bits

 It's been a harder past couple of days with anxiety, but I'm keeping it on the leash mostly.  I made a big pillow on my sewing machine and brought it to work so I can sit in the middle of the room on break for a few minutes and that helped the other day (sans pillow) and a bit today, as well.  I'm actually doing really well on everything - my hEDS is being tolerable, just knee and hip and etc. but things pop back where they should be - our budget is tight but it looks like it will work out if I can just get everybody to stay on board.  So, there isn't any real 'reason' for the anxiety, like usual actually,  but as I told Esme sometimes none of that matters and it is just a brain chemical / hormone thing that you have to stand outside of yourself for a moment and say 'what is this going on?' and do the best you can with it.  I am trying to read less online news, because right now that really sucks it seems to be very doom-filled and I've brought a book to read instead.

 

We had a really good freshman psych- level talk about brain chemicals, dopamine and realizing your habits and goals from the 'outside' as well as from the inside with the body chemicals sometimes training you without you intending them to.  Esme brought up school students she knows that have some issues with this and also with anger responses to not getting their dopamine ie: no phone or video game or etc.  She's paying attention.  I told her often you have to outsmart yourself on those things - train yourself to the good things, like maybe a language or a todo list or congratulating yourself for a good grade etc. but also to be on the watch for other people because you can't control what they do etc. 

 

Studying Spanish, Lithuanian, French, Japanese and Catalan.  And I started the Spanish lesson before the anxiety set in.  I also started the Duolingo Math path today and it was interesting.  I tried the Chess thing a few weeks ago, and found it juvenile at first - but might try it again after a bit.

 

Tried to make rice flour omelet last night, and put a bit too much sugar in it.  I'll try it again tomorrow - having some rice with oily fish tonight while everyone else has hamburgers.  Postal route tomorrow, and the mornings are getting colder.  This week was the first return to automatic savings in my 401K as well. 

I took joy this morning in the mathematics of the trees, again. The powder blue criss-crossed with burnt umber at angles and intersections. The mist out of and into which a hawk soared above the branches, pointed out by the younger eyes beside me. As I am contemplating twists and turns and melancholy steps waiting for the future paths to reveal themselves, it all resonates with a similar tone, rich and varied underneath, and forming to a harmony that says ‘for now, look.’

Algorithms.  Parabolas.  Integral Trees.  Patterns of Dispersion.

It's in the mathematics of the trees, the stones under my feet, the approach and the descent.  It is in the heads of small growing plants rising up through the flat planes of soil.  It is in the steps that we take down the road and the patterns of the many feet running by in the forest, and behind the fences.  It is a rhythm and a harmony of music that is mostly silent, but like music, gathers over time into the patterns and meaningful phrases.  It is in the wrinkles of a face, or the tracing of hands through their motions day after day, and in the tracking of eyes on the horizon waiting for a sign through the passing of astronomy and birds and rain.

I get into this state, seeing this whole that is so much larger than myself but so invisible to most... and I don't know what to do with it.  I can draw, write, record.. but I am only a drop in the river, waiting to see where I will end up and if anyone else is listening to the same music.  It is such a solitary music, even when shared, that still .. a reminder that we are Being, and that over Time there is no such thing as Chaos.. as even the rain on the window tends to fall back together after it has fallen, somewhere, somehow.

After a million miles, I still return to the garden

Spring wants to come, but it is still cold.

I am feeling introspective this morning, as a result of one of what I call the 'million miles' dreams - like I've lived days and months and years in a movie-like realistic experience.  The experience comes complete with books, movies, clothes, people, conversations, stores, driving, maps, cooking, laundry.. everything except sleep.. realistic places and things that are not quite real and I know they aren't but I just can't break out until some certain circumstance.  I had one the night before last that only lasted 'two weeks' dream time, but the one last night was months, maybe a year.. and so slippery I can only grasp thoughts before they slide away.

When I wake up I feel like I've lived a 'million miles' elsewhere and wonder about the coherence of space time and reality.  I'm relieved, and confused, and curious and exhausted all at the same time.   I worry a little about my memory, which on many things is so sharp and clear and organized and then on many other things it feels like I'm sorting through soft cheese to find the bits that matter and ignoring the rest hoping it will "reboot' and be useful for something.

I know it is my photographic memory and stress and some sort of cosmic whack-a-mole all combining to create that and that it isn't real time.  98% of the time I can separate real time and dream time.. but there are things that sometimes seem a bit too real - like looking at the (non-extant) scar on my face in the bathroom of an apartment I didn't rent in the 90s, waking up only because I realized that my keys were not MY keys.. as I saw myself walk in the door holding a bag of groceries..

There are even titles of books and magazine articles that turn out to be entirely in my own dream (this is rare for dreams, I've read.. to read entire things in dreams, website URLS, phone numbers and addresses, children's books with pictures.. it all fades away and I can't keep much of it.. some of it I write down as my stories that I am publishing again soon).  I even hear and read things in other languages in my dreams, but not often, and usually as a result of something in 'the real world' having had a good dose of it.  I'm still waiting for the moment I grab a book randomly off a shelf and it is empty inside, or lorem ipsum or something like that... but so far, in dreams and reality the books have all been complete, sometimes even to having the copyright page and year inside.

