Captain Science is…well, I’ll just call it “boundary testing.” I believe I mentioned that a little earlier this week. Of course, I made the huge mistake of commenting that he’d improved greatly by Wednesday, which of course means that by Wednesday afternoon, it had all gone to hell in a tightly-woven, decorative, but highly functional Longaberger hand basket*.

Sometimes, Captain Science is not the most forthright of children. He occasionally sneaks, cheats, and/or lies, especially if he’s trying to do something fun that requires polishing off a few chores or some work first. Along with being slow, slow, slow this week, he opted to do a little copying down the answers in Life of Fred and turning it in as his own work. Of course, because the answers to each section of Life of Fred are just right there, I can understand the temptation, but really, if you’re going to lie about having done the work, pick a problem where it’s not so obvious. Pal, I know you didn’t convert .875 to a fraction in your head that quickly.

Captain Science had been warned that lying would result in writing lines, so he got to start a page of lines that said, “I will not lie and I will not cheat.” That took him about fifteen times longer than it ought to have, pushing back even more work. Every task this week, with the exception of the first have of Wednesday and science on Thursday, has been like a long, slow tooth extraction. I’m pretty sure he’s accomplished a few chapters of Life of Fred, perhaps 11-14? He also managed to do a lesson of Editor in Chief and two Writing Strands sections. Before he goes to bed tonight, he’ll do a chapter of Vocabulary from Classical Roots. It’s not that the week has been educationally fruitless, it’s just been rather devoid of joy.

We’re trying some new things to get us back onto track, but it will take a couple of weeks to see how they pan out. Wish us luck and that week 21’s review is more positive than this week’s.

*The Nana collects these. She’s not really the collecting type, but she does love a basket, because “you can put things in baskets” and they are useful in the event of a disaster. The children all have Longaberger Easter baskets. I am not a Longaberger consultant or anything, but if you want to buy an expensive, but very nice, basket, Longaberger is the way to go.

Math was exactly what I thought it would be, review by way of doing all the tries for the bridge to chapter 11 in Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. Captain Science kept getting hung up on the problems requiring multiplying numbers with decimals. With each try, however, he was able to do the problem easily on a second attempt, so I think part of the issue was the dawdling and distractability. We went through it one more time, together, and I think it all snapped back into place, because his only mistakes thereafter were “couldn’t pay attention” errors in arithmetic.

History was…well, he enjoyed his chapters on Roman technology and social status, at least. His essay on Roman technology was good, and I enjoyed his conclusion that, “despite not having electricity, the Romans were in some ways more advanced than we are.” His essay on the importance of Roman social status turned out to just be a list of the different social statuses with a brief description, however.

Because we haven’t gotten our new MCT grammar curriculum yet, Captain Science worked on Editor in Chief A1 a lot this week, doing three lessons of it. He didn’t make any mistakes in the lessons, but it took him forever and ever to finish them. Vocabulary from Classical Roots went much more easily and quickly. He really enjoys vocabulary and the parts of speech. He isn’t very keen on rewriting paragraphs. Fair enough.

This week’s science unit apparently had something to do with boiling water while Captain Science and Eclectic Girl took turns staring at it and muttering excitedly. It also involved a dish of isopropyl (which my browser’s spell check keeps insisting is spelled incorrectly, even though it’s not) alcohol and sticking one’s hands into bowls of water of various temperatures. I guess that means they were learning about heat?

Officer Daddyman subscribed us to the Classics for Kids podcast on iTunes and he and the boys listened to one this morning while I slept in a bit with a bad headache. That was the sum total of our electives this week, I’m sorry to say. Next week will be better, surely.

On a positive note, Patchfire and I did decide on a good use of our newly-emptied Tuesdays. I’m using the mornings to do art and she’ll come over in the afternoons to teach a second science class (on the brain) and for me to teach creative writing. It’s a micro co-op!

I guess the first week back to school after the break could have been worse, but I feel like every single accomplishment was extracted with the relative ease of pulling teeth from a reluctant tiger.

It feels like we’re trying to tune most everything at the moment. Babypie is recovering from her illness, rash slowly fading, but she’s still a little sensitive and not sleeping well. I’m shaken and out of sorts over the Lakewood police shooting, because when you’re the wife of a cop, every officer is your officer, so you take every incident like this to heart. The Tank is back at preschool this morning, and honestly, I was much happier having him at home. Our attempts to regain a sense of normalcy seem all wonky and ill-fitting.

