Cher Pere

Thank you for singing when you found out that I was pregnant. Thank you for coming with me to all those OBGYN appointments. Thanks for holding my hand.

Thank you for sitting behind me in lamaze class and for holding me and rocking me back and forth during labor pains and then for totally supporting me in getting the epidural.

Thank you for sleeping on that little cot in the hospital room with me.



Thank you for waking up early and holding and feeding our baby so I could sleep.



Thank you so much for being so in line with all my wishes and dreams for her. Your support means everything to me.



Thank you for being so damn funny and for laughing at my jokes.



and thank you for being deep (and having layers... like an onion) *grin*



Thank you for being ready and willing all the time for whatever I have planned even though I know you would rather be sleeping. And thank you for planning fun things too.


Thank you for working so hard to take care of us.



Thank you for being so cool.

Thank you for singing to me (on our first date, at our wedding, at that karaoke place, and every other time. Thank you for singing WITH me in the car. :)


Thank you for the phone calls and thank you for coming home for dinner every night.

Thank you for playing with, singing to, teaching, and reading to our daughter. Thank you for "talking" to her for me when days are long and I run low on patience.


Thank you so much for your wonderful meals. You really show how much you care for us with them.




Thank you for always supporting homeschooling. I couldn't do what I do without you.



Thank you for all the nice presents you have given me like that first Palm you gave me in Florida, a couple laptops, tickets to see Mandy Patinkin, my bike, Lakers tickets (those close seats were pretty awesome).



Thank you for taking care of me. You never complain. You have so much patience and kindess and love.

You're totally awesome!

You are the best father I have ever seen and you are the perfect husband for me.



You being in my life makes it more special. It makes it better than it was or would be without you

My projects

As the end of our official school year wound down (although learning never really stops) I found myself feeling kind of listless and bored.

I suffer from ennui from occasionally. And when it starts pull me down I know I need to find a project.

This time fall homeschooling planning has saved the day. I have been having fun with it all week!

I have a huge library at home that rarely fails to excite me. I collect rare and out of print children's books and it gives me a special pleasure to take them down and read them to Z.

I also have a passion for planning, researching and lists. I love matching beautiful books to Z interests and temperament. It has completely diverted me from my ennui. :) I have worked out a great language arts curriculum although I am still trying to figure out which literature to apply it to. History is mostly wrapped up - it is a matter of picking out the perfect biography books. I am having trouble picking between two plans for science. But there is no real hurry.

One thing I think I have worked out is that the lessons will still be done by lunch time so Z will still have her afternoon's open for free play, play dates, etc. I have always felt that Z needs free time just as much if not more than her lessons. Plus I like to have my free time too!

Before I was a mom and before I was a writer I was an efficiency expert. Early on I worked for Motorola and I would learn a job and figure out the fastest and best way to do that job and then write up an SOP and train the workers. After that I worked for a technical company doing the same type of thing. I went through all the processes in the company and changed things so that what they were doing made much more sense.

That is just how my brain works. I do the research to figure out what makes sense in that time and place with those people. Then I make several plans and work them through and find out which one works best for each person and each job. Then I train the people. It doesn't always work. Adults can be resistant to change. But it usually wasn't my job to make the people work properly which is what managers are for. Interestingly, people who were more motivated to do well at their job rather than maintaining the status quo usually appreciated the changes I made as it made their jobs easier.

But my natural tendencies and talents in this area have corresponded really well into homeschooling.

I know Z so well ( she is almost convinced I have psychic powers) that my main difficulty is finding the proper resources to fit her temperament. But for me that is part of the fun. :)

I know it probably sounds weird to get so much pleasure out of being efficient but really I can't imagine being any other way. :)

History

This week I have been spending all my free time designing Z's fall curriculum.

Yesterday I figured out our History program.

We will be doing the Renaissance this term and we are going to do it 2 - 3 days a week.

First we will be watching a PBS mini-seriesin the evening as a family Medici - Godfather's of the Renaissance The Medici's were patrons to many famous men of the Renaissance.

