I had such high hopes for the blog this week. After all, the last several days have been full of all kinds of learning! I was going to post beautiful photos of our book club meeting, trip to the mountains, earth quake preparedness study and more. We started a new book that had the most fabulous opening paragraph that we were hooked right away and we talked about how the author did that. Chester gave his first performance on the piano, for which he practiced long and hard. The Magic the Gathering card game came out again, along with all the strategy, math and reading that goes along with it. Playing MTG inspired Truman and a group of his friends to collaborate on their own card game, complete with artwork and rule book. What a great week, and I admit to looking forward to bragging about it here in my special little spot reserved solely for that purpose.
But here's the thing: all that happened and I have nothing to show for it. No photos, nothing much written and, while I do have some math pages completed, you're just going to have to take my word for it that it was a week of growth and learning. You just had to be there.
Book club was the perfect photo op. Fifteen kids, ages 9-12, sat on blankets at the park and discussed The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. The sun was out, kids shared Halloween themed treats and discussed the complex language Bradbury used in the book. All those gorgeous words! Did you find the book scary? Who was your favorite character and why? What did you learn about the history of Halloween? Would you give a year of your life up to save a friend's life, like the boys in the book did? We played a true or false game with obscure facts about Halloween then broke up into teams and ran a relay race with brooms, pumpkins and mummy wrapping. Finally, everyone was invited to make a tiny matchbox altar for Dia de los Muertos. I was having so much fun I completely forgot to take pictures. Oops, sorry!
We spent a few days in the mountains with friends and, in between fort building, capture the flag and canoeing, we started a new read aloud book called Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. You learn a lot from a book that grabs your attention and keeps you up late reading in bed with a flashlight, but it doesn't translate much to a blog. You learn to love literature. Kind of a big deal, if you ask me.
This was earthquake preparedness week in California. I did not require my boys to write a paper on earthquakes or the San Andreas Fault. That would be impressive in their file of completed work, but we decided to come up with an earthquake plan for our family instead. We spent some time looking online first; we reviewed what causes earthquakes and watched a few videos on the topic. We looked at maps of California and exactly where the SAF is, along with scientific predictions about where and when the next big quake may happen in our part of the world. The boys had a great opportunity to learn about searching for specific information online, what kind of maps give the information we were looking for and why some videos were useful while others were just scary and sensational. We took an online quiz to find out how much we knew about what to do in a quake and Chester made a list of some key things we needed to do in order to be more prepared. After all that research, we were ready to have a drill, which the boys loved and we did over and over until we all felt secure that we knew what to do when the next one comes along. Real learning happened, but can I prove that? I guess everyone will just have to take my word for it :)
We did our usual "school" work, but we also decorated the house for Halloween, made wrapping paper with acrylic paint and wax paper, memorized a very complicated and long song from Into the Woods, learned about the surface tension of water while making a trap for fruit flies, plowed onward through a difficult piano piece, had a long discussion about who might be responsible for crop circles (aliens?!) and learned just a little more Spanish. It was a full week, but I guess you had to be there!
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