Aeneid Class: Week 2: Bulla Bulla

This post relates to my literature class for children at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op in Norfolk, VA. This semester we are reading The Aeneid, using Penelope Lively's book In Search of a Homeland, and other supplemental materials. For other lessons, please click the Aeneid tag at the bottom of this post.

Quiz: Today we took the quiz on the Roman symbols, and remembered that SPQR does not stand for Stand Proud, Quarreling Rodents! and that the crescent and star first represented a bright star, comet, or some other omen in the sky. The kids did a great job! They should continue to look for Roman symbols throughout the semester, as well as phrases that reference Rome, like "Rome wasn't built in a day" and "When in Rome do as the Romans."

Songs: This week we practiced our two songs, "I Sing of Arms and the Man" and "Let's Get the Heck Out of Troy." We spent a fair amount of time in the enrichment class learning "Arma virumque cano, troiae qui primus ab oris" and the children did a really most excellent job. We also began work on "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" and in the academic class we talked about how the unique situation presented by Caesar's funeral made it necessary for Mark Antony to really hide his true meaning in a lot of layers of sarcasm. That's something we'll be talking about more as we go along, but I was impressed with the kids' ability to accomplish this kind of subtle reading.

Fast Facts: Our lesson this week wass about Roman clothing, hairstyles and jewelry. We learned that women don't wear togas and that human urine is just another alkaline chemical, useful in removing dirt and oils from woolen cloth. Neat!

Project: Roman children wore little pouches called bullas around their necks. These pouches contained lucky symbols (and yes, phallic symbols) and other treasures. Fancy ones were gold, some were leather, and ours were very simple pouches made by threading a cord through a circle of fabric.

Materials:

Fabric (I used white cotton with a little bit of lycra in it for stretch)
Cord (About the size of a shoelace)
Sharpies
Treasures

I first handed out small pieces of cardstock for the children to create their lucky charms, and directed them to draw something that was important for them, or something that symbolized one of their interests. One drew a tree, one drew a lucky clover, one drew a sword... we had a lot of variations but I think they got the idea. Sadie drew a diamond (to represent wealth) and a person (to represent her family). Nice! Then the decorated their bullas, strung them on the cords, and drew the strings tight.





I encouraged them to add some different little items when they got home: lego bricks, dried flowers, photographs, candy, leaves, tiny toys, or whatever they feel represents them and brings them luck.

Citizenship Coins:

We talked about how important citizenship was to Romans, and how important citizenship is to us today as well. I gave each of the children a citizenship coin and impressed on them that only citizens of my class will be allowed to participate in the upcoming chariot races, gladiator games, etc. so they should be proud of their citizenship and protect it. Their names are on the backs of the coins. They each get one just for showing up and smiling, but they can earn more for feats of strength and valor, such as memorizing poems, and more. Several precocious children asked me why they'd want more than one. I can only say that if a little citizenship is good, more is better.

Here's what's on the front of the coin:



For next week, please memorize the first line of the Aeneid in Latin. Here's a great video that will help you with that. Also read the second chapter in the book, and for good measure, especially if your child was also in my Odyssey class, you better watch this video:

The Ever Breath by Julianna Baggott

This post is a book review. Really. But it will take me a minute to get there.

I have two children, four years apart. My son, 10, likes books about science. He likes to pour over them, again and again, memorizing the delicious facts and savoring the tasty trivia. The only fictional stories he's been interested in at all involve butts, roughly drawn comics, underpants, middle school hardships, warrior cats, and fake superheroes. I don't think I need to mention titles -- you know which ones I mean. Still, any book with pictures of the moon's surface will handily defeat any book that has characters and a beginning, middle and end. He's just not that into fiction.

My daughter, 6, has a categorical aversion to chapter books. Not only does she not want to admit she can read, she also does not want to be treated like a person who can read. In her mind, as she has explained it to me, reading will lead to college, and she doesn't want to go there. While I completely blame myself and all of my "Oh, sweetie! Don't ever change! Be my baby forever!" nonsense, I still feel like we should be able to move past the picture book stage before she hits puberty. Jan Brett, I super-love you, but I am done reading Fritz and the Beautiful Horses to my six year old, while she firmly asserts she cannot handle any more challenging fare. Then there's the fact that Sadie likes science books too. Books about polar bears. Books about caves. Books about what your heart does -- not figuratively, or as a literary theme, but as an actual biological fact.