We will also be reading biographies. Here is the list I have so far:
Filippo Brunelleschi
Henry VIII
Catherine of Aragon
Thomas More
Queen Elizabeth
Christopher
William Shakespeare
Copernicus
Galilei Galieo
William Harvey
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Walter Raleigh
Gutenberg
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Ferdinand Magellan and other explorers
Medici
Francesco Petrarca
Machiavelli
Rapheal and other painters
Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and other scientists
Martin Luther and John Calvin

We will be incorporating narration and writing into these readings.

Lastly Z will be creating a Glossary of Terms with information from that time period on Humanism, Astronomy, Protestantism, Inquisition, The Courtier, Merchants, Navagations and Maps, Alchemy, Colonization, Exploration, Puritans, 30 Year War, Sisten Chapel and more.

I think the first day we will read and then second day she will narrate and write on the bio and the glossary.

Eye of the Tiger

When I was writing about testing Z (she did like 5 tests that morning...) I didn't think how that might appear.

You are all so nice that you don't really ask me those hard questions, like "How does Z feel about all that testing?" I think that is a valid question.

In our case it is not a problem. Yesterday morning, while we were doing our normal cuddling in the rocking chair, Z asked me if she could do some more tests and was disappointed when I said no.

Yep, she actually likes tests.

Her Japanese tutor thinks it is the funniest thing. She started quizzes this year and she would try to pull off a mock stern voice and say "I am going to quiz you on all this next week." (She is so sweet she can't really do "stern"). And Z would clap and cheer. Now Z gets to have a quiz in Japanese at least once a month. It would be more but I think it takes a lot of work to make the quizzes. Z's two favorite things about Japanese are quizzes and singing.

When we had her I.Q. tested at four she loved it and at the end asked if she could come back the next day. She likes tests, quizzes, competitions, talent shows, etc.

I was going to write a post on Monday called Eye of the Tiger (remember the song from Rocky III?) Because a lady at our homeschool park day, upon me pointing out to her which child was mine, said "Oh her! She's got the Eye of the Tiger."

She went on to tell me that she watched Z going backwards on the monkey bars with a demeanor of total focus. I laughed and said it was such a coincidence that she should use tht term since we planned to watch Rocky III that night.

But anyway, I think the reason that Z likes tests so much is, at least, twofold.

One is that she has never been in trouble for not getting 100% on a test. For me the point of testing is to see what she knows and where she needs help. There is nothing wrong with genuinely not knowing something.

Secondly Z does have the Eye of the Tiger. I am sure there is a little stress involved in testing but she likes that. She has always asked me to set up obstacle courses for her and then to time her and she will try to beat her time. When given two options she almost always chooses the harder one.

Thing is, I am like that too. I like to challenge myself and I think tests are fun instead of scary. So maybe, without really trying, I have conveyed that attitude to Z.

some Language Arts ideas

So I am going to try Classical Writing Aesop with Z. I looked at their message boards and it says that the it is for 3rd - 6th. Their "Homer" series isn't until middle school.

This is how it works.

Day 1
You pick a piece of classic writing like a myth, fable, fairy tale, etc. Your student reads the whole piece. You note the title, the original historical setting, why it might have been written, what was the message and any additional background. Discuss the characters, plot, action, outcome, moral issues. Note something good and bad about the literature.

Day 2
Spelling, Dictionary Skills
Pick our spelling words from the piece - students can copy them or have them dictated.
Then from the piece choose vocabulary words and look them up in a dictionary, noting their root words (Latin or Greek?)

Day 3
Grammar
Use a passage from the piece to implement the grammar you are studying. For example - subjects and predicates, direct quotes, adverbial conjunctions, etc
So if you were trying to teach verbs you could have the student pick out all the obvious verbs. Make three columns and list the verbs under their types: Action, Being, and State. Also you might mark off 10 - 12 words from the passage and ask the student which part of speech they are.

For grammar I am going to use Everything You Need to Know About English Homework 4th - 6th grade" and apply it in this way.

Day 4
Copywork and/or Dictation
Just work at the student's level here. I am going to try dictation with Z.


