Who Are You?

Emperor has been recruited to be on a homeschool chess team based out of St. Joseph, about an hour and 15 minutes away.  Of course we knew he'd encounter plenty of people he knows already, but there are about 50-odd people in this unfamiliar place.  One very pretty teen girl came by to say hello to Emperor.

PT:  Hi, Emperor!!

Emperor: (awkward silence) I am not sure who you are, but you know my name and so you must be familiar to me.

PT is bewildered.  Emperor has seen her a good plenty of times!  And he doesn't look too open to the hug she was about to give.

Me:  It's the hat.

PT:  (removes hat)  Do you know who I am?

Emperor:  Yes!  You are (Name).  I have played chess with you before!

PT: (puts hat on)  How about now.

Emperor:  I cannot tell it is you.

PT: (removes hat)

Emperor:  Now I know it is you again.

PT:  (puts hat on) YESSSS!  This is the perfect disguise!  (walks away)

City K-6 Champion!

Emperor tied for City Champion in the K-6 division of the tournament today.   :)

Happy National Chess Day!

Greetings from West Des Moines, Iowa!  Emperor is at the hotel room right now taking a whirlpool bath and celebrating his victories.  He won first in the morning rounds and second in the afternoon rounds at the West Des Moines Youth tournament today.  He won all of his games except for the last in which he drew.  I have a new respect for Emperor as I entered the Parents and Friends tournament and lost. every. game.   I just don't have that long-range concentration and thinking ahead and dealing with spectators thing that Emperor has honed.  Imagine hanging onto board one all. day. long. and having people watch your every move from 9 am to 4 pm.  Ok, I can imagine it a bit better now and know it is beyond me.

New Blog!

Emperor now writes at the Homeschooling Emperor blog.  He's revamped the place and he also has a facebook page for you to visit and "like."  Be looking for new posts about three times a month.  He doesn't talk nearly so much as I do and he also would like to confine his writing to more factual pieces rather than writing stories.  His latest blog post is on nuclear power and he offers a unique solution to our energy crisis. 

Your Cell

***** Emperor takes you on a tour!

Happy Weekend!

Emperor is speeding along in this photo.  He was quite determined to learn to ride his bike today, but it didn't quite go according to plan.

Elf is in seventh grade, but hasn't mastered that whole riding about on his own thing, either.  For whatever reason, this skill is elusive to them both.

Solution:  no training wheels!  Emperor will pedal and steer, and Elf will keep his feet on the ground.  Everyone wins!

Woodjie and Rose got their little trikes out as well. 

Woodjie will get a fruit snack for each smiley face and as a bonus for getting all smileys, he'll get some computer time tonight!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

!! Overwhelmed!!

I'm looking at all the stuff I have lined up for Emperor to get done next year and I'm thinking it won't all get finished.  I'm scared to death that there is no way that this huge pile of books on my shelf is going to get read through, that all the science the kid needs to get into his brain is going to make it there, and Latin?  Is he even going to have time to crack that book?

Instead of having that happy "new pencil and notebook" feeling each summer, I get anxious. Why?  We've faced some tremendous challenges as a family during these past two years and still most of the schoolwork is done by February. 

How far ahead does my child have to get before I can feel I can relax and slack off a little?  How can you tell whether your concern is disproportionate?  Because I know people who (in my opinion) slack of tooooo much and their children suffer for it.  Then again, I also am good friends with a mom who literally blocks out her kids' days in fifteen minute increments - I mean every waking hour! - and the children don't seem the least overanxious.  

One thing I've noticed is that when things are really awful in one area of my life, that I find myself getting into "organization" mode in homeschool.  Especially if I know I'm going to be down for a while.  When I got my hernia surgery last year, I knew I'd be hepped up on drugs for almost a month (really).  So.  I sorta had to over-rely on worksheet centered stuff and "here is a book" sort of learning experiences for a bit.  I was too loopy to even discuss a plotline for a while there.

