This morning MK shouted out that Brutus had eaten a buckeye. A buckeye is a poisonous black and tan nut and while he was able to get some of the chewed nut out of Brutus’ mouth we were missing at least 3/4 of the nut.

We took Brutus outside, gave him a couple tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide using a turkey baster and within a few minutes the nut parts were out on the ground. I’ve never had to get a dog to vomit before and am thankful that a leo-list I’m on had recently had a discussion on how to get a dog to vomit so that I knew what to do.

Brutus gave me a look of — WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS, but is doing fine now. whew! True I didn’t know if he had enough to do damage to him but I also didn’t want to find that out.

ps–Brutus is named for Brutus the Buckeye, the mascot for Ohio State University. I think we better keep that box of buckeyes SIL sent to the boys way up out of the way from Brutus the Buckeye.

This is Thanksgiving week for us which means field trips, cooking, book reading and craft projects. But not this year. This year I didn’t want to go anywhere, but wanted to do something different. Plus we have had this dissection kit sitting around here for almost a year, which will go bad if we don’t use it. Just can’t let that happen so I pulled it out right after the boys were finished with breakfast.

MilitaryKid exclaimed, “Oh, so we’re going to do dissections today, cool.”

ScienceKid said, “Not me, I don’t want to do dissections. You can do that, but I’m not.”

I opened the dissection book and started reading the introduction outloud and by the time I got to reading;

“This book will be especially helpful to biology students from the secondary school through junior college and freshman college levels. It will be useful to students in AP Biology courses………… “

SK was hooked into being there with us. Sneaky, aye? No, not me.

And this will be my only warning, if you dislike seeing the insides of things, leave now, do not proceed, although these shots are pretty. They aren’t pretty gross or pretty nasty, they are pretty interesting, and pretty cool, and pretty fun.

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Last warning!

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We started off with the lowly earthworm. It took the guys little time to pin the worm and make

that first cut. Notice how ScienceKid who did NOT want to do dissections today, or any day, jumped right in there and took over. MilitaryKid is looking a bit bored too, just watching, but he was OK with that, at least for now.

SK, the kid who did not want to do a dissection, made the first cut to reveal a simple inside:

I had never seen the inside of an earthworm before, and personally, once is enough for this gal. The boys on the other hand liked getting up-close to this thing and looking all the parts over.

They didn’t stop at the butt end but continued on up the other end too and examined everything.

Such good boys.

Next was the crawfish.

SK remarked that he has eaten plenty of crawfish to know what their insides looked like and he’d like MK do this one.

MilitaryKid was thrilled until he tried and tried to pull off and cut-off the outer skeleton.

Yep, ScienceKid let MilitaryKid do just about that much of the dissection

before taking over stepping in. SK was polite about it and explained to MK all about the crawfish’s gill system

You can see that the two of them are really into this dissection business. I never would have thought it would be such a hit! In case you haven’t seen a crawfish’s gills there they are in the center of the photo.

But around this point the boys got tired of looking at the crawfish’s gills and fighting the exo-skeleton. And then I heard, “Oh, my mouth is starting to really water. I’m pretty hungry too. We need to break for lunch Mom.” LOL! The crawfish went into the trash and we had a little break for lunch.

Up next the frog. MK pinned the frog

And even made the first cut

And do you see how SK is out of the picture! He was just sitting back and watching, plotting as to when he could take over step in.

Patience now. Oh, the frogs mouth was examined throughly before the creature was pinned. We found its teeth, and flipped its tongue out of its mouth and thought of blowing up its lungs but decided not to.

MK did a nice job peeling the skin back too. He might make a surgeon after-all, or maybe a paper cutter.

Look closely at this photo. Not at the frog’s guts but at the olive green in the very top of the photo. Yep, SK has taken over stepped in.

Now, I decided to include this next shot since it is such a higher quality shot than the ones I found on the net for frog dissection.

