This week we had a 2 hour meeting about the Girl Scout Silver Award, a 2 hour parents meeting about Brownies (Thalia helped babysit the kids that got dragged along), and a Cadette skating party. Sheesh, it seems like it's been All Scouts All the Time. We've also fit in dance, archery, choir, piano, and a church council meeting (Rick took Thalia as part of her confirmation requirements). And somewhere in the little bits of time left over, we fit in school.
History continues to focus on the Greeks. We're reading Famous Men of Greece, and also Gueber's Story of the Greeks aloud. We've used selections from these for AnnaBeth's writing assignments -- she has narrated, done copywork and dictation out of them. Thalia's model this week for Classical Writing Homer has been about Xenophon's march to the sea -- this was one of the sample passages in the CW Homer book. And we watched a DVD that Tara recommended, MacGillivray Freeman's Greece: Secrets of the Past.
AnnaBeth's science continues a tour of the human body, this week looking at skin. Thalia continues to learn how scientists work in Prentice Hall Science Explorer's The Nature of Science and Technology.
Both kids completed another chapter of Latin for Children, AnnaBeth learning the first declension (offended that so many cases share endings, since then you can't tell them apart so what's the point of having all of these pesky endings to memorize) and Thalia learning 3rd conjugation verbs.
Thalia is wrestling adjective clauses in Analytical Grammar, drawing increasingly complex structures in the sentence diagrams.
In math AnnaBeth is working on various algorithms for subtraciton. Thalia continues to graph simple functions in Algebra. Rick stayed home with a bad cold one day (in lieu of going into work and sneezing all over everyone -- really, his co-workers should thank him) and watched the DVD of this series with us, which was certainly a memorable experience. Let's just say that the DVD goes at a pace appropriate for a 7th grader (or early high school student), and he tends to like the pace of a college course better.
Today we'll finish up odds and ends, pick up Girl Scout cookies to deliver this weekend (ick -- have I mentioned how much I hate Girl Scout cookies? We already have 110 of the 220 boxes we need to deliver), and try to wrap up the week.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Work in Progress Wednesday
Talia from Knitty.com, knit in KnitPicks Andean Silk on #9 Addi circ.
This is supposedly for Poppin's Vest-uary. But I didn't get a start on it until last Friday because I had to take care of various other things first, then suddenly decided that I didn't like the yarn and pattern I had selected for my vest and thus had to come up with something new.
I'm still not sure about this.
The lace pattern is hard to see in the black yarn, which makes it hard to "read" my knitting (my preferred way to keep track of lace -- I keep losing my place), the lace pattern doesn't interest me that much (so I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to do with it, since I don't much care -- it's hard to care about lace in worsted yarn on size 9 needles), plus the whole thing keeps sliding right off the Addis since the yarn and the needles are both rather slick.
I think I'll like the finished product, but if I weren't doing this for a KAL (knit along) I wouldn't work on it right now. But that's an advantage of a KAL -- it keeps you on task.
Not sure if I'll get it done by the end of February. I just finished the waist, and am ready to start increasing again. I'd hoped to get a bunch done last night while sitting liker a lump watching Star Trek re-runs (favorite thing to do on Tuesday night), but a contractor was over discussing our kitchen, and just stayed and stayed and stayed.
This is supposedly for Poppin's Vest-uary. But I didn't get a start on it until last Friday because I had to take care of various other things first, then suddenly decided that I didn't like the yarn and pattern I had selected for my vest and thus had to come up with something new.
I'm still not sure about this.
The lace pattern is hard to see in the black yarn, which makes it hard to "read" my knitting (my preferred way to keep track of lace -- I keep losing my place), the lace pattern doesn't interest me that much (so I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to do with it, since I don't much care -- it's hard to care about lace in worsted yarn on size 9 needles), plus the whole thing keeps sliding right off the Addis since the yarn and the needles are both rather slick.
I think I'll like the finished product, but if I weren't doing this for a KAL (knit along) I wouldn't work on it right now. But that's an advantage of a KAL -- it keeps you on task.
Not sure if I'll get it done by the end of February. I just finished the waist, and am ready to start increasing again. I'd hoped to get a bunch done last night while sitting liker a lump watching Star Trek re-runs (favorite thing to do on Tuesday night), but a contractor was over discussing our kitchen, and just stayed and stayed and stayed.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Dumping more Irish Dance information for my future reference
More link storage so I have a place to find this stuff later. This goes along with my post on sore knees
Reducing Injuries for Irish and Ballet Dancers in Motion Capture Lab. I found this while looking for something else (I was looking around for info on Laban/Bartenieff, and this sort of leapt out at me in a sidebar). Link to article cited in the blog post , Link to video (I'm copying the links here in case the first blog post disappears.)
I wonder how long this stuff (information on safe practices in dance) will take to trickle down to the local level. We're not dancing at a level to worry much about injuries -- dance is just one thing we do among many -- but still, one wonders how this information is disseminated through Irish Dance-dom. Perhaps if we WERE more heavily involved we'd already know about it, since we'd be cruising the dance forums for tidbits such as this.
