First Day of School

Well, today is the day. The first day of third grade. I am surprisingly okay with the end of our homeschooling journey. I thought I would be able to tailor their education to their passions for many more years but then life happens. Trying to continue homeschooling as a single parent isn't possible for me.

But I like their teacher and they are very excited about school. I am trusting in the goodness of the universe as we swing toward traditional school for the first time. This transition is going to be hard and I will have to deal with a myriad of feelings as they hit those inevitable rocky patches.

Last night RocketMan told me, "Mom, I wish you could home school us again." My heart broke.

This morning RocketMan said, "I hope our teacher this year is as nice as our Kindergarten teacher." As their former Kindergarten teacher I needed that little word hug.

Last night GooseyGirl couldn't sleep and she got out her history notebook and read through all the history we covered in 1st and 2nd grade. I was impressed with how much she remembered about Alexander and Beaucephalus, Attila the Hun, Osiris, Buddha, Constantine, and Clovis.

Perhaps we'll move towards afterschooling to keep up with history and latin. I don't know what is store for us but I trust that it is only for the good and I welcome the changes in my life as an opportunity to learn more.

So, yeah, I'm a bit melancholy but I'm also excited for them. I wish I could be a fly on the wall today!

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Greek Camp

This year Aunt Patti and Uncle Jerry gave the kidlets a week at Greek Camp. They absolutely LOVE it!!

Today the Spartans (BirdMan and RocketMan) battled the Athenians (GooseyGirl). They made fighting tunics, shields and swords. This camp was put on by the local classical academy and they are getting so much out of it.

As you can see from the picture, the Spartans and the Athenians took many casualties but, in the end, the Spartans won. Do you see the wise but forlorn look upon the battle weary RocketMan? (that was my giggle for the day)

At camp they are learning the Greek alphabet, performing plays based on Greek myths, and learning how to write their names in Greek.

Tomorrow they will have their own Olympic Games. It is the last day of camp and they wish they it wouldn't end. They all agreed that this birthday present was one of the best ever.


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Who is the teacher?

Sixty years. Sixty! That's how long the Persian War with the Greeks lasted. Sixty! Considering the average life span at that time I just can't imagine being in a conflict that long. Then after the Spartans and Athenians drove out the Persians they turned on each other and fought for another 25 years during the Peloponnesian Wars.

Today during history we talked about the war between Sparta and Athens. The kids were especially intrigued by the story of Alcibiades (whom I'd never heard of). He wanted to be King and talked the Athenians, weakened from the plague, into fighting the Spartans. They lost horribly so he deserted Athens and turned traitor. What a scoundrel! The kids decided he was very, very naughty. Words like loyalty, trust and leadership were flying around the schoolroom.

What I like most about the classical approach to education is the chronological study of history that moves forward with great depth and repeats the cycle every four years. This year the kids are studying the ancients which covers from the nomads to about 400AD. They've had such fun with Greek history that we've sort of camped out here in the book and wallowed in the Greek myths and gods for a bit.

They know that Athens was dedicated to the goddess Athena and that the Spartans refused to help Athens fight Persia at the Battle of Marathon due to an ongoing religious festival they were having. Today Gooseygirl said, "Mommy, each side thought their gods would look out for them and help them to win their wars."

I said, "Do you think their gods really did help them win or lose?"

She said, "No".

I said, "Well, even today people believe that God is involved in the outcome of war and battles that countries have with each other. What do you think?"

She said, "I think it just makes Him sad."

Some days I teach my kids but most days my kids teach me.

The War is Over

The Greeks won and Troy has been sacked. We finished the Iliad. The version we read was a condensed kiddo version by Kingfisher. I skipped over most of the gory middle part and we finished up with the last chapter which was about Paris shooting an arrow through Achilles' heel and killing him.

GooseyGirl was especially fascinated by this. There was a picture in our book of Achilles' mom, Thetis, holding onto Achilles as a baby as she dipped him in the protective waters of the river Styx. The picture clearly shows her holding him by his heel, thereby leaving that area of his body unprotected by the magical waters. GooseyGirl thought of other ways Thetis could have dipped Achilles without leaving a weak spot. It was fun to listen to her creative ideas like putting him in a basket with a lid and dropping that in.

RocketMan loved the part about the Trojan horse being pulled into the city with the dangerous warriors hiding inside. I've caught him sneaking into my office to take the Iliad down and reading it himself. He really enjoyed this story. In fact, they are acting it out as I type this in the other room. BirdMan is Odysseus and RocketMan is Achilles.

I loved how it gave us a chance to talk about how "Good" guys may not always be good and "Bad" guys may not always be bad. Throughout the Iliad they found themselves rooting for Greeks one minute and then for the Trojans the next. They saw how the heroes and gods had huge character flaws and sometimes act horribly. This was the first book they've read whose characters had a mixed bag of traits like that. Now that is a life lesson!

