Bird's-eye View of the Week: From Ballet to Bugs to Australia

Degas never envisioned this.

   So I'm sitting in a small classroom overflowing with estrogen effusing from the pores (if that is possible) of almost two dozen young teen girls. They are waiting their turns to be on-stage for their respective dances in the romantic-comedic ballet, "Copellia" or the second act, "Let's Go to the Movies."

     There is really nothing cuter or funnier or more ironic than the antics that occur in the dressing room of a ballet performance. The lithesome beauties you see floating in synchrony across the stage in swirls of pastel evanescence devolve backstage into bowls full of giggling jello, generously dosed with bursts of purposeless energy, with punctuations of loud announcements of sudden crises ("I've LOST my BLACK RIBBON!!!!!!") Currently, while clouds of lemon yellow tulle await the call to the stage, they have decided that doing improv in a British/Aussie accent is the epitome of cleverness. Ten hours of confinement might do that to a twelve-year-old. Others are simply making the air unbreathe-able either with hairspray or their own body odors. While looking like they stepped out of Mozart's Baroque Germany in their Easter egg velvet and sequins, they are texting or posting on their phones, or simply demonstrating their ability to burp on command. Such loveliness.

Grace in false eyelashes: Mei as a Pink Lady in "Grease"

Such grace.
   
   Our week has been dominated by fretful shopping trips for false eyelashes and flaming red lipstick, school on theater floors, and  hair gel. Lots of hair gel. And fast food. yuck. Glad we've got that behind us. But we'll miss the costumes, music, and yes, the giggles. Ah, well. Nutcracker auditions will be here in three months.   
   
   There WERE other happenings this week that didn't involve theatrics. Mei made progress on her American History scrapbook. I'm pushing to get through the Revolution, or at least 1776, in advance of our trip to Philly in two weeks. She really enjoys working on it with all the papers, tools, and pens. But it also is successfully showcasing her knowledge of events in a way that is much more Charlotte Mason and much less standardized testing.

Stowaway by Karen Hesse

   I added in an Australia lapbook as well. The Land Down Under was a geographical focal point for our year coinciding with our reading of  "Stowaway," an account of Captain Cook's voyage through the eyes of a 12-year-old crewman. I settled on the Australia lapbook by "A Journey Through Learning.com". It covered

No rules. Just-right type lapbook.

all the key points (geography, climate, people groups, languages, foods, customs, holidays, etc.), but doable in about 2-3 weeks, just what we have left. There were plenty of other good lapbook choices, but our time was limited. Should I have planned better and started earlier? Yeah, lesson learned. Even after 10 years of homeschooling.

   I made a few slight adjustments. I printed a better map from Uncle Josh's Outline Map Book and had Mei label it.  Enchanted Learning.com provided the labeling key along with a coloring page for the flag. In addition, they had an Australia tab-book that I printed in booklet format to slip into a pocket we'll add to the lapbook. The  tab book ("tab" as in subject tab) covered a lot of subjects in detail and included a page on the Great Barrier Reef, something that A Journey Through Learning shockingly left out! I've kept a paid account at Enchanted Learning for five years now and have never regretted it.

    We also were delighted with the hatching of our Preying Mantis egg case! And the best part was being there when it happened!! It was sitting on the table in our school/sunroom where it had been soaking up rays for a few weeks now. I had begun to wonder if it was maybe an old, empty case. While reviewing the schedule for the day, I stopped in mid-sentence, exclaimed "OH" quite loudly, enough to alarm Mei, and dropped everything for the next two hours. In the end, over 100 little mantids were hatched. I agreed to keeping a couple of them, and the rest were sprinkled over the hedges where we tried to avoid as many spider webs as we could. Mei researched the challenge of feeding an insect that is smaller than your fingernail, and since then, we have lost one to cannibalism, and one to drowning, but the remaining one enjoys gazing out the bay window waiting for his/her  half-dozen ants and juvenile earwigs to drop in.