 I often have said that I keep all the things of this world 'in my head' so that this plastic dinosaur, although lovely, doesn't have to be in my physical hand to hold onto the sense of it.. but in my dreams I guess I take that to the next level recombining and recreating everything down to the plastic dinosaur or book, or endtable, a collection of keys or pocket change or fabric pattern. 

The pizza box in my dream last night was from a television show I had watched earlier in the day - and at the point I made that connection I was able to initiate waking up.

What do I think about when I boil it all down through years lived but not lived?
What stands out about this world the most?

Family.  Time.  Growing Things.  Repetition.  Math (matrices, sine patterns, exponential curves, scatter patterns, spatial patterns both in and not in crystalline form).  Space (The feel of real space around me, touch, cause and effect, conditions and improvements).  Doing Things that alter time and space, randomness, spontaneity, things that are unexpected vs orderly progressions.

There is something about the math - bits that come in the dreams and chemistry and other things that I know I don't consciously understand and probably never will.  It is a 'dream' within the dreams.. something that teases me but I will never have enough time to focus on and figure out.  I feel the taste of it and then let it go.. and concentrate on the other big thoughts - family, growing things, doing things in the real time before me. 

I am going through my seed vault and looking at potential, while a little bit of my mind is still turning over all the other ideas.

I do this every year, work some varieties, see the seeds germinate in the earth and grow along their potential, unfurling leaves, flowering, setting fruit and seed.. different weather patterns and phenotype and nurture every year - some years flourish, some drought or mold or bugs .. some things produce and others do not -  eventually I let Nature take back over and the weeds come up and the earth returns to Fall and Winter to go over again.  But there is a concreteness to this, too - and a tie down to time in a succession of months of regular progression.

I am thinking right now about tilling the earth when it is warm - days or weeks or a million miles twelve times over from now.

I am thinking right now of little girl coming home from school in the afternoon, better from the cold and sinus that have been awful for her and Mark this week.  I am thinking of the flowers growing and the snow yesterday, and the water sound from the freezer this morning, and that tomorrow I run the mail again.

And I am thinking that today, is today, and reminding myself that a million miles of lucid dreaming did not exist for everyone else - I am not in the Planet of the Apes staring at the Statue of Liberty thousands of years in the future (although, honestly, there are days it feels like that)... Today is one day after yesterday, and two days after the day before that... and so forth and so on.

kitchen towels and mathematical elegance

It would be hard to explain to you what I mean by 'mathematical elegance', but I see it everywhere, and when I get a moment to reflect on it, I try to capture the feeling. Being a synestheseate (senses overlap) it is like seeing music that is too complicated to be heard - deep wide music that stretches over and inside you at the same time.  You are part of the Universe with all of its patterns extending around you, rhythms and melodies and harmonies interspersed with color and light and space.  

I saw this on the way back from the school bus this morning and it played out a rhythm to me - staccato drums overlaid with a delicate pattern of bells and strings.  I love the way the colors of the sunrise came through as well, changing the timbre of the 'music' within the depths.

I was going to capture the golden grass in front of the fog, like the high tones of clarinets and other woodwinds and perhaps mid-tone violins in front of a quiet symphony of other small sounds. and then Daphne walked behind the grasses and added her own part to it.

 The fairyhouses have their own mathematical elegance, too

I liked the fog progression into the distance here, and it shows how the fairyhouses are stretched out across the landscape.

 Esme said this was a 'fairy moon' far above the fog.  I liked her description.

// other
I made myself some kitchen towels the other day - the patterns of the blue cacti fabric still clung to my mind weeks after seeing it - so I bought it and some 'Ursa Major' fabric with little stars and bears to go on the backside.  I had cut up some bright turquoise bird fabric that never became shorts (Esme just is too big for me to really make much for her now, the fabric cost to off-the-rack cost almost is the same now) and paired it with some polka dotted blue fabric I had in my collection.  I made three of the bird towels and one dishmat, and two of the loop-top kitchen towels to hang on the fridge.

 I made little loop tops on them - not extremely useful right now but it cost nothing to put them in - they might be useful later.

 They actually hang on the other side of the fridge - not in front of the door, but there is no sunlight there ;)

These are very cheerful.  Seeing their colors is like tasting crisp cherries buried in ice cream.

I did this one morning while waiting for Esme to get dressed for school.
We have a collection of coconut and pineapple things on the table to make some granola bars Mark has been wanting.. and I wanted to update the board that previously had the 'rabbits in rowboats'  She has a coconut on her head and is dancing the hula.

Wednesday is for bikes

 Zombies are coming, pedal fast!

my silly crew :)

9a    - CC math workbook
9.15    - reading: Felicity Saves the Day chp 2
9.30    - reading: Borrowers, to pg 60
11    - math: counting attendence record (17 days left!)