It shows the livers (the grayish-green mass), the heart, oh, and all the other things in a frog’s gut. We did find a great website that we followed throughout our dissection, frog school Using the frog school site helped us to id each and every organ though and it was nice having the ‘thing’ there in person to see it.

Such concentration. Such learning. Oh, that’s the intestines, and stomach, and frog guts.

Finally SK had had enough and turned the frog over to MK.

He tried to examine the backbone of the frog and get to its brain but didn’t have much luck. He still told me at the end of it all

THAT THIS WAS THE FUN-IST SCHOOL DAY EVER.

Thanksgiving is a mere 4 days away and tonight we set the menu. Several local friends invited us over to join their families for Thanksgiving, but we really want just a quiet day in our home, with our own family. Are we an unusual family or just one that reflects today’s families? I don’t know but we like being here. We do not have a grandmother’s home we could take our kids to, and all our siblings have grown kids with kids of their own so we really don’t feel like joining their camps. Plus it would be quite a drive for us. Instead we are having our celebration here. How does this sound? Want to come and join our crew of 4? There will be plenty of food and room at our table.

For lunch we will have:
New England Clam Chowder — a tradition for us since our 1st Thanksgiving in NewEngland

Appetizers of:

Smoked Salmon
Crabcakes
Garlic Shrimp
Bacon wrapped Scallops
Garlic stuffed olives
Assorted Cheeses

Mid-Afternoon we’re have a dinner of:
Turkey
Stuffing
Gravy
Sweet potato casserole — this has to be made with brown sugar and butter.
Creamed cheesy onions
Rolls
Cranberry sauce

After a walk around the neighborhood we’ll come back for desserts of:

Pumpkin pie
Chocolate cake
Chocolate cream pie
Cherry pie

Since we started homeschooling Thanksgiving week for us has been one filled with field trips, cooking, and book reading. This year I’m going to pull out the dissection kit I purchased almost a year ago and surprise the boys by having them work through the kit on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we’ll cook pies, cakes, make stuffing, brine the turkey,and hopefully relax a bit too. Thanksgiving has stressful memories for us.

When we first moved to New England DH and I really needed to stay home over Thanksgiving to unpack and finish moving into our new home. Our college friend Hillary was coming in on Wednesday night to join us for Thanksgiving and see the love of his life, our Great Dane Benson. On Tuesday DH called me at work to say that our Benson had collapsed and I needed to get home quickly. It took me a long 30 minutes to get there, a few more minutes to help DH carry 150# Benson out of the basement where the two of them had been and put him into our truck. Benson died when we got him to the Animal Hospital from bloat. Needless to say Thanksgiving was very sad that year.

Several years later I learned I was pregnant and then learned I was miscarrying my first child. The D&C was performed on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Another very sad Thanksgiving and made even more tough since DH’s mom was dying of lung cancer and his family was having what they knew would be their last Thanksgiving together as a family. DH would not leave me and join them particularly since it was 800 miles away from me. MIL lived to just past New Years that year, and by the following Thanksgiving I was expecting ScienceKid, but who would have known that then.

I guess that’s another reason we like just having us together in our home, who could understand what this holiday has meant to us.

Fire safety is something we just reviewed here with the installation of our wood burning stove. Then a friend sent this piece to me. Please view this video clip; just copy to your web browser http://www.ranaldofamily.com/SWF/KitchenOilFire.wmv

This is a powerful message —-watch the video and don’t forget what you see. Tell your whole family about this video. Or better yet, end this to them.

This is a dramatic video (30-second, very short) about how to deal with a common kitchen fire … oil in a frying pan. Please read the following introduction and then watch the show .. It’s a real eye-opener !!

At the Fire Fighting Training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer set on the fire field. An instructor would don a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup a t the end of a 10 foot pole toss water onto the grease fire. The results got the attention of the students.

The water, being heavier than the oil, sinks to the bottom where it instantly becomes superheated. The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out. On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast. Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room.

