Late Nights with the Puzzle

Since Christmas an enormous jigsaw puzzle has resided on our dining room table. 3008 piece enormous. On the box it says 3000 pieces, but when I opened it up, sitting on top of the jumble of minute jigsaw shapes was a small notice reading in several languages: Note: due to technical reasons this 3000 piece puzzle actually contains 3008 pieces. I considered returning it right then and there. 3000 pieces, yes, but 3008? That’s pushing some limits, I’m telling you!

We began the puzzle early in January in those hazy post-Christmas days. I like a jigsaw puzzle going in the winter to gather the family ‘round and promote camaraderie ‘gainst the dark nights of winter. Or at least I like the concept. The fact is, despite the strong efforts of the more dedicated puzzle do-ers of the family, a 3008 puzzle is just really big. And full of pieces. And takes a loooong time to finish.

But…piece by piece, the picture began to take shape. It’s a picture of an old map of the world, back in the days of exploration when things like Canada were still a bit sketchy and over the general area of Australia and Antarctica is written in large black type “UKNOWNE LAND.” I love old maps – what promise and danger those days and maps held!

So anyway, every day a few more pieces. And remarkable as it seemed, slowly the pieces added on tipped the balance and there were more pieces on the table than there were left in the box.

And somewhere along the way it seemed that the puzzle was a metaphor for a year of homeschooling. Round about late January, a year of homeschooling also seems like an insurmountable puzzle. Will our efforts ever take us anywhere? Will it really amount to something if we do spelling lesson 12 today? And I thought. Yes. It does matter. Everyday a couple more pieces in the puzzle and eventually the pieces add up. Bits of learning, however small for each day, add up to the point where the pieces on the table, or already under the bridge, to mix lots of metaphors, are more than those left to go.

So this morning I prayed with the boys for courage for the day, for motivation to put a few more pieces into our education, and mid-prayer it occurred to me that maybe at the end of our homeschooling year, when all the pieces are placed, we’ll finish with a beautiful map of the world! And all the confusing bits that confounded us, like the piece with a top of a capital ‘A’ that turned out to actually be the top of a ‘U’ will make sense. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Or maybe we just get that map when we’ve put in all the pieces into the puzzle of our lives. Or maybe we don’t get to see the map at all. Maybe we’ll only see the big map when we get to heaven. Maybe when we take our leave of God’s green earth all the puzzle pieces will still look like a big jumbly mess in the box. I seem to be living long enough to see that things here don’t always finish up tidily. Not everyone gets the time to place all the puzzle pieces. 

Or even if they do, maybe they got the puzzle that isn’t a cool map, just a kitchy picture of horses and flowers. (Why are there always so many puzzles of horses?)

I don’t know. But I find that I can’t help always looking and hoping and trying to understand the metaphor.

In the meantime…we are almost done and I’ll get soon my dining room table back, and we’re also almost to the point where we can see the end of the homeschool year, off there in the golden hazy distance. So until then…as Noelle's auntie would say, it’s Late Nights with the Puzzle. 

Somebody's getting a little OCD with the remaining pieces.

Almost there.

Comfort Me with Bunnies

It’s time to tell you that we are extending our Year of Living Swissly. There are various reasons involved, the primary one being that Zeus, who we fully expected to be milking cows all year to pay the rent, has got a job that is very interesting and resume-worthy and with which he has not yet finished. So we’ve officially decided to stay another year.

There are lots of mixed feelings all around and lots of discussions on how to do schooling next year, but the most important thing to consider was this: If we're gonna stay, it's high time we got some LIVESTOCK!

Because, really, when you are homesick and missing all your friends, nothing says "comfort" quite like a bunny. In fact, I am starting to think that all adolescent girls should routinely be issued one when they turn twelve.

When I called the number in the classified ad to ask about bunnies the lady told me that if my daughter was interested, she had better come along to make sure there was “good bunny vibe” (or something like that) because she had lots of colors and lengths of hair to choose from. There was a sweet gray one in the first hutch she opened and so she found a bucket for Athena to sit on and put the bunny in her lap. Little Gray Bunny sort of stood up and leaned on Athena’s chest and then just gazed at her for, no joke, about 15 minutes. When the farmer lady came back she asked,

“Well, have you chosen?”