//We bought a stationary bike at the flea market for 3.00 yesterday.  It needed some repair, as the chain kept coming loose.  Mark and Esme planned to fix it today as part of school - and it works and works well.
11.30    - repair / adjust stationary bike
12p    - PE: 30+ mins stationary bike riding
12.30    - break

3:00 -  Nutrition: What's in a meal, and vitamins
3:30 - done

Tuesday

9:30 - science videos, magnetism and matter
10a  - cardboard project, sword and shield

10:45 - Spacetime Episode, more shield painting
11:15 - Minecraft Spring Wood (her new city name, based on the images she painted on her shield)

12:30 - revision of Monster Castle, talking about plot
// Oh the grump.  We got past the revision after about ten minutes, most of which was grump.  Then we went on to making more content.  I asked her questions, went over the story...we got another few pages out of it.
1:30 - break

2:30 - discussion of What are Equations for?
3:30 - break
This is so hard.  She can do equations - she can understand how to get the answers.  She isn't quite grabbing why we make equations, what they are for - how to use an equation to find out information - WHY it is important.  We talked about it over about ten different scenarios.  I did more calculations and had her go step through with me.  I asked her to make an equation -and she made a multiple choice question.  It was a good one!  But.. not an equation.  We will keep working on this.  I know it is not an instantaneous type thing.

3:45 - Mankind The Story of Us : Survivors
4:30 - done


I updated the timeline after dinner. 
We're watching the Martian.
Esme isn't watching it very much...

Thursday + free worksheet 2nd grade math Number Bonds and Bar Models

Another day list... maybe I'll do one a week.

7.45a    - G&T book; math - missing numbers in equations
              single digit addition drill,
              making tens worksheet from Math Spheres.
             making 2,3,4,5,6 (multiple ways)
-----somehow we turned into P.E. before I noticed, and then back to math, and then back to P.E.
             80 jumping jacks, 1:20 tripod headstand
             reading 50 states names happened several times in there, too.
8:45a     - break

9:00a     - dragon craft - construction paper and tube .. I should get a picture of it, it is cool.
9:30     - Spanish lesson Phrases Duolingo - She is now finished with Level 2
10:00     - reading: "Oranges", Zack Rogow
10:15     - break

1.30p    - reading: "Big Chickens" : Leslie Helakoski
1.45p    - reading: "Backyard Bestiary", several entries, it is a long book
2p    - reading: "The Cloud Spinner: : Michael Catchpool
2.15p    - review state names
2.30p    - walking outside
2.45p    - done

When I got home she was doing a program called Snail Bob which is a lot like the IQ ball game she used to play in Kindergarten.  It is problem solving and doing things in the right order to achieve a goal. She was on level 22 by the time it was getting where she had to think very hard to get it right.. and it was late.

I've planned a patriotic song for her Social Studies tomorrow and am about to go collect up a few more worksheets for her math.  The next steps are decomposition of numbers by groupings (making friendly numbers) and also by place value.  I'll focus on a bit more graphing exercises next week.

I'm not that much into their Common Core, but I can see some utility in this exercise and thinking about numbers in different ways.   I couldn't find a worksheet set I liked - so I made this one, and it's free for personal use (non-commercial)

This should print out on 8.5 by 11 inch paper.  The small set up top is to write your own example for the learner so they can see what is expected.  I did the bar models with + and = in them so they make sense.. and then on the next sheet I will remove the symbols.

Example : 2                 
                 \                  2    +   3
                  5            ----------------
                /                =      5
              3                0 tens      5 ones
 

Bird City

"Bird City"

We did the flea market and the other library today.  Esme had really wanted to go to the other library - and I think I'll try to make a time we can spend longer at it another week coming up.  She found some amazing rubber butterfly models and a kiwi plush which made her day at the flea market.  We looked up and read about kiwi birds as part of our reading for the day.  She learned a lot of cool things and transferred that to making a kiwi burrow and costume in the Minecraft.  She wrote several signs to label things and read three books I had written and placed into the library.

I have started working with her on some of the Spectrum Test Prep book - to see where she is at with her reading comprehension and English skills.  She did four pages with some questioning of what they meant -especially on the phonics questions...she wondered why someone would want to compare the vowel sounds one minute and the end sound the next etc etc... but she did well.

I found a book at the other library on their tiny sale shelf called 'Secondhand Magic'.  I think I will try to get her to start reading it with me.  She loves kites and magic, and it is about both.  I found a novel for me and two English grammar type teacher's manuals that could give some ideas - for a quarter for each book there isn't anything to lose.  I've ordered a Stephen Hawking book 'George and the Secret Key to the Universe' which will arrive in maybe a week.

Math: 
 We have continued in our math with ordinal placement up to four digits, number pattern sequencing, and some 'fact family' type work where she has to fill in the missing number in a long list of equations where they all equal the same number.  The fact family worksheet was from this company: MathSphere
She said it was a cool worksheet because she just had to look at it up and down and she didn't know what they wanted for a second and then she did and it was easy.  It was the one where all the equations added to 20.  The number sequencing patterns were not taken as well...but she is good at this if she tries and needs practice after a summer off.  She likes to try more when there are cute pictures - but the sheet I gave her today was just text, so she had about three despairs during nine questions.

