Review: More Middle Grades Historical Novels from Susan Kilbride

Pop over to The Curriculum Choice to read my review of two more middle to lower high school level historical novels from Susan Kilbride's marvelous Our America series!

Ambleside Online: The Perfect Fit for Our Family

I love a literary-based education, and Ambleside Online fills the bill for our family. Read my review of Ambleside Online and why we use it for our foundational curriculum at Curriculum Choice!

Middle Grades Historical Novels Bring the Past to Life

I recently had the pleasure of reading and reviewing three middle grades novels by Susan Kilbride, a seasoned homeschooler and homeschooling author. These books are wonderful, and my review at Curriculum Choice tells you why I think so.

Plus, Amazon is giving away FREE Kindle versions of one of the books on July 15, 16, and 17! Hurry over to Curriculum Choice to get the details!

Testing, Testing

Photo credit

Last week, I threw into our mix a bit of standardized testing. My state's homeschooling laws require that standardized testing take place every three years beginning with third grade. Now that my daughters are older, I prefer to test annually, so they get a better taste of such requirements.

Different states have different testing requirements. In my state, I have only to choose a nationally-normed test, which allows me many options. For several years now, I've selected the CAT/5 Survey test. This is a short-form test, with six sections of 20 questions each, as opposed to the Full Battery.

Why the Survey test? Because it saves time and because it lessens the chances that the test will cover concepts we have yet to cover. I've found that the latter situation does nothing but ruffle my children's feathers and stress everyone out to a painful degree.

Why the CAT/5? Because homeschooling parents can administer the test at home. Another test option is the TerraNova, but I don't know anything about that one. I stick with what I know.

Then there's the ITBS and the Stanford Achievement Test. To administer the ITBS at home, a parent must hold a college degree and be accepted as a test administrator, which for me is one too many hoops to jump through. The Stanford also requires the degree as well as teacher certification and test-administration experience OR video training and pre-approval as a Stanford test administrator. Again, too many hoops.

Instead of giving the test at home, I could easily locate an ITBS testing center and drop off my daughters. For a few hours each day over three days. For a price, in terms of money, time, and stress. No, thank you.

There are several services that will mail you the testing materials and score the test for you. I've used both Family Learning Organization and Seton Testing Services with great satisfaction. Three others I've seen online are Thurber's Education Assessments, Crosspointe Educational Services, and Brewer Testing Services. But I don't have any experience with either of those.

As the girls move from middle grades to high school, I'll reassess my decisions on standardized testing depending on our needs. But right now, I'm happy with what we're doing.

Physical Science for Middle Grades

Not being a science person myself, I am always on the lookout for quality science materials well suited to a home school environment. I found a winner in the Basic Physical Science Note Pack from In the Hands of a Child. Pop over to Curriculum Choice to read my review!

Weekly Happenings: Ancient Egypt and Signs of Spring

This week we got back into the swing of things after two weeks of theater busy-ness. We still aren't up to top speed, but that will come. Next week.

Our inaugural days of participation in Project FeederWatch were Tuesday and Wednesday, our second foray into citizen science (the first being the GBBC). We saw 19 different species but not more than four of each species at a time. I also tried my hand at a chalk pastel rendering of a male bluebird! For tons of pastel inspiration, click the link at the right: A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels.

After lunch today (Friday), I made homemade oatmeal cookies and ate a lot of dough. I still feel slightly sick, but it's worth it.

We read about the Mosaic Map of Madaba and Machaerus, Herod's fortress in present-day Jordan, where John the Baptist was beheaded (website). Above, Miss Priss researches images of Machaerus. She found some neat cutaway and 3D pictures to share. Tiny Girl found us images of the mosaic on her laptop. I love it when the girls' interests are piqued and they conduct extra research on their own! Both links I've made take you to more photos and information.

We also worked on maps of Jordan. The girls have enjoyed our mapping exercises of the Holy Land. I download and print free blackline maps of each country. Then we consult our several atlases for mapping details.