    Although we're still getting an inordinate ratio of dreary, gray days to sunny ones, we're finally enjoying coatless-ness and green-ness. Summer's American start-date comes this weekend (Memorial Day) and we're ready. Thanks be to God for leading us to the end of another school year!

Got Summer Plans? Got Preying Mantis advice? Tell Mother All About It!

Enjoy more end-of-the-week antics at the following homeschool hang-outs: Collage Friday,  Homeschool Mother's Journal, and Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Thanks for hosting, ladies!

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Co-ops, Red Tape, and Cicadas

We'll be seeing a LOT of these. Credit www.northjersey.com

The end is in sight! 

We've reached May. AND the sun has been shining as much as two whole days in a row! And I even have turned off the heat (most of the time)! This is sooooo un-Maryland. IOW, it's usually nicer, even hot at times. But, it HAS helped delay the emergence of the 17-Year Cicadas! So, I'll kwitmibitchen.


Some mile-markers this week! After the two straight days of rain and Dad out of town, putting on street clothes and heading to the orthodontist sounded like a party. And turns out, it kind of was! The doc put a 'hold' on rubber bands already after only a couple of months. (Doc: "Wow, her teeth are really responsive!" Me: "So do we get a rebate for less services required?" Doc: "Hahahaha.")

It's Official!

Bigger and better was Mei's American name being officially entered into the government record books. Changing her name was not something we just recently decided on; her American name was chosen before she came home 11 years ago. But just last year, through a fluke, we discovered that the INS never noted it when she arrived in the States, so as far as the US government was concerned, our daughter didn't exist, at least not by what we call her. Tell that to Social Security, however, who gladly issued her an ID card in 2002. Under the American name. Hmmm. Anyway, the event gave us an excuse to eat cake!


Our co-op days are winding down. The Thursday group is finished already and the Friday group has just one more week. On Thursdays, Mei participated in a good introductory writing course similar to IEW. After two years, she has gained a lot of confidence in her writing, but more importantly, in taking constructive criticism. For her, that is H-U-G-E! She will now be equipped to take on the next level offered on Fridays. Thursdays this year also offered art and speech. I was really impressed with how well the kids responded to the speech topic and was glad they had this exposure to something not normally taught to ones so young. Art was taught by yours truly and used the "Meet the Masters" program. I've been dying to write a review of it here; maybe when the chalkdust settles. For now I'll just say that all the kids gave it a thumbs up and so did this teacher!

Board games class for an only child. Perfect!

 Fridays have given Mei exposure to cake decorating, cooperative board games, health, and P.E. Mom has assisted in the cake class (:-D !! ), a sewing class, and her best hour of the week, Study Hall. ("SSShh! I'm trying to write a blog post!")

Both of these co-ops have enriched our studies, but more importantly, our interactions with other Christian parents and kids. It's been especially wonderful for our school-of-one, and I recommend it.

American History Scrapbook

For this final stretch, I've given Mei the option of creating an American History scrapbook to showcase all that she's covered in the last two years, 1600-1800. Basically, it's a ramped up lapbook. She is super-excited to work on it, and I'm going to give her all the time she wants. I was going to write about it here, but it was getting a little long, so I'm detailing that in a separate post.  I'll share my sources and stuff there. Take a look if you want some ideas! 

The end would be NOW if I went by counting school days alone. I was shocked to see we had completed 180 in APRIL! But when you don't take off for Rosh Hashanah, a week for Easter, or Staff Development Days, they stack up. Add in some school on weekends (educational trips), and woah! Nonetheless, we haven't met all our objectives yet, so I'll hide Mei's eyes from this post and keep the cat IN the bag (wink).

How about you?

Got the end in your sights? Done already? Or do you school year-round? Tell Mother All About It!