Reducing Injuries for Irish and Ballet Dancers in Motion Capture Lab. I found this while looking for something else (I was looking around for info on Laban/Bartenieff, and this sort of leapt out at me in a sidebar). Link to article cited in the blog post , Link to video (I'm copying the links here in case the first blog post disappears.)
I wonder how long this stuff (information on safe practices in dance) will take to trickle down to the local level. We're not dancing at a level to worry much about injuries -- dance is just one thing we do among many -- but still, one wonders how this information is disseminated through Irish Dance-dom. Perhaps if we WERE more heavily involved we'd already know about it, since we'd be cruising the dance forums for tidbits such as this.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Weekly Report -- Feb. 20
Latin
AnnaBeth is still excited about using Latin for Children A. We watch the DVD together early in the week, then she spends time on worksheets as the week progresses.
Action shot of the Activities book. Note the pajamas and uncombed hair. This is what homeschool looks like, folks.
(Comatose cat in the sun is an optional homeschool accessory.)
We have the old version of the DVD -- I think they re-did it and made it more professional. We like the quirkiness of this version.
In the meantime, Thalia continues to work through Latin for Children B. The end of the book is in sight!
Math
Thalia continues to watch Teaching Company Algebra DVDs. This week she entered the realm of the graphing calculator. We ended up purchasing a Casio instead of the TI81 the instructor is demonstrating -- we tend to like Casios. And it's a good thing Rick is okay with the Casio, since when the instructor started discussing "the f of x" my eyes started rolling back in my head ... wow, I haven't heard that phrase for years and years, and have a very dim memory of having a clue about this. It may be time to hand Algebra over to Rick. I'm sure I could revive my knowledge, but Rick is a little fresher on this stuff since he has actually used it since learning it in high school.
In the meantime, AnnaBeth forged ahead in RightStart D, learning about using check numbers. I'm not really sure what application check numbers have outside of the realm of RightStart -- it's interesting, to be sure, but does it come up again later? Is it just some quirky little math thing that no one other than math majors cares about?
English
Classical Writing Homer Do-Your-Own-Thing-Version is working well for Thalia. Each day I look over what the various lessons and skill levels are, and then come up with lessons that suit her abilities. I think this is how the program was originally intended to be used. I have the Instructor's Guide for the Student Workbook, and I use it for the models, as well as the Theon chart (the Theon charts are foreign territory for me, so it's nice to have a guide). We had tried Classical Writing Aesop a year or 2 ago with the workbooks, and it was annoying; using CW without the workbooks really suits us better.
Thalia also continues Analytical Grammar (another reason not to use the CW workbooks -- they're tied to a different grammar program working at a different level).
AnnaBeth has done Writing With Ease-style work using a passage from The Story of the Greeks, handily combining history with writing. I plan to also use Famous Men of Greece in these projects.
Other Stuff
We watched a video on the Ancient Aegean that we borrowed from the library, and read more in Gombrich's A Little History of the World.
Thalia continues with Prentice-Hall Science Explorers. The closest AnnaBeth got to a science lesson this week was during Brownies, which was the Movers Try-It (which she'd already done on her own, but still had fun re-visiting).
In music we listened to Grieg (Thalia is working on "Morning" from the Peer Gynt Suite on the piano), attended piano lessons and choir.
Thalia finished up work on Kenya. Both girls attended dance and a scout meeting. AnnaBeth continues to be enamored of Mavis Beacon typing.
And more. There's always more; no matter how carefully I check over my notes from the week I leave stuff out. Sometimes I do it purposefully because I doubt that anyone wants to know every knitpicking detail of our week. Mostly I want to be able to pull up all of these posts myself and see what the general tenor of our homeschooling has been.
AnnaBeth is still excited about using Latin for Children A. We watch the DVD together early in the week, then she spends time on worksheets as the week progresses.
Action shot of the Activities book. Note the pajamas and uncombed hair. This is what homeschool looks like, folks.
(Comatose cat in the sun is an optional homeschool accessory.)
We have the old version of the DVD -- I think they re-did it and made it more professional. We like the quirkiness of this version.
In the meantime, Thalia continues to work through Latin for Children B. The end of the book is in sight!
Math
Thalia continues to watch Teaching Company Algebra DVDs. This week she entered the realm of the graphing calculator. We ended up purchasing a Casio instead of the TI81 the instructor is demonstrating -- we tend to like Casios. And it's a good thing Rick is okay with the Casio, since when the instructor started discussing "the f of x" my eyes started rolling back in my head ... wow, I haven't heard that phrase for years and years, and have a very dim memory of having a clue about this. It may be time to hand Algebra over to Rick. I'm sure I could revive my knowledge, but Rick is a little fresher on this stuff since he has actually used it since learning it in high school.
In the meantime, AnnaBeth forged ahead in RightStart D, learning about using check numbers. I'm not really sure what application check numbers have outside of the realm of RightStart -- it's interesting, to be sure, but does it come up again later? Is it just some quirky little math thing that no one other than math majors cares about?