“Um…I think the bunny has chosen us.”

Even the farmer lady was amazed! She was very happy that her bunny was going home to live with a girl she adored so much. So that she would not be lonely, we got her sister too, who wears a little black jacket.

Line ‘em up, folks, and give ‘em a bunny!

Little Bunnies are awaiting names. The kitchen whiteboard is full of ideas ranging from Jane Austen heroines to Darth Fluffy and Master Fuzzy, a la Star Wars. There’s a rumor that we’ve finally reached a settlement with Flopsy and Mopsy. 

Meanwhile they’ve settled into their lovely ready-to-go hutch out in the garden shed. It is all set up here beautifully because …{shhh….cover those long bunny ears} around here, rabbits are often raised for their meat. A few people have already asked me if I was raising them for “elevage”? to eat?  “NO! For snuggles!”

A Milestone

This was Athena’s first ballet lesson on pointe shoes last week. It’s a little blurry because I didn’t use the flash, so as not to disturb, but you get the idea. Athena said I was allowed to post the picture. It was an exciting day, and Athena was very excited in her reserved Athena way.

Autumn Break in Sardinia

 

Okay, I am feeling a little sheepish about telling you what we’re up to for the kids’ autumn break from school. I mean, a year in Switzerland is already pretty great, right? Does it help if I tell you that this trip to Sardinia was planned over a year and a half ago? Or that Katie is one of my very oldest friends? Or that we got cheap flights on Easy Jet? Or that Zeus had to stay behind because of his new job?

For the sake of propriety, I could, of course, pretend that so far it’s been cold and rainy. But it hasn’t been! Since we arrived on Wednesday it has been clear and sunny and very warm. It’s been the warm summer we never quite got this year.

We’re staying with my dear dear friend Katie and her beautiful, hospitable family who making us feel very welcome and that increasing the number of people in their household by 125% for this week was exactly what they had been hoping to do.

And of course, when it’s sunny and warm you go to the beach! Thursday we packed food, picked up Diego and Anita from school, and headed out. Apparently the Sardinians are done going to the beach for the year; they have switched to jeans and long-sleeved shirts. The people on the beach at this time of year (including us) are foreigners. But really, there weren’t too many people at all and we had a lot of elbow room.

 

There were yellow jackets though, so the kids ate their sandwiches standing in the water.

 

This was a neat old Sardinian town – mostly vacation town now, where some spaghetti Westerns were filmed. I liked the pretty colors of the little houses.

Most of the houses had very interesting door knockers. This one makes me think of Aslan. It might come alive and tell me what to do.

On the way back to town we stopped and bought yummy sausage for dinner.

I am learning a little Italian. It usually goes like this:

Katie introduces us as some American friends.

O, la bella familia!

I smile and say Bon Giorno.

Quattro? [4?]

Si, quattro. 

Then they smile and are happy.

Italians (and Sardinians, I suppose) still seem to like the concept of larger families, even though the country has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. The sausage man gave us what we asked for and paid for, and then heaped on about that much again. He was either very generous, or needed to offload a lot of sausage. So we came home with about twice as much sausage as 9 people can eat at one go. Fortunately it is very good sausage as he makes it himself there in his shop, and we are inventing creative uses.

Friday we headed to the beach again because the weather is supposed to change in a few days, and really, that is what we came for – beach flopping.

But on the way out there, we stopped at an old church that was originally built in 470 AD. Very interesting to think about what life was like here then. The Romans were still here then and Christianity had now become legal in the Empire.

 

 

This is engraved on the baptismal font that you seen in the photo above. I think that is what it is. And inside the font is a relief of a fish.

This is a view I see a lot. People waiting for me outside the monument because I am still dawdling inside reading the plaques and taking pictures. But it’s also a photo composition I like – looking out at the brightness from inside the shadowy building.

Further up the road there are ruins from a Phonecian village. We didn’t pay to go in, but Katie, who took the 2 hour guided tour a few years ago, gave us the quick 5 minute version while we peeked over the fence, which was more our speed.