Even this post, which should be a celebration of a successful completion of NaBloPoMo, feels out of tune. I need a mental pitch pipe to help get me back to where I need to be, I guess.

We have some kind of crud at the McLernins house. It’s an congested chest crud that is making everyone cough and be irritable. They’re coughing their brains right out, as can be evidenced by Captain Science’s inability to complete his Ancient Greece quiz/activity. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers — he remembered things like perioikoi and hoplite just fine. Ancient Greece has been his favorite topic thus far and we discuss it all the time. He couldn’t figure out what to do with the scrambled letters once he’d answered all the questions. The act of unscrambling was just beyond his ken. Understand, that child has been doing word jumbles and the like since he was three or four, so this isn’t a new concept. He didn’t “get it” today, nor could he (after figuring out the middle word was probably “and”) think of a game he played that had “and” in the title. Finally, he managed to come up with “chutes and ladders,” which didn’t work, and with much coaching, wandered ’round to “hide and seek.” Even knowing something similar to “hide and seek” was what I was looking for, he still couldn’t unscramble “H-A-D-Y-R” into a Greek-related word. In a combination of frustration and pity, I finally just blurted out “hydra and seek,” and he laughed, because it is cheesily funny.

At that point, I decided it was time to fold ‘em and walk away, which was definitely the right call. I called a hiatus on any further learning and instead, am enforcing a nap time for all children, regardless of age. Of course, only the baby is complying (and only after a great deal of coaxing), and the other two are coughing, thrashing about, calling things out to each other, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. As long as they’re pretending to rest, however, and aren’t waking up they’re sister, I’ll play along and pretend I don’t hear them shuffling about up there.

I’ve finally gotten a shower and had a cup of coffee, so I call that a win. We can finish the rest of today’s work on Saturday when we have a better hand.

Math hit a stumbling block today with dividing fractions using cancellation. The whole “but we’re MULTIPLYING!!!” thing was just too much and broke Captain Science’s brain. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Same thing in grammar — Captain Science forgot how to identify and diagram a direct object. Both issues have, thankfully, been remedied, but it’s been a muddled up, fuddled up sort of week.

In Life of Fred: Fractions, Captain Science covered chapters 25-28.

In grammar, he covered 6.7 (synonyms and antonyms), 6.8 (homonyms), and 6.9 (good vs. well) in Growing With Grammar. Because he had a setback with direct objects, we did some additional diagramming, 3-4 sentences every day this week, so about 15 minutes a day of grammar. In Writing Strands, he continued with building paragraphs. His essay this week was about preferring Babypie to The Tank, as far as siblings go.

History saw the end of our formal lessons about Ancient Greece. We’ll do the Greek pantheon next week, but we finished up topics of math, science, medicine, and Greek home life. Essay topics were influential Greek mathematicians and the difference between childhood in Greece and modern times.

Science was all about color and light, but it was completely hands on, no written materials. He really enjoyed running around with Eclectic Girl doing all the experiments.

Co-op went well. We’re wrapping up poetry and our class decided to name our upcoming book Chairs with Brains. All students have to have their final drafts in to me for publication.

The Tank’s conference was this week. He is adored by his two preK teachers, who love how he says “nuttin” when they ask him what’s bothering him and how excited he gets when he gets leftovers packed for lunch. They aren’t concerned about his speech issues, but offered advice on how to proceed with interventions if we were concerned. He can recognize all his classmates names in writing!

Babypie is trying to talk. She says “hey/hi” and “dada” (only to Officer Daddyman) regularly, and sometimes says “hey there” and something that sounds like “yeah!” She mimics sounds back sometimes, repeating the first sound of her name and Captain Science’s.

This has probably been the week where I’ve most felt like we accomplished nothing. We did no typing, no logic, no music appreciation. We slogged slowly through our materials, sometimes taking all day to get things done. Patchfire assures me this is normal and that November is just the month that makes you want to throw in your towel. I don’t want to quit — it hasn’t even crossed my mind — but I do need to find something to revitalize us. I think it’s good that we’re wrapping up Greece, because I need a change. Rome is nice in the fall, I hear.

Lately, though, I’ve been working on techniques to help us regain our equilibrium on days like this. Taking a moment to step back and find our center can quickly repair the rift between us before it grows into a gulf and can get us back on track with our work for the day, two happy people.

