The Unlikely Schoolhouse

I smell a challenge

2011-12-13T12:19:00.006-05:00

The 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge, that is! I think I've decided not to take on the Jane Austen and Well-Educated Mind challenges at the same time, but there will definitely be some Austen and WEM recommendations among my 52. Because I already have so many books on my personal to-read list, I'm going to start listing my 52 here and add/cross off as the challenge progresses. Here we go (in no particular order):

Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Deborah Stipek Ph.D., Kathy Seal)
Mind in the Making (Ellen Galinsky)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch (Dai Sijie)
Consequences (Penelope Lively)
The Road to Lichfield (Penelope Lively)
Moon Tiger (Penelope Lively)
The Angel's Game (Carlos Ruiz Zafón)
Mr. Hartston's Most Excellent Encyclopedia of Useless Information: The Supreme Miscellany of Fantastic Facts (Harry Oliver)
Bad Mother (Ayelet Waldman)
The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen)
How to Be Alone (Jonathan Franzen)
The Discomfort Zone (Jonathan Franzen)
Dreaming in Hindi (Katherine Russell Rich)
The Scenic Route (Binnie Kirshenbaum)
The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst)
The Forgotten Garden (Kate Morton)
The Kitchen House (Kathleen Grissom)
The Violets of March (Sarah Jio)
The Winter Sea (Susanna Kearsley)
The Lost Wife (Alyson Richman)
The Greater Journey : Americans in Paris
Great Expectations (Dickens)
Sense & Sensibility (Austen)
Walden (Thoreau)
Gulliver's Travels (Swift)
Mansfield Park (Austen)
Pride & Prejudice (Austen)
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (Tuchman)
Blue Nights (Joan Didion)
The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
Salvador (Joan Didion)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Heart of the Sea
Drowning Ruth
A City So Grand (Puleo)

So that's what I have so far. Some are ambitious (Walden, for example, has defeated me twice so far), and many will be a snap. I'm just so excited to have a goal to get myself reading more!

Weekly Report--10/8/11

2011-10-08T18:19:00.005-04:00

I almost forgot that I wanted to start doing these again! Our weeks end on Saturday; we take Thursdays and Fridays off because those are DH's days off, and Saturdays are our "extra stuff" days (logic exercises, history and Latin tests, math games, etc.). So my Weekly Reports will usually be on Saturdays.

After I dumped all my frustration in this morning's blog post, I took a good look at the day's schedule and realized that we're not quite as far behind as I thought we are. I expected today to be a complete loss, but I forgot that Saturdays are relatively easy days anyway. And B turned out to be feeling a bit better today, so mean mama that I am, I made the girl work!

This week was our first week back to school for the 2011-2012 year. Thankfully we school year-round, so I'm not as under-the-gun as I might be otherwise! We had other firsts this week too: our first Latin lessons, our first week of formal work for J, and our first meeting of the Mother-Daughter Book Club (MDBC). Our first MDBC selection was A Little Princess, which B was sure she'd hate. Turns out she loves it as much as I did when I was her age! We read the first five chapters, then we went to Panera for an early morning breakfast to discuss it. B loved the grown-upness of it all and can't wait to do it again. She's even looking forward to the other books I picked out so far (Island of the Blue Dolphins, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, and Me, Elizabeth).

Latin was...interesting. There was a meltdown or two initially, but once we got the hang of the LfC style, things smoothed out. I think next week will go even better than this past week did.

J's liking her work. She re-memorized The Caterpillar from First Language Lessons, which she's quite proud of. And while FLL didn't work AT ALL for B at that age (she hated the repetition), J is thriving on it. She loves to do her handwriting workbook, though she's still struggling with forming her letters. And we've read three books together for the Mother-Daughter Read-Along Club (MDRAC)--I read a page and she reads a page, and when we finish, we add the book to her achievement list.

As for the rest--math, WWE, geography, etc.--we're cruising along. We're still not getting to all the subjects on our schedule (mainly science), but I'm tweaking in the hope that we'll begin fitting them in. I got some great advice on my favorite HSing board, so hopefully the changes will help :-)

On to a new week!

Behind already?!

