The Sinister Scribe

By Sam Martin

I am writing this because this is my entry in a contest to explain how great my dad is. Even if I wasn’t in the contest I still think he’s great.

One of the great things about him is that he plays with me. I like it when he tickles and wrestles with me. It makes me happy.

He is a talented woodworker. He makes cool, wooden bowls on the lathe. One time he helped me make a gavel with the lathe in his shop. It was fun.

He is interested in me. I know this because he plays video games with me. It gives me the feeling of being liked.

He takes care of himself by running regularly.This is good because he stays healthy and has more time to play with me.

Are still on the needles… even after a year. I just finished the afterthought heels last night. they are so comfy. I really, really can’t wait to wear them.
I do knit on them now and then, really. But a lack of time coupled with a very fine yarn makes for veeeeeery slooooooooow progress. I very nearly decided to make them little footlet socks and stop here. But then you really couldn’t see the garter stitch rib well and I kinda like the way that looks soooooo… maybe they’ll be complete by next year.

I’ve bearching for some frugal ways to augment our history lessons by playing games that people would have played then. I found some great resources:

• Egyptian Life: an online Senet game
  http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/life/activity/main.html
• Nine Man Morris: printable game board
  http://www.themathlab.com/games/Nine%20Man%20Morris/nineman.htm
• Royal Game of UR: freeware version to play on your computer
  http://www.xmission.com/~psneeley/Shareware/ur.htm
• Bryanna’s Treasure Box: inexpensive versions of medieval and early games
  http://www.bryannastreasurebox.com/

For Nine Man Morris, I think I’ll print out a paper game board and have Sam make clay game pieces. The others can be played online. If he really likes the paper/online games, I’ll make cloth “boards” later. We do have a nice wooden version of UR to which I understand Senet is related. Need to get that one back out!

Later…

Ooh! Maybe I will make a cloth board now. Look at these.

One of the things I’m really enjoying about homeschooling is being there to watch those learning sparks fly. See those connections when they happen.

Today, Sam was working on grammar identifying parts of a sentence. He was questioning something when I realized this was like doing Writing Strands in reverse. In WS, he’s been starting with a core sentence (i.e. Sam sat.) and adding info to it. (Yesterday at noon, Sam sat on his fork and poked a hole in his shorts). Well, the sentence diagraming is kind of stripping a sentence down to its core. When I told him this, I could swear I HEARD the click. LOL!

Then at lunch, Jessie was eating strawberries. She started with 8 pieces. We know because she counted. She’d eat one and ask, “Now how many do I have?” To which I replied, “I don’t know. How many?” So she’d count out loud how many were left. (wash, rinse, repeat) Until we were down to zero, at which point there was much cheering. Until she realized that meant she was out of strawberries. LOL!

Mini offices full of needed reference information for the kids as they do their daily studies. The end of the linked blog entry has some links to printables for this idea. You could do one for each subject. Hmmm… must find out how much laminating is at Kinkos or the UPS store.

For Sam I could see one for math, latin, grammar, writing.

For Jess maybe colors, shapes, numbers and the alphabet.

I found this link through the Lapbooking email group. (will dig up that link later) Gotta start waking up the house.

This was a really great morning learning-wise. Jessie came down after doing her morning routine. She was very excited, jumping up and down, and wanted me to come see how she cleaned her room. Here is a picture of her with her “cleaning.” All her foam letters and numbers were sorted by color in neat little piles. “Just like Mortimer’s,” she said. A while back we checked out a book… something like “Mortimer’s Sorting Book” Apparently it left a big impression on her.

After breakfast Sam and I had a great conversation about belief systems. Up until today, I always felt these conversations were me “telling” him this and that. But this morning, it was a conversation, a give-and-take, between us. Wow! He was responding in ways that made me feel he really was understanding. Kinda kewl having a philosophical conversation with your almost-ten-year-old. (be still my heart)

We went to another cooking class at Hy-Vee today. The kids really seem to enjoy these and it does help us in the much needed non-core hours. So far everything has been no-cook recipes but there are plans for some that require heating.

I brought Jessie’s second lapbook to the  Hy-Vee class today. She greedily colored it mostly yellow with what she calls her “flashlight marker.” A hiLIGHTer. LOL! I’ll get a picture of it as soon as she’s done. I made some changes from the last one.

Then this afternoon was some swim time at a local park lake. Maybe it was just my mood today (OTR)  but the water seemed a bit funky to me. Though I overheard a conversation that it was once much worse. Excuse me but, EWWWWWWW!

