A Little Science; a Little Sabotage

Science.  Today we used our worksheet that outlines the Scientific Method and made quick work of our pumpkins and gourds that have been adding a harvesty atmosphere to the place since October. One kid had a question about the seeds (all three of our specimens had husks around the seeds, and all three yielded different sized seeds), and the other kid questioned whether the flesh would be the same color as the outer shell (as it turns out, white pumpkins do actually have whitish flesh, though warted pumpkins do not have warty internal flesh... in case anybody was wondering). 

A more interesting inquiry might have had to do with difficulty of opening. I cannot believe how hard it was to open the warty pumpkin. Finally, we resorted to chucking it into the bathtub (more than once). Looking back at it now, that was probably really, really stupid, as a) I'm sure that porcelain is expensive to repair and b) our neighbors below are probably frantically stitching voodoo dolls of us as I type this. The things people do in the name of science.

This afternoon we went to the playground with some friends. It was cold, but my goal is to get out every day (I know that it will be really tempting not to on yucky days). Even though it was after-school hours, we were the only ones there for quite a while. Which makes NYC kids giddy. Ours took the opportunity to "booby trap the bottom of the slide." We made sure that all booby traps were filled in, etc. before we left for hot cocoa. 

Essentials

Here's what is essential to have if you are going to home school for a year:

1. A teenager willing to do the dirty work (i.e. don a plastic garbage bag and rain boots for occupational protection and drop the Mentos into the Coke bottle... the upshot is that she looks like a superhero in this picture... appropriately so).

2. Kind friends with great families. Today the public school kids were out of school so we had ten million different play dates. Tonight we went to the home of one of The Girl's BFF's to join her family as they broke their fast for Yom Kippur (fun/kind/smart people, delicious and elegant food, and the sweetest dog in the whole world who immediately upon making eye-contact presents her belly... that willingness to be instantly trusting and vulnerable is a holy characteristic). 

Unfortunately, we had to eat and dash because as I bit into my cheese blintz souffle I realized that I had locked The Sister out of the apartment... and as mentioned, we need her... 

3. A child who reminds you of your commitment to embrace what is deep and meaningful. Walking home tonight I started nagging said small person for being ridiculously shy at the party. Said small person then replied very simply, "But I really am working hard on so many other things." 

With these things: awesome teenager, solid friends (with access to great pets), and children who remind me of our goals and ideals... We might just be able to pull off this gig.

Organizing the Random

Yes, hellpigs101 got locked last night/this morning.  Apparently the ol' blog had to be read by a Blogger employee and deemed not-spam after their computers flagged my content and links for being too random.  Welcome to my brain.  

On the school front, we are still in the finding-out stage.  Figuring out what will work, what won't work, and what turns me into a muttering, swirly-eyed mess of a mom.  

For example, we thought we had our schedule for swimming figured out, but ten minutes earlier than expected Judd the Red Chicken started climbing out of the pool, promptly followed by the dripping and distracted instructor (his aunt).  As The Sister was hustling towards her towel, I realized that the lifeguards had just switched, and the new one was an attractive young lad...  Fine.  We have to adjust pool-time if I want the swim coach to feel focused and confident.  

We're also figuring out which things should be broken into smaller chunks so they are available to fill in gaps, and which things can be put into bigger chunks so we can pack up supplies and work somewhere other than the apartment.  It's all a learning process; there is more than one right way to do all this; there are a lot of options and resources.  

Today I was volunteering for our church -- something I do twice a month -- so The Sister managed some things:

1.  Classifying/organizing information... On Tuesday we rode the carousel at Bryant Park and on Wednesday during a play date we rode the carousel in Central Park.  We aren't usually so carousel-oriented, but it was ready-made material for Venn diagramming (note: an interesting observation: some of the carousel animals at Bryant Park wear clothes... or "close" -- we are starting spelling soon... despite the fact that one of my charming children screamed at me yesterday that I'm not "respectful of the fact that" he has his "own way of spelling things").  

2.  Getting them thinking about Spanish... They watched a Scooby-Doo episode in espanol and then created little scenes and labeled the nouns.  They then looked up the nouns on Google translate, listened to the pronunciation, and added the Spanish labels.

3.  They stopped by the NYCHEA not-back-to-school picnic and came home with some awesome books from the swap (we didn't actually swap... we just snatched).  NYCHEA is a deep and wide resource.  You pay $36/year and every morning you get an email compilation of classes, social opportunities, book suggestions, etc. from other families that are home schooling.  The families that participate appear to be dedicated and smart and into sharing -- it's quite inspiring (if you're into that whole humans-should-be-cool thing).  What I've been most impressed with is how roomy the group is.  Seems to be ample space for different perspectives/philosophies.  Because again -- there are so many ways to do this.