2011-10-08T08:12:00.002-04:00

Argh!!! I need one of the "banging head on wall" emoticons. We are already behind, and it's only (for us) Day 6 of the dratted school year. Day 1 was a beautiful day. On Day 2, J got sick--AGAIN! B was acting sick too, and melted down when I tried to do school work with her, so I scrapped the day figuring we were all going to get hit. Turns out B was not sick; she was just not prepared to do schoolwork when "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was on the TV upstairs. So on Day 3, we had a little talk about it, and school went on as planned. Even J, who had just a 24-hour bug, asked to do her schoolwork again. Lots of work (but still not all of it--that's a whole other blog post) got done over the next few days. We even did some catch-up work on Thursday, which is supposed to be an off day. However...on Friday, B woke up miserable and mopey, and I thought it was just because we had co-op that day. She ended up at Mimi and Bubba's house for the day, and by 5:00, it was apparent that the 24-hour bug had finally reached her. Poor kid still had a temp of 101.4, even with 300 milligrams of ibuprofen in her!

So here we are on Day 6, with a full slate of work to do, and I have a sick kid who's doubly miserable because two of her favorite cousins are in town visiting, and she's too sick to go over and play :-( I'm miserable because we're falling behind again. J, our little thumb-sucking, germ-harboring patient zero, is happy though, because she has dance today AND she's well enough to go visiting with my mom.

Vitamins and hand sanitizer for all *sigh*

First official day of the 2011-2012 school year

2011-10-02T23:42:00.002-04:00

Yes, we're late. Very late, in fact. We were traveling at the end of the summer, and while we did some "beach school" in North Carolina, we didn't plant to start our school year until the third week of September. Then I got sick. Then both kids got sick. Then Dennis got sick. The house was was a wreck from all the sickness. Then our school year social schedule launched (as well as the new co-op we're a part of this year)...and, well, needless to say, we're getting a later start than I'd really planned! But we're back as of today, and the train is roaring full speed ahead.

J was totally gung-ho to get back to schoolwork today and kept asking me for more. We didn't get all her work done, but we got FLL, Funnix, and handwriting done.

B was less than totally gung-ho, but she plugged away diligently, and we got math, WWE, geography, and GWG done. Miraculously, we also did our first-ever Latin lesson! It was really interesting and kind of fun--at least for me, given my background with Spanish and (some) Italian. B was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing, but she really enjoyed seeing the connection between Latin and many of the words we use every day, and she liked hearing me connect Spanish and Italian words to the Latin words as well.

Due to a glitch in my online order, my Dynamic Literacy student books still haven't arrived, so we'll have to start that tomorrow. I also didn't manage to get science scheduled in, so we'll start that tomorrow too. Thankfully, we tend to school year-round to make our schedules a bit more flexible, so even with our late start, we should still be able to wrap fourth grade up in a reasonable amount of time (i.e., in time to start fifth grade!).

In other news, J is really enjoying both her dance and singing classes, and the co-op is going well. We're eager to get going on a bunch of fun outings we've booked via Groupon and Living Social (Please Touch Museum, the much-loved Bronx Zoo, etc.), we have an upcoming trip to the excellent Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, and the homeschool days at the Adventure Aquarium are coming. And we have some of our favorite family members arriving in town this week.

I'm already exhausted!

Our bundles of joy

2011-06-01T21:55:00.002-04:00

The eggs laid by the mourning doves that made a nest on our fence post hatched about a week ago. It's just been in the last few days that the parents have felt comfortable leaving the nest without the other parent right nearby. Tonight we got a good shot of the little ones in the nest alone. Personally, I think they're too young to be left without supervision. Dennis and I are debating whether we should make a call to DYFS or not!

Goodbye sad landscaping, hello giant water bill

2011-06-01T21:43:00.005-04:00

We just had some of our landscaping redone, much to our neighbors' relief. Here are some pics:

Recent Developments

2011-05-27T20:28:00.005-04:00

Here's what we did today (and we squeezed a little Girl Scouts in between):

Untitled from Unlikely Schoolhouse on Vimeo.

