Blog Redesign Comments

I thought I'd just share a sampling of comments.  It seems that how much you appreciated the redesign is directly correlated to age.

Oob: Wow!  That's really cool!

Choclo: Hmmm.  Very nice.

Zorg: Looks like pajamas.

Klenda (in the nicest way possible): No taste AT ALL.

My sister (an actual artist): Um... It's...visually arresting. (Me: Really?) As in, "Watch out for the fashion police."

Oh, Say Can You See

 We went to Fort McHenry, yesterday!  It was a rare warm (pushing 60) day in late February, and there was a light breeze coming off the harbor.

Perfect!

We went with two other families, so we got an extra teen (very fun!), a sweet little baby, and a gratuitously cute toddler, as well as a big bunch of kids in the middle.

Naturally, I locked them all up while I explored the fort.  That's why they put the jail so near the entrance.  As you can see, they loved it!

But eventually, they made enough noise that a ranger let them out, and we all toured the exhibits.

We learned a lot from the barracks which have been set up to recreate the environment of 1814, and they were great places to warm up out of the wind.

But, really, it's all about the cannons for us.


 Here's Choclo pretending to be a cannon ball!  Can you tell which one is him?

I guess it's all about the cannons, and the cannon balls, and the powder magazines, and the bombs.  

They have an array of cannons from the War of 1812, the Civil War (it was a prisoner of war camp), and World War I (it was a hospital).

 Almost as good as all those, are going down into the "bomb proofs,"  the early bomb shelters from 1812, then climbing up and walking the battlements.

You can walk along the star shaped wall of the fort, or along the cannon laden earthworks which ring the fort.

Originally, there was a third star shaped ring of earthworks, but that has mostly vanished into history.

The Centrifuge Brain Project

At what point could you tell it's a fictional movie?

Choclo Says

Choclo (hanging about the kitchen, looking ravenous): When will dinner be ready?

Me: Oh, about ten minutes.

Choclo (in stunned disbelief):  You mean six hundred seconds?!

Me (long pause): Honey, how do you know that ten minutes is six hundred seconds?

Choclo (as if it's a ridiculous question): It's easy, you just count by 60s.  Fifteen minutes is 900 seconds.

Klenda's Got a Blog!

Klenda's starting her own blog, to talk about art, life, and faith.  She is using a Stella as her blog name for that blog. I've put a link in the top right sidebar, or you can take a look here!

In other news, did you notice the blog redesign?  I put a poll up on the right sidebar (under Klenda's blog) so you can let me know what you think!

Chemistry for Kids

 After the enormous chemistry class for high school last semester, I am finally getting around to chemistry for the younger set.  In reality, all six Zoomlians are having fun with this, in addition to four from our friendly neighborhood home school family!

I am loosely following Janice Van Cleave's Chemistry for Every Kid.   Honestly, I love all her books.  I'm pretty picky about science experiments, but her books are gold mines!

We started out talking about matter, and our ability to experience matter through our senses.

We used taste to discover which bowl held salt and which one had sugar.

We used sight to find something made of matter and non-matter (people!).

Smells great!

 We used smell to figure out what was on the cotton balls stuck in film canisters.  This was so fun!  I used extracts from cooking (vanilla, lemon oil, cinnamon oil, almond extract), and from soap making (cedar oil, honeysuckle, bergamot, eucalyptus, lavender).

We used hearing to find my cell phone (which I had hidden with the timer running - sure glad that experiment worked!).

I think it's a...

And we used touch to discover what was in the "feely bag."

I don't know if you've ever tried this, but it's a great party game/ way to settle the shrieking hordes on a rainy day.  Not that I ever get shrieking hordes running around the house until some one gets hurt, you understand.

You just take a pillow case and wander around the house filling it with whatever random junk you trip over a carefully selected array of interesting objects.  The kid or kids have to feel inside the pillowcase without looking inside, and guess what is in there.


We also talked about matter taking up space and having mass.  This is always very interesting, especially as it refers to air.  It's so invisible and hard to sense, that revealing these properties seems like magic.

