Things we talked about tonight at Grammy’s house

Ichneumon Wasps, as seen at the back door

Simon’s Cat:

Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice

I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription…is more cowbell.

TV shows and clips at Hulu.com

Wordless Wednesday

The Week in Review

Although we are secular HSers, I do love the backbone that Galloping the Globe (GTG) provides for us. It’s easy enough to drop out the materials I’d rather not use. This week we studied India. We watched some United Streaming videos about elephant riders and tigers in India, and a video-ized version of Jerry Pinkney’s edition of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. We read the info that GTG provided for us and the section on “Meena” from Children Just Like Me, and then read a few books from the library, including First Reports: India and an absolutely luscious picture book called Taj Mahal, which tells the story of the timeless love between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, for whom he built the inimitable Taj Mahal in Agra.

I almost skipped this book. I’m not sure why. I grabbed it on my way out of the library, but when I got home and had a chance to skim it, I thought it looked a bit dry for B. However, the library didn’t came through with either our copy of the Jungle Book or the National Geographic video on Bengal tigers in time, so one night I grabbed this book, and I’m so glad I did. The illustrations are just stunning—so detailed and rich—and the story is so touching. I was almost crying by the end! I definitely recommend it. This whole week really reminded me of how much I want to visit India one day.

Our FIAR book for the week was Make Way for Ducklings, in honor of spring and the fact that we’ll soon be seeing ducklings and goslings all around our area (and because there was no book that corresponded with our India study). It was another thoroughly enjoyable book and study, though B still doesn’t like reading each book more than once and will complain about it every. single. time. I keep explaining about how we learn new things each time we read a book, even if it’s one we’ve read before, but it’s not really sinking in. Ah well!

We’re back on track with math, which is still going well. We’re playing some of the games in the book, and B actually did a worksheet this week! She was getting frustrated by the end, but was quite surprised and proud of herself when I pointed out that by the time she finished the problems, she had gone from not understand and needing my prompting with each one to completing the last few with no complications at all. Once again, I feel compelled to sing the praises of Right Start!

We wrapped the week up with an meal of Indian food from one of the many local restaurants.

What you see here is pakoras (onion and spinach in a chickpea flour fritter), chappathis (a soft flatbread), palak paneer (spinach with cottage cheese in a zesty masala), aloo mutter (potatoes and peas cooked with mild spices), and paneer butter masala (cottage cheese cooked with creamy sauce), along with lots of white rice. If you look carefully, you may also see something that doesn’t belong with this meal in any way—a neatly wrapped, perfect square of AMERICAN CHEESE.

And here:

You see B, eating a chappathi laden with white rice and AMERICAN CHEESE *sigh* One of us enjoyed the Indian food very much. One of us enjoyed the flatbread and rice. And one of us enjoyed…well, the rice. It was a good effort. We’re definitely going to nosh our way through Europe, that’s for sure!

Anyway, we’re not done with India yet. We finally got the Jungle Book and What’s Their Story: Gandhi today at the library, and we’ll start those tomorrow (we have an odd schedule here, so weekends are school days for us). Next up is Israel. Potato latkes, here we come!

Meez!

Note the messy kitchen background. Yep. Just about that bad.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Well, at least I managed to keep the TV off while I cooked dinner…

Classical music for kids…and me

I recently discovered the narrated Children’s Classics series by Naxos. We have a narrated version of Peter and the Wolf that B loves, and I wondered if there were other such pieces out there. When I did a little Googling, I came up with these:

Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty
Nutcracker/Christmas Eve
1001 Nights
Swan Lake
Carnival of the Animals
Romeo and Juliet

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a US distributor, and I was so disappointed. I kept at it, though, and finally found my new favorite site: Naxos’ Classics Online. I downloaded the Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty album, and I love it! B likes it too–the Sleeping Beauty music is recognizable from the Disney movie, which helped. (Of course, J kept asking if we could “fast-forward to J music?”)