Do you know what?  Some of the best learning happens from "here is a book."   I wouldn't structure my child's entire education around it, but I think I'm going to just pick a few weeks and do that sort of thing later on this coming school year.  I think it's one of Emperor's favourite homeschool times as well.

Braces Are On!

This is what is going on inside Emperor's mouth AFTER the tooth extraction.  Imagine a huge pair of teeth there with roots that go way up.  Ok, it's still a mess, isn't it?  I have a feeling poor Emperor is not going to be finished after his crossbite is alleviated.

But yay!  The braces are on and Emperor chose purple covers for his brackets.  He goes back at the end of the month for a tightening-up.

Woodjie got a vaccine.  He is very angry about it.  He said it hurt and "it not nice!" that they did that to him.

Rose can write part of her name!  This is an excerpt.  Note the typewriter-style lower case "a."  Emperor still writes like that.  I don't know why that isn't taught in schools but is mostly a teen girl thing.  To my mind, lower case "a" and "o" are too similar when printed by hand most of the time.

The Emperor's New Smile.

Emperor will get partial braces soon!  But first, two of his baby teeth need to be extracted.

Eeyow!  Emperor made it through!  See the holes in his head?  Next week, he will have a regular dental cleaning and the orthodontist will glue brackets onto some of his top teeth.

Emperor's baby teeth had very long ROOTS.  That means it wasn't a very easy process.  Poor Emperor has taken some Tylenol and is cuddling his stuffed tiger and playing Civilization all day on the computer.  Homeschooling and even his private chess lesson have been cancelled for tonight.  His father should bring some applesauce home so Emperor can have it for dinner.

After a Little Help.

"Oh, no, you just want my picture on the blog and that will embarrass me!"  But he conceded that the embarrassment is worth about $1.50 and so here you go. Emperor says he wants YOU to send money to him right now as well.

Is This How I Wear My Hat? I Think So.

And he's serious.  And he says it with such a straight face.  And see how he's perplexed as to why I said, "Awwww!" and took his picture.  Awwww!  Notice the little narrowed "why are you documenting this" eyes.  I don't know how to put it, but Emperor is so straightforward and serious that he is creative without realizing it.

Seashells

Kids Play Blindfold Chess.

You Can Look Now.

The older children have been playing blindfold chess.  It's exactly like regular chess, except they have to face away from the board, call out their moves by notation only, and keep track of the entire game in their head.  I make their moves on the board, notate, and occasionally have to tell them that this or that move is not possible.  It is a LOT harder than it looks.  Elf says the middle game is hardest because that's when there are the most pieces on the board to keep track of.  During the beginning of the game, the pieces are all near their starting positions.  Endgame has very few pieces, usually.  Emperor kicked butt in this game, but many of his pieces are idle under this system, which almost never happens in a regular game.  It's good mental exercise, have you ever done this?

Out and About With Emperor

We've finished our testing with the school district for Emperor!  I have only to turn some paperwork in and wait.  That's good to get all that out of the way before the snowy season.  I quizzed him about his latest speech test on the way to the grocery store.  "They asked about sayings and things like that," he told me.  "One was, 'All that glitters is not gold.'"

Ok, so what did you tell her it meant?  "I told her that it meant you had to get one of those people who knows whether things are gold or not to look at it because looks can be deceiving," he said.  (I'm wondering if he got credit for "knowing" this one.  Half-credit, maybe?)

So, what did she say? I asked him.  "She said, 'OK.'  Whether I get something right or wrong or even just don't know it she says, 'OK.' just like that."

Other sayings?  "Even the largest tree bends with the wind.  And I told her it meant it didn't matter how old you were, you would get in trouble sooner or later if your mom finds out."  (??)

"The only other one I remember was, 'What does grass and a blanket have in common?'  And I told her that they are both water-absorbent."  Here he paused.  "Although then I said it depended on the cloth.  Some material doesn't absorb water so well.  I'm not sure exactly why she asked that one."

