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Work in Progress Wednesday Collars for Choreography team. The rats need some new cage furniture. Boston Favorite Cake from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook.  It involves separating eggs, whipping the whites, then folding them into the batter (action shot above). Then frosted with the butter frosting we use for the Christmas cookies.  Other decorations and candles still to come.

Posted by Gail at 3:53 PM 1 comment: Labels: Crochet, Family, Rat Report, Sewing, WIP Wednesday


Science Co-op Week 5

We started off the hour with a review of Newton's first and second law (okay, actually we started off the hour with a discussion of Halloween costumes, and also the comparative advantages of various lightsabers).  I then wrote on the board the third law: For ever action there is an opposite and equal reaction.  The kids copied it onto their papers.

I had thought it would be really cool to have something like an air hockey table so we could boing the pucks around, but transporting the one from our basement wasn't a possibility (my high school physics teacher used an air hockey table under a strobe light to illustrate vectors, and I always remember that as one of the coolest things that happened in high school science).  Annabeth recalled that we had an air hover puck that had its own battery-powered motor that allowed it to "float" on any smooth surface  sort of like this one.  The room we're in for class is carpeted, so we couldn't use it on the floor.  We tried to get a little table top action, but the puck kept flying off the table; the back would pop off and the batteries would fall out.  But the kids had all seen or played air hockey before, so they had an idea off how it worked -- if 2 pucks collided they'd go zipping away in opposite directions.

Next, I had everyone put on safety glasses for our main demonstration.  The safety glasses turned out to be a Huge Deal.  First of all, one of the younger boys had to go get his own pair from his mom (I'd brought enough for everyone, but he wanted his own).  He arrived back in the class while I was explaining that our family owns so many pairs of safety glasses because we're very conscious of eye safety (and one of the girls was disclosing that her father was cutting wood over the weekend WITHOUT safety glasses, and her mom kept telling him to put them on).  The boy explained that his dad was wearing safety glasses RIGHT NOW in the lab he worked in (dad is a PhD chemist); the son was obviously really, really excited to wear glasses like his dad.  And as the class progressed one of the girls kept exclaiming, "I feel like a real scientist!"  Sort of a change of pace from working with the middle schoolers last year.  Although one of the boys in this class wore them on top of his head instead of over his eyes (I tried correcting him.  Later I saw him standing to one side rubbing his eye as though he'd bopped himself and looking like he was starting to cry.  I asked him if he'd hit his eye, and he claimed he was fine, and that he hadn't hit his eye.  I'm pretty sure he had but was afraid he'd get in trouble, or at least get a big ol' "I TOLD you to put the glasses on," and preferred to suffer alone rather than admit he'd been wrong).

Main demonstration:  Put water in a plastic film canister, put part of an Alka Seltzer tablet in water, put lid on, watch lid pop off.  A classic.

We started by just putting the Alka Seltzer in water (I used half tablets) and timing how long it fizzed -- about a minute.  Then I dumped that out, put the same amount of water in, put another half tablet, put the lid on, then started discussing something or the other (it's an enthused bunch full of ideas of other things we should try) and after about 17 seconds POP! the lid went flying off, causing some kids to jump.  One boy asked if we could try it again, but not put the lid on so we could see what happened ... um, isn't that what we did first?

Anyway, forging ahead, we went outside so the the kids could try this on their own (although the room has a high ceiling, it seemed to be wise to move this outside).  A mistake I made:  I should have gone over the procedure multiple times, writing it out on a portable white board or something.  Because once we got outside everyone was sooooo excited that it was a little hard to control who was doing what when.

I put the kids in groups of 2 or 3 (I assigned these basis on Annabeth's advice about who would work well together while actually getting something done).  I had a couple of kids who said they didn't want to actually DO anything, and I told them it was okay, they could just observe their partner.

Round 1:  Fill canister halfway with water, put in half tablet, put on lid, countdown to lid popping off (we didn't have enough watches or clocks for everyone, so I reminded them that Galileo used his pulse and they could simply count steadily).