I determined that our study of the ancients needed more of an Egyptian touch than AO Yr 6 scheduled, so I made some additions. Fortunately, the girls agreed (otherwise there would have been pushback -- ugh) since they've read and enjoyed Rick Riordan's Egyptian-themed novels. This week, both girls began Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of Ancient Egypt, and Tiny Girl read The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, a Newbery Honor book set in ancient Egypt. She gave it a big thumbs up. Miss Priss plans to read The Cat of Bubastes, by G.A. Henty. This title has a free Kindle edition and is also available on LibriVox, if you're looking for something to pass the hours on an upcoming car trip.

Piano recital pieces are coming along nicely. They are also working on other pieces as well. I love listening to them play! We build piano practice into our school day, and the girls' skills are really improving.

Signs of spring are everywhere. My daffodils have come and gone. The earlier azaleas are covered in buds, a few of which have already bloomed. The hydrangeas and rose bushes are leafing out, and the iris by the mailbox has sent out leaves. Ornamental pear trees are blooming everywhere (see my Weekly Happenings title photo) and so are Japanese magnolias. Ornamental cherries are covered in buds. Below are some photos I snapped during the week.

Lenten roses (hellebore) outside the historic sanctuary of my church.

Our tiny red azalea bush.

Flowering cherry trees in bud at a neighbor's house. These trees are glorious when in bloom.

I don't recall what kind of tree this is (at my church). It might be a dogwood. Time will tell.

Those are some glimpses of our week! How was your past week? Full of good stuff, I bet!

Happy weekend!

Link-ups:
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
HammockTracks
Homegrown Learners

Weekly Happenings: Extreme Flexibility in Action

Photo credit

No, not yoga. Homeschooling.

I wrote about my Dad's surgery earlier this week. On Tuesday morning, I drove two hours north to be there with my family. I left Himself in charge of the girls. He was armed with a schedule of their activities; they were armed with a detailed list of assignments, organized by day.

I took my laptop with me, and I was able to use the hospital's guest wifi to hop online any time I wanted to do so. The girls emailed me narrations, photos of artwork "narrations," questions, and a short composition piece. I responded to each email.

They really seemed to enjoy it. There was an element of independence in this style of work, combined with  the sense of closeness technology provides. Was it perfect? No. But did it work when we needed it? Yes.

It helps, of course, that my children are in middle school. They are ready for a bit more independence, whether they realize it or not. In fact, these few days away proved to me that I can -- and should -- increase their level of responsibility for their own education, as well as increase my expectations for the quality of their work.

They are growing up. Right before my eyes.

I'm linking up with:
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
HammockTracks
The Homeschool Mother's Journal

Weekly Happenings: A Week of Quiet

 We took it easy this week. The last two weeks were a flurry of activity, mainly due to Miss Priss's theater production. This week, she was hit with a bad cold (and actually napped twice one day -- unheard of!), and I have the winter blahs. It seemed a good time to take a little break.

But we weren't slugs by any means. Unless you count the fact that we stayed in our jammies until we absolutely HAD to get dressed.

On Tuesday, we celebrated National Pancake Day at our closest IHOP. Who can beat a free short stack of pancakes? While we were there, we talked about the positive identification of Richard III's skeleton in Leicester.

We listened to the chatter of the cedar waxwings, stopping for a few days on their annual visit. They and the robins stripped our large holly tree of its berries. I loved watching them swoop to and fro outside the picture window in my study. They were easy to distinguish from the robins because they are smaller and, when they fly, their tails flash yellow. They've now moved on, and we won't see them again until next February.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

We listened to Bach and explored a new art project, which I wrote about in detail yesterday:

The girls did quite a few art projects. They both worked on friendship bracelets. And Tiny Girl drew a picture in pastels for the upcoming Sketch Tuesday event hosted by Barb, something she hadn't done in a while.

