Little Blue School

Just One Delta IV Rocket Before We Go to Disney World...

2007-11-10T19:37:00.000-05:00

Last night Dan realized that there was going to be a rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center down here at NASA in Cape Canaveral. So, instead of going straight to Orlando, we decided to take a detour. We are total rocket launch dorks. Tonight we are staying in Cocoa Beach, FL and in about an hour we will be on the beach watching the rocket go up! WHOOSH! ROAR! TREMBLE! ETC!

Driving over here on 528 we saw the NASA buses driving people around:

And we saw pretty Florida water:

No rocket yet, but we are going to change that, right now. And tomorrow we're going to the Kennedy Space Center for more nerdy joy.

UPDATE:

We saw it from the beach -- it was fantastic. Here is a terrible video that gives you absolutely no idea how cool it was:

Disney Departure Eve

2007-11-09T18:53:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we leave for Disney World. We went last year (here's my post about What We Learned at Disney World), and also the year before (here's the October archive from the mobile blog in 2005, scroll down for Disney posts if you desire), but we're going again and we're not feeling apologetic about it. We love Disney World, in all its ridiculous splendor. To say that the children are excited is to say that the ocean is a little damp. Benny has been counting down the days, reading his "research guide" as he calls it (Birnbaum's Walt Disney World for Kids, by Kids), and planning daily itineraries in detail. Sadie is interested in the princess pins, the costumes we're packing, and in riding all the roller coasters she's too tiny to ride. That will be a complicated dance, I realize! Benny is keen on riding every death-defying one, and she would like to be right there with him, all 36 of her inches, barely big enough to ride Goofy's Barnstormer.

So, we are off early tomorrow morning. I will try to post every day still, to keep up with NaBloPoMo, but if you're interested in where we are at any given moment, I invite you to visit the mobile blog.

I leave you with this, our dinner plates for this evening:

A Bowling Breakthrough

2007-11-08T19:41:00.000-05:00

We had three very Benny moments today.

1. Today at Homeschool Bowling League, which I march myself to by the elbow every week because Benny loves it so much, he bowled a STRIKE. A real strike, straight down the middle of the lane, not using the bumpers to ricochet the ball! It was a glorious moment. He turned around, pumped his fist in the air, and shouted: "GOAL COMPLETED." Not "Yes!" or "Yeah!" or "Strike!" or whatever the other children typically say, but "GOAL COMPLETED." On the way to the van he told me he was going to cross this off his list of goals. The existence of a goal list was news to me, and I asked him what else is on it. The answer: "Bowl a double strike." HAHAHA. Lofty!

2. We were driving through downtown Norfolk and we saw, moored by the Spirit of Norfolk, a really big, cool, tall ship that was clearly from some Scandinavian country, or maybe the Netherlands, or... something? I couldn't remember what the flag was supposed to be from. I asked Benny if he knew, and he thought it might be Norway, but I knew it wasn't Norway. So, anyway, I whipped out the cell phone and tossed it to Benny so we could blog it and then ask Dan. He's pointing the phone out the window, and I'm sitting at a red light saying, "Take the picture! Take the picture!" and he's saying "Where, where?" and pointing the camera all over the place. Now, keep in mind we have just been discussing this flag that we were BOTH looking at and guessing the origin of, and now he can't even find the SHIP to take a picture of it? I said, "Benny, the BIG SHIP that's RIGHT OVER THERE." And he said, "Oh, it was behind that tree." Click. Green light. Move on.

3. Later, it is group violin class. The children are playing a piece (Waltz from Book 2 for those of you Suzukians out there) that requires some swaying and movement -- a piece you're supposed to feel. And Mrs. Stevens said for them to be more "emotional." One of the older girls objected to the use of the word "emotional" because in common usage it is synonymous with crying. So Mrs. Stevens asked them to come up with a better word and then turned to Benny and said, "Benny, do you know another word for emotional?" and Benny said, "What do you mean by emotional?" He delivered the word "emotional" as if it were a word in some strange foreign tongue from a forgotten era. Now, Benny is actually very emotional, and very in touch with his emotions. He sometimes even now recognizes that other people might be having emotions too! But it just seemed like such a hilariously typical hyperlexic response, I had to guffaw. What do you mean by this... emotional? *cackle*

Tomorrow is all about packing for Disney World. Must not forget mouse ears.

Handwriting Help: Four Suggestions for Happy Letters

2007-11-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

Handwriting is a stressful subject. Any time there is a "perfect" way to do something, and we are helping our children to try to meet that "perfect" standard, we have to be careful not to set off weird alarms in their heads -- what's wrong with me? Why can't I just do it exactly like the book has it? In math class, we can get the right answer if we figure out the correct number. In science class we can memorize the facts. It's either right or it's wrong, there's no subjectivity in most of elementary school. The truth about handwriting is that it's almost mechanically impossible to duplicate the correct answer. What we're all trying to do is to get close, and in the end most of us abandon that attempt anyway, and either type things or write in all caps (like me) or just embrace the scrawl.

Here are four ideas for helping your child navigate this shark-infested water, especially if you're already having trouble, tears, and terror.

1. It's okay to let the child write using the typewriter or computer. This lets the kid form words, express thoughts, etc. without the pain (psychological or otherwise!) of holding a pencil. Just forming the words and having them look perfect, perfect, perfect can be very satisfying! My son’s favorite computer “game” was wordpad for a long time.

2. Get rid of whatever medium is driving the child and you crazy. If pencil and paper isn’t working, ditch it. For as long as is necessary. Write with your finger in marshmallow fluff, in fingerpaint, in sand, in chalk dust. Write on a white board with scented markers. Write with mommy’s ancient lipstick on the dishwasher. Okay, maybe not that last one. Hehehe. We used a whiteboard for everything and Benny loved it – it’s a lot less frustrating to erase when you can just swipe it off, and you don’t have to scrub at a piece of paper with an eraser. Write on sidewalks, on the side of the house with a water hose, with bubbles in the tub, etc.

3. Confound the idea of “perfection” by asking her to write silly things. Write it all in curly cues. Write it in ocean waves. Write it like a mouse would write it. Write it tiny, write it huge, write it upside down. For a small child who wants to write perfect letters but physically has a hard time doing it, one of those manuscript sheets with three lines, one dotted in the middle, one red on top, can be the height of intimidation, frustration, and potential defeat. How would a mouse write it? How would an elephant write it? You be silly, start laughing, get crazy, then sigh, shake your head and say, "Okay, well, I guess we better write it like humans now..."

4. Everyone's handwriting is different. Let your child know that we all have our own ways of writing, and try looking at different people’s handwriting. Look at all the signers of the constitution. Look for handwriting samples online. Talk about signatures and how everyone's signature is *supposed* to look different and special.

Here's a sample of Benny's writing when he was 3 1/2:

Not exactly regular, uniform, perfect or textbook! While Benny wasn’t worried about perfection, I was, initially. I tried to make him hold the pencil a certain way, stay within this and that line, and think beautiful thoughts. I convinced myself, at last, that it didn’t really matter, as long as he was happily writing letters, and having fun.. If I, a brutal perfectionist, can come to that conclusion, maybe your child can too!

