Little Blue School

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2010-04-28T09:40:00.001-04:00

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2010-04-26T20:58:00.001-04:00

Explode the Code Blends Phonics and Fun

2010-04-16T10:44:00.002-04:00

My mother taught first grade for a million years. In her career, she saw trends in pedagogy come and go, including whole word reading, context support, invented spelling, etc. She was a firm believer in the phonics method, and even hoarded old textbooks, saved phonics-based readers from dumpsters, and rebelled against her school system in order to continue teaching first graders to read with phonics. She believed that all other methods were, to use her word, "bunk."

I know my mother would have loved Explode the Code. It is not flashy, and it is not slick == it is solid, reliable, old-school phonics and it will teach your child to read. In this it reminds me of the Bob Books -- also hand drawn, also based on progressive phonics, also reliable as dirt. Now, for those who love learning on the computer, there's even an online version of Explode the Code, which translates the excellent phonics foundation to a fun, flash-based learning environment. Using the web site independently or together with the workbooks, it's a win win. Go here to explore this new online phonics curriculum.

My daughter Sadie has been struggling with reading for years. She is now six, but since she was four she knew all her letters and the sounds they make. She had the tools, the knowledge, to read first grade material, and yet she would look at a word and say "I can't read." This was extremely frustrating for me as a teacher. I am a book person, my older child is a strong reader, how could this be happening? I'm still not sure exactly what's going on in Sadie's head when she says "I can't read." I think it might have to do with her persistent suspicion that if she learns to read we'll send her to college.

Explode the Code workbooks and online games have been miraculous for her. The repetition, the spiralling returns to familiar material, the very very slow steps forward accompanied by many iterations of the words the child can confidently do, have made it absolutely impossible for her to tell herself she can't read. She can. It's undeniable. The words she knows with Explode the Code she knows inside out, upside down, backwards, and sideways. When she looks at me, shocked, and says, "I can read that!" it's amazing! Explode the Code works for us, and if you have a brand new reader that needs the confidence that comes from practice, I bet it will work for you too!

Aeneid Class: Week 9: Travel Guide to the Underworld

2010-04-16T09:49:00.003-04:00

This post relates to my literature class for children at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op in Norfolk, VA. This semester we are reading The Aeneid, using Penelope Lively's book In Search of a Homeland, and other supplemental materials. For other lessons, please click the Aeneid tag at the bottom of this post.

Welcome: Today's quiz was about Carthage and Dido, and we sang all our songs in their entirety. We had a successful memorization of Mark Antony's speech, and a very close call with Arma Virumque Cano -- next week for sure! Encourage your children to work on these poems at home, and recite them for friends, relatives, whoever will listen. Nothing builds confidence like repetition and also applause from Grandma.

Memory Work: Today we practiced "Horatio at the Bridge" as a dramatic reading. Horatios are Sarah R and Stephen K. I know they are hard at work memorizing their lines! The consuls and other brave Romans with speaking parts are encouraged to memorize their parts too, and EVERYONE should be memorizing the last bit, from "Romans in Rome's quarrel" to the end. The children are doing a magnificent job delivering their lines with feeling and ferocity! Great job, all.

The Underworld:

Today's project for the academic track classes is a travel guide to the underworld. I gave them the title page and chapter list, which we pasted into their scrapbooks near the end. Their assignment, which they worked on in class, was to complete the travel guide, one chapter per page, in their books. They can do it however they want to do it -- as a comic book, all text, all pictures, etc. They can do it humorously, seriously, standing on their heads, whatever. Next week I'm going to have a look at them, and the students who have fulfilled the assignment will receive a citizenship coin!

The enrichment track kids are creating a bestiary. They also received a title page and chapter list, and they also should complete the pages of their bestiary (including harpies, gorgons, a chimaera, Cerberus, and the Furies) to receive a citizenship coin. If you have lost your scrapbook, you can do this on separate pages stapled together.

Chariot Races Preparation:

Next week we are going to turn Grace Street into the Circus Maximus and hold our own chariot races. We have already arranged wagons to be chariots, but we need many more volunteers and items. The chariots will be run two at a time, from the end of the street by the apartment buildings down to the intersection at Yarmouth. We will have the green team (supported by the emperor and the Roman people), the blue team (supported by the Senate) and the red team, (supported by the political resistance). Please dress your children in one of these colors, if possible.

The children will play three roles -- horn blowers, horses, and charioteers. If your child is going to be a charioteer, he or she must MUST must have a bike helmet. Any horses that spill out their charioteers are going to be disqualified, but we still want to be ridiculously safe. If you want, you can also bring along elbow and knee pads -- that would be completely appropriate. We also need dog leashes, two per horse. Please label everything that you bring. We will need volunteers to stand at the ends of the Circus Maximus and hold traffic when necessary. We will also need a first aid kit with bandaids and bactine in case anyone falls over and gets scraped up. So please let me know if you can:

___ Be a traffic guard
___ Bring bandaids and bactine and be the first aid station
___ Bring dog leashes -- the basic kind with a snap on one end and a loop on the other.
___ Bring helmets and knee pads and elbow pads
___ Be an official

If you do not want your child to participate, that is totally fine. He or she can be a horn blower and still have fun. Please email me with any questions you have, to volunteer to help, or with any issues you want me to address.

If you like, you can watch the video of the chariot race from Ben Hur! If you have trouble with the embedded video, here is the link. Be warned: it is violent -- people get run over by horses, for example. But it is a bit of classic movie history and still after all these years a very exciting scene.

Aeneid Class: Week 8: Dido's Trick

2010-04-09T09:34:00.000-04:00

Ballad of the Latin Verbs: A Song for Teaching 1st Conjugation Verb Endings

2010-04-08T00:46:00.003-04:00

This song includes the names of the children in your class, so depending on how many kids you have and how many syllables their names have, you may have to switch things around a little. You can always repeat names or add Latin endings to their names. That is permitted.

The tune is from an Irish tune called Fox Hunter's Jig but I play it in A. The first chord is like A major except you take your finger off the B string and play that open. My favorite recording of it is by Cherish the Ladies, Ballad of the Foxhunter. Cherish the Ladies lyrics are a W.B. Yeats poem, but mine are kind of an anthem for our Latin Club. This is the first song we learned, to go along with Chapter 1 in Primer Level A of Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press.

Ballad of Latin Verbs

Link to the video on YouTube.

Amo amas amat, amamis amatis amant
Do das dat, damis, datis, dant
Narro, narras narrat, narramis narratis narrant
Intro, intras intrat, intramis intratis intrant

Shira, conjugate!
Ben, make the nouns decline!
Adjective endings are our food,
Verb tense our wine!

