 |
| Keeping busy with some juggling practice |
 |
| And some gourmet cooking... |
Monday, May 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
A Day in The Life - Year 8
Lucy is our early riser; she's often up before 7 and helps prepare breakfast, reads, keeps our second earliest riser company...
Maths is always first in the day. Lucy's ready by 9 but waits on me to catch up. We go over an algebra problem from yesterday, then run through the lesson for today. It's a simple concept - index notation - and so she does the first two sections orally. I leave her to do the last set of questions on paper herself.
Arwen's having a sick day - otherwise known as a "write Glee fan-fiction day" - and Snowy is watching Cyberchase, so I take advantage of the quiet and spend some time working with Lucy on some history homework. She's taking a modern history class this term that's for Years 11 and 12. The content is no problem for her but I work with her on how to read, interpret and answer the homework questions. She has to choose an inquiry question for the period of the early 20th century; we talk about the area she's interested in, which is the Suffragette movement.
It's 11. Lucy takes a short break and I start work with Snowy. Then Lucy works on grammar using Karen Andreola's Simply Grammar. Then I suggest to her that she takes a look at Youngzine. At Lucy's age I was crazy for newspapers and radio but as she isn't, I find Youngzine to be a good compromise between current affairs ignorance and a distaste for 'the news'.
Around 12.15 we all take a break to get lunch ready. And by 1.00, Lucy, Arwen and I settle down for our read-aloud chapter. We're reading Heist Society by Ally Carter. I refuse to believe an 8th grader is too old to be read to! Or too old to snuggle...
1.30 means free time - possibly a bit of reading ( I suggest she gets started on Cold Comfort Farm, our novel for book club next week ), knitting, cuddling of guinea pigs, eating of raspberry muffins. On a less grey and gloomy day we'd probably fit in a walk around this time. And at 4.00 she's off to work - next door - to do an hour's babysitting with Arwen.
I should say this was a 'light' day for Lucy, who hasn't been 100% the past few days, but who normally works for closer to four hours each day.She's a natural scholar, my Lucy, a homeschooling mama's delight!
Maths is always first in the day. Lucy's ready by 9 but waits on me to catch up. We go over an algebra problem from yesterday, then run through the lesson for today. It's a simple concept - index notation - and so she does the first two sections orally. I leave her to do the last set of questions on paper herself.
Arwen's having a sick day - otherwise known as a "write Glee fan-fiction day" - and Snowy is watching Cyberchase, so I take advantage of the quiet and spend some time working with Lucy on some history homework. She's taking a modern history class this term that's for Years 11 and 12. The content is no problem for her but I work with her on how to read, interpret and answer the homework questions. She has to choose an inquiry question for the period of the early 20th century; we talk about the area she's interested in, which is the Suffragette movement.
It's 11. Lucy takes a short break and I start work with Snowy. Then Lucy works on grammar using Karen Andreola's Simply Grammar. Then I suggest to her that she takes a look at Youngzine. At Lucy's age I was crazy for newspapers and radio but as she isn't, I find Youngzine to be a good compromise between current affairs ignorance and a distaste for 'the news'.
Around 12.15 we all take a break to get lunch ready. And by 1.00, Lucy, Arwen and I settle down for our read-aloud chapter. We're reading Heist Society by Ally Carter. I refuse to believe an 8th grader is too old to be read to! Or too old to snuggle...
1.30 means free time - possibly a bit of reading ( I suggest she gets started on Cold Comfort Farm, our novel for book club next week ), knitting, cuddling of guinea pigs, eating of raspberry muffins. On a less grey and gloomy day we'd probably fit in a walk around this time. And at 4.00 she's off to work - next door - to do an hour's babysitting with Arwen.
I should say this was a 'light' day for Lucy, who hasn't been 100% the past few days, but who normally works for closer to four hours each day.She's a natural scholar, my Lucy, a homeschooling mama's delight!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Poetry ( And Prose ) Friday
From Mary Oliver's poem Yes! No! comes this line:
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
All week that line has been chanting itself inside my skull.
My sister dropped by to bring me some books; I was in bed with a cold when I picked up The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, she of the wondrous Moomintrolls.
Written later in life, after the death of her sculptor-mother, The Summer Book is set over a period of several summers on a tiny and remote Finnish island. Sophia, a young child whose mother has also only recently died, and Sophia's grandmother, wise and unsentimental, are the main characters in a episodic book that relies not on plot but on a deep observation.
Oliver would recognise Jansson's 'proper work' as she creates for us a world where grief is observed and described and we see how the novel's natural world echoes, amplifies, mirrors and transforms that grief and how it ultimately insists on the right of the living to go on living and to pay attention.
To pay attention is to do more than notice. Paying attention is active, a tax we pay on life, a work we shape.
Mary Oliver's poem can be found here.
For more Poetry Friday links, visit The Drift Record.
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
All week that line has been chanting itself inside my skull.
My sister dropped by to bring me some books; I was in bed with a cold when I picked up The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, she of the wondrous Moomintrolls.
Written later in life, after the death of her sculptor-mother, The Summer Book is set over a period of several summers on a tiny and remote Finnish island. Sophia, a young child whose mother has also only recently died, and Sophia's grandmother, wise and unsentimental, are the main characters in a episodic book that relies not on plot but on a deep observation.
Oliver would recognise Jansson's 'proper work' as she creates for us a world where grief is observed and described and we see how the novel's natural world echoes, amplifies, mirrors and transforms that grief and how it ultimately insists on the right of the living to go on living and to pay attention.
To pay attention is to do more than notice. Paying attention is active, a tax we pay on life, a work we shape.
Mary Oliver's poem can be found here.
For more Poetry Friday links, visit The Drift Record.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Home School Rule No 1
You know that saying "Never wake a sleeping baby" ?
