Day 42

The usual suspects today, though all did not go according to plan.  I'm trying to relax my grip a bit as the knuckles get a bit white after a while.  I have been trying to start with reading to the kids in the morning, and easing into the other things we have to do.  The book we are reading now is the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, and it's titled The House of Many Ways.  They are rather entertaining in a Harry Potter-meets-the-princess sort of way.
After a chapter and a half, I break out the history book.  They are not thrilled, but we survive, and may have actually learn a little in the process.  I very nearly have them on board for doing dioramas of explorers, so I'm trying not to push it too much.  It's like dealing with caged tigers.  Poke 'em a little to get them to do what you want, but not TOO much, or it totally backfires.
Anyway, what I really wanted to post about today was a web site called Postcrossing.  This is a totally awesome idea where you can send postcards to people all over the world and recieve them from all over as well.  How it works is you sign up (for free) and you get addresses for people, and sometimes they have a bit about themselves and what kinds of postcards they like, and you send them a postcard.  Then you get postcards from other people who have recieved your name and address when they logged on to get an address to send to.  We've gotten postcards from Finland, Poland, and Lithuania.  The web site shows you on a map where they are, tells you how far the postcards have travelled, and keeps track of the postcards you have sent and recieved.  You do have to register the cards you get, or the person who sent it won't be able to send more!  We've sent postcards to Singapore, Russia, and more.
While *I* find this very exciting, I haven't been able to generate much enthusiasm on the part of the kids until I signed up for my own account, and left them out of it.  Suddenly I was the one sending the postcards, and then I heard a different tune.  "Can I send one?" said a voice next to me as I sat at the computer.  Huh.  I guess TJEd has a point about educating yourself first.  :)  So, while I was sure that the Postcrossing era in our household was over, I'm starting to think that it may have just begun...

Day 41

Today we got ready for our Observational Astronomy that happened tonight.  Or didn't happen, as the case may be.  All day the sky was beautifully clear, and as of 5 pm, still good.  But around 6:30, someone called to ask if it was still on.  Of course, I said, why do you ask?  I went outside, and saw the astronomer's nightmare of clouds.  I tried to play it cool and suggested that there was a clearing to the west, and after all, the west weather would be coming here, right? 
Well, that hole got sealed, because when we arrived, we all got to see Jupiter in a hurry, and that was it.  The good thing was that the kids did all play outside in the semi-dark.  Since some of our party don't like to be in the dark, it seemed like a good experience for them to have.  Of course, it's now almost 10:30, and they are both still up, but everything has a price!

Day 40

We did something a little different today, inspired by Lego.  The objective is to build a representation of a renewable energy.  We did a little research and, partly because Dad is a geologist I suspect, we decided on Geothermal.  I was kind of surprised that there weren't more visual aids for this technology, but we did find a really good (short) video at this site, where we went to the movie titled How Geothermal Energy Works.  We then build our own geothermal stations based on what we learned during the movie.  We even reviewed the movie as we built to try to get it as accurate as we could. 


Emily's Geothermal Station


Here you can see Emily's model which has the yarn 'pipe' coming up from the ground and going to the distribution center, where the water and steam then goes to a series of tanks where the steam is syphoned off, and the steam powers the turbines (the red) which powers the generator (next to the turbines), which power the transformers, and the water is sent back down to get reheated. 







Luke's contraption

 Luke's got a bit more complicated, as he has solar at the top for the house, and geothermal leading to the (green) underground.  The blue is the water which heads up the pipe, and the turbines and generator are down under the house, and the return pipe is yellow.  I have to give him creative credit, the lava monster seems to be near the cool water return, and he's not happy.






This was a fun project where the kids felt like they were playing, and I felt like they were learning, and everyone got something out of it.  Even if it was just a cool lego contraption.

Day 39

What did we do today?  We got our lessons done.  With no fighting, no arguing.  I can't say I know why, other than I threatened them with no Halloween get-together with their friend for the afternoon.  That seems to work wonders. 

We did indeed make it to our good friend Connor's house where we feasted on mummy dogs and empanadas, and tons of yummy junk food.  I personally made caramel popcorn, which I haven't done before.  It was pretty easy, and tasty too.  We also managed to do a craft or two, and it seemed like the kids had a lot of fun.