This curriculum also recommends setting aside another 30 minutes a day for writing projects. I am not sure what I am going to do for writing yet. Z will be working on our homeschool newspaper that I am creating with the kids.

why test

One reason I did these tests is so I can use the info to ask for accelerated classes for Z. Now I can say that she is "at least 4th grade level" and that might mean something to the people in charge.

I haven't figured out how to test her for history or science, which I think would fall somewhere between math and reading comprehension depending on the topic.

For history and science we follow her interests and not the state standards so the things she has learned might not be on grade level tests. Although we covered a lot of topics we didn't do the "mile wide inch deep" type curriculum taught here in CA.

For science she studied human anatomy, global warming, nutrition, environmental protection, rocks and minerals, forensics, microbiology and space flight (at astronaut class). Her science class did extreme weather, poisonous snakes and spiders, swallows, dinosaurs, terrariums, states of matter, the solar system, planting bean seeds, and marine biology. She also did many brainpop movies.

For history we are following more of a Well Trained Mind path and starting with ancients and moving forward from there. If I tried to test her I think 3rd or 4th grade is supposed to spend the whole year on CA state history. But unless we do it concurrently we aren't going to get to that for awhile. But I don't think the CA state elementary tests ask about the fall of Rome, Egyptian burial techniques, human evolution , Greek mythology and Homer, the Black Death, the barbarian hordes, the Vikiing judicial system, or ask for the name of the knight that sits at the Seige Perilous. *grin*

On my own I would place her between 5th - 7th grade for science and history with lots of gaps and lots of indepth knowledge. But it is easier to test her in math and language arts and then be conservative and use that grade level when need be.

testing

So this morning I decided to give Z some end of year tests to see where she is in Language Arts. I found this site for K12 placement tests and I tested her on reading comprehension and language skills.

For reading comprehension I started with 5th grade but it was too easy. So I gave her the highest test they have, which is for 8th grade, and she got all but one right on that. So I don't really know where she is on that...

She also got two tests for Language Skills (grammar). The first one was too hard. The second one was right on the money and that was for 5th grade.

Then on another site I did a spelling placement test and she placed 4th grade.

So, it is like I thought, math and spelling (both 4th grade) are her relatively weakest subjects.

It was surprising in a way because I usually underestimate what Z is really doing. I thought spelling and grammar would be 3rd grade... I haven't really taught her much of either, so what she learned she mostly figured out on her own.

But still the questions on the tests did seem really easy and I am not sure I believe that that is really the level regular school kids are working at. I mean they said that Z could be taking Literary Analysis and Composition...

Other than testing Z did two sessions of EPGY math, half an hour of piano, a chapter from King Arthur, had lunch with her Pere, and then played at the park with her friends for 3 hours. Now she is in the bath tub banging on stuff. :)

dress

Z's Grandmere got her this dress from Maui.

tea party

Today was Z's Tante Juliet's annual tea party. This year Z got to spend the night with her aunt and then help her bake for the party.

Tante Juliet dreams of opening her own tea house someday but until then we get to taste her treats on special family occassions but this is the most elaborate (and yummy!)

She usually makes four courses including tea sandwiches, homemade scones with homemade jams, and some special dessert. This time it was cake that Z helped to prepare and the Gray family fudge recipe.

I am lucky to have married into a family of such good cooks.

a house is a home for me

So the housing prices are finally coming down some here in Southern California.

Last weekend we went and looked at twelve open houses and saw that we might actually be able to afford something we would like come November.

Of course we are really excited about this and while I know it is a few months away I find I am now constantly looking at and thinking about houses for sale. :)

****************

The other thing my brain is stuck on is my job... that is homeschooling.

I am still not sure what my curriculum will be in the fall. I have gotten several good resoures recommendations from friends. Rght now I am checking out Classical Writing - Aesop , which looks good but not as complete as EPGY Language Arts and Writing, which is what I really want to use but I am concerned about the cost.

So far my tentative fall curriculum looks like this
Math - EPGY
Language Arts - EPGY
Spelling - Espindle
Science - books from library on physics, chemistry and experiments from Mr. Wizards plus weekly science class
History - Renassiance and Explorers (also library books)
Geography - workbook
Music Appreciation - ?
Piano class
Voice class
Japanese class
Art - A - Z guide to Art
P.E. - gymnastics, kung-fu, yoga/pilates, swimming
Drama - Shakespeare class
Field Trips - monthly with homeschooling group
Reading - classics at home, modern fiction with homeschooling book club

American Girl

Today Z and I met K and her family at the American Girl Place.

