Another Gray Hair

I was looking at e mail when I heard a long scream followed by Choclo shrieking over and over, "My eye! My Eye! My eye!"

I covered the 30 ft between us in .7 seconds only to discover that I had misheard him. He was actually shrieking, "My I! My I! My I!"

He had been trying to make a capital letter I with the big red cardboard blocks, and it kept falling over. When I had recovered all my internal organs, I helped him find some of the more stable, less chewed on blocks.

That fixed his I problem.

Portfolio Time!

Warning: This is a brag post. If you're not in the mood, skip it! I had tough day with the little guys and a stomach bug scare. Everyone's OK, but I was a bit frazzled. So I decided to work on my portfolio review tonight because it always makes me feel better.

Yes! It's almost time for my home school portfolio review! I would have thought this would be incredibly stressful and my least favorite thing about home schooling.

It would be except: 1. I have the best home school reviewer in the world (and no, she has no idea about this blog) and 2. Once I start looking back on all the cool stuff we've done, I get really jazzed up: Hey! We're LEARNING here! What else can we do?
1 + 2 = 3: The portfolio review is a big brag fest and the reviewer is excited and encouraging.

The only down side is the time it takes to write out all the "materials utilized" and "concepts completed." For example, this school year so far, in science, Mxyl has used: Lego Mindstorm NXT robotics kit, computer, Popular Science and Science Illustrated, Bill Nye videos and books, Magic School Bus videos, models,books and computer games, salt, borax, and other chemicals, periodic table, wire, lamp hardware, household wiring, library books and other videos, websites, experiment books, zoo, Boy Scouts, microscope, binoculars, magnifying glasses, flower bulbs and plants, pets, parks, wild animals, APOD, Snap Circuits, public works, nature walks, found objects, star charts, cooking (and then we run out of space) and he learned the concepts:Robotics, programming, making circuits, electricity (static and current), basic household wiring, creating a lamp, amps, volts, watts,energy, alternative sources of energy, pollution, ecology, endangered species, habitats, food web, domestication of animals, simple machines, power, force, friction, work, air pressure, crystallization patterns, salt, hypertonic, isotonic, hypotonic (review of cells and human body systems), DNA, genetics, cybernetics, periodic table, elements, reactions, atomic models, creating and maintaining our museum(and we are out of space in this little rectangle, too).

It's all in tiny type because there 6 subjects on the first page of the form! How are you supposed to squish it all in? But it's fun to try!

It's also fun to bring in some of the stuff we've done. I'll bring Mxyl's latest robot as his science example, and some of the Egyptian stuff, the ribbons from the gingerbread houses, and lots and lots of pictures. This year I will have some special extras: an article in the latest Faith and Family featuring our Plutarch Party, and possibly a column by the excellent Kate Tsubata in the Washington Times about our home school. I don't know if it will be out in time. When they come out on the net, I'll link to them.

Zoomlian Games: When I Was a Kid

It started with whining. The Zoomlians don't tend to whine a lot, but it was a hot muggy July afternoon at the zoo. Like every zoo I have ever visited, the zoo in DC is built on an enormous hill. Naturally, the default setting is to go merrily down the hill in the cool of the morning and trudge up the mountain after the weather has warmed 20 degrees and the kids are melting down and the stroller has mysteriously gained 10 pounds (I'm not complaining, I've done that too).

The Zoomlians noticed that it was hot. Very hot. Unbearably hot. Mom, I'm hot! I'm hot... I'm sure your kids have never done this, but I'll bet you get the idea.

The Emperor finally said, "You think this is hot? This is nothing! When I was a kid it was so hot..." How hot was it? "It was so hot that you had to drink your popsicle through a straw!"

Well, that was nothing, when I was a kid it was so hot... How hot was it? It was so hot that we had to put a bun on the dog. We were off and running!

The whole thing ended with Zorg. When he was a kid, it was so hot...How hot was it? It was so hot that everybody just...died. Um. OK.

It turns out this also works for cold (when I was a kid, it got so cold we all climbed in the freezer to warm up [yes, they know not to really play in the freezer...]) , wet/rainy (it was so rainy that we had animals gathering 2 by 2 outside our house), hungry (we ate real pop rocks), and messes you have to clean up (when I was a kid, my room was so messy that my Mom got the big leaf vacuum truck and... SLLLLUUURRRRPP!")

If life was tough when you were a kid, (how tough was it?) leave it in the comments!

Next time: the classic Zoomlian game If I Had a Rutabaga.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

We love St. Nicholas (we don't really do Santa, as explained here) and today is his feast day!

Last night, the Zoomlians left their shoes out and are just discovering the candy inside...

Do you know why St. Nicholas is associated with presents? It's not like his feast is that close to Christmas - St. Lucy is much closer.

St. Nicholas lived in the 300s in the Roman city of Myra. There were two easy ways to become a slave in the Roman empire: be conquered or be poor enough to be sold by your parents. (Are we getting too far from Christmas for you?)

St. Nicholas was not poor (and he was a Roman citizen)! In fact, his parents had just died and left him fabulous wealth. But Nicholas wanted to give everything to God and, as his first step, decided to give away his money. He prayed for guidance and looked for opportunities.

