I Inspire Me Sometimes...

So as much as I struggled to find the time to add to the school blog last year, eventually giving up on it altogether, I really enjoyed reading through the posts we did manage to get in there. So this year I have resolved to get on the stick and make some consistent posts once again.

Just to give you a rundown of who we are this year...

We lost Alfie to the wilds of the UAE as his parents moved on to new jobs.

We also lost Hamid to a real school. We knew it was coming all along--as soon as he started here his mom made it very clear that he just needed to get his English up to snuff in order to move him on to something bigger and, well, bigger. We were successful on that front and so off he went.

And so, as the 2012-13 school year began, we were just four people. We did one whole week with just Tian, Silas, Tehva, and Cady. And then, before we knew it, J and Z moved in to those two empty spots and we were six once again. Or, I should say, we are six, because that's what we are.

In just one summer we went from being a wild and crazy boy school to being a subdued and sometimes angst-ridden girl school. It is a change to which I am still adjusting, although no one else seems too fussed by it.

I am finding, though, that it is harder to get buy-in from a group of girls than a group of boys. Anything hands-on was okay with the boys and they would attack it with a frightening zeal, so that I most days found myself scraping something or other off of the ceiling or walls by 3:30--something that had gone airborne in their enthusiasm.

Hands-on things with the girls result in cautious discussion and initial reticence. Comments like, "Ewww...do I really have to do this? Ewww...this is disgusting," often fly about before they will attempt anything that involves more than a pencil and paper. There is talk of nails breaking and things being unladylike. I am learning to ignore the talk and just get on with the lesson, but some days I am simply exhausted by their constant self-deprecation and chatter. Was I a girl like this at one point? I must have been. However, I think I have blocked it out as I quite likely traumatized myself with my girliness.

So as you follow along with this blog which we will post upon weekly (or maybe more if I can come up with a creative way to use it) please keep in mind that we are no longer who we were last year and I am no longer grasping my sanity firmly in two hands.

Enjoy.

Cruel or Fair?

Check this out for a quick overview of the stele itself.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/ED/Hammurabi.html

After you look at that, try this link for a quick overview of a few of Hammurabi's laws.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1WhxpDC6TcXKFQDF-8v-7bP24UAP0BfS51NbzH6WgPKE

Okay, now that you have done that, consider this:

Did you find the laws to be cruel, fair, or somewhere in between?

Make a comment in the comment box below and be sure that it makes sense and describes your opinion thoroughly.

Those of you who are visiting here are welcome to comment as well.

If you do not feel like commenting but would rather just eavesdrop, just look below for the stunningly literate and learned comments from the students of Mawaleh American School regarding Hammurabi's Code and its cruelty or fairness.

Quarter 3 Weeks 4-6 Learning Outside the Cement Box

It is amazing what the addition of two hot little bodies to the school room does for spare time. The mathematical equations are as follows, where c = children; t = tween; k = kindergartener; T = teenager:

c + t + k + T = 1 hr spare time/wk

However, add the following equation and the math comes out quite differently:

c + 2t + 2k + T = -1 hr spare time/wk

And so by the wayside go such niceties as the school blog, my personal blog, and any semblance of organization to the time after lunch each day. On top of the extra bodies we are now venturing out of the house almost every day to explore the nooks and crannies of Muscat, take tennis lessons, dance like mad people, and visit other homeschoolers in the area, which takes time and energy and time. And so it has been good-bye blog, until today.

Today I sat down to dump the photos off of the camera and thought, "Shoot, I have 10 minutes to kill here before I start my nightly round of medical journal edits and planning for tomorrow. Let me post some shots." If all goes well, you should see some picts of the last few weeks of school.

Week 4

We started a quick dash through cell studies, which pretty much devolved into knowing the names and functions of the parts of a plant cell, as well as the workings of the cell as a system. In actuality, it was an excuse to make a cells out of the green jello we have had sitting in our cupboard for the last 8 months.

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Silas and Alfie eat their cellular cytoplasm together.

Hamid and Cady and their cell. Notice the crumpled paper acting as a vacuole? Very clever!

Week 5

This was a "Whoa! How did we almost miss that?" week. The Tour of Oman, a professional bike tour that comes every year and attracts great bikers, went right past our neighborhood a couple of times. Finally I threw in the towel, packed the kids into our great big car, and chased the boys down as they started their last day of the tour.

As you may have predicted, this whole event put me miles behind on what I had planned to cover for the rest of the week and eventually I just kind of threw in the towel and **GASP** followed the kids' lead in terms of when and what they were ready to learn. That was a hard pill to swallow. After all, in spite of the rhetoric we are fed as public school teachers ("Differentiate differentiate differentiate and engage them with creative instruction!") inevitably this is what that command is followed with: ("But only after you have dragged them kicking and screaming through the state mandated crap"). I have been going full tilt on someone else's schedule with these curricula I am using, kind of just out of habit. However, I am now seeing the light. At least a sliver or two. Running on the kids' timeclock for once made for a very pleasant week, some amazing stuff from the kids, and some great photos by Silas, who was the cameraman after Hamid started vomiting everywhere minutes before the bikers left the starting line.