Brayton, the ablative
tells where and when and how
Stephen the genetive
can classify a noun

Erro erras errat, erramis erratis errant
Specto, spectas, spectat, spectamis, spectatis, spectant
Sto stas stat, stamis statis stant
Paro paras parat, paramis paratis parant

Martina conjugate!
Nicholas decline!
Benny and Sarah
Let your vocabulary shine!

Dative tells us just for whom
the verb is done
Acccustive tells us who
the verb is done upon.

She Will Be Latin: A Song for Teaching Noun Declensions

2010-04-08T00:00:00.003-04:00

She Will Be Latin

Words by Lydia Netzer
Grammar by Classical Academic Press
Music by Maroon 5

Link to the video on YouTube.

First declension nouns are mostly girls
-a -ae -ae -am -a -ae -arum -is -as -is
The word for fatherland is patria
Tell me how that’s feminine please?

Mensa mensae mensae mensam mensa
Mensae mensarum mensis mensas mensis yeah!
Via viae viae viam via
Viae viarum viis vias viis

Fewer words, more endings
That’s how Latin is lending
Our derivative blendings
So our English is bending

Second declension nouns are men now
-us –i -o -um -o –i –orum -is -os -is
There’s a lupus in my ludus
Do not sit him next to me

Ludus ludi ludo ludum ludo
Ludi ludorum ludis ludos ludis
Hortus horti horto hortum horto
Horti hortorum hortis hortos hortis

Fewer words, more endings
That’s how Latin is lending
Our derivative blendings
So our English is bending

Second declension neuter nouns
-um –i -o -um -o -a –orum -is -a -is
Thanks for the donum in the forum but
Did it have to be your helmet grease?

Donum doni dono donum dono
Dona donorum donis dona donis
Astrum astri astro astrum astro
Astra astrorum astris astra astris

What's the Deal with Sentences? A Song for Learning Latin Sentence Patterns

2010-04-03T23:33:00.004-04:00

In our Latin Club, we use the Latin for Children curriculum from Classical Academic Press. In level A, the children learn chants for sentence patterns that they can use to start translating and easily creating Latin sentences. Here's a song I wrote about the sentence patterns to help the kids remember them, and just for fun!

Here's the link to the video on YouTube.

What’s the Deal with Sentences?

What’s the deal with Pattern A?
What does SNV mean?
Like “Sweep no vents” or “See no views” Or “Steal no victories”?
SN stands for “Subject noun”
And V for action verb.
So SNV is pattern A
Now you’ve heard the word.

So “Vir intrat” and “Vir Mutat” and then “Viri pugnant”
“Magister clamat” and then “Magister ambulat”

What’s the deal with Pattern B?
SN LV PRN?
A linking verb like sum, “to be”
Connects two nouns together
The subject and the predicate
Are linked and then equated
I’m a girl(boy) and you’re a boy(girl),
With pattern B we state it.

So “Filii sunt amicae” and “Marcus est amicus”
“Dominus est socius” and “Servus est filius”

What’s the deal with Pattern C?
SN LV PrA?
It’s just the same as Pattern B
Except for one small way
In the predicate we see
An adjective is waiting
To be linked with the subject noun,
In Pattern C relating.

So “Vir est bonus” “Vir est malus” “Viri sunt ignoti”
“Magistra est antiqua” “Discipuli sunt novi”

Enjoy! Here's the video:

Arma Virumque Cano: A Song to Teach The Aeneid in Latin

2010-04-03T09:19:00.007-04:00

I Sing of Arms and the Man

Link to the video on YouTube.
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus,
I sing of arms and the man who came from Troy to Italy
Exiled by fate, that’s what I’m singing.

Laviniaque, venit litora, multum
ille et terris iactatus et alto Vi
superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;

I sing of arms and the man who came from Troy to Italy
Exiled by fate, that’s what I’m singing.
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus.

Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

I sing of arms and the man who came from Troy to Italy
exiled by fate, that’s what I’m singing
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus

Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso,
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

I sing of arms and the man who came from Troy to Italy
exiled by fate, that’s what I’m singing
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus

I use this song to teach the first twelve lines of the Aeneid in Latin to our Latin club and also to my Aeneid literature class. Who says The Aeneid can't be a country song? Italy is a country.

Book Arts Bash 2010: Why Teach a Child to Write a Novel?

2010-04-01T08:38:00.008-04:00

In encouraging a child to write a novel, you're not just asking them to produce a book. You're promoting several important benefits in their education, and in their development as a person. Writing a novel, for kids and teens, really has very little to do with the final product, you see. While their books are fantastic and we love to read them, the true purpose of writing at this age is not to create the Next Big Book that will bring the publishing industry to its knees. It's all about the process, and kids learn much from the process of writing a novel. It's why we love NaNoWriMo. It's why I wrote my curriculum, "How to Teach a Child to Write a Novel." It's why I encourage my own kids to get their ideas into stories, their stories onto paper, to share with the world.

Firstly, children work out ideas and dreams in their novels, trying out different identities, exploring fantasies, and toying with systems and situations they may have run into in real life. A work of fiction is a giant "What if?" and it's a safe place to postulate. My son Benny created, for example, a "little brother" character in his novel. This kid was invested with all the sass, defiance, naughty behavior, and arrogance that he himself is not allowed to exhibit. The character, "Duane," was constantly in trouble, a permanent drain on his mother's patience. I could sense the glee that Benny was experiencing while writing Duane, and while it was hilarious I also thought it was useful. In writing the mother character as well, he was putting himself in the position of both parent and child, and in expressing this relationship, he understood better the way our relationship sometimes works.

Second, children (or adults) who write novels become better readers. A person who picks up a brush and begins to put paint on a canvas instantly knows about painting - the brush strokes, the paint consistency, the composition of a painting - on a much deeper level than they could have by just looking at art. In the same way, someone who has written, or even attempted to write, a novel reads novels with a new understanding of their construction. They watch movies differently. They construct their anecdotes differently. Once they've been taught about plot, climax, character goals, significant objects in the setting, and the rest of it, they see the books they're reading in a different way -- they're reading as insiders now, privy to all that information that only writers know, and appreciative of the effort and dedication that goes into writing a book.

Finally, a child who has written a novel has put his feet on a very elevated path. Having entered this elite "club" of novel-writers, he or she stands next to greats like Woolf, Faulkner, Asimov, Morrison, and Joyce. Writing a novel is one of the grand things you can do, as a person in this modern world, like running a marathon or scaling a mountain. It's an item on lots of people's list of things to do before they die, and doing such a large thing at such a young age gives an enormous sense of accomplishment. A kid should feel, stamping "THE END" onto the final page of a long hard effort, that having written a novel, he or she can accomplish anything.

