First Month -- Whew!

Okay, so it didn't go anything like I'd planned. I'm okay with that -- sort of.

Kennedy, my youngest was much harder to keep on task than I thought, and Bennett, my oldest, was just as hard as he was at the beginning of the first grade. Gibson, my five and a half year old did amazing! He is so professional and excited about all of it that I had to keep moving him ahead while the other two were behind schedule.

We never even touched some of the really cool stuff, but made some headway on Literature, History, Math and Science. French, Music, and Art are neglected. We'll get there.

Monday we got a call from the charter school that we'd wanted to send the kids to. Unfortunately, they had a spot for only Gibs. We decided to take it though, since, it seemed that we'd never get in if we didn't start with one kid. He starts Monday. He is so thrilled, and my husband and I are both freaked out.

I am loving the combination of Miquon and "Math Made Easy" for math. Miquon is outstanding for teaching them the concepts by letting them get to the "ah ha" moment themselves. The Math Made Easy is good for drilling on standard grade-level problems, using the language that is commonly used in first through third grades. Miquon's concepts are capable of teaching them far beyond that limit. The boys are already synthesizing stuff we're working on and putting it to use.

Kennedy's learning her letters and sounds, and is very proud of her work in her pre-school Phonics book. As well she should be.

Spa Good

Happy birthday to me. I got a spa day package for my birthday this year. I finally went today. It was lovely. I've had various massages, manicures and pedicures, and one facial over the years, but this was the first full morning of pampering.

I started with a body wrap that was pretty hysterical. Clay mud all over, and then bandages wrapped very tight all over. I then climbed into a sauna for an hour, and cooked. When I came out I was somewhat slimmer, but felt great. After that I did a massage that was deceptively low pressure. I just had tension in my neck and shoulders (who doesn't?), but she found the spots and worked them out. So now I'm jelly. In a good way.

Lunch, and then the organic facial. It was lots of cleansers, scrubs, masks, and creams that went on and off one after another. By the end I was so relaxed (and slow) that I was glad that I knew the way home easily. After all, I did get lost on the way there.

When I got home my daughter, Kennedy, came to see what had happened to me at the spa. She was obviously disappointed. I asked her why, and she asked why they didn't "spa me?" I explained that I wasn't really going to become a different woman. "Why didn't they paint you at least?" Oh, so she wanted me to get a makeover. Sometime I'll go back and learn how to put on makeup. Everyone should probably know how to do that before they're fifty...

Back on the Wagon

Not that wagon. The calorie-restriction wagon. Didn't know that was a wagon? Well, it is, and I was on it a month ago. I lost 22 pounds, going from a 26.8 BMI to 23.2 (comfortably inside normal). Naturally, I still have about 14 pounds to lose, and I am having a hard time getting back to business. I was journaling everything, and keeping myself to 1000-1200 calories per day. I lost about 2 pounds per week, and I felt so much better when I got down to normal.

The problem was that I lost motivation, because I felt okay, and I was bored weighing everything. Maybe now that I feel chubby again, though, I will have the motivation to get back into good habits. The kids and I had a great shopping trip at the grocery store this morning and we picked all sorts of wonderful food. I feel a good cooking week coming on...

I haven't regained any of the weight I lost, so that's something, anyway. I know that that is easy to do. The emotional roller coaster is the worst thing for long term weight loss. My real issue is restarting exercise. I love doing it, but making time for it seems to be a major sacrifice. There's always something that needs to be done. I have to make time for it just like I do for the laundry.

If I could do it in the next two months I could motivate myself with a clothes shopping trip for fall clothes, because I certainly won't have anything that will fit!

Thanks, Jennifer. I love you, Sister.

Health Care Reform, FUD, & Hate

I have been saddened in the last few days to see the Obama Administration appear to signal that they are willing to give up on a public option for insuring the millions of Americans that are uninsured or under-insured. It is the grand step that creates real change, as opposed to more self-defeating, and special-interest-serving laws. Without it we are not very much farther forward in real terms, but much farther backwards when it comes to the chance of actually doing this in the future.

I watch the news and listen to the grass roots opposition to the plan yell and scream, and carry guns to town hall meetings. They talk about socialism, as if it were evil, but they don't mean social security or medicare -- programs that they like, but which are socialistic. They don't appear to know anything about the various bills actually in the House and Senate. Instead they rail about the "dismantling of the America they grew up in". It's nonsensical until one considers that they aren't really afraid of socialism, because they are already enjoying that. What is really bothering them is demographic change.

