Still Dancing

Miss M still loves to dance - whether the steps bear some ballet or Riverdance influences depends on which tape she watched last. Tonight, it was Riverdance, complete with kicks and leaps, but with a few ballet twirls thrown in. The right music, a frilly dress, an attentive audience, and she's off!

Girls will be girls

This is what happens when boys with little sisters leave their chain mail laying around . . .

The armor is for a project the boys have been busy with (the project that's kept Tim too busy to post). They made it from PVC pipes and spray painted it. It looks much more impressive when it's on and not being used as a cozy little bed for a Beanie Kitty.

A Picture of Books

This is what's stacked beside the bed of the son who I was concerned about because he was nine years old and still not really reading. But then he suddenly went from struggling with Frog and Toad to almost overnight wanting to read Black Beauty and Treasure Island (he read and re-read both of those books many times!) Now, four years later, he asks his older brother, "What should I read?" He's become interested in the Battle of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson, so some of these books are library books about ships and sailing.

Here he is a couple of months ago after his first violin concert.

Ahoy, ye Land Lubbers!

It's that time of year again . . .

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Bits and Pieces

We just finished our first week of the new school year. It went okay; our company left Monday morning and we saw them off pretty early, then had a long, leisurely first-day-of-school breakfast (Krispy Creme donuts; I didn't have any), so schooling got off to a late morning start and we were all tired from getting up too early. Not the best way to start off the new school year. Since we'd had company, I hadn't taken care of all the details for the school year - I had slowly gotten our schedules done and stacked the books we'd need and ordered or printed the ones we didn't have. But I forgot to divide and print our Plutarch and Shakespeare, so we couldn't start on that. We managed to fit teatime in on Tuesday, although it was an after-dinner tea because Miss Moana's nap made an afternoon tea impossible. Then we were gone Wednesday, so much of school was fit around the little bit of time we were home. Yesterday we spent out all day with music lessons field-trip kind of stuff, so none of school got done. We spent today catching up. We're mostly caught up, but the week has felt pretty unorganized, and I don't like to be so disorganized so early in the year when we're trying to establish a routine. Still, life has to take precedence over schooling, and the things that interfered with school were mostly educational.

I had the same tightness and aching in my lungs this week that I had a few weeks ago, so I saw the doctor today. She immediately started planning EKG's and heart tests, but I reminded her that she had seen me for this a few years ago and confirmed that I had an inflamed bronchial tube, so there was no need to get excited that I was having a heart attack. But my medical records say that I have "mitral valve prolapse," and chest pain can be attributed to that, so she did an EKG anyway. I'm also getting an inhaler like people with asthma use. Next time I get the chest pain, I'm supposed to try it to determine whether the pain is respiratory by trying the inhaler. If it doesn't help, then I guess they determine that it's related to the mitral valve prolapse. I'm certain that it's respiratory. But the mitral valve prolapse does help explain why I can't stand up for very long when I'm pregnant. I can't even stand up long enough to do dishes without getting light-headed, and it's become routine that when I'm pregnant, I carry a little chair with me when we go shopping because I can't stand in the aisles very long without feeling woozy. I thought it was low pressure, but apparently not.

The diet's been iffy for the past couple of weeks - I read Robert Young's Ph Diet and I'm contemplating incorporating some of his suggestions (less fruit, and the addition of a few low sugar, low grain things). Psychologically, it's given me an excuse to eat Soy Chikin Nuggets. I'm eating less produce and more potatoes, beans and salsa. Maybe I'll do better next week. But - now that I've tasted bottled salsa as a dressing for a green salad that includes avocado, I may never go back to a totally raw diet again.

And now some really exciting news - we're getting 24 feet of new bookshelves!! Mr. B is putting a 7' foot shelf above the opening between the family/dining room on both sides of the opening, and two 5' shelves on the wall behind the couch.

This is what one side of the opening looks like with the shelf above the doorway; the shelf will be stained to match the wall. It looks even better than I had envisioned; it looks like it belongs there. It will hold seven (7) feet of books, and there's an identical one on the other side of the door! Note Miss Moana on the floor watching her daily dose of "Honkey Donkey" (Don Quixote), with one sock on and one sock off. Also note copy of This Country of Ours on the bookshelf. It just arrived today! After years of using the etext, I finally decided to purchase the "real" book.

For my own reference: Socialization

I'm saving this link because it's part of a multi-part series of blog posts about socilaization, and it links to other articles. I plan to read these this week.

Teacher Arrested in New York

[This was posted to the GCM parenting message board, although I don't think it originated there.]

NEW YORK , NY - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-Gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as ' unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are three sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

[I looked this up and found this additional ending here.]

"I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," the President said, adding, "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."

President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex." Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."

This joke has apparently been floating around for awhile; I found a shorter version of it from 2003. But it's still cute. :)

My Reading for the Year

I've posted the boys' school schedules. So, what am I planning to read? I always wanted to read some of AO's Year 7 books, but when Tim did Year 7, I didn't have time - I don't remember if I was pregnant then or what, but it was undoable at the time. So now Keola is in Year 7 and I have a second opportunity. I'm going to read The History of English Literature for Boys and Girls by H.E. Marshall, The Life of the Spider by Henri Fabre, and possibly Churchill's Birth of Britain and Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher. I'll also be reading Medieval poems from the Oxford Book of English Verse, and I'll be paraphrasing them so I can understand them, with Tim's help. Here's the first poem, and I think I can write it in my own words now.

