Almost Christmas 12/17-12/23

Christmas cards were mailed on Thursday, presents will all be wrapped today, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful, relaxing week.  We're having Christmas Eve (and Christmas Day) dinner at my mom's house.  She decided on something other than the fish we've been having ever since I married into an Italian family.  I get it - it can be a huge mess and cleaning up that kind of dinner is the last thing we want to do on Christmas Eve.  But B couldn't imagine not having that, so he made it all himself last night instead.  K's boyfriend, J's best friend, and W's friend from next door all came over to eat.  B made crab-stuffed mushrooms, shrimp parmigiana, fried calamari, & stuffed flounder.  K's boyf brought over a red velvet cake from Martha's Bakery (my absolute fave) and a gift for me (a really nice wrought-iron hanging decoration that holds 5 photos).  He's certainly scoring some brownie points with me.

On Thursday, some of W's show choir and a bunch of other kids and adults got together for some street caroling.  We also ventured into some restaurants to sing to the patrons.  A burger place gave us a huge clam-shell of half-moon cookies, a pizzeria gave us all free pizza and soda, and an upscale Italian restaurant gave us a generous donation to help fund a new piano.  We didn't expect anything from anyone, but it certainly reaffirmed my belief in humankind - and that NYC is a friggin awesome place.

So, since I'm anxiously waiting for the day when I can switch my work hours to mornings rather than evenings - mainly so W can be a part of more activities and sports during the week - I decided to start going to the gym with him.  That's right.  They allowed him to take over K's membership (K will be joining a new place more easily accessible for her). The minimum age is 13, but they agreed to let him join since he does look like a teenager.  Eh, he'll be 12 soon.  I'm happy that he'll have a place to go to work out whenever he wants.  And it gets me there too!  I've been slacking lately because K has been so busy with school and work and I don't like going to the gym alone, leaving W at home.  So this seems like the ideal solution.  We'll see how it all works out.  (heh heh, works out...gym, get it?)
 
Academics

Math:  Rounding and estimating review
Language Arts:  Continuing with simple subject/predicate, types of sentences, run-ons, fragments, and another lesson in the dyslexia workbook
Science:  Another really cool experiment.  We put some vinegar into a 2-liter soda bottle.  Then boiled a few leaves of red cabbage until the cabbage water was a deep bluish purple color.  Then W poured that water into the vinegar.  Even though the cabbage water was a deep blue, the vinegar turned it to a bright pink.  He then took a balloon, funneled in about 2 Tbsp of baking soda, and secured the balloon over the top of the soda bottle.  He lifted up the balloon, pouring all the baking soda into the bottle.  This caused the balloon to inflate due to the vinegar reacting with the baking soda - but since the baking soda neutralized all the vinegar, the bright pink color turned back to blue.  It reminded me of how litmus paper works.  W wrote about it in his student notebook and we read about science at the time of the Roman Empire and about alchemy.

This Week 12/10-12/16

We had a nice week.  Christmas is almost here.  I'm done shopping, I'm sending out my cards in a day or 2, and I've been watching more Christmas movies than ever.   Now I have to magically find about 3 hours to wrap everything.

Here's the academic wrap-up:

Science is so much more fun now.  We did another experiment this week that showed the movement of atoms, this time using hot and cold water.  The drop of food coloring in hot water colored the water quickly, while the drop in cold water just kinda stayed there.  Doing these experiments while reading about what's happening is clicking well with W.  I've always wanted to be creative enough to come up with cool experiments to do that actually correspond with what we were learning.  Now I'm happy to say that someone else thought of it for me, lol.

SOTW went well.  W read the introduction silently.  He narrated back what he remembered and then I asked him the review questions in the activity book.  He still has excellent comprehension - whether it's me reading to him or if he reads independently.  Also, this seems like a good book for him to do written narrations with. We're still feeling it out, but I like it so far.  Next week we'll check out the activities that go with each chapter.

We're on Lesson 16 in Saxon Math and it's still review.  That's good, though.  I'm all about review.  IMO, it's the only way math concepts stick.

W is doing great with the Hake Grammar & Writing.  We have covered types of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory), subject & predicate (and simple subject, simple predicate, nouns, & verbs), and fragment & run-on sentences.  He gets it.  All the skills he learned from paragraph editing have carried over and he doesn't forget a thing.  This and the dyslexia workbook are improving his reading and writing so much.   The handwriting, well, it's ok.  It was actually better when he was 7, lol.  I think his thinking is that he knows he can write and focusing on being neat has become way less important than understanding the work.  Now I just ask for legible.  :) 

He started a new season of show choir this weekend, too.  They're doing lots of classic rock n roll stuff again - which W loves.  Eventually I'll see if he'd like to take private lessons there.  The other 5 kids in the choir do.  They are all 11-13 years old (one is a 9 y/o little brother) and are starting to prepare for performing arts high school auditions.  Still not sure what W wants to do.

