Josh 2012-2013

I'm just noting ideas about next year for Josh and what seems to be falling into place:

1.  Josh really wants to get a part time job.  This summer he'll get his driver's license so he'll be able to get himself back and forth to work.  So when he gets back from his month in Spain, he'll need to start looking.  He'll need to figure out how many hours he can work and when he'll be available.

2.  Josh, of course, is planning on being part of CLC again next year so that is every Wednesday evening as well as some weekend events.

3.  Tuesdays and Thursdays for Josh will be major school days - he'll have his math tutor coming at 10:00 for Advanced Math, then we'll run to Latin class, then a quick lunch on the road and then onto his Physics class which is over at 3:30.  He's looking forward to Physics as really that is his favorite area of science.

4.  On Sunday afternoons, Rick is going to teach Josh and another teen boy, Government and Economics.  Government will be in the fall semester and Economics in the spring.  I want the boys stay after for 30 minutes and watch this Teaching Company lecture series I have but have never watched all the way through:  Natural Law and Human Nature.

5.  Folded in between these foundational elements of next year's plans are other things.   For instance, I want him to drive Sean to classes on Monday morning.  I want the boys out doing something useful while I am at Aquinas Learning with Becky!  I think Josh should take Conversational Spanish to keep his knowledge of the language fresh from his immersion experience in Spain.  He could also take art if he wishes.  Hopefully Sean will be taking Algebra I.

6.  I'd like to be able to meet with Josh most Fridays at some point during the day to watch The American Identity lectures and discuss American Literature we are reading.

7.  I hope Josh is on the yearbook committee again.  That was fun.

Memorial Day Weekend

These are scattered notes!

Didn't finish a book this week for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge.  I've been very scattered this week.  It is a big household change when your two college kids come back for the summer.  Plus we are trying to wind up our homeschool year and move onto summer.  It's funny but I've hardly thought about our trip to Europe!  I just want to really wrap this up this week and the beginning of next and then focus on the trip.  So that's the plan!  The only thing that will still be going on is the math tutor and Latin.  That happens right up until before we leave.

I need to contact our house sitter.  We need to find out if Rick is even coming with us.  I pray he is.   I don't wanna go without him!  Waaah!

Yesterday was nice.  Sean and Becky had friends over all day.  They played here then went to our local town fair that is held every Memorial Day weekend.  Then they came back and played and talked some more.  The two kids wound up staying for dinner.  We tried something new for our dinner menu.  Will had talked about eating chicken caesar salad wraps.  I threw Nourishing Traditions to the wind and bought some pre-made cooked chicken at Trader Joe's.  We heated these up, tossed ready made caesar salad dressing in romaine lettuce (shudder, shudder!  All that canola oil!) then wrapped them up in Lavash (again probably not optimum according to Nourishing Traditions).  But they were a hit!  Everybody loved them.  And we tried cooking our corn a different way.  Hannah brushed the ears with olive oil and salt and pepper, wrapped them in foil and Rick cooked them on the grill for 15 minutes.  Delicious!  We also had our first watermelon of the season and then (store bought) cookies for dessert.

Today is Pentecost Sunday!  Alleluia!  After Mass we'll probably do more of our town fair, then poor Seano and Josh have lots of math to work on for the tutor.  They need to get a lot done because Rick really wants to take the boat out on Monday, since he has the day off and we don't have Latin class.  Also, the kids need to get hair cuts.

I'm getting excited about Aquinas Learning again.  It seems there's a chance Sean could attend the Schola Alta.  Though I don't know 100%.  But it looks like such a great program, so I am hoping it will work out.  Hope we don't get disappointed again.

It seems wrong to say Happy Memorial Day weekend, when it is a day we honor the dead, but have a good time in their memory!  And may they all rest in peace!

More Planning

This time though I'm not focusing on academics in the fall but the summer and figuring out my household systems.

Yesterday, I found a template on line of a blank monthly calendar.  I printed off three and then filled them in with June, July and August.  I put down everything I knew would happen in pen and in pencil I put down the things I thought would happen.  Then I took over the side of the fridge.  That side was my daughter's art studio, but she hasn't used it that way in at least a year.  So I confiscated it.  I love it!  Several times yesterday I went over and looked at it.  Our whole summer stretched so neatly out before us!  It's those little things that give satisfaction!

The other thing I did was go to Like Mother, Like Daughter (scroll down and look for the links on the right margin)  and read all her food planning advice.  I started to make a list of all the dinners.  I got up to dinner no. 25 and ran out of steam, but I was only brainstorming with my eats-like-a-bird ten yo, who only likes about three foods right now, and my husband who was busy playing Plants and Zombies and wasn't hungry except that he was craving a fruit smoothie!  Not a helpful bunch.  Today, I'll try to survey the others to get ideas for finishing up a month's worth of dinner recipes.  Then I"ll write out another blank calendar menu with a month worth of dinners, well except we'll leave on our trip on June 23rd, so I don't even have to plan that much.