Disneyland

Wednesday Z and I went to Disneyland where we met up with our good friends from Raising K

We had an awesome time! The girls got along fabulously. And Z rode on all the rollercoasters! She did Thunder Mountain, The Matterhorn, and even Space Mountain!

Did I say it was the end of school?

For some reason Z had a end of 3rd grade test for EPGY this week. I wasn't expecting it since she was already doing the 4th grade work...

Anyway I think she did well on the test but I found that she really needs to learn her multiplication tables.

So besides piano and Japanese I want her to continue math over the summer. I found a cool website that has printable and customizable math sheets - http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/ So that is what she will work on when she in done with EPGY at th end of the month.

And so while we are at it I think it would be good if she learned to type better.

So I have a couple goals this summer that I would like Z to meet.

Not that she is against the idea. This afternoon we were totally open and free to doing whatever and she wanted to play a math board game called Allowance and then read her Kingfisher book on Forensics and then read one of her Horrible Histories books. :)

Angelina

We got home about 7:30 this evening to find a neighbor trying to catch a one footed duck and her ducking. He wanted to take it to the wildlife rescue place. Long story short a neighbor caught the duck and I caught the duckling and we put them into a box but the mother got away and then to our dismay she flew right away. We waited at the spot with the chirping duckling for about an hour and a half but she didn't come back although we thought we saw her fly over a couple times. We looked around different areas of the neighborhood for her but we couldn't find her.

So about 9:00 we drive just the ducking over to the rescue place. It slept in my hands in the car. It was the sweetest little thing. Z cried on the way home because she wanted to keep it. When she went to bed she prayed to God "If we ever find another duck and duckling please don't let the mommy duck fly away. And if she does let us keep the duckling."





Also Sunday Z built this "cave" in her room out of chairs, blankets, and boxes.


She sat in there reading books with a flashlight

Tagged for Meme

I have been tagged by Kate in NJ

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

8 THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. I was born in Texas. I lived there until I was five. I grew up in South Florida.

2. As a child in Texas I had a Great Dane named Brutus that I could ride on.

3. I've been to the states Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucy, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California and Hawaii.

4. I have been to the United States (of course), Mexico, Canada, France, Monaco, Bahamas, Italy, and England (although I didn't step outside of the Heathrow airport so it doesn't really count)

5. I have a fear of spiders and clowns. I am gettng better about the spiders.

6. I have a back injury - two bulging discs, one in the thoracic and one in the lumbar. I got the injury the day I came back from my honeymoon and it still hurts.

7. I have really really really bad motion sickness. I can't even look at a Merry-Go-Round.

8. I used to do musical theatre and I was in Snoopy, Fame, Jesus Christ Superstar.


Now I'm going to tag the following eight people,

Raising K
Life Schooling
Mariposa
Homespun
Red Sea School
Painted Rainbows
Just Enough and Nothing More
Slow to Adapt

Food analogy

(bread, eggs, goat cheese, honey, carrot cake, dill, potatoes, carrots, mixed salad greens and plums from the farmer's market this morning)

Once my Mere asked me about how I am raising and educating Z.

I came up with what I thought at the time was a good analogy. I was trying to give Z a "gourmet" life. I wanted her to read the best books, listen to the more wonderful music, partake of the best from all over the world.

The food thing is not just an analogy though. I really do pay a lot of attention to what Z eats. We have gone out of our way to raise an adventurous eater who will try anything and not turn her nose up on unfamiliar foods. She also likes to know what food she is eating, where is has come from, and how healthy it is for her. She cares about things like Trans Fats and eating locally. She also likes to help her Pere cook elaborate authentic meals.

For my part I try to feed her healthy, organic, wholesome food. We buy our food from a variety of places, from farmer's markets to ethnic grocery markets to our neighborhood Whole Foods and Trader Joes. We will travel far and pay a lot to have a unique eating experience.