Today is a good example of how we’re making this new system work. Captain Science had completely forgotten how to do direct objects, despite coming back to this topic multiple times in the last few months. He just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pick it out of a sentence. His attempts at diagramming it were becoming more and more ludicrous, with words and lines all over the place. I was fussing at him for not being able to do it, why can’t he remember, is he not making an effort, ARGH! We were both starting to raise our voices and making emphatic, angry hand gestures (have I mentioned he’s sort of, just a little bit, exactly like me?). I was very close to just screaming at him and he was very close to weeping.

I took some advice my mother’s friend once gave her about dealing with errant husbands, “Make him a sandwich.” In this case, I took a deep breath and fed him a cookie, then tried to figure out the source of both our frustration.

My issue(s): I know he has a photographic memory, so I interpret his inability to remember something as an intentional failure to remember, which results in a feeling that he’s not trying and that he doesn’t pay attention to my teaching. In other words, it’s mostly not about him, but about me.
His issue: He doesn’t understand that value of knowing about direct objects, so he makes a subconscious decision not to bank the memory. In other words, it’s not at all about me, but about the relevance of it.
The solution(s) for me: Stop taking it personally. He’s NOT not remembering to spite me or because he disrespects me. He just doesn’t see why the subject is important, which is my failure, not his. The things that aggravate me about him are surely the traits in myself that I don’t like. Don’t get pissy w/ him about that.
The solution(s) for him: Explain to him why grammar in general has value. I know he responds well to the idea of coming across, in speech and in writing, as intelligent and well-spoken, partially because he likes people to know he is smart, but mainly because being able to express himself well is important to him. He is a child who needs to be heard and understood. When I told him that proper grammar makes him sound intelligent and educated, and that throughout his life, using language correctly will help him be understood and respected, I could a visible shift as he re-engaged with the subject. Go back through the topic in two different media (a quick online and then diagramming on paper) and also allow him to explain verbally which part of speech is which, using playful examples (“‘They ran home.’ Are they running the home? NO! Home is where they’re going, not what they’re running. So the home isn’t the direct object. If I say ‘I run the home,” is home a direct object? YES! And it’s also true, because I RUN THE HOME.”) to get him laughing.

Within a matter of minutes, we were being silly, giggling, and he could diagram all three example sentences perfectly, as well as identify with 100% accuracy whether a word was the direct object or predicate noun. Once informed of the relevance, he could turn that memory back on in his brain and use it. Cookies were eaten, work was finished, and now we’re having a grand fine time while he reads his Ancient Greek history lesson for the day and flails in his chair. “I feel suddenly wild!” he just said to me. I’m glad. Better wild (and happy) than miserable and tearful.

I’m glad we found our center. I’m proud of both of us.

Captain Science keeps snapping his glasses. They’re semi-glued until the new pairs arrive. The kid (and his brother, who has broken half of the Captain’s broken pairs) is rough on glasses. He’s twitchy, fidgety, glasses-falling-apart unhinged. The sound of his cast scraping against the desk is making my skin crawl and he keeps whispering to himself. Send help before I invoke The Slappening*.

Seriously, though, it’s hard to give too much of a damn about Ancient Greece or the parts of speech when you’re expecting an ark to go sailing by any moment now.

Ark-related question (from me, not Captain Science, who doesn’t give a hoot): Did Noah supposedly save two cockroaches on the ark? Or did the cockroaches just hold their breath and walk along the bottom? What about two mosquitoes? If so, why? This is one reason why it’s so good that we’re secular homeschoolers, because I have no answers to questions like these! See, even my mind is wandering.

*My friend Heather’s term for that moment when you’re just going to lose it and start grabbing anyone within arms’ reach and start slappin’ ‘em.

In history, this week, Captain Science covered the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt. He finally finished The Golden Goblet, but barely got started on Mara, Daughter of the Nile. I, however, did pick up this book and am rather enjoying it. He’ll have to read it by the end of next week. I wrote about his history lesson in greater detail on Wednesday, so not much need to say more here.

In grammar, he did a review of Growing With Grammar chapter 3 and a quiz on the materials covered (mainly capitalization). He did chapters 4.1-4.3, covering action verbs, direct objects, and linking verbs, with sentence diagramming for the direct objects.

We started a new writing curriculum, Writing Strands, which, while not the most intense or rigorous curriculum, is certainly more enjoyable. The Captain didn’t balk at doing the work for Day 1 and Day 2 in a single sitting. We’ll be doing more than a day’s worth of work a day, because the lessons are a bit light. If this encourages him to write, though, I’m all about it. It’s more light-hearted, to be sure.