Linking up with other incredibly gifted and equally humble homeschool bloggers at Hammock Tracks "Homeschool Review", Homegrown Learners "Collage Friday,", iHomeschool Network's "The Homeschool Mother's Journal", and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers "Weekly Wrap-up". Thanks for hosting, ladies!
 

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Spring Half-Break

A delayed wrap-up report....Homeschooling's like that....

A half-break is better than none--for both the student and the teacher!

What dinner for 18 looked like.

Monday, the TEACHER definitely earned a day off after hosting 18 of us for a combo Easter Dinner-Mini Wedding Reception to celebrate the impending nuptials of a fav nephew and his  adorable bride. They had  chosen a family-only ceremony for The Big Day, so this gave us an opp to personally toast them. 

It was sit-down which meant cobbling together a banquet table out of every piece of furniture that had legs, and every piece of fabric that was white, but it was elegant in the end. The most elaborate prep came from the creation of a four-tier  Coconut Cake with Orange Buttercream Filling and Coconut Buttercream Icing.  Basically it tasted like Hawaii, or if you don't get that, a Creamsicle with crumbs.

The bride and groom-to-be's places with veils, bow ties, and Mr. and Mrs. Beanies.

Because I love y'all, I am sharing the recipe from Paula Deen's Easter 2013 magazine, as it will be off the shelves by the time you read this! Click on photo for recipe. Oh, and darling 12 y-o pastry chef, Mei Wei, did much of the cake decorating.

Simply smashing Coconut Cake for the lovebirds!

So how did we spend the rest of the week? We were delighted with a surprise visit by Uncle Robin III and his two boys from NJ. Taking advantage of the flex that homeschooling gives us, we dropped our regular school plans, picked them up at the grandparents' house and Metro-ed it into D.C.  The kids opted for the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.( So not my fav. There is another branch of the museum in VA that I hear holds more promise; go here.) )

To make the most of it, I scoured the 'net for some prep stuff about flight. I must say that the museum's site was a disappointment (government tax dollars at rest?), but I stumbled upon  "Wunderful Homeschool's " blog who are avid flight studiers.They had many links including one to an activity poster published by none other than the Air and Space Museum. Which was not on the A&S's current website. See what I mean by disappointment?  "Wunderful" pointed us to links for understanding the how's of flight, and another that provided many PDF's for different paper planes. So grateful!
   
 Except for the pricey IMAX movie "To Fly" (which is really showing its age), the museum was a bust for us. The exhibit room that would have offered hands-on opps for explaining those "How Things Fly" physics contained mostly broken equipment. Ugh! But the biggest problem was it being spring break. DC is notoriously inundated with kids at this time. Not just local families, but schools from across the nation. 

HOMESCHOOL FAMS, take note! Those cherry blossoms are NOT worth the trouble. Visit DC in the FALL!! The weather is lovely--barring a rare hurricane--and the crowds are manageable. 

left and bottom: Berlin Wall at the Newseum; right clockwise from top: view from Newseum roof, solar planetarium and sculpture at Air & Space Museum

 To save the day, we headed to the Newseum, a museum dedicated to, guess what? The price tag is high, but it keeps the crowds in check. The money we spent on a 25-minute IMAX movie at the A&S museum would have more than covered the admission here. Inside were very moving exhibits dedicated to 9/11, complete with the antenna  that stood atop one of the Towers and the front pages from over a hundred newspapers from around the world from that date; another focusing on the end of Communism with a real section of the Berlin Wall; and news artifacts dating back to pre-printing press on every major historical event you can think of.  An exhibit on JFK is about to be unveiled. Your upper-elementary students + will certainly find something worth remembering.  Bonus: one of the best views of the city I've seen!

I figure that's enough school for one spring half-break, don't you?
  
 If you are planning to come to DC, you might also enjoy our recent visit to the National Gallery of Art.



Got field trip comments? Tell  Mother All About It!

Joining in with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Hammock Tracks, Friendship Friday, and Homegrown Learners Collage Friday. Thanks for hosting, y'all!