MilitaryKid has never really liked math; it has never come close to being his favorite subject; it has never been an easy subject for him either. As I wrote before that while he finished his Singapore 5B book last spring, he really didn’t have a clue how to work math problems or do the Revision sections on his own. When he took Singapore’s placement tests for 3rd through 5th grade, the 4th grade test totally stumped him. At the start of this school year MK went through a fresh copy of Singapore’s 4th grade workbooks, with me teaching each and every section, but giving very little guidance on the actual workbook problem solving.

MK had heard from his Granddad during his finally days that math is fun, that it is important to learn math, but honestly, I don’t think that affected MK’s attitude toward this subject one bit. He still did not like math. Period.

Nothing was going to change his attitude. Or was there?

After he completed Singapore’s 4B workbook he went through Singapore’s 4th grade Topical Problems Sums book. This book has one tough word problem after another, and even a math-wise mom like myself finds herself scratching her head over some of these problems. They are tough, and challenging.

One thing I noticed though was that MK was making strides forward and occasionally we heard a soft; this is easy! Oh my! I just about p.i.m.p.

After the Topical Problems Sum book MK moved into Singapore 6A and I need to share the major change with my math teaching. Together we go through the textbook with MK answering each and every question before moving into the workbook. We go s-l-o-w-l-y and then MK works through the workbook totally independently. If he can’t do a problem we go back through the textbook but I do not do the problem in the workbook for him.

There’s another major change too. Thank you Helen for sharing your problem with me, cause I realized I had this same problem but with math. oh, how to say this—-I know that MK picked up on my body language, the many moments I displayed impatience when he did not quickly answer my math questions. I have made an effort to be positive, to say lots of positive words to MK as he does a math problem, to smile, to make specific positive comments regarding how he is solving the problem or the approach he is taking. And to be patient. Geez, being patient is not my strong suit. But it seems to be working.

Last week MK surprised me by doing 4 exercises on his own because as he said – Mom, this is just so easy! Music to my ears, words I loved hearing.

And then on Friday MK jumped into doing his math workbook without any instruction. “WAIT!!” I yelled, “You need my instructions.” Oh how sweet, he didn’t think he needed any instructions but soon realized that he did need an explanation on how to work with ratios. Once he had the instructions he completed the exercise and volunteered to do the Revision Exercise. VOLUNTEERED to do it! And did it totally on his own!! YEA!!!

psss, I think MK is actually enjoying math now. Did you feel that? That’s the house shaking cause I’m doing the happy dance. I am so pleased, our two steps backwards three steps forward really did the trick for MK. Oh, and me showing a bit more patience and providing a few encouraging words might have helped too.

Military Kid is studying Earth-Space Science this year and for the first time this hs’er is using a science textbook. ScienceKid for Logic Age Earth-Space Science used Reader’s Digest books How the Earth Works?, How the Weather Works, and How the Universe Works? They were just the right books for SK and were his style. He would sit for hours and read every little detail in these books and spout the information back out with great understanding. They worked great for him. While they aren’t MK’s style I knew I could make them work, but I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted a more canned approach and one with less prep time for ME. I needed short sections, simple pictures, and maybe some little tests thrown in for MK since he likes to know how he’s doing.

Going on a recommendation from Frankie at Kitchen Table Learners I ordered in Power Basics Earth-Space Science (Rainbow Resource item #33192). We’re still on the first of four units, The Universe Around Us. MK reads a section, answers a few questions in the Practice, and moves on. He’s also reading the Reader’s Digest How the Universe Works, DK’s Space Encylopedia, H.A. Rey’s Contstellations, and numerous other star books we have on our shelves. In other words, we supplement tons with other books and living books. It isn’t because the textbook is lacking, but that we are using it as a springboard and our spline for our science course this year. I also stress with the boys that there is always more than one source for information and regardless of the subject they need to investigate what others have written on, or reported about a particular topic. I feel that by having MK read other books I’m helping to cement that idea in his head—regardless of the subject you must read several sources for information.