Pizza Hut Book-It Program: Oh, yeah, it's ON!

2007-11-06T15:19:00.000-05:00

Benny is participating in the Pizza Hut Book-It program. His goal for October was to read 10 books to himself. This goal was set during the days when he could get through one or two chapters of a storybook per night before flipping open the space books and mooning over pictures of Ion and Europa. In fact, during October he read thirty books: the first one was Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang which we read together, alternating chapters, and the rest being Magic Treehouse books. Today was designated the day of the celebratory pizza party, where Benny could march into Pizza Hut with his little reward coupon and earn himself a little pan pizza while the rest of us leap about in a proud, congratulatory way.

The day began in a grey and rainy way as we set out for the violin school with our arms full of violins and dolls.

Both of the children had GREAT lessons, due to the miraculous concentration and boost in the practicing energy this week. Then it was time to go to Pizza Hut, where we were meeting Dad, Ahno, and Ahno's most recent project, Genesis.

The children were, for a change, very hungry and ready to eat. Our waitress said that she had participated in the Book-It program in its first year, when she was in kindergarten.

Here's Benny savoring the sweet, sweet taste of literature:

After lunch, Benny took his empty plate back up to the counter and thanked the bored, irritated crew in the back for having the Book-It program and giving him a free pizza. He vowed to their unlistening ears that he would "keep reading NONSTOP UNTIL I DIE." We also thanked Ahno for buying the rest of us lunch. And we thanked Mary Pope Osborne once again for giving Benny the will to read.

K is for Kapok: The South American Alphabet Project

2007-11-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

Today, Phi Bensa Zoe Academy's junior class resumed its study of the alphabet via South America, to go along with the Spanish studies they are pursuing with Veronica.

Here are the new pages for the South America workbooks:

Junior:

Senior:

Here's our Kapok tree lesson!

1) We read these two books.

2) We painted Kapok trees with no leaves on it, but lots of animals inhabiting them! I drew the tree outlines with pencil and during the painting we concentrated on doing brush-brush-brush instead of scrubbing the brushes around. Both of them did very well filling in their areas, and we had three different watercolor shades of brown to help them get the feel for shading.

3) Cut out lots and lots of big broad leaves for the animals to hide under. Phillip did GREAT with the scissors. Sadie needs me to be her left hand, turning the paper while she operates the scissors.

4) Tape the leaves onto the trees like little flaps, so that you can lift them up and see the hidden animals inside.

What is WRONG with me that I didn't take pictures of the final products! Imagine the trees above with a whole bunch more leaves stuck all over the place.

We concentrated on learning the names of the animals in the book, and on getting that brush technique down, and on precision cutting. A good day.

Meet the Robinsons Makes No Sense

2007-11-04T18:34:00.000-05:00

My children are right now watching "Meet the Robinsons" for the fourth time, and I finally now grasp the plot. What's wrong with this movie? I'm 35 years old and I have a graduate degree in English literature. How anyone under the age of 13 is supposed to follow this movie while sitting in the theater is completely beyond my grasp. I'd summarize the plot for you, but it would take too long, and also I might get it wrong. Let me just say: Time travel. You know? Time travel.

Then there are the many, many, many characters:

Characters in the past, characters in the future, characters in the weird alternate future that has to be rectified... characters on top of characters. I still don't know who that lady with the skyscraper hat is, or the big kid in the chair. But who cares -- it's Disney! They can do anything they want and kids will love it, right?

Actually, RIGHT. Both of my children love it. They had no idea what was going on at first, but they are slowly processing it. Yesterday at the playground they spent a long time playing time travel on one of the climbers, with Benny explaining in depth about how the future and the past are connected, and spinning out various scenarios to illustrate his points, and Sadie nodding sagely and lying down to pretend to travel someplace where everything was pink. They engaged with the movie. They truly, truly liked it. I cannot for the life of me get how this happened, but, it happened.

This is kind of like coming to terms with "Chicken Little," which to me was a frenetic, glaring mess, but to my children was hilarious and engrossing. In fact, that movie and this one have much in common, including the vast array of characters, the laffy-taffy colors, and the kid who wants to succeed in baseball. I guess at times like this I just have to shrug and say, "Whatever" and wait for this infatuation to pass. This is good practice for ten years from now when they're deeply in love with whatever awful (to me) music is popular then. Whatever, dear, whatever. Eat your peas.

School is Awful. Just ask Junie B. Jones.

2007-11-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

I was raised by two school teachers. I grew up in small private schools, enjoyed myself about as much as I expected to, and after a few bumps and lumps in elementary school, I did very well. I have no moral opposition to school. You might even say that I like it, or that I like the idea of it, in its imaginary, perfect form. There's not much cuter than a well-stocked smoothly-functioning Montessori classroom, with all the little trays and doodads around the walls, and little busy children briskly occupying themselves at tiny tables.

I'm not homeschooling because I hate school. I'm homeschooling because I think homeschooling is cool. I'm homeschooling because I think my specific child needs it. I am completely open to the possiblity that he might want to go to school someday, and I will definitely let him try it and see how it goes.

My son is not open to that possibility. He does not like school at all -- not the idea of it, not the reality of it, not the smell, sight, or sound of it. Nothing about it interests him. Why? Where did he get this idea? I have been very, very careful in my characterization of school when we talk about it. I do not say it is a nightmare sweatshop where children go to be chained to desks for hours at a time, pushing heavy pencils across black and white worksheets until their little eyes bleed. Of course, I also do not say it is a happy valley of magic playtime where elves feed you gumdrops as you learn to play checkers better. I try to be realistic. There are good and bad things about school, like there are good and bad things about everything. (Except stale candy corn. There's nothing bad about stale candy corn. But I digress.) Benny's opinion of school is so violently negative -- when we visited Boston and stood on the site of the first public school in the country, he made this face:

Why so glum, chum? What beef could you possibly have with public schools, having attended one approximately zero times in your life? We recently attended a violin workshop at a cute local school, and Benny spent a lot of time making me reassure him that he wasn't going to have to "go to school" -- that our attendance there was only temporary and completely disconnected with enrollment. Sadie liked it. Driving away on the last day, she said she wanted to go back there again. Benny immediately jumped in and said, "No Sadie! You don't want to go to school! Don't listen to her, mother. She just likes the playground. Sadie, you can get a playground anywhere! You don't have to go to school to get a playground!"

Where does this prejudice come from? Is there a back room of my mind, where a "school is bad" filmstrip is playing? Has he been able to perceive this opinion without my intention?

Then I look at the books I have exposed him to, and the shows he has watched on TV. What images of school has he seen, what situations have been dramatized for him? Guess what? More often than not, school is portrayed in books and on TV as a stressful place where bullies torture you, teachers misunderstand you, and lessons confound you. A place where you feel trapped, bored, and rebellious. There's Junie B. Jones, manipulating and suffering her way through first grade, and there are the Captain Underpants boys. Even a pious, innocuous little PBS show like Arthur shows school as a dangerous territory to be navigated with fear and trembling. I suppose the episodes are written in an exaggerated way so that school children can relate to them, and can learn to deal with reality. But how does that classroom look, to a kid who's not in school? Every day there's a new problem. Maybe Benny is getting his impression of school from these books and TV shows. I can see how that might happen.