Round 2: Fill canister 1/4 to 1/3 way with water, put in half tablet, put on lid, countdown to lid popoff.  Does this take longer or shorter?  (I had tried to engage them in predicting which it would be.)

Round 3: Fill canister 2/3 to 3/4 with water, put in half  tablet, put on lid, countdown to lid popoff.  Faster?  Slower?

Bonus round:  Fill canister halfway, put in half tablet, put on lid, put lid-first into plastic tube that's sealed at one end, hold facing some direction other than at me, shoot canister out of tube.

Okay, the above is the THEORY of what we were doing.  In reality, the kids were so excited that they kept coming up with new things they wanted to try ("can we put in a whole tablet?" "No, the reaction would be so fast you can't get it covered and put in the tube before it would blow -- REMEMBER YOU GET ONE VARIABLE, AND THAT'S THE AMOUNT OF WATER -- EVERYTHING ELSE IS A CONTROL!!!").  The Alka Seltzer tablets kept falling apart into tinier pieces, we had water sloshed everywhere, at the lower water levels the lids sometimes didn't blow off (not put on well enough?  slower reaction meant the gas could leak out enough that it didn't need to POP?), kids were filling the plastic tubes with water and throwing canisters and Alka Seltzer in to see what would happen, one boy flipped the canister upside down on the pavement with the plastic tube over it and waited for the entire thing to go flying (okay, actually that was partially my idea) ... the girl who didn't want to participate was plastered on the ground in the field next to the parking lot counting down with her lab partner as they waited for their canister to blow (I think they were pretending to be a bomb squad).  The boy who didn't want to participate was jumping with excitement shouting to his lab partner that it was his turn to put in the tablet and put on the lid ....  You know, I'm not sure they got the point of what was SUPPOSED to happen, but they sure experienced a lot exciting discoveries.  I know that I discovered that several dozen Alka Seltzer in a quart or two of water, over the course of a half hour or so, gets amazingly sticky.  Who knew?

And then I happened to glance at my phone to see the time, since I estimated this would take 15-20 minutes and we could then go play on the playground, and discovered class was OVER.  Oops.  Everyone grabbed something, we zoomed back inside.  Maybe next week we'll try to go over what we learned.  I'm pretty sure it was memorable.
Posted by Gail at 8:19 AM 1 comment: Labels: co-op science grades 3-5, Homeschool


Homeschool Update 9/24/11

- New curriculum rundown:

Old curriculum rundown:

Posted by Gail at 8:00 AM 1 comment: Labels: Homeschool, Weekly Report


A Snapshot of the Reading Life

 Posted by Gail at 5:21 AM 6 comments: 

Co-op Science Week 4 Labels: co-op science grades 3-5


Weekend Report

Most of the weekend was spent messing with the bathroom. A couple of friends came over to help pull out the old vanity and sink top, and carry them to the garage. Then they decided to start pulling up the peel-and-stick floor, only to discover that it had been stuck on to luan that had been screwed into the floor and then painted grey. The paint made it almost impossible to find the screws. So that was quite an adventure to get up off the floor. So many floors in this house have been just plain weird.

Of course, this involved taking the toilet out AGAIN. We took it out last week to get the wallpaper remnants from behind it, and paint the wall blue.

ANYWAY, Annabeth and I spent Saturday night assembling the faucet and putting it on the sink. Then we set the sink top onto the new vanity. Here's a plumbing tip -- have the smallest person in the family do the under-the-sink work. Here's an action shot of Annabeth installing the little doohickey that makes the drain stop go up and down: Also, the sink doesn't have shut off valves (what's up with that?), so we had to keep turning off the water in the house. Rick wanted to install valves when we put it in the new sink, but, alas, Lowes doesn't stock the correct size for our pipes.

There was also much laying of backer board in preparation for tiling the floor.

In the meantime, Thalia went camping with her Girl Scout troop. It was an all-weekend campout, but I picked her up on Saturday so she could go to ballet.