We did the wad of paper in an inverted jar under water trick.  For once, I had the foresight to write on the paper, "Hey, look!  I'm still dry!"  This amused the kids no end since, it was, in fact, still dry!

We also did the balloon in the bottle trick (which Mxyl is holding).  You put a balloon into the bottle with the neck of the balloon over the neck of the bottle.  It looks like you could just blow up the balloon inside the bottle, but, of course, the air in the bottle (but outside the balloon) takes up too much space to let the balloon inflate.

To show that air has mass, we weighed an empty balloon and a full one.  A word of caution on this one.  The difference is often only a gram (or less!) so only try this if you have a scientific scale (which I had because I bought on for the high school chem class!).  Also, I needed to add a loop of tape (to get the balloon to stay on the balance) and tare the scale beforehand.

When I was setting up the class,  I tried to make this work on my primary balance, and it actually showed the opposite because the air circulation in the house was adding force to the inflated balloon!

Lastly, I had given each kid a jar partially filled with rice and had them shake it side to side (not up and down - we got the best result by tapping the jar against our hands).  As the rice settled, the ball hidden in each jar rose to the surface showing that two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time.

And then we were out of time!  But tune in next week for at least as much fun!

Chart and Compass Part 4 (of 4!)

I feel like I need to say one more thing, lest my philosophical ramblings leave you with the impression that my chart and compass approach has been easy and direct, or the result of my own genius.

When I first envisioned home schooling, I was a solidly "classical education" type.  At the curriculum tea, I met someone who wanted to do the classical approach because she loved it, and she always wished she had had that kind of education.  That is a fantastic reason to go that direction, and I hope she goes for it!

For me, however, "classical education" was about my own excellence and proving that I could do a great job as a home schooler.  Well, you can guess how well that went! 

With my home school, God led me on the path of joy.  But to follow that path, I've had to trust that it really was God leading, and let go of a lot of fears, especially the fear that if I didn't "do school,"  my kids would be "uneducated."  What if I miss teaching them everything they will need to know? 

In our rapidly changing world, I am quite sure that neither I nor anyone else is teaching kids everything they will need to know.   What they will need to know hasn't been invented yet!

But:

If they know how to think clearly, logically, and compassionately,

If they know how to break "impossible" problems into manageable parts,

If they are curious and interested in the world and the people around them,

If they know how to find the truth and incorporate it into their lives,

If their compass of joy points toward God, and that love overflows to everyone they meet,

Then they'll be alright, by the grace of God.

Gospel Dessert Week 2

 This week's Gospel is the Transfiguration.  Actually, every Second Sunday of Lent uses a Transfiguration gospel, just from different Gospels.  This year it was Luke.

It's a problem for me!  I've never really been satisfied with the desserts I've chosen to represent this gospel in the past.

This year we tried a chocolate lava cake. 

 The idea is that it looks like an ordinary chocolate cake, but when you slice it open, there is this core of oozy chocolatey goodness.  Sort of like Jesus looking like an ordinary human, but then revealing his divinity.

Hmm.  Divinity.  Maybe next year I'll try making divinity.

At any rate, the lava cake was really fabulous!  We topped it with a billowy "glory cloud" of whipped cream, and it was intensely chocolatey.  It didn't spill out chocolate goo as I had expected, but it's possible we let the cake cool too much.

As was, it tasted like a really fantastic fallen chocolate souffle, lightened by the crown of whipped cream. Yum!

Poem of the Week

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

HT: Poem Hunter

Chart and Compass Part 3

I've talked elsewhere about my "chart" of where we are aiming for our kids to be as adults.  I've said that our "true north" is our call to help each kid become who God created them to be.  Now I'd like to talk about the compass of joy.

Simply put, if I (or the kids) don't have joy with the way we are home schooling, I know something is wrong.

Does this mean that every moment is delirious happiness?  No!  Every day (hour?) has it's ups and downs.  Joy is a deeper feeling of peace and wholeness that persists through difficulties.  

It does mean that if long division yields dividends of misery with a remainder of tears, or if a kid must be continually pushed to do a project, or if I dread the start of the school day,  something needs to change.

It does not mean that we just don't do difficult things, or things that don't immediately look fun. There's a lot of joy in challenge!