So is contemporary children's entertainment just a secret propaganda tool for the homeschooling army? Do any of these fictional children enjoy school, do any of them have fun and interesting teachers, good friends, and happy days? There are a few books and shows that do not portray school as a hellscape of oppression and gloom. Dora the Explorer is one, but of course it is, because Dora is an unschooler. (Or possibly just a neglected child whose parents should probably be reported to CPS -- but let's put the best construction on everything and assume they're following her around in a magic helicopter in case the crocodiles don't abre at the right time.) Clifford the Big Red Dog portrays school as a fun place with positive interactions and favorite teachers. Magic Schoolbus has created the ultimate fun science teacher, although the kids still complain and whine in their little dialogue bubbles.

All this is symptomatic of the larger problem that exists in attitudes toward school, not just in my little child, but in the world in general. People seem to cheerfully just assume that kids hate school. That they can't wait for vacation. That they have to be forced to go. It's so much a part of the way we view childhood that we think nothing of basing a whole series of books on how rotten school is and how much kids hate it. Remember, I liked school. I was raised by teachers who made school so fun for their students that their kids didn't want summer vacation to come, they didn't want to stay home sick, they looked forward to the fun and interesting things happening every day at school. So -- is there something missing here? Why can I not understand why we don't expect that sentiment to be the norm, rather than the exception?

Maybe if most kids hate school so much, there's something wrong with the most schools, and not something wrong with most kids.

Magic Treehouse Brings the Noise

2007-11-02T19:47:00.000-04:00

Okay. I give up. Magic Tree House wins. I was wrong to fight it. Tonight Benny cried, yes cried real actual tears, over the fact that we'd accidentaly left the house without the book he was reading. And this was not an Eyewitness book about space, or a Q&A book about African animals, or a Bill Nye study on germs. It was a story, with a plot about people, an actual work of fiction. Up until he read Magic Tree House #1, he had been interested in exactly ZERO novels. Science books, yes. Stories, no. This is a kid who will read high school textbooks on geology and stay up all night doing it. But he would not read... Redwall, or Henry Huggins, or Moomins, or anything ridiculous like that. Now, he cannot be separated from his Magic Treehouse So, I guess I am convinced.

I picked up a Magic Tree House a few years ago -- it was #16 I think: The Hour of the Olympics. I got it, with some other books, to read during the 2004 Olympic Games, and I was disappointed because of all this strange, unexplained stuff about Morgan Le Fay, and irritated by the kind of facile, flatly rendered treatment of the material. Benny didn't give a ripe fig about the book, and I put it down with a sneer, deciding it was the literary equivalent of visiting the World Lagoon at Epcot Center and deciding you'd seen Europe.

That was also before I'd been to Disney World and realized it was fun to go to the Epcot World Lagoon and pretend Peru was next to Hungary and watch fireworks. So okay! I didn't get it. I didn't get the fact that the books are *not* entirely episodic, there are longer plots and mysteries that span multiple novels. Also, there are "Research Guides" that go along with the books, so you can read what the main characters are reading, and see what informs their adventures. What I mostly didn't get was that my child would be charmed by the stories, would be drawn in by the plots -- and really, as long as he's finally reading fiction, what right do I have to complain?

I asked him, "Benny, what are you going to do when you run out of Magic Treehouse books?" and he replied, "I guess I'm going to have to find some other kind of storybook to read!" Any suggestions for what makes a good transition for a non-novel-reader who might just want to finally read a novel?

Halloween is Over

2007-11-01T19:53:00.001-04:00

And all over the world, little pink princesses are sad. However, bloggers and novelists are happy. Because November is the month in which we all pinky swear to write novels and also blog every day.

You can also wear your princess dress every day in November, can you wear your "Emperor of Evil" costume? No. Poor Benny. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Happy November, Happy Nanowrimo, Happy Nablopomo, Happy Happy Happy.

*wan smile*

Sadie's Song

2007-10-31T09:23:00.000-04:00

Sadie sang this song today. I've tried to imply the rhythm and inflection with the way I took the dictation, but... really there's no way to reproduce this:

PRINCESS

There she goes somewhere
She gets somewhere today
She gets to where she goes
Because she goes somewhere
She gets somewhere she goes
She’s just going where she goes
She gets to where she goes
Then she goes home and that is her home
Then then then THEN and then
That’s what she did
A MONSTER CAME
Now the monster growled and then it had to eat her up
Then she went fastly as she can!
AND THEN SHE STOPPED
And there was a puppy then the puppy growled and then bite her
And she had to run away from the dog
But there were friends
And I like the friends
They didn’t want to be friends
Then didn’t want to be frie-ends
They didn’t want to be frie-ends
FRIENDS FRIENDS FRIENDS
They were just going backwards
And then she turned around and run away
Until I was done to be
Life! She got to life! But she will be dead if she goes on somewhere
Then she really did run from that monster
She really did run from that monster!
And then she’s alive! She doesn’t need to be dead!
She doesn’t need to be alive! She doesn’t need to be dead!!! DOWN HERE!
She doesn’t need a girl, she already has a girl, all that she needs to be a girl.
That’s all she said.
Do-do-do-do-do-do
She didn’t need to be dead. She didn’t need to be dea-ead.
She didn’t need to be dead. She didn’t need to be dea-ead.
To be dead.
Before she goes somewhere to her family
Then her family says go back in the valley
Before she goes back in the valley
She sees a puppy, then she said to her mommy
I need my puppy. Until she goes somewhere
She needs to bring, she needs to bring it
Before she goes somewhere
The princess got dead. Gooooooot DEAD.
She got dead, just on her skirt, she needs to gone away
Now her brother was coming to save her
The prince!
Then she came to sing a song with the guitar
And then mother came to sing with the guitar
And Leroy to lick her. And then! She doesn’t need to gone.
Gone! She doesn’t need to gone!
And then the princess went bowling
Then her dress was so so so long
Then she grew up, and turned into another dog, and then POOF
And it licked Benny, and then Benny turned into a dog.
Then everyone was a dog! And that’s how it goes all the way all the way
Over.

The End of the October Violin Practice Challenge!

2007-10-30T19:52:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the last day to practice your violin and color in pumpkins! Because tomorrow is....

HALLOWEEN.

Here's a picture of Sadie before her violin lesson today, to go along with the picture of Sadie's pumpkin plan, above. Drawn by Sadie, faithfully and dutifully carved by me.

So -- did you color in all your pumpkins? I have to admit that we here at our house did not! I don't know whether it was the Boston trip or Halloween fever, but we did not faithfully keep track of our practices, even though the chart was right on the fridge, so I'm not really sure whether we practiced enough times to get them all colored in, and I'm not going to guess. My feeling is that Benny has more than enough, and Sadie has about half. So, instead of counting, on November 1, I'm going to give them each a certificate that says "MANY MANY" in the space for the number of practices, and call it a month. Honest, oh that's me. Lame, but honest.

I hope that you have been more virtuous at keeping track than I have! I want to give away this medallion to some marvelous child who has spent October sawing madly away on the violin! If you finished the challenge, please send me a message with a link to your blog, and a picture of your child (not necessary, but I'd like to post it!) My address is jackets at rpsd.com.

