John Taylor Gatto

I'm currently reading the latest of John Taylor Gatto's EXCELLENT books on schooling, Weapons of Mass Instruction. It's, as are all of Mr. Gatto's books, an excellent and mind-boggling look into the history of compulsory schooling in our nation. I found this nice piece of video with Mr. Gatto, and though I'd share it here...For those of you who might be unfamiliar with Gatto, he was a 3 time New York City teacher of the year, and also won Teacher of the Year in NY state...He retired from teaching on the OpEd page of the New York times - you can read that letter HERE




Re-familiarizing myself with John's writings always seems to give me a great booter shot in the arm when I may be having those "now, WHY are we doing this?" moments...

Elementary (4th Grade) Geometry

Since I fancied myself smart enough to remember 4th grade math, I didn't order a "teacher's guide" for the math curriculum the little girl is using in conjunction with our Oak Meadow curriculum...Anyhow, I must confess, math was never something I had much interest in, therefore I did the "study enough to pass the test and then forget all about it" method for the majority (uh...ok, more like the entirety) of my math schooling. Today I had the need to run quickly to the computer for a "cheat sheet" of geometric shapes & their names...I'd forgotten what a rhombus was exactly...and while I was pretty certain that I knew what a polygon was, I needed to review!
Here's a handy printable for anyone else who may wish to freshen up the ol' brain reagrding the basic geometric figures & polygons!

Figures & Polygons

Winter Slideshow

I've been such a negligent blogger since our move...sigh...
here are some winter photos to prove we haven't dropped off the face of the earth!

Hard-to-spell-words

For some reason (ok...because I needed to spell-check "pronunciation") I started trying to amass a mental list of words that tend to trip me up spelling-wise...Now, I'm a classic "good speller" and let me tell you, when I read a few years back that being a "good speller" actually has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on intelligence, I was aghast! This can't be!!! I still don't buy it...

Anyhow...I'm trying to put together my own list of words that mess with my "good speller" head... I'll add 'em as I think of 'em...

What are yours????

I've had two glasses of wine, and it's 16 degrees outside...so I'm only coming up with a few right now...

pronunciation (why isn't it PRONOUNCE iation?)
vacuum (until I was in my 20's I spelled it vacum - thanks, Mom, for all those years of lists with VACUUM spelled practically as an obscenity!)
success (two c's or two s's or both?)

Give me yours, I will be honest if they're mine, too!

Lingua-Fun

We started working on our spanish again today...Amazing to me that even though we've been pretty big slackers in the spanish department lately, the kids pronunciation is on-spot! I picked up a card game/CD combo from LinguaFun a while back...today was the first time we tried it out...VERY COOL! The games are games the kids already know for the most part, but the cards incorporate spanish sentences into the play...


Also found this ...looks like it could be a great tool for time in the car! Hmmmmm...

This exciting week...

Well, this week will be an exciting one at our house! Not only are we getting back into our "learning groove" this week (between moving in the fall & then the holidaze, our "routine" has been anything but) we're also adopting a new family member on Wednesday! Tomorrow to get back into the swing, we'll play math games and review our times tables, plus guitar & a nature study (both kids are going to be working on a model of our local landscape/topography - we will begin collecting samples and observing the local terrain). We use the Oak Meadow curriculum to assist in our "unschooling" endeavors...now I know the hard-core "unschoolers" probably wouldn't consider what we do "unschooling" since I rely on a curriculum to guide me, but I find the OM materials really help guide me in guiding the kids' learning paths...and for our brand of "unschooling" they are a perfect fit. If you're interested in exploring OM you can check it out HERE
Oh...but back to our new family member...his name is Trenton, and he's 3 years old...His owner needed to find a new home for him due to her fiancee's very bad allergies...and lucky for us we've got the perfect home for him!
Isn't he gorgeous? We'll be sure to post photos on our exciting week as it transpires! Happy New Year to all!

Out with the old...

Ring Out, Wild Bells
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)
England's Poet Laureate from 1850-1892

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkenss of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.