Sweet Charity at LaGuardia High School was unbelievable, as usual.  That morning I watched J's dance classes at the school.  K and W took the train in with me since we were seeing the show that night.  They went for a nice lunch and then to FAO Schwarz while I was at the school with J.  The dancers there are beautiful.  It's amazing what they learn.  This year besides ballet and modern, they had a semester of jazz.  In January, jazz will be replaced by tap.  J is looking forward to that.  I met up with them around 4:30 in Columbus Circle.  I love how gorgeous the area is over there.  The Time Warner Bldg with the shops is always crazy decorated.  Outside, all the trees are completely wrapped in small, white lights.  Across the street is this awesome craft market.  There must be 100 booths with thousands of handmade items - from flattened glass wine-bottle art to beef jerky to jewelry to fur hats, they have it all.

Photo by Markets of New York City

Settling In & Keeping Busy

We've been having a nice quiet few weeks, spending a bit more time on academics and getting ready for all the holidays.  I have a whole list of Halloween stuff to do around Queens.  There are a bunch of festivals, parades, haunted houses, performances, and craft workshops going on.  Now I just need to work some of these in around everyone's busy schedule.  I bought 3 nice-sized pumpkins last week and all 3 kids carved their own masterpiece.  They helped each other and had so much fun together.  K made a Cheshire cat, J made Jack Skellington, and W made a happy jack-o-lantern face.  It was so nice to witness. Oh, and I'm glad I got a few pics because they went moldy after only a week (the pumpkins, not the kids).

W is back at both CCD and Youth Choir.  Both groups joined forces this past weekend and W sang at a festival at the church where he has CCD.  He had his first solo part in a song and he sang with a microphone in front of hundreds of people!  Singing may actually turn out to be his "thing".  I'll take him as far with it as he'd like to go.  This should be interesting.

He has been doing great with Saxon 76, really enjoys Channel One News and Prince Caspian, and seems to be cultivating a brand new love of science after starting Science Essentials.  I'm hoping this continues because we can do so many cool things with science.  Experiments, nature study, and field trips are high on my list.  We also started a new book called "Read & Understand Poetry".  We have been studying poetry since W was in first grade, but this book really gets you into the poems.  There are various questions and writing prompts that go with the poem.  He answered all the questions thoughtfully and correctly and he's getting some good writing practice in, too.  He gets it - he can read a poem and know and feel the meaning behind it.  But the big surprise hit of the week was the paragraph editing book.  What a wonderful and fun way to cover reading, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar.  He has really taken to it.  We always did this kind of editing in his Spelling Skills book and this has the same idea and uses the same symbols, but with many more.  Correcting mistakes is something he's very good at.  It's laid out with a set of 4 separate paragraphs that stay on one informative topic. He does one paragraph per day.

J is doing well in high school again this year.  She loves it so much.  She has such school pride - one of her friends is now a regular on Homeland and another friend is on The Voice (2 other LaGuardia HS alum are also on the show this season).  She's trying to be as involved in the school as she can.  She's auditioning for several things and will be working the dance auditions this year for incoming students.  In other dance news, she will be going to another dance teacher event this weekend with the studio owner and 2 other teachers-in-training, is heavy into choreography for the new season, getting ready for next month's competition, working on her new solo she's choreographing, and coming up with weekly lesson plans and choreo for the 3 classes she teaches on Saturdays.  She is incredibly busy and handles everything so responsibly.

K is enjoying her second year of college so far.  She's still figuring out what exactly she'd like to do when she graduates, but she's got plenty of time.  She has a few ideas on how she'd like her life to play out:  college and trade school, work as much as possible before marriage and kids, then work from home while raising kids.  It sounds like a great plan to me.  I know she can do whatever she sets her mind to.  I have to say I'm so grateful to be blessed with kids that always make me proud.

Solar Power!

We met up with the homeschool group on Friday at Solar1 (a green energy center).  The kids learned about sustainability and renewable energy.  The Solar1 building is cozy and is powered fully by solar energy - the whole roof is paneled.  The kids all sat around a table while watching a slide-show with one of the instructors explaining various types of energy and how they're used.  The kids asked and answered a lot of questions and worked in groups figuring out in what time period certain energy sources were used.  Then they each got to make their own solar-powered car.  These were great and went so fast.  They raced each other and figured out how to short-circuit the wires so it won't run and how to switch the circuits so it goes backwards.  W loved it and I'm sure he learned so much.  We were right on the East River and it was beautiful.