For these reasons, and for the fun of it, Sherene and I put together the Book Arts Bash, a writing contest for homeschooled authors, where we hoped to encourage young novelists by taking their efforts seriously, and putting their work on the desks of real authors, agents, and editors. We recruited judges from the top tiers of the publishing industry: Sara Gruen, Holly Black, Joshilyn Jackson, Karen Abbott, and more. We offered a top prize of $100 in each grade group, and critiques from literary agents from the top three. It has been an astonishing success, and here are the results:

Kindergarten and First Grade:

Winner:
A Big Problem by Brianna T.
Runners up:
Adventures of Big D and BMC by Emma W.
Zoo With A Strange Zookeeper by Vivian L.

Second and Third Grade:

Winner:
The Adventures of Blue Flame the Heroic Giant Squid-Fighting Hero by Sage M.
Runners Up:
Ruby, A Twisting Tale by Emilie M.
Mittens the Cat by Melea von T.

Fourth and Fifth Grade:

Winner:
1 by Nicci M.
Runners up:
One Girl Revolution by Sadie Z.
Blaze by Alexandra S.

Sixth Grade:

Winner:
The Princess by Lena G.
Runners up:
Becoming Callie by Lena G.
Trixie by Lydia A.

Seventh Grade:

Winner:
Happy Ending is a Place by Mandy H.
Runners up:
Violet Fire by Bryn B.
Kite by Hannah S.

Eighth Grade:

Winner:
Hollin by Garrett R.
Runners up:
Common Animals by Thomas B.
Little Angel by Adayla S.

Ninth Grade:

Winner:
Why I Missed the Second Set by Rose C.
Runners up:
Untitled by Larissa S.
Tales of the Humbats: The Seventh Piece by Raven M.

Tenth Grade:

Winner:
Children of the Stars by Holden M.
Runners up:
Shattering Darkness by Vienna H.
The Scouser Cap by Emily V.

Eleventh Grade:

Winner:
Cadence by Scout G.
Runners up:
Vengeance: 25 cents by Kathleen M.
Don't Look Down by Tanya S

Twelfth Grade:

Winner:
If Pearls Could Sing by Pamela C.
Runners up:
Broken Things by Emily D.
Falling Night by Anna W.

Big thank you to our generous sponsors:

Dreambox: Visit Dreambox for an incredible interactive math curriculum for kids from preschool through third grade. For kindergarten math, Dreambox is unparalleled in fun and pedagogical value. Check out the free trial and see what you think!

Shurley Grammar: A grammar curriculum that takes your child from first through seventh grade, using drills and jingles to teach writing skills (and also reading skills!) along the way. A trusted name in home education, Shurley will not steer you wrong.

Classical Academic Press: If you're contemplating teaching Latin or Greek in your homeschool, you definitely need this system. With audio, video, fun activities, and online Latin games, as well as standard workbooks and quizzes, anyone can teach Latin.

Prufrock Press: Parents of gifted children often have difficulty finding work that will challenge their kids' abilities while still being fun. Prufrock's gifted education materials are a godsend. Kids see them as a treat!

Explode the Code: Many of us have used Explode the Code workbooks with our kids and enjoyed the progressive phonics curriculum. Now Explode the Code has launched an online version, taking their reading education to a whole new level.

Can you help us by republishing the results and sponsor links on your blog, supporting homeschooled writers and this novel-writing contest? Please email us or leave a comment to let us know you can help. We need twenty blogs to participate. Would you donate a post on yours? You can use this text file to copy and paste into your blog editing software. Right click to download.

Aeneid Class: Week 7: Gladiatorial Games

2010-03-28T01:48:00.005-04:00

Aeneid Class: Week 6: Roman Virtue Charades

2010-03-19T00:21:00.000-04:00

Celia and Martina preparing to act out constantia.

Richard demonstrating clementia. Seriously, he's just about to demonstrate it.

This was great fun. We even got to try out some Roman Virtue Pictionary, and I encourage you to try this with your kids at home. Take your list of 15 virtues and try and draw each of them. You draw and have your kids guess, then guess your kids' drawings. Maybe afterward you can turn it into a comic!

Enrichment Track: In the enrichment track we acted these words out together, and we chose four words on which to focus: furor, pietas, dignitas, and gravitas. First I wrote them on the white board and we sounded them out, then I acted them out myself and let the kids guess which one I was going for. After I'd done them each a bunch of times, I let the kids take turns coming up to stand in front of the board and do a virtue. Here are a couple of pictures:

Miranda doing "gravitas."

Katie doing "furor."

I can't resist sharing -- here's a video of the whole class together doing charades:

Assignment: Next week we're going to act out our gladiator games. Today the kids picked their roles. In the academic classes, we had some very interesting choices: assassin, guard, condemned criminal, emperor, etc. In the enrichment class, we also had interesting choices: gladiators, emperor, archers, and also a unicorn, pony, shark, and pet kitten. It's important to let the kids feel happy and comfortable with their roles, and look forward to the event. If you have to stretch to prepare a narrative for them that includes three emperors or a unicorn posse or a rainbow sparkle fairy or whatever, you can do that! Asking the kids to act out something violent is a sketchy business -- make sure it's a learning experience but also fun. Dressing up is great but not mandatory! Make sure for next week they have read the Funeral Games chapter of the book, and have read and understood the "Gladiator Games Fast Facts" sheet.

Aeneid Class: Week 5: Furor and Pietas

2010-03-11T10:37:00.003-05:00

Project:

We made mosaics using sticky cardstock and tiny tiles. I forgot my camera, but here are pictures of the materials and where to get them.

We also used some other stuff as mosaic tiles... sparkly jewels, sequins, and other things. These no-glue collage boards are awesome. You peel them like a sticker and the sticky surface is very sticky. Some kids did geometric designs, some did pictures, some just enjoyed the materials in random and pleasing ways.

Assignment: For next week please read the chapter "Funeral Games." We're coming up to our gladiator games event, so we'll be planning that in class next week. The children will get to choose roles -- lions, gladiators, emperor, spectators, guards, etc. If you own the movie "Gladiator" and you've watched it enough to be able to choose scenes strategically so the kids won't see anything awful (and there are plenty of awful things in the movie) it would be great if they could see at least some of the coliseum scene, to get an idea of the scope of it. I don't recommend it for the younger kids, of course, but some of the older ones will benefit from certain scenes. We will be mixing gladiator fun with versions of the funeral games that the Trojans engaged in to honor Anchises, so look forward to that too! Volunteers are welcome, and let's hope for a sunny day so we can go outside.

Aeneid Class: Week 4: How to Throw a Roman Dinner Party

2010-03-06T23:38:00.002-05:00

This post relates to my literature class for children at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op in Norfolk, VA. This semester we are reading The Aeneid, using Penelope Lively's book In Search of a Homeland, and other supplemental materials. For other lessons, please click the Aeneid tag at the bottom of this post.