And here they are with their bling:

Fourth Grade Is Starting to Take Shape

2011-05-17T20:42:00.009-04:00

Now I know why so many people say they take the whole summer to plan. It's very difficult to plan AND finish off the school year! But we're plugging away. Science is going to wrap into fourth grade no matter what, so all I'm really feeling pressed to finish are math, history, and WWE, and we can make it happen. Anyway, next year is going to be jam-packed. Here's the Tall Oaks Academy curriculum for the 2011-2012 fourth grade year:

Math: RightStart Level D

Logic: Logic Countdown and whatever I can squeeze in via this free resource I downloaded a long time ago (Brainy Acts, or something?)

Science: We have to finish Winter Promise Animal Habitats - Ecology, Flora & Fauna and The World Around Me (yes, we're doing both, that's why it's taking so long)--when we're done, we'll start Elemental Science Biology for the Logic Stage.

History: Story of the World : Middle Ages

Geography: Evan Moor's Daily Geography Practice, Grade 4

Writing: Writing with Ease 3 and The Writer's Jungle

Grammar: This one I'm still not sure about--probably Growing with Grammar 3, but if I can get my act together, I'll try and implement Michael Clay Thompson's Island Series

Spelling: All About Spelling (Bella doesn't really need this, but Julie will enjoy, and Bella will benefit from listening in anyway)

Literature: Mother-Daughter Book Club (Bella and I will do mini-discussions off a book list that I still need to put together)

Vocabulary: Dynamic Literacy Foundations Level

Latin: Latin for Children A (for Bella) and Song School Latin (for Julie mainly, but they both love the songs, so it might just be a fun thing they both do)

Bi-weekly or monthly artist and composer studies (very light, just for exposure--I already have a bunch of materials and picture study has been a huge hit in the past).

(Disclaimer: I'm not an affiliate for any of these programs; I just like links and find them helpful on others' blogs.)

I still have to pull together my Book Club reading list and the stuff for the artist/composer studies. I'm also currently trying to unravel the Gordian Knot that is Homeschool Tracker Plus in the hope that it will help me stay sane next year. I'll post more as I put those things together. For now, the list above is the culmination of hours and hours of research and decision making (and For Sale board trawling!).

Stay tuned for more...

It has been a very long three weeks

2011-05-07T21:18:00.004-04:00

Julie's behavior has been absolutely horrible these last few weeks. For awhile I'd felt like we made a turnaround, and then things just slid back downhill. After talking with my mom for awhile about it today, I realized that she was on pink and purple liquid fever reducers for a few days, then pink antibiotics for over a week, then it was Easter (candy galore, even though I tried to monitor), and then we just made the mistake of allowing a few things we shouldn't have (tiny pink marshmallow bunnies, anyone?), and then my mom accidentally gave her Triscuits (TRISCUITS?! Why do Triscuits need food dyes?!) that had red in the seasoning. All in all, it has been a very, very long few weeks.

There have been a lot of studies on the effects of artificial food dyes on children, dating back to the 1970s. Some showed that food dyes could cause behavioral problems in children, and others didn't. But a few years ago, an analysis of 21 of the most conclusive studies found compelling evidence that, indeed, artificial dyes could contribute to hyperactivity, restlessness, and attention problems in some children – particularly those with ADHD. What's more, the studies suggested that removing dyes from those children's diet was a quarter to half as effective in reducing those symptoms as giving the kids Ritalin or other stimulants. In other words, certain kids with ADHD might not need drugs if the artificial dyes were removed from their diets.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500803_162-4151130-500803.html

Another Almost-Wordless Wednesday: A Rare Moment of Camaraderie

2010-03-31T20:57:00.008-04:00

I was taking too long to get to them at bedtime (coincidentally, responding to a WTM post about bizarre and humorous ways of dealing with sibling squabbling). When I finally headed into J's room, this is what I found:

B was reading to J--something she rarely does--from Miss Spider's Treasury. It was a welcome change of pace!

(Just pretend you don't see the mess in the background, mmmkay? Thanks!)

Almost-Wordless Wednesday: Fun with Leaf Blowers

2010-03-17T12:48:00.010-04:00

I looked out the window today to find D and B doing this:

Hooray for spring!!! :-)

I've joined the ranks

2009-03-30T11:57:00.006-04:00

I'm now pathetically obsessed with the Twilight series. I finished the third book on Thursday, but the library hasn't received my interlibrary loan copy of Breaking Dawn from the lending branch yet. I'm in withdrawal...