One of my top goals in their education is to provide pegs for them to hang future knowledge upon. Homer, Greeks, Trojans, Achilles' heel, Trojan Horse, Zeus, Poseidon, Odysseus, Paris, Helen , Hector. CHECK!

Clovis

GooseyGirl has enjoyed our history lesson this week about Clovis. They learned about his importance in uniting the Kingdom of the Franks. We talked about how when everyone is the same religion, they tend to not fight as much. Here's her drawing of the Pope excited about all the new Catholics joining the church through Clovis's efforts.

The narration attached to the drawing reads, "Clovis united the Franks, Burgundians, Allemani and the Romans. Clovis made everyone Christians. He made Paris the capital. He made one law for everyone to follow."

We also talked about the patron saint of Paris, St. Genevieve. GooseyGirl promptly informed us that Madeline's dog was named Genevieve!

Then she squealed that the Catholics must have really liked the Greeks. I didn't see the connection so I asked her to explain a bit. She told me that the Greeks had different gods to protect their cities, people, animals, etc. The Catholics have different saints that watch over things, people and animals too, except saints are mortal and Greek gods are immortal. I was impressed by her connection- she's 7 after all!

I love it when they teach me and I can see through their eyes for a moment.

Maori Warriors

Right now, the kidlets are focusing their history lessons on the early inhabitants of Australia, the Aborigines, and New Zealand, the Maori.

New Zealand was one of the last places on earth settled by humans. The Maori settled in New Zealand during the Middle Ages. What makes this history lesson even more fun is that we are hosting Flat Caroline this month who has traveled all the way from Christchurch, New Zealand to live with us for a bit! Talk about making their lessons come alive. They are having fun learning about the topography and origins of Flat Caroline's country.

New Zealand's Maori warriors are well known for painting their faces and bodies to frighten enemies. The kids thought the internet pictures of Maori warriors were impressive and decided to try it themselves. Don't they look fierce?

Next up in history, they will be studying the Kingdom of the Franks. Look out Clovis, here they come!

Technorati Tags: parenting, homeschooling, homeschool, secular homeschooling, flat stanley, triplets

Happy Hanukkah!

You've heard of Christmas in July? Well, it is Hanukkah in June!

Yesterday during our history lesson, the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem which then scattered the Jews all over the world. As I explained that it was only recently that Jerusalem came back under Jewish control, I had one of those Star Trek space/time continuum moments. It really boggles my mind and makes me feel very, very small when I consider that an event from 70 AD reverberates and effects today's history and conflicts.

After we talked about the Jewish faith we made paper dreidels and played the dreidel game. Then we made Latkes (Jewish potato pancakes) for dinner. YUM! Shawn called on his way home from work and RocketMan picked up the phone.

"Hi, son. What are you doing?", Shawn asks.

"Oh, we're being Jewish", RocketMan replies nonchalantly.

I can almost hear Shawn's brows wrinkle through the phone lines.

Last night during dinner we were bringing Shawn up to date on what we've been doing in our history lessons. GooseyGirl and RocketMan were telling him how the Jews scattered after the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple... "You know, Dad, they scattered like when you blow on a dandelion and the seeds go everywhere". I was so proud of how much history they were taking in and how well they could explain what we've been studying.

Just when I was ready to pat myself on the back, BirdMan looks at me and says, "Momma, will my baby fangs fall out someday?"

I had to laugh! The tooth fairy has been a regular visitor here lately and apparently has become a bigger factor in our lives than I'd realized! Apparently only two thirds of my kids were paying attention during history. The other 33% was contemplating how much money he could earn from the teeth he has left to cash in.

Caesar, More Than Just a Salad.

Arrrrr, today during our history lesson Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates. Well, me hearties, the only notion my kidlets have of a pirate is the scallywag, Captain Hook. Blimey! Me little landlubbers thought this story was more fun than drinking grog over a ship full of booty. Yo-ho-ho-ho!

ahem....

Anyway, the pictures they drew of this story included a ship with the jolly rogers flag and a pirate in the crows nest with a telescope shouting, "Romans Ahoy!". BirdMan's drawing included the Romans shooting a missle at the pirates. And yes, the pirates had a parrot but he assured me that the bird got away safely.

The story goes that the pirates demanded a ransom from Caesar's family. Once Caesar heard how much they were asking he told them he was worth way more. My kids thought this was pretty funny so I asked the kids how much they'd be worth to pirates.

RocketMan said, "$50,000".

Birdman said, "1 million".

GooseyGirl said, "One penny. So that you could afford to buy me, Mommy, because I'd miss you."

What a brown noser!

