I wasn't exceptionally productive this weekend. I am getting a GORGEOUS ring from my partner. I am so exited!!! It was something that really caught my eye and it has a milky pale stone in it which is something that I love. White in it's many shades is really my favorite colour.My partner is amaaaaaaaaaaazing.
But anyway we took something of a break for the holiday. Only a two day break really but with the weekend and all we really didn't do a lot of school which I think really throws us off. We have our routine and that's important. He said to me " We have to do triple the work on Monday" . And not in a,Darn I don't wanna' way but like a...."Mom I want to catch up " way. It's good to take a break but its also good to get back to your 'regularly scheduled program".
This week we have a fun thing going on. We are finally going to meet up with a group of other homeschoolers. AP homeschoolers! I am really exited to finally get a chance to meet real live eclectic , gentle parent, homeschoolers. I think that this is going to be really nice for us. Plus that it's going to be at the Museum so how can you go wrong:) Science and attached homeschoolers. That is where it is at.....
Tomorrow we are going to Make MORE Rice Crispy Treats, do some science experiments and catch up on math and spelling. Actually we have a busy week ahead. We will be twice in the city.
Thanksgiving came and went. It went along nicely actually. I think my family is finally starting to 'get' homeschooling. I think they are seeing that he isn't socially isolated and that besides being a little overly polite on occasion that he is a regular kid with just a different academic structure that works for him.
This was a long time coming. It was hurtful the eye rolls I got and the way people disrespected my decision to homeschool. I understand that people were skeptical and I understand the apprehension to not just jump up and rejoice over the concept but I think respectful discussion would have been the more logical approach as opposed to petty gossip and offhand remarks.
That's all really lately. I have been randomly busy very much with a myriad of family events.I can't wait for the normal week to commence. The holidays are nice but it's nice to be back....
Monday, November 27, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
I LOVE my Son's mind!
So I am sitting down to dinner tonight...My guy is sipping his soy milk and munching on his Macaroni and Cheese and out popped another one of his little ''ideas" He looks at me and says:
"You know Mom the Earth 'might' actually be flat"
And I say "Well in space it looks round, just look at the globe , it's a sphere, the Earth isn't flat"
And He says "Yeah but mom, think of it. " (He picks up a plain white piece of paper from the new paper he just got) "Think of it mom....Look at this piece of paper.........(He shows me the surface)
'"It's flat right???.....OK now look at it side ways. The paper is made up of tiny particles. It's really bunches and bunches of atoms thick, even though it looks flat.....So now think about the Earth. Think about the trees and the sky scrapers. Say the sky scrapers are atoms, say the people are super strings. What about that? If everything is particles, if all things on the Earth were particles, then the Earth could actually be flat....I mean in the same way that the paper is flat."
Yeah these things come out of left field. Whoosh. This isn't the first time he brought this scale idea up though. About a year ago he asked me "Mom if Earth was an atom how big would the rivers be?"
I adore his mind. It fascinates me. He thinks about some interesting things.It makes for really great dinner conversation.
"You know Mom the Earth 'might' actually be flat"
And I say "Well in space it looks round, just look at the globe , it's a sphere, the Earth isn't flat"
And He says "Yeah but mom, think of it. " (He picks up a plain white piece of paper from the new paper he just got) "Think of it mom....Look at this piece of paper.........(He shows me the surface)
'"It's flat right???.....OK now look at it side ways. The paper is made up of tiny particles. It's really bunches and bunches of atoms thick, even though it looks flat.....So now think about the Earth. Think about the trees and the sky scrapers. Say the sky scrapers are atoms, say the people are super strings. What about that? If everything is particles, if all things on the Earth were particles, then the Earth could actually be flat....I mean in the same way that the paper is flat."
Yeah these things come out of left field. Whoosh. This isn't the first time he brought this scale idea up though. About a year ago he asked me "Mom if Earth was an atom how big would the rivers be?"
I adore his mind. It fascinates me. He thinks about some interesting things.It makes for really great dinner conversation.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Oscar Wilde vs Uncle Wiggily And Why The Rabbit Won
My son reads…..anything….that is, he can read anything . But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t read him bedtime stories. I do, every night. I have been reading to him since infancy. Everything from Scientific American to The Pokey Little Puppy to Green Eggs and Ham in Latin . We read here.
