The Sinister Scribe

I finally picked up a copy of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrara and it has shed some revealing light…

I’m not doing an effective job teaching Latin. :\ Or not thoroughly according to Sam’s worksheet answers. But if you have him translate the chapter in the book, he can do a pretty good job of getting the jist of it. He can certainly memorize the vocab easily enough.

So, as I type this, I am thinking it is perhaps a case of not enough practice exercises utilizing the chapter’s focus points…? There is something I can do to be more effective anyway…

Loosing my focus now. Barb, of Harmony Fine Arts fame,  had some good information on creating rubrics in her recent blog post. Mebbe that will help.

Enough of that for now. Off to make pancakes! Did you know it is Pancake day?

Okay. I’m going to give the spirit of this a try.

After almost a week of just laying things on their “shelf” I can see I do need something. And… after much agonizing over what would work the best and cost the least, I spent $10 at Walmart to get a plastic crate for each kid. Can you guess which belongs to whom? All the other supplies (hanging file folders and manilla folders) I had on hand already.

I don’t think these are THE solution for us. They don’t really fit on the shelf all that well and they’re not easy for the kids to pick-up-and-go if necessary. But they can be used for other storage when I find the perfect solution.

These may travel with us tomorrow on the car trip to the Amish. Sam usually does math and Latin on the trip. Jessie brings something to color or play with sometimes but often she just watches out the window. I keep thinking of recording me reading a favorite story for her to listen to but that is something for another post. Tomorrow’s science could easily be done in the car IF Sam can lead AND Jessie follow his direction. But if that doesn’t work, there are other things in her tote.

I’ve been really good (well with a couple exceptions) about getting everything laid out the night before. It has really helped! Jessie has been doing lots of things and asking for them each day. Sam has been able to get through all his assignments in record time. And many of those were independent assignments so I was free to do more with Jessie. The biggest downside is that I’ve been up late doing it and I’m wearing out. Somehow I’ve got to some up with a system to make this set up streamlined. Perhaps that will come in time.

For now, I’m off to bed…

I recently came across this system on Ravelry’s Homeschooling Yarnies Forum. If you google “workbox system” you’ll find lots of links. It looks good but I’m thinking to myself, it all boils down to organization. Ugh. If I just get my ducks in a row before the day they are needed. Things will go smoother. Duh.

Previously, I’ve had most of it in HST+, the rest in my head and the supplies all over the house. Not so good when I find out that we’re out of something or something has disappeared. Also recently realized that if I’m sick, it would enable Bob to pick things up and keep going for them.

So, to that end, Jessie and Sam now have a shelf where all their work is ready and waiting for them. Sam was pretty easy since I already have most everything set up in HST+. I collected all his books, went over the assignments and printed out an assignment list. Jessie is another matter (on soooo many levels ;)). But I need to start getting her into the habits Sam has already mastered. So I’ve got a few things on her shelf to do.

Today was the first day of this revamped organization. Went really well with Sam. Not so well with Jessie. I think we were just both grumpy today. But in the end everything was done. Jessie even tried to spell her complete first name “Jessucu” was her phoenetic equivalent of Jessica. LOL! I congratulated her and figured we’ll work on the correct spelling another time.

Tomorrow is all ready to go for them both. Sam has more independent work tomorrow so maybe I can focus more on Jessie.

I think, what it all boils down to is Mom has become rather lazy. So, time to get off my duff and really dedicate myself to my work!

Day 2

Here’s the redo of what would have been the first advent stocking. Today it held bubbles, study lead on the Monroe Doctrine and an “eat out” coupon.

Sam settled on HuHot which usually I can tolerate with the help of Benedryl. Tonight however it’s taken Benedryl, GaxEx and ginger tea. Sigh. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again. :\

I’m also thinking that I won’t be able to get all 24 stockings done this year. Maybe I’ll do a few and make do with those then keep working on one a month so they’ll be ready for next year.

Found a great study tool today! Quizlet.com It links to Facebook too. A member on the Oerberg list set up a bunch of stuff there in support of Lingua Latina Familia Romana. It is free. Woot!

