Sparkle RenFest Poem

I had Sparkle enter the Renaissance Festival Poetry contest again this year.
We are doing poetry for school and I adapted one of her textbook assignments to make a poem for the contest.

Here is her poem. The irregular capitalization is her own.

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The Sad Day

The Princess is weeping in her room.
The Prince is fighting in the gloom.
The Queen is talking to her groom.
The King is Dying in his tomb.

The village cries, "Boo hoo, boo hoo.
We don't want it to be true."
The Queen is feeling very blue.
The Prince does not know what to do.

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I am very grateful for our poetry textbook which gave Sparkle the vocabulary that I needed to coach her with this poem. She still needs work on writing things that make sense, but she's getting there.

everyday horseplay

dentist visit

I schedule the girls' dental visit for during the school year. It's quieter then. I was even able to get Sparkle to do some school in the waiting room.




The girls like pretending that they are glamour girls wearing the sunglasses at the dentist.

science museum class

Every month last year when Sparkle had her science museum classes, Glitter and I would watch the chemistry demo in the exhibit hall. I always wondered each time if Glitter would finally realize that she's seen the show before.

Before the show started I reminded Glitter that if she wanted to participate, she would have to raise her hand. She is usually fairly quiet in group activities and rarely volunteers. However, the activity pictured below is one of her favorites, and Glitter's hand shot up when she saw the special container. She rubs her hands together to make them warm, and then the heat from her hands makes the gas in the vial expand so that the red liquid shoots up to the top. Glitter's done it at least three times.

braiding hair

Sparkle has figured out how to braid hair. Here she is doing Glitter's hair.

praying mantis

Sparkle saw this praying mantis at church during her religion class. When I came to pick her up, she insisted that I take a picture to show Daddy later.

No Pictures - Homeschool Group Day

Friday was a much dreaded meeting of our homeschool group. It was the first meeting of our newly revamped Fine Arts Club. How many families would show up? Would there be too many kids to handle? or not enough? Would all the mom's who volunteered to help have all their supplies and know what to do? Would someone vital get sick at the last minute and throw off our carefully laid plans. I promised to not panic if the other moms wouldn't, but I was still anxious.

The morning started out well enough. I loaded up the car and told the kids to get their water bottles and snacks. Lunch would be a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. We got to the park just in time for the morning's Junior Master Gardener program.

Last spring at the last meeting of the Junior Master Gardner class, the kiddos got a bunch of plants and were told to bring them back to the first meeting in the fall. Sparkle and Glitter were one of the only families that kept some of the plants alive and remembered to bring them to the meeting. As a reward they each got a little set of gardening tools.

At lunch the kids ran around and I bribed my kids to eat by witholding the juice boxes until after the sandwiches were eaten. The moms talked about how to set up the four stations we would have: music, studio art, picture study, and dance. All the parent leaders were present and had brought all their supplies. Everyone knew what they were doing, and extra moms asked how they could help. Everyone contributed.

In the end it all worked out, as the other moms had been telling me. The kids had fun. Glitter even traveled around the stations with the other kids. She was supposed to be in the 4 and under group, but she wanted to be in the 5-7 year olds with her sister. I told her it was okay, as long as she acted like a 5 year old. Sparkle had a mini-meltdown when I was leading her group with picture study, but when she saw the other kids listening and participating, she was drawn back into the group.

I didn't get to see any of the other stations, but I could occassionally hear bursts of music from across the pavilion. When kids got to my station they were bubbling with excitment about the previous stations, especially making egg paint. Each session lasted for 30 minutes, and a timekeeper gave us 10 and 5 minute warnings, which really helped pace the sessions and keep things moving along. The kids who were getting board knew that they would do something new soon. The kids who were involved knew that they needed to wind up what they were doing.

When we got home, I told the kids if they were well behaved and let me nap, they didn't have to do anything else for the day. I lay on the sofa and when Wander called to let us know he was on his way home from work, he cheerfully volunteered to make supper. Being outside all day long is really exhausting for me.