He heard of about a poor man with three daughters. Back in the day you needed a dowry to marry, and he had no way to provide for any of his daughters so he had determined to sell them into the, er, worst kind of slavery.

St. Nick wanted to help the man, but mindful of Jesus' "not letting the left hand know what the right hand was doing", wanted it to be anonymus. So...

He put enough money for a dowry in a bag and dropped it down their chimney in the middle of the night... where it fell into a sock that had been hung near the hearth to dry... Sound more familiar? He did that three nights in a row and saved all three girls.

St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of children.

Best St. Nicholas site ever.

And, to fill your shoe, This Fabulous Meme!

If you were trapped on a desert island and it was Christmas and all you had was a small generator, Christmas lights for your coconut tree, an endless supply of Christmas cookies and eggnog, your CD player and 6 Christmas CDs , which 6 albums would you want them to be?

If you can find Amazon links, we can listen to snippets...

My answers:
1 Theatre of Voices, Carols from the Old and New Worlds
2 Paul Hillier, Traditional and Modern Carols
3 Canadian Brass, The Christmas Album
4 Anonymus 4, Wolcum Yule
5 Westminster Cathedral Choir, Christmas Carols (not in print)
6 A Very Veggie Christmas

Why 6? St. Nicholas' feast day is December 6th. Plus I started with 5, but couldn't whittle the list down enough. And I still didn't get Mitch Miller in there!

I will tag The Emperor over at The Inside Blog, The Queen of Carrots, Tracy at Organic Learning, Kate in NJ, and Melissa in the Bonny Glen

Gaudete

The Zoomlians have been going around singing this since last Sunday when we started bringing out the Christmas stuff. They only know the refrain, but they sing it over and over. I've been meaning to teach them the verses... after I learn them. Here is a you tube with many versions of the song, some of which I love (I hear Theater of Voices in there!), and some... well...not so much! (What were they thinking with the German rock version?!)

I find the different versions of songs fascinating in the same way I find word etymology fascinating. My advice, skip the versions you dislike.



Which reminds me of my other favorite Latin carol: Personent Hodie. Same deal:

7 Quick Takes

Thanks Jen for starting this!

1. If I do one random thought about each Zoomlian, does that still count as random? Why do I worry about it?

2. Oob: Dorito breath is bad. Coffee breath is worse. Both are lovely compared to fish food breath.

3. Choclo: I forget that he confuses his pronouns, so we have conversations like this:
Choclo: Mommy, you like chocolate milk?
Me: No, actually, I don't like chocolate milk.
Choclo: (perplexed): You like apple juice?
Me: Yes, apple juice is nice.
Choclo (getting concerned): Mommy, you like metalmaid (lemonade)?
Me: Ooooh! YOU want a drink!
Choclo (nodding vigorously): YOU want a drink!

4: Leena is very concerned about the acorn shortage. The squirrels are everywhere: into our garbage and climbing on our window screens. After a few days of handing out the spare Brazil nuts from last Christmas (someone must like those, but no one here), I finally broke down and bought squirrel food. We haven't seen a squirrel since.

5. Zorg: I would have home schooled for no other reason that this rough and tumble, wrestling, weapon crazy, cub scouting boy still loves to snuggle up and give everyone in the family hugs and kisses.

6. Klenda and I saw the Dancing White Horses! I've wanted to see them since I was a horse crazy 9 year old myself, but it was incredibly more fun to see them for the first time with her! That's something we'll both remember all our lives and it was a window into my childhood. I'd forgotten how beautiful horses are!

7. I told Mxyl that our home school portfolio review was coming up and I'd like to be able to show his advancing skills in robotics. Could he build me a robot to take in? Sure! He is in the last stages of programming Spike, a scorpian robot. When it senses something in it's path, it backs up. If the thing advances, Spike "stings" it. It's very cool, even though all actual arachnids give me the screaming heebie jeebies. But then, I don't live near any actual scorpians (sorry, Jen!).

Favorite Advent Resource Ever

It's a lovely book in the Walter Wick I Spy tradition. Mine is called Do You See What I See?, but it seems to have been renamed . As you look for an item each day (there is a new picture every two days) the book goes through Salvation history, applying it to common childhood experiences, and inviting kids to enter into the Christmas mystery and search for Jesus (and many related items!). The rhymes are decent and the pictures, while not on Wick's level, are suitably intriguing.

Poster Post 2

Here's how our Advent themed posters turned out! You can click on it for a better picture.

The borders are just construction paper cut into fanciful shapes, but I think it gives a more finished look. I think I need to outline Baby Jesus when we're closer to Christmas: as is, he fades into the hay.

Leena helped cut out the borders and is showing her approval.

Leena's Gingerbread Christmas Tree

As you can see, it's not actually gingerbread!

It's cream cheese sugar cookie dough tinted green and flavored with peppermint oil. We knew we were eating this one!

But it is what she wanted: a Christmas tree decorated with candy! Yum!

For the Queen of Carrots

Who is celebrating The First Day of Christmas Music. Sorry, we're a bit late; on Zoom this holiday is not celebrated until December 1st...