Ahead of the Curve

Well lookie here: MPA was (slightly) ahead of the curve. Check out the November cover of Parent Map magazine this month. The cover story is about unschooling, "Homeschooling's upstart younger sibling." Gotta love that description.

MATH, MUSIC: We dived headlong into math this morning and CJ was on today (thank God)! His worksheet was full of equations like W+X+Y=Z, where they'd only give you W, X and Z, and he'd have to come up with Y. I only had to do one sample problem for/with him and he was off to the races. Meanwhile, Annabelle plugged away on an assignment that fused addition, subtraction and artwork, so she was happy. Our music this morning was the epitome of a classic: Beethoven's "Minuet in G," and Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," both of which they recognized from their toddlerhoods thanks to Little Einsteins. Of "Spring Song," Annabelle said, "I think that's violins. That's lovely music."

She was right on both counts.

OCTOBER REWIND, Part II: For our late morning enrichment, the kids read about, well, themselves. Via this here blog, we revisited October day by day. We reinforced concepts learned, but spent most of our time (over an hour) revisiting good times had. And, of course, the beauty of it is that the good times and the learning were one and the same.

SORTING, STACKING, CLEARING: As I wearily eyed a pile (mountain really) of five loads worth of washed and dried clothing, it ocurred to me I've had the kids do countless ordering and sorting worksheets and such over the weeks. I decided it was time for them to engage in some real world work along those lines. That's right kids, we're doing laundry! ... (crickets). Before tackling the pile, we talked about ways we could sort it. Annabelle suggested by color, but we decided that when it came to putting things away in four different places for four different people, color probably wasn't our best bet. ;) So we decided to sort by person, and within person, the subcategory of types of clothing. It went OK, though we all lost focus at times. (Folding laundry = BO-ring.)

NAMASTE: It was yoga day, and that's about a 35 minute drive to Columbia City. We went a little early because I wanted to check out the Rainier Valley branch of the Seattle Public Library system. It's a very diverse neighborhood, and the collection reflected that - lots of Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese books, plus a good number of bilingual titles. Cool! We checked out a small stack of treasures.

OOMPAH-PAH: One of the treasures scored at Rainier Valley was the picture book "Tubby the Tuba." It came with a narrative CD, which really brought the story alive, orchestral sounds and all. Short story shorter, Tubby is sick and tired of playing oompah all day long when all he really wants do to is "dance with the pretty little tune." A wise bullfrog (I know, go figure) convinces Tubby of his uniqueness and the fact that everyone has the right to play his or her own melody. Tonight I discovered Tubby has his own Web site. Wait until I tell the kids in the morning! And - are you sitting down? - I also learned that Tubby the Tuba is based on a 1975 animatied film, which was, in turn, based on a 1945 song of the same name. I can't wait to research this more! Maybe I can find the movie online! Gee, hope I can sleep tonight!

MUSIC AND MAGIC: On the way home from yoga we were listening to more marvelous classical music thanks to our library pitstop. In the CD player was "Little Einsteins Musical Missions" and lo and behold, the first mission was rescuing Annie's birthday balloons which had, gosh darn it, escaped. Thanks to the recent "fall back" timewise. It was dark outside and "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (a little bit of night music) by Mozart was playing. We were parked at a red light at Elliott and Broad when, on the CD, Annie's balloons were- OH NOZE - floating periously close to the Space Needle. I told the kids to look quickly - out the widow to the right! There loomed the illumated Space Needle! Because it was dark, they couldn't see the birthday balloons ; ) but the moment really brought the music and the story alive. So cool.

CHECK'S IN THE MAIL: Seven months ago, in the midst of CJ's awful terrible kindergarten year, I contacted the Seattle Homeschool Group to get a copy of their newsletter, which is the first step to potentially joining their organization. It has taken me this long to take the next step - send in $25 for a newsletter subscription, and then I/we have to attend one of their functions and, if I understand the rules correctly, ID ourselves as newbies to someone on the inside, and only then can you get into the Secret Society. (I'm wondering if perhaps I'm going to have to learn a secret handshake ...)

Honestly, I'm not much of a joiner, and things have been going along swimmingly at MPA, but I look at the (rather large) group as a potentially good resource for, well, resources as well as social interaction for the kiddos. So, we'll see. ...