This is a house that is believed to have been the bakery as there is still a huge mortar and pestle used to grind grain. There’s also a big bowl, which I realize only now did not make it into the photo.

Here’s another spot in the ancient village where you can see the sewage canal running between what used to be a row of houses. The village was originally Phoenician – those seafarers – and then later the Romans came and took it over, like everything else. Later, when Moors kept sailing in from Northern Africa and attacking, the people abandoned the village and moved to a safer distance inland.

And then our ultimate goal: the beach.

 

Katie told us when we arrived how Sardinia is pretty dry and lacking in trees, because when the Romans came, long long ago, they chopped down all the trees and took them off to Rome.  Hermes, apparently had been listening, because two days later he found this stick on the beach and said, “Look! The Romans forgot this one!”

We played in the water, dug in the sand, snacked, I read a couple chapters of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief aloud and then we played in the water some more.

The island seems to be mostly volcanic rock – there are lots of lava rocks around, including these black ones on the point. The fishies like to hang out among the rocks, and we’ve been introduced to Fishy Peeping with masks and snorkels. Katie’s husband Paolo is a marine biologist here, so they all know a lot about the local marine life.

The water is cool but refreshing and super clear and very salty so it is amazingly easy to float. About five feet out, if you put your head down, you find all kinds of fishies swimming around down by your toes! I found it rather addictive, and had to keep going back to see what they were up to. Here are the girls doing some Fishy Peeping (along with some Italian sun worshippers who sort of invaded our space).

Next on the agenda was to bury each other in the sand.

Before it was time to go, I wanted to get a photo of all the kids in the water. But Hermes, who had been buried and got a bunch of sand on his face upon emerging and had to be dunked, was tired and kind of done for the day. So he didn’t like the idea of a family photo, and retreated up the beach for a scream. After a bit he felt better.

Here are the others.

Ahhh!! Heavenly water and air and light. It’s what our brains and bodies have needed after school immersion into French and managing Swiss timetables. Time doing a bunch of not much in warm weather and water. The weather is supposed to change tomorrow, so today while we can, we’ll go back to the beach. 

All Around Us!

Alrighty then – it’s time!!!

With great pleasure I announce to you the debut of All Around Us ~ Singing Science!!

Have you always had trouble learning the Classification System? Do you know the requirements for life? Do you know the correct order of the Colors of the Rainbow?   Can you name the three kinds of rock? Have you been in the market for a new Planet Song ever since Pluto got demoted?

Have we got a deal for you! You and those you love will learn all these effortlessly and more!

www.allaroundusmusic.com is the place to visit to check it out and place your order!

And here to do a little marketing for us is 4 year old Hermes who among all the other things he has learned, really relishes the Continents and Oceans Song:

 

Please note that silly bouncing is not required to learn the facts!

Please leave me a comment here if you are interested in purchasing Your Very Own Copy, or you can also order directly from www.allaroundusmusic.com.  I look forward to hearing what you think ~ and to you spreading the word!

Giving homeschoolers a good name, and You Can Too!

If that sounds like an offer you can’t refuse -- it is!

But first a story.

*****

Along with all the difficult moments of starting school in another language and culture there are some bright spots and some surprises. In Artemis’ science class the teacher has been reviewing some basic biology facts, but it turns out they are not so basic. In one instance she asked the class which were the Five Kingdoms of Living Things. Plants and Animals everybody knew. With some prodding she got someone to come up with bacteria – the Monera Kingdom. But no one knew the other two – except, you guessed it: Artemis!  The Kingdoms Protista and Fungi, of course! Then, next class while discussing Fungi, who alone knew that besides mushrooms and toadstools, yeast is another very important kind of fungi?  Yes! You are right again: Artemis!

After class her teacher stopped her to ask if she had taken a lot of biology last year.

“Well…” says Artemis slowly, “we did have a science coop with some friends last year, and we went over a lot of this stuff.”

“Ah, yes, because you did school at home?” The teacher has heard about our homeschooling ahead of time, apparently.