I need to work on lunches though.  That almost seems like more of a problem than dinners.

Breakfast is okay, except I need to rethink the oatmeal.  Everyone seems on an oatmeal strike right now.  Currently, the plan for breakfast is supposed to be: oatmeal on Mondays and Fridays, eggs on Tuesdays and Thursdays and cheese, bread and fruit on Wednesdays.  Saturday - bagels, Sunday, pancakes, waffles or french toast OR we eat out.

And snacks are a problem.  This week, I made wonderful roasted almonds a la Nourishing Traditions but they are already gone.  So it took a day of soaking plus a full 24 hours roasting and they were all eaten up in same amount of days!  And with the weather suddenly hot and guaranteed to stay hot all summer, I really don't want to have the oven on for a 24 hour period even if it is only at 170.  So I'm thinking of things like homemade ice cream once a week, frozen juice pops (2x), smoothies (1x), as well as popcorn (2x).  I think on Sundays I'll give myself a break and just buy cookies or a pie.

But lunches.  There's the rub.

This summer I'll be freer to grocery shop on whatever day I feel like.  I"m hoping to devote much of my time to working on cooking and trying recipes.

For the fall I think the weekly rhythm could be like this:

Weekends:  farmer's market, organic, local shopping, other more conventional stores (for things like Dial soap or those things that I just can't get other places)

Wednesday:  Sean may take a class on this day which is about 30 minutes away.   I'll need to wait around for him, so I checked and there's a Trader Joe's not far from where the class is held.  Yippee!  So this will be my Trader Joe's shopping day.  If he doesn't take the class, I can just shop at our closer Trader Joe's.  Either way, it works out!

Fridays:  I've decided that I need a day to be at home, just putzing around the kitchen.  So I've decided Friday needs to be that day. I'm burned out by the end of the week anyway, so I think this would be a good day to stay at home and focus on household things.

Okay, that's as far as I've gotten for now!  Time for me to go get Saturday morning bagels!

Change of Plans

Seano has been wanting to go to school.  He has not been happy at home, especially this year, with his favorite older brother off at college.  He needs to be with other kids and he needs a level of busy-ness and purpose that just doesn't happen here at home.  The school we set our sights on though didn't accept him.  Boo.  Hiss.  Sean was very disappointed and kind of mortified.  It is hard to be rejected, especially if you are an insecure 13 year old boy.

I'm ticked off and hurt too, but on the other hand I have to say I'm a bit relieved.  It was a going to be a major sea-change in terms of our schedule, our autonomy, our family rhythms.  We were going to sacrifice a lot in order to accommodate his going to this school.  So we don't have to do that anymore!  But I've got to come up with something to meet Sean's needs.

So I'm looking at combining two options.  We have about 30 minutes away from here, a Christian organization that has 7th-12th classes on Mondays and Wednesdays.  I have toyed with enrolling my kids there for a while but the drive didn't seem worth it and I always seemed to find other opportunities closer. However, next year Josh will be driving and it will ease my anxiety to know that the boys are gainfully occupied on Mondays when I am out at Adler Academy all day with Becky.  So I am hoping that both Sean and Josh will sign up for at least one class on Monday mornings.  And then I'm hoping that the classes aren't filled so we can register for them.  Ideally, Sean could take Algebra I there and then maybe another class.  I'd love Josh to take the public speaking class.  Maybe he'd like to take an art class too.

The other option is that Sean may be able to attend the Schola Alta in another Aquinas Learning Center a little less than an hour away from here.  That would be all day on Thursdays.  That way both he and Becky would be doing Aquinas Learning which would make for some unity in the home!  Though his Aquinas Learning week would start the Thursday before Becky's which would start the Monday of each week.  But I think I"ll just have to juggle that somehow.

So here's a very brief idea of how things might go:

Monday
Mom and Becky at Aquinas Learning all day
Josh and Sean go to classes (Sean:  Conversational Spanish and Algebra I; Josh: Art and Public Speaking)

Tuesday
Morning studies
Josh has math tutor, Latin class and Physics class
Becky has art class

Wednesday
Morning studies for all
Sean goes to Algebra I class

Thursday
Sean goes to Aquinas Learning
Josh has math tutor, Latin, Physics
Becky with Mom

Friday
At home day
I think we'll deliberately try to limit going out too much on this day.  A day for catching up, cooking, tidying, quiet times, book discussions, movies.