Other: 
We read a third of the 'Secondhand Magic' book before bed.  Esme likes it so far.  Then she told me she had been reading her 'Human Body Facts' book she got in the mail from Aunt Dot.  I mentioned we still have to choose a 'body system' to study first for our body charts. She says the part that makes babies.  ERR...uh...how about we choose another one first, please?  OK.  The Brain, then.  Then she asked me even more questions that led me to grab a notebook and pen and explain X and Y chromosomes in lieu of the rest of the story.  But, yes.. let's really do the Brain first for official school, now that you understand the 'how do the parents decide if they'll have a boy or girl?' idea is random, but based in something I kind-of explained. **it's coming this year.. we will have the full talk**


Mama Notes:  I reached 45% fluency on Duolingo.  I'm still doing lots of practice sessions...which are really helping.  So I maybe do one or two new modules a day and then practice for the rest of the 50 points.  50 points per day is officially their 'insane' level....A few days a week I don't make it...but that is how it goes.  I also bought some soap at the flea market from Dry Hollow Farm, and baked some apple cake.  I'm listening to more music on Spotify, a few new things here and there, and lots of the ones I've found that I like as they pop in my head.  It keeps the 'elevator music' out of my head from work...although I've picked a few of those out and added them in..KT Tunstall, Alanis and a few others here and there.

Math games and getting ready for week two

Mark said I should post about these math lessons we've been working on.
We reviewed rounding last week, to tens and hundreds.
I took pieces of paper and marked them randomly 0 through 1000 - about 20 pieces of paper.
I put a 'timeline' like long header of paper and marked it 100,200,300 through 1000.  Then I had her sort which ones, rounded up or down by the rule, would go where.  She did this once as a short exercise with me, and again for review (with more papers).  We will do rounding to decimals in a bit.. she was already doing that in the store, and I will maybe wait for our 'store' project to have a session on it.

The Pirate measuring thing was I had her make a 'treasure chest' of a known number of inches wide and tall.  She had to use her ruler for it -which she wasn't entirely happy about.  Then, she had to guess/figure how big a pirate ship hold would be to contain three layers of chests, four chests wide (12).  She had to measure a piece of paper this big, cut it out, and compare the chest to the space.  Then we cut a 'boat' for the hold to go in, a 'mast' a certain # of inches tall, a triangular sail a certain number of inches wide and tall, and a man who was not too tall to fit within the ship hold.  She got better and better at tracing straight lines and measuring height or width as asked...although it started out very hard.

Ordinal numbers - we have cut out squares with racehorses printed on them, and put two or three digit numbers on them. She has to sort them greatest to least by their value.  We will talk about greater and less than again, like we did last year.

Relative weights of real things and comparison - I found the relative weight of about twelve things, the heaviest being a truck and the lightest an apple.  She will compare which is lighter or heavier, how many of the light things would make up the heavy item, which items would add together to be a little less than or more than another etc. This is leading into my working with her with simple symbolic equations, multiplication and division after we review all of this and adequately borrow and carry again (she has become rusty).

There are 'geometry house', 'make your own store', and 'advertising' lessons I printed out to adapt for her, too.


Also - I scored another big cardboard box, which we will use to make our next cardboard theatre for puppet shows.  We will work on that and 'writing a play' this week.

Friday

Daddy had school today - and they had agreed last night she could watch a certain movie about Kung Fu style fighting as she  has been practicing with a staff on her own to try and needed to see more 'material'.

10a    - hair care
10.15    - PE (200x jumping jacks, 20x 10lb deadlift)
10.30a    - dragon city
10.45a    - matific
11.15a    - dictionary exploring
11.30    - break

12.30    - town & stores
--They researched palette knives like are used in the Joy of Painting episodes, and other supplies.  They looked at and bought heavier weights for her weight lifting set.
1p    - break

1.30p    - PE (30x 20lb bench, 10x 20lb squats)
1.45p    - Movie: "Legend of Drunken Master"
3.30p    - break

She is downstairs playing with the Speak and Spell now, which we had finally gotten batteries for after they had come to town to get me at work.  Mark watched the outtakes to Drunken Master with Esme, too - and proved her these were real people, who make mistakes, and get hurt - and they also helped each other out, laughed etc...  We got Big Hero 6 and she has watched that twice.

Weekend off!  For everyone :)
I'm trying not to get a sinus infection and spend some time sitting in bed knitting a new pair of socks.  

Octy octopus

Octy the octopus
available to order at the shop

This was the first try from a pattern I sketched earlier this year and never did anything with... some hangups trying to get the tentacle undersides to match up in the middle.. but, pretty good for a 'shoot for the moon' sort of try.  I almost gave up twice - but I'm glad I didn't.l. because he is cute.

Esme wants to bring him with to the Japanese restaurant today.  We're going to do some math on Khan Academy - and then head out after that.  She bought a little toy bird with some of her Christmas money and she is eating some fruit salad.  We talked about how kiwis and strawberries are different but same.. and she had this odd question this morning if chopped onion and rice were the same thing - and why is one raw and one is cooked...sometimes what she springs on me sounds like an alien traversing our culture... it would never have occurred to me to think chopped onion and rice were similar, they look similar - but they are entirely different.. and she wants to see how.

On to math.. update later.

9.15a    - drawing animals

 I liked her rhino - thought we might make a toy like it later.  She said she scribbled and it 

looked like a rhino, so she drew the rest of it in.

9.30a    - break

10a    - store and bank, handling money
10.30a    - break

11.50a    - kahn academey math - did the bar graphs and finished the word problems, did some review
12.50p    - break

1.30    - sushi place
2.30    - library - building Atlantis and towers with two other children, reading some of her book, playing a music program with different instruments and patterns.
4    - break

5p    - Reading aloud ("Some Pig", EB White)
5.15p    - spelling - writing - homonyms etc...
5.35p    - break

6p    - Monopoly (we introduced the idea of being shortchanged, and traded properties so she could build houses)
7.30p    - done

Now she's making a villainry flag - because she will only help a little, so they don't know she is a superhero.  It is a pirate flag with a razor saw and a shark on it.

