David's Home Next Year

For the past two days, we have driven back and forth to Charleston, SC, where David stayed overnight at his number one pick for college: The Citadel, a military college with a long tradition, longer than my alma mater (United States Naval Academy). Steve and I figured that one of two things would happen: David would come home (1) fired up to put on the uniform of a cadet or (2) wondering what on earth he had been thinking. He ended up being the former and even shaved his head last night! We snagged these photos from The Citadel Admissions Facebook page.




The pre-knob visit not only held David captive with programs, classes, and experiences for 23 hours but it also provided the parents with presentations on what parents need to know to get students prepared to become cadets. David has his head and heart set on Marine ROTC and, in the next few months, he will continue to drive up the number of pullups and crunches he can do and drive down his three-mile run time. Actually, he can already pass the PFT's minimum standards but he wants to be competitive for the three-and-a-half year Marine ROTC scholarship and must work hard to be one of the few and the proud. He is excited, and we are excited for him. Ultimately, it is his choice. Nobody wants to be stuck in a place like that unless they really want to be there. I know from personal experience of having seen the most miserable human beings on earth: kids attending USNA to please their father and grandfather who were both graduates.


My biggest challenge is not to call cadets David will bring home on weekends "bus drivers" . . . gotta love the military college rivalries!

P. S. The folks at The Citadel told us this was their largest pre-knob visit ever, which makes sense since last summer saw its highest number of applicants ever.

Snoopy Dancing, or Guess Who Just Got Nominated for Palmetto Boys State?

Congratulations, David!

We are so proud of you for getting nominated--one out of seven juniors from your high school--for such a prestigious camp this summer. Together, we built the foundation through our many years of homeschooling. This year, your first year in high school, you remained true to yourself and maintained your character!

"Only boys with outstanding qualities of leadership, character, scholarship, and loyalty and service to their schools and community should be considered." PBS

"Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; a character, reap a destiny." Many sources

"'Sow an act,' we are told, 'reap a habit.' 'Sow a habit, reap a character.' But we must go a step further back, we must sow the idea or notion which makes the act worth while." Charlotte Mason

"Provide a child with what he needs in the way of instruction, opportunity, and wholesome occupation, and his character will take care of itself: for normal children are persons of good will, with honest desires toward right thinking and right living." Charlotte Mason

Whatever Happened to David G? Part II

Before I cover the results (or grades--what most people want to know), I wanted to talk about the transition itself. Homeschooling in a rural town with few homeschoolers and people who don't get homeschooling, much less a Charlotte Mason philosophy, was not easy on either of us. Last April, when the opportunity to travel to Minnesota arose, David joined me and spent time with his friends there. We realized how much we missed co-oping with other homeschoolers, talking, hanging out at the park, sharing good books, meeting at the YMCA, etc. I do not miss, however, snow and long winters.

David also attended the Teen Program at the ChildLightUSA Conference in June 2009. He was amazed to meet other teens who had read the same books, who were diverse thinkers, who understood his perspective. They immediately bonded, and he told me that he felt like he had known them all of his life. The program, developed and administered by and for teens, included talks led by a professor about the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Beatles monopoly games at night, Shakespeare readings (the Pyramus and Thisby scene was a riot from what I heard), Jane Austen tea, nature walks, a musical theory class, a tour of GWU's theatrical department, etc.

One night, a couple of parents dropped in late to hear the Sherlock Holmes reading. We looked at each other puzzled for a few minutes because the tale was much creepier than any of us had recalled. We were relieved with they explained that they had switched at the last moment to Edgar Alan Poe's The Black Cat. The most fun I had was dropping in on their Jane Austen dance lessons (yes, parents were invited). The teens who planned the conference watched Pride and Prejudice so carefully they learned the dances and were able to teach it to others. We practiced for an hour, headed back to the apartments, and dressed as best we could for the impromptu ball. Next June, I think I'll play hooky from being an adult and go to the Teen Conference instead!

The six-week marching band camp that started in July allowed David to make friends before school started. He got to know the building and established a rapport with the band director, who ended up teaching one of David's elective classes (percussion). Because David adjusted well to the discipline of the band, push-ups and all, he developed a reputation for being a respectful student. Since the music they rehearsed did not include electric guitar parts, he enjoyed being able to create his own part. When he wasn't at band camp (five hours a day), he hung out with his cousin Jose, who stayed with us for two weeks before starting college.

