Weekend Recap, Writing, and Interest-Led Learning

Doodlebug spent the weekend with my mom.  He had a good time, though he now understands why I used to come home exhausted whenever I'd visit my grandmother before she moved - he spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen cooking, doing laundry (she took him thrift store shopping and he bought some clothes for next summer), etc.

Boo spend the weekend recovering from her bike wreck.  She enjoyed not having anywhere to go, though she was - and is - still devastated that I had to reschedule a sleepover that was originally planned for Friday night.  She's not looking forward to answering all the questions everyone will inevitably ask all week.

I got my hair done and made applesauce and apple butter (note to others who have never made it - use the crock pot! The recipe in my Ball Blue Book didn't mention it takes 8-9 hours to simmer a batch down to the right consistency.  That would have been handy to know before I started cooking it at 3:30 p.m.).

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The kids asked today if I had posted their reports.  I said I hadn't, and they wanted to know if I would.  So, without further fuss, here they are.  I'll post Doodlebug's first, then Boo's.  Age order.  Next time it'll be ladies first.

     Imagine that you are a carver in Olmec times. When you get up you have breakfast of maize tortillas and catfish. Then you go to the temple decorated with beautiful pottery to make a giant stone head in honor of a late ruler or ballplayer.

     Think back to breakfast. Those maize tortillas that you had were made from maize that was roasted and then ground into a paste and cooked.The catfish was caught in the local river. You might have clams or turtles for lunch. If you are very lucky you might be able to afford some crocodile for dinner, but that is mostly for the rich. The rich also drink an expensive drink called cacao, which is a bitter drink made from the cacao plant.

      Do you remember the pottery? If you looked closely, you would see that the pieces have holes in the back. You are not a potter so you don’t know much about making clay pots, but you know that the hole in the back means that the piece is hollow and the potter did not want the piece exploding during firing. Most of the pottery is human-shaped. Another common figure is a were-jaguar.

      Now you reach the head you are carving. It is called a Colossal Head, and it is made from the porous stone basalt imported to your city. It stands for a late ruler or ballplayer. You don’t know which; you’re just carving the stone head that the priests told you to build. Little do you know that about 2000 years later archaeologists will have found the stone head you carved, along with 16 others.

      Finally, you go to bed to do the same thing tomorrow until the head is finished. Soon you will have another project.

----Doodlebug

       Living in ancient Egypt was not very easy, but people tried to make their lives beautiful. They did did that by decorating their homes and wearing pretty clothes.

       Egyptian homes were not very complex. One family wrote a list of the furniture that was in their house. There were two beds, a tool chest, and a foot stool. Most homes had three rooms. They were the living room, the bedroom, and the work room. One home decoration was cups and jars. They were colored with bright patterns. All ancient Egyptian houses were built from mud bricks, even the pharaoh’s palaces.  The only building that wasn’t built from mud bricks were the pyramids.

       The royal ancient Egyptians wore transparent linen.  The Egyptian slaves were almost naked.  Women wore long tunics that came down to their knees. Men wore skirts as pants with belts. Young children often wore nothing.

       Egyptians liked pretty things. They really did make pretty pottery,  and they really did use limestone for jewelry.

----Boo

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Today we started our interest-led week.  We went to the library and picked up a crapton of books I'd requested for the kids on their specified subjects - Boo is studying jellyfish and Doodlebug is studying DNA/RNA/amino acids/chromosomes/genetics (he'll have to narrow that down, but for now he's just garnering information).  Then I let the kids read and take any notes they wanted to make and they searched on the Internet at the library for even more info because hello multiple computers so nobody has to wait for a turn before we came back home.  Boo is extremely excited about her project and can't wait to get started; Doodlebug was frustrated because he hadn't realized exactly how difficult and complex his topic was, but I think I got him to relax and enjoy himself when I pulled out the Zometools Biochemistry set and let him start building some of the proteins he'd been reading about.  He was really, really happy to build phosphate and SEE how the universe's elements work together in a chemical setting as part of biology.  It all started to click.  I'm curious to see what he'll do the rest of the week.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Homemade History, Week 8

The kids turned in their papers this week.  I thought they did well, and I may post those separately.  Or not.  I haven't decided yet.  For week 9, even though it's primarily an interest-led week, the kids will still be doing history and math and a couple other electives.  So I'll be back next weekend with yet another installment.