This was her first ballet class at this place with this teacher. Wow, really big class, which is Beginning Ballet for Teens. The teacher seems really excellent -- they had a two-way mirror, so I sat out in the hallway and watched. Thalia's foot strength has diminished over the summer, but overall she "got" a lot of the stuff right away because so much of it's similar to Irish Dance.

Then a visit from my brother and sister-in-law, who had come to town to see the zoo, Botanical Garden, and Butterfly House. They stopped by to say howdy. They declined the offer to have supper together, saying they'd eaten so much in the last couple of days (Amighetti's, Joey B's, Charlie Gitto's, and some pancake place) (Oh, total digression -- when they said they were going to the zoo and the Botanical Garden I told them they should go out to eat on the Hill, and suggested Amighetti's for a sandwich, plus go somewhere for toasted ravioli. "Rick says if he only has 24 left to live he's going to have a sandwich from Amighetti's" -- bear in mind Rick is gluten-free and doesn't eat most of the stuff they put in the sandwich. So, we were talking about where all they'd been to eat, and Rick was saying that toasted ravioli is also on the 24-hour list, and the pancakes sounded pretty good so he'd consider adding them to the list also, and we started calling it the "Rick Death Tour of Restaurants".) So they went back to Forest Park to see the hot air balloons, and we continued doing bathroom rehab.

Sunday was church, followed by a meeting for the mission trip to the Dominican Republic that Thalia will be taking over Spring Break. They started meetings about this in August. Yesterday was about all the notarized paperwork, including things like what to do with her body if she drops dead in a foreign country -- yeah, you have to sign off on that. Things left to do: get a passport (someone advised us to simply wait until she was 16 to get the 10 year renewable version), find out her blood type which we can find no record of but it's not a big deal because we need to go to the doctor anyway for things like typhoid and malaria vaxes, get some sort of compressible packing system so she can haul along all of her own bedding, come up with about $1000 more to pay for airfare and lodging to add to the $500 we've already paid. Also, the kids who have been before were giving the scoop to the kids who are new to the experience -- the odd stuff like "take those powdered drink mix-ins, because the purified water starts tasting weird after a while", "really, you'll only want to wear sports bras", "the first year [XYZ] only took one pair of underwear for the entire week, so the 2nd year we threatened to all take underwear for him in our own luggage unless he packed more". In other words, those things adults don't think to put in the handouts.

Then home and back to church for choirs.

Hmm, when I write it out here it doesn't sound like so much. But really, it was exhausting, especially the bathroom stuff. And after messing with the pipes so much I'm so grateful every time I turn on a faucet and water comes out -- indoor plumbing is a wonderful thing.
Posted by Gail at 6:03 AM No comments: 

Weekly Report 9/16/11

I'm writing this during a bathroom remodel, a visit from relatives, picking up Thalia from camp, taking Thalia to her new ballet class, going to a DR meeting about the trip during Spring Break, etc., so it's even more disjoint than usual....

New curriculum purchased this week: Key to Decimals and Key to Percents. Time to bid adieu to Life of Fred, which will soon be appearing on the "For Sale" boards at the WTM.

Also new is the Pandia Press History Odyssey Level 2 for the Medieval time period. I haven't actually purchased that yet, but plan to get the e-book, which is currently on sale. This does't replace anything.

Those are both for Annabeth, who is also working on Writeshop in co-op. She emails her drafts to the teacher during the week, the teacher looks them over by class time and hands them back for re-writes. So far that system is working well, other than the grousing about the actual writing process. This week Annabeth wrote about a pet, which took an amazing amount of time since she couldn't decide WHICH pet (rats? cats? and we have pairs of each, so which one?). She eventually decided on our black cat, who is certainly full of personality (I used to call her a Sith Lord, but I think the Sith aren't quite so dumb as she tends to be, even in that scene where the Emperor got so caught up in the fun of killing Luke that he didn't notice Vader was about to toss him over the railing (give me a break, like this uber-powerful guy would be that clueless about sensing Vader's intentions in the Force)).