Overview: The lesson to be learned from this event involves the concept of civilization and what it means to be civilized. The Romans valued their civility highly, and dinner parties were an opportunity to express these qualities in public. They practiced rituals, demonstrated courtesy and respect, and strictly adhered to traditions and conventions. It was very important for the Romans to define themselves as civilized and therefore superior to the barbarian cultures around them. As we discussed in The Jungle Book, a colonizing nation must see the colonized people as "other" and also as inferior, so that the invasion can be seen as helping the dominated peoples, and the conquerors can be seen as saviors.

The interesting thing about the Roman dinner party is that compared to a dinner party today, it's not very civilized at all! As I asked the kids... if someone came to your house for dinner and they sat on the floor, ate with their hands from the serving dishes, and maybe excused themselves to vomit in between courses, would that be civilized? What if they weren't wearing any pants? Today's standards of "civilized behavior" are different from the Romans' standards -- but who's to say that in another 2000 years people will find it low and vile to eat with forks and put napkins in our laps? So, during the party, you want to underscore the importane of the Roman rituals and behaviors, and pretend to be very proud of your intensely refined and civilized behavior.

Preparations:

Step one: Prepare the food and drink. We used olives, boiled eggs, raw cabbage, chicken, pepperoni, grapes, apples, pears, figs, and dates.

We decanted white grape juice into empty bottles that we had labelled appropriately.

Step two: Set the mood with some music. If you have any musicians skilled in playing the lyre, call on them now. We downloaded a Synaulia album and played that on a CD player.

Step two: Set the table. Remember that Romans ate close to the floor. You can simulate this by using a regular folding table without folding out the legs. Drape some fabric over the whole table, including some on the floor where the guests will recline. You'll need a centerpiece that can later be offered as a sacrifice. We used a cabbage.

Step three: Invite in your guests! Encourage everyone to dress up.

The Dinner:

Toast: Give everyone a cup with some ice in it. Explain about how the Romans didn't have refrigerators or freezers, but they did acquire ice from the mountains and keep it cold in deep pits. Boast that the fact that you have ice at your dinner party reflects your intense civilization and impressive wealth. A common table wine was called Mulsum, which was water, wine, and honey. Ask your students why the Romans might have watered down their wine, especially considering that dinner parties sometimes went on for hours. Have the slaves pour out the "wine" and then toast Rome!

Appetizers: You can give each guest a napkin with which to eat, but remind them that in Roman times they would have had their own napkin which they would bring from home to any dinner party they attended, kind of like a personal hankerchief. Pass around the eggs and olives. Talk about how a really great appetizer in Roman times would have been a stuffed dormouse.

Main course: Explain that Romans didn't eat a lot of beef, because they used their cows for work. After a few years of work, a cow would be so tough and chewy that you'd have to cook it for a week before it was edible. Why go through all that drama when you could cook up a pig right away. Pigs didn't have to work, and pork was the Romans' favorite meat.

Sacrifice: Between the main course and the dessert, the Romans paused to sacrifice to their household gods. Here is our altar:

Have one guest bring the sacrificial cabbage, and another light the candles. Then observe a moment of silence during which you respect your Roman values, and the ideas that are important to your family.

Dessert: Pass around the fruit, including the dates and figs, which some of your guests might find unfamiliar.

Entertainment:

After dinner, invite your guests to entertain the group with poetry recitation, song, and dance. Celia M. and Sarah R, from our academic track class, were able to recite the soliloquy from Julius Caesar, and Martina E. set a new record for memorizing the Virgil, at 6 lines in Latin. In the enrichment track class, one of our slaves brought Max N.'s little brother Seth, who recited eight lines of Shakespeare to my amazement! He was immediately granted citizenship in the class. The enrichment track class also engaged in some dancing after dinner:

Guests can also entertain themselves by playing Knucklebones or Latrunculi.

I sent all my friends out to carouse through Rome after my party was over. I hope they all had a wonderful time! Didn't see a picture of your child? or just want to see more pictures of our awesome class? Click here for more Aeneid Class pictures.

Assignment for next week: Make sure you have read through chapter 3 in the book. By now everyone should have a copy! :) Next week we will be making mosaics. Please let your children have a look at some mosaic tile work online. Here's another page with mosaics, and another page.

How to Get Your Child to Practice the Violin Without Sugar

2010-03-04T10:43:00.004-05:00

A reader of this blog asked me if I had any more good practicing tips, having found my doll concert post helpful in getting her five-year-old to practice. So here is another idea which can be adapted in many situations to make practicing more fun. And here's another picture of my baby playing the violin:

The general principle here is to make the practice a physical journey that the child can visualize and experience kinesthetically. Here are several ways to do that:

1. Create practice cards with location on them. Place them around the house (or outside!) with each card giving the next location. So hand the child a card that says "Bathroom, standing on the toilet." They go to the bathroom, climb on the toilet, and play their first song. There they find a card that says "In the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room." They go there, play their next song, and there they find a card that says "Hall closet." Or whatever. If Mom is traipsing along behind to help with position and pitch, you can't go wrong. After a few times of playing this, let the child be in charge of placing the cards before practice begins. You could even let the child make the cards, place the cards, and *you* be the one who has to find the next card and listen to a piece at each location.

2. If you have, like we have, a bunch of little toy houses and buildings, set up a little journey for a favorite toy or doll. The castle, the pirate ship, the beauty salon, Barbie's house, the treehouse... whatever you have for little destinations. Say, "Now, this Polly Pocket has to go to all of these places today and at each place she's going to hear a different piece of music. When she gets back to the beginning, practice is over." At each destination, the child plays another piece of her practice, and along the way, Polly Pocket can run into all kinds of problems: becoming extremely hungry, getting tired and wanting to give up, being chased by bears, being hounded by Paparazzi, etc. When Polly Pocket gets home, the practice is over: no exceptions! Polly is exhausted. If you need a more tangible variation, have Polly Pocket deliver marbles at each location, or pick up marbles from each destination.

3. A simple, portable version of this involves a little toy frog or bee and a piece of paper, and some tiny stickers. Draw ten (or however many) lily pads (or flowers), with the names of the songs on them... you can have multiple "Minuet 1" lily pads if that one needs to be repeated. When the frog has visited a lily pad, the child can put a sticker on it or color part of it in. There should be seven stickers on each lily pad (or seven petals of the flower colored in) at the end of the week, then the child can turn in the whole thing for a reward. Moving the frog around the paper lets them keep track of their progress and gives them a sense of what's coming up.