Tuesday

a little ink drawing attempt by me, 

but she wiggles a lot.. so I had to fill in the shadows while she was giggling 

8a    - cleaning and organizing - discussed why we clean and why yes, it will be important for scientists and engineers to clean as well, not only in their jobs but their homes.
8:30     - break

I put on the movie 'Epic' and she watched nearly the entire thing.
I needed down time...knit a bit, drank coffee.
Getting ready for town, planning town

11.30a    - Khan Academy math - subtraction and addition reinforcement..7s table in multiplication up to 7x5, working in multiples to do addition and subtraction quicker than working on fingers, and writing out problems from words with minimal help.  Is it subtraction or addition they want here?  How do you know?  How do you write it.  Reinforcing doing the ones column before the tens, and what borrowing really means as well as how to do it right.  Started out crying about every little thing, brain hurts, why we are doing this.. then she saw I wasn't giving up, and she asked good questions and really started to click the reasoning for HERSELF after a bit, went a bit further to do a full hour.

Teaching Note -- She WILL try to tell me 7 minus 4 is 5 (during the first ten to twenty minutes) just to get me to give up on her. but I won't take that.. I'll ask her to count back 4 from 7 and show me how that equals 5.  She'll throw a frustration fit because she wants to do something else.  I'll say this is what we are doing and I really want her to tell me how that equals 5.. 'because' doesn't work.. etc.  When she knows that Mom is in 'real math mode' she stops fooling and starts working.  Only then does she really click.. and then I can stretch her and see what she knows and she doesn't.  And, afterwards, when she knows she did real work and did it well, she says it was 'fun'.. public school never did that for her, and they would never have gotten accurate test results from her.

12:30p    - break, drive to town

1:3p    - library use of catalog computer to find books on skeletons (question the other day)
             comparing the Dewey Decimal numbers to the author name fiction tags on books
              going out to the 'adult' book section to compare that the numbers and
              name tags mean the same things out there as they do in the kid's room.
              computer game - 4th grade ClueFinders, math, geography, logic
              lunch out in the parking lot
              hibernation pretend/role play with reasoning, questions, science application
              ---she climbed under a table and made a den with blocks as her stored food.. which was 'strange' but she answered the questions well about why she needed to store food, what she would do all winter, and why, and what would happen if another animal came to her den, good or bad...?

4p    - bookstore choosing appropriate books to buy, thrift store, bought two tennis rackets and a toy welding mask for 25 cents each item, Lowes
---asked why shadows 'break apart as you go higher'.. meaning she is holding a spoon in a light from the window at night and watching how the further up she holds the spoon the more shadows it has.  We talked about making an experiment with that..

5:3p     - break

//plan to do some reading in either the Cats to Love book she picked out or another one.
8-9p - bopped around, watched arts and crafts I was doing, cut out a paper hammer, wrench, screwdriver and drill and pretended to be fixing things with her new welding helmet toy
9:15-9:30 - read two small books she had bought for herself today.

I found several reading textbooks and a science textbook for Esme's level between the library bookstore and the thrift store.  One of the reading books had some good 'levelling' passages with pictures and words to know to test her knowledge.

Wednesday math, a potato and more

 

The Potato clock was done today!

They had to work around a lot of things - but they got it working :)

 

The Dinosaurs did some copycat action and went after the mountain of Skittles in the care of several turtles.  Esme says this is a picture to send to her friend EmK to see in her house!

We started Khan Academy math again, and racked up 4800 points, and then did our first of the computer programming modules.  Will return to it again!

Mark and Esme made a skeeball target for her catapult she got for her birthday, which was their engineering craft project for the day (besides the potato).

bit bit

This has been a long week - and it's only in the middle of it.
Esme has a sleepover at a friend's this weekend... and there were things to get ready there, arrangements etc...she had to have a sleeping bag, we had to make a plan for the timing with my work etc etc...

And I barely get to see her this week because of work.. and she has been on 'bad behavior' report at school although it is mostly for talking while the teacher is.  This is a disconnect for me - it is first grade, and what do they expect them to do?  I am still just glad to have her talking  - and sounding more and more complete and grownup all of the time. In fact, I've come to the thought that maybe we are just sending her to public school for the talking to other kids- the very thing they are saying she is in trouble for every day - and everything else she is actually challenged on is happening at home.  Their idea of reading and math consists of things she has known since she was three.  There are a few challenges in English and spelling... she needs to write more, and learn noun/verb/adjective.. and her comprehension/memory skills need challenging.  I really can't truly homeschool with my schedule.. and she couldn't learn about other children and social day-to-day at home.. so, here we are.

 She is 'ready' for much more than what they are giving her in school...which is addition practice up to ten.  I complained some and she got longer reading assignments, they were painfully short and were asking us to repeat them three times over if she finished them early... I know complaining is going to be bad for her in the long run.. I feel it, actually, not know... but it is so tough when she is, for them, nowhere near their 'norm'.. but for us, she is right where we expect her to be.  Mark and I have discussed where we would like to take her with reading... doing lots of library books, leading up to starting some longer books like Mark Twain.  I want to get her another Franny book or another Magic Treehouse at the library next time.. she is going through level 2 readers now in a fair time, ten to fifteen minutes.  We have studied South America some, kicked off by some National Geographic kids stuff and wanting to find something that isn't in and/or out of step with their curriculum to spark her interests. 