We purposefully eat from various cultures and have included Z in our eating habits so she has eaten traditional meals of Southern France, Hawaii, Cuba, Morroco, Israel, Italy, Japan, China, Vietnam, and many others.

We have even worked at ranches and farms so Z can see where her food really comes from. She is a very informed eater.

I also let her have some yummy junk food sometimes, so long as it is not enough to affect her health or her tastes for the finer things.

Looking at all this I think what we do with Z for food is analogous to how we try to teach her and raise her.

I want her to have the best. She is familar with and enjoys great books, classical music, famous works of art from all over the world. She is excited to try new things and realizes that she deserves to feed her brain "the good stuff". And as she has been raised on this diet of the best having a little twaddle doesn't harm her.

She recognizes that things that come too easy, like Fast Food, often aren't very good for you. And that when people really care about the product that they are making it shows in the end. She also understands that we have a lot to learn so that we can live by our values.

calming down

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the responsibility I feel to make the right decisions for Z. Last night after talking to Z's teacher I was feeling kind of stressed in that regard.

But this evening I had more time to think about some things her teacher said and also talk to a mom with a focused kid and I have more confidence in what I am doing.

Last night Z's piano teacher said that a "super talented" kid would want to spend hours at the piano. We both agreed that Z does not want to do that.

Then today I was talking to a woman who's daughter is an ice skater. She skates 3 -4 hours everyday. The girl is 12 and has been skating seriously since she was 9 and she started skating at 5. I asked the mom how she felt about letting her daughter make the choice to practice so much and to focus on this one thing and she said "My daughter never really wanted to do anything except skate. So it wasn't a hard decision. That is all she really wanted to do."

Some kids are like that.

Z does not have just one thing she loves. She has so many things she likes (reading, science, foreign languages, gymnastics) but I think the thing she does most is sing and make up stories that turn into songs.

Sometimes I can image that she will be a singer/songwriter when she grows up (or earlier) but it is not all she wants to do. She has a lot of things that interest and inspire her.

It is interesting too that singing is not something I do with Z. I don't have a class for it. The only thing I do is make sure she has enough down time every day so she can make up her songs. Actually I also listen to them and record them and sometimes transcribe them. And, oh yeah, I also help her get ready for talent shows and get her voice lessons.

But there is nothing I can teach her at this point. All I can do is protect and encourage.

homeschool fair part II

So the talent show went very well.

Lots of people came up to me or Z afterwards to compliment her. One lady came up and asked if Z took singing lessons and suggested we try the Colburn School for her. It is a very highly regarded performing arts school in the city, so that was a nice compliment.


I don't know how her trans fats research project went over. I don't think that many people read it. No one else did a science project. Everyone else did an art project for Show and Tell.


(if you are interested you can click on the picture to see it up close - not shown in the picture are two tubes, one clean and one clogged up.)


But I think doing the research project was a great experience for Z. So it was definitely worthwhile.

I have a video but I have to figure out how to get it online.

Homeschool Faire

Soon we will be leaving for our Homeschool End-of-the-Year Faire.

Z is preforming two songs in the talent show (I'm nervous!) and also presenting her research project on Trans Fats and a Show and Tell poster board with examples of her songs lyrics, Japanese writing, piano sheet music, drawing of a horse and the picture from her recent magazine article.

Wish her Luck or Break a Leg.

six

I just had the longest conversation I ever had with Z's piano teacher. I called her about what time to do Z's class this week and ended up describing our curriculum, talking about my background, talking about gifted issues, Z's I.Q level, and even about the book Indigo Children.

Nothing really changed that I can tell. Her teacher was happy to learn more about what Z was doing in the rest of her life.

Still she wants me to be more committed to Z's piano. She said Z could be doing so much more than she is doing.

But I don't think it is right to make that decision for Z. She is only six and she is good at a lot of things. She has a full academic schedule most of the year at home as well as classes in Japanese, piano, voice, Shakespearean theatre and gymnasics. And all of her teacher in those classes would love for her to focus on their subject.

I want to keep her options open and I want her to have down time.