  

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Blessings From Chaos

Some days have more hours in them than others. 

I don't mean that we get more hours in our day to accomplish things by being super-organized or having uber-reponsible, self-motivated kids. I'm talking about when life seems to throw more at you in ONE day than 24 hours should hold.

Well, this was a WEEK that had more DAYS in it than it should. Boy, am I ready to "wrap it up!"

Let's start with:
Monday

Just as I was finishing a devotional at Proverbs 31 Ministries and feeling refreshed and in control (God's so funny), Father R, who is on his way to a job interview, calls. 

He's wrecked the car. 

He is almost an hour away and needs to be rescued. At least we are organized enough (today) that we can grab the school books, we have a full tank of gas (today), and we have  nothing on the calendar like, oh.. I don't know...a three hour ortho appointment.

Pick him up. Drive to the repair shop. Woah! Looked like a car ER ward. And some were pronounced DOA!

Then he says, non-chalantly, "I found a message from your Dad. Probably has a tax question. I'll call him while you entertain yourself in the only Container Store in the state of Maryland." (I guess the company has found an inordinate number of hopeless hoarders here and pretty much given up. )

Loaded down with new plastic stuff, I return to the car. My mom must Go Directly to the Emergency Room, Do Not Pass Through The Doctor's Office. We are not exactly comforted that they need to keep her overnight. 

Tuesday. Still no satisfaction for the doctors, but it's looking like the prelude to a heart attack. Another night in the hospital.

At dinner, Father R gets the anticipated insurance call to tell him how much they'll cover for the repairs. "Surprise! Your car is totaled!"

Mom gets the green light and we, rather than my dad,  have chosen to be the taxi home tomorrow. 

It is my sweet, thoughtful little girl with the light-bulb moment that suggests making some meals for her. (I've only been making meals for the needy at my church for twenty years, but I didn't think of it myself.) 

Wednesday
So we pull some off the freezer shelf and create some more with less than 24 hours notice, thanks to the wonderful pre-planning  provided by 5Dinners-in-1Hour.com. We make three fresh loaves of bread in the machine. We get them together just in time to pick her up at discharge time.  We spend the rest of that afternoon cleaning out her frig and settling her down. Then the hour-and-a-half drive through rush hour home.  

Thursday
My hubster quits his job.

Friday
TGIF 


It is at this point that I want to say: Hooray for a few textbooks, and some co-op classes (did I mention that I teach two days?)  to keep the week from being a total loss school-wise. 

But I also want to say, in the middle of all the chaos, that God--not me--WAS in control. Father R wasn't hurt, Mom didn't die, we'll get enough value for the car to go a long way toward a replacement, and Father got the job.  Most importantly, we were blessed to be a blessing, and Mei was a part of that.  

You can always find something to be thankful for even if you have to be thankful for an awful lot in one day. Or week. 

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. 

James 1:1-3. The Message

Got a TGIF story? Tell Mother All About It!

Linking up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, The Homeschool Mother's Journal, Hammock Tracks, Collage Friday, and Beautiful Family Friday. Bless you, gals!

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Meet the Artists

If we're not getting ripped off by our government in these parts, it's the Weather Shamans.

It was dubbed "Snowquestration" as a play on the recent Congressional stab at balancing a budget that has put so many--including our fledged "robin"---on a work diet through forced unpaid days off. The shamans made lots of promises of monumental adverse conditions--icing, downed power lines, bread and toilet paper shortages. But just like Congressional tactics, it didn't work out as planned.

I was stunned though by how many of my friends were pumped by the vision of a foot of snow dumped on us even as our daffodils have emerged. Seems we're so snow-day deprived that we'll accept it at almost any cost. Most of them sounded like what they really wanted was some weather-imposed family time. Funny. And sad. Needless to say, their kids are educated in the Red Brick Building.

