I'm not in love with my glasses.

Then a couple weeks ago another friend happened to mention in passing that Cascade Complete is the worst detergent because it eats away your dishes. Hmmm. When my dishwasher was new, I did a little research online and a few sites raved about Cascade Complete, that it was the best detergent. No other detergent was named by name on any other site. So, naturally, that's what I've been using.

So, I've switched detergents - and now I'm working on replacing my damaged dishes piece by piece. My pattern is discontinued, so I'm having to slowly rebuild via ebay.

Raw Pasta

The family had pasta with parmesan cheese and garlic bread - hard to pass up being on a raw diet. I have one of those saladdaccio thingies that cuts zucchini into angel hair pasta, but I haven't had much luck making a satisfactory pasta sauce. The conventional way is to use sun-dried tomatoes and regular tomatoes, but it's always too thin and too bland, and the "pasta" is watery by itself.

I decided I needed pasta after smelling the family dinner. I sliced the zucchini into strands first and then let them sit in a dish lined with a paper towel to hopefully absorb some water while I made the sauce.

But I had no dried tomatoes. So I used two plum tomatoes, half an avocado and a small handful of sunflower seeds to thicken it up. and oregano, basil and some salted sun-dried tomato flakes in a spice jar (dh must have picked those up for his pizza?) and a dash of onion powder. Then I whizzed it in the blender. It turned out the color of sunflower seeds, but it was nice and thick, and it smelled like pasta sauce - the oregano and basil, no doubt.

I read that you can mix ground up sesame seeds and salt to make parmesan cheese, so I did that. It sure looks like parmesan cheese!

The result was perfect! Well, except for the color. The spices and salt, and the thickness of the sauce hit the spot. I will definitely do this again! (I posted the recipe on my blog so I won't lose it!) Next time I'll remember to add garlic!

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I made this again this evening, but instead of mixing the avocado in the blender with the tomatoes, I cut it by hand and added it after. I hoped that it would help keep the sauce more red. It did help, but as everything slowly mingled on the plate, it all turned brownish anyway. Here's a photo of tonight's pasta:

Cat Herding

We loved this ad -- the blog we found it on says this is what their life is like "on the bad days."

Court Rules Against Sanitizing Films

This is disappointing. Hollywood is determined to decide what the public should see, and the courts have ruled that it's illegal to edit objectionable content from movies. (article here) Never mind my right to see a movie without the garbage that the director feels I need to see.

"Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor."

They make it sound like audiences have been duped and getting edited movies unwittingly and against their will - but those who go out of their way to rent or purchase edited movies obviously don't want the entire "vision" of the filmmakers. What's so bad about letting consumers have a choice?

There is a Forbidden Word...

According to this article, "the Church of England is considering rejecting England's patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims."

James Kushiner at Mere Comments thinks the Scots should get rid of the St. Andrew's Cross, too (he was Scottish, after all...). And didn't Robin Hood go on the Crusades too? But perhaps he wasn't a good Englishman either.

"There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is England." - Sir Winston Churchill

Look Closely...

Each of these photos is a close-up of something I've found in the yard. Make your best guesses at what they are; I'll post the full pictures in a couple days.

	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
	6
	7
	8
	9
	10

Because they are interesting, if trivial

I saw this on Athena's blog, and then the Common Room, but I decided to do it after I saw it at Dewey's Tree House.

A - Accent: none
B - Breakfast Item: green smoothie
C - Chore you hate: (only one?) cooking
D - Dad's Name: Mr. B
E - Essential everyday item: Blender
F - Flavor ice cream: vanilla (with peanut butter on top, it's even better!) OR coconut (over the years, I've given this question waaaayyy too much thought!)
G - Gold or Silver?: gold
H - Happy Place: In front of my computer (pathetic, I know)
I - Insomnia: no, not once I actually go to bed
J - Job - Love or want to leave: Love!
K - Kids: Yes.
L - Living arrangements: 3 bedroom; no discernible decor
M - Mom's birthplace: My mom? Hawaii.
N - Number of houses you've lived in: 10-ish (do barracks count?)
O - Overnight hospital stays: three (all pregnancies, and I didn't sleep at all)
P - Phobia: Making phone calls
Q - Question: Where is everybody?
R - Religious Affiliation: Calvary Chapel
S - Siblings: Two sisters, one brother
T - Time you wake up: 9-ish
U - Unnatural hair colors you've had: None
V - Vegetable you refuse to eat: green bell peppers and slimy okra
W - Worst habit: Mr. B could probably answer that better than I could (but please don't ask him!)
X - X-rays you've had: dental.
Y - Yummy: Pre-raw - baked salmon, iced cake, sandwich cookies, dark chocolate, peanut butter, sweetened coconut flakes, just about anything vanilla
Currently - Thai coconut, banana/blueberry smoothie, coconut/pineapple smoothie, "raw" cashews, mangos
Z - Zealous about? (I changed another one!): CM's educational vision

Modern Paraphrase of the Declaration of Independence

I found this online last year, and it's still there:
MODERN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Happy Fourth!

Swimming Lessons are Over

The boys did so well at their two-week swimming lessons that I signed them up for two more weeks - which is the biggest reason we haven't been blogging. But they just ended, so we should have some time again (we have our lives back! LOL!)

I just completed my paraphrase of Charlotte Mason's Volume 4, both parts! It's been a year-long project that was beginning to feel like would never be done! Now on to Volume 3 . . .

