Fifth Weekend in a Row

Take three guesses. The first two guesses don't count!
It began snowing late last night. The forcasts first said that it would start yesterday by noon on the I-40 corridor. Then they said by 2 PM. I checked just before lighting Shabbat candles and they said it would begin by dark. But it began with a freezing fog late last night.
This morning we woke up to about 1" of new snow. The sun was vainly trying to peek out, but the clouds were lowering again over Sandia Peak as you can see in the picture above.

One person was delighted! When we returned from walking the dogs, N. was out on the driveway, checking out the speed of his new Snow "Boogie". He didn't even wait to have breakfast.

Here is N. ready to begin his run!

He is really loving this winter--which is the first real winter he has known. He was born at the beginning of the drought. Although we had a few snowstorms in the years following, there has nothing like this winter.

And he is really happy now that he has proper snow boots and a sled.

Here he comes!

Here is N. halfway down the driveway.

He is flashing a peace sign with both hands and steering with his knees.

I am sure there must be something educational about this.

Anyway, he is certainly having a lot of fun!

He really loves the speed! And the snow flying in his face.

Look out below!

Here is the big finish!

Look at this happy kid on the ground...in the snow.

He said: "Mom, we have a six inch base and one inch of powder."

I said: "You've been listening to the ski reports on KKOB."

He said: "Sponsored by Wolf Creek."

I think he could possibly have a career in radio.

Here is what it looks like now. This is the view from my dining room window.

We were advised that the wind would shift in the late morning and that the second system would move in. The wind shifted. The second system has moved in.

It has been snowing steadily since about noon.
I think we are going to have a lot more powder when this is through.

We have now had a major storm every week since December 15. This is really unprecedented for us. As I have said, we tend to measure precipitation in tenths of inches, not feet!

The Weather Forcast

You might not believe this.

We don't believe it.

But apparantly it is going to happen.

We are expecting our 5th weekend in a row of this:

Yep! It's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow here.

The higher elevations (that's us) can expect between 12 and 14 inches.

And our roads just now got cleared.

But we are aware of how lucky we are. We actually had a break. We had sub-zero temperatures during that break, but no precipitation. We are ever mindful of our midwestern bretheren and "sisteren" who are without electricity and running water due to ice storms. We read about a family in Missouri who have finally gotten their house to a relatively warm 62 degrees. We are thinking about the price of oranges, which is doubling due to a freeze in California. And we heard it snowed--that's right, S-N-O-W-E-D in Malibu. Imagine those hip California girls in bikinis and stocking caps! N. said it most succinctly: "Mom," he wanted to know, "What exactly happened to global warming?"

(Yes--there is an explanation, but why ruin such a plaintive question?)

So although we are grateful for the precipitation, we are wondering what the rest of this real, actual winter is going to be like here in the arid southwest. There are no snowboots to be had in town. No snow shovels, either. And we are used to measuring our years precipitation in 10ths of inches at a time, not feet.

But for now, I've got to run! I am going into town. I need to go for groceries--just in case! And I am going to stop at the library. I may need another thick novel to see me through this one.

Creeping Eclecticism

Slowly, we have altered how we are "doing" history. Yesterday we altered how we are "doing" science. I think we have creeping eclecticism going on here. I am still using some classical methods and I am using ancient history as the theme for our unit study, but I am altering the process by which we study.

When I started this Homeschooling journey, I began by planning an ambitious schedule according to one method: Classical Homeschooling. However, almost immediately, I made some changes. We are Jewish, so I began ancient history with a Jewish history spine. Jewish history is actually a very good way to focus all of world history because Jews have been around for a long time and have encountered most of the western civilizations in that time.

However, when we started, I did history with the recommended text, the Kingfisher Atlas of World History. I added James Michener's The Source as a supplementary text and we have been reading it aloud. I am still using Kingfisher and I am having N. do some outlining--but we are doing less of it and I am choosing the parts we read with more care. We did Ancient Egypt and now we are doing Ancient Greece and Rome. Instead of following every chapter of Kingfisher, N. and I are focusing on the shifting centers of Jewish civilization and the impact that our people have made on western civilization. We are keeping up the timeline but we are outlining less and discussing more. This fits better with N.'s learning style.

We finished reading the first 10 chapters of The Source in January. The first chapter tells the story of an achaeological dig in Israel, commenced in 1964 at a fictional location called Tel Makor (The Source) in the Galilee in Israel. Michener then tells a very well researched story of the history of the Jewish people by centering the story of each chapter around a particular artifact found at Tel Makor. Some of the information is out of date, but that is easily corrected and the stories are compelling.




