Oh Noble Sir of the Toilet

So, one of Kate's fascinations is Castles lately. This has fit in nicely with our History curriculum as we are learning about the Middle Ages or the Age of Knights. We have been reading King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Where are such brave, noble, chivalrous, gentleman to be found these days? Right here at home. Baby Cannon was knighted by Kate in a special ceremony for his bravery in eating anything off the floor and for his fearless adventures with toilet water.
We also learned about castles. We all, even I drew our own castles complete with torrents, flags, drawbridges and moats. Mine had a garden, park, and swimming pool inside with nice little homes for the servants. Kate said it looked like, "ZION?" Well, maybe if I lived like the servants instead of the luxurious quarters I had designed for myself....oops.

Green Eggs and Ham

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! We celebrated today by reading some of your books: Cat in the Hat, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Huevos Verdes con Jamon. That latter one, we only have in Spanish. But if our girls learned anything today it was how to ask, "Te gustan huevos con jamon?" Of course, we like green eggs and ham. We had them for lunch today. Ewww...I mean Yum!

We have read some good books in Language Arts the past couple of weeks: Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine, Crow Boy and Tye May and the Magic Brush. Crow Boy made me cry! What excellent stories to teach kindness and compassion.

Kate has been learning about adjectives, adverbs, verbs. These are much more fun to learn with the Mad Libs gamebooks where you write in your own adjectives, etc. to create silly stories.

In History, we finished up the Roman Empire. Kate's assignment was to draw a Thank You Rome picture for all their contributions. She drew a picture of a giant swimming pool and hot tub complete with slides and fountains. I hope she is also thankful for BOOKS and the idea of a REPUBLIC. Kate thought the Romans were okay but she didn't agree with having slaves or watching gladiators fight each other for entertainment or copying all of the Greek gods and changing their names and especially she didn't like that they persecuted the Christians. The story of "Androcles and the Lion" was one good story that came out of all the gladiator fighting in the Colosseum.

"Nero was a Zero" is how we remembered the ridiculously bad Emperor who watched Rome burn. He blamed the Christians and then rejoiced that there was now room to build a gargantuan golden home for himself while thousands of citizens remained homeless.

We also learned about Constantinople and how he was converted to Christianity through a vision in the clouds. He and his soldiers fought in the name of Christ so he could become Rome's leader.

The Roman Empire was HUGE. Attila the Hun and other barbarians were constantly a threat. In the end the Empire became too big to control and Visigoths and Vandals invaded and destroyed it.

This is how Kate learned to remember it:

In 476

Rome was in a fix.

Little Romulus said farewell

and the Roman Empire fell.

I attended a very uplifting and inspiring book club night with other k12/homeschoolers. We discussed A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille. We as parents are to inspire our children to learn by reading and discussing the classics as well as letting children pursue their passions.

The next day I asked Kate what her passions were: mermaids, princesses, magic, soccer, singing, and being a rockstar. Those weren't exactly the subjects I had in mind for a curriculum...

I am a Wall

Love and Logic would call the experience Kate had yesterday a "wonderful opportunity" to learn consequences from making choices.
Every morning we have a list of what she needs to do before she can play with friends. One of these is PIANO practicing (notice piano is a recurring theme of discontent at our house.) Another one to clean her zone. She did her schoolwork but couldn't seem to muster up the energy to do cleaning and piano. I know Love and Logic teaches us parents not to remind but I couldn't help letting her know that she had 1 more hour to practice before her lesson or she would not be able to play with friends for the day. Then I walked away. Piano lessons came and she had lost her chance to play with friends.
Later in the afternoon, while Kate's two younger sisters were off playing with their friends, because they finished their work, the doorbell rang. There was one of Kate's most "favoritist" friends asking if she could play. Kate ran to me and with all the pathos she could demonstrate, BEGGED me to let her play with Madison. "I'll hurry and clean my zone right this second, PLEASE!!!!"
When she saw that I was a wall--a soft but FIRM wall--that was not going to crumble--she twisted up her face in all kinds of crying, feel sorry for me, ways.
"Oh, that's SAD." I said. I really felt sorry for her and tried to show my empathy.
I had to go to the door to explain to the friend that Kate wouldn't be able to play because she had made the choice not to practice or do her chores.
Soon after, I was enjoying a little down time on the computer. Kate interrupted me to ask if there were any jobs she could do to earn money. I stopped, looked at her and played dumb, "It is hard for me to think of extra jobs when you haven't done your regular ones."
I also let her know in a loving way that this was my time to do what I needed to do and that I would talk to her later. "See ya!"
She spent the rest of the afternoon/evening entertaining herself.