Saturday
Usually a free day in terms of academics

Sunday
Usually we do math and Latin homework
Josh and Rick will meet for Gov't/Econ study

You Are What You Behold; Nourishing Your Child's Soul on Truth

I'm listening to this talk by Andrew Kern.  Excellent, inspiring, and exactly what I needed to hear this morning.  Treat yourself to something beautiful and wise!

You Are What You Behold; Nourishing Your Child's Soul on Truth My very brief notes:

Teach your child:

To notice things - use examples - perceptive attention - the ability to behold

To remember and order our thoughts - in recalling, we learn how to sort our knowledge. Memory is a sacred faculty

To compare things to understand and know them better

The ultimate goal in teaching a child is at the end to have them standing before the Lord and the Lord saying to both of you: Well done, good and faithful servant.

Strewsday Tuesday - May 22, 2012

I haven't done a Strewsday Tuesday in a while.  A couple other moms offered to take up hosting Strewsday Tuesday but both were so overwhelmed by life, it just wasn't a good time for them.  So maybe I'll go back to doing this.  Before I felt inadequate and burdened by it, but now I miss it!

Bikes:  the spring weather has returned and my kids have suddenly taken out their long neglected bikes and they are biking all over the place.  Will is home from music college (where I might brag he is on the Dean's list and also received an email from one of his teachers (who played for many years with Chet Atkins and also wrote the music to one of the Zoombini games!) saying that for the first time ever in his teaching career, a student of his, um, that would be Will, got 100% on his guitar performance final).  Will doesn't like to drive very much, but he is used to the hyper-social life of living in a college dorm, plus he's used to walking around the streets of Boston all the time.  So here he is back home stuck in suburbia where you really can't go anywhere without driving.  He's also back in his old bedroom with his adoring younger siblings who won't leave him alone.  So he's taken to biking everywhere and he's catching up with his long time friends who are also back from college for the summer.  I don't know how educational bikes are, but they are great exercise and a gateway to the world so I think they can legitimately get listed under the strewing category.  Both Sean and Becky are also biking a lot too, following Will's example.

Books:  Started the reading routine yesterday, which actually wasn't much of a change from the way we usually do things, just now I'm more conscious of it.  Joshua hadn't been doing any reading though, so I asked him to.  He's decided to reread Swallows and Amazons.  Good choice!  One year, many years ago, maybe eight or nine, Rick read most of the Swallows and Amazons series to Josh.  It was a nice bonding time for them.  So I think it is great to revisit those books.  Another neat thing is that Will introduced us to a new author, a Canadian Economics professor, named Stephen Leacock, who wrote hysterical funny nonsense books.  He's been reading these stories out loud to Becky and Sean.

Since I seem to have a begins-with-b-theme going here, here's Becky being a ballerina.

Baking:  Hannah's home!  That means there's a lot of baking going on around here.  She's not hip to my new Nourishing Tradition ways so I was a little dismayed when she started bringing non-kosher (so to speak) things back into the kitchen.  Things I'd been trying hard to get rid of.  Sigh.  I have so little control over things.  She is very skeptical of it all, but we've had a few conversations and I have decided to look upon this as a teaching opportunity!  What's nice is how much Becky likes to help Hannah.  The younger kids are so happy their older siblings are back.

So what's strewing in your home?

Reading

This week, I want to focus on reading.  I've had several books going as read alouds, but life has been filled with interruptions lately, from me getting an increased number of migraines to college students coming home, to winding up the year events, etc. etc.  It just seems like we are getting more and more spotty about sitting down and reading in a routine fashion.  So this week I really want to concentrate on reading, both out loud and independently.

For me:

A.M.  I'm still reading the Gospel of Luke.  I started it for Lent.  I just read a couple paragraphs at a time and then read all the excellent commentary in my Navarre Bible Study.  After I do other things, like unload the dishwasher and have my coffee and computer time (like right now), I'm also reading The Evidential Power of Beauty.

P.M.  I want to start up a reading hour after lunch on most days.  I sort of do this now anyway, so I just want to make it official and also ask the kids to participate.  At this point, my current read is Aristotle for Everybody.  Then before bed I am currently reading The Song of Bernadette.

For read alouds:  I happen to be reading four read alouds, mostly directed at Sean:  The Creed in Slow Motion (Becky listens to this too).  A Little History of the World, The Screwtape Letters and Across Five Aprils.  I don't know how I got so Sean heavy and so light with Becky's read alouds, which right now is just Anne of Green Gables, though Rick is also reading her a book aloud too.  Anyway, these books have been taking an inordinate amount of time to get through even though each one is excellent.  I feel like we are dragging them out too long which is lessening their impact.  So this week I want to tighten this up.