“Yes, and well… My mom and another friend made up a bunch of songs to help us remember science facts. That’s why I know them.”

“Really!” exclaims the interested teacher. “Just for you and your friends?”

“Well, actually they made a CD that should be coming out sometime very soon.”

The teacher exclaims some more and professes interest in having a copy of the CD when it is ready.

WELL, PEOPLE, IT’S ALMOST READY!!!

*****

It’s true! And here you thought I was just sitting around communing with the cows and making hot meals for everybody. No way! I, and my scientifically musical partner Julie, are scientifically musical recording artists!

This was actually a project that came together just before we left the States. It’s been in production since, and while I always meant to tell you about it, now I think it’s better this way, anyway, because now it’s almost ready! I can create excitement in the market!

So if you would like you and your kids, homeschooled or no, to effortlessly learn the names of the planets, the five requirements for life, the continents and oceans, the five kingdoms of living things, kinds of rocks, the classification system, the families of vertebrates and Much Much More, you need to get our CD! It is called All Around Us – Singing Science, and when the moment has definitely arrived when they are available for purchase, I will tell you here how to get your copy.

I could continue, and tell you how when we went to see nearby dinosaur prints last weekend, all of my kids knew without a doubt that those prints were embedded in SEDIMENTARY ROCK! but that is another post.

Until then, watch this space and get ready to sing!

Do you speak soccer?

er….I mean football?

Making new acquaintances has been difficult for the children. Not by any means discounting the inclusive group of girls in Athena’s class, our kids are now in that peculiar stage in between making new acquaintances and making friends. Now matter how inclusive they are, you are still the new kid amongst a small group that has been together for from five to nine years and you don’t really always understand what they are saying.

We try to do our part, like giving Artemis and three classmates a ride back from the pool this morning so they wouldn’t have to walk in the rain. Or buying an inordinate number of overpriced chocolates from Athena and her classmates for the Swiss Historic Foundation. I even kept a lid on it and did not share my personal thoughts on making captive public schoolchildren do your fundraising  dirty work. Just smiled and opened the wallet. 

But still, it’s tough and awkward when you can’t express yourself. When you are trapped behind words that won’t appear on your tongue. Or maybe they do appear and you are brave and try them out and still no one understands what you are trying to say. Or worse they make fun of what you say. I am grateful at least that I know what it feels like and can commiserate.

Who is having the hardest time depends on the day, but at the beginning Apollo was definitely in a funk. He is at an age where the concept of being from somewhere else and speaking a different language and yet still being a person worth knowing has yet to enter the group consciousness.

(Artemis has a different story: the girls with who she rides the train think it is just so exciting that she is from Seattle, where Microsoft is, where Bella from Twilight went shopping!! ooo la la!! But, they wonder, do we like living in a house here? Don’t all Americans live in apartment buildings?)

I got the impression that the other kids in Apollo’s class just didn’t know what to do with him, and he, feeling awkward, responded somewhat sullenly to the overtures which were made, which led to more awkwardness and frustration. Arg! And this was before one of the kids started calling him Teacher’s Pet every time her back was turned (new vocabulary: “chou chou” – now you know.)

Apollo is also a boy, and boys need to do stuff. Girls, if they have the right vocabulary, can make friends talking over the various merits of different kinds of candy wrappers, but boys need an activity upon which to base their relationship.

So good heavens, praises be for soccer…or rather, football, or better yet le football. The first week when Apollo was feeling very low, Zeus took the boys to the playground, and then who should they see arriving for practice but the soccer team! Zeus had just that day been trying to find out information about it, so he ran over and talked to the coach who was very accommodating. It was only their second practice of the year and most of the team hadn’t made it to the first. So my boys zipped home (about 2 minutes away), changed into soccer duds and cleats (brought from the USA for such a time as this), and zipped back for Apollo’s first practice. Here it is – he is in green on the right.

This picture also tells another story. I keep telling you how close we are to the French border. Here you can see: the soccer field is in Switzerland, the corn field is in Switzerland, and the houses are in France.