UPDATE:

I just checked my library account online for the 456,921st time today and IT'S IN! Of course, now I have to go settle up my $456,921 in fines, and then I can have it. No worries. But boy, is our house going to be messy for playgroup tomorrow *sigh*

Bow to your master

2009-02-03T07:19:00.000-05:00

Untitled from Unlikely Schoolhouse on Vimeo.

A Mandate for Change

2008-11-05T00:25:00.007-05:00

I am proud. I am awed. I am overcome with relief and so filled with hope for this country's future and its relationship with the rest of the world that I am practically bursting at the seams. I bow my head before the next four years and believe with every fiber of my being that we are walking toward the sun.

My Hero, Zero

2008-10-17T17:06:00.004-04:00

After many years of complete stupidity, and many more years of only mild stupidity, and then a few years of actual self-restraint and hard work, we have...paid off all our credit cards! They're done. Multiply our stupidity by zero and you get, at long last, zero. What a relief. Celebrate with me by having hot dogs for dinner instead of going out to Baja Fresh like I'm dying to do!

In honor of the day, I offer you a bit of nostalgia. Zero is indeed a wonderful thing.

Where have I been?

2008-10-13T02:57:00.006-04:00

To Jupiter and back. For anyone who hasn't heard the news, my company has been acquired. We're in the process of merging and have to finish off our editorial calendar--which consists of an insane number of reports and which would, in a normal year, take us until March or April of the following year to complete--by 12/31 to fulfill our current contracts. I've agreed to go back to working 40 hours per week until the end of the year.

Things have been very difficult for the past few weeks, but we seem to have come out on the other side of this tunnel--at least for now. I hope that I'll be able to resume our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

Our little chanteuse

2008-09-19T10:33:00.009-04:00

Speaking of Julie...

Untitled from Melissa C. Finkelstein on Vimeo.

Our first Weekly Report of the 2008-2009 school year

2008-09-19T10:33:00.007-04:00

We had a good week! And may I just say, I HEART LESSON PLANS. Seriously, the lesson plans I made are helping me SO much, really keeping me on track. They make my days so much easier: Instead of having to start from scratch every morning, trying to figure out where we left off yesterday, what I had thought of but not written down for today, what we didn't do yesterday that I wanted to add in today, etc., I can just look at my Excel sheet and see where we stand. It's so freeing.

This week we did some combined history/science, reading Born with a Bang and discussing the Big Bang theory, space, matter, the planets, and more. Today we're going to watch a United Streaming video clip about the Milky Way. It's meant for high-schoolers, but is simple enough that Bella will understand the majority of it, and it will provide more fodder for discussion.

We also started using Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young. I really like this resource, and I think Bell will too, when she gets used to it. The first few lessons had us discussing a painting and a poem, which she enjoyed. There's also a drawing to be done, which she always seems to balk at (she's a perfectionist, so she doesn't like to draw anything that's outside her comfort zone, which at the moment consists solely of flowers). I'm going to strongly encourage her to do the drawing though, because I'd like her to branch out a bit in this area. We'll see how that goes!

So far, she hasn't liked Spelling Workout, but that' s mainly because the handwriting frustrates her, and the first lessons are all handwriting. I let that fall by the wayside last year (bad mommy!), so we're going to go back to where we left off in HWT and start over. She seems to have forgotten everything we learned, so...Bella, meet Square One.

She loves Right Start Math, as always. When I say it's time for math, she cheers. (She gets that from her father, I'm sure of it.) The lesson have been very simple--we're still in the beginning, review portion of the book. It's nice to be able to rely on this great program that I know she enjoys.

We read our first lit selection, The Five Chinese Brothers, and discussed using some of the recommended questions in Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus. Both girls really enjoyed the story, and Bella liked answering the questions. We're also reading Mary Stewart's The Little Broomstick at bedtime. This is my all-time favorite children's book. I must have read it 20 times when I was a kid, and then I forgot the title for years and couldn't come up with the book anywhere. One day, around my birthday, a package arrived in the mail from my Aunt Sue, whose book it was that I'd borrowed repeatedly as a kid. She'd come across a hardcover version at a book sale, bought it for 50 cents or so, and sent it to me. I've been waiting almost six years for Bella to be old enough to enjoy this book, and I'm loving it every minute of it!