That.  Is hilarious.  I'm thinking she meant they are both coverings, Emperor.  The grass covers the ground and a blanket covers a bed.  Emperor thought that was a very unique answer to the question and I informed him that actually? That was the answer they were looking for.  Probably.  (I start to doubt myself sometimes.) Emperor is not really sure about that, though it is a very clever answer that he never thought of. 

On to shopping, because there is no soy milk in the house.

"Just how many reindeer DOES Santa have?" asked Emperor incredulously as we were listening to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on the loudspeaker. "And how did everybody find out their names?  Don't say wikipedia."

Emperor and I picked out some fruit and some soy milk and browsed around for milk-free snacks.  It's not our usual store so we got lost a fair bit and heard ohh... at least three songs.  One was "Let it Snow."  Emperor was a bit miffed that the singer thinks he is "letting" it snow at all.  Even if he didn't want it to snow, you can't stop God from snowing on everything.  That's just... why is he singing about that?

"Is it just bad theology?" I asked him.  It's just bad logic, really... he told me.  He shook his head sadly at the silliness of it all and said,  "Well, that's music these days, I guess."

Tales for Young Men

"Grendel's plan, I think, will be
What it has been before, to invade this hall
And gorge his belly with our bodies.  If he can,
If he can.  And I think, if my time will have come,
There'll be nothing to mourn over, no corpse to
    prepare
For its grave:  Grendel will carry our bloody
Flesh to the moors, crunch on our bones
And smear torn scraps of our skin on the walls
Of his den.  No, I expect no Danes
Will fret about sewing our shrouds, if he wins. 
And if death does take me, send the hammered
Mail of my armor to Higlac, return
The inheritance I had from Hrethel, and he
From Wayland.  Fate will unwind as it must!"

(Beowulf, lines 442-455, translated by Burton Raffel, Signet Classic edition)

Emperor seems to read well enough.  It is not his favourite subject, but he likes Beowulf a lot.  "It's very pretty," he tells me. "I like writing that is beautiful and has a lot of adjectives in it.  This lets me know what is really going on." 

Yep.  There's really no mistake about what's happening in literature like this, and the character motivation doesn't seem to be so deep or introspective as many tales marketed to children seem to be.  It's understandable to Emperor in a way standard "kid" literature is NOT. He has a lot of trouble with your usual kid-fiction. 

Emperor is currently being tested by our school district to see if he needs any sort of special services.  Lately the tests they have been giving him are reported to be boring.  Emperor tells me they had him read and answer stories about some child and a dragon.  "But, the story had no taste to it."

No taste?  Surely my kid isn't getting all highbrow and pining for classic literature only?  I asked him a few questions about the readings he was supposed to do.  One is about a dragon and a small town, he told me, rolling his eyes.  Well what about it?  "Four letters," he said.  "L-A-M-E."

Stories about odd creatures such as dragons and Grendel and Orcs and what-have-you are usually very exciting! 

Ughhh... Emperor explained that this one is about a dragon that steals people away from the town.  Everyone was scared and didn't know what to do until some little kid went off to find out what the problem was.  "And ALL SHE NEEDED TO DEAL WITH THE DRAGON WAS A MAP AND SOME FOOD."

As if this weren't insulting enough to the reader's intelligence, Emperor reports that the kid brought along as her companion some fluffy thing called MISTER FEATHERS.  Here I got another good eyeroll from him at the stupidity of the story. 

"Mister Feathers and the girl find the dragon and then they just TALK with the dragon.  The dragon tells them he is picking up all the people to save them from the avalanche that will be destroying the town soon." He shook his head and put his hand up to his brow as though the whole ordeal were painful to recount.

"THE END."

"The story just sucked, Mom."

Well, maybe it did.  I don't fault the school for having sucky stories during the testing process because I'm thinking that it might be a test to see if the child is able to remain calm and polite under duress or something.  (I dunno.)  Usually these "tests" have a hidden objective and the thing you think you're getting tested on isn't the thing they're really measuring. 

