Block One of the Fairy Tale Project...

The Girl and I vastly enjoyed watching Cinderella over the weekend, so we are starting our fairy tale studies with Cinderella.

The plan at this point is pretty simple... she'll read selections from the following list, at the rate of 2-3 books a week, and I will be reading to her from a longer version.

Cinderella Stories for The Girl to read:
Domitila (Mexican)
Adelaida (Cuban)
Smoky Mountain Rose (American, Appalachian)
Little Gold Star (Spanish American)
Perrault's Cinderella (French)
The Orphan (Greek)
Egyptian Cinderella (Egyptian)
The Turkey Girl (Zuni)
Persian Cinderella (Persian)
Yeh-Shen (Chinese)
Korean Cinderella (Korean)
Angkat (Cambodian)
Anklet for a Princess (Indian)
The Golden Sandal (Middle Eastern)
The Way Meat Loves Salt (Jewish)
Abadeha (Philippine)
Tam and Cam (Vietnamese)
Cendrillon (Caribbean)
The Salmon Princess (Alaskan)

And the longer version I am reading aloud, with amazing illustrations (I love Arthur Rackham):

Besides that, we'll watch a few movies, such as Ella Enchanted, Ever After, and likely the original Disney version. We'll be discussing the differences in the various versions, book and film, and I may use a guide to discussion (or I may not!).

Happy Autumn!

My favorite season of the year! Now if only the weather would reflect the season, instead of tricking me by being cool for a day or two, and then jumping right back up into the 90s....

What We've Been Up To...

The Boy has decided he wants to go ahead and try the Big History Project with some added science, so for the time being, his homeschooling consists of math, writing, reading, and Big History/Science. Nice and simple.

So The Girl says if he gets The Big History Project, it's high time we get going with the Big Fairy Tale Project. Math, writing/spelling, reading, and fairy tales. Check. By the way, we are really enjoying The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making! It is a little bizarre, but in an appealing way.

She also really wants to stick with reading through a bunch of the Scientists in the Field series, which are excellent books. For both kids, we're actually going to have a science day once a week for hands-on explorations, using BFSU 2 and 3 as general guidelines.

The Afternoon Basket is therefore being set aside for the time being, which is okay.

The Boy loves his classes at the junior college. He was very proud this week when, after trying for the last two weeks and not quite getting it, he finally got all the measurements correct on a worksheet for Machine Tools Technology. His teacher says they need 100% on everything before they can move on to the next step. He says both his teachers are great—enthusiastic, helpful... just what one wants in a teacher! Here's a link to his art teacher's work, currently on display at the on-campus art gallery.

The Girl is getting quite proficient with dictionary use, which is nice to see. She told me yesterday though, after all the great work she's been doing with time telling worksheets, that she still doesn't really get it. Grrrr. Somewhere I have a practice clock we can try working with, or I'll just pull the clock off the family room wall, as it is one of the few I have seen that marks the minutes in 5 minute increments around the edge of the clock.

We've watched an odd assortment of movies lately, among them Dirty Dancing (enjoyed by all), and Carrie (the remake, which is pretty accurate to the original). M and The Boy watched The Ring—The Boy has definitely inherited his dad's love of horror films—and The Girl and I watched The Craft. She and I plan to watch the new Cinderella movie on the weekend, while is at the local airshow with his best buddy. I'm thinking ahead now to October/Halloween movies!

The Girl built a fairy house out of an abalone shell, shoebox, and various odds and ends. She hand-sewed the mattress and pillow herself!

So all in all, a little beginning of the year tweaking still to be done, but I am sure it will all come together!

How is your year going so far?

A New Book That I Really Like...

I've been looking for a book like this for Cassia for a long time—a book that gives instruction in a clear way, while engaging her, and allowing for free writing.

Well, I think I have found it!

This book is intended for year 4 over there, as you can see from the cover, but with her dyslexia, The Girl is a bit behind. I actually think, in looking through this book, that we will get through book two in half a year, and then we can tackle book three, so she'll be "catching up". 

We got it in the mail from the UK yesterday, and she was eager to give it a try. I read the introduction out loud, and she laughed, which is a good sign, right? I then moved on to lesson one, in which we read the beginning of Snow White, and then she was to answer comprehension questions (which you can see here if you click on Sample Pages). She did very well with that, though we did the work verbally rather than writing answers. She was thrown for a bit of a loop though, when the book asked what she thought the story would be like if the beginning was set in summer! We thought perhaps the queen would have had to have asked for a daughter with hair as gold as sunshine, eyes as blue as the summer sky, and skin as white as rose petals.

The final task for the day was to use a dictionary to look up several words. I have a children's dictionary, but we decided to use our regular, though rather elderly, one. The Girl hasn't used a dictionary before—I know, I know, but we were focused on reading—but she very quickly got the hang of it, and found all the words needed, reading the definitions aloud.

Today we'll be learning some interesting facts about snow, and then next week she gets to launch into some creative writing. They have four writing prompts, out of which I have selected three, which will keep her writing all week: continuing the story either in the traditional fashion, or coming up with her own story line; writing a short description of a beautiful place; and writing an acrostic poem using the word "snowflake". She loves poetry, so I think the last especially will be a big hit.