I found a list of pirate pick up lines (no, I didn't share these with the kidlets):
4. Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

3. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

2. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Calligraphy

During history we are talking about Ancient China. We have had some fun playing around with the 7 strokes that make up Chinese characters. Our history activity book had some characters they could copy. I showed them the first Chinese character you see on the left and I asked them what they thought the character might be.

GooseyGirl promptly answered, "A mess." :)

Actually it means "Woman". Do you see the woman with the child on her lap? Isn't that cool?

The kidlets then tried their hand at writing a Chinese character. The first one you see is by Gooseygirl and means "tree".

I decided to challenge Birdman a little so I asked him to make up a character for "Sun". What he came up with really impressed me. Do you see the land with the sun rising and setting above it? Isn't that great?

I held my breath as I asked RocketMan to make up a character that means flower. He isn't comfortable in the land of creativity and many times will dissolve in tears if you ask him to just invent something. He is very legalistic and a major perfectionist (gee, I wonder where that comes from). Most of the time he gets anxious when he steps outside of his comfort zone. I was so pleased when he willingly took a leap of faith and just made something up. Can you see the stem and the petals? How about the bee coming in to get some pollen?

The Punic Wars

During our history lesson, Rome and Carthage are fighting over trade routes. This went on for 60 years. Ancient civilizations sure did know how to drag out a conflict, didn't they?

Hannibal (not Lector) was a brilliant general for Carthage and took elephants over the Alps to invade Italy. They even ferried the elephants across the Rhone river! A huge number of elephants died but the impact of the surviving elephants during battle is legendary. It is even believed that he painted the elephants red, yellow and white to make them scarier as they charged the Romans who'd never seen an elephant. Can't you just imagine the panic in both the soldiers and the horses as they spy such a huge creature?

To have some fun with this history lesson we made elephant ears! YUMMY!

Hannibal's Elephant Ears
1 pkg. flour tortillas
cinnamon/ sugar

Heat oil in a large skillet. Place one tortilla next to your face and impersonate an elephant's roar while watching the disbelief in your children's eyes. Place tortilla in hot skillet. Let tortilla brown and puff up then flip to brown second side. Listen to your children discuss what animals they'd rather ride into a battle. GooseyGirl picks snow leopards because they can leap up to 40 feet, BirdMan picks peregrine falcon because they can go 155 miles per hour in a dive. RocketMan picks a Cheetah because they are the fastest land animal. Place hot tortilla into cinnamon/sugar mixture and shake to evenly distribute. Eat while stomping like an elephant!

The Romans

We've left the Greeks and are now studying the Romans during history. Our lesson focused on the Romans as builders. They built roads, aqueducts and apartment buildings. When I was traveling through France I was always humbled by the depth of the history you could walk in, on and through, from buildings to arches to roads.

One of these places was Pont du Gard, France. It has a massive aqueduct. My friend Juliet and I decided to take some cheese and a bottle of wine on the bus out to Pont du Gard. It was a beautiful, warm summer day. Perfect for a picnic. After we drank the bottle of wine we decided that it would be fun to walk across the top of the aqueduct.

So we hiked up and stumbled our way across the top. I don't know that this picture adequately shows how high the top of this aqueduct is. It is VERY high. Plus the wind was really whipping around. We got the middle of the aqueduct when the wine's effects started to wear off and Juliet and I decided that maybe this wasn't such a grand idea. Once we started thinking about how old the structure was and with no railings of any kind, we got down very quickly.

I shared a portion of this story with my kids and showed them pictures of Pont du Gard. Gooseygirl said, "You walked on the top of that?"

"Yeah, it wasn't a great choice, was it?", I said.

Rocketman said, "You could have died!"

Yep.... that's exactly what Juliet and I thought once we sobered up!

Aliens have landed

I have decided that I'll use my kid's nicknames in this blog to make it easier on my readers. E, my sweet girl, will be referred to as GooseyGirl. L, my type A boy, will be RocketMan. N, my laid back surfer boy, will be the BirdMan. They are 6 year old triplets.

Now back to our regular programming...

When my kidlets were little we couldn't go anywhere without stares and open curiosity from the general public. Once I made my friend Juliet, push our six foot long stroller in the mall just so that she could get a feel for how it felt to draw gaping stares everywhere you go. I found it amusing to walk behind her and watch others watch her. The pointing, the questioning looks, the gasps, it was fun just to see what I must look like when I pushed them in their stroller.

Now that they are six our stroller has been retired and the stares have diminished. Few people can pick out that they are triplets. However, I'm starting to get stares and gapes again but it isn't due to their multiple birth.

It is because they are aliens.

