Quote of the day

Don't let the rocks outpraise you!

The Door to Education

A teacher can hold the door open, but the student must choose to walk through.

And You Thought Mars was Red

To simulate volcanic eruptions on Mars we made our own volcano this week. We utilized the instructions in our "Exploring Creation with Astronomy" book. As you can see our volcano turned NEON, since that was the only food coloring we had available.

Z decided this experiment was so fun that he wants to recreate it on a large scale later this year. Sounds like a great summer project.

A Tale of Two Printers

I've been working on a story as part of my continuing education. Yesterday I decided to print it out. Currently it's sixty-eight pages, not a big deal, or so it would seem. But, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

When we purchased new laptops last summer we discovered that the cord to our nice big printer wouldn't fit the laptops. We opted to use my husbands smaller printer. It fit better in the compact space. We haven't messed with trying to make the big HP printer, forthwith known as G, wireless. We've been using it as a copy machine since it had a brand new black ink cartridge.

Because we use the smaller printer daily and it has a smaller ink cartridge it is currently sucking the bottom of the cartridge in black, and the color as well.

So, I thought it would be easy to move G into Z's room where the giant desktop is set up. First mistake, I thought it would be easy. I moved the printer then tried to find the cord to connect the CPU and the printer. Since we have about 10 years worth of collected cords I pulled the one I thought worked, wrong again. I only realized that after trying it at least four times.

Then I had the plug the printer into an outlet. Since our home was built in the 70's outlets are not very numerous in Z's room. The computer is already plugged into an extention cord with adaptors. Since I had no more adaptors and the cord wouldn't reach the the outlet where the extention cord is plugged in I plugged it in on the other side of the room. Are you following so far? Wait, I have to take a deep breath.

Then, after trying to turn the printer on, I realized that outlet doesn't work! It hasn't since we moved in. Tigger is hearing much weeping and gnashing of teeth from the bedroom. He comes to my rescue with a giant orange extention cord which we ran down the hall to the bathroom outlet. Don't trip on it now.

I'm breathing easier at this point and already have my story saved on a CD, and on my hard drive. I carefully pull the CD out of the laptop and carry it with the new ream of paper I had purchased that morning. I get to the bedroom and discover the computer has not booted up correctly. Nothing unusual, it has done that before. It is old, in computer years it is ancient, maybe all of seven years old.

So I put the CD into the CD-RW drive, but it doesn't read it. I pull the CD out only to discover it is a CD-R, not a CD-RW and is therefore not compatiable. So then I hunt for a CD-RW to resave my story onto. The computer is now looking ever so more ancient. Finally I go to save my story and it takes me two times to save it properly. A quick prayer and a verbal threat to the computer helped. The inane things that I save I never have a problem opening or closing. No, it was the 25,000 word document that held the thoughts of innermost soul, that was the one that didn't want to save properly.

I carefully took the new CD to the ancient computer, being careful not to trip over the cord lying all about the floor. It opened, I printed. Yeah! Just as my finger came off the mouse from hitting enter I realized I had not numbered the pages of my story. This is a story that had been coming out in waves, one event here, another here, it's lack of rhyme or reason was one of the reasons I was printing it out. I wanted to make notes, to check the flow of the story. Right now I just didn't want to drop it.

I printed out my story, which by this time was looking more and more like a masterpiece. I quickly 3 hole punched the whole thing, put in a binder and began to read. I stopped only to unplug the printer so no one would trip over the cords spreading thoughout the bedroom wing of our house. I read while I was cooking dinner, I read when the smoke alarm went off. I used to take offense to that, until I realized that if you turn the oven on over 400 degrees it will eventually set off the smoke alarm. I read through dinner, I finished reading as the boys were watching something on television.

In the end, the story was printed, a new small black ink cartridge added to the grocery list. I had added page numbers and made some notes. Z wasn't around to see all my persistence, my story may never see the light of day, but I felt I had won just by getting it printed.

I Love Books that Inspire Learning

We started reading Carry on, Mr. Bowditch this week. I had seen this recommended from several places and found it a thrift store earlier this year. We found some time to squeeze it and we are both enjoying it. I love when a book inspires learning. This book has done that already this week.

It's fun to peer inside your child's mind as you read aloud to them, and I believe Z relates well to the character of Nat. Z has always been a whiz with numbers. So when Nat wanted to learn Latin, Z asked if we could learn Latin next year. Sure, why not! We still haven't decided on our French curriculum, but even Z was more excited about learning it when we read that Nat also learned French.