I'm sure you can think of lots of other variations on this theme, using the idea that a violin practice can be mobile, visible, tangible, and progress can be marked in space. Be as goofy as possible, and don't worry about "Well, this is working now, but what about next week?" Next week, if you need to, you'll think of something else. Maybe that thing will involve sugar. But most likely, once your child gets accustomed to practicing "with joy" because you're turning yourself inside out to make it fun, you won't need all the bells and whistles to get a good practice. Everything goes in cycles, I have found. If you get yourself through a rough patch by pulling out all the stops with fun games and adventures, you'll find yourself on the other side with a happier child and a new attitude.

Aeneid Class: Week 3: Roman Parlor Games

2010-02-26T14:41:00.000-05:00

The little one in the picture above is actually made from bronze, to minic the shape of the real bone. Here is a picture of a set of knucklebones that I made:

You can make knucklebones by making a little rectangular box out of Sculpey, then scratching a number into each side. The small ends should be a little rounded to ensure the die doesn't end with a small end up. The numbers on the dice are 6, 4, 3, and 1 with opposite sides adding up to 7. I made enough sets that each pair of kids could have a set to play with. One package of Sculpey makes two sets.

Scoring Tali is complicated, and there are lots of different ways to do it. We learned a method of scoring that requires the kids to add up the values of the dice in their heads, which I think is good practice, and also involves some of the "special" rolls, like the Venus (6, 4, 3, 1) the Vulture (all dice the same) and the Dogs (all dice 1).

(6,4,3,1) :Venus -- all four tali with different sides.
(6,x,x,x) : Senio -- a single six and anything
(6,6,6,6) : Vultures -- all four tali the same
(4,4,4,4) : Vultures -- all four tali the same
(3,3,3,3) : Vultures -- all four tali the same
(6,6,6,4) : Total = 22
(6,6,6,3) : Total = 21
(6,6,4,4) : Total = 20
(6,6,6,1) : Total = 19 (high)
(6,6,4,3) : Total = 19
(6,6,3,3) : Total = 18
(6,6,4,1) : Total = 17
(6,6,3,1) : Total = 16
(4,4,4,3) : Total = 15
(6,6,1,1) : Total = 14 (high)
(4,4,3,3) : Total = 14
(4,4,4,1) : Total = 13
(4,4,3,1) : Total = 12
(4,3,3,1) : Total = 11
(4,4,1,1) : Total = 10 (high)
(3,3,3,1) : Total = 10
(4,3,1,1) : Total = 9
(3,3,1,1) : Total = 8
(4,1,1,1) : Total = 7
(3,1,1,1) : Total = 6
(1,1,1,1) : Dogs -- lowest of the Vultures

Here are some pictures of the kids playing Tali:

Odds and Evens: This is a very simple game that relies more on instinct than skill. To play, you need several small objects: buttons, coins, stones, etc. They should be small enough that the players can hide them in their hands. We used little buttons. The game is played between two people, a holder and a guesser. The holder puts a number of the objects in his hand and holds it out. The guesser tries to guess whether the number of objects is odd or even. If the guesser is right, he gets a point. If the guesser is wrong, the holder gets a point. Very easy, and yet when you start playing it, very complicated psychologically! But this one was really fun -- we had some kids that were really great at intuiting what their opponent would do with those buttons!

The educational value of Odds and Evens was mostly for the enrichment class -- learning which numbers were odd and which were even. The older kids could pretty much do that already. All the kids learned to make a score-keeping chart and keep tick marks to tally a score. It is also very important to practice your "I AM INSCRUTABLE" face and also your "I AM READING YOUR MIND" face while playing Odds and Evens.

For more pictures, see our Flickr set.

Latrunculi: I gave the children an optional project to earn an additional citizenship coin. They can make a Latrunculi board and demonstrate that they know how to play. This is not an assignment! Moms, do not slay yourself over this one. If the kid is on fire to research it and make it, great. If not, no harm. Here is a link to get you started on the wonders of Latrunculi.

Next week is our Roman dinner party. Here is a little info about that:

CLOTHING:Please dress up in whatever way you like! Want to be a gladiator? An emperor? Afine lady? A humble slave? A senator? Do it. Gender roles to not have to limit you. Historical accuracy is not necessary but it would be great if the kids knew about their outfits to explain them to the class. Remember that among the ladies, elaborate up-do hairstyles and flamboyant jewelry items were popular!

MUSIC:We are going to be listening to the music of Synaulia, an Italian ensemble that replicates the music of Ancient Rome with authentic instrumentation. Here is a little sample:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0IpxYUi2Dk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnDjFXRZLVo

FOOD:Our meal will be eaten as we recline around low tables. We will be using our fingers to eat from communal plates. There will be three courses: an appetizer course of eggs and radishes, a main course of meat, olives, and cabbage, and a dessert course of fruit and honey.We will be drinking "wine." The Romans watered down their wine and added honey. Rich Romans who could afford the luxury kept ice in deep pits. We will be drinking white grape juice over crushed ice.

ENTERTAINMENT:Romans entertained at dinner parties by reciting poetry, singing, and dancing.Fortunately we can do all these for ourselves! If your child is ready to recite any part of (or all of) any of the poems or songs, they will get a chance toperform at the dinner party, as we all digest.We will also be playing Evens and Odds, Knucklebones (Tali), and Latrunculi.

RITUAL: As host of the party, I will start off the meal with a toast. We will also pause between "prima mensa" and "secunda mensa" (dinner and dessert) to observe amoment of silence and make an offering to our household gods.

VOLUNTEERS: How can you help?

Prepare food: If you can help with any of the above items (like bringing a dozen peeled boiled eggs, or a dish of olives, or a plate of chopped cabbage orgrapes), please email me and let me know what you'd like to bring.

Come be a slave: We will need a couple of slaves during each class, to serve thefood, crush the ice, fix loose togas, press play and pause on our musicians, help with Knucklebones, and obey our every whim. Slaves do not need to wear costumes, but they can! Slaves can also bring their cameras.

Lend something: If you have an earthenware or pottery dish that looks oldy-timey-ancienty-romany, I would love to borrow it for serving. If you have a statuette of some kind that looks oldy-timey-ancienty-romany, I would love to borrow it to join our collection of household gods to receive our sacrifice.

If you are interested in participating in one of these three ways, please email me and let me know specifically what you would like to do. This is going to be awesome!

NOTE: Students must possess a citizenship coin to participate in the Roman dinner party! No invitees unless they are the children of slaves who are slaving away at the party.

Assignments: Carry on with the book. Carry on with the memory work. Consider making a Latrunculi board. And get your costume on for next week's party!

Aeneid Class: Week 2: Bulla Bulla

2010-02-20T00:06:00.002-05:00

The Ever Breath by Julianna Baggott

2010-02-18T01:32:00.006-05:00

This post is a book review. Really. But it will take me a minute to get there.