After that practice one of the other boys kept saying, within in our hearing, and about Apollo, “Il est fort, eh? Il est fort!” He’s really good, huh?! He’s really good!  I don’t know whether or not he really was, but I so appreciated this boy’s saying so. Made me want to kiss him on the nose. (but I didn’t)

The following Saturday was the team’s first game. It was very hot and Apollo was exhausted from a week of school in French, but he did alright. Hurray for soccer where it doesn’t matter if you don’t say a lot – just have to work to get the ball into the net.

After that game the coach remembered that Apollo really is not allowed to play an an official game without his “soccer license.” No joke, we had to get a passport sized photo of him and send in a form to some high authority, and now we are awaiting his “license.” Wouldn’t want to kick that ball without a license now, would we?!

The practices are long – two hours on Wednesday afternoon, but only once a week, except for this week when there are two. I don’t know why. However, the practice field is about a 7 minute walk – an under 5 minute scooter ride. So Apollo can scoot himself over there on his own. He scoots home more slowly two hours later, exhausted and famished, stumbling into the kitchen and immediately inhaling anything in sight that’s edible. But it’s worth it; he is a part of something and he belongs to a team. 

L’ecole – Week Three

I was going to post on Monday that we were starting week three of school, and now suddenly today is Friday and we are nearly at the end of it! We’ve been working mostly on survival.

I am happy to say that my homeschool mom career is far from over – or I can say, at least, that it has morphed into super-hands-on-homework-helper mom: translating, explaining, figuring out: here’s how you say ‘direct object’ in French; when you have a direct object in German it takes the Akkusativ case;  here you must plot these points on x,y axes and then color the ensuing picture, Yes, I believe 47 is a prime number; conjugate the verb ‘etre’; here’s how to say ‘crustacean’ in French; Latin? – who knows, you’re on your own. Good grief! My head spinneth.

I am glad to say though, that yesterday was a pretty good day. I cannot say that there were no tears, because I have just had a confession that there were some upon awakening. But everyone made it through the day in decent spirits and didn’t have as much of that hit-by-Mack-truck look about them that they have had. Maybe, just maybe, we are finding the first inkling of a system in the midst of the big, tiring mess of school. They don’t really like it, but at least they are finding it. Or maybe they are just learning to be stoic.

One of the biggest challenges is logistics. If Artemis leaves the house by 7:25 she can catch the 7:36 train and have time to lock her bike. She arrives back in the village for lunch on the train at 12:21, and if she hasn’t appeared at the house by 12:27 we’ve agreed that I’ll go drive and look for her, because she’s got to be back on the return bus which leaves at 12:59. If I drive her, we can leave the house at 12:53. If she’s biking, she’d better leave by 12:50. And it goes on and on --- times four! We’ve got things worked out to the minute, and I’ve become a chronic watch checker.

Now this is quite ironic, to which anyone who knows me well can attest. I’ve always been a believer in a healthy cushion of about 10 minutes either way. Which makes me often late, but hey, if you are 10 minutes late to my house, that’s fine too! Hope you feel the same way! 10 minutes doesn’t really show up on my radar! Until now.

One day in the first week of this, as I sat with the kids around the table trying to work out the logistics and feeling my head starting to burn, one of them exclaimed, “Now we know how Papa got the way he is!”

It’s an interesting thought: are Swiss people naturally punctual or are they forced to develop that way because of The System?

In any event it is good for me, because I’ve been convicted the past few years of the annoyance my lateness may cause in my social circle. I really do believe that chronic lateness is the theft of other people’s time, and I want to change. So like Puddleglum I am thinking that these are the just the chaps to get me to take a serious view on life. My, will my acquaintances back home ever be surprised! We’ve got time for exactly three more inhalations of air and then I’ve got to scoot!

On a completely other note, today I biked to France! Because I could! In the exactly 105 minutes that Hermes was at preschool, I hopped on a bike and rode to the pedestrian/bicycle border crossing. It took about 5 minutes. No one was there – just surveillance cameras – and so I crossed unencumbered. It’s the same small town where we often go grocery shopping; I was there by car this morning in fact; I had just never gone on a bicycle. I did not take my camera, so no pictures this time. It’s a sweet small French town complete with remains of medieval ramparts as well as examples of unfortunate French architecture of the 1970s. But a nice looking cafe in a town square where I shall return someday for coffee. It would be nice to bike there with a friend. Anyone?

