Homeschool Days 2/25/10

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."

-John Cotton Dana

I had no idea it was Secular Thursday most of today.  What on earth did we do all week?  I really feel like I should have another day here...

We are still spending a lot of time out of the house, but doing fun stuff so it's hard to feel too badly about it.  The AIR meeting on Sunday was fun!  I have to be honest, discussion of AIR itself was minimal, but we spent something like six hours talking about everything else.  The kids had a blast.  Only one minor meltdown on our side, yay!  The food was absolutely amazing (seriously YUMMY vegan stuffs).  The only two things decided by the end of the meeting/hangout was that we need to have a real meeting in two weeks where we stay on topic, and that I needed to buy my kids scooters.  We got the scooters on Monday, and took them to the playdates Tuesday and today.  Best money we've spent in a long time.

Books

We are nearly done with The Secret Garden.  I know I read it as a kid, but I don't remember anything about the story. I'm really enjoying it, though Robotson says my Yorkshire needs a lot of work!  Speaking sort of about books, he watched the movies for The Black Stallion and The Black Stallion Returns.  I didn't watch with him, but I was very pleased when he would pause to come and tell me about a difference from the book, or a big scene.  There was a time when he didn't seem to pick up on those sorts of things.

I did read a little with the girls this week.  Dimples and I read Stargazers.  It's a cute introduction to astronomy.  We haven't pulled out the telescope in a while, but we should.  I also want to do some stargazing when the weather gets warmer.  It would be so nice to lay out on a blanket and show the kids the constellations.

Make Way For Ducklings was something I picked up at a consignment sale last year.  It's about two ducks that are looking for the perfect place to raise their family.  The girls really liked the drawings.  I thought the story was simple, but fun.

We also read The Book of Beasts about a boy who suddenly finds out he is heir to the throne and is called upon to be the King.  There isn't much to do until he finds a book in the library called The Book of Beasts. Each page has a creature on it, and as he turns the page, they come out into the world.  Some are harmless, but there is a troublesome dragon.  I thought the whole becoming King thing was weird and kept waiting for the revelation that he was just pretending, but it never came.  I guess that's what happens when you read with your adult glasses on.  The girls seemed to enjoy it anyway.

Science

Look at my new iPhone app,  NASA's Lunar Rover Game!  I totally laughed out loud when I was having trouble getting the rover to move and the game asked me if I was a licensed driver.  I stink a video games, but it is a lot of fun.  

Another Symphony of Science song and video for your enjoyment!

Art

As I type, Robotson is making movies with the Zimmer Twins.

Our friend Kit went to a concert last Friday, and got Robotson a signed CD by the artist, That 1 Guy.  He was thrilled (thank you again!).  Robotson says he'll be writing to Apple to have the magic pipe added as an instrument in GarageBand.

Not a whole lot of other things going on this week.  I've been absorbed in my homeschooling posts and reading Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos:  How to Help the Child Who is Bright, Bored, and Having Problems in School.  I'm not reading it because we are having problems, but because Mo really sold it here.  It fits in really nicely with all of my other EI parenting books and gives basically the same advice.  It's still good to read a book from a different author that adds a little more strength to my conviction that we have chosen the right parenting style for our kids.

Remember those kids down the street that were giving Robotson a hard time over the summer?  Periodically he'd go out for walks, with me always discouraging it, but never preventing him.  If he saw them, I never really knew what, if anything, happened.  But now that he has this scooter, it's been hard to keep him in the house and at some point while riding up and down the street he stopped to talk to one of the kids.  They ended up playing basketball together.  There were still three other kids who were standing off by themselves.  Robotson said they were saying mean things, but he and the kid were ignoring them.  I'm not entirely sure what the current situation is, but I have to hand it to Robotson.  He never let it get him down.  He kept going out there, trying to talk to them, and it seems to have paid off for now.  He certainly has more gumption that I ever did growing up (or maybe even now!)