A little video from Sadie's lesson! Mrs. Ford was having the girls answer back and forth with their violins:

NASA Open House and 90th Anniversary

2007-10-28T09:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the NASA Research Center at Langley threw open its hangar doors and welcomed the public to celebrate 90 years of knitted brows, furiously scribbling pencils, and AHA! moments. Even though it as a gloomy, rainy day, we went to see NASA, because, you know, they aren't exactly known for being hospitable and they probably won't do this for another 10 years.

I'm not really sure what the children absorbed. They are 7 and 3, and not really up on composites and air traffic control and 1000 mph winds. Benny loved following the map around and interacting with everyone and asking questions, and Sadie enjoyed the balloon animals and picking up the titanium models of space shuttles and sitting in cockpits. Since they're so young and this was such a dense experience, this trip gets filed with the stuff we do to give them background information when they revisit the subject later. Now they've stood directly under the mechanism used by the Apollo guys to practice docking. Here's Benny standing under it:

I however am old enough (theoretically) to absorb this kind of information, so here's a list of the things I learned:

1. Electron Beam Welding is strange. One guy at one table was telling us that buy building the piece by melting down a wire with a computer, layer by layer, they avoid wasting the metal that would have to be hollowed out and discarded or scraped off and discarded. Another guy at another table was telling us how they scrape off and eliminate everything that doesn't go in the piece, and it gets flushed away because it's all submerged in water. So, huh? Either way, the models were cool. I held titanium! Have I ever held titanium before?

2. They keep NASA brains in big tanks.

3. I have to learn to do balloon animals. The girl that was doing the NASA balloon animals was doing such awesome, incredible, ridiculous, huge, life-altering hats that I was eaten up with envy at her ability. I have to learn to do this, it will definitely improve my parenting, my homeschooling, my entire world. The pictures of that are on my camera, I didn't take any with my phone, but man. You have to take my word for it. She was phenomenal.

4. NASA needs more funding. The word we heard most often from the locals was "budget." This was not said in a hostile, irritated way as in, "Why don't we have a budget?!?!" but in kind of a sweet, sad, nostalgic way like, "I remember when we had a budget..." and then the person would wipe away a tiny tear. All over the facility, we saw scientists trying hard to bend their research to something commercially viable, to make the whole thing profitable, but I just got the feeling that what they really want to do is crunch numbers, try new things, speculate, and be pure scientists.

I suppose this is a conflict which has been going on since the beginning of time, but I just wanted a little less sadness and a little more glee. The next time I talk to a candidate, I'm going to ask not only how they feel about homeschool laws, but also how they feel about NASA. NASA needs buckets of money. And I haven't even started on the appearance of the place -- it looks like a community college, built in the 50s, which has never been improved or expanded, except to add giant wind tunnels. There are rusty pieces of equipment lying around that have just been dragged out and shot, there are containers from trucks rusting behind buildings, the whole place needs a facelift. I know that when there's not enough money for pure science, there's not enough money for cosmetic updates, but still.

I hope that if there are any NASA scientists reading this right now, they don't take this as a criticism. Maybe if there are any NASA scientists reading this right now, they're just glad I got the message in terms of the political significance. I got it.

5. NASA scientists are awesome to talk to. We had a lot of really interesting, informative talks with people who had most certainly given that same talk or explanation, or answered that same question, maybe 200 times already that day. Not ONE person was irritated, not one sounded bored or tired of the repetition, nobody cut off the children's questions or our questions. Every single person was totally nice and kind and smart and helpful. And that's saying something.

6. There is a whole lab devoted to breaking stuff! There are huge, interesting, insane-looking machines designed and used for ripping things apart. According to science, you have to break something to see how strong it is. That makes sense metaphysically too. I liked the breaking machines.

7. Composites are made by combining fibers with a matrix. I have nothing to add to that statement, because that is the total sum of my learning on that topic.

8. I like the show "Big Bang Theory" on TV. Do you watch it?

9. I must not have been paying attention. What is wrong with me that I didn't learn 10 things at NASA? I feel like I should be able to say something about flight simulators or acoustics or heat shields, but you know I would just be googling it after the fact, and that would be cheating.

10. Dan now thinks I know lots of people. I ran into blogging friends, and playground friends, and karate friends, and all kinds of friends. You might conclude that I am such a social butterfly that the percentage of the population of Southeast Virginia that attended NASA's Open House, when applied to my number of acquaintances, produced a large number of attendees that I knew. OR, you could assume that the type of person I know is the type of person most likely to go to NASA's Open House. And that would be good research. Here are some blogging buddies we ran into outside the Journey to Tomorrow exhibit, where the kids saw a live moon rock:

Thank you, NASA, for a very interesting Saturday. If I didn't learn enough, it's not because you didn't try, and there's always Dan, who absorbed and processed more information than the rest of us put together. We are nerds, we are superfans, we are technology dorks; of course we had a good time. NASA, we love you. Just tell us who to vote for!

Stockley Gardens Arts Festival

2007-10-23T13:29:00.000-04:00

We've been going to the Stockley Gardens Arts Festival for a several years. Since Benny was four and screeching out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the children's stage with the rest of the little squirts in his first year class. Last year he played his violin at the spring festival, but last weekend we missed the fall performance because we were on our way home from Boston.

On Sunday, safely back from our trip and eager to enjoy the hot Virginia weather after our stint in the frozen north, we walked down to the festival to look at the art and pat all the dogs.

We saw lots of art. Here was my favorite canvas (the one on the right):

Benny got his face painted to look like Leroy. Very effective:

Sadie and Benny both had some shaved ice. Benny invented a watermelon/chocolate combo, which sounds nauseating but was actually really good, the remains of it that I was asked to finish anyway. Sadie went with a more traditional strawberry:

So, I put it to you. Is this not an acceptable substitute for the festival carnival death-trap situation? Where they ride on the wooden roller coaster with the squivering nuts and trembling bolts? Where they sit on the creaking ferris wheel which has to be held up on one side by a local farmer? The one with the dancing bear, half eaten with mange, straight from Russia, who's wearing a frilled collar stained with his own rabid drool and the blood of his most recent victim? And eat chocolate tacos made out of silicon and drink lemonade from actual human skulls? Okay, not the Russian bear, but you get the idea. Can I not count this as our carnival experience for the season? There were painted faces, frozen treats, dogs galore, and Benny even got to do his crazy dance (inexplicable, and I didn't video it, unfortunately) in front of a big audience at the "folk singers with guitars" stage.

I'm counting it. Pungo Strawberry Festival, you're dead to me.

How to Get Your Three-Year-Old to Practice the Violin with Joy

2007-10-22T12:11:00.001-04:00

With JOY? Yes, and joy without sugar! Now usually, I just use candy to produce joy. One tiny M&M per accomplishment yields enough joy to get us through an average day's practice. BUT! Let's say you have a moral opposition to M&Ms.

Or your child has just eaten the frosting off three cupcakes and you think the addition of one more chocolate molecule would turn her into a giant squid. Here's a game to play with a violin practice that will make it fun and sugar-free.