Week 8 Topic: Phoenicians and Sea Peoples

Monday:  Reading and timeline.  Reading options came from Story of the World (Ch. 15), Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (pp. 28-29), Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World (pp. 88-91), and/or the Usborne World History Encyclopedia (pp. 144-145).  Boo was fascinated with the idea of city-states and alliances between the cities.

Tuesday:  We filled in the Phoenicia's Trading Empire map from Map Trek and they started typing up their papers.

Wednesday:  Videos!  We watched a bunch:  One on glassblowing (we also searched for Phoenician glass images so they could see some of the stuff the Phoenicians actually produced), one on the Phoenician Ship Expedition, and one on extracting dye.  There's another video out there, called Quest for the Phoenicians, that is available in parts on Youtube or for legitimate sale in the National Geographic Store, that we caught the preview for.  I may check it out another time, because both kids really, really like the Phoenician peoples.

Thursday:  Definitions (city-state, colony, obelisk, alphabet) and Doodlebug's critical thinking questions (What were some advantages and disadvantages of having cooperating city-states vs. a unified country?  Which of the Phoenician's inventions [alphabet, dye methods, glassblowing, shipbuilding, colonization, etc.] is the most significant to us today?  Why do you think that?)

Friday:  I was going to suggest that the kids help me make pita bread, but they had other (and better!) ideas.  Doodlebug decided he wanted me to find him a map of Mediterranean currents and winds so that he could work out different sailing routes that the Phoenicians would have used to get to their colonies.

Boo decided she wanted to see if she could build her own boat.

Both kids ran into different problems with their projects - Boo had originally wanted to make a curved boat and Doodlebug wanted to figure out one route that would work for all seasons - but they both overcame their frustrations and were happy with their final results... even if the boat didn't float for more than a few seconds before sinking catastrophically.

Next week:  The Indus Valley, Mohenjo-Daro, Hindu beliefs

And the Week Ends With... Stitches

And this is what my life has been like this week.  My poor girl bore the brunt of the catastrophic failure of my parenting skills.  (Not that I did this to her.  It was a bike accident in which her chin met a bricked mailbox and I wasn't there to see/hear it.  I am incredibly, unimaginably grateful to the neighbors who took her in, cleaned her up, called me, and then schlepped her, me, and the boy to the nearest ER.)  Now Oz is stuck in traffic after delivering Doodlebug to my mom for the weekend.

Le sigh.  Let's hope the weekend is better.  And next week, of course, is the kids' first interest-led week!  

More Girl Trouble

So the other day I posted about Boo having growing pains with friends.  That, however, is not the only struggle that I'm facing with her right now.  I've vented to my friends, but since Boo is... creative... with some of her self-inflicted problems, and since parenting is largely a crapshoot to begin with, nobody in my limited range of acquaintances has dealt with the same issues that she's inventing.  I doubt anyone else will have answers, either, but I'm sure you've all noticed that I use this blog as a sounding board as well as a place to share school plans and the happy/funny things that my kids do, so... away we go.

Boo - my sweet Boo - is bored.  Bored out of her gourd.  Bored senseless.  B-O-R-E-D.  During school hours, she's fine, but once she gets done, she wants to do things.  And that's all well and good, except she wants to do things with people.  Doodlebug, because he's older and his work is more complex, is typically not finished with his schoolwork at the same time she is.  So then she wants to do things with me... which is also all well and good, except I'm usually supervising the boy or doing stuff around the house.  Sometimes she'll invent a project to do or go to her room and play independently, but not often.  Mostly she lolls around on the floor of the school room or putters around, talking incessantly while her brother tries to focus on his work.  When he is done with school, she hovers around him like a bee, desperately wanting to do anything as long as he's involved.  He is independent.  He'll go to his room and read, play video games, go get his sister when he feels sociable and invite her to play games - in other words, he's self-driven.  When he reads, she tries to read, too, but it doesn't last long.  When he plays video games, she wants to sit and watch.  And when he actually wants to do things with her, she's so delighted she goes along with almost any stupid scheme just to be with a person.  It often does not end well.