But on the whole, I hear boys are "behind" on reading.  I wonder at us as parents for not having better literature choices than the Junie B. Jones series in our personal family libraries.  Sorry, I hate those.  They are just WRONG. 

Am I the only one with reading pet peeves?  Looks like I passed mine onto my children somehow.

Hello!

Had a root canal done on Monday, which has really thrown me for a bit of a loop. This week I've relied heavily on English worksheets, Snap Circuit sets and chesskid.com to teach Emperor. He's doing just fine, but I have just given him work that doesn't require a lot of hand-holding this week. It is a very good thing that if I give him a list of "things to do," he's motivated to finishing the list.

Every morning, Emperor does either the lecture and the first ten problems in his Algebra, or he finishes the lesson from the day before. He sharpens his pencils before going to bed. I stack the books he'll be using, and off he goes after breakfast to work.

He watches videos about chess, practices his tactics and plays online chess games for about two hours each day. He spends about an hour on mathematics. Science varies depending on how much stuff I assign him. He loves science. Latin? Not his favourite, but he can memorize prayers in Latin and recite 'em back. Don't know that he is getting any very deep instruction in the subject yet, but he's in an elementary-level course.

English is one of those funny subjects, though, that can take a very short time or practically forever depending on how fuzzily the work is worded. It's hard to explain, but I'll try. Emperor has trouble with relating why a character might feel a certain way or what might happen next in the story, but not much trouble finding the verb in a sentence or even diagramming sentences.

Emperor has been working through Critical Thinking's Reading Detective A1 workbook. It is very difficult for him, but he has been getting a bit better at getting this done. One thing I like about it is that it numbers or letters various paragraphs and sentences so that when the exercises are being completed, instead of writing a huuuuge essay about why Cindy doesn't want to go to the zoo, Emperor could just write the sentence number that shows why Cindy doesn't want to go to the zoo. He would have to find the specific sentence that would back up what he's saying. Often I've been able to show him a sentence that would be a better fit to a question.

I actually got the Reading Detective workbook from Andrea because she had a contest and I was the fabulous prize winner. I'm surprised what a great fit it's been for Emperor learning-wise this year. I would definitely consider buying other things from the Critical Thinking company after seeing how well it's worked for Emperor. And no... I don't get any kickbacks for recommending it or anything like that. Bummer. :)

Notice to Homeschooling Parent:

Just because I APPEAR to be busy with my mathematics does not mean that you can take my picture. Yes, I ruined every one of your shots. Put the camera away and leave me alone. Go blog about something else. Thank youuuu.

At the Club

Emperor is not so happy about having his game interrupted by me. But Rose? Rose is THRILLED to be allowed to go to the Kansas City Chess Club for the first time. Not to mention, she LOVES having her photo taken. She did participate in most of the exercises (with help... lots of help). The only thing she wasn't even slightly interested in doing properly were the pencil and paper tactics exercises. In those, random chess pieces were circled and, instead of a line and arrow indicating the "best pin," she drew lines that would seem to indicate that they wandered off the page and went AWOL.

Another Whole School Year

Elf has made tremendous progress in the friendship area!! He has been having conversations with a classmate and would like to have him over to the house some weekend. This is great! Just get his phone number and maybe I can talk to his mom and we can work something out.

He brought home a phone number last night! Isn't that awesome?? Now, if we only knew this boy's NAME, I might be able to call and arrange a get-together...

I know. He was sooo excited to talk with someone AND get the phone number, too...

Elf is studying where all the continents and oceans are located in history class. They are also studying Ancient Greece. If I remember correctly this is about the time age-wise I got a phone call from Patrick's school because Patrick had a religious objection to looking at Greek art because of boobies. I settled it in the school's favour by telling Patrick to look but not loooooook. He can handle it.

Emperor is also blogging about school and Ancient Greece in his post titled, "Another Whole School Year." Yep, I snagged it as a title for MY post. Willya click on over there and leave him a comment? He would appreciate followers as well. Promise it won't be too much trouble because he doesn't post very frequently. Thanks. :)