On another note, amidst the travails of the school start and life in general, we have been greatly encouraged by our visits with friends and family via Skype and similar media. It’s not quite like being in the same room, and yet it is so much more like it than a phone call. You can make silly faces, for one thing.

Last night, as I was preparing dinner, we got a video call from Uncle Chip who after giving greetings, put on a puppet show for Hermes and kept him occupied while I put things on the table. Then we sat down to eat and put the “him” (the laptop) up on the microwave where he could be at the head of the table. Then Uncle Chip said grace for us and drank his morning coffee while we ate our dinner of soup and salad.

Skypeing always makes me think of the Jetsons. We are video-calling like George Jetson! The future is now! How grateful I am for the technology that make it possible, that makes sharing our life via this blog possible, that makes your comments and encouragements possible, that makes us feel not quite so lonely, and our loved ones, though far away, not feel quite so far away.

I want a life that’s got the best of all worlds, old and new: high on electronic communication, low on mindless internet drivel; high on handmade art, but also high on digital photography and photo sharing; homegrown food, but a big fridge and a good dishwasher; travelling to see the world, but being able to walk to school.

I feel very blessed; I feel like I get a lot of what I want.

They Survived!

Yes they did!

Artemis with a bit of residual deer expression in front of  College Thurmann in Porrentruy. She had to be there at 8:10 a.m. It was very rainy. Notice how far away we are from the door and the other kids – wouldn’t want to be the dorky mom taking a photo.

Parents were invited to join the students for the welcome meeting. Then the different class teachers came to the front, student names were called and then they all left in a clump, while the parents stuck around to ask questions and go on a tour of the school. Of the seven home-room teachers for her grade, two of them greeted each student with a handshake and an open gaze straight in their eyes. Artemis’ teacher, Madame Quelquechose was one of them. I liked her immediately. At the end of her day, Artemis managed the train home, and when I picked her up at the village train station she wore a big grin and was pleased at having figured it all out.

1:30 Monday it was time for Athena and Apollo. Their first school day was only an hour and a half in the afternoon, which seemed like not very much for all the dread that had preceded. But we walked them down and helped them each find their coat hook and classroom. 

In front of the village school.

When I picked them up an hour and a half later, they seemed a little dazed but okay. Athena even was walking out chatting with another girl from her class.

This morning when we walked across the playground, I recognized the group of 6th grade girls headed out away from the school. It took me a little while to realize that they were headed for us – they had come to greet their new classmate. They whisked her off merrily with them, and I almost cried for joy at their sweetness.

After I walked them inside, wished the teacher a good day and left the school, I really did cry a little. For the last three years, I’ve been my kids’ teacher and responsible for their education. We spent our days together as a family. In that moment it felt like I had given up my identity. I know that it is for a season, and that I am still their mama and that there is a little relief mixed in there too at the weight of some of the responsibility being lifted. But still, that feeling in that moment was overwhelming.

But, no time to be pensive! At 11:30 they have their lunch break and come home. And did this mama have their hot lunch all ready to go? Yes, she did, thanks for asking! Thai curry, too, yum. Then time for clean-up and a little lego playing. Then at 1:30 they went back until 3.

This is Day 2, walking to school.

Apollo sporting his new soccer ball slippers! In Switzerland, you wear slippers to school! You leave them at school, and there is a place to change out of your dirty shoes and into before class. Those shiny clean floors stay shiny and clean. But honestly, I don’t know how the children learn in slippers. I don’t think I could. When I put slippers on, my brain goes flopsy – time to relax.

This afternoon, it was Hermes’ turn. Yesterday he was quite miffed that his school didn’t start until today, and today he couldn’t wait until after lunch.

Hermes has slippers too.

At 3:15, out came a parade of preschoolers, all wearing new reflective thingabobs for safety. He’ll goes back tomorrow morning.