Making Bat Pins!  See the example on the table.


The projects we worked on were a pumpkin sticker project, wherein the kids stuck the faces on their jackolantern foamies, and bat pins, which they made by cutting out the bat bodies and gluing them to clothes pins, and adding heads, googlie eyes, and fangs.  The neat thing is that if you glue on the clothes pin one way, you can clip it to the top of something, and if you glue it the other way, you can clip it up onto something (like curtains).  Fun project, fun day.

Day 38

Another day, another day.  After a rough start, both kids managed to play their instruments during MUSET, though I squeaked through it.  I mean I literally squeaked, so it's not a good thing.  Clarinets aren't made to squeak on purpose.  They only squeak to annoy the player and the listeners.  Ah, well.  Practice, practice, practice! 

Then it was on to Aikido, the activity they both seem to love.  We go to Kingston Aikido, and if it were anywhere else, we might not be going by now, but the woman who runs the kids program, Marilyn, is so nice, and so accommodating, I can only speak highly of her.  The kids both seem to benefit from it.

The other thing we did was Assignment: The World.  I think we finally got into it a bit, and the kids seemed to get excited when the first piece came on and it was about the Chilean miners, who I got them out of bed to see come up from the mine.  I don't remember being much exposed to current events as a kid, and I'm so glad that they thought this program up.  It really is engaging and fun.

That's it until tomorrow when we will have a Halloween get-together with food and crafts!  Should be fun!

Day 37

Family Mole Night!

The American Chemical Society sponsors Family Mole Night at SUNY New Paltz every year.  It's to celebrate National Chemistry Week, and the kids love it.  Last year they used centrifigal force to extract the iron from breakfast cereal, watched a rose shatter after being frozen in liquid nitrogen, and changed a penny to gold (which we still have!)  This year was no less cool.



Luke inspects his candy glass



We started off with making candy glass, a fact that will now never be lost on my kids when we watch a movie with a window that gets broken.  The kids got to measure the temperature as they stirred to get to the right temp and pick out colors for their 'glass'.  In the same room, they got to make 'snow' and look at it under a microscope.  It's what they use for artificial snow as it's light and fluffy, and what they use for diapers since it absorbs and absorbs and absorbs...



Luke's art made a mark!



The next room was inks.  They made ink with tea and ferrous sulfide.  They called that Magic Ink, which prompted Luke to write 'Magic Ink', which impressed the people there so much we got called back so they could take a picture of it!  How cool is that!?  They also tested various liquids on cabbage-water soaked paper to see what reactions they got, since it reacts with acids and bases.  They used windex, lemon juice, and a few other things.





Something cool is going on



The last activity was Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.  I, unfortunately, missed the demonstration, but Emily got her cup of milk with liquid nitrogen poured in and she stirred it until she had about the thickness of a milkshake.  They even had toppings!

After a day of fitful school and various issues, it was so nice to have an evening of activities that the kids enjoyed, and that I felt encouraged them in a positive way towards science and education!



Day 34, 35, 36

Wow!

How can so many days have gone by?  What have we been doing?  A lot of getting work done, actually.  We managed English and Math days 34 and 35, despite heavy running on day 35.  We had dance, went to the Saugerties lighthouse, went to Aikido since we won't be going Friday, and went shopping in the evening for Emily's dress for her Uncle Ben's wedding.  Long day.

The lighthouse was pretty neat, though.  The walk was very pleasant and wound around so we were walking along the edge of the Hudson, then through the (very) tidal marsh and finally to a walkway to the lighthouse itself.  One walks up to it, then around it, and when you get to the other side, there is an open area with picnic tables and you feel like you are on a boat.  One of our number unfortunately took that too far, and ended up falling in.  If it had been a hot day, and the girl could swim, it would have been fine, however neither of these were the case and the poor thing called it a day.  The others went to the edge to sit, and I told them that if they fell in, they should swim to the stairs, because I wasn't hauling them out if there were stairs they could climb out on.  :)  Next time we go there, we'll check the tides a bit more carefully, as we did get a tad wet on our way out to the lighthouse.