I have not the first clue how to help the girl learn how to entertain herself.  At this point, she's so desperately bored in the afternoons that she's contemplating going back to public school next year just so she'll be around other people more consistently, even if it does mean longer school hours and homework.  I wish I could figure out how to help her.  I don't mind if she's an extroverted introvert, but she's going to be on her own more and more as she gets older, and I don't want her following people blindly.  I want her to find her own path.  Anything that's helped your kids be more independent?

Girl Trouble

I don't even know where to begin this blog post.  I've typed the first sentence about 15 times and have finally resorted just to writing this in an effort to have some sort of introduction into this topic.  There's no pretty way to write it, I guess.

Doodlebug suffers from sudden-onset preteen ennui and sullenness, but I think I expected that.  Several parents have warned me that there was a chance that he'll no longer speak to me after a certain age, and I can certainly see where that may be true.  He just stares at me, either blankly or with much malice depending on his mood and what I've dared to say.  Obviously these generalizations aren't a guarantee, but so far it's been fairly accurate - he flip-flops back and forth between grumpy preteen and snuggly boychild quite often, and while I don't know that I'm going to like 11 very much, I have confidence that I'll muddle through somehow.  I guess 11 years of not totally failing as a parent have given me that much.

Then there's Boo. 

People had warned me about girl drama, too, and I've kept a careful eye open for it, wondering how on earth it was going to manifest in my particular female specimen.  Here's how it has evolved for me: it started young.  Two- and 3-year-old girls are sassy creatures, constantly asserting their dominance and mothering instincts over the entire household, stuffed animals and pets included, and parents wonder how on earth their daughters can get any worse.  (I was guilty of that as well, when Boo was that age.)  Then they turn 6, give or take, and everything ramps up a notch.  The sass becomes more direct, more personal, and it's generally targeted at one particular person like Mom, Dad, or a sibling.  Then they turn 8, 9, whatever age happens to be a year or two before the onset of true adolescence/puberty (I think...), and suddenly the drama doesn't stop at the door of the house.  Other people get dragged in.  Cliques form in schools right around this age, and the girls start to flock together like small wakes of vultures, actively preying on one another on occasion.  Friendships that were formed in kindergarten fall apart because differences - even subtle ones - suddenly matter.

Boo is a sweet girl (I've been told this by other parents, so it's not just a proud mama saying that).  I've worked on acceptance with both kids, remembering how my opinionated stances and assertive bossy attitude alienated me from a lot of people when I was growing up, and Boo really tries to give people the benefit of the doubt.  However, since she's getting a little older and a little more discerning, she no longer wants to hang out with people just because they're of a similar age.  I get that.  I like that she's starting to think about who she wants to be friends with, who she can bond and share secrets with as she gets older.  Knowing who to trust and who to keep at arm's length is important.

She's come to me (me!) several times lately with questions about how to handle situations that have come up between herself and another girl, and I can tell she's really struggling with whether she wants to be friends with this girl or not, and if not, how to let this girl down gently so that there aren't any dramatic aftereffects.  I'm encouraging her to be kind but honest and firm and to remember that I am aware that there's no way she can be friends with every girl that comes along and she shouldn't expect to be, either... but I know she still idealizes friendship.  She still wants everything to be all sunshine and unicorns and rainbows, and she fears what will happen if she decides she really doesn't like someone.