We read nice books and drank lots of tea. I read The Tutor's Daughter, by Julie Klassen. Miss Priss read Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, and Anne of Ingleside, all by L.M. Montgomery. Tiny Girl read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, and, for even more fun, Tongue Twisters for Kids. One of the gifts she received at her birthday party last Saturday (her actual birthday is yet to come) was a Kindle! She adores it.

We're also reading The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone: Key to Ancient Egypt, by James Cross Giblin. AO's Year 6 history is light on ancient Egypt, so I added in a few resources. This is one. I want the girls to be properly informed in preparation for our trip to England. We're in the nascent stages of planning it. I've seen the stone on a previous trip and can't wait for them to have that opportunity, too.

The girls are now practicing their piano pieces for the recital in May. Each has one piece that's a bit of a challenge, so we're working through the angst of "I'll never be able to play this!" But of course they will. I'm often called to the piano during their practice time to work out a measure or two so they can hear what it should (ostensibly) sound like. And that's the extent of my piano prowess, I assure you.

It's almost time to say good-bye to Max, one of our ponies. Our lease is up, and his owners plan to send him to Kentucky to sell. We are hoping and praying that he gets another little girl who will love him as much as we have.

The girls and I both needed this week of quiet. Also, it gave me some time to research and plan some other materials we're about to pick up. In our "regular" weeks, I don't have much time to do this.

How was your week?





I'm linking up with:
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
No Ordinary Blog Hop
HammockTracks
Collage Friday
The Homeschool Mother's Journal

Spend some time perusing the blogs on these wonderful link-ups for some new ideas, encouragement, and fun!

Weekly Happenings: It's Showtime!

The last two weeks have been both harried and fun. Miss Priss has been in crunch for her troupe's performance of Willy Wonka, so we've been on a reduced school schedule. She's been at the theater for rehearsals from 4:30 PM until 10:30 PM weeknights and from noon til five last Saturday. Midnight has been our bedtime for several nights now. So we've been sleeping in. And staying in our jammies until we have to get dressed.

I've been involved, too. I worked the green room one evening; I provided the staff meal with another parent; I proofread the program for two evenings; I worked with props, hot gluing bagels and pastries to platters; I ran a couple of errands; and I picked up the staff meal last night and will again tonight before the performance. Oh, and I'm working concessions with another parent.

It's been exhausting and wonderful, all at the same time. The cast members are aged between 12 and 17 years old, and they have worked really hard. So has the backstage crew and the staff. I've had an up-close and personal look at all the work that goes on behind the scenes, and it is considerable!

Thursday night was opening night, and the show was fabulous. Last night was great, too. Two shows today, and then we can all collapse! Until the end of February, when Tiny Girl's production swings into high gear.

As far as school goes, we've stayed on top of our scheduled readings and math. Grammar, spelling, composition, logic, and a few extras fell to the wayside for a couple of weeks. We'll get back to them this coming week.

• Plutarch's "Pericles": Lesson 4, in which Pericles one-ups his political rival by throwing a bunch of parties for the masses
• Augustus Caesar's World: Octavian runs Marc Antony out of Rome, takes a consulship by force, and then joins up with Antony and Lepidus to form a triumvirate. Senseless bloodshed and murder, including the death of Cicero
• Story of the Greeks: athletic games; the birth of the theatre; Draco and his (Draconian) laws; Solon's better laws
• Explore the Holy Land: Iraq
• Animal Farm: Chapter 7
• Archimedes and the Door of Science: Chapter 5, in which Archimedes shouts "Eureka!" and solves the mystery of King Heiro's (or is it Hiero?)  crown
• In math, Tiny Girl worked on dividing decimals, and Miss Priss reviewed fractions

Miss Priss is reading and enjoying Kiss the Dust, a novel about a Kurdish family forced to flee Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime. Tiny Girl will read it next.

Today, Saturday, we are celebrating Tiny's 12th birthday. The actual date is February 23, but she wanted to take some friends to see her sister's play, so we're partying today. I made cupcakes with a delicious chocolate buttercream frosting. I'll share the recipes later.

