Thanksgiving Eve

KIRBY KRAFT: Today, we "pilgrimized" Kirby. Pretty darn cute (and completely ridiculous)!

DOJO MOJO: Math was an unorthodox affair this morning. The kids were surprised that I let them play Club Penguin before doing "brain work." Little do they know, they were doing math while playing Club Penguin. There's a new game within the game where they can play against other penguins, er, kids in real time. Each kid has 6 cards dealt to them in one of three elements (fire, water or snow), and each card has a value 1-10. The players take turns choosing the element (or suit if they were traditional cards), and then they lay down their card with the highest value in that suit and hope the other penguins can't best them. Really, what they're doing while playing is (quickly!) discerning which is more or less, as well as making predictions and keeping track of their score.

We also did some math on the move, inspired by a suggestion in the book Midnight Math. The kids took turns hiding and seeking 6 chips. After each chip found, they had to declare a formula. For instance, "I've found one chip, I have 5 more to find, because 6 minus 1 is 5."

Next, the kids each did a worksheet about graphs, and we talked about how graphs are a great way to present data because you can glance at them and quickly glean information.

NOW WE'RE COOKIN': Since food and cooking are central Thanksgiving themes, I thought the book "Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie" would be appropriate to read today. What a treasure the book is. It's based on a real person - Edna Lewis, who grew up in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community of freed slaves, established by her grandfather. The book does a fantastic job of delivering the message about the value of using fresh, local ingredients to feed your family. It made me want to plant a garden and start canning up a storm! FYI, Edna [1916-2006] grew up to be an esteemed chef and a cookbook author.

THEY LOVE TO SING-A: Choir practice continued today and it was interesting to see how much better they did today than yesterday. I'd say they have the song about 40 percent memorized. They were pretty impressed with themselves. :)

CONTEMPLATING CONSTELLATIONS: This afternoon, we broke out The Magic School Bus Secrets of Space kit and used the neat-o constellation gazing box and cards within. First we talked about what constellations are. We then learned there are 88 "official" constellations that were named hundreds of years ago, and we looked at maps of the Northern and Southern region constellations. Then, using their gazing box (a long rectangular box with a peephole on one end and open on the other), the kids looked at constellation cards (card stock with pinholes strategically poked through them). We then located those constellations on the star chart.

CJ KISKY, COME ON DOWN!: CJ is slightly obsessed with the idea of becoming a contestant on The Price is Right. He was talking about his game strategy today and asked, "Will you give me answers from the top of the roof so I can win thousands of dollars?"

"You want me to hide in the ceiling, CJ?" I asked.

"Yes. But you have to be sneaky. Don't let anybody see you," he cautioned.

YOU SAY TOMATO: At lunch today, CJ asked me when ketchup started. Of course I don't know, so I started poking around the Internet. We found a funny video proclaiming Heinz Ketchup a creation of the gods (Zeus et al), but we're pretty sure that's not true. ...

We found an article on essortment reporting its roots reach back to the 1600s, when Dutch and British seamen brought back a salty pickled fish sauce called 'ketsiap' from China. The word 'catchup' supposedly first appeared in print in 1690 in reference to this sauce (which was more like a soy sauce or an oyster sauce), and in 1711 'ketchup' was coined. Recipes for tomato based ketchup started popping up in cookbooks in the early 1800s.

AN INVITATION: In my email today was an invitation from WAVA (Washington Virtual Academy) to an Open House (recruiting event). The virtual school is tuition free, because the $$ your local public school would get if you were enrolled there gets funneled to Steilacoom School District, which operates the program.

WAVA is a way to be 'legit' school wise (you child is actually enrolled with a real live school district), the district provides all the curriculum, you have lots of tracking and benchmark stuff to do, but you still homeschool in the sense the learning happens at home. I was very interested in WAVA a year or so ago, when CJ was in a traditional public school and we were miserable.

How appealing is WAVA to me right now? Not very. ... I think for the age CJ and Annabelle are, our eclectic approach is just fine thankyouverymuch. They are learning to read, write and perform basic math functions, exploring their world (science), and enjoying and participating in the arts. And they're doing all this by learning about subject matter (important things like worms and ketchup, Cheez-Its and M&M's) that appeals to them.

That said, I can see where something like this would be very attractive come middle or high school. But for now, it's the MPA way for us! :)