Ginevra de' Benci.  The only Da Vinci in North America.

In our Yellow-Sided Homeschool, the weather PRIOR to the non-event was ideal to field trip to the National Gallery of Art on the Mall in Washington. (THE Mall. No "Five Belows" here.) Our goal was to see as many of the paintings that we had discussed in our co-op art appreciation class that uses "Meet The Masters."  It's such a privilege to be able to easily access originals of some of the world's greatest works of art. And it never fails to impress students to stand in front of the very work they have only seen in books or slides. To be able to see the brushstrokes and sometimes--as in the Da Vinci portait "Ginevra de' Benci"--the actual fingerprint of the artist.

Clockwise from top left: Entering the East Building through the "Multiverse" or as C.K. called it "The Tunnel of Awesomeness"; Calder over homeschoolers; Handy art.

Meet the Masters doesn't limit itself to earlier periods, but brings us artists right to the present day. Fortunately, the Gallery does too in its East Wing building which is devoted to modern art. We had fun  acting out some of the works as you can see!

Clockwise from top left: Marilyn by Warhol vs Mei by God; Waltz of the Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers; "La Scienza della fiacca" ("The Science of Laziness") by Frank Stella and kids who are NOT.

We tried to exit the city ahead of the usual rush (which normally starts as early as 3:30), but alas, everyone ELSE was in a hurry to exit the city ahead of the usual rush which meant that we all still stood in traffic. And just to be the first for bread, milk, and toilet paper.

So Winter Storm "Saturn" was all hot air like its namesake, but I still let Mei have a "snow day." I took on some more bread-baking projects and ended up with two fantastic baguettes and a sourdough boule!  On a sloppy night, it went perfectly with the slow-cooked minestrone from 5 Dinners-in-1 Hour.com.

My First Sourdough Bread.Not my last.

Mei jumped into the first week of her new spelling workbook by Evan-Moor Publishing, Building Spelling Skills. While I was afraid the Charlotte Mason police would be after me for using a workbook, I think they might let me off with this one. It encourages creating a visual in the mind of the word, instructs to spell aloud while touching the letters of the word (multi-sensory), and even uses dictation! And it's not twaddley. OK, so Mei only got a 78, but I have confidence!

While I'm having fun helping little girls learn something I've loved my whole adult life, SEWING, Mei spends an hour in her co-op's Learning Through Games class. She's uber-duber disappointed that she's not taking sewing (she didn't know I was a helper),  but God had it all worked out. While I can teach her sewing any old time (and already have), homeschooling an only child leaves us with limited choices for game-playing.    So far she has played Quirkle and Set. I hope I get some leads on winners (haha) that we can invest in for home.

After Father R and I recover from Mei's hyper  lively friend sleeping over, we can look forward to some spring-like weather for riding lessons. It will be a welcome change. And just think: the farm could have been buried in snow. We'll forgive ya' this time, Shamans!

Got Snow, Saturn, Sequestration or Sourdough? Tell Mother All About It!
Linking up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers , Homeschool Mother's Journal, Collage Friday, Beautiful Family Friday and Hammock Tracks. Thanks, guys!

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: TGINF (Thank Goodness It's NOT February)

I hate February. 
(so glad it's over.)

By this, the middle of the school year and the middle of another cold, dreary, perpetually cloudy, neither-snow-nor-sun, Mid-Atlantic winter, I always feel our school is stale, lifeless, and boring.  (I even develop a comma addiction.)

What, not you? You live in California, I bet.

Typical weather, but at least we're outside.

Sometimes what it takes is some new curriculum. For instance, try as I might to get Simply Charlotte Mason's "Spelling Wisdom" to work for us, I just can't. Don't get me wrong. It is a wonderful book. We both love the rich quotes. Mei has even run across some a couple of years later in their original works and remembered them. 
 
But it's just too much "me" work--dictating, discussing, dictating again. I find it slipping through the cracks too often to the point that we are on the first book after three years. (There are six.) 