True fact that is lodged in my bitter, resentful throat: Both of my kids prefer nonfiction to fiction. They will sit and listen to books about geography, or history, or science. They will not sit and listen to storybooks. They will not get interested in dragons. They do not yearn to discover more about elves or wizarding schools or hard times on the cold prairie. They just want to know more about why fish are cold, or where Indonesia is.

I'm a book person, and more specifically a fiction person. I have fantasized, since I knew I was going to have kids, about reading to them from the favorite books of my childhood. I looked forward to sharing Narnia with them, Middle Earth, the Moomins, etc. it's hard for me to realize that I can't keep up with Benny's interest in astronomy and the lymphatic system, and if I have to read "McElligott's Pool" one more time I will put a fishhook in my eye and gouge out my frontal lobe. I mean seriously, learning to swallow the fact that my kids just aren't that into novels has been almost as bad as finding out makeup is made out of bacon fat, or whatever.

Pretty difficult. It hasn't been great. But. There have been moments.

I bought Julianna Baggott's newest book, The Ever Breath, because hope springs eternal in this human breast, and because I like her, and I thought, hey, we'll give it a shot. What could it hurt? We've stalled on so many read-aloud attempts, and retreated to the safety of Childcraft for Benny and Let's Read and Find Out for Sadie. Why not try one more?

People, this is the book review part of the blog post. And I really feel like this is all I need to say, to sell you on this book. It was like magic. After the first chapter, I had one child tucked up on each side of me, and the other child tucked up on the other side. When I tried to quit reading for the night, I heard the words that had never been said by my children before: "Just one more chapter!" I felt like I was dreaming. I'm not kidding -- it was weird! I don't even know why this happened -- I'm not sure what captivated them in The Ever Breath where other books have so utterly failed. Why is it so accessible to these kids of such disparate ages. Why was Sadie saying, "This is my favorite book!" and why was Benny saying, "This book is better than Harry Potter!" I don't know.

I can tell you it's inventive. It's exciting. It's something you haven't seen before. And I can tell you that the children in my house careened through it at breakneck speed, anxious to get more, find out more, read more. That means a lot to me -- maybe this won't be the only book we'll read cover to cover, all curled up together. But it was the first!

Aeneid Class: Week 1: Amo Te

This post relates to my literature class for children at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op in Norfolk, VA. This semester we are reading The Aeneid, using Penelope Lively's book In Search of a Homeland, and other supplemental materials. For other lessons, please click the Aeneid tag at the bottom of this post.

Important dates:

March 2: Roman dinner party. We will wear tunics (girls) and togas (boys) and sample Roman food, listen to Roman music, play knucklebones, and vomit into buckets behind the pillows we’re lounging on.
March 23: Gladiator Games. We will have wild animals, condemned criminals, gladiators, guards, wealthy sponsors, and spectators at this exciting spectacle.
April 20: Chariot races. With wagons, helmets, and ropes, good cheer, and hope for sun, we are going to turn Grace Street into the Circus Maximus. Rain date: April 27.
May 11: Roman forum. In our classroom, we will recreate several elements of the Roman forum, including the Rostra, where volunteer orators will show off the stuff they’ve memorized during the semester, applauded by all.
May 18: Final day performance.

Welcome! I'm so happy to welcome you to this semester's adventure in ancient Rome. The Aeneid is the foundation myth for the Roman empire, and there is much to learn not only about the story of the poem itself, but also about Rome in the time of Virgil, when the Republic had come to an end and the Empire was just beginning to come into power. Rather than try and learn all about the Romans, we're going to focus our study on just this moment in time, when Augustus Caesar was in charge, and Virgil wrote the story of Aeneas to prove that Rome was founded on a Trojan ancestry, with a fine old tradition of warrior heroes and a proud heritage of strength and valor.

Reading: Each week you'll be reading one chapter in the Penelope Lively version of the story at home, until the book runs out. Then we'll be looking at some other material, including other translations and some art and modern interpretations. It is not necessary to bring the book to class each week, and we will not be reading it in class.

