We have started viewing the “Young Indiana Jones” series which was recently released on DVD.  I remember seeing these on television as a pre-teen/teenager and loving them.  When I found out they were coming out on DVD, I thought they would be perfect to use as an introduction to study topics. 

DVD-1 Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt:

1. Watch the DVD and Documentary Extras
2. Read Usborne’s section on Ancient Egypt(or other age appropriate books from the library)
3. Visit an exhibit about Ancient Egypt(The following are available in Denver Area)
   1. WOW Children’s Museum In Lafayette(Egypt:  Mysteries and Puzzles)–this was great!
   2. Denver Museum of Nature and Science  (Fantastic Display with 2 mummies and interesting video, teaching resources available at their website)
   3. Denver Art Museum  We like to go on Free Days, the first Saturday of Each Month–this is the most child friendly art museum I have ever been too! 
4. Mummify a Chicken
5. Do Egyptian Activities

When you start homeschooling, you often hear the same comments from many different people. I don’t know if the comments are different for people who never sent their children to public school. Here are the 5 most popular that I have heard this year, and how I would REALLY like to answer them!

5.  So, will you have Prom in your Living Room?

My kid’s 8…..is prom something YOU are concerned about?

4a.  Isn’t the local elementary school good enough for you?

Nope, its not good enough.  Not even CLOSE to good enough.

4b.  Well, did you think about sending them to the other schools in the area?

Really?  There are OTHER SCHOOLS?  Boy am I an IDIOT.  I didn’t even THINK to research other public and private educational institutions in a 30 mile radius before I chose the most LIFE ALTERING option there is. 

3.  What about SOCIALIZATION?

Well, I am trying to keep her locked in her bedroom alone as much as possible, but damn, she figured out how to open her lock with a penny and I’m back to square one.  Have any suggestions?

2.  Wow.  I could NEVER do that.

Why?  Are you stupid?

1.  WHAT are you DOING to YOURSELF?

I still haven’t come up with a comeback for this one.  If you have one, let me know.

Since we are wrapping up our first semester in the next couple weeks, I thought it would be nice to reflect upon my first semester as a homeschooling parent:

5.  Siblings who are together more fight less(its true—we used to fight daily when Emily came off the bus…now we have 3-4 hours of happy imaginative play a day…when we aren’t doing other things!)
4.  We can learn more in 2 hours than a class full of children learns in a week.
3.  Camille can learn thru osmosis(anything multiplied by zero is zero, anything multiplied by one is itself)
2.  Socialization IS a problem–because we spend WAY too much time doing it and still don’t do everything we    want to do!
1.  I ADORE my children and LOVE spending time with them, more so than I ever imagined!  They are unique, engaging individuals and I am so grateful that I was forced into homeschooling!  I don’t want to stop!  I am the luckiest Mommy in the world!

We had plans to go to the zoo today, but unfortunately it was closed for a memorial service. We opted to go to the Nature and Science Museum next store, as we always enjoy a visit to the DMNS.

The Titanic Exhibit was pretty full, so I opted for tickets to the planetarium show “The Cosmic Journey”. It was a 22 minute show that can be summed up as a trip thru our solar system with brief stops at each of the planets.

The planetarium itself is beautiful. The stadium seats are extremely comfortable and the screen is huge. Besides 2 other patrons, our family was the only one in the theater (that is the beauty of attending in the afternoon—school groups are gone!). After some technical difficulties at the beginning of the program, we were set. The picture was crisp and the animation of the planets was spectacular! Their “camera work” fooled your mind into thinking your body was in motion–it was extremely cute listening to the girls ask how the chairs were moving.

Camille and Emily both listened to the narration and seemed to really absorb what was being said.

But my favorite part was when Camille grabbed my arm halfway through the movie, looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and asked “Mommy, are we REALLY in space?”

I used to be a good writer.  Every Sunday afternoon I would write the 1500 word essay for my Freshman English Class in a couple hours.  Other women would toille over it, many pulling all nighters.   They would agonize over every word, every sentence and paragraph.

Me?  The words just came.  I remember typing so fast that there seemed to be a disconnect in my brain—the words would just flow thru my fingers to become my essays.

And they were good.  Darn good.  Especially for only spending a couple hours on them.  I was insightful.  I was knowledgable.  My ideas were clear and concise.

I even wrote a paper about the elementary particles of physics once.  It was so well done MY MOTHER understood them.

What happened?

For years, I have known that I lost “it”.  And, with time, it doesn’t get better, it gets worse.  This loss of “it”–of the ability to communicate coherent, well constructed thoughts, is disturbing.  It not only affects written communication(you should read my emails), but oral as well.

I have conversations with people who don’t know me that well and I just want to cry afterwards.  I cannot express my thoughts well–they sound so strange and unorganized to me; how must they sound to the other people??  Yet I keep blathering like an idiot talking in hopes that somehow I can pull it together.

Its almost like an out of body experience.  A really bad one where I am an moron.

My husband, the professor, often has me proof read his proposals and papers.  You know what?  He uses BIG words.  GRE words that I don’t know the meaning of, but trust he must and go on to proof what I do understand and his punctuation(I have never seen anyone abuse the use of a comma the way he does).    Sometimes I am astounded that he hasn’t commented on my addled brain.

Something to work on.

For a Charlotte Mason type activity, we decided to create our own fall wreath from organic materials found on a nature walk in our neighborhood. Armed with buckets, Emily and Camille spent an hour riding bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalk, buckets banging their legs, looking for beautiful leaves to use on our wreath. They also collected crabapples from the ground next to a crabapple tree and cool pieces of bark.

Today, we cut a circle from a big piece of cardboard(a GREAT way to incorporate Math and show its value to Art: we decided what diameter we wanted the wreath to be, divided that by two(to be the radius of the circle), measured a piece of yarn that size and tied it to a pencil. The other end of yarn was attached to the center of the piece of cardboard. We learned that the diameter of a circle is twice the radius.

After cutting the cardboard piece out and cutting an appropriate sized hole in the center, we used a hot glue gun(well, I used the hot glue gun) and attached a layer of leaves to the cardboard. Then we used the other things we found(berries/bark/etc) to add dimension.

Husband was unsure about the “plan” before we did it and was pleasantly surprised at how nicely it turned out.

Not bad for a free art project! Learning points we touched upon included:

• Deciduous and Coniferous Trees
• Geometry–radius/diameter/circumference of a circle
• multi-media art–creating dimension and texture

With the help of Scholastic’s Thanksgiving Website and Plymoth Plantation’s Website, we are currently studying about THE REAL happenings of the Mayflower and Plymoth Colony.  I really love Scholastic’s interactive site, and found a lot of information on books to check out from the Library that would compliment online information.  Emily(8) and Camille(4.5)  are both participating in the unit study.  Emily is supplementing what we do together with reading Dear America: A Journey to the New World-The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple. 

Below is our daily study plan:

• Day 1:  On the Scholastic site, explore “Voyage on the Mayflower” and “Tour the Ship”
• Day 2:  Read the Passenger Interviews\Make your own Picture Postcard\Create a Personal Timeline
• Day 3:  Jobs on the Mayflower\Learn Parts of the Ship and what they are for(see lesson plan for grade 3-6)
• Day 4:  Learn about the Mayflower Compact
• Day 5:  The Wampanoags
• Day 6:  The Wampanoags:  Traditions and Culture
• Day 7:  Daily Life of the Settlers
• Day 8:  Was it *really* the first Thanksgiving?  Myths and Facts
• Day 9:  Arts and Crafts from the 1600’s