Weekly wrap up: I need some self-discipline...

 

 

In regards to self-discipline: if you don't use it, you lose it. 

 

I am sadly not using it when it comes to games on my iPad (I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually), blogs and newsfeeds, and endless email.  The iPad and computer are constant teaching companions during schooltime - it's just so hard for me to resist a peek at the other stuff too.  I need to flex my self-discipline muscle more often. 

 

I'll start with one rep and work my way up from there.

 

Okay.  Two reps.

 

Three... tops.  But then I'll need a massage afterwards.

 

 

 

We have had a fairly decent school week.  Monday morning we squeezed in some math before we met up with the Daisy scouts for our first service project of the year - pulling weeds from the sand at a local playground.  I've got to share a conversation I posted on Facebook about our math lesson that morning...

 

"In the midst of math this morning, Owen walked by Rylan and handed her one of the play phones and they proceeded to have a long, drawn-out pretend conversation. So I put my hand to my ear like a phone and "dialed" Rylan.

Me: Hello? Miss Rylan?
Rylan: (Giggle) Yes?
Me: Can you please answer problem number four?
Rylan: Um... Rylan can't come to the phone right now. Can you call back later?

(Sigh)

 

 

After a not-so-productive math lesson we headed to the park and we all worked away in the hot sun (it was nice in the shade).  It was reassuring to see all of the girls working so hard and helping each other out.  It's a great mix of girls!  It also gave the moms a chance to chat.  I miss talking shop (homeschool) - so it was a great way to pass the time.  I also have to say that I am one lucky, lucky mom.  Jordan is twelve - and he is the oldest sibling that comes along.  There is only one other older brother, but I think he is like seven.  So considering all of that - Jordan does not complain about it.  In fact, he rather likes it.  He seems to prefer playing with younger kids - and does not mind a bit if they are girls.  The games he comes up with are quite fun - usually involving a chase of some sort - and the little girls love it.  Most other twelve year-old boys would probably give their moms serious grief over having to tag along to a girl scout meeting (unless of course it was for Cadettes...)

 

We had to dash off to Rylan's violin lesson straight from the park.  During the lesson Rylan practiced several new things - touching her fingertips and clapping out a rhythm (Miss-iss-ip-pi-hot-dog) and singing an 'A' (or la).  Rylan was low on the first attempt, and on the second she hit it.  I about. fell. out. of. my. chair.  Then, after a couple of near-misses, she hit it again.  My mother and my aunt both have perfect pitch (able to produce or identify a given note without a reference pitch), and nobody yet (kids or grandkids) has it too, so far... Rylan's teacher showed us that (if your violin is in tune) if you hold your violin close to your mouth as you sing an 'A', the 'A' sting will vibrate and hum along with you - and it does!  How cool is that?!

 

On Tuesday we did school and karate and not much else worthy of note.  I kept the tv off and did minimal news checking.  The anniversary of 9/11 is not something I want to dwell on too much - and the little kids don't really need to see those horrible images.  It can wait until they are much, much older.

 

Wednesday was supposed to be a very busy day with schoolwork, piano lessons, Park Day, a potluck and evening karate and dance.  At 7 a.m. I went out to the garage to fetch something from the car and noticed that all of the interior lights were on.  Right then I should have thought about testing the battery by turning on the car, but I did not.  My mom came and went for the piano lesson and then we decided to skip Park Day.  It was cool and rainy, and plans were falling through right and left.  Afternoon nap didn't happen until 3:30 because Colin fought it every step of the way, so that meant that our plans to attend our homeschool groups annual not-back-to-school potluck was going to be a no-go - there was no way in hell I was taking a small child with only a 45 min. nap under his belt.  He is a holy terror in that state.  He finished his nap, we finished school and the kids got ready for their respective classes.  We were even going to make it on time!  Went out to start the car and nothing but clickclickclickclickclick.  Damn.  So even IF we had wanted to go to Park Day or the potluck, we wouldn't have been able to anyway.  Dean was on his way home in the vanpool, so we just waited for him to arrive home and then jump the car for us.  It was too late to leave for lessons at that point, so the day was pretty much a wash.

