Monday, June 22, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
Hero's Journey Main Lesson Book 2: Abby
Abby's MLB page for the week, inspired by the poem "The Buddha's Last Instruction."
And the final product, added 6-22:
And the final product, added 6-22:
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Reading with Gloria: Short o
Gloria and I are reading together to solidify her grasp. We're going through Starfall, using the app on my phone, which has multiple storybooks for each letter. Today we finished short i and started short o. She's made a real breakthrough in reading in the last few weeks. She had so much anxiety about it. I think she just had to grow up a bit more, and also just keep trying. The most progress was made while she read comic books of her choosing from our extensive collection without anything to do with me. No stress then. Also, having to decipher Minecraft, but without much stress because the other kids, especially her godbrother, Aaron, wrote as simply add they could for her. Such a sweet kid.
Anyway, that's a long way to say she's making real progress and will be reading anything she likes within a few months at most.
Anyway, that's a long way to say she's making real progress and will be reading anything she likes within a few months at most.
Hero's Journey Lesson 2
The girls are working on question 1 again today. Abby is almost done. We discussed personification.
Tomorrow we'll finish the question and work on the MLB assignment.
Tomorrow we'll finish the question and work on the MLB assignment.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Hero's Journey Lesson 2
We have started lesson 2 of the Hero's Journey, the first poetry unit. I don't think we'll write the essay this week. I think the program is a bit writing heavy. We'll discuss it instead. I did ask the girls to do the questions though.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Hero's Journey Lesson 1 Student Essays
Both girls finished their essays, more or less.
Abby wrote about how her father and I put her at ease over theological concerns, and she started her essay last week, and finished it today. Pretty straightforward, well written essay.
Faith was just stuck. She couldn't think of any examples from her own life of a mentor-helper relationship to write about. That had her very upset after churning about it for a few hours. Then I suggested she write it from the perspective of her own characters. No dice. Then Sean (brilliantly) suggested she write it from some other fictional character. So she did. And then she dawdled on writing it, and then she finally got a rough draft in about an hour ago.
One of the points of this curriculum for us this year is letting them learn to hold to deadlines. So, so far, so good.
Here's Abby's essay, posted with permission.
I have been told I am ‘a tough crowd’, ‘deadpan’, or ‘Spock’. However, I hardly ever think of myself that way. I think of myself as, and am, someone who has suddenly gone into an existential panic in the middle of the night and had to come to my parents for help. Fortunately, my mother and father know how to comfort a Vulcan.
I think I was about ten when I first started really having philosophical thoughts. (I’m pretty sure my first was either ‘Why are managers in cartoons never women?’ or ‘Humans are weird.’) When I was about twelve, I started questioning God.(‘How do I know He has a plan?’ ‘How do I know He even exists?’ ‘I’m not really eating Him, am I?’) And when I was thirteen, I took an RE class to get these questions answered. In this class, our teacher was telling us about the afterlife. She told us that we really don’t know what Heaven will be like, but we do know that it is a place where we will be perfected. That sounds great, but it made me rather nervous. A few days later, it made me sitting-on-the-bathroom-floor-crying nervous. What’s ‘perfected’? Will I still be me? Will I be different from all the other souls? The ability to be vastly different from everyone else is one of my favorite parts of life. If I can’t have it in death, then...well, I didn’t know what I would do. That’s what scared me. I knew my parents were awake, but for reasons I can’t remember now, I was reluctant to ask them for help. Maybe I didn’t want to disturb them? Maybe my tired brain thought it could find the answer debating with itself? Heck, maybe it was pure Satanic influence. Anyway, I finally did go into their room, and I asked this question: “Will I still like writing stories in Heaven?” My mother told me to come sit down on the bed. She said that Heaven is a place where we will be happy, and if anything about it sounds terrible, then it won’t be the case, or it will be okay in ways we can’t perceive now. Then my father said that the ability to create worlds and people in our heads is a way we are like God, and in Heaven, we’ll become more like God, not less, so it wouldn't make sense to lose this.
I don’t remember what happened afterwards. I’m sure thanked them, and I hope I went straight to bed. This is not the only time my mother’s emotional support and my father’s logical reasoning have greatly helped solve a problem. I’m thankful for them, and I can very much see their logical purpose.
Abby wrote about how her father and I put her at ease over theological concerns, and she started her essay last week, and finished it today. Pretty straightforward, well written essay.
Faith was just stuck. She couldn't think of any examples from her own life of a mentor-helper relationship to write about. That had her very upset after churning about it for a few hours. Then I suggested she write it from the perspective of her own characters. No dice. Then Sean (brilliantly) suggested she write it from some other fictional character. So she did. And then she dawdled on writing it, and then she finally got a rough draft in about an hour ago.
One of the points of this curriculum for us this year is letting them learn to hold to deadlines. So, so far, so good.
Here's Abby's essay, posted with permission.
I have been told I am ‘a tough crowd’, ‘deadpan’, or ‘Spock’. However, I hardly ever think of myself that way. I think of myself as, and am, someone who has suddenly gone into an existential panic in the middle of the night and had to come to my parents for help. Fortunately, my mother and father know how to comfort a Vulcan.