As a homeschooling mom, I find myself in an equally precarious position.  If this was a public school setting, I likely wouldn't know the other girl well at all, let alone be acquainted with her parents.  I would have distance and, with distance, perspective.  The way things are, however, I do know the girl and her mother (and have met her father once) and find myself pondering the what-ifs.  It's an odd dynamic, and I hope I don't find myself in the position of defending my daughter, because this Mama Bear doesn't usually express herself well when confronted.  I don't want to cause drama any more than my daughter does, but I will speak the truth, and I won't make my daughter go outside her comfort zone just to appease others.  I don't see how that would help her in the long run, especially if she's already gone out of her way to be polite, honest, and non-confrontational as long as possible.

It's just one of those situations that is inevitable but still regrettable, and I wish I had a magic ball that told me all the 'right' things to say.  In the meantime, I've told Boo to remember that she still has plenty of friends that she does enjoy and is close to and not to worry too much about this other girl.  These things often have a way of sorting themselves out.  Any advice?

In Which I Stop Lamenting the Past, or, The Death of Nostalgia

A neighbor child is in my home right now.  She's 4.  She's a cute kid, decently well-behaved, and I don't mind having her over for short stints.  She does, however, remind me that I was never cut out to be a caregiver of young/preschool-age children for any longer than mine were in that age group.

They are exhausting.

I remember this every time preschool-aged children visit.  When my nephews stayed a couple of days while their parents were out of town, I was totally done by the time they left.  I remember being completely wrung out after a single day of substitute teaching the preK class at Boo's old school (teachers who work with that age day in and day out have my ultimate respect, because I would go absolutely insane after a single week).  There is a reason that I sent my two to preschool and kindergarten - that age group and I simply do not mesh well.  The drama, the constant need for supervision, the constant need for redirection, the need to help them get, eat, and clean up after even the simplest of snacks (and let's not even talk meals), the desire to have someone cater to their every whim at every hour of the day... watching and listening to the neighbor girl even for an hour or so this afternoon has reminded me that while I may occasionally whine about the fact that my kids are getting older, there are so many benefits that it's hard to enumerate them all.

I no longer have sippy cups anywhere in my house.  Stepstools?  A thing of the past.  I don't have to worry about messes, because my kids can clean up after themselves (whether they will or not is a different story, but the capability is there).  They know our schedule and don't clamor for a second snack 45 minutes after they've just eaten one... and even if they did, and I said no, I wouldn't get tears and an attempted guilt trip about it.  I haven't wiped anyone else's bottom in years.  There are no car seats in Sylvia, and I don't have to open a door for anyone to get in or out.

I do know, when I think about it, that I've always been better suited to kids Boo's age and older.  Even as a teen, I was fairly uncomfortable with anyone over the age of 2 and under the age of 7 or 8.  That still holds.  I like having intelligible, intelligent conversations.  I like the hard questions.  I like delving into tougher topics and watching the kids learn more independently.  And you simply can't have that with littler kids.  They aren't ready.  I get it.  Nothing wrong with that... it's just not my cuppa.  And there's nothing wrong with that, either.

(I've noticed that Doodlebug was holed up in front of the TV and has since skulked to his room while the neighbor girl has been here, and I sincerely doubt he'll surface until she's gone.  His idea of handling younger kids is to sit very still and hope they don't notice him... and if they do, he'll avoid eye contact and utter monosyllabic answers to their questions until they walk away... and usually when they walk away, they want to know, "Why won't he talk?"  It's really funny.  It's even funnier to watch Doodlebug in the same room with a newborn.  His discomfort level goes straight through the roof, and if you ask him if he wants to see/touch/hold the infant, it's like trapping a wild animal.  He freezes, then looks frantically around for someone to reassure him that it's okay to say no.  Newborns have squicked him out since he was 5 1/2 and his cousin was born.  I try to take it easy on him, since, as I've said, I'm not particularly comfortable around kids between the ages of 2 and 6 myself, unless I have to be.)

It's nice not to have to raise any more preschoolers.  I can watch others' kids for a while and then hand them back when I'm all done, but they are not a permanent fixture.  Consider my nostalgia problem fixed, and remind me of this post next time I lament my children's age/size/hormone problems.  Because even if they're mouthier and more independent, I'll take 8 and 10 over 3 and 5 any day.