Math didn’t get off to a great start. Due to complete lack of reading directions, Captain Science couldn’t pass the bridge in Life of Fred: Fractions after chapters 6-10 the first four times he tried it. He knew the material, but didn’t write the answers as requested, or didn’t give the part of the answer required, or didn’t reduce all the way. Maybe it was because it was Dawdlin Day Thursday, but kid could NOT focus. Today (Friday), he did chapter 11 with no problem. Distracted Boy is distracted.

In science, Captain Science and Eclectic Girl started magnetism. I had to run off to a dentist appointment, so I left the Captain at Patchfire’s house while he did his science lesson. When I returned, I found that he had not actually written down the answers on two of the five sheets of work, which did not please me. He had to finish them at home, but I can’t vouch for their accuracy. I think Patchfire is going to have to knock some heads together.

We listened to one music lesson this week, on Leonard Bernstein. I can’t say if the Captain was impressed or not, though he did seem a little more interested in Bernstein then he was in Bach or Beethoven.

Co-op is going well, though he might end up being booted from Officer Daddyman’s martial arts class if he doesn’t behave. He’s alternating between wild and apathetic. I don’t know if this is a “my dad is my teacher” thing or he just doesn’t want to do it and won’t speak up. He’d better figure that out, though, because he’s about one more bad lesson away from spending that class period in study hall working on his writing.

The Tank continues to love preschool. He got kicked in his face (accidentally) by another boy on Thursday, but is otherwise pleased with the whole thing. He’s brought home painted pictures of apples, pictures of apples with real seeds pasted to them, painted pictures made by using half an apple as a stamp, and a note about his favorite color of apple. I’m sensing a theme here.

Babypie is still working on her crawling, but has mainly mastered crawling in place, which is hilarious for me, but frustrating for her. She crawls and crawls, but never makes it anywhere! I am kind of feeling the same way this week.

Captain Science decided to test our new “if you don’t get it done during the pre-established time frame, it’ll be tacked on at the end of the day in lieu of fun stuff” policy. It’s 6 o’clock and he is still working on his writing assignment and has a few more history things to do. He dawdled over his history and only got half of it done, so I had him put it away.

We moved on to grammar (possessive nouns). He didn’t follow the simple instruction to read the chapter first, so he plowed right through all the work and did it completely incorrectly. I had him read the chapter again and redo just the first section. He did it incorrectly again. I had him read the chapter aloud and he finally got it right. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, and he has actually demonstrated in the past that he can use possessive nouns correctly in sentences, but he just would not pay attention to what he was supposed to do.

We finally finished grammar and started writing a little after lunch, and he’s been working on that ever since. It’s not hard — making a simple outline from a paragraph, making short lists of active verbs, adjectives, and -ly words, and then using those to write a short paragraph. It shouldn’t have taken him longer than an hour to do all of it, but he’s fought tooth and nail.

Because he wouldn’t do his work in a timely manner, he missed out on a trip to Nana’s house and on going to the McDonald’s playground. He was upset about that, so hopefully it inspires him to stay motivated in the future. This has been terribly frustrating.

After spending an hour staring at history work this morning, Captain Science managed to write one whole line…and it had to be rewritten later for accuracy. He’s currently muddling through his chapter summary, which had to be rewritten as well, due to gems like “ainchent Sumeria” and “they fell to Babylon though.” This draft is focusing on spelling the vocabulary words correctly and on expanding ideas for more complex sentences. He’s doing well so far, just going sloooooowly.

The Tank had his Tea With Teacher event at the local preschool. While the teachers are nice and I’m sure Tank will do well there, I’m already regretting the decision to send him away for preschool. I know it’s the right choice for this year, but it just creates a hustle and bustle that isn’t conducive to an easy morning. I think we’ll be fine on every day but Wednesday, when Officer Daddyman is working his part time and it’ll be just me with the kids. Getting Tank to school while keeping the Captain on task is easier said than done.

I need two of me. Sure, I essentially cloned myself three times through my children, but I need a full-sized, capable clone to take over at least one of the tasks I have to do. She can nurse Babypie, drive The Tank to preschool, or help Captain Science with grammar, while I manage the other two.

I guess complaint at this point isn’t fair, though. We’re still trying to get into a routine, and we’ll find a new one that works for everyone. On the whole, I’m much more relaxed than I thought I would be. Even if it takes Captain Science two or three hours to get through history, his day is still shorter, more efficient, and more educational than the alternative.

Maybe some pushups or jumping jacks will get his head out of the clouds and back to Sumer and Akkad.