Archive for ‘Learning’

National poetry month

By Monica Brand, 7 April, 2008, 2 Comments

April is National Poetry Month. Follow the link to read more.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, poetry memorization is a lost discipline we should bring back into the classroom and home school. Plus, it makes a great party trick. Anyone remember how a Jabberwocky helped me out?

I call my Susan, 9, the human sponge. She memorizes easily. A Slash of Blue by Emily Dickinson is her current poem for memorization. She already knows:

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
A Time to Talk by Robert Frost
I Wondered Lonely As a Cloud by William Wordsworth
The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Tragic Story by William Makepeace Thackeray
plus a handful of poems about childhood

Do you have a favorite poem? If you do, then try memorizing it.

Mom’s night out

By Monica Brand, 29 March, 2008, 14 Comments

One mom, her face just lit up when I asked her what it was like to be in the home stretch, to be almost done.

Field trip to the place-that-shall-not-be-named

By Monica Brand, 14 March, 2008, 2 Comments

Public school.

Shudder.

My gang has never, ever set foot in a public school. We are “from the cradle” home schoolers. The closest Susan came to attending with the masses was when our Awana club met at an elementary school for a few months due to church repairs. Today we were on a mission of mercy. A friend – without wheels – needed someone to pick up her girl from school, just a minor emergency. Since we are just down the road, the task fell to us.

So, we marched into the front office, where all the women can gawk at us. I said something about not being able to leave the kids home alone. I played it cool, sending up a prayer the kids will behave, wondering if I’m going to be asked The Question, and will I have to defend home schooling to these teacher’s union members.

And what of my children? Long-time readers of this blog know how they can be. My wonderful, obedient children that make me weep with frustration because of their ill manners and monkey shines in public.

They behaved. Yeah, baby. It was a good day to home school.

So I got my visitor badge (no. 18) to walk two doors down the hall to the nurse’s office. We watched a bunch of kids herded down the hall for recess, a bunch more coming in from recess. The sound of drum beats came from a music room. We peeked into the mysterious faculty lounge. Very educational. And not one of my four asked to stay.

Like I said: it was a good day to home school.

Books for rent

By Monica Brand, 21 September, 2007, 8 Comments

It’s called BookSwim and it works like Netflix. Yeah, I know that’s the beauty of the library, borrowing books, so you don’t have to pay for your reading habit, but my local library sadly is not the most child-friendly place. (See this post for more. I’ll not rehash it all again.)

For about $20 a month, I could avoid going to the library by walking to the mailbox. Think of the gas I would save. Think of the cash in my pocket because I forgot to take back the Barney DVD with a dollar-a-day fine. And BookSwim has a wonderful assortment of educational books for us book-crazed homeschoolers.

I so want BookSwim to be be worth the up-front cost, that I’m going to talk myself into it. Anyone in the BookSwim pool care to share a yea or nay?

Dusting off the blog

By Monica Brand, 20 September, 2007, No Comment

That was a nice break.

I didn’t intend to go completely silent here, just happened, and now the ol’ blog is calling again.

Home schooling: all the old subjects and some new. It’s going okay, never perfect, but what is, right? I have a new phonics book for Peter who needs a bit more help. The kid can read, he just isn’t all that into it. And if ever a boy needed to be able to read well, it’s him. So full of questions and attempts to figure it all out. Oy.

Susan also started up Latin again after about a year away from it. First time conjugating verbs. I tell her to think of it as a secret language used by spies, which she loves. Gotta know what buttons to push for different children.

And I’m writing. Wishing I had more time in the day to sit at the computer. Wishing I didn’t waste time when sitting at the computer doing other things other than write. (Blogging is allowed.)

Doc and I hit the ten year milestone this month. How did that happen? Not that it’s bad or miserable, it just got here so fast. More about that on the 27th.

The most amazing thing happened today

By Monica Brand, 24 July, 2007, 4 Comments

We rescued an injured red-tailed hawk today.

The kids and I headed out early this morning to go to my mom’s. Not too long into the trip, I noticed a beautiful raptor sitting on the side of the road in the grass. Being the hip home schooling mom that I am, I always take the opportunity to check out interesting critters we see along the way, so I turned the car around to show the kids the hawk.

When I pulled up next to it, I knew something was wrong. The raptor didn’t fly away, didn’t hardly budge even when I opened the car door to get a better look. Not good. Plus this beautiful bird was a few steps away from a busy two-lane highway. It didn’t stand a chance, but what to do?

I immediately thought of The Raptor Trust, a local bird rescue sanctuary with the expert knowledge to treat this beauty. It was about an hour away, not too far, but how to get the hawk there? The hawk’s beak was impressive, not to mention its’ talons half hidden in the grass.

And I needed a box. All I had in the car was a diaper bag.

I called the bird rescue folks, leaving a message for them to call me back on my cell.

By this time, another car had stopped. Did he have a box? No. Just when it looked like the bird could not be helped, two men on their way somewhere in a work van with ladders on top stopped see what the fuss was about.

“Do you have a box?” Seems like a silly question to ask strangers, but I wasn’t giving up. And my kids were with me. Mom’s going to get a box for the hawk, guys. Sit tight.

You can guess know how the story ends. Not only did Van Guys have a large cardboard box, but leather gloves great for catching a scared raptor. I volunteered a skirt (fished from the back of my car intended to go into the Salvation Army bin) as a make-shift blanket. A state trooper held back traffic as the red-tail ran across Rt. 12, only to be gently captured by one of the men with the gray, Lands’ End fabric. My three eldest children, spellbound by the scene, watched from the roadside. Poor toddler Lucy still strapped in her car seat.

I wish I had a picture to post, but I didn’t think to use the camera on my cell.

I’m tagging this “learning,” for obvious reasons. Our red-tail is a youngin’, not old enough for the distinctive red tail feathers, a woman at The Raptor Trust told me when we dropped the hawk off. It’s very emaciated, she said, but no wing problems. Hopefully the hawk will be set free soon after recovering. I’m calling at the end of the week to follow up. Just because. It’s like she’s our red-tail now.

I’m also tagging this post “Believing” for the answered prayer, “Lord, bring us a box.” I love the way He added the leather gloves, don’t you?

Paper Bridges