Learning By The Way

Caption anyone?

I happened to come across this very disquieting image in my websurfing last week.
Hello Kitty HK
I hope noone lost their lunch over that. The only thing I can think of is that it was some sort of punishment. Just tell me what the poor, misguided soul did to deserve such a thing, and I will avoid it. Forever.

Lest you think that Duracoat is always a bad idea, I present you with the following much more pleasing flights of fancy.
Western Diamondback
Coral Snake
Tribal theme
Bengal Tiger

Ok, did that get the Duracoat creativity juices flowing? Help Jim out with his double AK-47 Gatlin project conundrum. If you do end up making a suggestion, I’d love it if you would post a comment about it here.

Drawer Geeks is a website where various artists are given the same theme to work on, but free reign beyond that. One of their assignments, by far the coolest in my opinion, was to take a picture of a monster which was drawn by a child, and redraw it expertly. My children thoroughly enjoyed the pictures, and I’m pretty sure this illustrates some very deep concept, but I haven’t figure out what it is yet. Let me know if you figure it out.

Kid Creatures by Drawer Geeks

For the first time in known Lansberry home organized learning time history, we completed 4 projects in the same morning.

–Math: Toby is almost done with his 4A book, thus was motivated to do a lesson in his Singapore workbook in addition to Computer Math! I ordered the 4B’s yesterday. His two older sibling are still back in fractions. Elsie will be starting 2A when the books arrive.

–Bible: The children helped me come up with a Bible schedule which is working well for us. They take turns reading Peter his Bible story, studying with Mama, and doing their workbooks. Then on Friday, we have a time of sharing the favorite verse, story, etc. that we learned this week. Today it was Toby with Mama, Samuel reading to Peter, with Elsie and Moriah working independently.

–Writing: Today we covered some planning and time management principles. I really like this curriculum so far! Though not specifically ‘writing’, this area must be covered to successfully complete our project. Then the children each wrote a letter to Mama and Daddy (me and James) telling us about their thoughts on our writing project, what things enable them to write their best, and asking for help in implementing their plan.

–Physics: Lesson 4 in Lego Simple Machines covers levers. We talked about what levers are and what they accomplish. It doesn’t seem right to talk about levers without mentioning Archimedes’ famous quote, I printed up this picture as an intro to our discussion. Then they built a model drumming machine, hooked it up to the motor (an automatic drumming machine- not something I really saw a need for around here…hmmm), and experimented with changing the rhythm.

Both Toby and I chose to write about our pets. Here are our vignettes:

Little Red
by Toby
He slides off his log and snaps at reptile stick and other things that Toby feeds him. “Time to eat, Red!” says Toby. Red looks around for more food in the water.

Einstein
by Theresa
Resting his fuzzy head between his paws, Einstein’s eyes droop closed. Basking on the sunshine streaming purple and orange through the stained glass window makes him sleepy. Suddenly, his ears jump up, followed quickly by his body hurtling down the stairs. A barely discernible noise has made him think there might be Intruders on His Street. Ruff, ruff, RUFF. Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! That will show them!

We went to GFS this weekend for our usual cart full of frozen veggies and fruit, and once again, I was reminded of what I did not see.

It used to be that I would pull into the parking lot of GFS and look over behind the building next door. And then I would smile. For there, just off University, amidst the hustle and bustle of Peoria life, was a barn. Tucked behind the furniture showroom, it was my secret, (albeit one shared with hundreds of other Peorians who frequent GFS). It was like a surreal painting, but instead of making me feel disjointed or uncertain like so many surreal works of art, it made me feel grounded. Connected with the flow of history. Weathered wood and typical barn architecture cried out that I was putting my roots down into a city that was going somewhere, but knew where it had been.

But now it is gone. Demolished. I’m sure that it was an entirely reasonable decision. I can think of a half dozen reason why to do so. It could turn into a haven for homeless people, rats, or partying teenagers. And surely one would not want to pay for upkeep on a barn that was inefficiently built for any urban use. And yet…

I can’t help thinking that we are too quick to do away with our history in the name of progress. A splash of Peoria piquancy was lost, leaving bland commercial sameness. And so, as I load my 6 pounds of baby carrots into the van, I sadly avert my eyes from that muddy, empty spot over yonder. And I hope we learn before it is too late that Peoria’s unique flavor should be treasured, and need not be sacrificed to appease the god of Economic Growth. Demolition can’t be undone.

My three girls

Mom
by Moriah

Sitting on the futon, holding sleeping Margary in one arm, while showing Toby how to subtract with her other hand. “Mister 40? Can I borrow one of your 10’s?” she says. And then in a deeper voice, “Yes, certainly.”

Moriah struggled with the vignette at first. Her original draft was a list rather than a story. Then Raquel helper her by saying “Make it as if you are watching her and writing about what you see.” Then the story flowed out!

Margary, happy on the streets of Philadelphia

Five Lansberrys in a telephone booth in Chinatown, Philadelphia

Since Raquel is sitting in with us on the writing lessons (writing is her specialty), I needed to find something to occupy the two littles while we were working on it. (Thankfully, Margary was taking a nice long morning nap). The frequency of Elsie and Peter’s need for mama always seems to rise the greater the inconvenience of the interruption. Since I wanted everyone in at the first writing class to be able to concentrate fully, I looked for a nice educational website that would keep their attention. I got exactly that when I stumbled upon Storyline, a program of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. Want to see Sean Astin read A Bad Case of Stripes“? This is the place to go!