My spin on it is, "Never disturb a playing child."
Right now - 11.17am - Snowy is in deep play mode, taking apart one Lego world and building another. Requiring him to leave his work to come to mine won't add to his education; it would undermine it. Even for a 7yr old, play can still be work.
The day stretches out before us with hours upon hours till nightfall. There's still room for maths pages, phonics lesson, books and maps and games. He plays, I write; work of the most authentic kind.
My spin on it is, "Never disturb a playing child."
Right now - 11.17am - Snowy is in deep play mode, taking apart one Lego world and building another. Requiring him to leave his work to come to mine won't add to his education; it would undermine it. Even for a 7yr old, play can still be work.
The day stretches out before us with hours upon hours till nightfall. There's still room for maths pages, phonics lesson, books and maps and games. He plays, I write; work of the most authentic kind.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Book Club Questions for Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
I'm posting this as a public service; no book club questions online for this novel yet! So weary book club mothers, feel free to use these questions as they are. They are a little on the light side; my book club girls had an intense term of King Lear previously and I'm looking for fun conversations this term.
1. What were your initial thoughts about Dash ?
2. What did you first think about Lily ?
3. How did your opinions about the main characters change as the book went on ?
4. What are your thoughts on how the book is structured - moving between two narrators/authors and the use of the journal as a narrative device ?
5. What does this book suggest to you about the role of family ? How do Cohn and Levithan play with the idea of family ?
6. What do you think Cohn and Levithan are telling the reader about expectations ? About belonging ?
7. Is the relationship between Dash and Lily a realistic one ? Why or why not ?
8. Favourite minor character - who would you want to meet in real life ?
9 How or why is humour used in the novel ? did you find it humorous ? Which bits ?
10. Discuss Lily's fashion sense.
11. What Rice Krispie bar would you invent ?
It was a toss-up whether we'd make chocolate pizzas or Rice Krispie bars for book club this week but we're going the Rice Krispie route...we call them Rice Bubbles here.
Enjoy your discussion! As always, use these questions as a starting point for discussion - if the kids pick up on an aspect of the book and run with it, ditch the plan and run with them!
1. What were your initial thoughts about Dash ?
2. What did you first think about Lily ?
3. How did your opinions about the main characters change as the book went on ?
4. What are your thoughts on how the book is structured - moving between two narrators/authors and the use of the journal as a narrative device ?
5. What does this book suggest to you about the role of family ? How do Cohn and Levithan play with the idea of family ?
6. What do you think Cohn and Levithan are telling the reader about expectations ? About belonging ?
7. Is the relationship between Dash and Lily a realistic one ? Why or why not ?
8. Favourite minor character - who would you want to meet in real life ?
9 How or why is humour used in the novel ? did you find it humorous ? Which bits ?
10. Discuss Lily's fashion sense.
11. What Rice Krispie bar would you invent ?
It was a toss-up whether we'd make chocolate pizzas or Rice Krispie bars for book club this week but we're going the Rice Krispie route...we call them Rice Bubbles here.
Enjoy your discussion! As always, use these questions as a starting point for discussion - if the kids pick up on an aspect of the book and run with it, ditch the plan and run with them!
Friday, May 6, 2011
Poetry Friday
A new book of poems for my birthday; Mary Oliver's New and Selected Poems Volume Two.
Here's a title - The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First.
You can listen to the poem here.
Blessed are the word-shapers!
Here's a title - The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First.
You can listen to the poem here.
Blessed are the word-shapers!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Book Sharing Monday
It's cool and grey today, the stillness punctuated by the kordle of the magpies. A work day. Yesterday was a perfect day; sun, after a week of rain, and washing on the line. A park, a bakery, a loaf of sourdough bread. A trip to the book shop...
The book shop visit was work, as much as spending time in a book shop could ever be work; in other words, not work at all. We needed books for book club, new read-alouds, something to add to a study of the Jazz Age. Here's what we found:
Dash and Lilly's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan - Arwen's finished this one already and been generous with praise. I'm only a couple of chapters in but I have high hopes. I've enjoyed books by David Levithan ( in collaboration with others ) before. This is our modern romance for book club; a girl-boy relationship via a red Moleskine journal.
Heist Society by Ally Carter. This is the girls' new read-aloud. OK, so it's not high literature but it is amusing, snappy and reasonably well written, so not exactly from the gutter either. Kat Bishop is a reformed teenage thief from a family of thieves, drawn back into the family business when her father goes too far and steals an art collection belonging to a mobster. First chapter today met expectations...
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. The book Snowy really wanted was One Small Dog by the wonderful Phillippa Pearce but we had to order it in. To amuse him at bedtime until it arrives, I thought we'd give Emil a go. We're three chapters down already in this classic tale of a boy who has his money stolen whilst travelling to see relations in Berlin, his determination to get the money back and his adventures with the detectives he meets along the way. So not a bad interim choice.
Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen is the book I chose for Lucy, to add a little colour to her studies of the Roaring 20's. I felt she wasn't quite at the right age to get the most out of Fitzgerald and decided this story of Midwesterner's Letty and Cordelia's escape to 20's New York might be a lighter and more approachable way of fleshing out the time period.
Before we left the book shop, I took Mrs Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown from the second hand shelves and spent a very pleasant afternoon reading on my bed. I do suspect Ms Belding Brown has taken considerable imaginative liberties with the characters of both Mrs Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and she has thoroughly prejudiced me again Mr Emerson but that's the price you pay for a book that combines "detailed history with a page-turning illicit love story."
The book shop visit was work, as much as spending time in a book shop could ever be work; in other words, not work at all. We needed books for book club, new read-alouds, something to add to a study of the Jazz Age. Here's what we found:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)