Upcoming exercises in Lesson 1 include a lesson on nouns, spelling, sentence ordering, more creative writing, copywork, and so forth. It seems to be (as I looked through the whole book last night) varied enough to really keep her interested!

I'll be updating my review later in the year, as we get a chance to go through more of it, but so far, so good!  

A Fresh Week...

...Today...

I am in monthly meetings at work all day... fun!

The Boy is getting his first completed art project critiqued by his fellow classmates and instructor. He has mastered the bus ride to the junior college on Mondays! And he has Machine Tool Technology all afternoon. He is getting somewhat better at managing the homework load, but like me, tends to put off some of it until the last minute.

I finished a four page thesis exploration for my English lit class.

M has work, so I get an evening with the kids by myself. This happens three evenings a week now. It's a good time to catch up on reading aloud, or documentaries. Or play a game, like Apples to Apples (The Girl's request for tonight).

...Plans This Week...

The Boy will continue with Teaching Textbooks Algebra. So far he is doing well with it. I plan to have him start The Lively Art of Writing this week too.

The Girl will wrap up her time telling unit this week (she's gotten SO much better so quickly!), and then we will move into a review of multiplication and division. Hopefully, her language arts book will be here this week!

We watched, yesterday, another episode of Big History, this one on flight. As The Boy is going to the local air show in two weeks, and we found the documentary episode quite intriguing, we decided to go ahead and read through The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of American Aviation. We really like the way Big History links events across time and space through science--for example, if not for the process discovered to refine aluminum, the early airplane engine and struts would have been too heavy. And father back in time, the development of spruce trees in reaction to environmental changes allowed for the Wright brothers to use strong and lightweight wood.

And as we have a plethora of caterpillars and butterflies, we are reading All About Moths and Butterflies for our nature studies. We've gathered a few more caterpillars, to watch and draw/chart their metamorphosis.

The Boy is reading The Dark Side of the Universe, The Girl and I are reading Quest for the Tree Kangaroo, and I have a book written by a sky watcher/astronomer that I would like to start reading aloud (if we have time!). Maybe this week, we can go to the junior college's Planetarium, and watch the current show on the Hubble Space Telescope! We're still reading The Shakespeare Stealer too, definitely a very good book.

I've been chosen as a beta tester for the Great Courses Plus! We plan to spend a good chunk of time checking out what is available.

And we have fencing, roller derby, junior college office hours -- at least we never have time to get bored!

...Around the House, Outdoors, Etc...

There's another massive fire just north of us. This one is far worse -- it has taken out most of three towns already, and has just encroached into our county, still 45 miles north. The air quality is horrendous, and there's ash everywhere.

It is cooler this week though, so I made some simple roasted carrot ginger soup for a couple of lunches. Of course it's supposed to heat back up by the week's end.

I need to gather about a million apples this week from our backyard and turn them into applesauce and apple butter, both of which I plan to freeze... much easier than canning!

We're on the hunt for two more body/boogie boards, as we've been having tremendous fun with this sport over the summer. Both kids, M, and I all love it!

I've found a new tea to be passionate about: Good Earth's Cocoa Tango. I love the cocoa/chili pepper combination!

Have a good week!

Our First Semi-Official Week is Done!!!

Of course, there were ups... and there were downs.

On the UP side...

The Boy finished his first project for his 3-Dimensional art class. They were to make a cube, and then take it through a series of transformations.

He'll be critiqued on clean edges (check!), and a fairly logical progression through shapes, which I think he has nailed!

The Shakespeare Stealer is a hit.

Both kids are still working on creative writing projects, making me wonder, naturally, if perhaps I really should stick with the Brave Writer Lifestyle rather than try to make them follow "programs".

Working with my new schedule also hasn't been as bad as I anticipated, at least not yet. I took them with me yesterday, for my office hours, which are held in a lovely, quiet little room at the back of the giant campus library. The kids promptly ran off to the 4th floor, where there are cozy chairs in front of floor to ceiling windows, looking out over the campus, mountains in the distance, etc. They spent two peaceful hours up there -- reading, sketching, gazing.

And M got a second part-time job! Yes, I know. We are insane to be working two official (albeit all part-time) jobs each (I'm not counting once weekly tutoring for a friend), but you know what? My second job will get me closer to my actual desired career, and his should too. And truthfully, we are tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Our house needs some repairs, thankfully relatively minor; we'd love to actually have a landscape/garden; and we'd like to build some savings.

And the DOWN side...

I am over-scheduling and over-planning again. 

What it currently looks like in my head

Back to absolute basics next week, now that The Boy's math program has arrived. I already had The Girl's math on hand. I need to nail down what we are doing for writing next week, but that's it.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England -- well, it is a good book, and very thorough, but not a big hit right now. I could see reading it later, or maybe the kids will read it later, but we'll set it aside for the moment.

So, coming up...

The Boy and I want to watch some more Big History. He'll be reading The Dark Side of the Universe himself, maybe a chapter each week.

The Girl and I are looking forward to the start of The Great Backyard Bird Count in November. She says "maybe we can finish reading that bird book then. It was really good!"

We might read about the Wright Brothers (The Boy's request) and then Queen Elizabeth (The Girl's request). Or we might try this book, or this one!

We will definitely keep going with The Shakespeare Stealer!

We may start back up with Richard Halliburton's travels too, or maybe finally watch some of Human Planet.

Anyhow, I hope you all have a good weekend!