After lunch independent reading:  I don't really need to do this with Becky.  She's often got her nose in a book.  We went to the library on Thursday and I think she's well into her third book by now.  But Sean is trying to make his way through Shane.  He actually seems to be enjoying it, but you have to remind him to read.  He just goes to the computer first thing and that crowds out other things too easily.  Also, Joshua is finished with Shakespeare and Chemistry now.  He just has Math and Latin left for this school year.  It was a heavy Shakespeare year and he really did very little other reading than that, so I think he needs to get back in the habit of just regular recreational reading other than reading fan fiction for Manga novels on the interweb.

So, I think I'm going to have a read aloud marathon this week, to see if I can't finish up a lot of these books.  I want Rick to read Watership Down aloud to Sean and Becky this summer.  It's a long book and he's been working late a lot, so he'll need a few months to get through it.

Rumpole and the Reign of Terror - Book 22

I love Rumpole of the Bailey.  He reminds me of my dad.  Not that Leo McKern, the actor who played Rumpole, looks anything like my dad did, but my dad really enjoying the BBC series.  The year after my father died I found reading the Rumpole books comforting somehow.  They made me still feel close to Dad. I can't actually watch the series because it makes me all weepy but for some reason the books don't do that.

Anyway, I've read four or five of the different stories, so I happened to pick up another at the library the other day.  This one is kind of funny in that Rumpole should be about 90 something, but he isn't. He doesn't seem to really age.  He's dealing with the Bailey as it is right now.  England is doing the same things the U.S. is doing in response to terrorism: civil liberties are being compromised.  The government has decided it doesn't have to charge suspected terrorists and can keep them indefinitely detained.  Rumpole is having none of that.  He keeps trying to remind people of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights but everyone thinks that's passe.

John Mortimer has his usual fun with Hilda.  In this book she's writing her memoirs in the boxroom at the same time that Rumpole is writing his.  Her old schoolmate Dodo makes an appearance, as do all the bit characters, the Erskine-Browns, the Timsons, Pommeroy's wine bar, et al.  One thing I'd forgotten is all the toying with infidelity that goes on.  And in this book Rumpole barely quotes any Wordsworth at all, mostly Shakespeare.

Rumpole is a trusty, good, light read.  I enjoyed getting reacquainted with him.

For more book reviews go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Today is going to be a busy day!

• It started early - Will took Josh and Sean to the 6:15 a.m. teen mass at church.
• Will needs a new pair of sneakers desperately.  He walked his soles off in Boston!  So that's on the agenda this a.m.
• Granddad is coming over to visit for the weekend, so we all need to do a quick tidy up this a.m.  He'll be here around noon.
• We've got tennis this afternoon at 1 p.m.
• Josh has his last Shakespeare class.  I've been relying on other moms to get him there but today we've got to him there and back ourselves, it seems.
• Did I mention that Shakespeare and tennis directly conflict with one another?
• Hannah is on her way home from Dallas.  She spent last night in Nashville, TN.  Hopefully she'll be here before dark today.
• I've decided to abandon any academics today, except for reading aloud.
• Should be a fun day, the weather looks gorgeous.  Just not quite sure how everything will get done!

Anne of Green Gables School

I've been reading Anne of Green Gables out loud to Becky and Rick.  They've gotten a new teacher at school.  A lovely lady teacher who is a kindred spirit to Anne.  And one thing they do now is have 'field afternoons.'  They go out and do nature study one afternoon a week.  Sounds so Charlotte Mason!

I've also been reading, very, very slowly, Monsignor Knox's The Creed in Slow Motion.  He was the chaplain to a girls school during WWII.  He talks to the children of learning their Latin and also of doing dictation, very CM as well.

These little literary glimpses into pleasant school life are inspiring me.  I've decided field afternoons and dictation will be part of our weekly life.  I've tried both before and fell away from it, but one good thing about me is I am eternally hopeful, LOL!

Mother's Day 5/13/12

I had a very nice Mother's Day.

• Will gave me two wonderful pieces of folk/street art from Boston.  They are painted pieces of wood, supposedly bookends but they don't seem heavy enough for that. But they are whimsical little men painted in a very folky style. Charming.
• Becky gave me the Faberge box she made when we went to visit the Hillwood museum.  Very pretty.
• Becky made breakfast sandwiches for everybody and we had breakfast out on the porch.  Becky is amazing!
• Rick mowed the lawn and the boys worked on the front garden for me.  They weeded most of it, covered some of the weeds with cardboard and then mulched over that.  Didn't get it quite all done, but it is a huge start.
• Hannah called from Dallas.  She's wrapping things up there and hopes to be home either Thursday or Friday of this week.
• Josh, Sean and Becky (and Rick!) gave me an Ipod Touch!  Sean was fascinated with all it could do.  Rick was setting it up for me last night.  I actually have no idea where it is right now.   It'll take me a while to acclimate to it, as it is with all things electronic and myself!
• Rick and I ground up wheat in our new wheat mill and made bread in the Zoji.  That's what's for breakfast this a.m.
• Rick grilled hamburgers, satays and hot dogs yesterday for dinner and we also ate on the porch.  
• We went to the Saturday vigil Mass so I absolutely went nowhere yesterday.  I love days where I don't have to get into the car!