Discussing energy sources

W's solar-powered car

Right outside Solar1

This week's academics went very well.  W helped me tweak our schedule and we had a nice flow all week.  Each day, we watched and discussed CNN Student News, he did a few pages of Saxon Math, I read something to him and he gave a spoken or written narration, he did 1 lesson in one of the language arts workbooks (spelling, grammar, vocabulary, etc), he read a book silently for 20 minutes or so (right now it's a bio of Thomas Edison).  And Friday was a field trip.  Throughout the week, W did some science and cooking experiments, watched a few documentaries, did plenty of artwork, played basketball, tag, and X-box with friends on the block, and went to choir (he may have a solo this session!).

I took W and K out for our annual start of fall breakfast.  This time it was at IHOP.  I hadn't been there in at least 8 years.  I forgot how great it is.   J danced in a street fair on Sunday with the whole studio company.  Several hundred people came over to watch!  It was a nice set of their best stuff from last season.  This season is well under way with lots of new choreography.  I think I'm hearing that the first competition will be before the end of the year!

September is in Full Swing

I'm feeling pretty good about the start of this school year.  I have resigned myself to the fact that we just do not follow any particular homeschool style or method.  We just do what we do, taking a little from everything.  We are unschoolers, we are classical, and we follow Charlotte mason.  As long as it continues to be effective and everyone's happy, then who really cares about labels?

W and I are both still happy with the daily plan we decided on.  Now that we've been implementing it for over a week, I can say it's working well.  We have 4-5 daily activities and then W picks another 2 things to do out of a list of about ten.  The mornings are a lot more efficient and enjoyable when W has input and choices.  J was the same way.

This week's math was a review of multiplication and division, going over words like:  factor, dividend, divisor, addend, sum, product, difference, and quotient.  Then he did a bunch of examples using the 4 basic functions in all different ways (with decimals, money signs, fraction bars, and parentheses).  He prefers to work out his math problems using graph paper.  I think it's great - it keeps everything lined up and he zips through it more quickly than with regular notebook paper.  He then read a one-page story out loud each day to me.  He used his blue colored overlay and can now read aloud very smoothly with hardly any stumbles.  Then we did the discussion questions on the bottom of the page.  And the daily CNN Student News site has been interesting and fun so far.

We read the introduction and first chapter of Age of Fable, a chapter of Minn of the Mississippi, a chapter of Physics Lab in the Home, and a chapter of The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe.  He did a lesson in his dyslexia workbook, Spelling Skills, & in Simply Grammar.  He started youth choir on Saturday and CCD starts in a couple of weeks.

I still have no idea if W wants to start school next year, in 2-3 years, or if at all.  I am remaining completely open to whatever he decides.  No stress.  No matter what he wants to do, I know it will be wonderful for him.  I have dozens of links saved and I've researched almost everything I could find about all the "good" schools and also about homeschooling high school.  So I'm ready (and he will be ready) no matter what.

J's junior year of high school is going really well so far.  She has all her academics (math, English, history, science) and lunch in the first 5 periods of the day and her 4 dance classes are in the afternoon.  Dance is made up of double periods of ballet and modern and this year she's also doing theater jazz, tap, and a choreography workshop.  At her dance studio she's taking lyrical ballet, tap, pointe, Pilates, contemporary, and a jumps & turns technique class. New competition season choreo will include hip-hop, musical theater, and jazz as well.  I love a new dance season.

Winding Down the Year

Our last field trip with our wonderful homeschool group was back to Highline Park for a class about native plants.  It was a rainy day, but the Highline was still beautiful and the kids had fun.  We walked almost the whole southern length of the park, stopping to sit at all the underpasses for discussions.  We had 7 or 8 kids (ages 9-13) and they all got booklets describing many of the native plants found all along the Highline.  Looking for and learning about new things is way more fun when you're running around in the rain, lol.  After the class a bunch of us found some (dry) tables and chairs and had a nice picnic lunch together.

Sitting under an archway for a lesson

W went home with one of his best homeschool friends for a sleepover and then headed back to the city with them to hang out at another friend's house.  So what do three 11 year-old boys do when they have the whole day to themselves?  They make movies!