Last summer we took them to the Kentucky State Fair. There was a HUGE world map laid out on the floor and there weren't any people around. So for fun, I had them stand on Kentucky. Then I called out a country or state and they would run to put their foot on that country or state. "Italy!", I shouted. Off they'd go to hop on Italy. "Canada!", I called and they'd run to Canada. I glanced around and saw that no one was anywhere near us so I decided to have a little fun. "Sri Lanka!", I said. They scampered to Sri Lanka. "Belize!", "Madagascar!", "Turkey!". At this point my three were giggling and having a ball running all over the world to the different countries I was calling out.

Suddenly a male voice behind me said, "Mongolia!". I turned around and found a crowd had gathered behind me. There was one man grinning like mad. I turned back around and my alien children were perched on top of Mongolia. "Bosnia!", he shouted next. More and more people were gathering. "Saudi Arabia!", "Poland!", "Norway!". He was trying to trip them up but they just kept running to each country with glee. I was getting uncomfortable and yelled out, "Kentucky!". Once they got there I said, "Okay, time to leave!".

I turned around and a couple was staring at us open mouthed. I smiled and started moving quickly away. I was concerned that my alien children had exposed themselves and not at all comfortable with the public display that had just occurred.

Well, yesterday my alien children exposed themselves again.

We were standing in the olive oil aisle at Whole Foods Market a few steps behind another man who was looking over the myriad of oils and vinegars. GooseyGirl turns to me with her little girl voice and says, "Mommy did you know Athena was born from Zeus' head? His head just split right open and she popped out! Before that he had swallowed her mommy, Metis. Isn't that wired!?!"

At this point I glanced around to see who might have overheard my six year old little alien. Oops... too late. The olive oil man heard. He stopped, turned fully around and gaped at us.

I quickly ducked into the spaghetti sauce aisle and kept moving.

Poseidon, Apollo, Demeter and her cat Dazling

These are some pictures they drew yesterday!

N did the one of Poseidon. I love the trident!

E did the picture of Demeter with her pet cat Dazling. Technically, the Greeks never mentioned Dazling the cat. I'm sure it was just an oversight on their part. She also drew Apollo Can you find the golden apple in E's picture?

L drew a great picture of Paris with the golden apple standing before Aphrodite and Athena but he folded it up and put it in an envelope before I could scan it. We are mailing these pictures to each other so that they can practice addressing an envelope. Once it comes in the mail, I'll scan in his picture.

Homer (not Simpson)

Today we started a new read-aloud book, The Illiad. Or rather, a version of the Illiad that is made for young kiddos. It is published by Kingfisher and lives up to the quality of their other books.

As I started reading it RocketMan was sitting in his chair doing a coloring page. However, as we got further into the chapter he kept getting closer and closer to me as he was wound up deeper into the story. By the end of the first chapter he was sitting in my lap in rapt attention. What a wonderful version of this classic story!

GooseyGirl's eyes started dancing when the book introduced us to Paris, Prince of Troy. She said, "Momma, that's how they got the name for that French city... from the Greeks!"

Does anyone know if that is true? I told her I'd have to look it up because I have absolutely no idea if the two are linked.

UPDATE: This is a quote from Story of the World Volume 2 "The land of Gaul, just north of the Mediterranean Sea, was invaded by barbarians called the Franks. THe Franks were made up of several different tribes. And they didn't regard themselves as barbarians. As a matter of fact, they claimed they were descended from the ancient inhabitants of the great city of Troy." However, the city is named after Gallic tribe called the Parisii. They lived there 3rd century BC. Ahhh.... now we can sleep tonight. But it is a cool little connection isn't it?

Theseus and the Minotaur

Today in history we talked about Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The kids loved this myth and proceeded to make a maze out of their blocks and toys for their animals to act out the story. These are pictures of their mazes.

GooseyGirl is holding the Minotaur (Ruff the dog)and RocketMan is holding Theseus (silver the cat). BirdMan built his own and that is his Theseus (kiwi the bird) who will soon fight the Minotaur (Elizabear the bear). BirdMan's maze is surrounded by LAVA! In case you couldn't tell, they had fun today!

Greek Calamari

Today during science we studied the life cycle of a jellyfish. I had no idea they changed during their lives like a butterfly. They begin life in the polyp stage stacked upside down like nested cups with their tentacles pointing up waving in the ocean. Then they pop off one polyp and turn upside down as their tentacles hang from their body. This stage is called the Medusa stage.

The kids immediately exploded with recognition. We'd been talking about Greek mythology so they recognized the Medusa reference immediately. Their eyes were positively beaming as it "clicked". Then we talked about the simple freshwater hydra and again they perked right up. "The HYDRA mom! Like what one Hercules fought!" They could immediately see why the animal was given that name based on what they know about mythology. It is so cool to see the different subjects intertwine unexpectedly like that!

I was able to finish our logo. Here is the final version. I really like it.