Week 6

After two weeks of running the kids and myself ragged with at least an hour in the morning spent OUTSIDE and well away from the house, I decided that this had been a GREAT idea and that I should continue in that strain. So we inaugurated the new school week with a wadi walk for science. In one fell swoop we covered geology, botany, ecology, biology, and geography (who knew that Azerbaijan has sections that are just as desolate-looking as the areas around Muscat?).

I personally learned that photographing six children is far harder than photographing three, as is evidenced by their collective inability to look at the camera WITHOUT their mouths wide open.

Alfie's hat gets lifted by an accacia tree.

And so Al Mawaleh American School chugs along.

The Last Week of Quarter Two

Hi. This is Tian here. Another quarter of torturous school is over and when we get back we will have two new students to join us in our daily regimen of torture. Poor them. In the meantime we are going crazy finishing up this quarter with completing art projects, making videos, and compiling photos of things we have done in the last eight weeks. Oh, and we are driving Mom crazy.

Language

OK, you know, there is nothing usually going on in Language but last time with the test in language I actually got a 78%. Ugh, not good. This time I got a 98% on the test and I am so happy!

I also had to make a video on giving oral instructions, so I instructed on making tomato soup. As always, everyone had to help me make the soup (and eat the soup). Even the cat helped!

Math

I just started up with the Order of Operations in math. It's OK, but only if I remember PEDMAS

or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. They both stand for parentheses, exponents, division, multiplication, adding, subtracting. Ugh...

History

The other day we learned about this South African guy who was named Shaka Zulu and he was really weird. He went on a killing spree and killed a lot of the dudes in South Africa. And when he killed one tribe the remaining people moved to another tribe's land and killed (or displaced) all of the guys in the tribe. And so then the tribe who got taken over moved over to another tribe's land killed them and so on. Pretty nice, huh?

Science

We are learning about fossils and we went on this AMAZING fossil walk that was sooooooooooo cool and we found these amazing fossils! And dad found these really BIG and I mean BIG clam fossils the size of his fists! OH! Does anyone know the song by Lady Gaga called Born This Way? Well we are making a parody of it about the making of the earth and it's so cool!

And of course, since it is the end of the quarter, we are also finishing up a science unit on inventors which we started WAAAAAY back in October. We had to research an inventor, write an interview for that person, and then dress up and do an interview like we were that person. We are all interviewing and, if I may say so, my portrayal of Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the Toll House Cookie, is excellent. I will post it after I finish it, maybe in a second post that I will create later on. For now you will just have to be content with the video "How To Make Tomato Soup".

Later,

Tian

Quarter 2 Week 4

This week we went to a co-op meeting, made Christmas cookies, studied Indians in history, started studying fossils in science, made gingerbread houses, started new math books (except for Tehva, who is still using her old one), took a spelling test, started reading The Courage of Sarah Noble (except for Tian, who is reading The Broken Blade), and worked on the last part of our play. Whew.

My Favorite Thing

Going to the homeschool co-op was my favorite thing. We went on Tuesday. I met a new friend named Callum, and he had AWESOME TOYS (you can see that there was a lot of educational type of stuff going on). One lady taught us about how Santa Claus formed. She said that a man, I mean a boy, saw that two girls had been sold to a slave trader. When the boy heard about this, he decided to leave some of his gold at the house of the slave trader (the boy was really rich).

When the boy left the gold at the house, the slave trader heard him and ran after him with a stick. Finally, the slave trader caught the boy and asked him why he had robbed his house! Then one of the girls came out and told the slave trader that the boy had left sacks of gold at the house. The slave trader grumbled but left the boy alone.

And guess what the boy's name was...Nicholas! Saint Nicholas! Get it? Now Saint Nicholas has gotten used to the secret leaving that he started all those years ago. He is, in fact, immortal!

My Tastiest Thing

We made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, candy, and icing. I will post some pictures below.

I LOVE Math (actually I don't)

I have a new math book and it is called Singapore Primary Mathematics 3B. I'm learning new things in there. Tian says that her math is too hard, but guess what...even if she has to write one word down she still complains. Easy? So easy. My sister complains too much.

Also Tasty...

This week we made our first batch of Christmas cookies! Mine was chocolate chip almond cookies and I made them almost all by myself. Tian chose gingerbread, Cady chose peanut butter, and Tehva chose MnM cookies. We tested them, of course. We will give them to the people who helped us this year so far in school as thank you presents. I think that is a good thing to do.

I learned that you always have to use the right amount of ingredients when you make cookies. That is definitely an important lesson to learn at my age.

Other Stuff

The Indians and fossils we studied were not so interesting. I am much more interested in reading my school book, Gulliver's Travels, than doing much of anything else right now. I actually already finished it so I will have to read the other versions that we have here.

I don't know. I think that is all.