I'm glad that's over, and I'm a bit eager to repeat the experience next month.

virus

A virus hijacked my computer and I was disconnected from the world this past week. Scary. I hope it doesn't happen again.

Back to school

It's definately back-to-school.

We've got an established school routine.
Two weeks ago Sparkle and Glitter's dance classes started.
Last week we had a homeschool mass, and Sparkle's Little Flowers class started.
Today Sparkle's religious education class started.
Next week Sparkle's science classes start.

I wonder what this school year will bring.

books

One of my main problems with books is that I have a hard time pacing myself when I find a book that I really enjoy.

At the library this week, I picked up a copy of "The Hunger Games." I wanted a light read while grabbing a snack after the kids were in bed, so I started the book. I kept telling myself that I'd read only a little bit more before going to bed. It was almost four o'clock when I gave up. Wander had to get up early in the morning, and he found me face down in the book, sleeping. I woke up just long enough to realize that I really needed some sleep. I dragged myself upstairs and turned up the volume on my alarm clock as loud as I could.

The main thing that drove me awake in the morning was the knowledge that I had to be read for my daily morning meeting with the girls. If I didn't make it to the meeting on time, I'd loose what little credibility I had with the girls on getting *them* to do their morning routines in time.

I put the sequel on hold at the library, but I don't expect to get it for another month or two. It's really tempting to order it on m kindle. Then I could start reading it in under 60 seconds. But then, I probably wouldn't put it down either, and the house is a mess.

math

Around this time last year, I had way too many language arts programs, and nothing that I really liked.

This year, I have way too many math programs, and I like all of them. However, Sparkle is not mathematically inclined, and she still has 12 lessons left in last year's main math textbook. Several of those lessons are multi-day lessons, so I expect that we won't start grade level math until next month.

Usually when I do Glitter's hair, she asks me for a "low pony-tail." These past few days, Sparkle has been turning Glitter's pony-tail into a cute little braided bun. Sparkle braids the hair and then somehow twists it into a little knot and secures it with an elastic.

Dictation

Here's a video of Sparkle doing her dictation for school.
I left Sparkle alone for the most part, and didn't realize all the antics she was doing until after I watched the video.



Remarks:

Sparkle likes to have a snack when she does dictation. As long as the food doesn't distract her from her assignment, I let her nibble. Glitter is off camera also enjoying snack of craisons.

I pre-record a week or more of dictation on my iPhone. Sparkle can play, pause, and rewind the recording as much as she needs in order to get the dictation word perfect. She determines how long a phrase to remember at a time.

I am experimenting with giving Sparkle passages that have more complex punctuation than I've taught her. Thus, I say all the punctuation aloud. Eventually, I will gradually phase out the spoken punctuation.

This dictation doubles as spelling. Sparkle generally makes few spelling errors. Notice that she asks me how to spell one word in the middle of the passage, and then changes her mind. If she sounds out the word and gets it right, she doesn't have to practice the word at the end. If she has me spell the word for her, or if she guesses wrong, she has to practice that word three times at the end.

Before I see the paper, Sparkle is free to make any corrections herself. Once she is done, I mark any additional corrections myself and explain the correction to her. Sparkle is a bit of a perfectionist, so simply seeing my markups is incentive enough for her to try to get it right next time. I have her write double-spaced so that there is plenty of room for corrections.

The dictation is a story taken from a public domain reading textbook. I got the idea of using an ongoing story from Jane Bell Kiester's "Caught'ya! Grammar with a Giggle" book. Sparkle likes to re-read earlier parts of the story before starting her dictation.

dance bags

Over the past two years, I've given the girls assorted cast-off bags to use as dance bags: old conference bags, small toy backpacks, freebie bags, etc. The bags have been functional, but not ascetically pleasing. When a bag ceased to work, such as when Sparkle needed to carry tap shoes as well as ballet shoes, or when Glitter started to dance, I just rooted around Wander's collection of bags until I found something serviceable.

However, I've been envying the dance bags that other girls carry into the studio. Even though I never had a purpose-built dance bag when I was a kid, I wanted the girls to have them: bags that are obviously made for dance; not just bags that happens to carry dance supplies.