Tomorrow, I will wrap things up with the results of David's first semester in school away from home. For now, I will close with an anecdote about what we did on his between semester break. David had a chance to meet up with his ChildLight friends (who keep in touch on Facebook). One played one of the Major-General's daughters in a full-blown, stage production of The Pirates of Penzance. Except for one dearly-missed family from Oklahoma, we were all able to converge on Charlotte and, after the performance, we headed to the star of the show's home. I am not sure what time he went to bed but I know David had a blast getting caught up with his friends.

I have loved Gilbert and Sullivan ever since playing Peep-Bo in The Mikado, and Steve caught the bug after seeing the movie Topsy-Turvy. (He really couldn't help it for it's in his blood. His British grandmother and aunts used to sing in Gilbert and Sullivan productions before his mother left England and met Steve's father in Central America.) We attended a HMS Pinafore concert in which singers wore the costumes, but nothing was staged. The music was great, but it is not the same as seeing whole enchilada: dancing, acting, sets, props, etc. Even Pamela loved Penzance: she loved the pirates and thought the giggling girls (part of every Gilbert and Sullivan production) were hilarious. She laughed at one of the anachronistic gags--the pirates stealing valuables from the Major-General's home managed to cart off a laptop! Pamela loved the plot twist revolving around her favorite topic, leap year.

Whatever Happened to David G? Part I

Since the summer, I have been rather quiet about our son David. Don't let the forced perspective photograph fool you. He was not captured by a giant!

Exactly a year ago, David asked us to attend school away from home. While I was not thrilled at the idea, we realized that he would be seventeen by the time school started in the fall of 2009. He was old enough to make a decision like that. So, we laid down firm guidelines to get him ready for the transition:

• He took two homeschooling co-operative classes (writing and conversational Spanish) to prepare him for a classroom setting and different teachers. (The reason we have not attended co-ops since we moved here is that it required a 45-minute drive, one-way.)
• He needed to finish Algebra II and chemistry, his least favorite subjects, without acting like he was walking the Bataan death march.
• He had to man up on chores around the house and yard work. Prior to this, he dawdled and piddled even when given an agreed-upon wage.
• Even though he was going into senior year, we wanted him to start as a junior to take off the pressure of having to everything in one year.
• We would not ever wake him up for school or help him keep track of his stuff. It was his responsibility to know where he had to be, when he had to be there, with the stuff he needed.

I thought those requirements stringent enough to dampen his ardor for school, but David surprised me. We saw a complete change in his attitude, and he showed us more autonomy and discipline than we had ever seen. He whipped through math and chemistry almost at the speed of light. During the summer, we had his eyes checked and he needed glasses (very mild issue unlike his mother who is legally blind without her specs). He saw the dentist and doctor since we would no longer have the luxury of scheduling appointments whenever.

We got him current on the bare minimum shots, and he only needed the MMR. Even though David did not react to vaccinations like his sister did, we were still cautious enough to say no to anything not required. And, boy, did I have to stand up to the nurse. His shot record clearly showed that he had three out of three required HepB at birth, one-month, and two-months of age. Unfortunately, they dated the first one as "at birth." Because the record did not state the actual date, she wanted to redo that. The nurse actually made a long-distance phone call to her supervisor in Columbia to get the okay to approve. Did they understand they were dealing with a Warrior Mom who had survived twenty years in the trenches of autism? I won, of course!

We quickly ruled out the local private school in town. While David was technically born in the south, southern Louisiana is unlike Carolina. He spent most of his life in the land of Yankees, cowboys, Native Alaskan fishermen, and MinneSOta nice. From personal experience, he had already figured out that his gypsy ways and nonconformist thinking would not bode well in a conformity machine of jocks, hunters, preps, and beauty queens. So, we opted for the public school where the population is diverse enough to accept him for the person he is.