Happy weekend!

I'm linking up with:
HammockTracks
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
No Ordinary Blog Hop

Considering Dissection

I don't know about you, but I don't look back at my wet lab days with fondness. And, although I believe that dissection is part of a well-rounded education, I don't relish the thought of frog guts and formaldehyde all over my kitchen table. I'm strange that way.

Since I live in a larger metro area, I'm blessed to have at my disposal many homeschooling class and co-op opportunities, some of which offer science classes, including biology and dissection. This has been my plan until my friend, Eliza, introduced me to a great idea: digital dissection.

Before you raise your lip in derision, as I almost did, let me hasten to add that Eliza is a science person (degree and all that jazz), so she knows of what she speaks. She turned me on to The Digital Frog.

From the website:

• The Digital Frog 2.5 engages students with an interactive, virtual dissection, allowing the student to learn each of the cuts necessary by "cutting" with a digital scalpel before watching the full screen video. 
• Animations and interactions allow students to see how the frog's body works—from blood pumping through the heart, to joints that can be built up and moved by the user.
• The Digital Frog 2.5 is so much more effective than a wet lab because the interactive dissection is seamlessly linked to a comprehensive anatomy and physiology section, with human anatomy comparisons.
• A fascinating ecology section reminds students that biology is the study of living organisms.
• With context-sensitive definitions on every word and spoken pronunciations on significant words, students have all the information they need with just a mouse.
• The Digital Frog focuses the student on the study of structure and function, rather than on the process of dissection.
• The Digital Frog also encourages squeamish students who may otherwise avoid biology and science.

Well, that's enough to make me give The Digital Frog serious consideration. I have a squeamish student to think about, not to mention my reluctant self. And the cost is reasonable. The home version is $85 -- less than the in-person class in my area, especially since I'll save myself a one-hour round-trip drive every week!

Give The Digital Frog website a bit of your time. You may be convinced yourself!

Weekly Happenings: Back in Action

 The last two weeks have been quite busy, and I've neglected my blog. That weighs heavy on my mind, let me tell you. Blogging is my one real creative outlet, and if I'm away from it too long I feel. . .  weird. Dissatisfied. It's hard to explain.

But one of the things taking me away from the blogosphere is paying work, and that makes my heart happy.

Anyway. The girls and I swung back into action last week. For the most part, they enjoy Year 6, term two readings. Animal Farm is not a favorite of my eldest, despite our background discussion earlier this week. "I can understand what it's about, Mama, but I still don't have to like it." Too true; but that doesn't change the fact that you have to read it.

But Augustus Caesar's World and Story of the Greeks continue to delight. I think it helps that a lot of the material is familiar to us. We learned about Julius Caesar's death and the following wars in Plutarch's Life of Brutus. And we've covered many of the Greek stories in our myth readings in previous AO years.

In math, Tiny Girl and I turned back to Master Math sixth grade video lessons and worksheets. This week, we covered decimal/fraction conversions. Miss Priss is swinging right along at Mathnasium and is due for her first assessment since joining. We are very interested to see what the results will be!

On Wednesday, we visited the Genghis Khan exhibit at a nearby museum. WOW is all I can say. The exhibit was really well done, and we learned a lot. We all brought along our sketch pads and sketched a few items that interested us.

On Friday, I got my brand new computer all set up and running. Yippee! Our old desktop was doing the best it could, but new technology made it glacially slow. The new desktop was my Christmas gift, and I picked out everything just like I wanted it.

All our activities have kicked in. This week, the girls attended drama class, piano lessons, and Mother-Daughter Bingo night with Girl Scouts. Only Miss Priss and I enjoyed the latter; Tiny Girl spent the afternoon and evening at the barn on the first sunny day we'd had for a week!

I also managed to make a loaf of no-knead white bread on Thursday evening. If you haven't tried this recipe, I highly recommend it!