Today, we decided that N. would draw the artifacts discovered by the fictional archeologists at Tel Makor, and explain how they relate to the ancient history of the land of Israel. Although the stories are fiction, the artifacts themselves can all be seen in various museums in Israel. N. traced three of the nine, expanded their size and then wrote a short caption below each in which he tells what each one is, the approximate date at which it was deposited, and what it tells us about the history of Israel. To the right is a picture of N. cutting paper for his drawings. The Source is open before him.








To the left is N.'s drawing and explanation for the artifact described in the chapter "An Old Man and his G-d," which is about the initial conquest of the Caanan by the Hebrews between the time of Abraham and our later adventures in Egypt. He did drawings of the artifacts for the first two chapters as well.

The caption reads: Two clay pots made in ~ 1419 B.C.E. They were damaged by fire. They are evidence of the Israelit(e) conquest of Caanan.

I think it was important to choose a path and make plans for how we would do homeschooling. It is important to have a plan if only so that it may be altered as needed. The plan gives structure and direction. However, it is also really important for parents and child(ren) to collaborate on how best to manage the process so that the goals of education are reached. I like the intellectual rigor of the classical method of education. However, there are other important human characteristics that have to be nurtured as well. What about the spiritual and social and emotional needs of the child? I have been looking at ways to incorporate methods that address these needs as well.

I have ordered a book on the Waldorf method. I do not like everything about it. The narrow focus on Christian holy days and celebrations would not work for us. However, I do like the emphasis put on the times and seasons of human life and on community. These can be used in concert with the classical intellectual rigor to meet the needs of my particular child.

Over the past six months, I have had good days and bad. I have had worries about whether I was doing the right thing. However, the beauty of teaching my son myself is that I can adapt the curriculum to his needs instead of trying to change him to fit the curriculum. This is not news--it is supposedly the premise of IDEA and special education. However, the increasing rigidity of the current school reform makes it impossible to really carry out this ideal. Homeschooling is making my son into an autonomous learner--he has a say in what and how he is learning. And it is making me into the teacher that I always wanted to be!

Busy Day--but the Home School Carnival is UP!

Today we had one of those days that required much time away from the computer.

I had a parent conference call with Dr. Florance in New York.
N. had his Homeschooling Science Class at the Explora Museum.
We had to eat lunch and run to Borders where DH would meet us to take N. home because...
I had my first class of the new university term: Special Education Law.

More details tomorrow!

BUT--I have something to share anyway: The new Carnival of Homeschool # 55: Parents Meeting is up at Dewey's Treehouse . Get a cuppa and enjoy!

And thanks to Mama Squirrel over there in the Treehouse! She helped me increase my Geek Index by teaching me how to do a fancy link.

Spring 2001 Term Started Today!

...And it was a pretty good start!

N. grumbled a bit when I shook him awake at 7:30.
He was drowsy at the breakfast table--but who wouldn't be? The outside temperature was -1.5 degrees F.

He perked up when we prayed the morning service. I let him lead today even though he still uses the Shabbat nusach (tunes). Tomorrow, I will take charge so that he can learn the weekday nusach and so that I can shorten the service to a manageable time.
After the service, I asked him to collect his dirty clothes before we started math. (He left some things out as I discovered when I went to sort them).

Math was LONG! There is a lot to do with Saxon and it took him 20 minutes to practice 100 simple division problems--even though he had the Times Table Grid right in front of him!
He was easily distracted and the dogs kept barking at some MLK day skiers who were cavorting in our meadow. I chalked it up to first day back after the Bar Mitzvah and a break. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. However, it was nearly 11 AM by the time we got done with Math.

I sorted the laundry while he did the Lesson practice sheet. I noticed that there were some missing socks from his skiing trip--so when he finished and checked his work, I had him do a "redo!" on the dirty clothes gathering. This time, we got it all.

After the "redo," we did our first activity for Brain Engineering. In this one he had to find 17 hidden pictures in a picture puzzle. As he circled each one, I dropped a coin into a cup. This is supposed to help him connect his "Opticoder" (that part of the brain that processes visual information) with his "Lexicoder" (that part of the brain that processes verbal information). He did this readily in a little less than 3 minutes. He wanted to do more of that--he felt very successful with the hidden pictures after having a difficult math morning.

However, he had an appointment with his room! I gave him a trash bag and told him to go through his room and pick up every piece of trash. "Trash in the trash bin, on the floor, under the bed, in the closet, on his desk, under his desk and in his book crates." He pointed out that I forgot to mention the trash on his night table and under it, but cheerful did the job. His room was a royal mess due to having his cousins sleeping in it last week--but after 15 minutes of "trash detail" it looked considerably better! (I was happy that pointed out my omission because it means that he is "getting multi-step directions).

After "trash detail," N. took the dogs for a (short) walk--it was only 17 degrees F outside, and nobody wanted to be outside very long. While they were out, I made hotdogs for lunch.