Miss Moana is just as spirited and feisty as ever. Her latest thing is pretending to be a dancer and then narrating everything she does in third person: "The dancer is reading a book." "The dancer is going for a drive." It brings back memories of another toddler, about fourteen years ago, who used to do the same thing, except he was usually a fireman: "the fireman is eating a sandwich." "The fireman is buckling his seatbelt." If he wasn't a fireman, he was Timmy Martin, with his stuffed collie as Lassie. And his little brother was always a cowboy, and he wouldn't eat anything until he had first checked to make sure that it was something that cowboys really would eat. He'd always ask, "Do cowboys eat this?" and I'd say yes most of the time, at least, if it was something I wanted him to like. For example, cowboys loved baked beans and peanut butter sandwiches, but they didn't eat ice cream because they didn't have freezers. At two, it never occurred to him to check my sources.

Miss Moana is looking through an old New Testament I bought her at a used book sale. I was curious to know what her impression is of the book, so I asked her, "What's that book about?" And she said, "it's a bear Jesus story." Okay, so she does connect it with Jesus. Sort of. So I asked her to tell me what the bear says in the book. She answered, "He gets mad and then he goes to bed." Hmmm. Two months ago, when she had roseola, I stayed home with her while the rest of the family went to church. She was cranky, and I was starving and irritable after being up all night with her, but she wouldn't let me put her down long enough to get anything to eat. I finally convinced her to get down long enough to make a smoothie, although she fussed every minute - and, wouldn't you know it, I found an insect leg in the blender after I made the smoothie and was pouring it out of the blender! I was so frustrated that I scooped her up and said, "I might as well go back to bed!" And we did, and she kept asking me, "Mommy, are you mad?" and I said, "Yes, I'm mad."

Well, she's never forgotten that. Now she associates being mad with going to bed. Any time one of her brothers is mad, she'll ask, "Are you mad?" and if they say yes, she'll ask if they're going to go to bed.

Fireworks

Books of the Last Two Months - May and June

Jack by George Sayer
A biography of C.S. Lewis by a friend and former pupil. It's very good, and detailed enough to be used for reference. It was obviously written by someone who knew and loved Lewis, but it doesn't try to gloss over the less flattering parts of his life--and it usually tells the whole story, which Surprised by Joy (not surprisingly) doesn't. My only criticism might be that it gets a little too psychoanalytical at times.


Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
A very good mystery (why hadn't I heard of this author before a couple months ago?). The mystery is actually about a historical figure [I have a great temptation to write "an historical"], and it's worked out (or should I say "detected"?) by a police detective and a historian. The conclusion they come to is controversial among historians, but the book is very good.


The Princess and the Goblins by George MacDonald
I love this book. I've read it many times and found it an excellent story, but as I get older I'm seeing greater depth in it.


The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald
The sequel to The Princess and the Goblins. It's not quite as good, but it's still very good. Some parts remind me of parts in Lewis's and Tolkien's works.


The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
Disappointing. Milne may be a good writer, but his mystery doesn't compare to Miss Tey or Miss Sayers (or Sir Arthur C. Doyle or Chesterton).


A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
An excellent mystery. Good characters, a good engaging plot, and a satisfying conclusion. I'm afraid to say too much and give away part of the story--perhaps you should just read it?


Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
A reread; this is the sequel to Half Magic (which I talked about in my March list). Light, fun reading about four children that wish for magic and get a whole lakeful of it (not to mention the turtle).


The Wise Woman by George MacDonald
Princess Rosamond is completely spoiled by her royal parents. One day the Wise Woman comes and takes away the Princess to her home, and teaches her and makes her work and helps her work, until she becomes a true princess in character as she already was Princess by birth. (It's actually a good book, far better than my summary makes it sound. It shows well how God takes us, spoiled and selfish as we are, and makes us true children of the King.)


The Day Boy and the Night by George MacDonald
A good story with some interesting ideas. Upon a time there were two ladies in the house of Watho the witch who both gave birth to children. Watho took the children from their mothers at birth, and said they had died; but she brought them up in secret. The boy she named Photogen and the girl she named Nycteris, and neither knew that the other existed. Photogen she kept in daylight as much as possible, and did not allow him to see the night. He was taught all the manly arts, swordfighting and and hunting and the like. As long as it was light he knew no fear, and darkness he did not know.

Nycteris was kept in a cave that was completely dark save for one very dim lamp. Watho taught her nothing but music; but by her own devices Nycteris learned to read--for her eyes could see quite well in the dim light--and from the books she read she had a vague idea of a world outside. She sometimes wished for something else; she could not say what, except that she wanted more space. But somehow her lamp, and the light of her lamp, seemed connected with the idea of space, and of outside.

Eventually Nycteris does get out, and Photogen sees the night and learns what fear is, and--but I think that is enough to get you started. You wouldn't want me to tell you the whole story anyway--would you?--when MacDonald has already told it so much better.


The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles
Good, but gorier than I remembered from the audiobook we listened to (years ago, admittedly). I've not read any other translations which I can compare to, but this one was generally recommended and it seemed pretty good. It's in free verse, or loose alliterative verse. The language is modern, easy to understand, and it moves along well. It also has helpful notes and pronunciation guides for all the names in the back.

I noticed, however, that a lot of the stories Rosemary Sutcliff has in Black Ships Before Troy, such as the coming of the Amazons and the death of Ajax, are not in the Iliad itself. The fall of Troy isn't even in the Iliad. Does anyone know where those stories are from?


Emma by Jane Austen
Very good. I was afraid that the middle might get dull, but it never did. Miss Austen's characters are excellent.