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Advent Devotionals: A [shorter] Jesse Tree
Very, very rare (like, in this house, it’s maybe happened ONCE) is the year when the holidays roll around and everything falls neatly in to place: Christmas decorations put up right after Thanksgiving (and all the boxes they spend the other 11 months of the year in are packed quickly and neatly out of sight until they’re needed to return everything to in the days after Christmas) so that we can maximize our enjoyment of them. Christmas shopping completed early and gifts actually wrapped in advance of Christmas Eve and placed under the tree (with coordinating and thoughtful wrapping) so that we can enjoy the look of them. Just the…
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Gift Ideas for a Lego Fan
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the educator version of Groupon – Educents. I’ve ordered a few things through them (like Life of Fred math curriculum, which I rarely see on sale and yet, is currently on sale there again . . . we LOVE Life of Fred!!!). For just a couple more days they are running a special on Pley – the “Netflix” of the Lego world. For $25 you get a $50 credit toward any of their 3 plans. It can mean that you get 3 months of the smallest plan or 2 months of the mid-priced plan. It seems like a great deal if you want to…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Egg Protector and Drop
This may be the shortest post in the history of blogging, but since I know we’re all in the middle of wrapping up our last few weeks of CC . . . and I couldn’t find anything out on CC Connected that addressed this . . . I put together a little summary sheet of the science principles (Physics) behind an Egg Protector and the Egg Drop experiment. I’ll put together a nicer and more polished post later when I have more time, but for now, I just wanted to make this available quickly to anyone who might find it helpful. You can download the document that I put together…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 20
Time is flying! It’s week 20 and we’ll be wrapping up this year of CC Foundations before we know it! Science Here’s a fun little video with information about the second law of thermodynamics: Science Project I found a number of videos this week that complement our bridge-building project nicely. These two from MIT are my favorites: Part 1- Part 2 – Here are two others that are also good: http://science.howstuffworks.com/29829-understanding-bridge-designs-video.htm http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.mfe.zstrawbridge/triangles-designing-a-straw-bridge/ (You may need to create a free account at PBS in order to view this one.) There are also several books that work well with this subject: Cross a Bridge has simple, colorful illustrations of different types of bridges…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Orchestra
Confession time. I can’t sing. I mean, seriously. In fact, I sometimes wonder how the children in my CC class manage to learn any of the material from someone who teaches most of it with songs that she usually butchers mercilessly. Now, on the upside (sort of), I can actually TELL that I can’t sing. I’m not tone deaf. In fact, I have a HUGE appreciation for music and musical people. Before our children came along, my husband (who has an AWESOME voice! The proof is on his album.) and I were season ticket holders to the symphony. We loved it! Then the kiddos arrived and going out became more…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 19
We’ve entered the final 6 weeks! It’s the downhill slope, but it sometimes feels more like it’s the hardest part of the year. I read a great blog post entitled “Everyone wants to quit in November and February” a week or so ago. It can be encouraging just to realize that you aren’t the only one who feels worn out! Hang in there, folks! History Well, here’s the thing. The Korean War is often called the “Forgotten War” and that makes finding great kid-friendly sources about it a little, ummmm . . . challenging. Crash Course History has a video on the Cold War, which begins with Korea (first 5…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 17 and 18
We’re still in the taxes-filled zone around here (see Week 15 and 16 for more dull details, if you want them), so once again, I’m combining my Week 17 and 18 into a single post. History I don’t know about you guys, but I think some of the hardest memory sentences are the ones which are really just a list of names. We acted out the ones from the Renaissance (Week 6) based on their occupation. We used the dress-up game for WWI leaders (Week 14). And now for WW II leaders, we did some goofy acting out. I did print out Melody Stroud’s history cards (we’re using ALL her…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 15 and 16
This is the time of year in our family when a couple of things typically happen: 1) We’re just really getting back into the school “groove” and I start to feel good about what we’re accomplishing and 2) tax season hits. In some past life that I occasionally have flashbacks of, I was a CPA who had VERY, VERY little to do with taxes. I spent most of my time (and by that, I mean 50-80 hours/week) auditing fairly large, often publicly-traded companies. I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just skip to the end of the story . . . I don’t do that any more. Okay, if…
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Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
About two weeks ago, our family went to the local art museum. We were there primarily to see an exhibit of Norman Rockwell’s work, but also on display was an exhibit that highlighted art by some of our country’s African American artists. We wandered through this exhibit first, and as we went along, we came to this piece. Neither of my children (5 and 7) understood the piece at all. And so, I found myself in the middle of a museum trying to explain to my children how people can choose to judge each other entirely by the outside appearance rather than by looking at the heart. Truth be told,…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 14
While there were some tough grammar areas, in my opinion, this week (English, History and Math were all just really long meaty!), I still really enjoyed it and we came up with some fun stuff to do with all of them! History Who else noticed this week that crazy, over-the-top mustaches must have been ALL the rage in Europe during WWI? I mean, SERIOUSLY the facial hair on these world leaders was crazy! There’s actually quite a bit of discussion on the internet about it, and I even read that David Lloyd George kept his specifically trimmed to a length that would not interfere with the seal on his gas…