And for science she had her first test in Shepherd's Life Science. For the record, Apologia science tests are a lot easier to grade than Shepherd's Life Science. The answer book for Shepherd's tends to ramble on and on. I was glad I knew this stuff anyway, so I could just read the question and decide if I liked the way she answered it. This is also a co-op class, but the teacher isn't responsible for the tests -- frankly, the tests are optional in our co-op.

Since the Key to ... books just came in late in the week she worked on RightStart Geometry for most of the week. She says she's sick of triangles at this point. But, hey, it will make Jacob's Geometry so much easier for her years from now that she had to slog through these endless lessons.

Speaking of which, in Junior Analytical Grammar she needed to list the helping verbs on a test. Wow, how many dozens of times did we recite those in First Language Lessons? So it was incredibly easy for Annabeth to storm through that section of JAG.

Thalia's life continues to revolve around Kinetic Physics. In other mathy news, she's completed her first test in Lia'ls Intermediate Algebra, which has been pretty straightforward.

We' completed Chapter 5 of Dave Ramsey, learning about opportunity costs (a phrase we use a lot around here) and "90 days same as cash" deals (which we always use effectively but apparently most people don't -- who knew?).

She's got a slow start in Jensen's Format Writing; and continues to tolerate Notgrass World History, holding on to the belief that it will get better once they're out of ancient history.

Oh, and phys ed. -- I haven't mentioned this lately. Part of phys ed is weight lifting, right? You should've seen her carry the new bathroom vanity up the stairs a couple of days ago. Wow, It was really impressive.

Both have had at least one class of their new dance classes (ballet and tap), as well as musical theater, improv/acting, advanced musical theater, and technical theater. Thalia continues to thrive with her new voice teacher, which isn't to say the old one is bad but she gels so well with the new person. We're pondering whether we should continue piano lessons on top of all of this, considering they're both in at least one choir also -- it feels like we're spending plenty of time on music and performance arts already.

You can find out how other homeschool families have spent their week at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, undoubtably featuring more coherent wrap-ups than this.
Posted by Gail at 7:15 AM 1 comment: 

The Rats of Summer

Exploring trash cans. Posted by Gail at 11:53 AM 3 comments: Labels: Rat Report

 Posted by Gail at 4:29 AM 5 comments: 

Co-op Science Week 3 


-- Getting ready on Friday night for the ACT the next day is sort of like getting ready for a feis, but involves things like sharpening #2 pencils instead of polishing shoes.

-- Getting up early on Saturday to go to the ACT is like getting up early to go to a feis, but with a calculator instead of a wig.

-- Driving downtown on a Saturday morning to go to a feis, I still crave peanut M&Ms, which were my snack food of choice during that last entire year of feiseanna. But since I was just dropping off a couple of dresses I hadn't loaded up on snacks.

-- A new choreography team is being formed. Which needs new collars. At first I thought she said there would be 60 dancers -- WOWZA! I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD HAVE A TEAM THAT BIG! Then I realized that she'd said 16. Anyway, time to get some more crochet thread. I'm not sure how many of which size, and what the time frame is (Oireachtas? Nationals?) These things shall be revealed unto me over time, but in the meantime, I can sort of guess that a couple in each size probably would be a good idea.

-- Overall, going to a feis is more fun if you can just spend some time talking to friends and then leave whenever you want. Although sometimes you miss seeing people that way. Also, no wig pictures for Ami, alas.

-- When the ACT admission ticket says dismissal is at 1pm, they actually mean that it could be a half hour earlier. Which means we could've made it to ballet.

-- The head of ballet at the place Thalia is going thought the ACT was more important than a dance class.

-- The essay prompt on Saturday's test was the same as the one Thalia used as a practice essay Friday.

-- You know those mints I'm always eating? The ones I kept crunching on, and then the one molar felt like it was starting to split from chomping on something so hard, and I had to have the filling removed and replaced, and spent most of the summer paranoid about chewing on that side until I got it all taken care of? Yeah, those. Whole Foods has stopped carrying them. At least, the one store has. I might have to drive to the other store and check there. This is serious. I need those mints.