We set up an appointment with the principal who runs a tight ship. He gave us a tour of the school and pointed out that block scheduling allows students to carry everything they need in a backpack. After the principal banned lockers, excuses to be roaming the halls melted away and so did forty percent of their disciplinary problems. Although we live in a small town, the school has the same problems as other public schools (occasional fights, gangsta-wanna-bees, and drugs). That worried us a little bit, but we knew that David's strong-will and resistance-to-conformity would be our ace in the hole. He had never been a risk-taker and had shown great respect for authority in following the transition plan we had outlined earlier. By the way, I asked him the other day if he had ever seen a kid pushed through a plate-glass window in a school fight and he had not. Thus, my junior high school was more violent than his high school!

We found a couple of advantages to the plan. Our town has Christian learning centers adjacent to all schools. When parents grant permission, children may take Bible studies for credit (ancient history, for example). He would have access to the vocational school for computer classes and AP classes in his senior year. David has always loved music and our church lacked a forum for his skills on the electric guitar (mainly, self-taught). The school band was the only high school band from our state to march in the inaugural parade last winter. Their hard-working band director had impressed me at community events with the band's musicianship, responsiveness, and discipline. Having sung for many fabulous directors, I recognized someone who had something to teach. Even if David got nothing out of school, he could learn a lot from this man, and maybe even get a band scholarship for college!

We enrolled him in band camp, and he spent six weeks in the heat of a Carolina summer, learning to march, work with other guitarists, etc. Whenever they messed up or disobeyed, the director had them on the ground doing push-ups. Instead of getting annoyed, especially when he had to do push-ups because of someone else's error, he laughed it off. As a veteran of push-ups myself, it did my heart good to see David drop 'em and do twenty at the end of practice!

No, this is not his first day of school! I mightily resisted taking a picture of my "little" boy for his first day of school photo! He wore a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers like the rest of the kids. That happens to be during Spirit Week in which the juniors dressed for success!

How did he do in his first semester? That is upcoming in this blog series!

MinneSOta--Or What I Have Been Doing Instead of Blogging

Things got really busy after my sister Pam left town. The next day (April 2), David--pictured in what we call the Purple Haze underground tunnel at the airport in Detroit--and I flew to MinneSOta and returned home Sunday night (April 5). I spent the next two-and-a-half days recovering and doing spring cleaning because Steve's parents hit town Wednesday (April 8) and are staying here with us through Monday (April 13).

I met my friend Renee Thursday night, who kindly whisked David off to St. Cloud, where we lived for two cold, but awesome years. I had a quiet night at a very nice hotel with everything from lavender spray for the linens to guarantee a good-night sleep to a white noise CD and a Select Comfort bed--my sleep number is 35 by the way. I slept so well that I almost believe the advertising!

David spent Friday kicking back with his friend Stuart (Renee's son), while Renee, Lisa (another St. Cloud friend), and I attended the MACHE conference, where I made two Charlotte Mason presentations. How did a gal from Carolina end up in MinneSOta? Well . . .

At last June's Charlotte Mason conference, I met a lovely couple from Minnesota who had asked me to speak at the Mache conference: one topic for general audiences on Charlotte Mason and the other topic for special needs parents. I ended up condensing what I presented at last years' CM Conference into two presentations:

The Transforming Power of Relationships and Ideas – Learn how to individualize teaching for your "individual" child through Charlotte Mason’s ideas on narration, thought-life, changing thoughts, fostering problem solving, warm relationships, and imagination. It will include slice-of-life examples drawn from teaching her own typical and atypical children on subjects such as handwriting, language arts, mathematics, art, and life skills. (Excellent for parents of children who struggle to learn.) Handouts are available, and audio should be already available soon (MACHE 2009 St. Paul). Video clips used are as follows:
Talking about Glue
The First Lord's Prayer
The Second Lord's Prayer
Christmas Present
Problem Solving
Goofy Girl Narrates
Program Princess

My Child Is a Person, Not a Disability – Learn how to provide the child with special needs with the right amount of support – without smothering him – by adapting to his developmental level, building mutual trust, framing real-life activities around objectives, and tweaking the amount of support. It will expand Charlotte Mason’s ideas from the previous workshop for parents with special kids. Handouts are available, and audio should be already available soon (MACHE 2009 St. Paul). Video clips used are as follows:
Calm Day
Mental Math
Program Princess

