I don’t have to try not to breathe, Michael Stipe.

01/28/2013 Nichole

This weekend my head was so thoroughly congested that my teeth hurt, my voice echoed around in my head and I couldn’t taste anything. It drove me to Extreme Measures. I’ve been hearing lots of talk lately about the wonders of apple cider vinegar, so I Googled ” ‘sinusitis’ and ‘apple cider vinegar,’ ” and I found a number of recipes for hot beverages that were supposed to ease the symptoms of a sinus infection rather miraculously.

So I grated some ginger, added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, a little cinnamon and a whole lot of honey and then poured some hot water over it and let it steep for a bit. I must’ve been wildly powerful, because I could taste it. It was a sharp and not necessarily a good taste, but it was a taste after a day and a half of tasting nothing at all. By all accounts it smelled rather hideous, too.

But did it work? I sipped it slowly — I can’t take big sips, because then I can’t breathe — while watching “Downton Abbey” (speaking of which: Tears. Big, ugly tears. That’s all I’ll say about that,) and by bedtime there was no noticeable difference. I’ll let you know later if it turns out that the vinegar concoction is indeed a wonderment. I hope it is, because I’d like to be able to taste some of this week’s meals, which shall be as follows.

Monday: Chicken with Cider and Bacon Sauce: My fascination with Chicken and a Pan Sauce continues.
Tuesday: Baked potato soup: I’ve also been making soup once a week for the past several. It’s been so cold and rainy lately, this one sounded like it would hit the spot.
Wednesday: Cheeseburgers: I think cheeseburgers have become Pete’s favorite food.
Thursday: Leftovers: I don’t think I’ll want a leftover cheeseburger, but leftover soup will be just fine.
Friday: Pizza

Homeschool

Maybe we should’ve watched “Thor”

01/25/2013 Nichole 1 Comment

This was one of those weeks where I would’ve like to have stayed home every day. (And by “one of those weeks,” I mean it was a regular week. I have hermit-istic tendencies.) Alas, the children have activities every day but today. I think all the running around on the other days makes today all the sweeter, though, especially since it’s 20-something degrees and icy outside and I don’t have to leave the house at all.

History

I found the Vikings fascinating when I was a kid (still do), but they didn’t seem to capture Poppy’s imagination all that much. The only thing she was really enthusiastic about in history this week was building our Viking longboat, which we did this afternoon following the instructions from LooLeDo.com. They also have a nice video about the process:

You can read Poppy’s take on Vikings on her blog, which we remember to update periodically.

Handwriting

Pete has been asking for awhile now if I’d order a handwriting curriculum for him, so I finally got McRuffy’s Kindergarten Handwriting. And he hated it almost immediately. I’m not sure what he was expecting, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I’d make him redo his work if he rushed through it.

Reading

It’s looking like Poppy might not get to her 1,000-page goal for the BookIt program this month, even though she finished two Magic Tree House books this week. She didn’t want to read anything that wasn’t one of the MTH books she had on hold at the library, and she had to wait about a week for them. So she’s fallen behind quite a bit. Maybe next time she’ll just read something else in the meantime!

Pete hasn’t quite mastered this week’s Bob book, so we’ll keep at it next week. He’s picking out words here and there on signs, etc. We’re making progress.

Extracurricular

Pete practiced dribbling in the garage earlier this week, and Rockford reports that he had a very good basketball practice. His first game, last weekend, went well. He passed the ball both times it was in his possession, and his team did pretty well. They don’t keep score at this level, so I can’t tell you for certain whether or not they won.

The heat at the ballet studio went out moments before Poppy’s ballet class this week, so she had a very chilly 45 minutes. Picture eight little parka-clad girls leaping around the studio.

Poppy completed the requirements for her first American Heritage Girls badge this week. It was the “Internet Adventurer” badge, and it took her about half an hour to complete. She read most of the handbook this week and has decided that she wants to earn almost every badge.

Math

Math was studied.

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

Homeschool

A few ideas I’m kicking around for our next homeschool co-op

01/22/2013 Nichole 2 Comments

Twice a year, our homeschool co-op gets together to decide what classes will be offered for the upcoming session. The brainstorming meeting for the spring session is coming up in a few weeks, so I asked the kids what they might be interested in studying. Poppy said she’d like to study puppets, pets, baking, sewing, snow and candy, and Pete would like to further explore robots, superheroes and ham.

I’m not sure exactly what we’d do in nine sessions of Ham Class, but I’ve been thinking about (and Googling) some of their other ideas and I think some of them are feasible and might even be fun.

For example:

Puppetry study

“Control” by Gabriela Camerotti.
For this one we would probably spend the first half of class talking about and watching videos of different “schools” of puppetry — shadow puppets, puppetry around the world, etc — and the second half making some kind of puppet. Then we’d spend the last couple of weeks working on a puppet show to perform at our co-op’s end-of-session demo night. We also have a local puppetry group that I’d like to contact to see if they had anyone who might come over and do a demonstration for the kids.

Resources

Susana Abell’s “Puppetry in the Writing Curriculum” includes instructions for building simple puppets, advice on developing a character and guidance on how to map out a story.

This study guide on Chinese puppetry from the Center for Puppetry Arts was made to go with some sort of distance-learning program, but it enough really nice templates and links to other resources to be helpful without access to the videoconferencing.

I found a lot of great instructions for making simple puppets at Enchanted Learning, a ton of sock puppet ideas at Danielle’s Place and a guide to making giant puppets at Child Drama.

Candy study

“A Rainbow of Flavors” by Cris.
I’m pretty sure that what Poppy was envisioning when she suggested a candy class was a solid hour of eating candy. Which isn’t exactly what I’d offer. I’m thinking we’d do some geography by trying candies from around the world and mapping common candy bar ingredients; a little chemistry by examining the properties of different kinds of sweetener; and a bit o’ history by researching the origins of popular candies. And the ace-in-the-hole on this idea would be a field trip to my favorite local chocolatier. I’m betting I could drum up a few willing chaperones for that one.

Resources

This “Sweet Science” unit from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute looks fantastic. I could probably just follow it and we’d have a great class.

The candy timeline at Food Timeline is text-heavy and packed with information.

The World in a Candy Bar would be a terrific geography study.

We could start every class with a Candy Math exercise.

Superheroes study

“Avengers” by Andrew Becraft
This one has quite a few possibilities. We might spend a few weeks talking about different mythological heroes, we could develop our own superhero personas and we could study real-life heroes. I think this one would be a hit with the little guys.

Resources

Robin Lady’s “The Superhero Project” is a fully-planned unit for fifth- to eighth-graders. Pete would be pretty upset if I taught a superhero class that he was too young for, but I think there are some ideas I could mine here for a class for younger kids.

The superhero study ideas at No Time for Flashcards, on the other hand, look perfect for preschoolers.

What do you think? Would you sign up for any of these, or would you prefer the Nine Weeks of Ham?