Tonight everyone is tired – me too – and feelings are all over the map. One is nearly giddy with mentally categorizing tomorrow’s classes and the people who she met today who may well be in tomorrow’s math class. One was quite discouraged at the long school day and feeling behind and classmates who were taking a little while to warm up. And Athena is almost perplexed at the friendliness of the girls in her class. At every turn they make sure she has understood what to do and has the right pencil to do it with. That girl has spent her life reading books about kids who are unkind to the new kid in school – Anne of Green Gables, By the Banks of Plum Creek, Bridge to Terebithia – I think she must have geared herself up for that. But these girls are nothing like that! Well, praise God, I say! Let us hope that is a foretaste of the year to come.

School Starts Tomorrow

Nerves are running a little high this evening. I just gave another round of kisses to children who should be sleeping by now but are very wakeful. Bangs have been trimmed, outfits have been laid out, logistical plans for the day have been gone over. Many prayers have been said.

They are scared and nervous. I would be too. Actually, I am too, on their behalf. They are understandably anxious about beginning school not only in an unfamiliar school with new kids and a new town, but in a new language. Not entirely new, granted, but it’s never before been their main language of education. There’s a lot of missing vocabulary – how exactly do you say #2 pencil in French? Apollo is particularly concerned because, as he rightly points out, he’s never really even been in a real school just homeschooled.

I’ve tried to encourage them: Courage is just Fear that has said its prayers. Sometimes I wonder at my own year abroad that began all this business. I somehow worked up the guts to do a year of university in another language, especially amazing since my French at the time really wasn’t very good. (Which is why I had to find a private tutor, HA!)

Seriously though, I recall that panicky feeling the week before classes began, when all of us study abroad students fretted and fumed and tried to find classes together. I remember a lot of not sleeping at the beginning of that year and feelings of deep seated dread. But it was, in the end, one of the most wonderful and formative years of my life. It changed it and formed it for the better, at some point French phrases started coming out of my mouth, and I am still hangin’ with that ol’ Swiss boyfriend. Obviously, my kids’ own lives were shaped by that year as well.

So, I tell them, the things with the most fear attached are usually the things with the biggest payoff. Feel the fear, say your prayers, take a deep breath and jump in that pool. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power and of self control. Amen?

Now then, what should I wear tomorrow?

Worky-Booky

This is not usually a curriculum blog, but in the midst of packing and preparations, I have to share about these “worky-bookys” as Hermes calls them, because if I didn’t, I would feel remiss.

They are a set of six, published by Rod and Staff Publishers, and a kind friend gave us the set of six when Athena was a wee child. We used up a couple that year, then Apollo had his turn, and now Hermes is working through the two that are left. But I like them so much, and Hermes loves them ever so, that I think I may order a new set for him to work through the next couple of years.

There is something refreshing and appealing about the clean blackline drawings of birds and vegetables. They practice all the proper skills that should be in a preschool workbook (cutting, sorting, tracing, coloring, etc) but without the garishly loud flying monkey cartoons and such that one finds all too often nowadays.

This page practices patterns, but instead of boring geometric shapes, we have birds’ nests and leaves! Isn’t that sweet?

On the opposite page are the options to cut out (an nest with four eggs, an empty nest, an owl) and paste. There is also an exercise that practices sorting and classifying birds and insects and drawing a line from each to the correct kind of home. But look out! there’s something there trying to trick us that is not a bird or an insect!

To be honest, Hermes doesn’t do too much worky-booky. But at the start of the school day, on the days he doesn’t have preschool, he gets very excited to get out his very own book and his crayon box, just like his big sisters and brother, and have his mama’s attention all to himself for a little while. Sometimes I catch the siblings glancing wistfully over at drawings of acorns and squirrels, wishing perhaps that their math still consisted of drawing a path from the squirrel to the nut.

After a page or two, with his attention tank filled up a bit, he is glad to run off and play Legos and trains while his siblings carry on at the table.  And mama enjoys the therapeutic nature of sitting with her little man and helping to color inside the lines. It’s a little more straightforward than circumference and radius.