1. Make your programs!

How many times do you want your child to repeat her assignment? In Sadie's case, we are working on the very first part of variation A, and I want her to go through it six times per practice. So we made six programs. The programs were each 1/3 of a sheet of paper, and they said TUKA TUKA STOP STOP in big letters. Of course, this is a good time to practice letters. You will also need a sheet of stickers, any size, for later.

2. Collect your audience!

Walk through the house, with a megaphone if you have one, calling, "Who wants to come to a violin show?" Collect whichever dolls/toys/animals are interested in the performance. Arrange them like an audience, and distribute the programs. Of course, your violin student will want to participate in all this, as is right and proper and educational.

3. Start the show!

Give the child a big introduction and let him/her take over. You be the audience. Maybe the dolls will heckle, and have to be subdued. Maybe the animals will have many questions about the parts of the violin. Maybe the action figures will shriek for more, more, more Twinkle Little Star.

4. Bring on the stickers!

Every time the child plays the song (in Sadie's case the first phrase of Twinkle, all the way through, with violin hand and bow hand working together) she gets a sticker to put on the program of one of toys. Beware -- all the toys will clamor for a sticker and demand a certain one, or a certain color, and be difficult. When every program has a sticker, the practice is over, EVEN IF THE CHILD WANTS TO DO MORE. Next time, you can pass out the programs again, and everyone can get another sticker. Until then, Buzz Lightyear and Barbie will just have to hum Twinkle to themselves.

There you have it! Today's method. Is it worth it, for forty-eight tuka-tuka-stop-stops? Absolutely. Dr. Suzuki recommended five minutes with JOY. How we bring about the joy is up to us. Watch this space for more diabolical violin practice manipulations!

Edit: Hey, I just found a very cool post on awesome gadgety violin tricks from my friend Karen.

Salem Massachusetts: City of Witches

2007-10-19T07:15:00.000-04:00

The lady at the Nathaniel Hawthorne birthplace said that on Halloween in Salem there will probably be 60,000 people. When Halloween falls on a weekend, there are over 100,000. Salem has embraced its spooky heritage of witches, hangings, hauntings, possessions, and resin statues of horror movie villains. Salem has found its niche.

Salem has also found a way to control the weather! Our week in Massachusetts so far has been sunny and brisk, but during our stay in Salem it was overcast, chill, and in the evening the fog rolled in off the ocean in such a deliberate way that you could actually see tendrils of fog floating up through the old graveyard. Spooky.

Salem is mostly a cute old New England town with narrow streets still laced with cobblestones, little shops and restaurants and those wooden signs with gold letters hanging from cast iron hinges.

But of course, in 1692 and 1693 dozens of women and men were imprisoned as witches, and 19 of them were put to executed. More died in prison and under torture. When you get down to the actual facts of what happened, you find this: Political upheaval in England and local changes in the theocracy created an atmosphere of unrest and instability. Several local children got sick, probably with a disease that we could explain now but they couldn't explain then. Increasing population forced the colonists farther out into the wilderness, making farming more dangerous and stressing people out. People went a little nutty and started blaming every problem in their lives on women, particularly those were were a little isolated, a little different, not so connected to the community core.

The Salem Witch Trials are as good an argument as any you can find for the separation of church and state. Since 1693, all of the accused have been proclaimed innocent, and apologies have been given. So, why does Salem now call itself the Witch City, when the trials were a horrible, embarrassing mistake and an awful blot on our history? Because it looks good on a t-shirt!

It also looks good on a cycling jersey:

Now I will stop pretending that I didn't love Salem, because Dan and I are total Halloween junkies, and having a whole town devoted to pumpkin carving, ghost spotting, drippy red lettering, and pointy hats, was a Halloween junky's delight.

In the old town hall, we watched a reenactment of an actual witch trial, from the transcripts of the accusation of Bridget Bishop. Abigail Hobbs, another convicted witch, was a witness. Benny was very concerned that it was all real, but at the end when we (the grand jury) were asked to vote on whether there was enough evidence to proceed to trial, he voted that there was.

Here's Benny looking solemn outside the house of one of the judges. This is the only actual remaining building that was involved with the witch trials.

On to brighter things!

We ate at Rockafella's, a converted bank. The vault door was open and could be examined at length -- there were lots and lots of gears including a bevel gear and some long thing with teeth on it that Benny said was a worm gear but it wasn't. Since I didn't know what it actually was, I didn't correct him.

The best part of the day for me was not the clam chowdah, but the trip to the original "House of the Seven Gables" and the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here I am by the birthplace:

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables, begins like this:

Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.

The inspiration for the house in the novel is a real house in Salem, whose 19th century inhabitants (relatives of his) entertained the young Hawthorne often, and suggested that he write a book about the house as it would have been in its original form. It's since been restored to be more like the book than it actually was, with Hepzibah's store on the street side, and also a hidden staircase that goes up through the chimney. Seeing Hawthorne's house and the "Pyncheon" house was amazing for me. It almost made me cry, for reasons I can't completely articulate. Apparently it also made me forget to take a picture with the mobile phone, so all my pictures of the house are on my camera still. If you click the link, you can see it and read about it. Because of course, it is so completely fascinating!

We walked back to the car through the dark, saw a black cat, bought t-shirts with witches on them, and went home completely happy.

Charlestown and Cambridge: The Other Side of the Charles River

2007-10-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

Two little tired children. Two parents tired of driving all the way from Yarmouth to get to Boston. A bag of bagels, coffee, granola bars, baby carrots, half an apple, water bottles, trips to the bathroom. And we actually had a very good day!

Here is the USS Constitution, commonly known as "Old Ironsides":

We went on the tour, so we could go below decks and see the guns and hammocks and things. Benny was an active participant, AS ALWAYS. He was called on to demonstrate how the Navy in those days enlisted 8-year-olds. During our time on the ship a lot of people asked Benny if he was going to join the Navy. His political answer: "I haven't decided yet."

We climbed the Bunker Hill Monument, which has 294 steps, and that is a lot of steps:

Benny asked that we do it again and again. Hmm. No. Very claustrophobic up there at the top.

We had dinner in Cambridge, on Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard and MIT. We decided that eating at typical Harvard hangout would involve a lot of tourists or snootiness, and eating at a typical MIT hangout would involve a vending machine. So we went for in between. Here we are walking around looking at choices:

We settled on a place called, unambiguously, "Middle East."

The falafel was good. Best I've had since Chicago. The hummous (hoomis?) was not all that great, but it was really all about the falafel anyway. Benny ate an entire 1/2 pound cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion, and fancy mustard. Sadie ate fries. Both refused the rice pudding and baclava -- fine, more for us.

We took a picture of Benny at MIT, but not one of Sadie at Harvard. She is being so weird about getting her picture taken. Half the time she's posing and preening, half the time she's hiding in Dan's elbow. Mysterious. Here's Benny's brain posing with MIT:

Driving around MIT and Harvard I realized a few things. Dan is an MIT type, and I am not. MIT is tall, metal and glass, no trees, no bricks, no grass (I know, I know, there are trees and grass, but that's the impression I got). Dan really liked it. It made me feel uncomfortable.

