Monthly Archives: November 2013

Bandwagons

A selection of websites I visited and things for which I searched this week

1 Comment
Dr. Sidney Mezes, presumably using some sort of early Google program to search for important information such as that which you will find below. (Library of Congress photo I found on the Flickrs.)
  • My friend Brook’s friend is raising money for Cystic Fibrosis research.

  • ‘Saxophone Lung’ Developed By Man Who Didn’t Clean His Clarinet For More Than 30 Years.” As someone who played saxophone very poorly but for quite a few years back in my schoolgirl days, I say this with great confidence: Ew.

  • I tried to find out whether one could merge Bearville accounts, because Poppy has four of them. Because she kept forgetting her passwords. I still don’t know the answer.

  • “Lorde’s ‘Royals’ Isn’t Anti-Rap, It’s Anti-Imperialism.” I like that song. The kids very much do not, because I do. That’s how it works, right?

  • “make ahead mashed potatoes,” because Thanksgiving is nigh. I’ll probably try the Ree Drummond version.

  • “when does psych come back?” December 15!

  • Speaking of TV I am excited about: “Here is your ‘Doctor Who’ anniversary schedule of events“!

  • “How to Make Butterbeer. Or just buy it at Starbucks..” I’ll be exercising the Buy It option.
    • Bandwagons, Homeschool

    Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays and a little MacBeth, too

    1 Comment

    Homeschool at ButterscotchSundae.comOne plus-side to the time change has been that I’ve actually been getting up early enough to get a lot done before we have to leave for the afternoon’s activities. It’s been a refreshing change.

    I am wondering, though: How is it possibly Friday already? This is our Big Week O’ Birthdays — Rockford’s sister’s was Sunday; mine was Monday; my dad’s was Tuesday; and Pete’s was yesterday — and it always goes by in a flash.

    The kids don’t “do school” on their birthdays, so we’re having a four-day week. I’m almost certain we got some schoolwork done this week, but I didn’t take any notes. So come along with me as I try to recreate the Week in Homeschooling from memory. (Fun for everyone!)

    Math

    Poppy has been concentrating on getting to the end of Teaching Textbooks 3, and she was very excited this week to finally get to division.

    Pete was most disappointed not to have any graphing or charts to work on this week, so he lined up his Halloween candy in a hands-on graphing experience. We learned that his trick-or-treating resulted in a lot of Kit-Kats.

    Reading

    Poppy read a “Judy Moody” book, a “Magic Treehouse” book and two issues of the “My Little Pony” comic book this week. She’s a reading machine. I didn’t do a great job of doing reading with Pete this week, but he did read a lot of signs while we were driving hither and yon!

    History

    We read about Shakespeare this week, and Pete was super into the story of “Macbeth.” Witches and war are always exciting!

    Possibly less exciting was our US History reading, which was about education in the 1800s. Oh well. We can’t all be a classic tragedy.

    Memorization

    Rather than memorizing a poem every week, I challenged Poppy to memorize one long poem. She’s been working on “The Walrus and The Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll, and this week she finished up the first Eldest Oyster stanza. Pete has been mainly concentrated on the short poems in “First Language Lessons,” but he’s been picking up parts of “The Walrus and The Carpenter,” too.

    Extracurricular

    Monday: Poppy’s “Nutcracker” rehearsal
    Tuesday: Tae kwon do
    Wednesday: Poppy’s piano lesson and two dance classes
    Thursday: Tae kwon do and Poppy’s the last day of supplemental soccer practice
    Friday: Nothing! Woohoo!

    Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

    blessings, Family matters

    And now he is six

    3 Comments

    He loves cheeseburgers and superheroes and legos.

    He leaps everywhere he goes.

    His smile lights up a room.

    My tiny little ray-of-sunshine baby is an ever-growing and often-storm-cloudy 6-year-old today.

    Yesterday we spent some time running and walking the bases at a local baseball field, and then we played Poohsticks in a tiny stream, and it was one of the best let’s-kill-some-time hours I’ve ever spent.

    Happy birthday, Petey. You’re my whole heart.