 

Thursday brought big disappointment for Jordan when he found out in karate that he was not going to be able to test for his belt this weekend.  He simply does not have the class time in - and through no fault of his own, either.  Visitation time with his mom plus a couple of scouts outings interfered with his ability to get enough classes in during this past 9 week cycle.  They require a minimum of 14 on-level classes, 3 review classes, and 3 sparring sessions.  Jordan got the 3 and 3, but he only had maybe 5? 6? of the on-level classes.  This makes two belt promotions in a row that he has missed.  He knows that it's just how it has to be, but he is still taking it hard.

 

Friday brought the most awesome revelation - ever!  As Jordan and I were sitting down to do his math lesson, the thought occurred to me to check to see if I could bring up his math website on the iPad.  You see - the way we 'do math' is that we sit down at the computer for his MEP lesson, and Jordan sits where he can see the computer screen - for the occasional times that I need to swivel the screen in his direction if he needs to see a graphic or something.  I print off the practice book pages for him to keep in his math notebook, but I don't print off the teacher's lessons - that would be 3-4 pages a lesson, for 175 lessons.  No way.  So I just read off the lesson and instruct as we go.  This has limited us to getting math done in the mornings only - and if something is scheduled in the morning, then math does not get accomplished at all.  The office/schoolroom is located directly underneath Colin/Rylan's room, so we can't school in there during naptime.  So portability is key.  Math was not portable.  (I really do have a lot to say about math - I need to get my curriculum posts done!).  So, long boring story short - I CAN get MEP on my iPad, so that means we can do it wherever, whenever.  And - the graphics that I need him to look at from time to time can be expanded with the zoom feature, and we can pass the iPad back and forth as we talk about them.  Case in point - Friday's lesson was about angles - in relation to clock faces, an actual orienteering compass and so forth.  We discussed fractional amounts and their related number of degrees (5 minutes on a clock is 30 degrees and so forth..) fractional compass amounts  (from N to NE is 45 degrees, NNE to ENE is 45 degrees...)  It helped that he could look at the clock and compass graphics as we talked about them.  Thank goodness he has already had orienteering with the scouts - that made it a lot easier to talk about.  We just spread out a map of Arches NP and talked about getting from point A to point B.

 

I also figured out that we can do IXL math practice on the iPad too - so that means that I can keep more kids going at one time, instead of cycling them through the one computer that we have, one at a time.  Unfortunately, the iPad does not support flash, so we can't do Reading Eggs.  They do have an app, but it is not the same thing.

 

We also used the iPad earlier in the week to discuss the sun and the movement of the planets in relation to the sun.  Solar Walk is the most awesome app I have ever seen.  It out does any 2-dimensional discussion  - the kids just can't wrap their head around what the rotations look like.  It is like having your own personal Planetarium show!

 

One more week to go and then a very much-needed break!

The Hard Sell



By virtue of being homeschoolers, we are part of a demographic that online marketers have only recently discovered.  Even in the paltry five years that we have been homeschooling, the home-based curriculum market has gone through a massive growth spurt.  I spent hours, HOURS!, combing through all that was out there when we first started.  For the entire months of June, July and August of 2007, that was how I spent my days.  And this continues to be how I spend my days.

We have had numerous hits and misses with the stuff that we have used over the past few years.  Whenever we make a purchase from a company, we are, of course, added to their mailing list.  I am on the mailing list for Rainbow Resource, Pandia Press, All About Spelling, Knowledge Quest, AppSchool, Core Knowledge, Homeschool Buyers Co-op, Universal Preschool, Classical Home Education... and that is all I can think of off the top of my head.  I get 3 -5 emails per day, advertising some sort of new education product. 

I'm not exactly complaining  (I could easily remove my name from the list) because there is a lot of good stuff that comes our way because of it.  Every week Homeschool Buyer's Co-op sends out a listing of different curriculum items that are currently being offered at a steep discount to co-op members by the supplier.  Lots of beneficial things have been purchased that way.  We have purchased annual subscriptions to Reading Eggs, The Happy Scientist and Discover Education Online  - and I have been really pleased with them.  I am currently considering Brave Writer and a Junior edition of Financial Peace University....