I have two children, four years apart. My son, 10, likes books about science. He likes to pour over them, again and again, memorizing the delicious facts and savoring the tasty trivia. The only fictional stories he's been interested in at all involve butts, roughly drawn comics, underpants, middle school hardships, warrior cats, and fake superheroes. I don't think I need to mention titles -- you know which ones I mean. Still, any book with pictures of the moon's surface will handily defeat any book that has characters and a beginning, middle and end. He's just not that into fiction.

My daughter, 6, has a categorical aversion to chapter books. Not only does she not want to admit she can read, she also does not want to be treated like a person who can read. In her mind, as she has explained it to me, reading will lead to college, and she doesn't want to go there. While I completely blame myself and all of my "Oh, sweetie! Don't ever change! Be my baby forever!" nonsense, I still feel like we should be able to move past the picture book stage before she hits puberty. Jan Brett, I super-love you, but I am done reading Fritz and the Beautiful Horses to my six year old, while she firmly asserts she cannot handle any more challenging fare. Then there's the fact that Sadie likes science books too. Books about polar bears. Books about caves. Books about what your heart does -- not figuratively, or as a literary theme, but as an actual biological fact.

True fact that is lodged in my bitter, resentful throat: Both of my kids prefer nonfiction to fiction. They will sit and listen to books about geography, or history, or science. They will not sit and listen to storybooks. They will not get interested in dragons. They do not yearn to discover more about elves or wizarding schools or hard times on the cold prairie. They just want to know more about why fish are cold, or where Indonesia is.

I'm a book person, and more specifically a fiction person. I have fantasized, since I knew I was going to have kids, about reading to them from the favorite books of my childhood. I looked forward to sharing Narnia with them, Middle Earth, the Moomins, etc. it's hard for me to realize that I can't keep up with Benny's interest in astronomy and the lymphatic system, and if I have to read "McElligott's Pool" one more time I will put a fishhook in my eye and gouge out my frontal lobe. I mean seriously, learning to swallow the fact that my kids just aren't that into novels has been almost as bad as finding out makeup is made out of bacon fat, or whatever.

Pretty difficult. It hasn't been great. But. There have been moments.

I bought Julianna Baggott's newest book, The Ever Breath, because hope springs eternal in this human breast, and because I like her, and I thought, hey, we'll give it a shot. What could it hurt? We've stalled on so many read-aloud attempts, and retreated to the safety of Childcraft for Benny and Let's Read and Find Out for Sadie. Why not try one more?

People, this is the book review part of the blog post. And I really feel like this is all I need to say, to sell you on this book. It was like magic. After the first chapter, I had one child tucked up on each side of me, and the other child tucked up on the other side. When I tried to quit reading for the night, I heard the words that had never been said by my children before: "Just one more chapter!" I felt like I was dreaming. I'm not kidding -- it was weird! I don't even know why this happened -- I'm not sure what captivated them in The Ever Breath where other books have so utterly failed. Why is it so accessible to these kids of such disparate ages. Why was Sadie saying, "This is my favorite book!" and why was Benny saying, "This book is better than Harry Potter!" I don't know.

I can tell you it's inventive. It's exciting. It's something you haven't seen before. And I can tell you that the children in my house careened through it at breakneck speed, anxious to get more, find out more, read more. That means a lot to me -- maybe this won't be the only book we'll read cover to cover, all curled up together. But it was the first!

Aeneid Class: Week 1: Amo Te

2010-02-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

This post relates to my literature class for children at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op in Norfolk, VA. This semester we are reading The Aeneid, using Penelope Lively's book In Search of a Homeland, and other supplemental materials. For other lessons, please click the Aeneid tag at the bottom of this post.

Important dates:

March 2: Roman dinner party. We will wear tunics (girls) and togas (boys) and sample Roman food, listen to Roman music, play knucklebones, and vomit into buckets behind the pillows we’re lounging on.
March 23: Gladiator Games. We will have wild animals, condemned criminals, gladiators, guards, wealthy sponsors, and spectators at this exciting spectacle.
April 20: Chariot races. With wagons, helmets, and ropes, good cheer, and hope for sun, we are going to turn Grace Street into the Circus Maximus. Rain date: April 27.
May 11: Roman forum. In our classroom, we will recreate several elements of the Roman forum, including the Rostra, where volunteer orators will show off the stuff they’ve memorized during the semester, applauded by all.
May 18: Final day performance.

Welcome! I'm so happy to welcome you to this semester's adventure in ancient Rome. The Aeneid is the foundation myth for the Roman empire, and there is much to learn not only about the story of the poem itself, but also about Rome in the time of Virgil, when the Republic had come to an end and the Empire was just beginning to come into power. Rather than try and learn all about the Romans, we're going to focus our study on just this moment in time, when Augustus Caesar was in charge, and Virgil wrote the story of Aeneas to prove that Rome was founded on a Trojan ancestry, with a fine old tradition of warrior heroes and a proud heritage of strength and valor.

Reading: Each week you'll be reading one chapter in the Penelope Lively version of the story at home, until the book runs out. Then we'll be looking at some other material, including other translations and some art and modern interpretations. It is not necessary to bring the book to class each week, and we will not be reading it in class.

Scrapbooks: Your child received a spiral bound scrapbook in class. He/she will be filling it up with songs, projects, and eventually photos from the class. Academic track kids will be taking quizzes on the backs of the pages on which we glue the Fast Facts each week. They will also be creating a chart on the page that includes the Aeneid in Latin so that we can give them stamps as they memorize each line. Apart from those pages, any page in the book is okay for them to draw in, personalize, glue photos or pictures into, or whatever they'd like. These books should come to class with the kids every week.

Songs: This week we learned two songs, "I Sing of Arms and the Man" and "Let's Get the Heck Out of Troy." The first is an aid for us as we memorize the invocation to the muse (the first 12 lines) from the Aeneid in Latin. We only did the first half of it -- we will move on to the second half once we get a handle on those first few lines of the poem. The second song summarizes the action from the first chapter of the book, when Aeneas is leaving Troy with Anchises and Iulius, after those lousy Greeks burned the city.

Story: The academic track children mostly already knew the story of the Trojan war and the Trojan horse! That was awesome. We were able to have a great discussion comparing Virgil's version to Homer's version, and how the heroes from the two sides of the war would have been characterized in each one. Briefly stated, when we read the Odyssey the Greeks were the good guys, but now that we're reading the Aeneid, it's the Trojans that we're rooting for. In the enrichment track class, we talked about the Trojan horse, and the line in the song that says "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." We talked about how that means that if someone's been beating you up and then suddenly they turn around and give you a present, you should be very very suspicious of that present.

Project: We made Latin valentines, using the Latin endearment sheet in their scrapbooks. We learned a bit about pronunciation of the different sounds (hard c, v sounds like w, etc.) as we pronounced the different phrases. Here they are:

Mea tu Belliata: My beauty

Amata mea: My beloved girl

Deliciae Meae: My sweetheart

Ego Amo Te: I love you.