Harvard was more my speed -- grass, trees, olde bricke buildingse, and grass. Something I didn't realize: the entire main part of the campus is fenced and gated. I kind of liked that. On the other hand, I wasn't crazy about the people roaming around Harvard. They struck me as too rich and too precious. We went into a coffee joint and there were like forty-three tins of green tea, and people pompously sniffing and comparing and arguing about the relative merits. I did convince an overly monied young lady to purchase a tea called "Pinhead Gunpowder" based on absolutely nothing except the fact that I raved about it disingenuously. Heh.

This is all based on very limited time spent walking around randomly, of course, but I think I like the buildings of Harvard and the people of MIT. Dan had the opposite feeling. So, we are a good match. If our lives had been different, we might have met at that falafel place halfway between on Massachusetts Ave.

I will say, here, that I was offered early acceptance at MIT when I was a junior in high school. I could have skipped senior year and gone straight to college. I was fifteen. This week I found that I love Cambridge -- better than Boston, I think. I love the universities all over the place, I love the feeling of this endless, huge, small college town, all the brains leaking out of the windows -- it is very much a great environment for a nerd like me. But I'm very glad I didn't go to school there. I have always thought, "I could have gone to MIT -- and then what?" I'm now happy to say I have no regrets. I can't put my finger on exactly what, but something about the place made me glad for the choices I made.

My job as a homeschooling mom is to keep the children's options open. I want them to be able to choose where they want to go to school, with all varieties available. Of course, I want them to go to Old Dominion, down the street, so I can still do their laundry. But if they want to go to Berkeley or Rutgers or Oxford or... wherever, I want them to be able to pick what will make them the most happy. And I'm happy to spend a whole lot of time visiting colleges, because I just love making undergraduates buy weird tea!

The Boston Freedom Trail is a Harsh Mistress

2007-10-17T08:56:00.000-04:00

Once again, I was wearing a wrong kind of shoe. I don't think I will ever learn.

The Boston Freedom Trail is a red trail of bricks that marches you through several miles of downtown Boston, and drags you past all the most important historical sites along the way. Along the way, you see Paul Revere's grave, his house, and the church where he (or someone else, actually) hung those signal lanterns.

Grave:

House:

You see statues of Paul Revere. You look at the X-rays from Paul Revere's last hairline fracture. You observe the tree where Paul Revere once sat and ate a sandwich. Then you gaze upon the balcony where George Washington delivered his famous "As I survey the spot where Paul Revere ate a sandwich" speech.

The Freedom Trail begins at Boston Common, the big city park. The first important historical site is the state house with its glowing dome:

Here's the South Meeting House where the Bostonians had their rabble-rabble-rabble meeting before they marched down to the harbor and hurled the tea into the water. Interesting things about this: The Boston Massacre took place right outside this building, and five people died. During the Siege of Boston, when the British were trapped inside the city, they ripped the pews out of the church, dragged in a bunch of dirt, and turned it into a riding ring. Inside, you can see the spot where George Washington stood and said he was amazed that people who revere their own churches so much could so casually defile ours. Good point.

Benjamin Franklin was born on Milk Street. His birthplace is now a Sir Speedy print shop:

See the bust of Franklin, above the second floor?

Here we are in Quincy Market, having lunch and trying to get the sparrows and pigeons to eat out of Benny's hand:

And here's Sadie! She has been hiding in the stroller this whole time, refusing to let me photograph her. Let me say that every building in Boston has stairs, no one can find the ramps and elevators, and I need a flying stroller. At least the baby is happy.

Gelato in Little Italy:

We deviated from the Freedom Trail and its bossy red bricks so we could make a circuit back to the car, via Beacon Hill. Here's Benny on Charles St. I read a smug little explanation online about Charles Street, that boasted there are no neon signs and no franchises. I guess the original Dunkin' Donuts, Ritz Camera, and 7-Eleven must be on Charles Street then. And the Freedom Trail doesn't even go down it!

Benny found a shoe repair guy doing work on a boot in his little basement workshop -- it was really cool. We looked for simple machines. Benny rapped on the window and I said, "Don't knock on the glass!" You know, because it scares the shoe repair guys! Turns out shoe repair guys aren't puffer fish -- he smiled and waved at Benny.

Here's Benny at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. I have no caption for this:

They were filming a movie on the lagoon side of Boston Common. I peered and peered and peered to try and figure out who the stars were... WELL! We researched it when we got back to the condo. The blonde I saw was Kate Hudson and the Ben Afflecky looking person I saw was Dane Cook! And the movie was Bachelor #2. Neat! I saw a chicklit movie getting filmed! I'm totally almost famous now!

Sadie tried to sneak onto the movie set, disguised as a stroller, but they busted her. DARN. So close.

So, that was our four mile hike around the city of Boston. Two many burial grounds for Benny, and too many stairs for me. I failed to take a picture of Benny making an angry, outraged face at the plaque in the sidewalk on the site of America's first public school. His favorite thing was the huge dry fountain outside the old North Church, which he said was a racetrack, and in which he took many laps. Sadie's favorite was the duck that chased her in Boston Common. My favorite was the South Meeting House -- RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!!!!

Suzuki Violin Workshop with Judy Blank

2007-10-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, Benny and Sadie attended a workshop with Judy Blank, a fabulous Suzuki expert from Ann Arbor, MI. The workshop included group classes, violin-related art classes, play-ins, and a master class with Mrs. Blank. It was a great experience for them, and also very interesting for me.

Watching the master classes was pretty incredible -- Mrs. Blank was like a doctor -- listening to each child play one song, diagnosing some certain issue, and giving the child a small, specific change that they could make in just a few minutes to improve their playing. Of course, all of this had to happen while using the most positive language, never making the child feel criticized or like there was something wrong. It was amazing how she accomplished this in such a short time with each child -- every one of them made a noticeable improvement. Truly a gift.

Here are some videos and pictures from the weekend:

Sadie was the smallest in her group and also the only girl! Sadie's group class with Mrs. Morton:

Mrs. Morton's early book one class doing Perpetual Motion:

At the first Play-in, playing Allegro like mosquitoes and elephants:

Benny and Mrs. Blank playing the first Seitz in Suzuki Book 4. Mrs. Blank had lots of silly stories to go along with the music, to help the kids understand the phrasing. We particularly enjoyed the one for Gavotte in G Minor which was all about the death of multiple goldfish.

More videos on my YouTube Channel.

Here's Sadie in her art class:

Benny and Sean hanging out between classes:

Sadie's group class:

Benny standing up for Seitz at the final play-in:

Benny and Mrs. Blank:

More photos on my Flickr.

We were very grateful for the experience. It made for a very interesting weekend. I think all the kids had a great time and will be looking forward to next year.

Lego My Pulley

2007-10-07T21:11:00.001-04:00

Last week our Lego League team learned about pulleys. Pulleys are apparently simple machines that you use to make things lighter, so your little scale hickamajig reads THREE instead of SIX. Getting the scale thingy down to three is exciting and means that you win the game of pulleys! The three moms in our Lego League are open-minded but basically clueless when it comes to machinery. Fortunately we can read and are staying a lesson ahead of our six-and-seven-year-olds. Also fortunately, our six-and-seven-year-olds are happy to inform us of every little thing that we don't already know, six or seven times each.