When the girls started showing an interest in sewing, I decided to have the girls sew their own dance bags. I drafted a simple pattern. It had to have straight seams and be easy enough for the girls to sew. It had to have a zipper closure so nothing would fall out. It had to have a shoulder strap. It had to be big enough to hold all their supplies, including their clothes, yet small enough for Glitter to carry without dragging. It had to be durable and have finished seams. It had to be small enough to fit in the cubbies for storage during the week.

Once I had a pattern in mind, I took the girls fabric shopping, and splurged on full price fabric. I wanted the girls to have different fabrics so that it would be easy to tell which bag belonged to whom, but I could find only one "dancy" fabric. So, I altered the pattern and bought different co-ordinating fabrics.

As before, Glitter was the one most interested in sewing. Sparkle didn't get interested until she saw Glitter's finished bag. The actual sewing performed by the girls was limited to operating the foot pedal and removing pins while I guided the fabric. I did all the cutting and ironing, and most of the pinning. I also sewed the straps and Sparkle's zipper.

Here is Glitter with her bag.


Here are the two bags together.


I'm looking forward to using the bags for the first time tomorrow.

Rythmn to my days

We're in the middle of our second week back to school and our days are starting to have a flow.

The girls get up and watch tv while Wander does his morning routine. Wander leaves for work and I get up. I do my morning routine as the girls do their morning routine. I throw a load of laundry in the washing machine.

We have a set start time for school. If the girls don't finish their breakfasts by the start time, they don't get breakfast. (Given that they've usually been awake for over two hour, they get little sympathy for choosing to play instead of eat.) If I don't finish my breakfast or anything else by the set time, I suffer the same consequence.

We start with our morning meeting. Glitter looks up the date on the calendar. I tell the girls the plan for the day. We draw sticks to see who will lead the rest of morning meeting. The leader gets to lead prayers, memory work, and movement.

After morning meeting, Sparkle starts her independent school work, and I work on teaching Glitter to read. When I'm done with Glitter, I swap out the laundry and head over to Sparkle.

The next few hours are spent doing school with Sparkle. She has a list of subjects for the day and gets to choose which she wants to do next. Most subjects are teacher-intensive, but occasionally there is something she can do by herself for a few minutes. I slip away to take care of some household task, like laundry or dishes or sweeping or one of the multitude of things that always seem to need my attention.

Eventually Sparkle finishes school, and it's lunch time. It's been taking Sparkle a while to get all of school done, and as a result, we've been having very late lunches. I try to keep lunches simple: leftover and sandwiches are the most common fare.

After lunch, our days are more varied, depending on whether or not we have out-of-the-house activities.

If we don't need to go anywhere after lunch, we have an area cleaning. We pick a room, I give the kids dusting cloths, and I get the vacuum cleaner. I set the time for fifteen minutes and the three of us clean until the timer goes off. Well, I clean; Sparkle dusts random things that often don't really need dusting; and Glitter rolls around on the floor. After the timer beeps, I release both girls to their "own time," which usually involves making mayhem and strewing toys all over the house. I catch up on more household stuff, which often involves finishing laundry.

If we do need to go somewhere after lunch, we skip the area cleaning, pack our bags and go. The girls have their own book bags, snack bags, and water bottles, so they can be responsible for their own stuff when we got out.

We're usually back home (or still home) when Wander calls to say that he's coming home from work. His phone call is the trigger for the girls to stop playing, clean up, and have quiet reading time. For Sparkle, quiet reading time usually means that she has to do her assigned reading because she hasn't done it yet. For Glitter, quiet reading time usually means that she wanders around the living room, sometimes with a book in hand, announcing that she's already read the whole book and is done.

Finally Wander comes home, and quiet reading time is over. The girls return to their play, with a trail of toys in their wake.

I'm still trying to see how to fit in a few more activities into our days. It's like putting together a mosaic. I know what I want the final picture to be. I know that I want to use certain tiles. However, I can't quite figure out how to fit all the pieces together, or even if it is possible to fit all the pieces.