The folks at MACHE were kind enough to schedule both of my presentations on Friday, freeing me up to spend Friday night through Sunday morning in St. Cloud. David and I spent the evening with Eileen and her husband Tom. Unfortunately, the greasy lunch I ate at a landmark spot in St. Paul (Mickey's Diner) did not sit well with me! On the drive to St. Cloud, a killer headache and nausea descended upon me. I could hardly tolerate the crackers and juice Eileen offered me as we caught up on our lives. I figured a good night sleep would restore me back to health. DID NOT! Eileen invited me on a quick trip to the brand new Coburns and I thought I would be okay. WAS NOT. I could barely keep up with her when I suddenly felt flush and dizzy and headed to the front of the store in case I needed a fast exit. When we got back to her place, I sat down on the couch and leaned my head back. Suddenly, a tsunami of nausea hit me, and I ran to the bathroom. It was awful and awesome at the same time. As soon as I hurled, I felt like myself again and managed to choke down a piece of dry toast and Advil. All systems were normal for the rest of the day!

David and I met our friends Heidi and Maxim at the brand-spanking new Great River Regional Library. Heidi gave us the grand tour, and we were very impressed with the coffee shop, the book sorting machine, and the used bookstore. The children's section is larger than the library we have in our rural town in Carolina! The elevator and multiple meeting rooms (with jam-packed schedules) are see-through. We recognized some familiar faces from the many days we spent at the old library, which is nothing but a shell, waiting to be demolished during Minnesota's construction season.


Then, we headed over to the deli where Heidi's daughter works and ate a delicious lunch--my first real meal in over twenty-four hours! Another family of friends showed up and David and I basked in the joy of friendship. We got all caught up on the goings on in St. Cloud before we headed off to to take pictures of our favorite haunts for Pamela. The road construction was absolutely AWFUL--especially the bridge that Minnesota shut down after their whirlwind inspection tour after the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis fell in 2007.



David and I headed back to Renee's Saturday night and spent the evening hanging out with her family. Several things surprised me about St. Cloud. I thought I would be colder, which leads me to conclude that surviving a cold winter in a poorly insulated house is not much different from living in Minnesota! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed meandering conversations with people who read books (I came home with a book on Chesterton), feed birds in their yard, walk everywhere, talk about their faith, etc. Everything looked dull and brown, compared to the glorious colors of the dogwoods, azaleas, wisteria, daffodils, irises, and other things blooming where we live right now.

I showed two of my friends recent video of Pamela, and they helped me understand how far she has come in the past four years! One friend told me the thing she remembered most vividly about Pamela was how she got in these perseverative conversations, and my friend had no idea what she was talking about. It was really hard to engage with her. She saw the videos and marveled at how the stim talk is nearly gone and how well Pamela engages with us, especially the referencing and joint attention. My other friend was ticked to death at all of Pamela's newfound facial expressions and gestures. She could not believe how much Pamela has improved in her ability to communicate through nonverbals!

Overall, we had a blast in MinneSOta! If it weren't so cold there, I would move back in a heartbeat!

Wordless Wednesday: Male Bonding (Wild Game Supper and Oil Filter Change)

County Champs!

Tonight was David's last soccer game for the year. He did not start playing soccer until three years ago. He has been playing on the same team for our county recreational league since we moved here: the first year they won, last year they lost, and this year they won again (there are three teams). The first two years, David played defense, but this year, his coach moved him up to midfield! He started out the year playing the mininum required quarters (two), but tonight he played all four quarters--I was so excited for him! He is definitely more aggressive with going after the ball and has enough control to pass it to other players. He does not have the skill of the teammates who probably started handling a ball as soon as they could walk, but he has made great progress in the past three years.

Tonight the weather was brutally cold: my car said 38 degrees Fahrenheit, but, according to weather.com, that felt like 32 because of the mild wind. As you can see, I bundled up and am so thankful for the alpaca poncho that Steve bought for me on his first trip to Chile. I was fairly warm with all of the layers (three pairs of socks, one of which was thermal). But, still . . . it's cold out there and the weatherguessers are predicting freezing cold temperatures tonight!