Blog List Update

Just wanted to take a quick moment to point out that I've added a lot more blogs to the list on the right (keep scrolling... keep scrolling... it's there).  It only shows the 10 that have been updated most recently, but feel free to check out these other sites.  Most are homeschoolers, some aren't.  Most are about moms/kids/parenting, but a few aren't.

And if you have a blog and want to share, or if you have a suggestion for one I might like to read, let me know!  I'm kind of on a new-blog binge right now.

Silence Like a Cancer Grows

I'm sitting on the couch downstairs.  The only sounds I hear are the water falling from the filter in the fish tank and the slight growl of the dishwasher running through yet another cycle because dishes, like laundry, are a never-ending task.  Oh, wait, there's the air conditioner popping on.

The children are home.  They're just upstairs.

When we bought this house just over a year ago, I was thrilled that it had a game room.  The game room is upstairs with the kids' bedrooms and their bathroom, and I had visions of the kids playing happily upstairs where I could hear them but not have to feel like I needed to monitor their every movement like I did when we only had one living area and we were always, always in the same room together.  I loved the idea of breathing space.

I got my wish.  And it's bittersweet.  I love that the kids can go upstairs and disappear.  Right now Boo is in her room reading some library books, and Doodlebug is parked in front of the Wii getting his daily electronics fix.  They're content.  They're doing what they want to do.  Mostly, though, they're quiet.

The quiet is interesting.  It reminds me that the kids aren't little any more and that I don't have to worry about what they're up to every second of the day (remember when silence was evil?  It's still not entirely innocent, but it's more innocent now than when they were younger).  It reminds me that in a few years, there will be jobs and/or volunteer positions and more independent school work and that my place in their lives will diminish considerably, especially if and when there are driver's licenses and cars involved.

I feel like I'm smack-dab in the middle of an in-between phase, just like my son, who is hovering in between childhood and adolescence.  On the one hand, I'm needed.  They need me to remind them what chores to do and when and tell them when it's time for dinner and drive them to events. They want me to "Come see this!" and "Help me?" do that.  On the other hand, they don't need me as much any more.  They can figure out their likes and dislikes (though this is a major problem for Boo, and that'll need its own post soon) and what they do and don't want to do each day without any help from me.  They can clean their own rooms (heck, they can clean the whole house if necessary) and fix breakfasts and lunches and make sure they have all their gear for swim/violin/yoga before we leave.

They aren't old enough to be left home alone for any length of time - sometime in the next year, I'll probably start running short errands, but I want to make sure they're both old enough and mature enough for that before I take off - but at the same time, I don't often see them unless they either want food or have a project they need help with or are arguing and want my intercession.

And so I sit.  I wait until I'm wanted or needed.  I don't like that.  Raising my kids 'right' is an admirable goal, but I wish I had another purpose.  There's only so much sitting around reading library books one mom can do before she loses her mind.  Same goes for baking.  I can't do that all day, every day.  I need to be accessible, but I want to be busy to some purpose.  It's an interesting dichotomy, and I'm not sure how to fill both my needs and the needs of my kids at the same time.

When we're doing school, it's not so bad.  I think this week off is affecting me.  Still, there will be plenty more weeks off in the days to come, and we still have the afternoons to consider.  Thoughts?

My Gorgeous New Baby

No, it's nothing alive.  The only new live critter that I intend to introduce to this house anytime in the next few months is a bearded dragon that Oz and I have promised to get for Doodlebug's 11th birthday in October.  He's wanted one since he was... oh, 5 or 6.  I think he's finally ready for the responsibility.

Anyway, over the weekend I got a new baby.  Want to meet her?

This is Silvia.  Isn't she pretty?  She's a Ford Explorer.

I'm still familiarizing myself with how she works.  It's bizarre to get into a vehicle without rummaging through my purse for the keys.  She has push-button start.  She also has a million other bells and whistles, including voice controls so I no longer have to lift a finger to change the temperature or make a phone call (because, of course, my phone's Bluetooth hooks right into the system as well) or change the radio station.  Oz is in techie heaven and spent the first 24 hours or so making sure that everything was updated and set up properly.  I'm a bit more ambivalent about all the features, because as long as the gas pedal, the brake pedal, the horn, and the radio work, I can live with just about anything else.