I'm also still not convinced that she is learning to spell. (Sorry, Charlotte.) It does not rely on spelling rules or phonetics, so it becomes just a shot-in-the-dark approach. It presupposes that Mei will remember the words simply by having studied them for a couple of days. Maybe ALL spelling curricula more-or-less end up that way, but I'm not sure. Mei wants to continue to use it for copywork though, her idea. Intriguing since we don't do copywork anymore.

So I have ordered Evan Moor's "Building Spelling Skills Grade 6+". It works along the same 5-day format as their Daily Geography that has been very successful here. Open the book. Do. (It's nice to a have an occasional workbook to rely on. A CM curric does demand a lot of "me." ) If you've got any other ideas, I'm listening.


The Handbook of Nature Study blog's monthly Outdoor Hour Challenge nature study themes have been another Febreeze-for-school that I highly recommend. The focus in February has been birds, my fav topic. (I'm Mother Robin for a reason!)
It's gotten us outdoors, or at least LOOKING outdoors! You can read more of our birding adventures here and here. And you can find info about outfitting YOUR yard for birding here. You can probably guess I take  this subject seriously!! :-)  

She makes braces look good, doesn't she?

And how I could I forget that Mei got new chrome bumpers top and bottom? She's taking it like a trooper. The morning after she casually mentioned that some wire might need trimming as it had cut her finger during the donning of the rubber bands. Now That's Fortitude.

There has been an unexpected sign of spring though. Can you guess what it is? Hint: this is NOT a rose by any other name cuz it will NEVER smell sweet.

Guess what's NOT coming up roses?

Got cabin fever? Got a cure? Tell Mother All About It!

Linking up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Homeschool Mother's Journal.

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Why Be Normal? Schooling with Charlotte Mason

Every week I think, "Oh, we haven't really covered anything noteworthy this week." 

And then I scratch out a list of stuff and am, like, WOW!" Which is a good thing cuz I do have to show "regular, thorough instruction in the courses normally taught in schools." (COMAR, the Md. state homeschool law)

meetup.com

Fortunately our law is lenient enough that we can define HOW and WHEN we teach what is "normal." When you use a Charlotte Mason curriculum which depends on "living books", you cover so much more with more retention than the dry textbooks and the "teach to the test" parrot talk.

For instance our 6th-grader's normal history lessons on Elizabethan England and Shakespeare are gleaned from reading a 36-chapter tale, Master Skylark, of a kidnapped boy forced to join a player's guild. I'm not sure if the P.S. middle-schoolers even have any familiarity with The Bard.

Our geography study of South America and Australia utilizes a lengthy true story, Stowaway, accounting the three-year voyage of  Captain Cook's circumnavigation of the globe as told by a 10-year-old crewmate.

Science, art, music--they're all covered. But OUR way, not the "normal" way.

So what happened this week?

We concluded our nature study-- a subject NOT normally taught in schools-- with the Outdoor Hour Challenge's January focus on rocks. It culminated with a visit to a local quarry. We pass it every week on the way to jazz class so it was great to make friends with our neighbor. You can read about it in detail here.

February's study will be birds, timed with the Great Backyard Bird Count. Our existing feeders are filled, and replacements are in the mail. Can't wait to do MY favorite subject! (The link will tell you how you can participate. And they are homeschool friendly! )

We're really getting into our other history novel, Strangers in the Land, about the persecution of the Huguenots as experienced by one family. Through it, we are becoming familiar with important events in 18th c. Europe like the Treaty of Nantes. And what an inspiring character study of faith and fortitude.

For Math, Life of Fred-Fractions continues to delight. If a math program makes Mei WANT to do her work, I'll stand on my head for it. 