Poor Becky, though, she slammed her thumb in the car door when Rick was running errands.  I don't think it is broken but it is terribly bruised.  Rick thinks if it is still paining her as much as it was yesterday she should go to the doctor.  We iced it, and wrapped it up and gave her Advil and last night I gave her some Benedryl just because I was afraid the pain would keep her awake.  We'll see how it is this morning.

The Basque History of the World

I didn't actually read this book, but I listened to it on audio.  I got it out of the library.  I happened to be in the audio/visual section and saw it out of the corner of my eye.  I read another book by Mark Kurlansky earlier this year which I enjoyed immensely.  I knew he had written this book on the Basque and since I'm into all things Spanish right now, I was eager to read it.  Kurlansky did not disappoint!  This book is fascinating.  I am somewhat of a history buff and know probably more than your average joe a bit about European history but I learned many completely new things while listening to this book.

The Basque are probably the most ancient ethnic group in all of Europe.  Their language Euskara is not related to any of the other Indo-European languages (I think there are two other European languages that also aren't Indo-European.)  Some people believe that those 'caveman' cave paintings in the Pyrenees were done by Basque ancestors.  The Basques have always been an ethnic group but they have never had their own country.  Geographically their land is along the Northern coast of Spain and in the Pyrenees mountains and crosses the border into France.  The land does not lend itself to much farming, though the Basques traditionally raise some crops, like apples and beans, but because it is largely coastal or hilly, they did not develop into big landowners with slaves or serfs to work the land.  Instead their culture develop the 'fueros' which are traditional, oral (until they eventually got written down) laws that everybody abided by.  These laws dealt pretty equitably with how land was distributed (matrilineal) and how everyone was supposed to conduct themselves.  Basques love their language and love their fueros.

Because the Basques weren't big landowners they became the first entrepreneurs of Europe.  They were fishermen who because the first whalers of Europe.  They also fished cod up in the North Atlantic and probably, very possibly, discovered the Canadian part of North America right along with the Vikings.  Many Basques were part of the crew of Columbus's second and further voyages and they actively took part in the Age of Discovery.  They were in fact the first to embrace many foods from the New World.  Foods that are considered traditional now in Basque Land, can be traced directly back to Aztec foods!  For some reason potatoes were not included in this until much later, but many peppers were.  The Basques were the first in Spain to get in on the Industrial Revolution.  The Basque land had a lot of iron deposits and exploiting this made the Basques one of the richest areas and ethnic groups in Spain.

The Basques' political history is very complex.  They learned to get along with the Romans.  When Charlemagne came along they were one of the only people to be able to defeat him.  They were among the last of the Europeans to accept Catholicism, but once they did, they did so wholeheartedly and, in fact, they are, in this very secular age, one of the most devout groups still in all of Europe.

It was only when nation-state building started to happen around the turn of the last century and during all the terrible civil wars (there were four of them, the last one being actually called the Spanish Civil War) that the Basque began to resort to political parties to try to protect their nationality.  Basques, being Catholics and savvy business entrepreneurs, were typically what we would call 'conservative.'  However, they became radicalized because of the terrible, brutal persecution they suffered under Franco who just hated the Basques.  This eventually led to a very small minority of Basques becoming terrorists.

The Basque people also live in France, though more of them live in Spain.  The French aren't radicalized.  Because of the French Revolution which centralized everything, the Basques were discriminated against in subtler, economic ways.  The Spanish were much more brutal about it.  As a result though the Basque culture in Spain is much more vibrant.

Kurlansky has a lot of affection for the Basque.  One of the wonderful perks of this recorded book is that on the last disc, they had an interview with the author.  Very delightful!

One downside of listening to this book, instead of reading it, is that there are many, many foreign words and names throughout the book.  In fact, in almost every line.  This made it very hard to keep names straight.  The reader of the book does an absolutely amazing job in pronouncing words that seems almost unpronounceable.  He had to smoothly and fluently move from Euskaran, to Spanish to French, sometimes in the same sentence.  He did an outstanding job!  I do wish they had included a glossary of words and also maps along with the discs.  I really felt I needed those two things to really appreciate the subject matter.  When Kurlansky is being interviewed at the end, he mentioned some of the photos in the book, which made me wish I had read the actual book instead of just listening to it.  In truth, sometimes I felt lost listening to it, especially as I was driving around transporting kids or running errands.  My attention would get distracted for second or two, the reader would read some complex and unfamiliar  words, and I wouldn't be able to really catch what was said.  Kurlansky though is an amazingly clear writer.  He manages to take something very alien and complex and really make it accessible.