So that's our week in a nutshell!

I'm linking up with:
Hammock Tracks
No Ordinary Blog Hop
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

New Term, New Books!

Yesterday found us easing back into our lessons after a lovely holiday season. A new term often means a a couple of new books, but this time it means quite a lot of new titles, since the Ambleside Online history cycle winds us back to the ancients in term 2 (of Year 6). Yay! For history, our new books are Augustus Caesar's World and Story of the Greeks. Our science biography swings back to ancient times as well with Archimedes and the Door of Science.

Other new titles this term are:

• Animal Farm
• Plutarch's Pericles
• The Sea Around Us
• The Story of David Livingstone (Technically, this book begins in Term 1, but I scheduled things differently. I'm totally a tweaker.)

Other new joys await in the form of Bach and Renoir, the artist and composer we're studying this term, and poet Carl Sandburg. His work is quite a jolt after Robert Frost, whom we all loved. Miss Priss was unimpressed by yesterday's poem, Jazz Fantasia. I can see she's going to take some convincing that Sandburg is worth reading.

Good stuff!

"Owls" Project Pack: A Fantastic Study!

I've enjoyed a few lovely days off to celebrate Christmas and New Year's with my family and friends. I hope you had some rest and relaxation time as well. There's nothing like a cold, rainy Christmas Day that invites you to stay jammie-clad in front of a nice fire with a really good book, is there? Perfection!

I wasn't completely lax, however; I found time to write a review on a most wonderful resource: the Owls Project Pack from In the Hands of a Child. If you and yours love owls -- like we do! -- you'll thoroughly enjoy this. To read my complete review, pop over to Curriculum Choice.

And a happy and blessed 2013 to you!


Photo credit: Doug Greenberg / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Sir Isaac Newton Notebooking Page

Here's another notebooking page I created for our Secrets of the Universe: Objects in Motion (AO Year 6) study. Sir Isaac Newton features largely in this selection -- and quite rightly, too. I decided to keep this page more general in design for universal appeal. (No pun intended. I mean it.)

Sir Isaac Newton Notebooking Page


Speaking of Isaac Newton, the girls and I got a good feel for his life last year when we read the chapter about him in R.S. Ball's Great Astronomers (AO Year 5). He strikes me as one of those brilliant, weird types. His intelligence is stunning, and I'm glad he did what he did during his lifetime, but I wouldn't have wanted to sit next to him at a dinner party. And I'm quite sure the feeling would have been mutual. I suffer no illusions, believe me!

Letting Go of "Normal" Expectations for Life

Do you find that, like me, you tell yourself, Next week, we'll get back to a normal routine? Or After Christmas/New Year's/spring break, etc. we'll get it together? I don't know about your life, but in mine, it just doesn't happen. When I look back at all my weekly reports that begin, "This was a weird week" or "Things didn't go as planned this week," I have to laugh ruefully.

The fact is, it's a weird week when things do go as I expected and planned.

A few weeks ago, I read a post by Mrs. White on her blog, The Legacy of Home. Her words really spoke to me.

Life never lets up.  We often say that tomorrow, or next week, we will fix our routine.  Or when things calm down, we will get back on track. But life will keep throwing us something new to juggle.  The goal is not to wait until things are better, but to do them in the middle of the challenges. 

Well, amen and amen! What a perspective.

I have to admit, friends, that I often let my school plans get derailed by life. That's not to say that I throw in the towel at the first sign of distress; but I have a hard time staying on track in medias res (as per  Greek dramatics).  I lose sight of my short-term goal (as in, lessons to be completed) and find myself backpedaling.

One beauty of homeschooling is, of course, its forgiving flexibility. In times of trouble, illness, and great stress, we can adapt our plans to match our more limited resources. Yet this same flexibility can be a drawback when we continually adapt/rework/put off our school plans due to yet another unexpected event, big or small.