And finally, our REAL Science group has gotten off track temporarily, but next week we plan to go to a local nature center and do our plot survey. In the meantime, we kept ourselves busy with this:

Near as I can figure, she's some kind of sphinx, but I haven't found an exact match. Either way, she's the biggest, fattest caterpillar I've ever seen in my life. Julie spotted her on our patio and we looked her up, then stuck her in our caterpillar tent (coincidentally, also a gift from Aunt Sue and family!). If you look carefully at the jar o' dirt, you can see a hole where she burrowed down into it.

She'll spend a few weeks in there and emerge as a some kind of moth, and then we'll let her go. In the meantime, I have an open jar of dirt on my windowsill. With Julie around, that's just ASKING for trouble. Should be interesting!

We've finally started!

2008-09-15T13:49:00.003-04:00

I'm so energized I feel like I'm vibrating (or maybe that's the coffee, LOL)! We flew through a math lesson this morning, then read Born with a Bang and discussed how all matter in the universe has always existed and will continue to exist. I used the analogy of a tree using water, nutrients, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to grow and create fruit, which falls to the ground, rots into the soil to nourish it and feed the growing seed, and how nothing is actually lost, it just changes form and is used in different ways. She listened thoughtfully and then said, "So, it's like recycling?" I wanted to hug her! I love watching the light bulb go on, and she was very proud of herself.

We have Handwriting Without Tears to do this afternoon, and we can call it a full day. Woohoo!

Ooooh, right. Now I remember...

2008-09-12T11:20:00.003-04:00

...why we only get her hair cut once every three years.

The haircut is done. After I hacked and chopped on Wednesday, Bella agreed to go to a local kids' salon to have it finished on Thursday. Everything went well...until we got to the salon. Suffice it to say that Bella was NOT amenable to getting in the chair, but I couldn't leave her hair like that, so some decisions were made, some (ok, many) hysterical tears were shed, some hair was cut, and we departed. By an hour after the visit, she was in the back of the car (on the way to grandma's) with a mirror, ooohing and aaahing over her bouncy new hairstyle. She looks fabulous, and she loves her hair, but it was traumatic for all involved. Thank goodness it's short enough to let it grow in for awhile...like maybe until she's 12?

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-10T20:47:00.003-04:00

Tropical Storm Hanna, Birthday Edition

2008-09-06T21:20:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow is this kid's 6th birthday:

Happy birthday, baby!

(This is a Choose Your Own Adventure book she's holding. I read almost all of the ones that were available when I was a kid. Never in a million a years did I envision myself buying one of these for my 6-year-old someday. But that's another post.)

THIS kid's birthday isn't until Thursday:

But watching her sister open her presents was just too much for her, so we let her open one of hers. She chose the package that contained this dress, which is just too cute for words.

This guy's birthday isn't until December, but isn't he handsome?

We're also riding out tropical storm Hanna here today. So far, so good. We settled in and watched Nim's Island, and baked these:

Just like the name says, these are the best chocolate chip cookies you'll ever have. Seriously.

And Bella did a little of this out in the pouring rain:

Julie napped.

What a day!

Making evolution FUN!

2008-09-06T18:22:00.009-04:00

Here are the books we picked up at the library today:

From Lava to Life : The Universe Tells Our Earth Story and Mammals Who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story by Jennifer Morgan (NJ resident and fellow Rutgers grad)
Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters
Dinosaur Claws and Crests by Joanne Mattern
The Great Dinosaur Search by Rosie Heywood
The Best Book of Early People by Margaret Hynes

We've also got Usborne's Who Were the First People? coming from a Paperbackswap.com member (oh, how I love that site!).

I'm thinking we're going to start with a very light version of the Big Bang, cruise through an age-appropriate discussion of evolution, and then spend some time on dinosaurs and the first people--maybe 4 weeks of prehistory? I also want to do our first lapbook at some point during this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants experience, but--surprise, surprise!--there aren't exactly a lot of pre-designed lapbook units on evolution. I know I can find one on dinosaurs, so if I can't rise to the occasion and design my own, that might be the way we go.