Scrapbooks: Your child received a spiral bound scrapbook in class. He/she will be filling it up with songs, projects, and eventually photos from the class. Academic track kids will be taking quizzes on the backs of the pages on which we glue the Fast Facts each week. They will also be creating a chart on the page that includes the Aeneid in Latin so that we can give them stamps as they memorize each line. Apart from those pages, any page in the book is okay for them to draw in, personalize, glue photos or pictures into, or whatever they'd like. These books should come to class with the kids every week.

Songs: This week we learned two songs, "I Sing of Arms and the Man" and "Let's Get the Heck Out of Troy." The first is an aid for us as we memorize the invocation to the muse (the first 12 lines) from the Aeneid in Latin. We only did the first half of it -- we will move on to the second half once we get a handle on those first few lines of the poem. The second song summarizes the action from the first chapter of the book, when Aeneas is leaving Troy with Anchises and Iulius, after those lousy Greeks burned the city.

Story: The academic track children mostly already knew the story of the Trojan war and the Trojan horse! That was awesome. We were able to have a great discussion comparing Virgil's version to Homer's version, and how the heroes from the two sides of the war would have been characterized in each one. Briefly stated, when we read the Odyssey the Greeks were the good guys, but now that we're reading the Aeneid, it's the Trojans that we're rooting for. In the enrichment track class, we talked about the Trojan horse, and the line in the song that says "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." We talked about how that means that if someone's been beating you up and then suddenly they turn around and give you a present, you should be very very suspicious of that present.

Project: We made Latin valentines, using the Latin endearment sheet in their scrapbooks. We learned a bit about pronunciation of the different sounds (hard c, v sounds like w, etc.) as we pronounced the different phrases. Here they are:

Mea tu Belliata: My beauty

Amata mea: My beloved girl

Deliciae Meae: My sweetheart

Ego Amo Te: I love you.

Amor vincit omnia: Love conquers all.

Amantes sunt amentes: Lovers are lunatics

aut viam inveniam aut faciam: I’ll either find a way or make one.

Per aspera ad astra!: Through difficulties to the stars!

Nulli secundus / Nulli secunda: Second to none (male/female)

I was anticipating that they would make valentines for their mothers, but a lot of the made the for each other, so I'm sorry you didn't get to see those! I'm also sorry I put heart confetti into the envelopes, since a lot of it ended up in the hallway upstairs instead of in *your* hallway where it was intended to land! Heh. Here are a few pictures:







Fast Facts: Today's Fast Facts are about Roman symbols. The children were challenged to find some of these symbols in their everyday life. It's my hope that as we go through the semester they'll find more examples of how references to Rome pop up our lives, not just visually but in literature, language, and culture. For those of you who are wondering what a fasces is, here is a picture of a couple of guys carrying facses at a parade. Remember: "I can beat you with this stick, and I can chop your head off with this axe, so you better behave, because I'm the government!" Think we don't threaten our citizens with such hostile symbols? There are two in the House of Representatives and one in the Oval Office. Hmm. Interesting. Click for a bigger image.

Norfolk Invitational Championship: Norfolk Karate Academy's Tang Soo Do Tournament 2009

On November 14, 2009, in the beautiful new gymnasium at St. Patrick's in Norfolk, the Norfolk Karate Academy held its first annual tournament. I was proud to assist in the organizing of this awesome event. The kids had a great time. The smiles of the winners, the cheers of the audience, and the majestic regularity of the schedule justified all of the bustle, the hustle, the scribbled lists and the head-scratching moments when we all tried to think of exactly what was needed to pull it off. We did good! And I got an official NKA polo shirt to wear! It was fabulous!

The main event sponsor was of course Norfolk Karate Academy, but we were generously supported by Turtle Press Books, your online niche bookstore for all things martial arts. We also received prize donations from Fellini's Gourmet Pizza Cafe, and our volunteers ate muffins and drank coffee courtesy of Borjo's Coffeehouse, our neighbors on 45th street.

Here are some pictures of the event:






The winning line-up in the teen advanced sparring. A memorable battle!


Little kid sparring champs. No less fierce, but a little more willing to smile for a picture.


Karate moms at NKA are awesome!


Max takes on Master Odom during the grappling part of the event.