1. Cuckoo Song (Anonymous. c. 1250)

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu--
Sing cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

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

Summer is coming in,
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed grows, the meadow blows,
And the wood springs new--
Sing cuckoo!

The ewe bleats after her lamb,
The cow lows after her calf;
The bull leaps, the deer springs,
Sing merrily cuckoo!

Cuckoo, Cuckoo, sing well, cuckoo:
Don't stop singing;
Sing cuckoo, now, sing cuckoo,
Sing cuckoo, sing now cuckoo!

Challenge for School-Aged Children

Miss Roxie has posted a challenge on her blog that involves memorizing a four-digit number and counting change. Can your child do it?

This post explains why she's posted the challenge.

And this one is just really funny.

More Car Stuff

Mr. B heard the update from the other lady's insurance company. They got the evidence of the new engine he had had put in, so they adjusted the car's value to $800 -- and then proceeded to deduct and deduct and deduct until they worked it down to $300. That would actually be okay, it pays for the tires he had to replace and hammering out the wheel well.

The problem now is that he may actually have to replace the vehicle. The dent over the back wheel affected the back window so it doesn't seal. We had some horrendous rain this weekend and now the car is soaked on the inside and it smells. The front windows don't open due to the age of the car. Right now Mr. B and his brother-in-law are wet-vac'ing the water out and they'll let it air out and try to duct tape the windows so they'll be waterproof (hopefully.) But if the car molds on the inside and stinks, he won't be able to drive it and will have to purchase a commuter car to go to work.

Tim's Year 11 Schedule

It's not done yet; we're making a lot of changes. Tim has music lessons on Monday and Thursdays, and likes to be around on Wednesdays because Mr. B has more free time that day, and it's no fun if Tim has a stack of books to get through. So those days need to be lighter. Also, Tim has his own list of books that he wants to get to, and I figure he's old enough to help decide what he wants to read. He only has two years of school left and some of these books are books he's wanted to read for awhile - and I want to make time for them now, since they are educational.

So, he's reading a Year 6 biography on Churchill and that's the only biography he's reading. He wanted to read The Last Lion, which is two volumes about Churchill, but I don't see how he'll fit it in, so he reluctantly agreed to do Never Give In instead. He wants to read Ruskin's Mornings in Florence, so he's doing that as his art text instead of The Story of Art. He loves H.V. Morton's travel books, so he's reading three of those this year instead of The World by Jan Morris. He wasn't impressed with the logic book by the Bluedorns, and opted for Euclid's Elements instead. For poetry, he's doing Millay, Yeats and Auden instead of a contemporary anthology. He wanted to read the writing book by Annie Dillard that he saw mentioned in the Beehive blog, so he's using that instead of On Writing Well. He's doing Darwin's Black Box and The Case for a Creator instead of the nature books in Year 11. He's skipping Brideshead Revisited. And he'll fit in Roosevelt's Letters, How Green Was My Valley, and To Kill a Mockingbird as free reading. He's going to look at Mein Kampf but not read all of it.

So I have the list of books he's doing and which days of the week he'd like to do them, and I'll try to get his daily schedule ready tonight.

It's done now; you can see it here.

10-year-old Kahoa's Year 4 schedule is also done; he started Year 4 last year and wasn't ready for it, so I created a Year 3.5. This year we're trying again. His schedule is here.

Keola's Year 7b schedule is here.

And what about my own reading list? I'm already committed to Parents and Children, CM's volume 2. Besides Shakespeare and Plutarch, which we do as a family, and our daily poem from AO's Year 1 poetry anthology, this is my tentative reading list for the year:

Year 4 Probable Read-alouds
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
It Couldn't Just Happen by Lawrence Richards

Year 7
Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher (probable read-aloud)
The Life of the Spider by Henri Fabre
History of English Literature by H. E. Marshall
Taste of Chaucer by Anne Malcolmson
Medieval Poetry

year 11 (I doubt I'll get to more than one or two of these)
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
In Search of England by H. V. Morton
Autobiography of a Slander by Edna Lyall
Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave by David Breese
Mornings in Florence by John Ruskin

I've been wanting to read some of the Year 7 books for years, so I'm making them my first priority (after CM's vol 2, that is!)

One Schedule Done

At the beginning of every school year, I make each of the boys a daily schedule based on AO's 36-week schedule, tailored to their individual needs. It usually takes a day or two to get them all done, but it makes the whole year go so much smoother if each boy knows exactly what he's doing.

This year, it's taken me a week to get just this one done. We have company, so I've been distracted - and I forgot my system of cut/paste, and I was a third of the way finished before I remembered it.

This is Keola's schedule. It's too long to paste here (180 days, each day with a list of a half-dozen books/tasks), but you can see it by clicking here. I'll probably do Kahoa's Year 4 schedule next.

Clearplay Video Filtering Questions?

http://www.clearplay.com/

Can anyone tell me how this works?

As I understand it, I buy a Clearplay DVD player for $99, and it comes with a trial USB download that filters 250 movies (the list of those movies is here) If I like the service, then I pay a subscription of $79 a year or $7.95 a month, and I get 100 filter downloads each month - do I choose which filters, or do they? Does that mean I have to wade through lists of movies every month? And I rent or purchase DVDs that I want to watch, they don't provide that, is that correct? All the service provides is filter for certain movies?

Miss Moana's First Picture

Miss Moana has drawn lots of times, usually little series of scribbly circles and zig-zag lines that look like she's trying to write chicken-scratch. This is the first time she's ever said "I'm going to draw _____" and then actually made an attempt to. She said, "I'm drawing a sun." And this is her attempt. :)