I really enjoyed learning about the Basque people and their history.  I think Kurlansky is a terrific historian and writer.  Two hearty thumbs up!

For more reviews, go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Journaling the Day 5/8/12

Ran a bit late again this a.m.  Didn't get going until 9 a.m.  Had bacon and eggs.

Sean worked all morning on not-very-much-math!  I sat next to him to try to help him focus but he just wanted to chat.

Becky spent most of the a.m. reading The Lost Hero.  Then we reviewed long division by doing one problem on the whiteboard.

Josh studied for his big cumulative chem final which is this Friday.

After an early lunch Sean and I did a little bit of word roots study in Ecce Romani

Assembled all the different parts of Sean's application for Trinity School for next year.

Took Becky to art class, then drove to Trinity to hand deliver everything.  We'll see. . . they want his last CAT scores.  Unfortunately Sean is not a good Standardized test taker.  So. . . but I'm supposed to scan it and send it by email. Going to ask Rick to do that when he gets home.  It has been a dull, rainy day all day and driving around for an hour or so made me very sleepy.  Then I did a very self-indulgent thing.  After dropping off the application I went to this fancy little coffee shop and had a wonderful latte and gelato.  I indulged in both while sitting in the car listening to The Basque History of the World on audio.

Then I came home to find that Becky's friends were under the weather and so I went to pick her up early.

Meanwhile, Sean did his next writing assignment in Writing with Skill, Week 13, Day 2.

Sean then spent a lot of time chatting with Will and then later, his friend Jack, on the computer.

Came home and made dinner, chicken sausage, cabbage and frozen potatoes with green beans and mushrooms.  We ate on the porch even though it was chilly and rainy.

Read some more of Across Five Aprils to Sean.

Josh and I did Latin homework.  We managed to get it all done in one sitting.  Yeah, no rushing around Wed a.m. trying to finish up the homework!

Josh worked on his Drivers Ed.  He's up to 45% through the course.  He's got to be up to 60% by the end of the week.

Becky somehow got a little shard of glass in her toe and took a long soaking bath but it still refused to come out.  We tried going at it with tweezers but she was being very dramatic about the PAIN this would cause, so we didn't get far with that.  We'll have to keep our eye on it.

Rick came home said that the scanner is not hooked up and he can't get his secretary to scan because he is going right to the hearing tomorrow and won't be back in the office until after his secretary leaves.  Guess I'll hand deliver the CAT scores on Thursday when I'm near Trinity anyway.

Rick read whatever Riordan book he is reading to Becky.  Sean was supposed to read Shane but didn't, says he'll get up early and read a chapter.  I read Anne of Green Gables to Becky and Rick and then Rick read some Dave Barry article to Sean.

Planning for 6th Grade

Over the years, one of my favorite things about homeschooling has been planning.  I loved to look through all the catalogues and read message boards and yahoo lists about different resources and what people were doing.  I loved thinking of all the books we'd read.  It is a wonderful pastime, lesson planning!  And then when you get to the nitty gritty part about breaking the materal down into days and structuring how one will proceed through the subject for a term, semester or year, that has a different kind of satisfaction.  That part always troubled me a bit though, because I am not computer savvy enough to really do that kind of planning well that way, but then doing things long hand in a planner seems too time consuming.

But the big damper on the joy of planning over the years is that even though I'd spends hours and days consumed by it, the plans seldom lasted more than a few weeks.  Sometimes they wouldn't last even a week before I'd realize that I had completely missed the mark, or that nothing was going to go tidily.  Plans make me into a perfectionist.  I want everything to go just as it is set forth on paper or I feel a resentment.  And it never, ever went smoothly.  Very occasionally it would go not-quite-so-bumpy but most of the time things quickly tanked.  Soooo.  I adapted.  I separated the plans from reality.  Sometimes I just make up plans for the fun of it but they may or may not ever see the light of day.

Eventually, I got much more relaxed than that.  My way of planning evolved to this:

1.  Make a list of books I'd like to read over the course of the year.  Read them if the opportunity arises. I like these books to cover Religion, history, science and literature, poetry, sometimes math, geography.  Sometimes we just have a couple of books going, other times we'll have as many six going.  Anymore than that though and things get to chaotic.

2.  Find programs in math and Latin that are open and go and 'do the next thing' each day (those days we actually sit down and do it).  Put the date at the top of each page when we've finished so I have a rough idea of the pace we are going.

3.  Figure out a way that we will practice hand writing and composition.  Hand writing can be creating a commonplace book or just working through a penmanship workbook or a prepared copy book.  Composition can be done via outside class, on line class, unschooled, or tackled in a focused study for a period of weeks.

