Alice's Adventure in Wonderland

Today Z and I discussed Alice. It was an awesome conversation. I didn't follow a literary analysis script, we didn't do busy work. I simply wrote out in marker three pages that held five questions. Then I copied the pages and handed a set to Z.

The first thing I did was draw a circle with 19 circles in a spoke around it. The center was obviously Alice and the nineteen circles were the characters in the story.

We discussed major and minor characters and I had him pick what he felt were the five major players in Alice's Adventure. Amazingly he picked the same five I did. He originally added the Mad Hatter to the list, the stopped and changed his mind. Excellent. Although I felt the Hatter was important I don't think he was in the top five.

This led to a discussion about Alice in Wonderland, the movie of earlier this year. We talked about creative license and pondered whether Lewis Carroll would have been impressed with the movie. We both agreed that he might not. Although we both enjoyed the Tim Burton movie it wasn't the book. It didn't hold all the play on words that permeated the book, it wasn't mocking the children's etiquette of today. We still enjoyed the expanded role of the Mad Hatter.

We also discussed the power and confidence Alice felt while growing and her diminished demeanor when she was small. We even discussed the way the use of drugs has been applied to Alice's trippy experience. He brought up The Matrix and pills used by Neo. I had Grace Slick running through my head.

We discussed the role of the Caterpillar and how the Cheshire Cat seemed to think the whole thing was nonsense.

We've started using Figuratively Speaking as one of our resources (great resource btw) and used the obvious one of personification while we read Alice.

All in all we had a great discussion for one of our first forays into literary analysis. Z had points to bring up, he defended his position well, and brought an interesting perspective to several topics. We enjoy a good play on words, he told me the book was very (T. close your eyes and ears) punny. I'm loving our conversations in school this year.

Rewriting History

I picked a sentence for Z's dictation today. It was from the ________(publisher shall remain nameless) Introduction to Archaeology. After reading and dictating the sentence I decided the sentence was really wonky. *Wonky is a technical term for out of sorts. For an additional exercise, we rewrote the sentence. Again, a rabbit trail turned into a wonderful exercise. Why is it that the things I don't plan turn out better than the things I do plan? Hum..... pondering... There's a whole other post in that issue.

Anyway, the original sentence from the book is:

Damp, soggy, places, such as bogs and marshes,
and the mud at the bottom of lake,
can be very good for preserving organic remains.

Not horrid, but confusing. If you pull the subject and verb and predicate nominative from this you get:

Places| can be\good

Kind of vague and uninspiring. So Z and I rewrote the sentence. Here's the rewrite:

Bogs, marshes, and mud at the bottom of lakes
preserve organic remains well because they are damp and soggy.

We now have a much stronger(compound) subject|verb| direct object.

Bogs, marshes, mud| preserve| remains

So we rewrote a bit of history today. At least we made it more pleasing to read. This may be a week of rabbit trails. I can't wait to see where else they may take us.

The Hero's Journey and a Rabbit Hole or Two

Last week for school we watched Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans (2010). Both Z and I were pretty opinionated about which movie we liked best. So today I decided to do a Venn Diagram to compare the two movies. It turned into an hour long discussion of the movies, other hero type movies, and technology.

The similarities between the two movies include:
- Heroes' Journey (Z said he is sick of watching movies of this nature, had a discussion of LotR)
- swords as weaponry (which led to a discussion about Star Wars and light sabers, how swords and such make for a more passionate battle of good vs. evil)
- strangers' help him in the quest (more discussion of LotR)
- both raised by an adopted family
- a woman helps them in their spiritual journey (ironically played by the same actress in both movies, which led to a discussion of Odysseus)
- both lost everything they loved
- stood up to evil
- saved the world (which led to a discussion of Percy Jackson)

The differences for Clash of the Titans include:
Based upon Greek Mythology (which led to a discussion on if there is a geek mythology)
takes place in Ancient Greece
His quest is to kill the Kraken
Hades is the mastermind
lost family at the beginning of movie

Prince of Persia differences:
based upon a video game (which led to a discussion about Lara Croft Tomb raider and the graphics on video games based on movies)
set in Ancient Persia
his quest was to prove he didn't kill father, which morphed into stopping his uncle
Nizam is the mastermind
lost family throughout movie

Z decided he thought Clash of the Titans was more realistic. I asked why, playing devil's advocate. He is more used to the mythology. When I brought up Pegasus and giant crabs and Medusa he laughed. We both decided we get a flying horse if they were real.

I liked Prince of Persia more. I think there were more redeeming morals point in it vs. the movie Clash of the Titans. Loyalty, family, standing up to what is wrong, etc.

Somehow we ended up discussing Pokemon and the need for there to be a Star Wars 7,8, & 9. What I planned to be a short twenty minute exercise turned into a great discussion. All that from a Venn Diagram, what a great day.

Week 3 Chaos

This shall be my motto for the next month or so. I feel pulled in too many directions, too much to do, too little time. Or and there is the school thing. ;) Moving, packing, schooling, and life, oh my!

Week three saw a few great days as we explored down the rabbit hole with Alice. We made it through our first list of the year with Megawords and we finished another chapter in Latin Alive! book one.

Even amidst the chaos we have a good flow going to our year. We're working through our subjects at the pace I designed and we'll pressing forward, which sure beats lying down in defeat.

Z is starting to apply him in more areas this year. I hear less grumbling when he has to write and he is more outspoken in class (shocking yes!), I'm talking about the academic part of our discussions, not just talking (which he has always been pretty good).

Among the chaotic things last week I decided I wanted to paint my desk. We use our former dining room table for schooling and I have my own desk for writing, the computer, and sometimes stacks of books or paperwork. It was a dark mahogany stain color and now it is Krylon brand Celery. I'm actually quite pleased with the color. It's a light green, but not minty. It has a real cottage feel that will be great in our new house. I'll post pics soon.

As for now, it's Sunday afternoon. I still need to finalize and print the schedule for this week, clean off the school table, put a few things back on my desk, and at some point pack another box or two.