Wordless Wednesday: My Baby's Practicing for the SAT

The First Commandment of Chemistry Class

David, who just turned sixteen and is over six feet tall, is acting more mature and taking on more responsibility. He actively seeks chores to make a few bucks. He goes on all-day work days with the youth group and has done mission projects in which they repair houses. He is teaching himself the electric guitar (my poor ears). His abstract thinking skills have finally kicked in so Latin, logic, grammar, and math is finally clicking. Instead of waiting around for us to get a cell phone (I don't have one by choice, why should he?), he got a track phone and purchased minutes for it. He is very proud of the fact that he pays for his own cell phone. Maybe if I wait long enough, he'll buy his own car.

Just when I finally started sleeping at night . . . David violates the first rule of chemistry.

No, he did not start a fire with the alcohol burner.

I didn't even need to use the fire extinguisher that I had on standby.

He didn't even kill the parakeet with toxic fumes.

And, what is the first commandment?

Thou shalt not wield thy thermometer liketh a lightsaber!

At least, a brand-spanking new Celsius thermometer is fairly cheap with inexpensive shipping.

I assume the broken one contained alcohol, not mercury, as there was no warning label . . . I don't think I saw any quicksilver on my kitchen floor. . .

Aut-2B-Home in Bed!

On Sunday, David started getting sick. He spent a good part of Monday and Tuesday, sleeping and feverish. Because David is not the kind of teen who sleeps in until noon on Saturdays, I knew he was not pulling a Ferris Bueller on me.

I had my miserable turn on Thursday. I spent all day in bed, sleeping. Every inch of my body ached: head, throat, muscles, joints, face, teeth, gums. I alternated between sweating and chills. About every hour, I woke up, grabbed some water, went to the bathroom with my head spinning, and headed right back to bed. I slept around the clock and ate practically nothing! Friday, I slept about two-thirds of the day and managed to get down some sherbet and fruit popsicles; yesterday, I took it easy and ate about half the amount of food I normally do. If that was not the flu, then it was a pretty nasty imitation of it.

Unfortunately, Pamela is taking her turn today. This morning, she wrapped herself in a blanket like a burrito and told me, "I feel bad. I need to go to the hospital." She never expresses any desire to see a doctor for any reason. Pamela is the most stoic person when it comes to being sick. She normally exclaims, "I'm not ill," while her sneezing and coughing give her away. I touched her burning forehead and knew exactly how horrible she felt. While I was at church, she threw up and sat on the back porch rocking. When Steve came home from his run, she told him, "I threw up on the bed." Then, she laid on the floor of the back porch soaking up some deliciously warm sunshine before heading back to bed.

What did we do to treat our symptoms? Nothing. I'm one of those oddities who believes that, assuming you have a healthy immune system, the best thing you can do is help your body fight it. Drink lots of water. Rest. Drink more water. Rest. Drink juice if you tolerate it. Did I say rest? When you can finally eat again, have some chicken soup or fruit popsicles for that sore throat. Yes, it is tough and painful, but we have not had problems with bronchitis, lingering congestion, or pneumonia since we started doing this. (We do not have a history of asthma or immune system issues that would preclude the no-pain, no-gain school of treating the flu.) I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on television.

FUN with Essays (Yes, FUN)

My revised introduction to essays plan worked like a charm! David enjoyed it immensely. Here is what we did last week:

Day One:
I printed out three things:

• Twenty definitions of the elements of an essay (introduction, grabber (attention getter), thesis statement, etc.) from Essay Architect,
• Flow chart from Essay Architect, and
  
• Sample essay (The Hazards of Movie Going).

I explained the importance of being able to write an essay (namely, the SAT and college). Then, we worked together to read the sample essay and circle and/or discuss the twenty elements. I told him he would have quizzes on the definitions and flow chart from Essay Architect later in the week.

Day Two:
Day One's essay was somewhat informal to ease David into the topic, so I printed out an academic essay comparing the writing styles of Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe. I guided David through the process of identifying the elements of an essay.

Day Three:
I printed out two easy essays for David to try one his own. The first essay tries to convince the read that cats are man's best friend (HA!), while the second one was David Kees' vent, dripping with irony, about the pitfalls of the five-paragraph essay. The latter was written poorly on purpose to mock badly written essays turned in by high schoolers. David laughed the entire time while he identified the elements and listed the missing elements. He snickered at figuring out the writer had cut and pasted the thesis statement from the introduction into the conclusion.

