athelas

“…For it has no virtue that we know of, save perhaps to sweeten a fouled air, or to drive away some passing heaviness.”

Archive for December, 2006

Quick Wrap-Up

Posted: Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 @ 9:20 pm in Journal, Living and learning, special needs, strategies | 1 Comment »

Sean finished Algebra book 6 today, doing well on the final test and telling me that his brain was working well today. I noticed it too; he was going on all burners. Neither of us can predict when his good days will be. Kieron did two lessons of Saxon today which brings him up to [...]

Picture Schedules, Symbolic Thinking and Rice Krispies

Posted: Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 @ 12:40 am in Journal, Living and learning, Math and Logic, strategies | 2 Comments »

Math Thinking  Sean is almost through with Book 6 of Key to Algebra. It is getting to feel like hard work. I remember getting to this point with Brendan when he used the series. I keep telling Sean that it gets to be second nature, factoring and simplifying, just like he can read now without [...]

More writing memories and thoughts on learning

Posted: Sunday, December 10th, 2006 @ 4:48 am in Links, Literacy and Language, Living and learning | 3 Comments »

I wanted to get this link to lots of notebooking resources up here. This is a continuation of my last post on notebooks. I was not a very consistent mom about keeping up a baby book, and I never got the hang of picture-taking until I got my digital camera. Lesson there — whenever I [...]

Paddy and His Books

Posted: Saturday, December 9th, 2006 @ 11:30 am in Early Childhood, Literacy and Language, recordkeeping | 1 Comment »

Have you read Cushla and her Books? It is about a disabled child who was read to by her parents and overcame some significant limitations through her relationship with books. The author’s depiction of Cushla’s response to different books at different developmental levels is perceptive and thought-provoking. (I think it was her grandmother, a reading [...]

Lots of Conversation, and I guess that counts

Posted: Friday, December 8th, 2006 @ 7:08 pm in Journal | 1 Comment »

Today was one of those days that seems very busy and full, yet I don’t get anywhere near checking off everything on my to-do list. On the whole, I like those days better than the ones where I haven’t planned enough and find myself drifting through the day spinning my wheels — and yes, that [...]

Math Progress

Posted: Thursday, December 7th, 2006 @ 3:07 pm in Journal, Links, Math and Logic | 3 Comments »

Sean is getting close to the end of Key to Algebra book 6. He will easily finish by mid-month, even if he keeps going at a slower pace. He still spends about the same time per day on math — 20 minutes or a bit more — but it takes longer to get through a [...]

Notebooks

Posted: Wednesday, December 6th, 2006 @ 7:19 am in Big Picture | 4 Comments »

Still thinking about notebooks …. in an earlier post, I wrote: I would like to start them (the kids) on a bit of very relaxed notebooking — after reading Cindy Rushton’s book and looking through my closet with the older kids’ notebooks and other bits of memorabilia. We never did it in a big way, [...]

Winter is Almost Here

Posted: Monday, December 4th, 2006 @ 6:30 pm in Journal | Comments Off

We are scaling back on academics for Advent. That sounds sort of funny once I write it out, because our academics aren’t very intensive anyway. But I want some breathing room to do a few extras and just “be present” during the season. I told Sean that once he’s finished with Book 6 of Key [...]

Paddy is Four!

Posted: Monday, December 4th, 2006 @ 1:16 am in Early Childhood, Math and Logic, Milestones | 3 Comments »

 Here he is being a youngest “Son of Willa Elder“, photo and costume courtesy of his sister. The other big movie favorites around here recently have been: Captains Courageous Boys Town It’s a Mad Mad Mad World Arsenic and Old Lace Bells of St Mary Paddy has been a counting demon recently.  He counts EVERYTHING, [...]

Advent is Here

Posted: Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 @ 3:04 am in Milestones | 2 Comments »

Before today, I don’t think I’ve ever woken up on December 1st and thought: this is the day to start making Advent preparations. When I think about WHY this is so, I guess the term “living Advent,” comes to mind. It seems that every December for the past 11 years, we have been in some [...]