Often times I read him a gem titled Popular Mathematics. Don’t gasp all horrified. This is a fabulous book. Gloriously old and out of print. Beautifully brown covered cloth boards. As plain as Jane, but holding true to the old Maxim , that, "you can’t judge a book by it’s cover". It Gives wonderful colourful descriptions of primitive tools in geometry, fabulous little historical tid bits,cleanly worded information on mathematics while remaining interesting and fun for everyone involved. We like this heavy brown book. We like it a lot. All hail the eternal triangle and all of that.
Those that know me , know that I am a collector of antique books. I think the hobby has progressed more steadily since my son’s birth , this side-note of my existence. It is these books. I enjoy reading and I have a true love of antique children’s books. There is something especially lovely about a book , almost centurion in age that has worked through generations as a tool of knowledge , maternity, of childhood, imagination, wonder and innocence.
I love the perfect dresses on the mothers , the respectful clothes and actions of the children. Even if they are sexist,and out of date, even if they are pure fantasy in this day and age, these books have something very special that current day children’s picture books, for the most part, have lost.
So much has been replaced by the crass, the crude, the violent, the inane bold type face in garish colour, that I find comfort in the faded ink pastel of "Buddy Jim", "The Cat Whose Whiskers Slipped" , or ‘Rhymes for Kindly Children". From the last I will share you one such ‘kindly rhyme"
The Kindly Rule
My teacher says
that animals
Deserve the best of fare:
Clean beds
Fresh water, healthful food
And very loving care
And when their eyes
Look up at me-
Such deep and trusting eyes
I wonder
How can one forget
To treat them otherwise
This book, was published 1937. I can’t tell you how much I love my books. But I am sure that one could gather. Anyway it came to me the other night to read to him some Oscar Wilde. I knew that I did not want to read "The Birthday of The Infanta", because I knew I felt it too dark so I re-read, the others The Happy Prince , The Selfish Giant and so on and so forth and I made a judgement call and I decided I wouldn’t read them to him now.
I love literature. I actually really enjoy dark literature. Right now I am reading Death On the Installment Plan by Celine, Sometimes I sit at the park reading this nihilistic stream of consciousness , other days some semi panic stricken book or article on environmentalism , atheism, French surrealist poetry or any other sort of thought provoking madness that I can manage at the moment. So I guess it may seem horrifying to those who have a flair for the dramatic, myself included , why I wouldn’t include Oscar Wilde’s fairy tails in our bedtime story repertoire .
It’s simple. The stories are entirely too fatalistic, fraught with tales of martyrs and entirely pointless altruism on the part of birds and statues to be good for any child of six. Not that I don’t love Oscar Wilde. I have a first edition of one of his books, even , haha! But still, I couldn’t see myself reading them to my son. especially before bedtime, highly illogical.
Of course I want to expose him to literature. And I do, even the poetry , but there is far to much sorrow and grief in this world for him to be exposed to it in such a dramatized fashion at this point in time. Others may disagree and that’s fine. But for now I have decided that we won’t be going Wild with Wilde. As for the adults and older children, these Fairy Tales are a must read. Just utterly beautiful and heartbreaking. If you have not yet read the complete fairy tales, you have been missing out.
So we come now to Uncle Wiggily. Which is what I read tonight. To be Precise, Uncle Wiggly on the Farm and the Story of Uncle Wiggly and The Oats. In which Uncle Wiggly calls on Doc Possum because he feels ill and the possum says he must go to the country to get away from it all. There is only one picture throughout this entire Uncle Wiggily book, unlike the others.This particular book I believe is from the 1930’s. But it was well enough because Uncle Wiggily is embossed on the cloth cover and you get a fine idea of what he must have looked like falling into a barrel of slippery oats,big old rabbit ears, top hat and all.
So tonight the rabbit wins, Wilde will have his time, just not today………….