Still, she's gorgeous and I'm totally in love.  And if she can help me parallel park like the manual says she can, then she's my new best friend because I can't parallel park to save my life.  When I was 16 and taking the driving test for the second time and the proctor told me to parallel park, I told him, "You know what?  I don't do that.  And if I ever get in a situation where that's what I have to do, then I'll find somewhere else to park."  He made me try, and it took me forever, and he had to help me with some of it, which I don't think he was supposed to do.  I still passed.  And to this day, I haven't had to parallel park... at least, not in a situation between two cars.  Pulling up behind another car or backing in where there are extra spaces, yes, but actually parallel parking between two cars that are one space apart?  No.

Moving on...

This is the view looking back from the driver's seat.  That's a moonroof at the top of the image.  There's a sunroof over the front seats.  Sunroof, moonroof... whatever.  More car love.  Those are bucket seats in the middle, which is mighty handy when you have two kids who can't sit together on bench seats without erecting an imaginary wall which can cause WWIII in the blink of an eye if its position shifts even marginally or if it's crossed a fraction of an inch.  There's also the third row, which can fold down or stow as necessary, so if WWIII threatens to happen regardless of the lack of wall, I can banish someone to the back and theoretically thwart the impending battle.  Oh, and Oz can fit in the second row, too.  That's crucial when I consider the fact that Doodlebug may well be of a similar size one day.

Because, gods willing, I'm not getting rid of Silvia until the kids move out.  She rocks.

Homemade History, Week 7

Just as we get into the really interesting stuff, it's time for a break.  It's Labor Day week here in the ol' US of A, and I don't do four-day weeks.  I find them unproductive.  So instead, we just take the entire week off.  Since we've been going hard for seven weeks, it's time.  This first block is one of the longest continuous stretches of school we'll have all year.

Week 7 Topic:  Egypt's Old Kingdom + mastabas, pyramids, mummies

Monday:  Reading and notes.  The kids picked two of the following choices:  Story of the World chapters 2 and 4, Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World pages 28-31, Usborne World History Encyclopedia pages 114-117, or Life in Ancient Egypt pages 4-9, 20-22, and 26-27.

Tuesday:  The kids finished their reading, and we noted any necessary revisions to their nine weeks' papers.  They'll finish revising the paper and type them up in weeks 8 and 9, and hopefully I'll be allowed to post their work here.  Doodlebug especially has surprised me - he decided to write his paper entirely from second-person perspective.  It's an odd choice, but I think it works.

Wednesday:  We filled in a map of Ancient Egypt, complete with the locations of pyramids, ancient cities along the Nile, and the general geography in and around Egypt like the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Sahara.

Thursday:  Definitions (hieroglyphics, pyramid, pharaoh, and papyrus - Doodlebug was fascinated with the method of making papyrus) and critical thinking questions:  How did geography affect the lives of ancient Egyptians?  What were some of the problems that Pharaoh may have faced?  That second question is to get him thinking about the problems all rulers face, but he doesn't know that yet.

Friday:  On Friday the kids played a game called Mummy Maker on the BBC Kids web site.  Then they wanted to make their own cartouches.  We discussed the function of a true cartouche, and then I told the kids that if they wanted to make their own, they had a choice.  I could look up some close hieroglyphic representations of their names and they could make Egyptian cartouches or they could make their own indecipherable cartouches based on their interests and things that are important to them.  Of course, being Generation 2.0 children, they wanted their own custom images.  Doodlebug made his out of clay; Boo made hers from paper.  Both are designed to be hung from strings like necklaces so they could, theoretically, wear their cartouches everywhere.

I have to say, you can see the differences between them just by looking at the images!

I also gave them options of making scented oil - basil, rosemary, garlic - or virtually touring the inside of the Great Pyramid.  These are definitely other project/video options to consider.

Week 8 Topic (when we return):  Phoenicians and "Sea People"