Saturday, July 21, 2012

More Summer Needed

*1*
Hot
This is the picture on NOAA for our area for the next several days along with
Hazardous Weather Conditions
The heat and drought continue to be un-real. We taken to watering bushes and trees because they are on the verge of going to the great nursery in the sky.

*2*
Looking at lots of options for teaching a media class for high schoolers. Ran in to this new company: Crystal Creek Media. Their newest production, Creed of Gold looks good; It was fun to see our aquaintance, Jay Wile,  author of the Apologia Textbooks (his wife was good friends of dh's roomie at Purdue, we all went to the same undergrad school together- small world, eh?) perform.

*3*
Are you done with hoemschool planning for fall? Everything ready and purchased and labeled? I still have to figure out what we are doing, and get stuff ordered. We'll definilty be using Memoria Press Core 6 (*don't forget to sign up for the  give-away!), but high school is the big angst. There are 2 many options. Which is a nice delimma and one we haven't always faced.

*4*
Flower has us all playing plenty of Monopoly and Settlers of Catan as a method of beating the heat. I have a sweet little monopoly, complete with houses on Boardwalk and Parkplace when I switched out with someone and they lost the farm.
*5*
My little writing project is cooking along. I am at 110 pages, 54,000 words. KB keeps making off-handed comments about how she wanted another younger sibling but she's gonna have to settle for a book. It's been fun, and hard work, and Annie Lamott's advice about a sh*tty first draft (her words) have been very helpful and very accurate. That being said, my first self-imposed dead-line is looming and I think I'm gonna make it. Feeche is at 49,000 words for his novel, and we are in a Cold War Race for the most words written before school starts....
*6*
Virtual Schooling: A Guide to Optimzing Your Child's Education by Kanna and Gillis has been the current Ed read. Interesting stuff; there is a LOT out there. I like the take of these authors, that there are so many options now days that it's possible to create a personalized educational package that includes private tutoring, real time irl classes, virtual classes, etc.
Technopoly by Postman talks about how T.V. and the traditional learning environments have come to a reasonable alliance. The new computer age is creating a whole new world.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

*7*
Our  horse unit study continues to be fun. The girls are currenlty reading Misty of Chincoteague. Our friend, Patty, actually met Misty and she'll be our guest speaker on Monday. Feeche continues to finish up Math along with getting books read and P.T. done for Challenge Staff Training. KB is taking on the P.T. challenge and they are both doing beaucoup push-ups, including Diamonds. Flower got in on the act and did 8 push ups yesterday and Cub bested that. I'm counting and cheering them on and grateful for the elliptical!

1 comment:

Hen Jen said...

I pretty much know what we will be using, but I haven't purchased anything yet! You are right, there are way too many choices for Highschool!

Loved KB's remark about getting a book instead of a new sibling, made me laugh :)

stay cool, sounds very hot where you are! It is nice here in Orange County, but I've had to drive into the desert ends of Riverside lately and boy is it hot!!