Today we learned about Marco Polo, who I found very boring when I was in school, but now he seems like such an interesting person!  I'm going to try to find The Travels of Marco Polo for my kindle so I can read some of it to the kids.  Not that they find it very interesting...On the other hand, I found a site with instructions for dioramas that was really pretty cool, so we may try that.  I sometimes wish it was just me learning these things as I seem to be the one interested.  Oh well.

At least music went well tonight.  Especially for Luke.  He sounded a bit harsh at first, but after a little while, he was able to match the sounds of his teacher.  I'm impressed!  I think this was the last evening session, which may be good as we are approaching winter, the I-don't-want-to-be-out-in-the-dark season.  Ugh.  I was glad to hear the kids become enthused about playing their instruments.  The one site I keep going back to is 8notes where I found finger charts for the clarinet, several free sheet music pieces for each instrument in our house, and midi files so you can hear how the piece should sound.  I have been using this site for a while, and I'm still finding it useful.

Now, I'm truly pooped.  Tomorrow we're going to Family Mole Night at SUNY New Paltz, so that will be fun!

Day 33

Busy day today.  MUSET led to Eilah and I discovering that our kids play the same instruments, and so do we.  If we get together, we have two clarinets, two trumpets and two violins!  Kind of funny.  I think the kids played some, but it's hard to tell. 
After MUSET, we were off and running to Aikido, which it seems they have fallen into strong like with.  It's good to go to something they WANT to do for a change. 
After that, the day went sort of hooey on us, and we shopped for halloween costumes.  We went to four stores!
 After that, home, math, English. 
One other thing we did was use the Reading Logs Spelling.  I think it's a valuable tool, and the kids seemed to get the hang of it.  It doesn't have the zip and game-iness of Spelling Connections, but the fact that you can put your own word list in makes it quite useful.
And now this post is starting to seem like my day.  Disjointed, a bit crazy,...wait.  Maybe it's a bit like me.  :)

Day 32

Today isn't day 32.  Day 32 was Thursday, but somehow I didn't get to it, and here we are and it's Sunday.  Time does have a way of flying!  Thursday we had our US History class at the library.  We did manage to look at our history book for once!  Having only gotten it a few days ago, I'm pretty excited about it.  I must say, though, that the kids seem less than enthusiastic.  Ah well. 

I did find a neat web site where you can make up word lists for spelling and vocabulary called Reading Logs.  It can also be used for reading logs (hence the name), but we don't do that in our house.  Basically, for the vocabulary lists, you type in the words, then you can print them out and glue them onto index cards.  The other thing you can do is put in words for spelling.  Once you've input your words, the student can then practice by listening to the word and spelling it.  They can also click to see the definition of the word.  Registration is free, so that's helpful too!  So, I've input the words for the History text, and we'll see what happens. 

We also went to the library program in the afternoon, and they took a chemistry quiz in the evening.  Busy busy!  They both did well, though, and I know they enjoy chemistry with Dad.  Much more fun than math with Mom!  :) 

Day 31

Went to the Fireman's Museum in Hudson today.  I didn't have high hopes for the kids being interested, but what with October being Fire Safety Awareness Month, I felt we should do something related.  It turns out that the kids had a great time.  There were several activities that they really enjoyed including the bucket brigade, in which they had to get a certain number of balls, or 'water', into the burning house (weight controlled?).  They tried it just running on their own and then in a line passing the buckets to see what the difference would be time-wise.

There was information on the Fire horses, magnetic timelines of firemen and fire engines, there was a play area that had a display that lit up hazards in the home. 
They also had a few sections that surprised us as there were musical instruments in one section, and a siren, bell, and other noisemakers in another.  Too late, we saw the sign that said not to do them all together, but it was fun anyway.





Luke driving the firetruck





One of the highlights for the kids was dressing up in the firefighter's gear and getting into the trucks.  They have a huge warehouse full of trucks that the kids can get in!  They really enjoyed it.

Day 30

What a beautiful Fall day in the Hudson Valley!  It turned out to be the first day that we managed to play tennis since we decided it would be fun way back in June.  Summer is just too busy and/or hot, so this was perfect.  The trees are all changing, the air is crisp and we had the court to ourselves for 45 minutes!

It worked out well as we had 5 people and 4 rackets.  I know, it sounds less than ideal, but actually, it was just right.  When someone (or, actually, 'someones' at different times) needed a break, I could step in and play, which was just right for me as I can't do too much at once or I'll be feeling it for a month or two. 