Her co-op composition class is developing a report on an animal of their choosing. I drew the line at the two she knows most about, dogs and horses. I wanted her to experience the rigors of researching a new topic. It didn't go over well, but she settled on clownfish, natives of the Great Barrier Reef, which will help lead us into the broader study of Australia. And they're so cute. And famous. But finding info (chuckle, haha) was as difficult as finding the Disney character.

"Breezing Up" by Winslow Homer. View it in D.C.!

"Snap the Whip" by Winslow Homer. At the Met in NYC!

Finally the art co-op I teach began their study of Winslow Homer using the Meet the Masters curriculum. This artist will introduce the kids to the concepts of value and focal point in a composition. Homer's subject range is so broad there is something to appeal to anyone, but kids especially can relate to his famous works of "Breezing Up" and "Snap the Whip." I had to explain that game, and now they want to enjoy it, of course! We're hoping next Thursday might not be so muddy. The kids won't care, but the moms might!

For ME, the big thrill was getting a  BREAD MACHINE!!  Naturally, like the good excellent homeschooling parent I am, I will find teachable moments. Chemical reactions and the study of fungi immediately come to mind. Bread-baking. Another way our school is NOT "normal."
   I'm posting my review of my little kitchen workhorse here along with our first successes and their recipes! Keep watching. Can you tell I'm excited?

That's the view from the perch this week. How about you? Do anything "normal?"  Tell Mother All About It!

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Inauguration!

     Now how many posts are you going to read this week about a blogger's family member who marched in the Inaugural Parade? Well you can say at least one. 

   Our 17-year-old nephew, my middle brother's oldest, made history marching with the Black Horse Troop of Culver Academies last Monday. While we couldn't be at the parade itself--broken feet are excluded from standing in the cold for eight hours--we watched anxiously on C-SPAN for about 2 hours until near the end they arrived, all 90+ black stallions and riders, all carrying American flags on the 100th anniversary of their first appearance at Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. It was a thrilling sight. Or as my brother put it, Nephew will always have the mental image of the President saluting him! 


   We did get to visit the troop at the Prince George's Show Place Arena while they groomed the pampered mules hard-working steeds for their Big Day. Middle Brother wasn't sure if we'd be interested, but Mei's addiction to all things equestrian made the opportunity a must for us. That it was a cloudless, balmy day in January helped.

The Black Horse Troop horses are Friesians, notable for their wavy manes and tails.

  

 Late on the night of the 21st, while still watching C-SPAN (simply to see what the First and Vice-First Ladies were wearing to the Balls), the network opened the mikes to callers. One rambled on about how we have "checks and balances" of Republicans and Democrats in office. WHAT??? 

No mention of political parties.

    The next day I was still raving over this woman's ignorance (and C-SPAN's duplicity by not screening their callers). But of course as a dutiful homeschooling parent, I left no teachable moment unturned. So ensued a discussion of the REAL Checks and Balances . Thanks to a handy workbook, The Complete Book of Presidents and States,  lying around, we were able to cover that ground fairly easily and in a lively fashion.

    The rest of the week was less dramatic. Mei got sick which in fact counts as drama around here because of its rarity. And she's the most fun-loving sick person I've ever met! Her illness combined with my healing heel and instep, topped off with just enough snow to cancel extracurriculars, made for a quiet week. We learned to team-tackle fire-building to keep the living room toasty where I have been propping up the injured appendage. And we have our birdfeeders up and running again after a whole year off. We're gearing up for February's Great Backyard Bird Count and Handbook of Nature Study's February Outdoor Hour Challenges. 

   Speaking of the Outdoor Challenges, we are wrapping up our January studies of rocks this week. Just the word ROCKS sounds dull. But the challenges have created lots of appeal. More about our geological adventures here.

     We completed our first track of artists in the Meet the Masters program at the co-op where I teach art. The final artist was Andy Warhol. I don't care who you are or where you come from, this guy is going to elicit a response. Kids are no different. I'll have more to tell about them soon.