This week we headed into Manhattan again for an all-day acting and improv class for homeschoolers.  W loved it.  The instructor was great with them.  They did a lot of creative stuff in small groups and presented it to the rest of the class.  W met some new homeschooled kids and had such a great time.

It's been a helluva year with the trips and classes we got to be a part of.  We've been to so many places we'd never been to before and seen familiar ones in a brand new light.  I'm so grateful for all of it.

And speaking of grateful, we just got the amazing opportunity to get W officially evaluated for dyslexia.  I hadn't gotten it done sooner because every place and doctor I've called said a basic eval would be at least $1500 and a full one at least $3000.  So, I have just been teaching him as if he does have dyslexia.  Whatever I'm doing seems to be working pretty well, but to know exactly what he has would mean I can tailor things more to his specific issues.  Anyway, we signed up for a full evaluation at the Albert Einstein Medical Center here in NYC.  He will have a complete battery of tests (including an IQ test) done at their cognitive Neurophysiology lab.  We get a full report with clinical feedback and recommendations signed by a psychologist.  If he does have dyslexia, he gets to participate in their brain imaging study (over 3 more visits).  I'm super excited to finally get a diagnostic report and he's looking forward to it because they'll be paying him about $50 a day for his participation.  I pay nothing.

Here's a picture of some of the books we're using for 6th grade in September.  I still have to order Saxon Math and I think I want to try Artistic Pursuits with him.  Day camp starts on Monday already (!) so our academics are officially over.  I have a 6th grade bridge workbook for him to do and I really would like him to do some reading every day, but I'll take anything I can get.  In a month or so, Target and Staples will be having  their big back-to-school sales and I will not miss it this year.  We need so many supplies.

Some of the books for 6th grade

W took the 5th grade CAT-E test on Monday.  Now we're just waiting for the results and I'll mail all our paperwork before the 30th.  I already have the 4th quarterly, annual assessment, and letter of intent all printed up and ready to go.  I even have his 6th grade IHIP completed, but I'll wait til August to send that.


W's show choir recital/concert is Saturday night.  He's doing 2 shows.  The first one starts at 5:30pm and the second one at about 7:15pm.  There will also be kids playing instruments and vocal soloists who take private lessons there.  I think an art presentation as well.  He's so excited to sing in a show!

Friday night is J's big dance recital.  She is in 8 group numbers, the musical theater demo, the closing number, and leading her new baby classes in 2 numbers each (one she has to be on stage with them, the other 3 from the orchestra pit).  As usual, it will be hectic and crazy, but it's what J lives for.  I love it, too, but I'm looking forward to the after party!

J's summer will be all dance once again.  She is doing a 9-week theater jazz & tap workshop and 3 days a week at her studio for contemporary, lyrical, pilates, turns & technique... and more theater jazz & tap.  She'll certainly be keeping busy, but she will get to sleep late and even it all out with lots of beach and pool parties.

Here's to a fabulous summer!

Singin' & Dancin'

The weekend was busy.  On Friday night W's show choir performed in a fundraiser gala.  It was really nice.  A live jazz band played, W's choir (a total of 9 kids) sang jazzy standards like "Take the A Train", there was great food, wine, and desserts, and they raffled off some nice gifts.  He was so nervous to perform, but once he's on stage, he's certainly a natural.  Singing seems to be his new thing.  I hope he sticks with it!

Saturday was J's last regional dance competition for this season.  Out of 24 teen solos, J received one of only 2 ELITE (equivalent to platinum) awards given and the 2nd highest score overall.  We definitely had some tough judges this weekend.  Sunday was group day.  J did:

• 4 production numbers (all 30 members of the company are in these) - tap, character, lyrical, & musical theater
• 3 small group numbers (5-8 kids in these) - contemporary, hip-hop, & tap
• 1 trio - musical theater

6 of these received the ELITE award and 2 received High Gold.  The trio, one of the production numbers, and 1 of the small group numbers were the highest scoring numbers of the day!  Now we're getting ready for the big June recital.  J will be performing at a middle school and a street fair in June also.  For the rest of the summer, she will be taking a "theater jazz" and tap summer workshop for 8 weeks in Manhattan (with a final performance at the Alvin Ailey Theater), 3 days a week will be at her studio for their summer intensive, and scattered throughout the summer will be classes at Broadway Dance Center, also in Manhattan.  She won 5 free classes and plans on using them up.

K is officially done with her freshman year of college.  She just took her last final exam (her final final?) yesterday.  She has a new job (no more health food place) at one of my favorite stores and just finished her training last week.  She loves it.  Summer can't get here soon enough for her.