Silas

Quarter 2 Weeks 2 and 3

Last week we finished school and got a shocking surprise--the government announced that we would get a surprise holiday this week, which meant no school Saturday, Sunday, or Monday! Hooray! We were so excited we packed up the school room, forgot the blog, and didn't think about school until today, Tuesday. I (aka Teacher Lady) also made the executive decision to postpone the blog until this week since we were looking at a two day school week and how much can one really complete in two school days?

All in attendance are going to contribute to this week's blog since I, Teacher Lady, have determined it will be so.

Top Ten Things We Did in School

Number 10 (by Tehva)

We played King Philip's War. I forget who I was when we played, but Tian pretended she was the frozen dead guy in the lake, John Sassoman. It was pretty violent. Lots of settlers got captured or scalped.

King Philip, who was the Wampanoag leader (his real Indian name was Metacom), eventually got killed. They put him in a lake (Tian: NO! That was John Sassoman!). No, wait then they hung his head on a pole and left it there for 25 years!

Number 9 (by Tian)

We went out all over Muscat and collected soil samples to test, kind of like Marie Curie did when she worked with pitchblende. It was really fun. We did lots of experiments on our soil like testing the soil for magnetism. By running a magnet over the soil, we discovered that some of our samples were very magnetic while some were not magnetic at all. Mine was one of the magnetic ones and it was very cool because, with the magnet, I started picking up bits from the soil that I had not even imagined were there.

We also figured out elements our soil might contain by throwing a bit of the soil into flame. We could look at the color of the flame and that gave us an idea of what might be in the soil.

Number 8 (by Silas)

We finally tested our bridges which we had been working on for weeks. All we used were tooth picks and glue. Mine was in the shape of a triangle, because triangles are stronger than squares. Tian and Cady's had no roof on theirs so their designs were different from mine.

During the test we tested the weight they would hold by first putting a matchbox car, then a rock, then 25 grams suspended from the bridge, and then 50 grams. My bridge looked weak but it wasn't very weak at all! It held everything--all of that weight! It was amazing!

Number 7 (by Cady)

We made marble tracks. Well, we had to use at least three toilet paper tubes, three pipe cleaners, six inches of aluminum foil, a sock, paper clips, and any other kinds of objects we could think of to add to it. I added a can to my design, as well as paper, which I taped to the can. My marble track worked and the marble went through, but I didn't score very high because, as usual, I didn't follow the directions very carefully. In the end, also, my marble rolled away because I forgot to build a place for my marble to fall in.

Number 6 (by Tehva)

I did really well in handwriting. My letters actually look like letters instead of snake poop!

Number 5 (by Cady)

My reading was amazing! I can read text very well and I understand the meanings of words! I definitely couldn't do that before!

Number 4 (by Tian)

I think I did my marble track well because, when I looked at the rubric, I realized I had included all of the elements and the marble did what it was supposed to do. Apparently, if this had been graded I would have gotten an A plus! I rock!

Number 3 (by Silas)

My marble track was well done. I loved my design. I included straws, toilet paper rolls, tape, tin foil, and a beer can. Oh, and a sock. Of course as I worked I had to make modifications but it all worked out well.

Number 2 (by Jebel)

I caught a fly. And then I ate it.

I also sneezed a lot and sprayed snot everywhere. I am constant entertainment.

Number 1 ( by the teacher)

Cady and Tian made a kicking lunch on Wednesday. Tian made tomato soup from scratch, which was full of veggies. Cady made frying pan sandwiches (aka grilled cheese) and didn't burn anything. Well done, girls!

Silas began to write things in cursive unbidden which, considering he has the coordination of a spastic monkey, was very well done.

Tian finally figured out the difference between perimeter and area which meant that she did not cry when it came time to work on her math review. Finally!

Quarter 2 Week 1

I want to write about the best things in school last week. There are only three. And they are all by me, Tehva.

But first, before I do the blog, Daddy took the funniest picture of Jebel this week, so I will add that here. She was looking at my friend Izzy's dog, Rosie, and she was so angry! It didn't happen in school but it was really funny anyhow!

The Funnest Thing (in school, besides Jebel I mean)

I memorized this poem:

The Caterpillar

by Christina Rosetti Spaghetti

Small and furry,

Catepillar in a hurry!

Take your walk to the shady leaf or stalk.

My no toad spy you.

May the little birds pass by you.

Spin and die,

To live again a butterfly.

That was so fun cause it was like singing.

The Yummiest Thing

This week I made pretzels because we are studying Pennsylvania! I made the best dough because I did the longest knead and it was really fun. After we baked it mine was really good. Really good. It was so good that my tongue was full with pretzels!

The Funniest Thing

I read the Singing King book. It was a little hard and I think it was too long so we had to read it over a bunch of days. I loved the Singing King though because we read it half and half and the story was funny. When Trent's daughter puts the crate on her head to sing good...that was hilarious.

I learned the ing last week and now I know how to read words like going, camping, farting...hee hee hee...crying, shaking. After school I realized I could read books like Junie B. Jones and the Smelly Schoolbus. Well, I can't read it by myself. No, I think I can read it by myself.

That's the end.

Tehva