I think I was about ten when I first started really having philosophical thoughts. (I’m pretty sure my first was either ‘Why are managers in cartoons never women?’ or ‘Humans are weird.’) When I was about twelve, I started questioning God.(‘How do I know He has a plan?’ ‘How do I know He even exists?’ ‘I’m not really eating Him, am I?’) And when I was thirteen, I took an RE class to get these questions answered. In this class, our teacher was telling us about the afterlife. She told us that we really don’t know what Heaven will be like, but we do know that it is a place where we will be perfected. That sounds great, but it made me rather nervous. A few days later, it made me sitting-on-the-bathroom-floor-crying nervous. What’s ‘perfected’? Will I still be me? Will I be different from all the other souls? The ability to be vastly different from everyone else is one of my favorite parts of life. If I can’t have it in death, then...well, I didn’t know what I would do. That’s what scared me. I knew my parents were awake, but for reasons I can’t remember now, I was reluctant to ask them for help. Maybe I didn’t want to disturb them? Maybe my tired brain thought it could find the answer debating with itself? Heck, maybe it was pure Satanic influence. Anyway, I finally did go into their room, and I asked this question: “Will I still like writing stories in Heaven?” My mother told me to come sit down on the bed. She said that Heaven is a place where we will be happy, and if anything about it sounds terrible, then it won’t be the case, or it will be okay in ways we can’t perceive now. Then my father said that the ability to create worlds and people in our heads is a way we are like God, and in Heaven, we’ll become more like God, not less, so it wouldn't make sense to lose this.
I don’t remember what happened afterwards. I’m sure thanked them, and I hope I went straight to bed. This is not the only time my mother’s emotional support and my father’s logical reasoning have greatly helped solve a problem. I’m thankful for them, and I can very much see their logical purpose.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Hero's Journey Main Lesson Book 1
"Your first MLB assignment is to create your own visual representation of the archetypal hero's journey."
(Click to embiggen.)
Abby's MLB:
Faith's MLB:
(Click to embiggen.)
Abby's MLB:
Faith's MLB:
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Hero's Journey Lesson 1: Phoebe
I’m doing some of the assignments along with the girls, so they’ll have examples. Here’s Lesson 1, shot off a few minutes ago.
“Write a three paragraph essay on how a helper or mentor has come to your aid in facing or overcoming an obstacle in your life.”
I was both thrilled and terrified the day I found out I was pregnant with my oldest child. I immediately began to research everything about pregnancy and childbirth, and asked all the women I knew about their experiences. Most of them were less than helpful – and just made me more scared – but one woman helped me immensely. My mother was by far the most valuable resource I could have had as I approached the birth of my first baby. My own birth was somewhat precipitous and exciting, as I was born six weeks early. I arrived just a few minutes after my mother got to the hospital. Having weathered that, her easy manner and reassurance was worth more than all the books put together.
The world of twenty-first century pregnancy is a daunting one. Eat this, not that! Never that! Exercise regularly, but not too much. You need these tests, and these exams, but they all carry risk, and all have varying degrees of reliability. If you don’t do everything exactly perfectly right, it will all go terribly wrong and it will all be your fault! And then the actual labor and delivery, well. Hospital, birth center, or home? Doctor or midwife? Drugs for pain relief? Induction or augmentation of labor? Caesarian section? The mind reels. However, my mother cut through all the information overload with a calm tone. “Everything will work out. When I had you, it was all different, so I can’t say what you should do. But whatever it is, it will be the best thing, because you’ll know.” She had had a hard time with pregnancy, with several losses between my brother and me, but she kept trying. She told me stories of labor, “like a rubber band getting tighter, takes your breath away!” She remembered the early feeding troubles, crying baby, crying mother, milk everywhere, but perseverance overcame. She made me feel like I could do it too.
And I read many books, and asked her about many things. She never told me I was wrong, or silly to consider something, even if she thought it was farfetched. (Although she still does tease me about my somewhat frantic nesting efforts and the quest for the perfect baby shampoo.) There is no other person in my life who helped me as much in my journey to motherhood, now traveled eight times. I have six daughters, and I feel sure at least one of them will become a mother. I hope I can be the same solid presence in their transformations from singular to plural as she has been in mine.
“Write a three paragraph essay on how a helper or mentor has come to your aid in facing or overcoming an obstacle in your life.”
I was both thrilled and terrified the day I found out I was pregnant with my oldest child. I immediately began to research everything about pregnancy and childbirth, and asked all the women I knew about their experiences. Most of them were less than helpful – and just made me more scared – but one woman helped me immensely. My mother was by far the most valuable resource I could have had as I approached the birth of my first baby. My own birth was somewhat precipitous and exciting, as I was born six weeks early. I arrived just a few minutes after my mother got to the hospital. Having weathered that, her easy manner and reassurance was worth more than all the books put together.
The world of twenty-first century pregnancy is a daunting one. Eat this, not that! Never that! Exercise regularly, but not too much. You need these tests, and these exams, but they all carry risk, and all have varying degrees of reliability. If you don’t do everything exactly perfectly right, it will all go terribly wrong and it will all be your fault! And then the actual labor and delivery, well. Hospital, birth center, or home? Doctor or midwife? Drugs for pain relief? Induction or augmentation of labor? Caesarian section? The mind reels. However, my mother cut through all the information overload with a calm tone. “Everything will work out. When I had you, it was all different, so I can’t say what you should do. But whatever it is, it will be the best thing, because you’ll know.” She had had a hard time with pregnancy, with several losses between my brother and me, but she kept trying. She told me stories of labor, “like a rubber band getting tighter, takes your breath away!” She remembered the early feeding troubles, crying baby, crying mother, milk everywhere, but perseverance overcame. She made me feel like I could do it too.
And I read many books, and asked her about many things. She never told me I was wrong, or silly to consider something, even if she thought it was farfetched. (Although she still does tease me about my somewhat frantic nesting efforts and the quest for the perfect baby shampoo.) There is no other person in my life who helped me as much in my journey to motherhood, now traveled eight times. I have six daughters, and I feel sure at least one of them will become a mother. I hope I can be the same solid presence in their transformations from singular to plural as she has been in mine.
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