In general, though, I was able to find some great ideas to make this prehistory study fun:

Little Acorns Treehouse prehistory ideas (Aside to Kate: I came across this while Googling for ideas, and I knew the name sounded familiar. Sure enough, I checked your blogroll and there it was, LOL!)
Land of the Wee Ones dinosaur ideas
PBS's evolution site

I'll report back with any ideas and lapbook designs I happen to develop. Don't hold your breath, though!

T-minus 8 days and counting

2008-09-06T15:25:00.003-04:00

We start school in 8 days, and I'm only halfway done with my lesson plans. In fact, I've been halfway done with my lesson plans for about...3 months now. I can't seem to get started again after the initial burst of gung-ho. But I really need to get my butt in gear this week, because I am way, way more effective when I have a plan to guide me.

Part of what's holding me back is my plan to cover some prehistory before launching our Ancients study via SOTW. I have loads of books on hold at the library (seriously, like, way too many) on the Big Bang, evolution, dinosaurs, the first people, etc. But with someone to lead me by the nose, I'm at a loss. I also want to sneak a lapbook in during this prehistory survey, but again, I'm at loose ends here.

Also, I'm starting to try to factor Julie into our weeks now, via Letter of the Week. That sounds so easy, right? But it's turning to be more problematic than I expected. I think the problem here is that I have too many ideas and too few children/too little time! I need to narrow my focus, and I'm not entirely sure how.

Well, I have one more week to figure it all out. Wish me luck!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2008-08-27T11:44:00.005-04:00

Nature's bounty, courtesy of K and D's garden. Thanks K!

What a great idea! Rainbow Jars...

2008-08-25T12:26:00.006-04:00

I came across this great idea on the blog of an Etsy seller whose products I adore (and who is, it turned out, a fellow MDC mama and friend of a friend!). Here's a link.

I love this idea, and so will the girls. Julie's all-time favorite pastime is (surreptitiously) pouring water from receptacle to receptacle--usually in the kitchen or living room, where I then have to clean up the mess *sigh* This activity will honor her urge to pour (on the patio) and will get them both outside too.

Thanks to The Rowdy Pea!

The Book Jar list

2008-08-24T10:15:00.005-04:00

One of our goals for this "first-grade" year is to bury ourselves in good literature. To that end, I finally compiled, from many, many sources, a huge list of books that I'd like to read with Bella (or have her read herself) in the next year or two (or three, or four!). My plan is to print out the book titles, cut out the titles and fold them up, and deposit them all in a Book Jar. When we near the end of each readaloud, she'll pick a new book from the jar, and we have to read it (or at least start it), no matter what it is. She has a tendency to to balk at books I choose, even when I know they'll be perfect for her, so this is designed to be fun for her and useful for me, and to give us lots of variety. Of course, many of the books on the list have sequels and follow-ups, so if she wants to continue in a series, we'll do that for as long as the interest is there.

Bella's reading capabilities are at a second/third grade level. Even so, some of these books are picture books that I'm just really looking forward to, some are possibly at a higher reading level than she's ready for (though we've worked our way through some pretty high-level books, surprisingly), some are "twaddle" that I know she'll just plain enjoy--we're just looking to spend a lot of time reading :-).

So, without further ado, here's the (gigantic) list I've put together. I hope it helps someone who's putting together a list of their own. I'll post a pic of the Book Jar in action when it's finally completed. Feel free to comment on books you think should be added or removed!