Amor vincit omnia: Love conquers all.

Amantes sunt amentes: Lovers are lunatics

aut viam inveniam aut faciam: I’ll either find a way or make one.

Per aspera ad astra!: Through difficulties to the stars!

Nulli secundus / Nulli secunda: Second to none (male/female)

I was anticipating that they would make valentines for their mothers, but a lot of the made the for each other, so I'm sorry you didn't get to see those! I'm also sorry I put heart confetti into the envelopes, since a lot of it ended up in the hallway upstairs instead of in *your* hallway where it was intended to land! Heh. Here are a few pictures:

Fast Facts: Today's Fast Facts are about Roman symbols. The children were challenged to find some of these symbols in their everyday life. It's my hope that as we go through the semester they'll find more examples of how references to Rome pop up our lives, not just visually but in literature, language, and culture. For those of you who are wondering what a fasces is, here is a picture of a couple of guys carrying facses at a parade. Remember: "I can beat you with this stick, and I can chop your head off with this axe, so you better behave, because I'm the government!" Think we don't threaten our citizens with such hostile symbols? There are two in the House of Representatives and one in the Oval Office. Hmm. Interesting. Click for a bigger image.

Norfolk Invitational Championship: Norfolk Karate Academy's Tang Soo Do Tournament 2009

2010-01-02T11:21:00.004-05:00

On November 14, 2009, in the beautiful new gymnasium at St. Patrick's in Norfolk, the Norfolk Karate Academy held its first annual tournament. I was proud to assist in the organizing of this awesome event. The kids had a great time. The smiles of the winners, the cheers of the audience, and the majestic regularity of the schedule justified all of the bustle, the hustle, the scribbled lists and the head-scratching moments when we all tried to think of exactly what was needed to pull it off. We did good! And I got an official NKA polo shirt to wear! It was fabulous!

The main event sponsor was of course Norfolk Karate Academy, but we were generously supported by Turtle Press Books, your online niche bookstore for all things martial arts. We also received prize donations from Fellini's Gourmet Pizza Cafe, and our volunteers ate muffins and drank coffee courtesy of Borjo's Coffeehouse, our neighbors on 45th street.

Here are some pictures of the event:

The winning line-up in the teen advanced sparring. A memorable battle!

Little kid sparring champs. No less fierce, but a little more willing to smile for a picture.

Karate moms at NKA are awesome!

Max takes on Master Odom during the grappling part of the event.

Tiny friends Sadie and Miranda came in first and second in their beginner form competition.

We love our new students at NKA! Yellow belts rocking the forms.

Benny had a day of ups and downs. There was one time when his emotions got the best of him and he kind of freaked out on another kid. Then there were times when he was delightful and patient, thrifty, clean and brave. The road to black belt continues, bumps and all.

Thank you to Fellini's Gourmet Pizza Cafe, Borjo Coffeehouse, and Turtle Press, and a big thank-you to everyone at NKA who helped before, during, and after the event. My children had a fantastic time at this NKA event, as usual. That is really all I care about, but that is everything!

For many more pictures, visit this Flickr set. If you'd like to download or print any pictures of your child, please feel free to do so!

How to Integrate Martial Arts and Homeschooling

2010-01-02T10:15:00.003-05:00

One of the glorious benefits of homeschooling is being able to focus a curriculum around your child's passions. Instead of waiting around for a topic to randomly pop up that interests him, out of a collection of topics that may appear in a traditional curriculum, the homeschooled child can fully immerse in that favorite pastime or area of study, until the lines between play and work are magically blurred. This is the moment when learning is fun: the holy grail of homeschooling.

I know many of us have gone out of our way to make curriculum work for a horse-obsessed child or a Civil-War-obsessed child, etc. You make writing assignment, study vocabulary and spelling generated around the topic, create word problems with relevant elements. However, it's even better when you can find a book or curriculum that will do it for you, and I have! My karate-obsessed child is now a brown belt. How I wish I had this book when he was just starting out in karate. It's a wonderful workbook full of puzzles, writing prompts, short essays, and more. I know that my daughter Sadie, a white belt, will get a lot out of it, and I look forward to seeing how she develops in karate as she fills in the pages of the book.

Published by Turtle Press and written by Art Brisacher, the Martial Arts Training Diary for Kids is a diary, a game, a keepsake, and a homeschool helper!

Here's an excerpt:

"Welcome to one of the best adventures you will ever have in your entire life! It is an exciting journey--it's your martial arts journey. Your friend and your companion on this journey will be a different and a very special martial arts book. This book is better than a book about famous movie stars or television actors. This book is even better than a book about your favorite sports hero. This book is like no other book you have ever seen or read. This book is about YOU and it will be written by YOU and lots of people will want to read it. The best part will come one day in the future when your son or daughter will want to read the book that you wrote when you were just a kid! When your child wants to hear about your true martial arts's adventure, you will be able to share it with them."

If your child is just starting out in karate and is over the moon about the idea, this is more than a writing assignment; it's a way to link learning to what your child loves.

Jungle Book: Presentations

2010-01-01T12:05:00.003-05:00

At the beginning of the semester, I challenged my academic track Jungle Book class to each present five minutes on any animal that they found interesting, as long as it appeared in the Jungle Book.

I thought I would share some pictures that came out of their very creative presentations:

With the children completely undirected and able to do whatever they wanted, we had all kinds of five-minute lessons! We had crossword puzzles, games of charades, we had comics, we had a demonstration on how to care for a horse, we had lovely pictures, we had a simulated visit from an actual working elephant mahout, we had an astonishingly huge full size king cobra created from fabric, we had earnest, interested, engaged children sharing ideas and facts with each other -- it was awesome to watch. Thanks for all your participation!

Jungle Book Week 12: Gond Tribal Paintings

2010-01-01T11:20:00.002-05:00

Namaste.

Quiz:

The quiz this week is about the Gond tribe, the tribe in central India of which Mowgli would have been a part. Which of these statements are true?

1. The Jungle Book is set in an area of Central India called Madya Pradesh.
2. Kipling wrote about this area while he was camping on the banks of the Wainganga itself.
3. The Wainganga River is a real river, but the area around it is not a rainforest.
4. Today in the Seoni District, there is a tiger preserve, where 50 tigers and 30 leopards can be hunted from hired jeeps or airplanes.
5. The villagers that Mowgli encountered would have been members of the Gond tribes.
6. The Gond people practice Hinduism and also animism, which means they worship animals and ancestral spirits.
7. Gond tribes survived by trading their art with neighboring cultures.
8. Gond tribal art usually portrays technological wonders like steamboats and front loaders.
9. A ghotul is a tribal dormitory where young girls and boys go to live apart from their families.
10 Gond people believe that freedom and happiness are more to be treasured than any material gain, that friendliness and sympathy, hospitality and unity are of the first importance.