In the next generation or two the United States' population is going to look very different than it did in 1980 when that particular woman grew up. Latin Americans will be in the majority. We have a black president now, who is wildly popular -- as is support for a public option 74%. A lot of the people who are yelling and using such irrational, and uninformed arguments must be wondering what the United States will look like in thirty years -- regardless of healthcare. There is so much fear, and hate in their arguments it is saddening to hear them. It seems that there isn't anything that Obama could do that they wouldn't suspect his motives.

I cried the night he was elected, and on his inauguration, because it seemed that we as a nation had overcome our racism to elect a smart person who wanted to change things for the better. He has a grand vision, and he needed our support then and now. Unfortunately, the fear and hate are proving more powerful than the desires of 74% of the people to provide a public insurance option. It's disgraceful, and I'm ashamed of the level of dialogue on this issue from the opposition.

They seem to have admitted tacitly that if they stay rational, and factual they have nothing to say, accept that they are owned by the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and the rest of the healthcare industry.

My Sweet Little Gentleman...

Okay, so he's still having trouble staying in his seat during rocket camp. I didn't really know it would be a sit-in-your-seat-and-listen kind of place. He loves it anyway, so I'm happy, and he needs to know that requirement to stay put whether you want to or not is out there. I can accommodate him with breaks to run around when our learning has become too stationary, but they have a room full of kids with different needs.

So he stood up to a bully. He's heard about them, but never encountered them before. He asked him nicely to stop, and then quit engaging and got the teacher. I totally approve, because bullying behavior is not something I as an adult would put up with (after a polite request to stop) without "police" involvement, either.

It turns out he was doing it so that a girl in his class could go down the slide. It was her birthday today and apparently she'd already been "hurt a couple of times". Some boy had tripped her and something else which my son hadn't seen. She said it was her worst birthday ever, and he felt bad so he tried to make it better for her. He said later that she hugged him a lot. I asked if she was hugging everyone? Noo, he said. I told him that was good -- if he liked her, did he? Yes. (This with an "of course" look)

So now he's telling his brother and sister that he "may be falling in love". I am so happy for him. His heart is so big, and he hasn't met anyone in a while that he's really connected with.

Ah, love. I owe my husband a kiss.

Book Lists for All Three Grades

As I have written earlier, we are going to take 54 weeks instead of 36 to do this year, because all three kids are skipping a year academically. This means for some parts (history, and literature) of the curriculum we'll be at the second grade grade level for the first part of the year, and the third by the end. On the other hand, for math, because Miquon is unique in its approach we are starting from the beginning with both kids.

There are a couple of history topics that I am not sure what book we will use. There just didn't seem to be a good edition for kids out there on Cromwell, or the French Revolution. Who would have thought...