I am off to knit, drink tea and rest my knee.

Sam and I have spent 2 days trying to solve this and have been unsuccessful. I’m trying NOT to look in the back for the answer and reverse engineer the solution.
Here’s a picture of our white board. It seems to me we’re very close but I’m stumped on how to guide him to the answer. Any suggestions from you gentle reader are greatly appreciated!

Whiteboard notes

Here’s the text of the problem, just in case:
Each pen cost $1.20 less than each notebook. Eric bought 8 pens and 2 notebooks. If he spent $21.90 altogether, how much did each notebook cost?

Pinnacles hike

Finally found the Pinnacles youth camp area to hike around. Had to come back early but it all worked out well. Sam and I played a bit of tennis. Rather we chased the ball for an hour. I am sore and he is now snoring. LOL!

Made another loaf of WF bread today. The recipe is from Gluten Free Baking. I substituted 1/2 cup of soy flour for the same amount of brown rice flour. The bread is moist but not as firm as I want. I’m hoping for somthing as firm as the Bob’s Red Mill “Wonderful” bread mix. Still, it did not collapse completely.

I am now off to plan next week’s lessons and study Latin for a bit. Will get pictures up as soon as I can from our hike today. We will be going back there!

Oh! All 3 of our monarch caterpillars are in their beautiful chrysalis stage now. They look almost too pretty to be real. Will get pictures of those too. Next year I want to plant milkweed to see if we can attract some here too!

Jessie's new instrument

It is only Wednesday and it has already been a full week!

Jessie invented a “guitar”, painted it and explained it herself here. Too cute! This is all out-of-the-blue with no prompting or help.

Then today she proudly proclaimed, “Mommy! ‘actually’ and ‘architect’ start with ‘A’.” We’ve been working on the letter A this week and she asked (before I could suggest it) if we could make a list of A words. LOL!

Sam is pleased as punch with his progress in Latin and so am I. He even read one of the sentences from MY Latin homework: ” Periculum non parvum erat.” I only had to tell him what “erat” meant and he translated it immediately. He then suggested we put Japanese aside for now to concentrate on Latin. (insert happy homeschooling mom dance) He is also sailing through Singapore math so far!

Yesterday we accidentally went to the library book sale. Seriously. I’d forgotten about it because I’d been avoiding it for so long. (don’t look at me like that I’m being serious) Brought home some great old books… Sam picked out “Shakespeare’s Great Works” O_O and I found some really cool kids books for Jessie, like “The Alligator and the Magic Mouse”. And since alligator starts with A, it was perfect.

A visitor for story time

Oh! Today, while I was reading to Jessie a rather long rat snake peeked in the window. LOL! I really wish I could have gotten a pic of him looking in and Jess looking out.

Found some great gluten-free blogs and info this week too!

Gotta go. Sam is jonesing for the computer and I must clean so that I can dirty it again.

b'ware the minibeast!

Picked up a book from the library last week, Snails and Slugs (Keeping Minibeasts), one of many on the subject that Jessie picked out.

This one however goes into a little detail on care and feeding. So now, in addition to the dog, cat and frog… we have 3 small snails. Here is a close up of what one of them looks like. Not sure what kind it is yet.

One of my requirements for these “pets” is that they are FREE or they will BE FREED. So instead of the cuttle bone for calcium, as the book suggests, I’m using bits of well rinsed egg shell.

So far, Jessie has been quite diligent on their care and feeding. And I have to admit that I do enjoy watching them too.

So, how do I take this spur-of-the-moment project to the “next step” for a 5yo? Some kind of snail theme or something? Can’t yet decide but I’d like to do something to carry this further.

But for now, it is time for Latin.

Wheat free Dorayaki

We’re studying Japan this week and for a snack I found a recipe here that easily converted to wheat free. Mind you, I’ve never had the wheat version but found this very yummy and satisfying.

For the filling I followed the advise in the comment and only used 1 1/2 cups sugar. I think you could cut that down even more though.

Since I wanted it to be a smooth as possible, I put it in the food processor for a minute and then cooked it some more. I came out pretty smooth… for a bean paste.