Besides reading MK has written at least one topic report each week that summarizes what he has learned. He probable wouldn’t describe these reports in the same way, but hey, he’s a kid. For instance he wrote a two page report titled; The Big Bang Theory, another titled; The Life of a Star, one titled, What is an Eclipse; and another detailing The Lunar Cycle. There are a few others he’s written too. I found that for MK writing the report has cemented his understanding of that week’s topic. Besides, in my school, Logic Age kids need to write, often,  a paper everyday.

But not today. Today we spent our afternoon exploring Lunar Phases. What a great site! The site has three activities to help you understand the lunar phases and is quite complete with simulations of the lunar cycle. Going over to their home page we found other simulations for exploring the cosmos, star life and several other sections that we will explore in the weeks to come.

Science is good this year, at least so far.

The boys and I have participated in the annual bird count and hope to do so again this year.  Will you come join us?    Some days in the fall and winter our house looks like it is in the movie The Birds.  Literally our yard and sky will fill with red-winged blackbirds and starlings; and then the flocks of Canada Geese and Snow Geese show up.   I always hope that we’ll get a huge influx of birds on count weekend.

MK has had a cold all week. He’s done allot of reading, some math but not much else. Tuesday was a rather lost-cause doing any formal schooling as we watched the men install our new zero-clearance wood burning fireplace. Ahh, to have heat soon.

Yesterday we received a call late morning to head to our friend’s home. We got to watch puppies being born, or rather more along the lines of, ‘oh, look, there’s another one’. When it was all said and done there were 8 puppies; 3 males and 5 females.

On the way home though I started feeling the sore throat starting and by this morning I had a nasty cold. So today the boys have been left to do their own schooling while I slept. I love how homeschooling has taught them to be independent learners. I woke once to hear a man talking and soon realized that SK was listening to his Teaching Company lectures. He enjoys their course Western Civilization. MK worked through a few math lessons and woke me so I could check his work. How sweet of him (snicker, wish he had let me sleep).

Daryl’s blog rating got me wondering about my own blog rating.

Not too surprisingly though it is a ‘G’. Like Franky I try to keep things clean just cause I know some kids are reading my blog with their moms and then there are my kids who sometimes read over my shoulder. I agree with her that there is a need for having Homeschool Blog Awards in categories that glorify homeschooling such as the best science blog or best math blog or best hs’ing through high school blog. Categories that do count and put homeschooling in a great light; ones that show why many of us homeschool, to educate our kids. For example we homeschool not for religious reasons, or to ‘protect’ our kids from reading Golden Compass or Harry Potter books, but because we want to be with our children and educate them in the style that we think is right for our family.

Oh, and my favorite science blog post recently was at LaPlaz Home Learning A Term at Hogwarts What a great way to get kids excited about science with lots of fun thrown in. I’d like to see what other blogs folks would put in a Homeschool Blog Award best science category.

One blog category I have not found on the net is one about hs’ing classically through the high school years. Or even hs’ing through the high school years. I keep searching the net for a blog on that topic and have yet to find one. Why do we classical hs’ers give up on this approach when the wonderful years approach? Or maybe folks are just too busy to be bothered with blogging about these years. But I’m digressing…..

Fall has arrived and with it colds. MK is down with one.

Our new fireplace is supposed to be installed today. It was supposed to be installed about 2 weeks ago. As is the case whenever we have someone coming to do exterior work for us; it is raining today. I’m expecting the call to come any minute to tell me they will not be working in the rain. Darn.

For the first time in our 8 years of schooling I produced a report card for ScienceKid. Others convinced me that if we want him to be considered for scholarships he really needs a report card with grades and not just P/F for the courses he has taken. He has a 4.0 which includes the AP Biology online course grade.

UPDATE:  I threw a tizzy-fit convinced the guys that it would stop raining soon.  The fireplace is in and beautiful.