I’m off to see a bit of The Dark Crystal with the kids before shoving them into their respective beds so that I can finally collapse into mine. G’Nite!

I finally figured out how to display and store Jessie’s items from Brightly Beaming… lapbooks! Don’t know why this would work better than putting them in page protectors in a binder. LOL! But even Jessie responded well to it. ‘Course she wanted to stamp and color everything regardless. I was hoping for just one stamp on the “1″ card. I did get only one red “A” stamp.

The inside is pictured below on the right. All the little pieces were done in Illustrator. The “calf” lifts up to reveal a poem about a calf. At the top corners are little “hot dog” books. (PDF link there) The “A” book has a capital and lowercase “A” on the first spread, acorn and alligator on the second spread and apple and ant on the final spread. I guided her hand while she traced the letters. “Hey Diddle Diddle” has the poem with pictures that she colored. All the clip art, I found on the web. This link is to the ones I found for “Hey Diddle Diddle.” I liked them the best.

I’ll keep it stuck with magnets to the fridge this week so she and I can talk about it occasionally. The square and calf she colored while it was stuck to the fridge. I think I will do next week’s a head of time and stick it on the fridge on Monday all ready to go like her own little workbook.

I found another homeschooling merchant today: Enrichment4You. Their “Viking Runes in Focus” looks particularly interesting. Can ya tell I want us to study Vikings more in depth. They also have some interesting things on Japan too.

After reading about this on a blog somewhere… wish I could remember which one so I could link to it at The Thinking Mother… I thought “what the heck!” So you’ll now see a graphic with my Amazon Affiliate link in the left column.

Basically, if you click it, then do your shopping (paying for the items within 24 hours of placing them in your cart), I get a small percentage in the form of gift certificates. Then I can buy some books from our wish list! Kinda kewl, eh? Tho I do feel a bit like I’ve been assimilated.

The lady’s blog (I’m pretty sure she was a homeschooler) The Thinking Mother had a great idea too. She alternates buying through other’s affiliate links when she does buy from Amazon. I’ll have to try that.

Today… errr, yesterday (it is after midnight) was another edition of funschool here. While I am liking this concept I will be putting some parameters on it next week.

Today for math we tried out a new to us book called Math Wizardry for Kids. Jeepers! You should have seen all the light bulb moments Sam had. LOL! It was great. I think we will continue with this as our Friday math book. It seems like the exercises get more complicated as you progress through the book, so we’ll see how it goes.

Math became art time before I knew it. It was a gradual shift from geometric shapes to breaking down complex images into simple shapes. Major lightbulb moment there for Sam. A small part of me wanted to stamp my foot and pout because I’d been trying to explain that very concept to him for months. At least he got it, right?

While Sam was becoming a math wizard, Jessie discovered the wonder of cornmeal. I dumped an old can of it in to a plastic shoebox and let her play. She loved it. ‘Course I have cornmeal scattered through the house here and there. Hey, ‘least it vacuums up, right? I’m going to slowly try and build up her preschool box.

Then things went haywire at the library. Jessie had a meltdown fit while I’m at the front desk checking out books. ‘Course she’s loudly moaning phrases like “I just want to read a story momma!” or “Please can I have a bedtime story?” I had informed her that she had lost the pre-quiet time story… after warning her of course. We did make it home. There wasn’t a story before quiet time. She cried and yelled for a half hour. BUT she did wake up in a much better mood.

I still wasn’t able to get going with Jessie’s “lessons” this week. We colored some more cow images and went over the letter A and squares but that’s it really. Did find a new PreK online resource (its free too!) called DLTK’s Educational Activities. It has some pretty fun stuff that I may try with Jess. (so we can color something OTHER than cows, please!)

Next week will be another better week. While Jessie was crying in bed, I took my frustrations out in HST+ and got Sam’s lesson plan schedule finished AND used it to iron out next week. I think I’ll try to get those PreK activity cards started this weekend and try them next week.

G’Nite!

Doesn’t this guy look grumpy?!? ‘Course I guess I would too if my back legs were pinned in a giant’s grip. LOL!

I keep forgetting to post that I’ve added some new photos to my Picassa web album for July. This link will take you to the first one of the latest batch. There’s more critters and flowers, backyard shot and kids.

I love these flowers. They’re huge! The tiny hint of green against the vivid fusha really stands out.