Fusing myself

I have decided that I am going to fuse my blogs into one and post solely on the Just Call Me Woman Blog. Please come join me there. You may have to search a little more for the specific information that you are looking for, but I will be able to post more often.

Un-School

Sometimes when you are looking for lessons they fall into your lap.

Yesterday, we had a big physics lesson: liquids contained by solids have a smaller surface area than those not confined by solids. It certianly wasn't a planned lesson, but after the cat knocked the laundry detergent to the floor, who could ignor the lesson.

Today, we had a Biology / Anatomy lesson when the dog dragged a deer leg back into our yard that had been devoured by some coyotees. We were able to see joints, ligaments, and a close up look at the the hoof and bone marrow. Gross, but a very effective teaching tool.

I'll garuntee you that lessons like this will never be forgotten and are certianly better lessons than anything I could have planned. Maybe there is a small bit of unschooling still lurking in my soul.

Presidential Rap

The raps in this video are pretty bad, but I'm sure your kids will be thrilled to improve on them. Please post them for us to see when they're done.

Reading - For Pleasure and / or For Knowledge

My fourteen year old daughter is an avid reader. Sometimes we can't get her to put a book down. She devours books like most kids go through video games. So clearly, this concern that I have about her reading is tempered. As I have another child who equates reading with the plague, I do know how blessed I am that she reads anything. But I am in the process of trying to grow her reading list. I have tried to encourage her to beef up her book choice. As she has made college a clear goal in her life, I believe that she has to begin to include some classics and award winning books into her repetoire in order to: 1. be seriously considered by a college 2. aquire the basis for knowledge to converse with other educated people. Below I have cited some booklists that you may find helpful, if you have the same perdicament, but I would also love to hear what books you consider necessary to a proper education.

College Bound Reading List
Compiled by Arrowhead Library System

http://www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/reading_list/high_school.html

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/23628.html

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/23705

Word Games

"Lese? What - no way!"

Click, click, click, Click - Enter and she recited,

"lese
One entry found.

Main Entry: lèse–ma·jes·té
Variant(s): or lese maj·es·ty \ˌlāz-ˈma-jə-stē, ˌlez-, ˌlēz-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French lese majesté, from Latin laesa majestas, literally, injured majesty
Date: 1536
1 a: a crime (as treason) committed against a sovereign power b: an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power2: a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance"

It may seem unethical to let your children guess on words when playing word games, but I figure if they can prove that it is a word then everything is good. Could I ever get away with assigning them to look up 50 words in a day? While they may comply with my order, they would be bored silly and probably not retain one word, but when they are fighting for points in a game like Boggle,




trust me they will not only look up their words with glee, but they will retain their new additions to crush you in their next game.

I first came by this unorthodox idea when I was playing games like Scramble on Facebook. There were 24 three letter words that I could not find. How was this possible? Frankly, it was possible because I was too stuck in being sure and not guessing or stepping out and trying to learn and expand my vocabulary. I decided that we could all fool around with our language skills and see what nuances of the English language that we could learn. When there are no red pens, it is amazing what you can excavate.

Gandhi - The power of one

There are a certain amount of people in history that every child should know. Today, my children were introducted to Gandhi. Granted this movie is long 190 minutes, but it is well worth the view time. Today, I exempted the kids from all of their other homework (mind you DD had already done Social Studies and volunteered at the library and DS did his Math, Writing, and Reading - so it was only a partial repreave) and we watched Gandhi which I had taken out from the local library.




Gandi had come up this morning at Bible Study as we discussed what it meant to walk in Jesus' footprints. Maryann said that she thought Gandhi had in fact responded that in a way that although he wasn't Christian that since he tried to act in way similar to Jesus that in fact he had walked in his footsteps. Now whether Gandhi indeed said this or not did not really matter to me. What mattered was that I realized that I did not know much about his life especially as they began discussing his early work in South Africa and so I was inspired to learn.

I'm not sure that the kids will further their studies on him right now, but I will certainly try to find some of his writings to read. Perhaps I can even find a book that I can apply to the 2009 reading challenge.

This also led me to another question: What people in history do you think all children should know at least a little about?

Inauguration 2009