Day Four:
I printed out a blank flow chart (the first quiz), and David filled it out perfectly! I gave him two essays from 2007's SAT: one with a score of one and another with the maximum score of six. We discussed the stark contrast between the two essays. Again, the poorly written essay made David chuckle and gave him insight about what to avoid: misspell words, give no details, follow no structure, vaguely ramble on about your point, etc.

Day Five:
I gave David the blank definition sheet and assigned him copywork for the elements of an essay. The quiz requires him to match the elements with their definitions. Now, that he has a working knowledge of the elements, the wording is more likely to stick. Then, I gave him the quiz and he passed with flying colors!

I want to make a point here about the difference between oral lessons and Charlotte Mason style teaching. While I like the graphic organizers in Essay Architect, I find the lessons plans typical of mind-numbing oral lessons eschewed by Charlotte. My rational was to give David a working knowledge of the twenty elements by applying them to real essays. Having to reproduce his understanding of these elements is a form of narration. Our discussions about the various essays and their elements was also narrating what we knew. I did not have him copy any definitions until he had a working knowledge of essays and their elements because he needed prior knowledge to make more solid and lasting connections. He did not study at all for either quiz, and he aced them both! Why? We narrate and then we know!

And the Winner Is . . .

ME?

Some of the blogs I read occasionally link to contests. On December 13, one click of a mouse whisked me off to the 12 Blogs of Christmas Contest sponsored by Homeschool E-Store. To win a $50.00 coupon for homeschooling E-products, all I had to do was leave a caption for an old-time photograph of some unhappy children dressed like native Americans that answered the question, "So tell me, what are these homeschool children thinking?" The esteemed judges (the Simple Folk family) would choose the wittiest entry. I spent all of about two seconds and wrote, "Not another unit study!" Nine days later, imagine my excitement when I read the following comment on my blog.

I just wanted to let you know that you have won "The Twelve Blogs of Christmas" contest! You'll be receiving a $50.00 gift certificate from HomeschoolEstore. Please email me at SimpleFolkBlog AT aol DOT com and I'll get the coupon code to you. Thanks for participating and have a very Merry Christmas!

I smugly congratulated myself for thought of as witty by a bunch of kids. It took me awhile to puzzle through what SimpleFolkBlog AT aol DOT com meant. The post announcing the winner at SimpleFolks sufficiently deflated my pride . . .

Oh my, we had fun with this contest. There were 35 witty, creative entries in all! Because they were all so great and we could have only one winner, we decided to just pull a name out if a hat (a John Deere hat to be specific).

Oh, joy! It wasn't my natural witty and flair for cute captions. I was a number in a hat . . . But, a win is a win, so I headed off to the E-store with its huge selection of E-products to keep me puzzled for a few days!

The first thing I did was type Charlotte Mason into the search box, but nothing popped that I really needed at this advanced stage of homeschooling in which we live (think teenager-ville). The second thing I did was think about what my very unique kids need the most. My mind echoed those haunting words

SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT SAT

After yesterday's rant against standardized testing, I am about to speak out of both sides of my mouth! I do think most homeschoolers must learn to play the SAT game because, in most cases, they must score well to be accepted into their college of choice. And, while I strongly believe that reading and narrating living books is the best way to learn, students must master certain skills like the almighty essay (the new bugaboo on the SAT) or filling out multiple-guess bubbles after reading a short passage.

So, I spent my $50 coupon on David, my resident tenth-grade SAT-tester in training. I ordered Essay Architect and two Home Base English Reading Comprehension Multiple Choice files (one for ages 13-15 and another for ages 16-18). These are all PDF files which means I paid no shipping and handling fees!

This week, we started working on essays and will launch the multiple guessing stuff next week. I probably could have searched all over the Internet for the topics covered in the 104-page Essay Architect. But, the price was right! The lessons plans are very teacherese, so I am already adapting them. For example, on Day One, I am supposed to hand out a blank flow chart and a blank definition sheet with twenty terms like thesis statement and formality and expect David to fill it out while I talk; then I am to give him a two-page quiz on Day Two . . . RIGHT! I know from personal experience how inefficient pump-and-dump teaching is, especially with a big-picture, practical, kinesthetic learner like him!