Homeschooling is truly a lifestyle. We educate our children in life, not just schoolwork. They learn -- by watching us -- how to handle the mishaps and unexpected surprises of the everyday. Are we teaching them that upsets have the power to derail our best efforts and plans? Or are we teaching them to roll with it?

As a woman of faith, I want to teach my daughters that God is never surprised by events that spring up, unlooked for, in our day-to-day lives. "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans," said John Lennon. Put another way, life is what happens no matter what our plans.

I can't keep living for the day when things get back to normal. This is normal. We're all living in the now. So the question is, now that I've made that my reality, what am I going to do about it?

• Take a hard look at our daily schedule and how we spend our time. Are the girls wasting time? (Yes.) Am I? (Ditto.)
• Make more intentional decisions about how we spend the time we have. Can we better use our evenings? Does Tiny Girl have to be at the barn early in the afternoon or could she go later?
• Make room for more flexibility when needed. Could we stretch out the readings on this or that book without getting so behind we'll still be reading it this July?

That's where I'm going to start. Once I get going,I may discover other ways I can ensure that my lesson plans don't get flung into hiatus when life happens.

What about you? Have you found ways to absorb the unexpected in your day-to-day living? If so, I'd love to hear about it!

I'm Featured on Hammock Tracks' "Who Homeschools?"

Thanks very much to Savannah, who writes about her life and homeschooling at Hammock Tracks for asking me to be part of her feature, "Who Homeschools?" If you've been wondering what made me take the leap into homeschooling, nip over there to read all about it.

Savannah also hosts a weekly report link-up on Fridays, called "It's a Wrap," which I often join. Don't you just love reading blogs? I do, which is why I don't watch TV and have no knowledge of pop culture.

And I make no apologies.

My Article in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine!

I am so excited! I have an article in the most recent edition of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. Here is a link directly to my article, "The Spelling Apologist: Why Good Spelling Is Essential and How to Select the Right Curriculum."

This is a fabulous issue, friends. And you can read it online for FREE! How fab is that?

                                                                                                                                                 

	Look inside >
December 2012

Weekly Happenings: Powering Through, Pastels, and Poetry

We were all sick this week. Himself even worked from home, so he was here with us. The malaise was oddly up and down: we'd be poorly one day, and the next only stuffy and cough-y. Then back to poorly the next day. We drank gallons of tea and ate a lot of soup, both storebought and homemade. I doctored up a minestrone mix and the results were super delish. I also made some basic chicken noodle soup with chicken Better than Bouillon lower sodium paste, water, spaghetti noodles, and carrots (I doctored my servings with Italian seasoning). I threw it together because I didn't have any ready-made noodle soup. Turns out my homemade version was millions better. Good to know!

Most of our activities were waylaid, but we managed to get in a good week's worth of lessons.

Here's a rundown:

• Bible study: Psalm 84 with Young Hearts Longing for God
• Grammar: Pronouns, Daily Grammar
• Spelling
• Poetry: continue reading Frost
• Math: yet more fractions
• Composition with Writing with Skill
• Story of the World: the Cold War, the Space Race, Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam (whew!)
• It Couldn't Just Happen: continental drift
• Exploring the Holy Land: Israel
• Queen Victoria: her adventures continue
• School of the Woods: continue with the great blue heron. This is a long chapter, and I broke it into chunks over three weeks.
• Piano practice
• Assigned readings: Snow Treasure (an AO selection) for Miss Priss, and Cheaper by the Dozen for Tiny Girl

Mind Benders and hot tea -- a winning combo.

The beginnings of a Christmas tree.

On Friday, we enjoyed another pastels tutorial from Hodgepodge. This Sunday being the first in Advent, we opted for a Christmas theme. Miss Priss and I drew the Christmas Tree in Snow, and Tiny Girl felt drawn to Fireplace. Another wonderful Advent pastels tutorial is Christmas Star.