Luke got the hang of serving, though back-and-forth volleys were sorely lacking for all of us.  That's ok.  We ran around the court some, we hit the ball some, and we shared some time with a friend.  Between that and getting some school work done, life is good. 

Not only that, but I took some time out to play a game with the kids today.  Everything in me was saying we should be doing 'real school', but it was really nice to take the time to play with them.  I don't do it so much anymore, and I know that the time will come when they won't want to play.  This thought makes me sad enough that it alleviates any guilt I feel about 'losing' the time.  Maybe I should view it as I 'made' the time, because really, that's what I did.

Day 29

Luke has had a really dramatic improvement in his handwriting.  Due to my fabulous teaching, you ask?  No, not so much.  I've heard that for boys, handwriting comes later, and there's no good pushing it.  Not that I haven't tried on occasion, but it never worked out very well.  As you can see by the images, there is definite improvement.  Would you believe there is only one MONTH between these pages?  To those who say Don't push them to write, I say, right on!  On the other hand, would he be writing so well were I not pushing him to write every day?  So let's say, don't push hard, don't push often, but push some. 

Day 28

Another resource I've decided to use:  Assignment: the World.  It's available (at least here in the Hudson Valley) through WMHT.  ATW, as it's known, is a fifteen minute news show for kids.  It is well done, and holds their interest fairly well, if only because it gives a quiz question at the end of each segment.

Each segment was short enough to hold their attention, and was not dumbed down particularly.  The ones we saw were on Haiti's recovery from the earthquake 8 months ago and why it was so slow, and the protests in Russia for the Day of Wrath that didn't end well.  They flashed definitions of certain words (i.e. activism and others).  Those were the 2 main segments, and then there was a kid segment.  The kid-hosted segment in the episode we watched was about soda, how much sugar is in it, and alternative drinks. 

They then discussed last week's "clues".  Each week, they give three clues about stories they are going to follow for the week.  The first clue gives you a lat/long to find the location of the first story.  The second clue gives you a word scramble to unscramble for the second story, and the third is a fill-in-the-blanks for the third story.  So, they give the answers for last week's location, scramble, and fill-in and give each story as they do.  They wrap up the episode by giving the three clues for next week.  They suggest that kids follow the news during the week to see if they can find news stories about the clues. 

The whole thing is only 15 minutes, but if 1010WINS can do it in 10 minutes, ATW can in 15.
I give this program a high rating!

Day 27

I used to feel proud when the kids did drawings, or wrote letters.  Now I'm proud when they are interested in hearing what ancient Akkadian sounds like when it is read out loud.  Would I have been curious about that at their age?  Probably not.  But these things are just so cool, it's good that they can enjoy it more than I did.

Right now they are playing.  Luke has been banned from video games for a week, and I have to say, it's sort of a relief not to get The Look every night.  We'll have to deal with this in terms of scheduling before the week is over so that we don't have that again.  It's good that they are playing now.  They had a busy day. 

Everyone did their math lessons, everyone did their English, they went to Numeracy Club and Dad did a chromotography activity with them that was a lot of fun.  It was one of those days where the good really did outweigh the screams.  One of the best moments?  When they were both in Emily's room, and I called out, "Come see the chromotography paper!  It worked!" and two kids came excitedly out and rounded the corner to the kitchen.  Cool.

Day 25, 26

It occurs to me that the homeschool experience is not at all like I expected it to be.  Every now and then, there is a hint of it, like when I'm reading them a book we are all interested in, or when they both forget that they would rather give me a hard time than get into the concepts of math, even when I myself allow topics to go off-course (I've discovered that's hard for me).

It seems like fourth grade is the year we are going to try to lay some things aside that we used to view as important.  The many outings, the running from one activity to another and calling it school, the let's-meet-for-a-playdate-and-call-it-socialization; it's coming to an end.  It never entered my mind that there were real phases to homeschooling just like any other part of life.  But just as we all get older and change, so homeschooling does, too.  Every time I get comfortable with something in life, it has to change.  Sigh.  Really, though, it is a good thing, and it's wonderful to see the advancement that Luke and Emily have made in the past year.  There is a maturity that was not there before.