Tiny friends Sadie and Miranda came in first and second in their beginner form competition.


We love our new students at NKA! Yellow belts rocking the forms.


Benny had a day of ups and downs. There was one time when his emotions got the best of him and he kind of freaked out on another kid. Then there were times when he was delightful and patient, thrifty, clean and brave. The road to black belt continues, bumps and all.

Thank you to Fellini's Gourmet Pizza Cafe, Borjo Coffeehouse, and Turtle Press, and a big thank-you to everyone at NKA who helped before, during, and after the event. My children had a fantastic time at this NKA event, as usual. That is really all I care about, but that is everything!

For many more pictures, visit this Flickr set. If you'd like to download or print any pictures of your child, please feel free to do so!

How to Integrate Martial Arts and Homeschooling

One of the glorious benefits of homeschooling is being able to focus a curriculum around your child's passions. Instead of waiting around for a topic to randomly pop up that interests him, out of a collection of topics that may appear in a traditional curriculum, the homeschooled child can fully immerse in that favorite pastime or area of study, until the lines between play and work are magically blurred. This is the moment when learning is fun: the holy grail of homeschooling.

I know many of us have gone out of our way to make curriculum work for a horse-obsessed child or a Civil-War-obsessed child, etc. You make writing assignment, study vocabulary and spelling generated around the topic, create word problems with relevant elements. However, it's even better when you can find a book or curriculum that will do it for you, and I have! My karate-obsessed child is now a brown belt. How I wish I had this book when he was just starting out in karate. It's a wonderful workbook full of puzzles, writing prompts, short essays, and more. I know that my daughter Sadie, a white belt, will get a lot out of it, and I look forward to seeing how she develops in karate as she fills in the pages of the book.

Published by Turtle Press and written by Art Brisacher, the Martial Arts Training Diary for Kids is a diary, a game, a keepsake, and a homeschool helper!

Here's an excerpt:

"Welcome to one of the best adventures you will ever have in your entire life! It is an exciting journey--it's your martial arts journey. Your friend and your companion on this journey will be a different and a very special martial arts book. This book is better than a book about famous movie stars or television actors. This book is even better than a book about your favorite sports hero. This book is like no other book you have ever seen or read. This book is about YOU and it will be written by YOU and lots of people will want to read it. The best part will come one day in the future when your son or daughter will want to read the book that you wrote when you were just a kid! When your child wants to hear about your true martial arts's adventure, you will be able to share it with them."

If your child is just starting out in karate and is over the moon about the idea, this is more than a writing assignment; it's a way to link learning to what your child loves.

Jungle Book: Presentations

At the beginning of the semester, I challenged my academic track Jungle Book class to each present five minutes on any animal that they found interesting, as long as it appeared in the Jungle Book.

I thought I would share some pictures that came out of their very creative presentations:









With the children completely undirected and able to do whatever they wanted, we had all kinds of five-minute lessons! We had crossword puzzles, games of charades, we had comics, we had a demonstration on how to care for a horse, we had lovely pictures, we had a simulated visit from an actual working elephant mahout, we had an astonishingly huge full size king cobra created from fabric, we had earnest, interested, engaged children sharing ideas and facts with each other -- it was awesome to watch. Thanks for all your participation!

Jungle Book Week 12: Gond Tribal Paintings

Namaste.

Quiz:

The quiz this week is about the Gond tribe, the tribe in central India of which Mowgli would have been a part. Which of these statements are true?

1. The Jungle Book is set in an area of Central India called Madya Pradesh.
2. Kipling wrote about this area while he was camping on the banks of the Wainganga itself.
3. The Wainganga River is a real river, but the area around it is not a rainforest.
4. Today in the Seoni District, there is a tiger preserve, where 50 tigers and 30 leopards can be hunted from hired jeeps or airplanes.
5. The villagers that Mowgli encountered would have been members of the Gond tribes.
6. The Gond people practice Hinduism and also animism, which means they worship animals and ancestral spirits.
7. Gond tribes survived by trading their art with neighboring cultures.
8. Gond tribal art usually portrays technological wonders like steamboats and front loaders.
9. A ghotul is a tribal dormitory where young girls and boys go to live apart from their families.
10 Gond people believe that freedom and happiness are more to be treasured than any material gain, that friendliness and sympathy, hospitality and unity are of the first importance.