We had a wonderful time last week at my folks' house in the country for Thanksgiving. We arrived Wednesday and didn't leave for home until Sunday. The food was sublime and so was visiting with family. Bliss!

Miss Priss reading The Upstairs Room on the way to her grandparents' house for Thanksgiving.

In homekeeping, I made a few things other than soup this week. I replenished my freezer stash of homemade baking mix, and I also tried my hand at homemade dishwasher detergent. The first load is washing now, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Baking mix.

Several Frost poems engaged our rapt attentions this week. The girls especially connected with "A Tuft of Flowers" and "Mending Wall." Those are of course absolutely wonderful, but the one that spoke the most to me was "Revelation," today's selection. I think perhaps the girls are still too young to be as moved as I. They've not yet mastered the art of dissembling, hiding behind words that have lost their meaning, hiding their hearts, yet longing for true connection.


Revelation, by Robert Frost

We make ourselves a place apart
     Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
     Till someone find us really out.

'Tis pity if the case require
     (Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
     The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
     at hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
     Must speak and tell us where they are.


Have a lovely weekend!

I'm linking up with:
Hammock Tracks
Friday Photo Collage @ Homegrown Learners
The Homeschool Mother's Journal
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
No Ordinary Blog Hop

Curl up with your computer and a cup of tea and hop a while!

Weekly Happenings: A Week of Delights for the Senses

Happy fall Friday! The weather today is perfect here: deep blue skies, breezes, and sunshine. Which is great for us. But so many people's lives have been thrown into disorder after the hurricane -- from discomfort to complete chaos -- that my rejoicing in our glorious days is dimmed.

While I type, a dear friend of ours, a widower gentleman in his 80s, bides his time in a power-less house in New Jersey; other friends in Pennsylvania are just now back to school after being without power all week; NYC friends are just getting back to some semblance of normal life, but just a semblance; and other folks we know in the northeast are taking stock and cleaning up.

But everyone we know is safe. So we are thankful.

The girls and I had a good week, a week of delights for the five senses. On Friday night, we visited our town's planetarium and observatory with my two sisters, one of which lives here and the other who was in town for a conference. Yay! The planetarium show was fun; I hadn't been to one of those since I was a child. Afterward, we looked through telescopes to view a few celestial bodies: the Moon, Uranus, and Alberio, a double star in the constellation Cygnus. We all had a wonderful time stargazing and seeing new-to-our-eyes sights.

Other nifty things we studied this week:

• We read about Israel's Negev Desert in Explore the Holy Land.
• Story of the World highlighted India's partitioning in to Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan; the re-creation of the ancient country of Israel; and the Suez Canal crisis in Egypt.
• We learned in It Couldn't Just Happen that Earth's oceans have rivers in them: the Black Current in the Pacific and the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, which are both part of gyras.
• Dion marches triumphantly into Syracusa against Dionysius in Plutarch's Lives.
• We began a new book, Church's The Odyssey for Boys and Girls.
• We read about Mooween the bear in School of the Woods.
• The girls continued work on Queen Victoria and Ordinary Genius.
• Tiny Girl and I enjoyed Hodgepodge's Acrylic Fall Trees Tutorial. (Thanks, Nana!)

Himself took a business trip to Savannah, a city we all love. We requested some candy from Savannah's Candy Kitchen, and he lovingly obliged: saltwater taffy, peanut butter fudge, peanut butter and chocolate fudge, and pralines! I'm going to try my hand at making these delectable goodies this Christmas season. . . .

I made homemade pizza for supper on Halloween. Himself and I indulged in pepperoni, fresh mushroom, and fresh basil with a generous grinding of fresh Parmesan; the girls had their favorite: cheese. That is just gorgeous, even if I do say so myself.

Speaking of Halloween, if you have gobs of leftover candy, I wrote a blog post of ideas for getting rid of it (or stretching it out). We're donating ours to the troops.