A Little Princess
A Mouse Called Wolf
~~A New Coat for Anna~~
~~Abel's Island (William Steig)~~
~~Aesop for Children~~
Babe
Baby Island
Ballet Shoes
Balto and the Great Race
Bears on Hemlock Mountain, The
Beatrix Potter Tales
Billy and Blaze
Blue Fairy Book (Andrew Lang)
Bread and Jam for Frances
Burgess Bird Book for Children
By the Great Horn Spoon
Caddie Woodlawn
Catwings 4 Book Box Set
Chancey and the Grand Rascal
~~Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)~~
Charlie Muffin's Miracle Mouse
~~Charlotte's Web~~
Clementine
Daisy Comes Home
Despereaux
Detectives in Togas
Dominic
Dr DeSoto
Ella Enchanted
~~Encyclopedia Brown~~
Fantastic Flying Journey (Gerald Malcom Durrell)
~~Fantastic Mr. Fox~~
Favorite Poems of Childhood
Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Finn Family Moomintroll
Five Children and It
~~Five Chinese Brothers~~
~~Flat Stanley~~
Floss
Follow My Leader
Freddy the Pig
Funny Frank
Ginger Pye (Eleanor Estes)
~~Gooney Bird Green~~
Grandma's Attic books
Gregory’s Shadow
Hannah
Heidi
Henry Huggins
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
Homer Price
Hundred Dresses, The
It Could Always Be Worse
James and the Giant Peach
James Herriot book of animal stories
James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Julius
~~Just So Stories~~
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prarie
Little Pear
Loudmouse (Richard Wilbur)
Mary Poppins
Mother West Wind's Children
Mountain Born
Mr Popper's Penguins
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
~~My Father's Dragon~~
~~Nate the Great~~
Next Spring an Oriole
Old Mother West Wind
Owls in the Family
~~Ox-cart Man~~
Pioneer Cat
Poppy
Princess and the Goblin
Puss in Boots and Other Stories (Anne Rockwell)
Rabbitt Hill (Robert Lawson)
Raddedy Andy
Raggedy Ann
Ragweed
Railway Children, The
Ralph S. Mouse (Beverly Cleary)
Red Sails to Capri (Ann Weil)
Runaway Ralph
Sarah Plain and Tall
~~Secret Garden~~
Skunk Lane (Brom Hoban)
Smoky by Will James
Sophie's Snail
Strawberry Girl
~~Stuart Little~~
Swallows and Amazons
The Biggest Bear
~~The Borrowers~~
~~The Boxcar Children~~
The Courage of Sarah Noble
The Cricket in Times Square
The Enormous Egg (Oliver Butterworth)
The Family Under the Bridge (Natalie Savage Carlson)
The Firebird
The Gifts of Wali Dad (Shepard)
The Great Brain
The Indian in the Cupboard
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
The Littles
The Magic Finger
The Magic Fish
The Matchlock Gun
~~The Midnight Fox~~
The Milly-Molly Mandy Storybook
The Moon of the Moles
The Original Winnie the Pooh books
The Red Lion
The Red Wolf
The Rescuers (4-book series) (Margery Sharp)
The Saturdays
~~The Storm (Lighthouse Series) Rylant~~
The Story of Ferdinand
The Tough Winter (Robert Lawson)
The Twenty One Balloons
~~The Velveteen Rabbit~~
The Water Horse
The Year of Miss Agnes
They Called her Molly Pitcher
Thornton Burgess Animal Stories
Trumpet and the Swan
Understood Betsy
Voyages of Dr. Dolittle
Water Babies
Wheels on the School
Wind in the Willows

The 17-year cicadas, up close and personal

2008-08-22T20:31:00.002-04:00

Check out this terrific video, posted on my favorite HSing site by Jane in NC. I never knew I could feel so emotional about giant, army green bugs *sniff*!

What's better than gorgeous Blogger templates? Gorgeous, FREE Blogger templates!

2008-08-18T17:26:00.005-04:00

If you're in the market for a new look for your Blogger blog, check out Lena Toews' site. Her work is simply gorgeous. I looked through a gazillion free (and not so free) templates today, and hers were the nicest ones, and they actually WORK, unlike some others I tested. She has a great eye. Thanks for sharing, Lena!

Well well well, look who's back...

2008-08-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

It's me, of course! I've decided to completely revamp the blog, and Wordpress is not particularly amenable to that, so here we are. New school year, new blog, right?

We've been on one heck of a wild ride these past few weeks, but I'm too worn out to even post about it right now. Suffice it to say that decisions have finally been made, and I'm so relieved. I'm so looking forward to the start of the new school year!

Race against the clock...

2008-01-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

As usual, I should be working. I have to have this report posted by midnight. But no, here I am, slacking...