Often times I read him a gem titled Popular Mathematics. Don’t gasp all horrified. This is a fabulous book. Gloriously old and out of print. Beautifully brown covered cloth boards. As plain as Jane, but holding true to the old Maxim , that, "you can’t judge a book by it’s cover". It Gives wonderful colourful descriptions of primitive tools in geometry, fabulous little historical tid bits,cleanly worded information on mathematics while remaining interesting and fun for everyone involved. We like this heavy brown book. We like it a lot. All hail the eternal triangle and all of that.
Those that know me , know that I am a collector of antique books. I think the hobby has progressed more steadily since my son’s birth , this side-note of my existence. It is these books. I enjoy reading and I have a true love of antique children’s books. There is something especially lovely about a book , almost centurion in age that has worked through generations as a tool of knowledge , maternity, of childhood, imagination, wonder and innocence.
I love the perfect dresses on the mothers , the respectful clothes and actions of the children. Even if they are sexist,and out of date, even if they are pure fantasy in this day and age, these books have something very special that current day children’s picture books, for the most part, have lost.
So much has been replaced by the crass, the crude, the violent, the inane bold type face in garish colour, that I find comfort in the faded ink pastel of "Buddy Jim", "The Cat Whose Whiskers Slipped" , or ‘Rhymes for Kindly Children". From the last I will share you one such ‘kindly rhyme"
The Kindly Rule
My teacher says
that animals
Deserve the best of fare:
Clean beds
Fresh water, healthful food
And very loving care
And when their eyes
Look up at me-
Such deep and trusting eyes
I wonder
How can one forget
To treat them otherwise
This book, was published 1937. I can’t tell you how much I love my books. But I am sure that one could gather. Anyway it came to me the other night to read to him some Oscar Wilde. I knew that I did not want to read "The Birthday of The Infanta", because I knew I felt it too dark so I re-read, the others The Happy Prince , The Selfish Giant and so on and so forth and I made a judgement call and I decided I wouldn’t read them to him now.
I love literature. I actually really enjoy dark literature. Right now I am reading Death On the Installment Plan by Celine, Sometimes I sit at the park reading this nihilistic stream of consciousness , other days some semi panic stricken book or article on environmentalism , atheism, French surrealist poetry or any other sort of thought provoking madness that I can manage at the moment. So I guess it may seem horrifying to those who have a flair for the dramatic, myself included , why I wouldn’t include Oscar Wilde’s fairy tails in our bedtime story repertoire .
It’s simple. The stories are entirely too fatalistic, fraught with tales of martyrs and entirely pointless altruism on the part of birds and statues to be good for any child of six. Not that I don’t love Oscar Wilde. I have a first edition of one of his books, even , haha! But still, I couldn’t see myself reading them to my son. especially before bedtime, highly illogical.
Of course I want to expose him to literature. And I do, even the poetry , but there is far to much sorrow and grief in this world for him to be exposed to it in such a dramatized fashion at this point in time. Others may disagree and that’s fine. But for now I have decided that we won’t be going Wild with Wilde. As for the adults and older children, these Fairy Tales are a must read. Just utterly beautiful and heartbreaking. If you have not yet read the complete fairy tales, you have been missing out.
As a side note I think also the lesson regarding the tales is of course one of repeated altruism. They are written carefully and beautifully to make an impact. I think that with my son this is something that comes so natural to him, whether it be nature or nurture, he has a joyful and yet selfless kind way about him. Strong tales of selfless woe like this , for such a sensitive child could be potentially depressing. There’s no call for that.
So we come now to Uncle Wiggily. Which is what I read tonight. To be Precise, Uncle Wiggly on the Farm and the Story of Uncle Wiggly and The Oats. In which Uncle Wiggly calls on Doc Possum because he feels ill and the possum says he must go to the country to get away from it all. There is only one picture throughout this entire Uncle Wiggily book, unlike the others.This particular book I believe is from the 1930’s. But it was well enough because Uncle Wiggily is embossed on the cloth cover and you get a fine idea of what he must have looked like falling into a barrel of slippery oats,big old rabbit ears, top hat and all.
So tonight the rabbit wins, Wilde will have his time, just not today………….
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