3D Art Projects....

A round-up of some of The Boy's art projects from his Three Dimensional Art Class at the junior college, fall 2015...

Morphing cubes

Which we are making into a hanging mobile

Our new living-room accent lamp!

A pop-up book on (what else?) car parts

Reboot...

The Boy is wrapping up his first semester at the junior college today. It's been a fabulous experience for him, almost effortless in some ways, and full of work in others. He's been elated, exhausted, enthusiastic, overloaded... and he loves it.

We had our end-of-semester check-in yesterday while driving around town on errands, and here's the plan for spring:

At the junior college:
Stellar Astronomy
Intro to Engineering

At home:
Continue with (and pick up the pace!) Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1
Complete The Lively Art of Writing
Listen in on good books, read some good books
Study, somewhat loosely, ancient-modern South Asia, and then Asia

And that's it. That's our plan for the rest of ninth grade. I'm happy with it, he's happy with it. He wants time to get back to fencing at least once a week, and to draw, read, follow some interests...


The Girl and I also had our planning meeting, albeit a shorter one. And here are her plans:

Continue with (and pick up the pace) Math Essentials
Daily spelling practice with a Scholastic book I have and Spelling City activities
Possibly return to Junior English (I think she's ready)
I'm going to have her try Dinosaur Paleobiology through Coursera (might skip unit tests) 
Listen in on good books, read some good books
Study, somewhat loosely, ancient-modern South Asia, and then Asia

We're actually going to be doing math over winter break to help catch up. We've gotten so far behind! And we need to catch up on our literature.

What-We're-Up-To-Wednesday

{An attempt at catching up a bit}

...Recently...

We hiked to the top of Bald Mountain, the day after Thanksgiving. It was very chilly (lower 40s), but so beautiful! After a couple of hours of hard hiking, we made it to the top...

The views from the top were pretty amazing! We could see the ocean, San Francisco, even the Sierra Nevada mountains 130 miles away!

And then of course, we had to hike back down, making it to the car just before dark...

...Other than that...

The Boy is wrapping up his first semester of junior college, with actual finals next week. One class was hugely successful with/for him (3D art), the other not as much (Machine Tool Technology), which he said had too much lecture time, and too many quizzes, to the point that next to no students in the class finished their actual hands-on projects. He's even been going to extra workshops, as have many other students, but still can't quite finish. The teacher is new, so I think he will be making some adjustments in future semesters.

Overall, it has been a great process for The Boy, enough so that he's signed up for two more classes in the spring! He'll be taking Stellar Astronomy (with a totally awesome teacher that I had many years ago!), and has signed up for Intro to Engineering (non-mathematical, hands-on course), which he's not quite definitely taking. I don't want him to feel overwhelmed, which he did earlier this semester.

He and I are both excited for the end of the semester partly because it means we'll have the time to read books of our own choice again. I did manage to squeeze in, and enjoy, Circling the Sun (by the author of The Paris Wife... a really good book), and it got me very intrigued by Beryl Markham, etc. So, I have West With the Night and Out of Africa waiting to be read.

The Girl has discovered my stash of Harry Potter books late Monday evening. And yesterday, in ONE DAY, she read almost 50 pages of the first book! I know... some of you will be thinking that your kids read a lot more. But she's been such a reluctant reader, and struggled so much with reading, that this is HUGE! I'm hoping the momentum keeps going.

We've been doing some math, though not nearly enough, here and there. Both kids have agreed to keep up with math over the winter "break" so that we can attempt to get caught up. And a lot of other things have drifted by the wayside too. We're gradually figuring it out... I think. As long as math and language arts get done, plus some shared literature, I think we're okay. The Boy has science for spring (which, by the way, counts for both a semester of college, and a year of high school science!). Maybe The Girl and I will tackle some biology. I'm tweaking my instructional facilitator schedule a bit so that I can be more available for my kids.

In the meantime, we're enjoying Christmas movies and music. And some Dickens books as films/mini-series, as The Boy is interested in Victorian times. Our lights are up outside, and we'll get a tree this weekend with tutoring money. The Girl and I want to do some cookie baking, and we need to figure out homemade gifts for relatives. My dad will likely still be in the nursing facility, so we'll visit him there, and then do a late Christmas with him when he goes home again (he's making good progress, by the way). The kids are happily making lists of potential stocking stuffers, and we've panned out their big gifts already, to be purchased shortly. Can I just say how grateful I am for Amazon Prime shipping?

Hope all is well in your worlds!

The Good and the Bad...

December is a holy month. Maybe it is the dark, silky silence that descends so early that speaks to me of reverence. Maybe it is the promise that December holds -- that no matter how dark, how cold, how empty it can get, the light is coming back. Something always shifts in me when December arrives -- I embrace the darkness, and am eager for the coming solstice when the whole world is still and holds its breath, waiting to be reborn again.

~Meg Casey 

Inspired by Kim over at Our Enchanted Place, I've decided I need to be more proactive around holiday planning, starting today, with Advent. We have never celebrated Advent really, other than those cheap calendars with pieces of chocolate (which we have this year too, of course).

...Ideas...

A Waldorf-inspired seasonal nature table, with something new added each week:

The first Light of Advent It is the Light of stones:
The Light that shines in seashells In crystals and our bones.

Week one: stones, crystals, shells

The second Light of Advent It is the Light of plants:
Plants that reach up to the sun And in the breezes dance.

Week two: plants, mosses, flowers, pine cones

The third Light of Advent, It is the light of beasts:
The Light of faith that we may see In greatest and in least.

Week three: animal images (wooden animals, beeswax ones, etc. Make peanut butter/birdseed treats to hang in the apple tree)

The fourth Light of Advent It is the Light of humankind:
The Light of hope, of thoughts and deeds,
The Light of hand, heart and mind.

Week four: a human image, perhaps something like this:

Other Days to Celebrate Before Christmas:

December 6: St Nicholas Day

December 22: Winter Solstice

We also need to make gifts for family, get and decorate the tree, put up our Christmas lights and homemade giant peace symbol, and clean the house with Christmas in mind. We have cookies to bake, some fudge to make, menus to plan, and things of that sort. We usually buy toys for the firefighters' toy drive too. Everyone gets one gift on the Solstice, and then the family gathering is normally on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is just for us!

Sadly, this year is different in a not-so-good way. Over Thanksgiving weekend, my dad fell, three times. The first time, he was on the floor for about 8 hours, before my sister, who checks on him every morning, found him. We had him transported to the hospital, where they proclaimed him to be severely dehydrated. They pumped him full of fluids, and nine hours later, sent him home.

He fell again that night.

And later that afternoon. This time, the paramedics took him to a different hospital. They haven't figured out exactly what is going on, but kept him, and today he's being transferred to a rehabilitative/nursing facility. We have no idea how long he will be there, or if he'll be able to return to his "independent" living, or if he'll have to be placed in assisted living.

I have power of attorney for medical issues, so it has been a horribly long weekend. I've been staying home from work, spending hours in the hospital, etc. I did finally sleep last night, knowing that he was safe, and that he's being transferred to someplace he'll be safe too.

Homeschooling has been on the back burner, as has housework. Today I feel like the fog I've been in since Saturday morning is starting to lift.

In the meantime, I want to keep things as normal as I can at home. Hence the focus on enjoying December!