God has truly orchestrated our curriculum this year. I hadn't planned on reading that book right now, but it has flowed seemlessly as we just fininshed studying the Revolutionary War. I have even found books on Noah Webster and George Washington Carver to add into the mix.

So while I had planned on teaching Greek next year, we may chose Latin instead. I borrowed some French DVD's from the library and Monday we will start them. We are on a journey this year and it has been great experience so far.

A New Year, a New Schedule

Per the request of Z we are trying to new schedule for a couple of weeks. We are going to use Friday as a day to do those subjects that tend to get left out. Mostly art, geography, and foreign language. We have a wonderful art program this year, Drawing Basics with Thomas Kinkade, and it's hard to drop it in at the end of the day. Geography is a subject we both love and we always end up doing some improptu activities with the states we study. We will also continue with Spelling, reading, and science on Friday as well.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when we introduced our new spelling list for the week. Z asked if he could do an oral test just after we introduced the words. After a few minutes of review he got 100%! I was so proud of him. So we move to the next spelling list today.

We have also implemented a more scheduled morning routine. We just started this morning so we will see how that turns out. I guess I should point out we do school starting at 11:30. We tried that as an experiment earlier this year and found that it works out quite nice for us.

I also scheduled in exercise time in the morning and for the last two days I have found lightsaber battles to be quite a workout. I'm still sweating from our workout we just finished. It is beautiful outside, upper 70's today. The leaves have fallen and our yard looks very much like a forest. It's fun to have a lightsaber battle for PE. Another good reason to homeschool.

May the force be with you today.

20k in one day

Yesterday I took part in a writing contest. Our insane goal was to write 30,000 words in one day. You needed to craft so sort of story through that. So I agreed to be a part. I got up at 2am when Daytona barked to go out. So I started writing then, I took 2 short naps, one dinner break and my 10pm my brain was no longer funtioning. I ended up with 20,040 words in one day.

My family was gracious and even went to the grocery so I could work toward this goal. I kept them updated with word counts and they even fixed some leftovers for dinner and left me alone to write.

The story I worked on has been rolling around in my head for over a decade. It's now partially on paper. It may never see the light of day, but it's there.

I put so much of me into my family, it was nice to really take a full day and just focus on me. However, I already see how this will be a benefit for school. I prefer to lead by example. Z will never be able to say that's too much writing. Granted I don't expect him to write 20k in one day, but someday he might.

This was part of a year long writing contest. My goal is 300,000 words in one year. I'm 8% of the way there already. If you are a dabbling writer, a frustrated novelist, or a prose fanactic you can join this Nanowriye challenge at http://www.pro-board.com/index.php?proboard=nanowriye2008&act=idx .

The Cast of Characters

Blogging is somewhat like the spoken word, once you hit publish it's out there. So in the spirit of privacy I have given my family code names. My name is actually Paula, big surprise.

My lovely husband will now be known as Tigger. While he is bouncy, trouncy, fun, fun I chose the name because he has been known to really laugh like Tigger. It's totally unintentional on his part, but makes me laugh too.

My son, age 10, will be known as Z. It's the inital of one of his favorite video games characters. He is the reason for all of Wakfield Academy stuff. I see the hope of the future in his eyes and I just get excited watching him learn. He's growing so quickly. One of my greatest joys as a parent was when I could start having a conversation with this little part of me that was running around. I still love doing that and we have a very conversational style of homeschooling.

Our cat is Speedy "aka the shadow" as he does follow me everywhere. In the morning we have snuggle time, where he licks my hands as they cover my face so I can breath. He comes to school quite often and likes to sit and look out the window. He gets fascinated with lizards and falling leaves.

Our dog is Daytona Grace "aka Labridorious hyperious" She's a great dog, but still a little hyper hence the name. She loves me dearly and enjoys having her own room. Sounds insane, but she loves having her own place. It's supposed to be a art/craft room as well, but don't tell her that. She as smart as anything and will spread out her own blankets on the floor. She also loves to play tag and chase in the yard. We are currently doing obedience training and she's doing very well.

So that is us, the crazy characters of Wakefield Academy. Our setting is...... well, that's for another post. Goodnight and God bless.

My Brain is now Organized!

We are starting back to school on Thursday. I had been hoping to get some work done during the holidays, but we didn't. So Thursday and Friday will be our makeup days, then we'll start Fresh on Monday.

We will be done with a couple of subjects next week. That will give us the space to add back in the ones we dropped earlier this year. We are also starting a new vocabulary workbook.

Later this year we will add in French. I've also found a homeschool karate course we would like to take together.

I just finished working out our schedule for the next week, so now I feel good to go on Thursday. Happy New Year to all!