I paged through her Kindergarten math book that was on our table for something to occupy while I brushed her hair this morning.  Nothing of use... so we started talking about equations a little, worked out several and she wrote one for me (2x)3+100+10x=___ if x= 10.  She writes 'the hard ones' for me and I wondered when and where she would ever stop *ha* writing it so I could answer.   I had to remind her about the parentheses between the 2x and 3, and that is going to take some explanation because she has forgotten what we worked on months ago there.. she knew what I meant and put them in where I asked...which was good.  The next time I have more than ten minutes with her for it we'll go over that and order of operations.. if I feel her multiplication has reached a good enough level to rely on it.  I've only taken her up through fives by fives really...

I need to be doing more in my workshop.  But, there is just not enough of me.  Some days I want to scoop it all up and clear it away.. others I know that eventually I will get back to it and do something good there.  Work days have been long and boring at times... inventory coming up and lots of little tiny tasks and digging in dusty areas - with my allergies going off right and left.  I'd love to just stop sneezing for a day.

Working towards the weekend.. and the days and nights are already feeling like Fall.
Someday soon I'll probably be knitting again... then we'll know it is fall.

///finished the entire Harry Potter series.
//read an English history novel 'The White Princess' by Philippa Gregory
//have ordered the first book in the witches series by Deborah Hawkness, since the library had all but that one - try it out and see if I can get into it.  Fiction is so hard for me to find something I like and can commit to, and my brain is too skipabout lately to work on anything deep...

The New Year and bits to remember

I post less frequently lately, but there is a lot going on... just not things that can be easily photographed or reduced to one liners... and that is a good thing.  As someone said today to me - time to catch up on life.. and for me, also, time to record some tiny bits of it because otherwise I may forget the essences... those that fade and change and transmute 'just so'.. some quickly, some so hard you do not see it until one day you realize it is different. Like the puppy being twice the size she was last week, or the old toddler dress in my scrap pile being half the size of the one I made for Esme just last week etc etc...

And that ties into several things for me in this New Year.  I didn't make any resolutions... except to keep working at the good things, the things that are important.. and I would do that anyway.  And I like where we are - know things will change, and getting ready for whatever we can, how we can.

This little bit of patchwork pictured is an embodiment of that... it is filled with little bits of this and that collected and saved over the entirety of Esme's lifetime.  It contains (not in the first picture, but in the second) bits from her very first baby blankets all the way up to clothes she is still wearing.  And I don't have any immediate plans for it.. except to try to keep it and keep it nice... for whatever it will become, and add on to it as it seems fitting... or onto other pieces, that might one day become other things, or the same thing... it is kind of a philosophy of memory and effort in fabric... and that says a lot about me, and my view of the world.  One of my oldest memories - probably before five years old, is going through the multitude of fabric in our house, seeing every different pattern - the fabric that was not things, the fabric that was part of everyday things... how were they different, how were they alike, which ones were in both piles. I didn't think so deeply on it then - it was just color and pattern and hey - those match etc... but it was important to me, and as I grew up sewing in the same household, using fabrics and collecting bits here and there, recycling a shirt, patching something with a bit from another project - I felt time and memory crystallized in those objects, and the memories around that time they represent - like riding the elevator with my mom at Kremers for the very last time to get the flannel fabric for my eighth grade quilt...

so now I look at the little red and white flower fabric in the bottom left corner and I see a rabbit Esme held onto the leg of, and her pink rabbit quilt I made as her receiving blankets, and the blue and white star fabric that was a sundress when she was three, and a multitude of other things.

I like that, it is my own private treasure trove.. with nothing more than my memory.  And I fear a little there, with my mom and her memory problems, but... that is somewhere in the future and the past.

And the other bits I want to remember now : Esme has 'changed phase' since she started school.. it is scary and amazing all at once.  She can open many more things with her hand coordination - like twist ties on bread, and ziplocs, but still has trouble getting a knife through bread.  Her processing is much better at big tasks - still easily distracted, but she has a good idea of where she is, and what comes next if she is motivated.  She uses big words like 'vanishing act', and 'horrifying nightmare', seen on Shrek 3 when he is dreaming), asks if I have checked my text messages and expounds on where the living room is in our house (which is atypical) or what today is when you said it yesterday vs tomorrow when you said it today etc... She asks me if the line of water from the top of the windshield means it is cracking or if the antenna is melting because of the ice or if it is the ice melting.  She wonders if things are a boy lunchbox or a girl lunchbox, because boys have this lunchbox and no girls do, and it is not pink.  She pays attention to all sorts of little details I don't realize are important to her until she communicates them - which she does and often...