-- The blue the kids chose for the bathroom is a really fun blue. The plan is to put fish clings on the walls. I thought it would be cool to hang plastic fish from the ceiling on little wires. And maybe paint the ceiling to look like you're inside of a fishbowl with a giant person peering in (no clue how you'd accomplish that, but wouldn't it look cool? I wonder if the guy in charge of the theater sets could figure it out -- since they're not doing Nemo this year after all he might have some fun fish ideas he wanted to paint somewhere.)

-- Annabeth wants to be a cat for Halloween. Again. For the fourth time. Out of 12 Halloweens. One third of her life as a cat (well, her Halloween life). Negotiations continue.
Posted by Gail at 6:50 PM 1 comment: 
More Random Bits

Life seems to be comprised of disparate pieces right now. I'm not seeing a unifying theme, just little bits and pieces jumbled around.

Thalia is supposed to start her new ballet class tomorrow in U City. It starts at the same time she is dismissed from the ACT, which she's taking in an entirely different place that's at least half an hour away. So I've had to call the head of the ballet department AGAIN to say if she shows up at all it would just be for the last few minutes, which is likely not worth it. This is a place with a major, major phone tree, and never a live person with which to speak. So I'm emailing this woman (not even her teacher, who I've no idea how to get hold of) or calling her repeatedly, leaving messages. She must think we're totally troublesome twits, and the class hasn't even started yet. Sigh.

But we have all the proper attire. Except Annabeth's tights ended up not fitting for HER ballet class, which is at a different school. So we'll need to trade those in. More niggling details. And the time of her tap class might change. Or not. The teacher is amazing though -- if you're in the area and thinking about tap, this is the place to be.

The ACT ... do we have number 2 pencils? Correct calculators? Somehow I thought she had the earlier dismissal (12:15). But, no, it's 1pm. So, from 8am to 1pm she's testing. Blech. Really, it's just a trial run. We've put various school things on hold so she could prep for this. I'll be glad when it's over and we can move forward. We had talked about a birthday party this weekend, but she decided she'd be too wiped out.

While straightening up bookshelves last week prepping for the appraisal I realized how much Waldorf curriculum I have on the shelves that I'll never look at again in my life. I'm listing the books online for sale. So far 2 books have gone, which is nice. It's a weird time of year to sell curriculum, though. I figure I'll just keep re-posting it until it goes.

Oh, and other odd online thing -- the place I'm posting the books, which is a homeschool forum, suddenly has a plethora of questions about Irish Dance. Which I've felt compelled to answer, since it's confused newbies. "If my daughter isn't starting until now, when she's 12, how quickly can she move up?" Um, it depends on how hard you work at it, how much you compete. Here's how it works, blah blah blah. "How can I tell if it's a good school?" Well, what you consider "good" someone else might consider "living hell", so, again, it depends on what you want to accomplish.

I've done nothing, absolutely nothing, towards next week's co-op science class. Too focussed on the appraisal and the ACT to think that far ahead. I should do a little towards each event each day, I know, but I tend to get obsessive and focus on one thing at a time.

Actually, last week I was mostly obsessed with Girl Scouts. Weren't the new books supposed to arrive at the Council shop this week? I need to call and get Annabeth signed up as a Juliette, and ask how she's supposed to do cookie sales. She might have to be part of a troop for that, which I consider sort of silly. Does the troop get the money? Can we pick the troop? I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't find out on my first phone call, and it will take a while before I find someone at Council who actually knows how this works. So I keep putting it off.

And today we're going to try to pull a mirror off of the bathroom wall -- it's been glued there for 30 years. I've been reading online horror stories about people getting major injuries from the broken glass when they attempt this, which hasn't been a really good lead-in to the project.

Then tomorrow the ACT, and maybe swing by the feis to offer Thalia's solo dress(es) for sale. This was going to include a drive by U City as a scouting mission, but maybe now I won't do that after all. I need to rethink how tomorrow will work, now. Assuming we haven't all been hospitalized for flying mirror shards piercing our bodies, severing tendons, etc.
Posted by Gail at 8:20 AM 2 comments: I'm GailV at WTM!