Last week a new science package was being offered.  In order to protect the names of the GREEDY*, I will just refer to them as 'Weovercharge Science'.  As always, HBC wants you to try out the curriculum before you buy, so they provided a link for members to see the site, and get a sample of what they offer.  I was curious, so I did so. 

It is no secret that I hate spam.  I am already at my wits end with Fly Lady emails (10 -15 daily!!), so when I started receiving tons of email from this science site, I was already a little put out.  This past weekend an email was sent out inviting interested parties to join in on a live tele-class on rockets, that was going to be offered on Wednesday (Jan 18th).  It was Monday evening when I clicked on the link to sign up.  I got four reminder emails that we were signed up for the class.

The class looked really cool.  There would be a 'talk' about rockets, and then the instructor, 'A*', would take questions and lead the kids through the steps of building their own stomp rockets.  In theory - this would be time well spent.  We decided to miss out on our homeschool's afternoon group game time (older kids play board or card games) in order to do this.  I actually got both Colin and Owen down for their naps before the class started - with about four minutes to spare.

We had all of the required materials gathered up, ready to go.  We had even sprinted out the door earlier in the morning to go to a bicycle repair shop to get some old tubing.  We logged in, turned up the volume and anxiously awaited for the class to start.  At one o'clock, 'A' came on and welcomed us.  There were 1,700 participants she said.  She had mostly web-chat people, but a few were on the phone.  She put them on speaker and we could here several kids saying 'hello'.  That was pretty neat.  This was the first time we had ever done anything like this - and it felt so neat to be connected.  She began by introducing herself (5 min), and then showed several slides of different rocket types and designs.

That was neat.  There weren't a lot of slides, though.  She talked about Newton's Laws, and then asked a funny kid question: "If you farted in space, what would happen?"  (answer at the end)

This went on for about 25 minutes.  Then she asked us to set a timer for 8 minutes, and during that time, play the video she had set up that demonstrated how to build our rockets - and build right along with her.  So we frantically put our rockets together.

We could stop and start as we needed, but we were not done by the time she came back on.  She had said that she was going to talk about something to do with lasers, but instead - she launched (no pun intended) into a sales pitch to purchase a monthly subscription to her site. 

<<< 45 MINUTES LATER >>>

She showed a teaser to a video on lasers that you could view if you signed up for the online curriculum program.  She answered question that were coming in through email - and several were (surprisingly?) about the online program.  She repeated the web address to the site over fifteen times.  It is a great program, but I just don't have $57 a month (!!) to toss to the wind like that.

I'm more than just a little annoyed.  We sacrificed a full afternoon to do this, but I came away feeling duped!  It felt exactly like it did when Dean and I were on our honeymoon, and the hotel encouraged us to attend a *free* meeting with a hotel employee about purchasing a vacation time-share type of thing.  We had no idea what the meeting was going to be about - and felt very cheated with the precious little time we had for our vacation.

We did end up making our rockets.  In regards to this activity (the stomp rockets) - I will say  - it was well worth it.  We had a lot of fun, and it spurred a lot of new design ideas.  In fact, it even prompted us to sign up for our homeschool group's Science Fair in March.  When the little boys got up we were finally ready to launch.

I wish it were easier and cheaper to connect to the online community like that.  The day is coming - and for some it is already here.  I just don't like the hard sell aspect of all of it.  I also don't appreciate hearing the message from marketers that if I care about my kids' education, then I will buy their product.  That just leaves me feeling sour.  Absoultely the wrong approach, Miss 'A'...

In answer to the question "What happens if you fart in space?", the gas leaving your body (burp or fart) acts as a propellant, and for every action there is an equal and oppostite reaction.  So if you fart, the gas will push in one direction, and you will move forward in the opposite direction.  So if your tether ever detaches from the Space Station, just fart a lot and you can propell yourself back to safety.  :)  No consensus though, between Jordan, Rylan and myself, if the farts, in fact, stink or not.