After lunch, we began reading "Black Ships Before Troy" together. I find it easiest to get him to read some of the literature that goes with the Ancient History spine, by reading it together. He has one book and I have another. I read aloud most of the time and sometimes he does. Reading aloud is difficult for him, although his Bar Mitzvah gave him a significant boost in ease and confidence. We talk about the story as we go along, giving N. a chance to identify important characters and events that move the story along.

When we were finished reading, N. and I loaded Word Roots A1 onto the computer. This program is from Critical Thinking Press. We had begun last fall with the workbooks--but N. hates workbooks! I think this goes back to third grade, when he called his teacher "the ditto queen" and claimed that she "worshipped at the altar of the Xerox machine." (This is what comes of reading the Torah to your child with emphasis and meaning!) At NAGC in November, I visited the Critical Thinking Press booth and purchased the Word Roots series for computer. So anyway, N. worked happily away on the computerized version, in which he is building a city out of bricks made from Latin roots.

Now he is writing Thank-You notes to people who gave him giftes for his Bar Mitzvah. I gave him a template:

Dear _________________,

Thank you very much for the _________________________. (e.g. check for
$18.00). I plan to ______________ with it. I was happy that you joined
me for my Bar Mitzvah.

Sincerely,
N.
When I checked his first cards, I noticed that he wrote the message on the back of the card instead of inside of it. I corrected that, but I left his other innovation alone. He was putting a smiley face instead of sincerely! (Anything to get out of writing more words!). N. has great difficulty with writing out anything by hand, much preferring to use Microsoft Word (TM)). But Thank-you notes must be handwritten! (We discussed the meaning of the word etiquette). So he will do 5 a day--I will address them for him because the envelopes are so small and his printing is so big. (He is much better at cursive--but refuses to use it! Go figure).

Soon, we will watch a video about Ancient Greece from the Wonders of the Ancient World series.

For tomorrow, I have to figure out how to add a 1.5 hour phone conference at 8:30 AM to our schedule. That is the weekly Brain Engineering "Ask the Doc" session. Unfortunately, I think I will have to get up half-an-hour early (6:00 instead of 6:30 AM) so that we finish the morning service BEFORE 8:30 AM. Then I can start him on his Math and Logic work. We can check the work after the conference. OY! One point for homeschooling was that I could rise a little later in the morning! Like at twilight instead of full dark. Well.

Four Weekends in a Row...

Last night, when I went to sleep shortly after midnight, it was clear above, I could see Orion and Canis Major in the southwestern sky, and the temperature was 37 degrees F.

This morning, I woke up to 2 and 1/2 inches of new snow, wind and a temperature of 15.1 degrees F. Although they had predicted some snow, I thought we had escaped this one.

Look at our street, unplowed, but you can see our footprints as the dogs and I returned from our walk.
South Mountain is gleaming beneath the clouds in the middle left of the picture.

To the right is a picture of the snow blowing at the top of the drive, as we returned from our walk. It was a cold walk, but the front porch bench area was actually warm from the sun hitting the outside wall of the house. I sat comfortably to take off my boots and soak up some rays--but the air temp was well below freezing.

So far, it has snowed here every weekend since December 21st! We really need it, but, oy! the shoveling! I am trying to persuade DH Bruce to get a snow blower. He says we're not old yet and we need the exercise. :)

In other good news, the Bears won today against Seattle, 27 - 24 in overtime. I am not much of a sports fan, but I do follow my Bears and Cubs. So far, the Cubs have managed never to go to the World Series in my lifetime. But the Bears did go to the Superbowl in 1985. They could go again. Along with the Whitesox, the Bears give this Illinois girl some hope.

They still haven't plowed our road, so I took the opportunity of being alone in the house to vacuum the bedroom, wash our bedding and dust and vacuum the living room. Tomorrow, the spring term begins at Los Pecos Homeschool and at the university.

Just me and the girls...

Today it has been just me and the girls!

Aren't they cute? They are currently sleeping on "their" daybed here in my office as I write. (They posed for their picture in the dining room).

The men in my life are at Angel Fire with the boy scouts, skiing, tubing and (snow) boarding. They are also freezing--the cold snap made it into northern NM today, but it is still above freezing here in the partly-cloudy center of the sunny southwest!

I was feeling that post-major event letdown today. Haven't had much energy. So I went into town and got my toes done. I also bought Loreena Mckennitt's new CD An Ancient Muse. I had Thai food with my daughter. She told me to leave the porch light on for her. That means she'll be home late. I'll be asleep. Funny, but today seemed like a quiet Holy Shabbat and last week was such a joyous, noisy one. We get approximately 52 Shabbatot a year--and each one is a little different!

We will be starting back with the routine on Monday. My university classes start on Tuesday. I am taking a course in Special Education Law and one in Neurobiology. I am not ready! Oh, I am so not ready for the daily round to begin again. But at the same time I know that it needs to or my energy crisis will continue indefinitely! Spring term--here we come!