    In the days ahead, the weather forecast is for sleet and snow for the first morning rush hour of the new work week, never a good thing around the Washington Beltway.  I've already cancelled the follow-up x-ray of the snapped metatarsal. However I "feel the heal" and we can look forward to our long walks at the Conservancy again soon.  The dog is elated.

   That was our Inaugural Week. What was yours? Tell Mother All About It! 
    Hook up with others at Weekly Wrap-up!

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Masterly Inactivity. Doctor's Orders!

If it weren't for the pain, I could get used to this house-bound thing.
   Our school week has been so relaxed. So easy. With my foot in a soft boot, and doctor's orders to stay off it, I am completely excused from spending valuable hours running us from activity to activity. This must be the ultimate Masterly Inactivity that Charlotte Mason advises.
   School takes place entirely from a big easy chair in the living room with sun pouring in from three sides. Hot tea in a Thermos, laptop on the ottoman, stacks of books on the floor and we are ready to go.The only thing to ice the cake would be if I could successfully build a fire.

Master Skylark. Scan for
 download to your device

  Our main focus this week has been making steady progress in the book, Master Skylark,  the tale of a country boy in Shakespeare's time, who runs away from home to London, not to join the circus, but the theater. He discovers, Dorothy-like, that there's no place like Stratford and his dear mother's arms. Along the way he is essentially abducted by Gaston Carew, a "master player" who makes many empty promises to let him go "tomorrow." Except, that day never comes because, in classic Shakespearean double-speak,  it never is Tomorrow, always Today! In fact the book is full of word-play, most of which goes right over Mei's head but nonetheless demonstrates, along with the thickly-spread descriptions of scenery, clothing, and action, the author's intelligent writing. It is another selection by Simply Charlotte Mason for Module 5 that Mei at first protested about because of its high literary style that includes heavy use of the Elizabethan tongue, but now begs to be read from. Fits in nicely with our affinity for Shakespeare and the theater too. (see our theater field trips!)       Available as a download to your device such as a Kindle or smart-phone with reader and appropriate for late-elementary through middle school.

Sample pages from the Atmosphere and Rock Lessons.

    The other subject that is commanding our attention is Science. I just am so pleased with Considering God's Creation .This publication, which has been around since the 90's, uses two books, one for me and one for thee (oops, can't lose that 16th century lingo!). It covers general science from a--Surprise!--creationist point of view following the seven days as laid out in Genesis. There are others that do that too, most notably Apologia's Exploring Creation and 106 Days of Creation. We tried Apologia last year with Day Six, Land Animals, but got so bogged down. There was just TOO MUCH of a good thing as far as we were concerned.
    Considering God's Creation is broken up into lots of short lessons with lots of hands-on stuff.Very easy to adapt to a multi-age setting or a co-op. There are extension ideas given with every lesson for deeper research for older students. The heart of it is the notebook that the student will create from the pages in the Student Book. It's all bound there with the mini-books ready to be filled in. I especially loved the solar system that hangs from a pop-up page! It also brings in other subjects from across the curriculum including Bible, music on a CD, vocabulary, and history lessons. A clever notebook page is entitled Science Detective, a fill-in-the blank form for researching those who have contributed to science in a notable way. Oral review questions and a crossword puzzle complete the units. For under $30, it has got to be the best science deal out there.

But the best part about our week of sofa rest has been seeing Mei involve herself in self-directed projects. She is currently making a 3-story dollhouse out of a large cardboard box. Today she is working out how to build staircases. I am totally uninvolved and she is totally loving it. Never would have happened if I was able to drive us to all the "important" stuff. Maybe I can keep on mastering masterly inactivity when I am more...active!

Cardboard townhouse.
Staircases ready to be installed.

   Have you ever taught more by NOT teaching? I need more ideas! Tell Mother all about it below and then head over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see if anyone else mastered inactivity this week!

 

Considering God's Creation
by Eagle's Wings Ed