Here's Benny stretching his pulley cord thingy around his pulley wheelie thingies:

They tell me that if you want the pulley wheels to go opposite directions, like gears do, you have to twist the cord between them. Or something. Is it tiresome when I go on and on about "thingies" and "whatsits"? I'm not being coy, I promise you. I genuinely am that blunt-headed about physics. It all takes me back to that classroom during my last semester as a chemistry major, when I was taking something called "University Physics," an honors class with all the smarty math people that I was trying to hang with at the time. Shortly thereafter, I switched over to hanging with the smarty literature people, and felt much better. The math people always kind of looked at me in a vague, kind, lordly way. Well, here I am with physics again. Celebrating another day of living.

I like to build dog houses with my Legos. Is there any important principle to be learned from constructing a red and blue dog house with a front and back door?

Here's Ben demonstrating his lifting device:

Ben and Benny building away:

Here's the other half of the team, heads bowed over their pulley projects:

This week's assignment was to build a fishing pole, which Benny did this evening with Dan. They made one with one pulley, two pulleys, three pulleys, and you know, the darn Lego fish weight got lighter and lighter to wind up with each additional pulley. It was amazing.

So, does this mean that if I make myself a pulley necklace, I will see some results on the scale? I bet I could fit twenty five Lego pulleys onto a stylish choker. A few sequins, a dangling brick or two, who's with me? Let's accessorize our way to glamorous supermodel status. It's only a Lego (pulley) away.

Meanwhile, Benny will now demonstrate the more practical uses of pulleys: feeding worms to the fish in Broad Bay.

Homeschool Day at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens

2007-10-05T14:28:00.001-04:00

Today was one of two "Homeschoolers Take Over" events at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens this fall. We missed the last one because I procrastinated about registering and it filled up, but this one we got to attend, even though it was almost practically sort of gently raining, and the kids had a lot of fun.

Here come the homeschoolers! Look out, deciduous holly tree collection!

We were divided into three groups, and each group travelled with its own "garden teacher" through different stations where we learned things and filled out the little workbook we'd received at the visitor's center. Here we are learning about the caterpillars. This was very relevant to Benny, given his recent interest in the topic.

Benny urgently asked to see the milkweeds and monarchs. Eventually he located them himself. This isn't technically milkweed, but it's something else that is similar enough that the caterpillars like it. The garden teacher couldn't tell us very much about monarchs, but fortunately we were with a throng of overly informed homeschoolers. All through the tour, they educated the garden teacher on the ways of the Sioux Indians, the eating habits of monarchs, uses of papaya, etc. I love homeschooled kids. They're so awesome and insane.

Finding these caterpillars prompted Benny to say, "AT LAST I FOUND A MONARCH CATERPILLAR! IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY DREAM TO FIND ONE! AND NOW I HAVE!"

Here he is examining the caterpillars with his magnifying glass:

Here they are in the rose garden, making bath salts with rosemary, epsom salts, and a baby food jar. Very cool. Sadie accidentally dropped hers onto the stone floor of this little gazebo, smashed it, and caused an international incident. Brooms were called in by radio, literally. For some reason, I got the feeling that our particular garden teacher was a little fed up with my particular children by the end of the day. Of course, it could have been that she was tired of getting corrected on horticultural fine points by 10-year-olds .

The roses are just coming on now for their second big bloom of the year:

Here's Benny making his rosemary bath salts:

Here's Sadie reading one of the signs. She kept insisting that she had to read all the little labels on everything, and she "read" each of the as very detailed instructions on how to look at and enjoy the plants. I said, at one point, "You know Sadie if you want to learn to read, we can work harder on your letters and sounds so you can read those for real." She gave me a withering glare and said, "I can wead them for weal now." Well okay.

According to Sadie, this one says, "Please look right at this flower and love it forever."

Here we're learning about the uses of tropical plants.

Benny specifically asked me to take this picture. Later, riding the shuttle tour around the garden, I asked Benny what was his favorite part. He said seeing a "real coconut" was his favorite thing, because that had always been his "dream." So many dreams, so little time. Fortunately, we don't have to waste any of that time at school, so we can look at caterpillars and coconuts all day.

Benny asked me to title this post, "Benny in the World of the Rain Forest" but I hardly think I'm going to take advice from someone whose lifelong dream is to see a coconut. :) After all, he has his own blog.

October Violin Practice Challenge

2007-10-02T15:27:00.000-04:00

It's October! The glow of the new semester has dulled somewhat, the crunch for holiday recitals has not yet begun, and everyone would rather think about cider and Halloween. The violins are still coming out, but they're coming out with a tiny bit less joy than they came out in September, and a tiny bit less urgency than they will come out in November, I predict. Still, Dr. Suzuki says we should only practice on the days that we eat!

Time for the first and only, spookeriffic, autumnimous Little Blue School Violin Practice Challenge!

First, print out the practice chart:

PDF Version Large JPG Version
Remember to choose "Landscape"
Choose "Shrink to Fit" when printing the JPG

Color in a pumpkin for every time you practice your instrument. If you've already played it fifteen times in October, then you're already ahead! Color fifteen pumpkins immediately and go to the front of the line!

At the end of the month, you can print out this certificate, get the appropriate name, number of practices, and signatures in place, and award it to the stellar violinist(s) in your family.

PDF Version Large JPG Version
Remember to choose "Landscape"
Choose "Shrink to Fit" when printing the JPG

Now for the exciting part (for me). If you're doing the challenge, please comment or email me to let me know that you will be completing it. I'll choose one name out of a hat, and send that child this special October edition of my violin practice award medallions:

I have several other medallions available in my Etsy Shop, but this is one is different! It's orange and black, thus making it Octobermatic and extra-desirable. Plus, to the winner, it is free and I will ship it anywhere in the entire world.

Here's a side note: I am working on putting together a page linking to as many YouTube videos of Suzuki violin students as I can find. Sort of a virtual concert. Do you have one? Let me know! My email address is jackets at rpsd.com. Spread the word!

The Fourteen Minute Mile

2007-09-30T07:45:00.000-04:00

Benny loves to run. You might say it's his natural state: running. When he was four, he won the "Tot Trot" at the YMCA. I cried all through it because there was just something so earnest and sweet about all the little runners pounding away, 1/4 mile.

Warming Up for the Mile Run

Lately he's been running in the house, which I cannot bear. The crashing, the banging, the thumping, the breathless hecticness drives me into a frenzy. I heard from another karate mom about a running race for kids, put on by one of the local elementary schools. I told Benny if he could stop running in the house a little bit, I would put him in this race. He was so excited.

We discussed with him about how to pace himself in the race, to run a whole mile. We also talked a lot about not pushing, not getting upset with the other kids, not being sad no matter what place he got, etc. He nodded and mm-hmmed through all that instruction, and we thought, what can we do? He'll just have to learn by doing.

Getting Pre-Race Advice from Ahno and Sadie.

On race day, he put on his favorite outfit (which he calls his uniform) and had his number pinned on about 3 hours before the race. He got to the event, which is like a big party with pizza, a sound system, a whole lot of kids running around. Almost every single one of the other children had the official race t-shirt on, but Benny preferred to wear his orange suit -- fine, I thought. The better to locate him from a distance.