She reads over my shoulder now, can read most level 1 books and today tried to read the word 'seventeen' as 'Steven', until I covered up the 'teen' and she rethought.  She can grasp the idea of less than zero in subtraction although that makes her little eyebrows wrinkle up and she wonders why... She can compare January to February or March, understanding one is further away than the other,.  She can also read the clock in 'thirty-sevens' and 'twenty-fives' etc... instead of just saying which number the hand is pointing to.  Her sense of tense, pronouns and connecting words is still just a tad bit 'strange' but she has come light years even since leaving her preschool class and sounds fairly normal until she gets into complicated questions or descriptions.  I do know she still 'sees in pictures' especially when remembering... she commented on the antenna on the truck this morning and then got that 'faraway' look saying look its the fat boy he is hitting his head because he was looking at the antenna... I asked her if she was remembering that and she snapped her eyes back to me like 'of course - can't you tell?' but then told me about a boy on the bus who had been trying to look out the window and hit his head on the top of the bus on a bump.  I don't know what that had to do with antennas.. but apparently it did. ;)

I was reading a journal entry from last June, before we went to the zoo, the other day - in my paper journal I write in at work or late at night etc...  and I was remarking on making her dresses for school and how she didn't understand the calendar or read very well.  I read some of her quotes and saw just how far she has progressed in that time.  Her view of the world is so much wider and her questions are so much more complex.  I am proud, and often feel the 'here we go' but by the time I've realized it lately, it seems we're another mile down the road.  And if I had read this, or thought all of this was possible, three years ago I would have been relieved... and when I read this three years from now... how much will have changed?

Esme's science experiment

We bought food coloring today, new shiny bottles for her.  Then I had her get the writing journal and a marker, and write down 'in code' the experiments she was going to do.  We wrote a 'key' of the colors so she could write just letters (and reduce the stress of the writing) and make 'equations' to record the 'findings'.  We talked  about a 'hypothesis' but she didn't get that - maybe next time.  She did guess once what she thought something would make, red and green would make black - but then she saw it was brown, so there was a moment of interest there. 

We put one drop of each color into the small container of water and used a white spoon to mix and tell what the color was.  Then she carefully wiped the spoon on paper towel (like a true scientist, not messing up her results!) and recorded the result in her book.  If she wasn't sure what the color was, I had her drop some on to the paper towel to double-check.. she decided blue plus green food coloring was 'light blue' because the mixture was lighter on the paper towel than the blue looked like by itself.  I had to agree that was what it looked like... 

After we had gone through as many of the variations as she thought were important (I reminded her to check the equations and see which ones we had not done - she did well!)  Mark had made a container of oil, and we tested what the color did in the oil.  It made 'dots', she said.  We put some water in the mix, and it made bubbles AND dots.  Then we put some of the oil on top of a container of water, and dropped food coloring into it.  It made dots - but the spoon pushed the food coloring deeper into the water, and it made a 'whoosh' and colored the water underneath. 

After we cleaned up I had her come upstairs and 'explain her findings' to Daddy.  We answered a few questions and made a sheet about it to send to her teacher.

We also did a sheet of 'find the missing numbers' and her one sheet of homework from school.  She did measuring and length worksheets last night and this morning before school.  I am trying to do 'extension' without going too deep into the subtraction and multiplication they will be doing in the next grades... there is a lot we can do in science and math that will help her use better language - bigger, smaller, above, below, longer, taller etc etc... 

Her behavior was MUCH better today, and that continued when she was home, as well.  I got her to bed at 8 pm again to be up at 5:30 am...

Kindergarten math...

I am starting to work with Esme on subtraction, and carrying over larger addition numbers... began a little bit of length, measurement and halves vs. quarters.  Her behavior in school is still getting her in trouble... not too many of the things serious, but most of them indicate boredom with what they are teaching.  She has been going and listening at other doorways of classes instead of going back to class - and that gets her in trouble... and a few other things that just indicate she wants to find out where 'the action is.'  Her handwriting and cutting skills are a bit better, but she finds them laborious at the best.  We were practicing the sewing and cutting out a pattern tonight, again, and she showed some good perseverance.   Someone had been telling her that she could do 'good enough'...when what she was doing was really only a half-effort on her handwriting.  Trying to backtrack to get rid of that idea.  She really thought there was no school this month because I had not written it on her calendar... we talked about school being a place to see kids, but it doesn't mean the kids will be friends, and learning to make good decisions while she is at school is the big thing.

I will continue the extension of math at home, because she doesn't get it at school, they have just barely started addition as a concept.  I hope it will help her to feel she is learning something if she does this at home before and after school when I'm available? 

bit by bit and science

I've sent Esme off to school today with her dinosaur book, and two extra Biscuit books we got in the mail.  I think she is really glad she can read them - and that is the reason I got them.  It will give her confidence that yes, she really can read well enough for some books.  In the meantime, she wants me to teach her science - because they don't teach it in school.  I didn't get far into that one yet - told her I would but would have to think about the best way to do it. She has been doubling numbers, so I started a tiny bit of multiplication this morning.  I haven't done subtraction with her, yet... and I think that needs to be another book for her to start on. 

She surprised me wonderfully on Saturday with several things at the store I work at - she told me what a shutoff valve was for after examining it and opening and closing it.  She knew what to do with a male and female part after looking at them, and remembered the word 'male' from somewhere deep in the past when we had looked at them.  She knew the plug that threaded in was for stopping the water on that side etc... we walked to the electrical switches and I told her the basic idea of the power goes into it on the side.  She said it was like the water and the lightning and the switch made it stop and go.  She has some brain in there... I've always known that, and it is showing so much now. 

