Random Stuff From a Homeschool Week or Two

“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent.” 
― Plato

Wise words from a really old guy. I just found a lovely trove of quotes I may be fobbing off on my five readers here for a while. I force my kids to do things, of course, but it's always much better if it was their own idea. Don't you agree?

I have no wise words these days, but I do have a motley collection of things that we fell into doing these past few weeks, and let me just say that the things we do are such a direct outgrowth of who my kids are. My daughter, in particular, is constantly taking me into things I never thought I would be doing.

Spelling Bees, for instance. The thought of standing up in front of a bunch of straight faced judges is very daunting. Even if I could have spelled anything correctly as a child, I don't think I ever would have signed up for that. My daughter, however, has found that it's a challenge she likes. Not only that, but she's good at it. We took part in the annual Scripps Spelling Bee again this year. Our homeschool group is the only one that takes part in this in our area (as far as I know), and I am very thankful for the opportunity this gives us. The winner goes on to the regional competition with all the winners of the school competitions. My daughter came in third this year behind two very impressive and well coached brothers, and I am very proud of her.

She does love the limelight. Sometimes I wonder who's kid she is. We have also been taking part in a homeschool program sponsored by a community theatre in Raleigh called the Raleigh Little Theatre. RLT is an institution that has been around since the 1930's and puts on some really good shows as well as offering top notch education. They have a class called RLT Homeschool Players to Go. After auditioning, the kids spent several weeks practicing their theatrical skills and learning their parts and then they took the show on the road, performing for various preschools and track-out camps in the area. We've got one more week to go with this and it's been a really great run. This year the play is something called "Revenge of the Pigs". My daughter is a really mean and hungry Mrs. Wolf and the kids watching it have just loved the play while the actors are having a blast doing it. This is all done with minimal set and costumes since it has to be easily transportable.

With my son I have been doing the "Tracks and Signs" lessons (see this post here) and this week took a trip out to Historic Yates Mill County Park for a very nice program. It poured the night before and stopped raining just long enough for a lovely walk where we saw beaver tracks and many other things. It seems the boys, in particular, really just love any chance to be doing something and then out and moving. The teacher did a really good job keeping their interest as well.

Unfortunately, this week, some of the illness that has been going around has also finally caught up with us. When my son came down with a fever I thought to myself, "Drat! We made it all the way through the holiday season and now it gets us?" He slept pretty much an entire day and spent another one convalescing and is almost fully recovered now. My daughter came down with it three days later and is now currently coughing her head off if bed.

I continually marvel at how each child seems to take illness in much the same way no matter what it is. My son often shows little or no signs of how bad he feels until he suddenly gets grumpy or tired or loses his appetite. After that he continues to be easy, quietly suffering in his bed or on the couch, napping when he can. My daughter, as with everything, is a drama queen. "Mommy, I feel terrible. Mommy, I feel like I'm going to die." In the middle of the night she'll come and wake me up, "Mommy, my nose is running. Mommy, I can't breathe." In her world, misery loves company and if she's miserable it seems the rest of us have to suffer with her. It always ends in a week or more of coughing and I'm often at a loss of what to do. She will cough herself into throwing up. She will cough all night. I'm desperate here and we are going for the "vapor rub on the feet" cure. I only have the all-natural version of the rub, and the "remedy" seems ludicrous, but I'll try anything.

Randomly, there was a bit of science last night involving copper pennies and vinegar. I came into the kitchen to find dad and daughter shining up copper pennies and coating nails in copper. If you are interested in trying this, a good place to look is here.

We are also getting ready for a couple of birthday parties. If I had to do it all over again, I would have never gone in for the big parties, because once you do it, it's really hard to say no the next year. My daughter always wants a party at home and always wants to invite EVERYONE. Fortunately, she has started doing most of the planning herself. Every year we make a piñata. It's something that is incredibly easy to do. So far, however, we haven't figured out how to do any shapes other than round, as we shape it around a ballon and then pop it. All you have to do is mix white flour with water and then dip paper (newspaper, tissue paper) into the mixture and apply it to the outside of your shape. When it's dry you fill it up with whatever you want. It's attaching the rope that is tricky.

This year my daughter wants an "international" party and so the piñata is going to be a globe. Unfortunately, right now it looks more like a big blue egg than a big blue marble. Well have to work on that.

Finally, to wrap up this rather random assortment of topics, I thought I would share a really lovely little video I found this week. Enjoy.