Second/Third Grade
	History & Literature
		Story of the World Volume 2, by Susan Wise Bauer
		Story of the World Volume 3, by Susan Wise Bauer
		500 Beowulf
		534 The Story of Mulan: The Daughter and the Warrior (Courage and Wisdom) by Gang Yi
		632 Muhammed and Islam (Great Religious Leaders) by Kerena Marchant (Author)
		900 King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, 416 pp
		900 King Arthur and His Knights Selected Tales, 272 pp
		1136 History of the Kings of Britain, 384 pp
		1204 Queen Eleanor: Independent Spirit of the Medieval World by Polly Schoyer Brooks (Author), Polly Brooks (Author)
		1227 Genghis Khan: 13th Century Mongolian Tyrant (Wicked History) by Enid A. Goldberg (Author), Norman Itzkowitz (Author)
		1321 The Divine Comedy: Volume 1 Inferno, 438 pp
		1372 The Canterbury Tales, 128 pp
		Medieval Medicine And the Plague (Medieval World) by Lynne Elliott (Author)
		1431 Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley (Author)
		Science And Technology In The Middle Ages (Medieval World) by Joanne Findon (Author), Marsha Groves (Author)
		1584 Ivan the Terrible: Tsar of Death (A Wicked History) by Sean Price (Author)
		1596 A Midsummer Night's Dream for Kids/Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream
		1596 Romeo and Juliet for Kids
		1598 Much Ado About Nothing for Kids
		1601 Twelfth Night for Kids
		1602 Hamlet for Kids
		1606 Macbeth for Kids
		1623 The Tempest for Kids
		1603 World History Biographies: Elizabeth I: The Outcast Who Became England's Queen (National Geographic World History Biographies) by Simon Adams (Author)
		1609 Spenser's Faerie Queen, 256 pp
		1642 World History Biographies: Galileo: The Genius Who Faced the Inquisition (National Geographic World History Biographies) by Philip Steele (Author)
		1620 If You Sailed on the Mayflower
	?	1653 Cromwell - England
		1660 The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
		1675 If You Lived in Colonial Times
		1684 Pilgrim's Progress
		1694 Peter the Great by Diane Stanley
		1719 Robinson Crusoe
		1726 Gulliver's Travels
		1750 The Slave Trade in America: Cruel Commerce (Slavery in American History) by Richard Worth
		1776 A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy by Jim Murphy
		1776 If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution
	?	1789 French Revolution
		1790 Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia (Landmark Books) by Margaret Cousins
		1794 Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, 1789-1794 (Oxford Paperbacks) by William Blake
		1812 Sacagawea: American Pathfinder (Childhood Of Famous Americans) by Flora Warren
		1813 Pride and Prejudice
		1820 The Trailblazing Life of Daniel Boone and How Early Americans Took to the Road (Cheryl Harness Histories) by Cheryl Harness
	Math
		Miquon: all six books
		Math Made Easy: Grades 2 & 3, by DK Publishing
	Science, Language Arts, Civics
		Calvert
	Art History & Techniques
		The Usborne Book of Art by Rosie Dickins
		Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning) by MaryAnn F. Kohl
	French & Latin
		Rosetta Stone, Homeschool Editions
	Music
		Music Ace Deluxe, Harmonic Vision
		The Recorder from Zero: A Method for Beginners on Soprano Recorder, Vol. 1 by Charles P. Fischer
		Yamaha, YRS 312B, recorder, http://www.aswltd.com/yamaha.htm
		Chimealong, Woodstock Chimes
Kindergarten/First Grade
	History & Literature
		The Story of the World, Volume 1
		How Children Lived
		Ancient World Atlas
		Ancient Mesopotamia
		Ancient Egyptian Activities
		Who built the pyramids
		Ancient China
		Ancient India
		Folk Tales India
		Child's Homer
		Confucius
		Story of Greeks
		Aristotle
		Librarian, Eratosthenes
		Stories from Plato
		Alexander
		Aesop's Fables
		Favorite Myths
		In Search of a Homeland: The Story of the Aeneid by Penelope Lively and Ian Andrew
		Who were the romans?
		Story of Romans
		Julius Caesar
	Math
		Miquon: Orange & Red books
		Math Made Easy: Grade 1, by DK Publishing
	Science, Language Arts, Civics
		Calvert
	Art History & Techniques
		The Usborne Book of Art by Rosie Dickins
		Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning) by MaryAnn F. Kohl
	French
		Rosetta Stone, Homeschool Edition
	Music
		Music Ace Deluxe, Harmonic Vision
		Teaching Little Fingers to Play: A Book for the Earliest Beginner (John Thompsons Modern Course for The Piano) by John Thompson
		Yamaha Keyboard
		Chimealong, Woodstock Chimes
Preschool
	Language Arts
		Hooked on Pre-K Super Workbook
		Basic Letter Sounds - Phonics I Flash Cards, by Creative Edge, LLC
		Colors Shapes & Patterns Flashcards [Cards], By: Liz Iftikhar
		Bob Books, sets A1, A2, B1, B2, & C
	Literature
		Nature, Folk & Fairy Stories from the Kindergarten Enki curriculum
		Songs from the Kindergarten Enki curriculum
	Art History & Techniques
		The Usborne Book of Art by Rosie Dickins
		Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning) by MaryAnn F. Kohl
	French
		Rosetta Stone, Homeschool Edition
	Music
		Music Ace Deluxe, Harmonic Vision
		Chimealong, Woodstock Chimes

Day Camp Culture Shock

My oldest started his science day camp today, which will last for two weeks. He loved it, of course. Rockets, and science talk -- what's not to love?

There was an incident with a girl, though, who shoved him to the floor for cutting in line. We've talked about standing in lines, and the etiquette thereof. He knows cutting is bad, but he's seven, and very excitable. What struck me funny was his shock at how seriously she took her place in line.

Since he's never been in a school, he has no frame of reference for how a day goes for those kids. I had to explain how kids his age have to line up several times a day for various activities. I asked him how he would like to have to stand in a line against the wall for ten minutes, three to ten times a day. He asked if I meant like Time Outs? No, this is just waiting for your turn. Waiting for the previous class to finish. Waiting.

We ended up deciding that her place in line was pretty much all she had, and that we should feel compassion for her frustration.

I'm glad his overall takeaway was positive, and I know he meant it, because he's not shy about the truth.