Hell’s Half Acre

Mostly for my own benefit, I am keeping a weekly report of books we’ve read and some of what we’ve done with academics this week.  I’m not sure I’ll keep it up.
Jesse Reading:
Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry
Pike Reading:
Stone Fox
Mom Reading to boys:
Arabs in the Golden Age
Finished Shadow Spinner
Started Genghis Khan and the Mongol Hordes
Mom [...]

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Today I attempted to connect with other unschoolers on an email list and was told that since Jesse went to Kindie (his choice; I SO TRIED to talk him out of it) I couldn’t call myself an unschooler for this and many other reasons.  Honestly, I don’t really care for labels.  I was, however, looking [...]

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Yesterday I went on a date with my husband.  I NEVER call him “my husband” but it was simply too delicious to write.  He was stomach-virus addled for much of his birthday so we arranged with the kids to take an afternoon off and go to his favorite fish taco place.  The fish wasn’t the [...]

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Hopefully organizing here will put it all in one place
1) Decide on an art curriculum and purchase it. (Artistic Pursuits) K-3 book 1, 4-6 book 2
2) Find and purchase art materials
3) Decide if I’m doing grammar with the boys and choose a curriculum.  Easy Grammar, Analytical Grammar and Growing with Grammar.
4) Decide if I’m going [...]

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(to a tango)
the rolling boulder crashing down the mountain
thaaaats kinetic energy
KINETIC
the boulder sitting high upon the mountain
thaaaats potential energy
POTENTIAL
energy in motion is kinetic
energy that’s waiting is potential
but whether its kinetic or potential
both of them are energy
ole!

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OMG I”m ALIVE AGAIN!  I must have either picked up something at the 4th of July bash or some weird viruses attacked me because I have been 1/2 dead since Jesse’s birthday.  I had the headache of death, very Typhoid-like, incredible weakness (couldn’t even hold my head up), constant fever/chills/fever/chills/sweat buckets/chills (you get the picture) [...]

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The title of the post not only refers to the conference we attended in Alburquerque, but our lives as well (which, I assume, is the point). We learned so much at the conference, but not what you’d think. The boys had a wonderful time, the girls also. Ellen made friends and [...]

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Deb, if you’re still reading, I lost your email addy with the computer Ellen fried; if you guys aren’t going to the California Homeschool conference, would you be interested in meeting up with us here? The Live and Learn Unschooling Conference.
And anyone else who is interested, we’d LOVE to see you there! September [...]

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The past couple days, well, it FEELS like a week, but has only been a few days, I’m sure, the kids have been positively trailer-bound. The skies are grey and cloudy, the air is cool and they might be hibernating. For a couple days, I dragged them out to the dunes to the [...]

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The boys and Sissy have just finished up Chapter 4 of Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer”. We have read two of the “Little House” series of books; House in the Big Woods and House on the Prarie (those titles should be pretty close) but Mark Twain has a very distinct style of writing. There [...]

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