Project: I'm going to condense two weeks together here, to show you how to get this project done.

Step 1:

Materials:
White piece of paper
Pencil
A sense of what the Gond tribal paintings look like, and what kinds of elements they would include.

The Gond tribes painted things they would see in their everyday environment. Ask the children what kind of elements and motifs they would expect to see in a Gond tribal painting, and then ask them to create a sketch of the painting they would like to do. Here are two examples of the drawings the kids came up with:

Step 2:

Materials:
White poster board
Pencil
Black Sharpie

This is where you, the teacher, at home, transfer the sketches the children have done onto posterboard, and add the design elements common to the Gond style. This is hard. Don't expect to get it perfect or symmetrical -- freewheeling a little bit is fine. Here are some examples of my attempts to translate the children's art into a workable poster:







Step 3:

Materials:
Poster paints
Lots of Q-tips
Paper towel
Outline drawings for each child

Make an example to show them how the paintings may end up looking. Here's my example:



Set each child up with paper towel, some poster paints, and a pile of Q-tips. Demonstrate the way you fill in the outline with "dot dot dot" action. Some of the older children may want to branch out into doing small lines to fill in the areas, or other fancy stuff. The little ones should stick to dot-dot-dot to make their paintings colorful. Emphasize that the colors do not have to be realistic. Emphasize that it does not have to be perfect -- folk art is neither exact or mathematical. Let them know that if one of their Q-tips gets squishy or frayed or otherwise irritating, they should ditch it and use a new one. Expect each kid to go through about 20.

Here are some pictures from our painting day:











For more pictures, check out our Jungle Book Flickr set. :)

Story: In the last few weeks of class, we discussed Mowgli's place in the world. Does he belong in the village or in the jungle? I left this as an open-ended question, and obviously there is no right answer. It was interesting to hear the children discussing it. I asked them where they felt they belonged -- more comfortable in the country or in the city? This led us to more interesting questinos: Is man an animal? Can people ever be truly civilized? What is perfect "city" behavior? What is perfect "jungle" behavior? Are there people you know that remind you of different animals? What animal would you be if you could? Would you be happy living the life of a wolf/snake/crocodile?

To me, these questions are more significant for young readers than the issues of race, colonialism, and caste that inevitably come up surrounding this text. They are some of the fundamental questions of humanity, and yet very accessible, in the context of Mowgli and his story, to even the youngest ones. We did talk about race and the empire, and we didn't shy away from some of the more troubling aspects of the stories. However, what I hope the children come away with is a little more awareness of the complexity of point-of-view. I hope they remember reading about seals from the point of view of scared seals and the hungry hunter, reading about the lawful jungle and the unlawful village, about the Gond tribe and the wolf pack. Maybe when they return to these themes and ideas later, they will be able to accomplish a deeper understanding of the tough issues too.

Song and Dance: We had several children who memorized all of "If" and all of "Mandalay." What an amazing accomplishment! For our final show, we had the enrichment class doing the first two verses and the academic class doing all of the poems -- it was a great performance! We also did a Bhangra dance using all 20 of the moves we worked on.

Here are a few videos for you:

Academic track kids doing "Mandalay":



Enrichment track kids doing "If":

SKS Science: Science Supplies for Homeschoolers

Many of us shudder at the prospect of teaching laboratory sciences to our kids. I know I am guilty of this. In my mind, I remember the chemistry lab at my high school. Rows and rows of cabinets full of glassware and plastic bottles, Bunsen burners, sinks, and a back room full of bottles of powders and liquids. Thinking of trying to reproduce that at home is frankly overwhelming, and I think it is for a lot of homeschoolers. But here are a couple of things to remember:

1. The stuff that requires beakers and flame, gloves and goggles, and dangerous chemicals? That is the COOLEST stuff. That is the stuff that makes balancing equations bearable! Kids all love to measure and pour, combine, make things fizz and pop. This is why chemistry sets have been a toy drooled after by generations of children. So saying "I can't manage it" means that you're foregoing a major part of what makes science awesome for kids.