English
Classical Writing Homer Do-Your-Own-Thing-Version is working well for Thalia. Each day I look over what the various lessons and skill levels are, and then come up with lessons that suit her abilities. I think this is how the program was originally intended to be used. I have the Instructor's Guide for the Student Workbook, and I use it for the models, as well as the Theon chart (the Theon charts are foreign territory for me, so it's nice to have a guide). We had tried Classical Writing Aesop a year or 2 ago with the workbooks, and it was annoying; using CW without the workbooks really suits us better.
Thalia also continues Analytical Grammar (another reason not to use the CW workbooks -- they're tied to a different grammar program working at a different level).
AnnaBeth has done Writing With Ease-style work using a passage from The Story of the Greeks, handily combining history with writing. I plan to also use Famous Men of Greece in these projects.
Other Stuff
We watched a video on the Ancient Aegean that we borrowed from the library, and read more in Gombrich's A Little History of the World.
Thalia continues with Prentice-Hall Science Explorers. The closest AnnaBeth got to a science lesson this week was during Brownies, which was the Movers Try-It (which she'd already done on her own, but still had fun re-visiting).
In music we listened to Grieg (Thalia is working on "Morning" from the Peer Gynt Suite on the piano), attended piano lessons and choir.
Thalia finished up work on Kenya. Both girls attended dance and a scout meeting. AnnaBeth continues to be enamored of Mavis Beacon typing.
And more. There's always more; no matter how carefully I check over my notes from the week I leave stuff out. Sometimes I do it purposefully because I doubt that anyone wants to know every knitpicking detail of our week. Mostly I want to be able to pull up all of these posts myself and see what the general tenor of our homeschooling has been.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
J is for Jalie 2804
The other day we pulled out a bunch of fabric to see what would be appropriate to use for various items the kids like in the latest Ottobre.
They didn't like this fabric at all:
They said it looked too "old". I'm not sure how old it looked, given their ages. There's a huge range there, from "old enough to drive" to "old enough to check into a nursing home, and have your driver's license taken away".
(It's a cotton fabric with some lycra in it, with 4-way stretch, by the way. It's from The Fabric Fairy.)
Anyway, I decided it was just right for my age, and for making a test garment of Jalie 2804 "Women's Empire Crossover Top in sizes 2 (Toddler) to 22(Women's)":
I did the version with the 3/4 sleeves. For the future, I need to shorten the body, learn to do better hems (I know I've done blind hems with the serger before, but it just wasn't working out on this fabric -- partly because I was slapping it together quickly between Latin and math worksheets -- so I need to actually sit down and play around with super stretchy fabric until I understand this), and figure out how to do whatever is the opposite of a FBA (full bust adjustment). I made the upper sleeves a wee bit larger, based on reviews that Jalie tends to have tight sleeves.
But it's still wearable.
Actually, I'm pretty pleased with it.
I didn't put in the modesty panel. I'd read reviews that it pulls in the fabric of the upper chest too much, so I thought I'd wait and try that on version 2, after I see how much width I actually need. So I'm wearing a white cami under it. And did you know that Jalie makes a pattern for camisoles? I'm so addicted to these Jalie patterns.
In the meantime, Thalia has put together an AMAZING wish list at Fabric Fairy. She came home from the mall the other day and announced that she wants to start making all of her clothes.
They didn't like this fabric at all:
They said it looked too "old". I'm not sure how old it looked, given their ages. There's a huge range there, from "old enough to drive" to "old enough to check into a nursing home, and have your driver's license taken away".
(It's a cotton fabric with some lycra in it, with 4-way stretch, by the way. It's from The Fabric Fairy.)
Anyway, I decided it was just right for my age, and for making a test garment of Jalie 2804 "Women's Empire Crossover Top in sizes 2 (Toddler) to 22(Women's)":
I did the version with the 3/4 sleeves. For the future, I need to shorten the body, learn to do better hems (I know I've done blind hems with the serger before, but it just wasn't working out on this fabric -- partly because I was slapping it together quickly between Latin and math worksheets -- so I need to actually sit down and play around with super stretchy fabric until I understand this), and figure out how to do whatever is the opposite of a FBA (full bust adjustment). I made the upper sleeves a wee bit larger, based on reviews that Jalie tends to have tight sleeves.
But it's still wearable.
Actually, I'm pretty pleased with it.
I didn't put in the modesty panel. I'd read reviews that it pulls in the fabric of the upper chest too much, so I thought I'd wait and try that on version 2, after I see how much width I actually need. So I'm wearing a white cami under it. And did you know that Jalie makes a pattern for camisoles? I'm so addicted to these Jalie patterns.
In the meantime, Thalia has put together an AMAZING wish list at Fabric Fairy. She came home from the mall the other day and announced that she wants to start making all of her clothes.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
I is for Irish Dance Competition
We spent Valentine's Day at a feis.
But I won't go on and on about it, because I know you're jealous because your dream in life is to spend an entire day in a crowded hotel ballroom with a splitting headache, listening to an accordion and fiddle play reels and jigs.
Afterwards, time to collapse on the couch with slices of pizza.
Friday, February 13, 2009
H is for Hearts
Valentine cookies! These were a fundraiser at our dance studio. I think they're so cute!
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