Project: I'm going to condense two weeks together here, to show you how to get this project done.

Step 1:

Materials:
White piece of paper
Pencil
A sense of what the Gond tribal paintings look like, and what kinds of elements they would include.

The Gond tribes painted things they would see in their everyday environment. Ask the children what kind of elements and motifs they would expect to see in a Gond tribal painting, and then ask them to create a sketch of the painting they would like to do. Here are two examples of the drawings the kids came up with:

Step 2:

Materials:
White poster board
Pencil
Black Sharpie

This is where you, the teacher, at home, transfer the sketches the children have done onto posterboard, and add the design elements common to the Gond style. This is hard. Don't expect to get it perfect or symmetrical -- freewheeling a little bit is fine. Here are some examples of my attempts to translate the children's art into a workable poster:

Step 3:

Materials:
Poster paints
Lots of Q-tips
Paper towel
Outline drawings for each child

Make an example to show them how the paintings may end up looking. Here's my example:

Set each child up with paper towel, some poster paints, and a pile of Q-tips. Demonstrate the way you fill in the outline with "dot dot dot" action. Some of the older children may want to branch out into doing small lines to fill in the areas, or other fancy stuff. The little ones should stick to dot-dot-dot to make their paintings colorful. Emphasize that the colors do not have to be realistic. Emphasize that it does not have to be perfect -- folk art is neither exact or mathematical. Let them know that if one of their Q-tips gets squishy or frayed or otherwise irritating, they should ditch it and use a new one. Expect each kid to go through about 20.

Here are some pictures from our painting day:

For more pictures, check out our Jungle Book Flickr set. :)

Story: In the last few weeks of class, we discussed Mowgli's place in the world. Does he belong in the village or in the jungle? I left this as an open-ended question, and obviously there is no right answer. It was interesting to hear the children discussing it. I asked them where they felt they belonged -- more comfortable in the country or in the city? This led us to more interesting questinos: Is man an animal? Can people ever be truly civilized? What is perfect "city" behavior? What is perfect "jungle" behavior? Are there people you know that remind you of different animals? What animal would you be if you could? Would you be happy living the life of a wolf/snake/crocodile?

To me, these questions are more significant for young readers than the issues of race, colonialism, and caste that inevitably come up surrounding this text. They are some of the fundamental questions of humanity, and yet very accessible, in the context of Mowgli and his story, to even the youngest ones. We did talk about race and the empire, and we didn't shy away from some of the more troubling aspects of the stories. However, what I hope the children come away with is a little more awareness of the complexity of point-of-view. I hope they remember reading about seals from the point of view of scared seals and the hungry hunter, reading about the lawful jungle and the unlawful village, about the Gond tribe and the wolf pack. Maybe when they return to these themes and ideas later, they will be able to accomplish a deeper understanding of the tough issues too.

Song and Dance: We had several children who memorized all of "If" and all of "Mandalay." What an amazing accomplishment! For our final show, we had the enrichment class doing the first two verses and the academic class doing all of the poems -- it was a great performance! We also did a Bhangra dance using all 20 of the moves we worked on.

Here are a few videos for you:

Academic track kids doing "Mandalay":

Enrichment track kids doing "If":

SKS Science: Science Supplies for Homeschoolers

2009-12-13T14:05:00.003-05:00

Many of us shudder at the prospect of teaching laboratory sciences to our kids. I know I am guilty of this. In my mind, I remember the chemistry lab at my high school. Rows and rows of cabinets full of glassware and plastic bottles, Bunsen burners, sinks, and a back room full of bottles of powders and liquids. Thinking of trying to reproduce that at home is frankly overwhelming, and I think it is for a lot of homeschoolers. But here are a couple of things to remember:

1. The stuff that requires beakers and flame, gloves and goggles, and dangerous chemicals? That is the COOLEST stuff. That is the stuff that makes balancing equations bearable! Kids all love to measure and pour, combine, make things fizz and pop. This is why chemistry sets have been a toy drooled after by generations of children. So saying "I can't manage it" means that you're foregoing a major part of what makes science awesome for kids.

2. You don't have to stock your lab all at once. Think of your kitchen. When did you acquire your pots and pans? You probably accummulated things over a long time, as you needed it. A set here, a piece there, a collection over here, until you filled your cabinets. Now you have everything you need, but you didn't have to go to the "buy a whole kitchen" store and in one step anticipate every single thing you'd need for a lifetime of cooking. Supplying your home science lab can be the same slow process.

SKS Science is a supply company that sells home science supplies to homeschoolers, teachers, schools, labs, and whoever needs a quick beaker or a sudden petri dish. Their prices are very reasonable, their site is logically organized by brand, by type of science, by product. They have everying you need and even stuff you didn't need. But the best part of their site, in my opinion, is the section of the site where they suggest science experiments and list exactly what you need to do each one. There's a pH indicator experiment (with photos, video instruction). There's an experiment to test the porosity of membranes. Along with each experiment you get a supply list, so you will accumulate your equipment bit by bit.

Yes, you can muck along through homeschool science using mixing bowls and coffee mugs. You can measure stuff in your plastic measuring cups and stir with a salad fork. But if you're serious about science (and you better be), with a small investment in proper tools you can inspire your kids! Can you make a shelf in your cabinet for some graduated cylinders and transfer pipettes? If you grow your collection little by little, I think you'll find your home science lab will be far less painful to construct than you (or I) originally thought.

Ten Things I Have Learned Climbing Stairs

2009-12-09T20:55:00.002-05:00

Having just finished my first stair climbing workout, where I marched up and down my own stairs in my own house for 30 minutes, I have these things to say:

1. My dog is so dumb, he followed me up and down the stairs for 20 of the 30 minutes. Seriously.
2. It is very boring to climb up and down stairs for 30 minutes. Very boring. Way more boring than a stair stepper. Way more boring than I imagine it would be to climb up a super tall staircase for 30 minutes.
3. I do need to wear shoes.
4. Dire Straits is not good music to help you climb stairs.
5. It is really hard! I was sweating and panting and everything.
6. That thing up in Benny's room that's smelling strange? and we can't figure out what it is? It has GOT to go. I could have climbed all the way to the third floor if not for whatever that awful thing is. Smells like a rotten warthog made of urine. WHAT is it?
7. Wearing just whatever I am wearing on the day of the workout is not a good idea. Needed workout clothes on.
8. There is a railing on the bottom part of the stairs but not the top part.
9. I tend to start out stairs on my right foot. How about you?
10. The fact that I am already dreading my next stair climbing practice bodes ill for my future as a stair climber. It was REALLY boring. So boring.