Ashurbanipal by Angelfish

Ashurbanipal was nasty and mean

The wars he fought were not pretty scenes

He threw salt on their fields

so nothing could grow

While he sat

on his bloody throne

He killed all who didn't obey

He kept slaves or sent them away

The rest I don't want to tell

'Cause he'll hear and I'll be in a cell

SumGreater and Urbantangerine

 Thanks for being my sister, internet neighbor and home school support.  I love you!

Opportunity

In a random shuffle of life, our second daughter had an only-in-New York opportunity last month and we finally got the link.

http://heroeshands.com

That's my girl!

She learned a lot about working, making friends with adults, film making, camera care, fan relations with all the elderly hanging out at the beach diner, and just getting it done. She kept perky from 4 a.m. until we finally got home at 5:00 p.m. When the shoot was finally over and I walked her to the car to drive her home, she started to whimper, couldn't buckle her own seatbelt and promptly fell asleep. She was peppy in time for Activity Days. She happy to have been part of such a worthy cause.

Been there

The super-wonderful new middle school in our neighborhood has an after school program where one of the electives is a Twilight reading group. After reading the book, the group will watch the movie. Hey! Are we ten steps ahead of the program, or what?! ;)

We read and discuss lots of other books, too. In fact, that's the bulk of what we do. We are a little language arts heavy at our house.

Some favorite books are:

Bloomability by Sharon Creech
Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

Good feelings

It has been a great week of home schooling. The main highlight has been the peaceful tenor in our home and a general love- love of each other and love of learning. I believe this is because I recently refocused my lens on my family. I have prioritized getting enough sleep to meet their needs as a thoughtful mother and facilitator. Some highlights from this week have been:

*deciding to let Torpedo (my two year old son) let go of our hug first. I held him for 20 minutes and he fell asleep in my arms.

*letting the kids spend half the day exploring with our new set of 50+ gel pens They created imaginative and beautiful pieces

*sledding at noon when nobody else was on the slopes. My Hero sat in his beach chair bundled in winter-wear and a blanket and wrote in his journal. What is not abundant about this life?

*discovering that my 6 year old is happy to do "lessons" with me if we set up a "desk" and let her call me "teacher"

*playing Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader with the whole family on a Tuesday afternoon. we made up our own rules and would run to the maps to check our answers or look up works of art and geographic wonders on-line

*reading aloud The Swiss Family Robinson and The Old Testament with loads of commentary and conversation. I never knew Leviticus was so pertinent!

*My tween writing a business letter on her own. Granted it was to the Twilighters Anonymous podcast, but she wanted to clarify some minor character descriptions she felt they had overlooked and included quotes from the saga to support her claim.

*getting together with friends

*trusting and encouraging their initiative as learners

Journey

We finally finished Journey to the Center of the Earth. We learned that French schools at that time did not allow science to be taught, so Verne packed his books with science. It doesn't always make for comprehensible prose or a pleasing pace, but I get it. Of course, the kids have read dozens of books since we started this one, but this was a journey that we made together. Another reading journey that they've insisted upon is reading the entire Bible from cover to cover. We're barely into Leviticus and it's going to take a long time, but in a couple of years we'll be able to say that we've done it. A little bit every day really can add up to something remarkable.

The world is our classroom

This was a pause in our nature walk where we stopped to read about Archimedes' principle concerning water displacement and followed it up with a little Babylonian history. I don't know how many outdoor days are left before it's too cold for the baby...and for ME, so we're taking advantage. ;)