More culinary sensations: I made a wonderfully delicious beef stew for supper earlier this week. Click here for the recipe and then make it this weekend. You'll be so glad you did! I also made another batch of homemade yogurt. I can't imagine being without it nowadays. And I made a double batch of homemade laundry detergent. I know it's not culinary, but I did make it in the kitchen.

Tiny Girl and I are spending lots of time at the barn. In case you didn't know, we now have two ponies: Max, whom we lease; and Tuli, whom we bought. Tiny works with both of them, and this takes a lot of time. I persuaded Himself to take her to the barn this afternoon so I could have time to write this wrap-up. Here she is on Max. It was an especially gorgeous day.

We bookworms have been reading a lot, too. Miss Priss finished Jack and Jill, by Louisa May Alcott (read my post on that here) and continues Cheaper by the Dozen and Summer of My German Soldier; Tiny Girl continues The Fellowship of the Ring and finished The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss; I finished Mary Stewart's The Moon-Spinners and have almost finished The Upstairs Room.

One of our Frost poem's this week was "After Apple-picking." Here are a few lines:

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I enjoyed the few Frost poems I recognized for many years, but now that I've read him more widely, I wonder at his insight, his turn of a phrase, his ear for perfect words, his immense gift for poetry.

I'll leave you with a tip:

Everything goes better with chocolate -- especially fractions.

Not only am I linking up with some fantastic blog hops (see below), I'm also having a fabulous time listening to bossa nova music on Pandora internet radio. You can, too! Visit Pandora, and then type in "Astrud Gilberto" as an artist. You'll hear her and others like her. "Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes, each one she passes goes aahhhh. . . ."

Link ups:
Mary at Collage Friday
Kris at Weekly Wrap-Up
The Homeschool Mother's Journal
Savannah at It's a Wrap
No Ordinary Blog Hop

Shakespeare As It's Meant to Be: In Real Life

On Sunday evening, we visited a Shakespeare playhouse in our town to see Macbeth (that is, the Scottish Play). This was a first-time event for all of us in one way or another. Himself and I had never seen this particular play, and the girls had never seen Shakespeare on stage. So we were all excited. Plus, this theatre serves food -- really good food, as we discovered -- so we were extra excited.

I'm of the mind that Shakespeare should be seen and experienced, not read. Reading Shakespeare plays is boring. I know; I've read more than my fair share. And there's a perfectly good reason that the plays are boring to read: they are plays. Shakespeare wrote them to be performed on the stage. That's the whole point.

Shakespeare comes to life on stage. The actors of course give life to a mere character. But in an even greater sense, the words come alive. What looks archaic and foreign and impenetrable on the page becomes clear in real life.

We talked about the story on our drive home, and I was greatly pleased by how much the girls understood. But if I'd read the play aloud to them or, worse yet, handed it to them and said, "Read Act One, Scene One, and get back to me," the results would have been far worse. Never mind the huge resistance I would have faced!

That being said, once you've seen the play, it might interest you to read it. Now you have a "movie in your mind" to go along with the words on the play. When you read "Exeunt," you'll recall that the players thundered off the stage, swords glinting, in that particular scene. Or you may remember Lady Macbeth speaking the phrase "the milk of human kindness," and, since you recognize it as an idiom, you can read her soliloquy and further explore its use.

On the flip side, you might want to read a play to prepare yourself for seeing it. Shakespeare's minor characters are often not named in the play itself. To keep yourself from wondering, "Now who's this guy?" during the play, bone up a bit first. But even in this case, I advise reading a No Fear Shakespeare version (or another modern English translation) or even a story version, such as Edith Nesbit's or the Lambs' adaptations.

We all had a fabulous time. The girls are still talking about their favorite parts. They can't wait to see another Shakespeare play and are already planning which to see. Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest are high on the list.

How great is that?

P.S. Jimmie has written a most wonderful Squidoo lens, Shakespeare for Children, packed with tons of resources and ideas. Don't miss it.

I'm linking up with:
Hip Homeschool Hop
No Ordinary Blog Hop