2. You don't have to stock your lab all at once. Think of your kitchen. When did you acquire your pots and pans? You probably accummulated things over a long time, as you needed it. A set here, a piece there, a collection over here, until you filled your cabinets. Now you have everything you need, but you didn't have to go to the "buy a whole kitchen" store and in one step anticipate every single thing you'd need for a lifetime of cooking. Supplying your home science lab can be the same slow process.

SKS Science is a supply company that sells home science supplies to homeschoolers, teachers, schools, labs, and whoever needs a quick beaker or a sudden petri dish. Their prices are very reasonable, their site is logically organized by brand, by type of science, by product. They have everying you need and even stuff you didn't need. But the best part of their site, in my opinion, is the section of the site where they suggest science experiments and list exactly what you need to do each one. There's a pH indicator experiment (with photos, video instruction). There's an experiment to test the porosity of membranes. Along with each experiment you get a supply list, so you will accumulate your equipment bit by bit.

Yes, you can muck along through homeschool science using mixing bowls and coffee mugs. You can measure stuff in your plastic measuring cups and stir with a salad fork. But if you're serious about science (and you better be), with a small investment in proper tools you can inspire your kids! Can you make a shelf in your cabinet for some graduated cylinders and transfer pipettes? If you grow your collection little by little, I think you'll find your home science lab will be far less painful to construct than you (or I) originally thought.

Ten Things I Have Learned Climbing Stairs

Having just finished my first stair climbing workout, where I marched up and down my own stairs in my own house for 30 minutes, I have these things to say:

1. My dog is so dumb, he followed me up and down the stairs for 20 of the 30 minutes. Seriously.
2. It is very boring to climb up and down stairs for 30 minutes. Very boring. Way more boring than a stair stepper. Way more boring than I imagine it would be to climb up a super tall staircase for 30 minutes.
3. I do need to wear shoes.
4. Dire Straits is not good music to help you climb stairs.
5. It is really hard! I was sweating and panting and everything.
6. That thing up in Benny's room that's smelling strange? and we can't figure out what it is? It has GOT to go. I could have climbed all the way to the third floor if not for whatever that awful thing is. Smells like a rotten warthog made of urine. WHAT is it?
7. Wearing just whatever I am wearing on the day of the workout is not a good idea. Needed workout clothes on.
8. There is a railing on the bottom part of the stairs but not the top part.
9. I tend to start out stairs on my right foot. How about you?
10. The fact that I am already dreading my next stair climbing practice bodes ill for my future as a stair climber. It was REALLY boring. So boring.

Green Olive Tree: Reliable Web Hosting

In most homeschooling families I know (including mine) the dad works and the mom schools. In fact, I know a lot of moms very well but would probably pass their husbands on the street without recognizing them because I hardly see them. Not that there is anything wrong with this -- I and my other mom comrades are very glad we're able to homeschool because our husbands work. However, I always find it very cool when I see a dad that's involved with his kids' activities and present for the school aspects of his kids' lives. One way that homeschool families sometimes work this out is by engaging in entrepreneurial ventures like owning their own business.

Green Olive Tree is an internet company owned and operated by a homeschool family here in Portsmouth, VA. I know both the mom and the dad in this family/company equally well! Running their business takes a lot of their time, but when they come to the park, or to co-op, or to another event, they are often together, or they're taking turns doing the leg work. Dad is there with the kids -- yes, often on his laptop or phone, but still there -- and that's very cool. This is a family who has found a way to prioritize their children *and* run a very successful business -- an amazing balancing act. So I was happy when Green Olive Tree sponsored the science fair, so that we could spend some time promoting the company.

This web hosting company also provides all kinds of server management, virtual server solutions, and dedicated servers. If you need complicated internet stuff, they are your answer. Don't go with a big company that treats you like a number -- Green Olive Tree's customer service is unparalleled and their record is spotless. Even if you're just looking for reliable web hosting, and you don't want to pay a lot of money, how about this: $25 a year for web hosting for a personal site. That's wicked cheap. Find out more about their web hosting plans and prices here.

If you're reading this and you appreciate their support of our science fair, their support of their kids, and their involvement in the community, please follow their Twitter feed and fan them on Facebook. These are good people, doing a great job raising their children (yes, their daughter Sarah is in my co-op classes and I adore her!) and making an exceptional business out of hard work and excellent service.