Friday bullets - January 15, 2021

It's Friday, though I've been fairly confused about what day it actually is all week. It's a real disappointment when you keep thinking it is Friday and you discover (over and over again) that it is not. 
  • Let's start with the biggest news which just happened today. D. received the BIG envelope from Valparaiso University. Not only was he accepted, but he was offered some pretty hefty scholarships to boot. There was a straight academic scholarship and also an engineering scholarship (which is what he wants to major it.) He was pretty excited, and we are very proud of him. One down, five more to go. 
  • I got to go see A.'s new apartment today. It is really nice. Far nicer than any apartment I ever lived in. And it's only fifteen minutes from our house. And it has easy parking. 
  • When you have lost everyone and everything that is important to you, not once, but twice, having a big sister move out and a big brother planning on moving out is very, very hard.
  • In other big news, H. has successfully mastered adding with carrying. The first part of the week we did it slowly with manipulatives. By the end of the week, she could do the problems without manipulatives and without me sitting there cuing her as to what step came next. Never in my wildest dreams in those first four years she was home could I have imagined her gaining this level of math mastery.
  • Today, being actually Friday, was the day in our school schedule where we do bigger projects instead of our usual schedule. On the docket was to try to create an Archimedes screw. We had spent our history time yesterday reading about Archimedes. Some people were disappointed that we weren't recreating one of his more exciting inventions... giant claw, catapults which throw enormous boulders, death rays. Instead we had to suffice with tubes and water. The Archimedes screw is a way to move water from one level up to another one.


I'm always a little bit surprised when our experiments work, because sometimes they don't. Once we had gotten it to work, I left everything on the kitchen counter. It proved to be fascinating to quite a few children who spent a long time really playing with it to work out how the water moved. I could tell there was a lot of experimenting based on the amount of water left on the counter.
  • R. seems to be doing better. We've had a few good days and her tooth hasn't been causing her quite so much pain. Now the worst thing about all this as far as she's concerned is that we won't let her eat candy. She walks around the house saying, "Poor me," in sad and pathetic tones.
  • I went to Costco today and for the first time in a very long time, they had everything that was on my list.
  • B. has received his first Covid vaccine and gets the second next week. (I am thrilled and relieved about this since he spends his days transporting Covid positive patients.) W. found out that he is going to be in group 1B (because of his job), so should be able to get it in the near future. Two down.
  • I am in the middle of two books which I am pushing myself to finish because I have lost a lot of interest in them. I am too far along to stop, but my motivation for finishing them is declining. I have two books sitting here waiting for me to start them. This means in the next couple of days, I will start at least one and only have one in reserve. I don't know about you, but having only one book in reserve to read makes me nervous, so I put four or five more books on hold at the library today.
  • Having D. working at the library is a lot like having a book delivery service. He brings my holds home. He looks up books for me. I text him the title of a book I've forgotten to put on hold and he finds it and brings it home. It will be very sad when I don't have this inside connection.
  • We cannot tell if Aster and Kenzie realize that Olive is not here.
  • R. has some favorite movies that she enjoys. Cheaper by the Dozen and Yours, Mine, and Ours are her absolute favorites. When she cannot watch those, Mary Poppins is her next choice, except she calls it The Poppins. I find this a wee bit charming.
  • If you like okra and are tempted to chop it and freeze it mixed with cornmeal, here's my tip. Thaw it before you cook it. This is what I did the first couple of times and it worked beautifully. Today I forgot the thaw the okra, so threw it in the pan frozen. It did not work quite so well. It was fine, but took longer and looked softer than it normally does. (I realize I'm probably the only one for whom the cooking of okra is a concern.)
  • Since we are talking about cooking, I made French onion soup two nights ago using Julia Child's recipe. I have made a lot of different types of onion soup over the years, but this was by far the best. If you love French onion soup, you should check out a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and try her recipe. There were no leftovers.
  • I need to write another post about the process of using memory palaces to memorize the periodic table. I am pretty much stunned at the understanding my people have of the periodic table as we have moved into the unit where we really begin to work with the table. It deserves its own blog post.
  • The other thing that is going to need its own blog post is how happy I am with the math curriculum I moved G., L., and K. into earlier this year. Their math understanding has significantly increased and their math anxiety has correspondingly decreased.
  • If I write that I'm going to write something here, maybe I will remember that I wanted to and the chances of me actually doing it will increase. Maybe.
  • Does anyone else finish a big stock up trip to the store and think to themselves, "Well, now would be a good time for a blizzard"?
  • Having a stock tank heater is an amazing and wonderful thing. Almost as amazing and wonderful as a hydrant that doesn't freeze due to the heat tape wrapped around it.
Since I now seem to be grasping at straws for things to mention, I'll end here. Have a good weekend!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Please share the name of the math curriculum. Thank you.
Csmithfamily09 said…
Yes please do, my fourteen yr old is woefully lacking in math skills and having a lot of math anxiety. I really just need to start fresh.

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