“Chinese people are great, Momma. And we are just silly.” Ezra announced earlier this year that he is going to go to college in China and then live in Argentina, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear of his admiration for the Chinese. But I was surprised to hear him call Americans silly. “Why are we silly?” “Because Chinese people do everything without wasting any electricity and we waste so much energy.” He was impressed with the Yin Yu Tang... Read more
Today when Christina walked in, she saw Ezra sitting upside down on the couch. In his underwear. Zach was under the coffee table. Using it for leg presses. Where was I? Sitting between them talking about oracle bones from ancient China like it was the most normal thing in the world. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was sitting between them pretending that it was normal and that I didn’t feel like screaming. I’m trying this new thing – of... Read more
Chili’s in the pot, Jeff is in NH, and the boys are staging intergallactic battles. Time for three random thoughts. Many people (relative to the small numbers who read this site) have asked for pictures. I will start posting pics this week, beginning with the salt and flour maps. Isn’t whipped cream just amazing? I mean it starts out a liquid and without adding chemicals or freezing it, it becomes a solid. Very, very cool. Finally, a former professor of... Read more
I always had the best salt and flour maps. So did my sisters. And not just a little better than the other kids. Our salt and flour maps were the Harvard of relief maps compared to the community college crap my classmates tried to pass off. Everyone else carried theirs in on little pieces of cardboard they had torn off the back of a construction paper pad. We had to be driven in to school on delivery day because our... Read more
One of the best things about sending my kids to school was that I could run errands in peace. (I could also go back to bed with Jeff, who works from home many mornings, but that’s a whole different post – let’s call it The Effects of Homeschooling on Marital Relations.) If I want to run an errand by myself now, I have to miss some work, run them after 6 pm, or end school early and leave the boys with... Read more
“What did you have for breakfast this morning? Did you have a bunch of syrup?!!” “What time did you get up? Were you two up talking all night?!!” I was on the warpath this morning, trying to figure out why the kids were behaving so badly. Was it sugar? Lack of sleep? Oh wait. I went to bed late after having a big piece of ice cream cake. It’s starting to make sense. Read more
Today, November 2, is known as Day of the Dead in Mexico. It coincides with the Catholic holiday, All Soul’s Day. It’s a day of celebration in Mexico and is celebrated by many Mexican Americans as well. Last year, our boys went to a Spanish bilingual school. Each year, they celebrated Day of the Dead, and because I have a terrible memory, each year it caught me off guard. Two years ago, I walked into Zach’s kindergarten room and was... Read more
They didn’t touch any of the paintings. They didn’t hit each other. They didn’t get ink all over themselves. And Ezra didn’t swear once all morning. Our first day of the at the Museum of Fine Arts last month was a success. So were the next two meetings. And so was the three-day family art class we took last week. Each time I take them out in public, I read them the riot act. Who knew that art classes would... Read more
It was suggested by a friend that I take a day off from the blog. Actually, she suggested that I stay off the computer all together on Saturdays. Well, okay, it was suggested by God first. Sort of. I mean who knows if He would have made an exception for Hulu if you could have gotten better reception in the desert back then. But I was heading for computer addiction before the blog. And now I’m on it all the... Read more
Whew. A week of reading the work of Ellen Galinsky and Charlotte Mason. A week of writing about them and how they connect to what we are trying to pull off at home. And a week of putting up material for the Curriculum section of this blog. I feel like I just turned in my dissertation. I put up three different resources under the Curriculum page: The China Unit – A description of activities and resources we’re using to study... Read more
The Homeschool Chronicles
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