For the pancakes, I replaced the wheat flower with the following combination:

• 1/4C buckwheat flour
• 2T potato flour
• 1/4C tapioca flour
• 1/4C white rice flour
• 1/4C brown rice flour

Basically it is the same ratio as I use in our regular pancakes. I followed the recipe as shown otherwise.

The result: very nice! Sam liked them but didn’t want seconds. Jessie was just not in a mood to try new foods that day. I ate 2 ’sandwiches’. O_O

Here is is Thursday of the first week of the last quarter of this school year. (lotta “of” in that sentence!) It is going very well and most importantly, the kids are having FUN! On the other hand, I am utterly exhausted staying up late to make sure I have everything printed and ready for the next day. It is clear to me that in order for me to survive the next 9 weeks, I will have to do planning in bigger chunks. Like prepping an entire week at a time over the weekend.

Why that title? That is what Jess said to me on Tuesday morning when I introduced her to subtraction. First time I’ve ever explained it to her. We used some dry kidney beans as counters. I briefly explained the concept then had to go help Sam with a math problem. while I was with Sam I heard her exclaim, “This is so easy. I love math!” And completed the remainder of the 21 problems on her own. Yeah, I’m a bit dumbfounded/elated/scared/confused/…

Sam on the other hand is picking up Latin like no body’s business. He definitely prefers the info from Judith’s lessons over Minimus. I think maybe it is just the age and hope that Jessie will like Minimus later on. I am also constantly amazed at his ability to remember his Japanese vocabulary. Ok, I am jealous too. LOL!

Aren't they cute?

Tuesday we spent some time at a friends alpaca and sheep farm (first pic). If we hadn’t been trying to get both kids there for weeks, I would have canceled trip. I am glad I did not even though we were there 2 hours longer than I’d planned.

Sam has such a way with these animals. I teased him that I’d make a farmer out of him yet. I’m only sort of kidding. He had sheep coming up to him that usually do not approach people. He loved holding the lambs as you can see in this picture. They were absolutely adorable.

We even got to herd the alpacas back into their pen. The three of us, Sam, Jess and I, just slowly walked toward them with our arms out. That was all it took. We’ll certainly be going back to help out. Such a beautiful farm and Nancy is just the sweetest person. Sam and Jess are so in love with her.

History reading

What was I talking about… Oh yeah…

History went well yesterday. Here’s a pic of Sam reading to us while I got the yuanxiao dumplings boiling. It was cute to hear Jess ooh and ahh of the pictures in the book and ask Sam questions about them. (which he answered very well)

The dumplings were fairly easy to make. I’d mixed up the dough and filling the day before. The dough needed a bit of kneeding to revive it but they worked just fine. Forming the balls takes a bit of dexterity to get the outer dough around the inner filling well enough to keep it in there during boiling. Refrigerating the filling before using it definitely is a must! Sam thought you could even use savory fillings instead if you wanted. He liked them as we made them but Jessie did not.

Oh, I used corn starch on the outside because the sweet rice dough is so incredibly sticky after boiling. If I had powdered sugar ready, I would have used that instead.

While Sam filled in the GeoScribe sheets for China, Jessie colored chinese motifs (free Dover pictures) .

We had art appreciation and drawing outside on the deck. Beautiful day! Did a few exercises from Barb’s Medieval studies pack and reviewed a Draw Squad lesson.

Today will be Earth Science, more Art Appreciation and maybe the Library again. As I was trying to get my crossing eyes and fuzzy brain to focus on the Science lessons I realized we had no books for it and I was not finding what I wanted online. My solution, introduce the concepts and take them to the library to find books on it. Have them help me find the books! Sounded good last night.

I hope this was all coherent. My brain is feeling fuzzy and sluggish but I did go to bed at a decent hour. And now my coffee cup is empty. Must remedy that.

Oh, anyone know what this is? Nancy has had it growing on her farmfor years. It looks vaguely mint like… square stems, leaves opposite and alternate. Not minty in smell…

What is this?

square stems...

yellow flower...

any ideas?