Monthly Archives: November 2010

Homeschool, National Blog Posting Month

Maybe our homeschool needs more Selleck

NaBloPoMo 2010When I was in school, the days before a holiday break were not the most productive. I can’t remember how many teachers resorted to showing us “Quigley Down Under” in middle school. But I know I’ve seen it more times than I would’ve chosen to on my own.

We didn’t watch any Tom Selleck this week, but we did slack off quite a bit. I’d planned for next week to be a week off from school, but we took it so easy this week that I might have to change that. We didn’t have a “Five in a Row” book this week, and I didn’t have much planned beyond our regular stuff.

home/school

  • Poppy finished her handwriting book on Tuesday. I’m planning to start her on copywork using the poems she’s memorizing. But the printer’s out of ink, so I’m going to have to fix that before I can print the sheets to do that.
  • She’s still doing well with Rosetta Stone Spanish, but she asked this week if she could do it less frequently. She’s been doing a lesson every day. This week, she just did it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We’ll probably stick to a schedule like that once we add our math and science curriculums.
  • We’re talking about Cheerfulness in our “Character Building for Families” study. I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that the lessons are helping all of Poppy’s character issues to fix themselves, but it has helped me to have something specific to say when she has a meltdown or is being generally rotten. Something other than “Stop that,” I mean.
  • Poppy memorized “We Thank Thee” by Ralph Waldo Emerson this week. This was the first poem that took her the full five days to memorize.
  • We finished “The Water Horse” this week. I finally looked up the summary of the movie, and it is so far removed from the book’s plot that I’m not going to put it on the Netflix list. I’m not sure what we’ll do for our next read-together.

    • Our next “Five in a Row” book is waiting at the library, but we won’t start on it next week. I’m guessing next week is going to look a lot like this week.

    What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.

    National Blog Posting Month, Reading

    And here’s what I’ve been reading

    3 Comments

    NaBloPoMo 2010Was “The Magnificent Ambersons” really the last book I wrote about? I guess I must’ve disliked it more than I thought. Here’s what I’ve read since:

    “The Postman Always Rings Twice” by James Cain

    Remember when I was trying to read the Modern Library 100? This was the end of that mission. This was published in 1934, and it was far more, um, passionate than I was expecting. It’s a pretty twisted crime story.

    “A Visit from the Good Squad” by Jennifer Egan

    I don’t remember what this was about at all, but here’s what I wrote in my reading journal: “This may have been an overly ambitious project. Also: It’s a pretty distressing image of the future — even more so since it’s easy to envision it actually happening.”

    “Born Round” by Frank Bruni

    This is the memoir of a formerly obese restaurant reviewer. It’s great, and it made me laugh and cry. Really.

    “The Help” by Kathryn Sockett

    I kept reading about how wonderful this book was, so I finally reserved it at the library. I was on the wait list forever, then once I got the book? I couldn’t put it down. I may have teared up a little at the end.

    “Right Ho, Jeeves” by PG Wodehouse

    “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

    I enjoy a good dystopian-future story. This is a really good and very distressing one.

    “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver

    “The Lacuna” by Barbara Kingsolver

    “Beloved” by Toni Morrison

    “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender

    “Homicide in Hardcover” by Kate Carlisle

    “This Must Be the Place” by Kate Racculia

    “The Wonder Spot” by Melissa Bank

    From the reading journal: “This made me crabby.” I don’t know why. Maybe I should be more specific in that thing.

    “Oryx & Crake” by Margaret Atwood

    More bleak futures from Atwood! This one’s pretty weird.

    “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood

    This is sort of a companion novel to “Oryx & Crake.” It’s also on the weird side.

    “Crooked Letter Crooked Letter” by Tom Franklin

    “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

    This series was impossible to stop reading.

    “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins

    “Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins

    “Backseat Saints” by Joshilyn Jackson

    The current count in the 2010 booklist is 41. I haven’t been actively going after a 52 books in a year sort of thing, but maybe I ought to give it a shot.