So, for Week One, I am handing him an essay per day to let him identify all twenty elements from real-live essays (or dead if they are boring). I will give him the quiz on Friday, and I'll bet a cookie that he will pass with flying colors without studying! After that, I plan to teach the seven types of essays, five ways to organize flow, and the five kinds of essay prompts in the same manner for the same reason.

Beyond the vocabulary-rich world of living books, David has been studying word roots by playing the Word Roots software. While these games are not action-packed graphic-digital joy, he does not mind them because he enjoys figuring words based on roots. One less thing I have to teach face-to-face works for me. He has already finished A1 and needs to work through A2 and B1. After that, he might enjoy the highly addictive Free Rice game to practice multiple guess vocabulary words and feed the hungry all at the same time!

Then, I plan to turn his attention to some of the free special features at the College Board website. He can answer the question of the day or practice critical reading questions. They even offer free practice tests. And for a nominal fee of only $17.49 a month, he can take an online course. For a little more, we can even order the official guide to the dreaded SAT.

Speaking of good deals, freebies, and drawings, parents/homeschoolers and school teachers are eligible to win a $50.00 coupon for Critical Thinking products ONE WINNER PER WEEK EVERY WEEK THIS YEAR.

Uh, why am I telling the competition?

Abstract Thinking Cap

Both Pamela and David are concrete thinkers. That means they do much better with practical, specific things: what they can see or touch (or at least, imagine seeing or touching). When David was younger, I worried about how he would fare in high school, which requires more abstract thinking. I started breathing easier last year when the light bulb turned on, and David started getting easy A's on his Math-U-See Algebra I tests. He continues to do well in Geometry, even with the logical aspects of it. While his every day speaking and writing skills are fine, he struggled with grammar (parts of speech and their ilk) until this year! After a couple of choppy lessons to get his head into it, David is doing well with the exercises in Our Mother Tongue. But, that is not the most exciting thing!

Since David is highly random, I did not do much with outlining until this year. David is reading Part I of How to Read a Book this year and will finish it up by twelfth grade. Since this book requires slow reading and abstract thinking, I decided to slow him down by having him outline his readings, instead of doing a typical narration. We used the examples of both topical and sentence outlines described in Handbook of Grammar and Composition. I envisioned major conflicts over having to do a task requiring so much logical and sequential thinking. By week four, David started getting ahead of schedule. He outlines quite methodically, so I have complimented him on his work. This week, I told him to stop when he gets to the end of Part I and he said, "You mean we're not going to finish the book? I like outlining." Well, knock me over with a feather!

Pamela is making strides in sharing what she thinks. Last month, she told me how she broke her arm ten years ago (trying to "skate" on the wet bathroom floor). She also told me that David was the real cheese thief six years ago. Earlier today, she looked at me and said, "I'll be right back!" when she left the kitchen. She did not have to tell me that nor did she do it in stim mode.

Yesterday, while we were baking a dump cake for a BBQ party, Pamela was very natural in sharing her observations. "It's stuck" when she could not open cans with tabs and "It's ready" after the stove beeped to tell us that the temperature was right. At one point, she got giggly and I asked her, "What's so funny?" She said, "I'm thinking about You-Tube" (her favorite clips are about broken video tapes, VCRs, and DVD players). When she was retrieving melted butter in a hot measuring cup from the microwave, I offered to get it for her. She told me very firmly, "No, I'll do it!" (the same thing she said the other day when I offered to help her open a new bottle of catsup). The wonderful thing about all of these statements is that she is willingly sharing what she thinks, which is something she did not do much six months ago.

Avoid this Photoblogpost around Mealtimes!

In honor of Pamela beginning the photobiography Always Inventing, I wrote this photoblogpost about lessons learned from dissection. We have been dragging our feet on the four dissections included in the Apologia biology book for months. David and I finally mustered up the courage and just did it!

Here are my lessons learned:
1. Dissecting is not as disgusting to me as it was in high school.
2. Lighting vanilla scented candles might be the reason why.
3. Imagining you are viewing really good graphics or that the specimen is made of plastic squelches any waves of nausea.
4. The usefulness of hot, stuffy masks is inversely proportional to the time spent dissecting (see pictures four and six).
5. Sloppy cutting makes a huge mess (yes, I helped and it still was a mess).
6. Earthworm poop looks like dirt. Oh, wait, it IS dirt!