I know purists will probably hate these versions, but personally, I think anything that gets children (and me) excited about classical music is A-OK. Plus, it’s helping me keep the TV off while I cook dinner. Oh, and for the next two days, Classics Online is having a Buy One, Get One free sale—buy any complete album and you can download a free album from their “romantic” selection. I was planning to download another Childrens’ Classics album anyway, so hey–I wouldn’t turn down some more good listening, on them 🙂

And for those who might be wondering: Yes, of course I paid the full price for my download!

Wordless Wednesday (my first!)

I did it!

I made three complete lesson plans, for the next three weeks! Took me all day, but I did it 🙂 I was tempted to keep going, but I want to see how my proposed schedule works with our other commitments before I put in the extra effort. I have a feeling I front-loaded our weeks a little too much, but it’s hard to tell. Having the plans all typed out will reduce the prep I was scrambling to do each school day and leave us time for more…you know, actual schooling.

My next goal is to get something up for Wordless Wednesday.  I need to get out and get a memory card for the new Canon. Then maybe I can actually fit more than two pictures on the camera.

Weekly report, 2/8

We had a light school week this week, but a busy week nonetheless.

Monday
My cleaning/work day (my mom was here).

Tuesday
We had our HS playgroup in the morning, which went really well. I’m finally feeling like I’m connecting with a few of the other moms in our little kindergartener HS circle, and we seem to be falling into a groove with the playgroup.

Then, in the afternoon, our new mother’s helper came over for her first afternoon session. It went OK. The girls bonded to her instantly, though, and I’m terrified we’re going to have another Colleen situation (our first mother’s helper, who blew us off after a few months and just stopped calling or showing up). I’m still dealing with the fallout from that, and I’m afraid of how it will impact B if this one leaves abruptly too. I tried to prep her by explaining that we’re going to give S a try, but that she should keep in mind that S goes to school too, and that it can be very hard to work and go to school at the same time, so we have to understand if S says it turns out she can’t do both. B said that S could just do her homework when she gets here in the afternoons. I told her that S was supposed to be here to take care of her and J, and B said that she would take care of J and make sure she didn’t bother S! (That shattering noise you hear is the sound of my heart breaking *sniff*) I explained why that wouldn’t work, and she said she’d keep that fact that S was still in school in mind. Fingers crossed that this work out for us!

Wednesday
On Wednesday morning we went with J and N to see A Year with Frog and Toad, which, despite my fears to the contrary, was AWESOME. We all enjoyed it, and B, a professed Frog and Toad hater, immediately asked to collect all the F&T books we could get our hands on, LOL!

In the afternoon we did some FIAR work based on The Story of Ping, read about Marco Polo, and watched a United Streaming video about the Yangtze River (and an animated feature about Marco Polo that reinforced what we’d learned, and that allowed me to cook dinner). Now that I’m remembering to actually incorporate the video content into what we’re doing, I’m really loving United Streaming!

Thursday
The highlight of the week: DH took B into Chinatown to participate in the New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival. They had an amazing time, seeing the dragons and walking with the crowds, buying red envelopes and feeding one (with $1 inside) to a dragon, hearing the music and watching the dancing. I was so sad that I couldn’t go, but there’s no way we could have taken J–she’s easily overwhelmed by that kind of thing, and would have been utterly miserable. Instead a friend and I went to our local Scholastic book fair and scored some great stuff on the cheap.

Eh, it’ll do 🙂

Friday
We were supposed to go to a small local museum today with our HS friends, but there just wasn’t time. DH is taking the girls to his mom’s this afternoon, which should leave me enough time to do the following: finish the report I’m working on for work, clean out the pantry/storage room and put all the clothes away in the appropriate bins, finish the laundry, and FINISH THE LESSON PLANS. I find that I do much better when the plans are written out, and when they’re not, I’m completely lost in the mist. I’m going to try to do a little more work with Ping today, but I think we may have to utilize our Saturday/Sunday school days this week. Oh, and S is here tomorrow for five (count ’em: FIVE) hours, so whatever doesn’t get done today (read: lesson plans) will get done tomorrow. I’m optimistic. As always!

Dear God, I just hope we can