Thanks to Love and Logic I was still able to have a good day even if my daughter chose not to. Today is a NEW day with NEW list of wonderful opportunities. We'll see how it goes.

Kate couldn't seem to focus on schoolwork yesterday because she was too busy worrying about her afternoon dentist appointment (we've got a serious dental-phobe around here and that's a kid without any cavities?!--see quote of the week below) I could see it was going to be difficult to do any learning SO....because I am a newly converted Love and Logic parent (just taking some online classes) I gave her two choices:
Kate, would you rather

1. Do school and get your mind off your worries
2. Take the day off and do double schoolwork tomorrow

She chose #2. (and then curled up in the fetal position on the couch)

It worked out great, really. I got the house all clean and Kate got to spend the morning worrying 100% just like she wanted.

In the afternoon I took all the girls into the dentist office for their check-ups. We were greeted by the whirring sound of the drill and the overpowering scent of fruityness that's just doesn't quite do it's job of covering up the smell of latex and fluoride. (Ewwww. I'm cringing as I write.) You wouldn't believe the grim look on all the girls faces as they sat and waited their turns. In the end they returned from their checkups relatively happy with their new toothbrushes, a bag of prizes, and NO CAVITIES. Oh the relief on Kate's face!

Today, we did it. We doubled up on the schoolwork-- and all without any complaints.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: I wish I was a worm so I never had to go to the dentist (Kate)

Something you might see in Wonderland

For Art Day we gleaned our inspiration from Franz Marc. He liked to paint animals but not as they would appear in nature. As seen above he liked to use bold, bright colors, and shapes. The girls learned about blending primary colors to make secondary colors and mixing them with a little black or white to make different tints. After their pictures dried we cut cats out of them and glued them on construction paper. Another fun lesson with paint!

I am woman, hear me roar

Yesterday for school Kate read an article about Susan B. Anthony. She was a New Yorker, who, at the turn of the century, spoke out against slavery and fought for women's right to vote. Because of her and other suffragists, women in the U.S. were granted the right to vote in 1920.

Kate's assignment was to choose something she felt passionate about and write a speech to convince others to see her way. She waited for Dad to come home and then delivered this speech to us:

Back at It!

Okay, I have to say that we took the whole month of December off--and I HIGHLY recommend it. What a nice break from the routine and seriously, don't we have enough to do in December with all the recitals, parties, shopping, baking, and gifting?! We didn't throw ALL routine to the wind, however; the girls still had to clean their zones, do their reading, and have quiet time each day. But, we did try to do something fun and Chrismassy each day--even if it was a recital--(not exactly Kate's idea of fun) and honestly, I can't remember ever having a better Christmas season. Here are some of the other activities we did:

decorated a gingerbread house, sang carols around the piano, baked lots of treats, went to the local festival of trees, cut out paper snowflakes, made Christmas cards, shoveled snow, threw snow and ate snow, made a Christingle (see photo), sledding, ice-skating, going to the movies

Alright, I can't think of anything else, that was weeks ago. Maybe next year we can include some service in there????

Really, I feel like our time off recharged my batteries. Now that it's January I feel ready to get back to school full-swing and I think secretly the girls are too. Christingle: orange=world, candle=Christ, red=His sacrifice, 4 toothpicks=seasons, raisins=fruit of the world