I started laying out the science book - following the suit of the 1950s one we had gotten for her back when I was considering fullblown homeschooling.  It will take a while to lay that one out for her...

I am still fighting a cold - again - the day at the park on Saturday was not the best for me.

The other thing she cried about was not having a cheerleading dress like the other girls on the same team.. but I don't think that is going to come to pass.  We don't need Kindergarten cheerleaders in our house... science majors, maybe... but not cheerleaders.  I might make her a dress with the blue and gold fabric the next time I get a chance - but if it looks 'like' the cheerleading dress but isn't... I'm not sure how she will take that.  We had made a decision a while back not to buy the school merchandise when it comes to clothing -- too high of a cliff to fall of there. In her own way she told me I was dooming her to be unpopular... teen angst in a five year old body.  I am glad she is getting better at expressing herself - and telling me what is important to her. 

Progress at school and "The Cat and the Bird" book

A happy report.  I sent one of our Mama-made books to school today, one that we had made six months ago or more - and that Esme proved to me she could read most of this morning.  I wrote the three words she had trouble with on the front of a postit note and a request to return the book.  Esme said she got to read the book to the class and the teacher and children liked it :)  That was unexpected but excellent for her confidence.  I sent the book mainly because I wanted her library choice to not be limited below her level - and it wasn't, the library book is a very good match.  Her math worksheet today was decent for her level, as well - and something we haven't specifically covered yet.  I think they might be really getting to know her now, and especially because her behavior has improved.  She got 5 minute timeout (by her report) today, and 5 and 10 minutes the other days of the week - we see the real results tomorrow.

I said I was waiting to teach her half?  She has an idea of it, not quiet spot on - but I have a color half of it worksheet printed out she is ready for.  She also told me they are going over the 'fewer than', 'greater than', 'more', 'less' that I had put in earlier in the week.. she got about 80% of those right when we were talking, and was happy to work on it, ask questions etc etc...  This is what she needs to work on, and if they are really working with her real needs I am very happy and feeling like she is more understood. 

original story 'The Cat and the Bird', copyright Marie Lamb, 2012.

bit by more

I remember this day twelve years ago.. and I am very different than I was then.  I know who I am better than I did then... maybe not always still where I am going.  I know we have a bright future but we have to work for it.

Esme was bubbly this morning, she wanted to do so much we had to run for the schoolbus.  Those extra 15 minutes I've been trying to incorporate every morning have been setting her up well - she thinks about rules, what she should do and not do, and has time to do some brain stretching exercises/worksheets so she can think about that when she is bored later.

She had a dream she wanted to make a drawing of.  Then she wanted to do the math sheets I had put out\ first.  She tried to draw the dream but looked at the clock and said she would finish it later (impressive, for her.. she hasn't done that often).  Then she really wanted me to write a story in her notebook to take to class and read during naptime.  I don't know what the teacher will think about that.  I sent her an email with an explanation and that I had laid out the rules for it if the teacher agreed.  1.) It comes out of the backpack during naptime - and then back in before snacktime.  2.) she does not bug the teacher(s) to write in it for more to read   3.) if they say no drawing/writing in it she has to just read and look at it.  We'll see what happens with it.  She wanted to read it on the bus this morning, too - so hope she does not lose it.

She was telling me all about the rules for books from the library.  They went over those last week - and she is excited to get to check out a book tomorrow.  She is a little upset some children are calling her ZipZip at school, for talking out of turn?  I'm not sure.  She didn't seem to know why they are saying it, but she says they lose their stickers for talking.  That could be one of those disconnect things where she knows what happens but not one happens because of the other etc..  We still get a lot of those.

Homeschool : We did 'more' on her worksheet for school.. it said to read all of the sentences and had pictures of words the kids did not know yet.  I had Esme tell me the word, write the word and color the pictures besides just reading it.  Then for morning I gave her a sheet of addition and a sheet of more vs. less.  She had trouble with the word 'less'... we will work more on it.  She understood 'more' but did have to think about it.  She had to think about 'more vs. less' much MORE than 2+2=4.. I want to introduce 'half' to her soon, but not until we have more and less worked out better.  Not to self : talk about 'equal' as well before we go to 'half'... more, less, equal.. two equal halves etc.

Esme watched a Minecraft video made by another child yesterday - and one of the things they had done was make an iron golem.  Esme was immediately in her Minecraft and making them, having them wander around in a glass cage (I did not help her find materials, I went to get coffee.. so she solved the cage problem on her own).  After a while she wandered outside to play with the garden hose and I saw this on my screen and took a screenshot.

She wanted to play checkers last night with her magnetic calendar.  She set up the board, and had half the rules right.. but then she was cheating.  I haven't brought up the rules to her before for this - she couldn't say where she learned them...kept interachanging 'chess' for 'checkers' and switching back.  So, I brought up internet checkers (no cheating, rules hardset) and she decided 3/4 of the way through the game against a HUMAN without cheating it was hard.  She had played the computer and won, but was still saying it felt hard.  Having a human block her moves she was more upset, and frustrated... which in this case is probably a good lesson.   I will look into making or buying a cheap gameset for her (we had one once don't know where it is) because it seems like something that is 'in line' with her way of thinking, as long as she follows the ruleset.