That's it.

This past year we've experimented with Aquinas Learning.  God willing, the Aquinas Learning Center where we've been meeting will continue.  We need to hire new mentors though.  That's a big question mark!  If AL does happen next fall then Becky will do:

Aquinas Learning curriculum which involves:

8 memory sentences each week for 28 weeks in the following subjects:  Virtue, Catechism, Latin, Grammar, History, Science, Geography, Civics.  Each week we put these up on our kitchen cabinet doors, read them several times and discuss them.

We also learn about a saint of the week.

During the Aquinas Learning day which will be Monday next year, Becky will participate in Socratic discussions with her classmates and also be required to research and present oral presentations about every 3 weeks.  These are brief and their main purpose is to teach public speaking.

Also during the Aquinas Learning day, there are group classes in music, art or science (these rotate).

In the afternoon the program devotes time to grammar and IEW.  The last 45 minutes are spent doing logic puzzles and games.

This Aquinas Learning day shapes the rest of the week.

AL also has copy work for the kids to do.  The copy work selections are tied to the history or the Religion aspects of the program, so they are often quotes by important historical people or from saints, Scripture or the catechsim.

So for next year for Becky's 6th grade:

History - AL is back to its Ancient History cycle so all her history sentences will be focused on that.  We might read the first part of All Ye Lands to supplement.  I also want to read a children's version of Plutarch's Lives, one of those recommended by Ambleside Online, at a gentle pace over the course of the year.  And I want to listen to the audio of The Young Folks Josephus from Paediea Classics.  That can be something we listen to in the car.

Geography will be AL driven, as will science, art and music.

Latin -  I need a better approach to Latin.  We began in the fall with Getting Started with Latin but the fall was very overwhelming with all the crisises trying to get the AL center up and running.  So I dropped it and was just going to rely on AL for Latin (and Greek) but it felt too piecemeal and we didn't emphasize it at all.  So I hope to focus more on memorizing the AL stuff in addition to keeping up GSWL at a gentle pace.

Writing - I don't care for IEW so I'm hoping that since it looks like we do have to do it for AL that we can minimize any homework.  We might just have to tough out a year with IEW.

Copy work - Becky got bored having to do the same copy work all week.  So I think she'll just do it one day a week and then we'll go back to having our own common place books where we copy what we like, poetry, jokes, sayings, riddles, songs, tongue twisters, quotes in our books the other days of the week.

Religion- will be AL driven but I'd like to read aloud some saint biographies and perhaps begin to reread Marigold Hunt books, for instance, the one on Angels and the one on the Life of Christ as well as the one on Acts of the Apostles.  I'd like to time them so that Acts could be read during next year's Easter season.

Math - I'm thinking either Teaching Textbooks where we watch the videos together and then do follow up homework together as well.  Or we might go back to Key To's.  I like their approach and I think it will mesh well with Becky.  I may let her choose.

I also want to have 3 books studies as well as focusing on three poems.  These books are tied to history.  I feel a little guilty using them as there has been bashing of the overuse of historical fiction in certain circles :), but I think these books are well written and hopefully we'll study them for more than just history.

1st Term book and poem:  Mara, Daughter of the Nile  and Ozymandias by Shelley for memorization.

2nd Term book and poem:  Theras and His Town and Ulysses by Tennyson for memorization

3rd Term book and poem:  Word to Caesar and a reading of Horatio at the Bridge -memorizing a favorite passage from it.

Journaling the Day - 5/7/12

Quick notes here: - Mondays are hard! No one wanted to get up, including myself. Made Rick oatmeal for breakfast, quick kind. Not very good. He ran off to work. Becky got up on her own, Boys had to be reminded. Just cold cereal for breakfast. Though Sean decided on a salami and cheese sandwich instead :).
 Meant to read The Creed in Slow Motion but Kindle wasn't charged. My charger seems to be on the fritz. So read more from Gombrich. We are reading about Napoleon and how he dished out parts of Europe to family members. Nice map in the book Sean looked at.

 Sean had to work on math. My plan was that he'd get in a solid hour before I had to leave for Latin class. But he wasn't in a concentrating mood!

 Becky put up her visual aids for Aquinas Learning Week 27, then started playing with her AG dolls and making videos of them.

 Josh and I finished up our Latin homework. Even though it was chilly we worked out on the screen porch. Then we went to Latin class. I showed the magistra a quote I'd found in a book I'm reading. It's by St. Thomas Aquinas: "pulchra sunt quae visa placent." I thought it was funny because pulchra is plural here. In English it is translated, "Beauty, is something which seen, is pleasing. But in Latin is literally Beauties are when seen, pleasing. Latin class was good. Felt slightly less lost than usual!