Ready to run.

The race lined up -- there were 104 children ready to run the boys mile -- ages from kindergarten on up into the teens. They took off strong and ran around the first corner and off into the neighborhood. Benny was running as fast as he could, looking a little panicked and squashed in the midst of all those kids, and of course I started weeping.

All of us nervous parents bustled over to the finish line, where we waited for the kids to start coming in. I stood there, next to Dan, kneading his arm, twisting his shirt, in general ready to vomit with nerves. The first kids came through to great applause, the next kids, and more kids, and more kids. WHERE WAS BENNY? We did not see him. More children came through. Ten minutes went by. Still no Benny, we couldn't even see him around the corner. I cannot communicate to you the level of my freak-out at this time. I was sure he had fallen over, was sitting on a street corner somewhere in Larchmont, crying, bleeding, or maybe kidnapped, eaten by wolves, fallen into a sudden chasm (you know how those open up in the middle of quiet neighborhoods).

Finally I said to Dan, "I AM GOING TO FIND HIM." And Dan (wisely) said that he would go instead, so he went. And I continued to stand there and dance around in a hot panic. Finally, there he was, cantering along easily, right in front of the police escort and the ambulance, who were bringing up the rear. He was last. Dead last. And completely unconcerned. As he came loping over the finish line and down the chute, he waved cheerily at me.

Benny and the Police Escort

"Mom! I didn't win!" he reported.

I stood there, agape. I mean, he had not fallen into a chasm, right? So, in all, good day.

Later he said, "Now that was some real racing! I decided that since I couldn't win, I'd let everyone else win. You know, I learned this from that movie, "Cars," you know when Lightning McQueen lets The King finish the Piston Cup?"

Thanks, Disney. And thanks to me, for all the times over the last seven years of his life that I've pounded it into his head -- it's not about winning, it's about having fun! It doesn't matter who comes in first! You can have more fun if everyone is having a good time! Etc. This was all meant to cope with the child who pitched an epic fit because he couldn't be the first wiseman in the procession, at age 3. It was not meant to scrub all competitive spirit from the young lad.

Dan said that when he found Benny, he was standing in someone's driveway, kind of dancing around and waving. I always say that Benny marches to he beat of his own drummer -- but really, sometimes it is illustrated for me in such a graphic way that this is true. He saw that he could not beat the older kids, so he just did something else, he changed the plan. He deviated.

We knew lots of people at the race -- through violin, church, and karate, we knew about half the kids and parents there. When Benny finally came over the line, there were lots of moms and dads and kids cheering for him by name. And no one thought it was strange for him to bring up the rear. They know, and we know, that for Benny nothing is strange. He is his own child, unpredictable, earnest, and never never dull.

Cheering for the girls' race.

Math Card Game for Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division

2007-09-28T13:22:00.000-04:00

This morning Benny and I invented a new way to use our giant deck of cards to study math. Here's what we did:

We shuffled the deck and put the pile next to his paper. He would flip over two cards, write those values in the spaces, then choose whether to use multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction to find an answer. Then he wrote the answer.

This was a great exercise for three reasons:

1. It was fun for him to write his own questions and he loves using the cards.

2. It made him consider the answer to all four of the problems, before he chose one to write down. He most wanted to use division, since that to him is the coolest, so he would be happy if he pulled, for example, a king and a 4, so he could divide twelve by four.

3. He got to test me a little -- on the last few he did, he left the operation circle blank, and asked me which operation he had used. Rather than hesitating to give him the answer, I cheerfully participated in my part of the quiz, because he already had to have figured it out, to be asking me.

I want to do this exercise again, and I made a printable math game page for future use, which I will share with you.

This could be used in different ways -- the kid could fill in the numbers and quiz you on which operation was used, you could use it blank with a deck of cards like we did, or you could use it to solve for X if you leave just one of the spaces blank and give the answers. Hope it's useful!

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Colonial Williamsburg in Inappropriate Shoes

2007-09-26T19:40:00.000-04:00

Colonial Williamsburg has an amazing program for homeschoolers, three times a year. During "Home Educators Week" homeschooling kids and parents can get tickets for $5 each that normally cost a whole lot more than that. I meant to take the kids last spring, but Ahno was working on colonial outfits for them, and she hadn't finished Benny's. This time around, she had still not finished Benny's, but she sent me on a mission to find a really great three-cornered hat to go with it when it's done, and inspire her to get it off the table and onto the hanger. So we went.

And we found one:

While we were there, since apparently there is more to history than fashion (or whatever), we decided to learn some things. I hadn't prepared the children for the experience, we had not read about the American Revolution or made baskets or turned geese on a spit or anything, and the truth is that I have only a loose grasp on history myself. I'm expecting myself to learn a lot as I help Benny learn about it. That is my expectation. At this point, though, I am no natural expert, unless I've recently spent some time in a book on the subject. So I put Benny in charge of directions:

When you put a seven year old boy with endless energy in charge of a map, he will want to visit locations with maximum distance from each other. That is to say, if you're at one end of Williamsburg, you'll need to next go to the other end, and then back to the first end, and back to the other end. Also, if you put a seven year old boy in charge of directions, you will spend a lot of time looking at various colonial animals.

We lucked out at the brickyard, and arrived just as another group was leaving. So Benny got a private lesson in making bricks, which was awesome. They build a kiln each year by stacking up last year's bricks into an oven, with this year's raw bricks inside, then plastering mud all over it, and lighting fires underneath for a week. Benny was able to answer a lot of questions about, for example, why these three bricks, all baked at the same time for the same duration in the kiln, came out three different colors? Answer: Distance from the actual fire. I thought that was pretty astute. He and the brickman were eye to eye on many issues, and Benny learned the material so well that he went ahead and pompously explained it to the next kid to arrive, raising a little ire. Here he is getting his lesson:

Sadie on one of the walkways at the Governor's Palace:

Benny getting to be a juror at the courtroom in the capitol building:

This was cool -- we have been studying about wind power and we got to see a post style windmill, with a wheel sticking out from it so that the miller could turn the whole thing into the wind if the wind changed direction. This was one of those cool moments where Benny spent a few minutes kindly instructing me on the way windmills are operated. It also dovetailed nicely with our gears discussions, related to the Lego League topic of the week.

Here are the children doing some colonial laundry:

Sadie's pigtails, getting some instruction:

I'm very glad we went. I hadn't been to Colonial Williamsburg since I was about Sadie's age myself. We will definitely be back for the next homeschool week, and the next. At that price, anyone in driving distance would be foolish to stay home. Benny had a blast, and Sadie enjoyed herself too, from the cellar of the Shields Tavern to the jail cell where they held Blackbeard's pirate crew before hanging them (yes, we locked Benny in, yes, he was thrilled and talked about it all the way home). I will also say that the place was crawling with some of the most mannerly, thoughtful, lovely little children. I don't think it was just a homeschool thing -- I made the conclusion that children whose parents would drag them through Williamsburg are just a cut above.

Of course, in this case, it was me getting dragged. :) Next time I'm wearing my colonial tennis shoes.

Edit: Visit this awesome photo album from another homeschool family that visited Williamsburg at the same time we did, and miraculously took incredibly better pictures!