 Lunch was take out Chick fil A. Becky says she practiced her times tables while we were gone. Sean did a bit more math but was mad at Becky for interrupting so much. After lunch Josh mowed a portion of the lawn that Sean forgot to and was getting quite junglish. Then we tidied bedrooms in prep for the cleaners and started on laundry. Gonna do lots of laundry today. Cleaners are here. Kids have been being very silly playing funny pranks on them! I cleaned up the kitchen which I've only been half-heartedly attending to all weekend. I have to clean the kitchen because I hate the way the cleaners load the dishwasher! LOL! Crazy first world paradoxes. 

Right now at 2:42 p.m. going to rally kids. Especially Sean and Josh. Josh needs to do math and drivers ed. Sean needs to do more math, Latin, writing and reading.

 Update - now it is 7:37. Josh did some math and some drivers ed. Sean and I worked on Latin and then he did week 13, Day in Writing with Skill. I worked with Becky on fractions, mainly adding like fractions. Becky has been making more vidoes of her dolls.

 We had dinner, made chicken salad out of leftover chicken, rice. It was kind of come and it so we never really sat down together. After dinner read two more letters from The Screwtape Letters to Sean. Letter 22 is scary! When Screwtape loses control and is turned into a centipede. Sean doesn't understand a lot of it, but he gets the gist alright. He actually is really enjoying this book.

 Put some laundry away, earlier, must go put in more and put away more right now. 

Next day Update: Said prayers. Lots of reading going on. Sean read next chapter of Shane. Rick read Sean some Davy Barry (they bond over Dave Barry), Rick read Becky the latest Rick Riordan book (can't remember title), Becky read to herself The Lost Hero by Riordan (she's rereading that whole series), I read Anne of Green Gables to Rick and Becky. Josh read Taming of the Shrew because he has to write a essay on his favorite scene/act.  His is the same as mine, when Petrucchio brings Kate home and won't let her have anything, like food or a bed because nothing is good enough for her.

How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm - Book 20

Gosh, I had a hard time getting into a book this week. I started two books that I had waiting in my 'to be read' pile, got about 1/4 the way through them and lost interest, much to my own surprise. I'm also listening to a really interesting book on audio whenever I'm out running errands. So I didn't think I'd have a book for this week for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge. However, I read Dana's post from last week on How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood, and it sounded intriguing so I got it on my Kindle. It was a quick read, only took two days, but it is a highly enjoyable glimpse into the parenting practices of different parts of the world.

 Mei-Ling Hopgood is an American journalist, adopted from Taiwan, who currently lives with her husband in Beunos Aires. She's also a new mom. Noticing the differences in the way the Argentines raise their children (from her own American upbringing) got her thinking about parenting practices all over the world. She knows her birth parents and siblings so she is also familiar with Chinese culture. Her brothers were adopted from Korea, so she's also been exposed to that culture as well. Growing up in Michigan she knew lots of Lebanese and other Arab immigrants. Because of her job she has traveled all over the world. This book really seemed like a very natural extension of her own life and parenting experiences.

 Since she's a reporter, she writes very well and interviews many experts on the different aspects of parenting. She starts with bedtimes because that's one of the first issues that made her think about how different cultures parent. In America we are very into bedtimes and giving kids structure. There is a definite division between child-time and adult-time. In Argentina, bedtimes are much more casual and children are accepted pretty much everywhere even late at night out at a restaurant or party. Yet, Hopgood notices, this doesn't seem to affect the kids adversely at all. In fact, this approach might have some benefits! Kids learn to be adaptable, they feel welcomed in this more kid-friendly environment, parents don't have to worry about sitters so much. The other chapters cover such things as potty training, dealing with kids fighting, schooling, kids working and yes, she even explains how Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm. I notice in one of the Amazon reviews of this book that someone complained the title was misleading, but no, it is very clearly right in book, how the Inuit carry their babies on their backs right next to their own body heat to keep them warm. Hopgood takes one of these topics per chapter, explains the difference in parenting style on that particular issue for a particular culture and then turns to experts to explain why the practice evolved and how it is woven into that particular culture. It is really fascinating! Then Hopgood reflects upon her own parenting style and what she personally takes away from her study and how it applies to her and her husband's own parenting style.

 Hopgood is a very career-oriented, modern woman. She seems to tackle, albeit in a loving way, parenthood like a new job. She's very thorough and very focused on success. Since, for most of the book, she's just talking about her only daughter who seems to be only 3 by the end of the book, she's awfully intense about things. I don't think she sees herself as a pushy parent, but I guess with my own more laid back style, she certainly seems a lot more driven than I ever was. Though I do remember the intensity of meeting all those milestones with my oldest child.

 This was a very interesting, easy to read book. I recommend it. For more reviews see the link for 52 books above.