Mom has officially become merely a chauffeur.  We have outside classes most days of the week now and keep adding more, yikes!  But that is the beauty of homeschooling-getting to follow new interests, try new directions of learning to spice it up and fit our learning to our current path.  New on the list, "Clay Class", which happens at the community center where we take drama on Thursdays.  All his friends are in the class, they get their hands dirty and get to act silly, and quite inexpensive for a class due to a scheduling snafu.  At least that added no more driving.  But soon we add 2 new ones-"Marine Biology" and swimming.  Now both of these are at another community center only 3 blocks from our house, there is a gym mama can use while class is going on, so it is a win-win.  We may even have a soccer class in between that, which may burn off some of that silliness before piano that day.  

Conor is loving his math class and wants to tell you why:  

I like this class  because I am with my friends, other boys I know from homeschooling these last few years.  Today we measured in meters, centimeters and kilometers.  I learned how to measure with my fingers which are about 1 cm apart.  We also play with Logic Links, which are like tiddly winks, at the end of the class.  They are puzzles that give you questions and you need to create the shape, order and color that they direct.  It makes me feel good to take this class, I am learning math in a fun way.  

I am also very excited because we are going to a cabin near a hot springs and during the day go play in the snow!  That is, we are hoping for snow!

Still no rhythm, but enjoying the ride

Well, the only constant around here is change.  We are only doing drama class on Thursdays now, but the free time after class means more free play-a win and cheaper. We had a marathon day last Friday starting with our new math class-wow, Conor really enjoys it!  Four boys, one fun mom/teacher, still reviewing Singapore 3a so pretty easy for him.  They reviewed some division and multiplication, did puzzles, he loved it.  We then raced south to join other friends at a writing class.  Here is what he started so far in his fill in the blank autobiography:

If I were President of the US, here are three things I would do:  i would have day nightmares without sleeping!
I was born in ??? and now I live in Seattle.  Someday I'd like to visit the following places:  hawaii and canada
My best friends are isaac Gabe orlando Gerome i love them!
These are the qualities I like in a friend: they don't cheat in game
My favorite foods are:  ice cream cows that aren't corn fed.  The food I hate most is roasted crickets.
My favorite animal is a elephant.  (adding a pic for those reading at the website)

From there, with a painful transition, we raced to piano.  Conor discovered on the way that his favorite song was in the new book-"Somewhere Over the Rainbow".  He proceeded to ask his teacher to work on that and before they got to the page was already playing it by ear.  Interestingly, singing in the car he was adorably off in just a few places so I sang the melody for him all the way through. When he sat down a hour later he had the melody almost spot on first time!  Loving that his every other week sitter (post my 2 night shifts) has a baby grand and he is getting some practice in there!

But the rhythm of our day is not quite back yet, we need to do more on our days home to get into a better rhythm, maybe back to a real circle time of songs and play.   We have let the recorder slip, and the creative side is way lacking.  This is partly the holidays, partly the work I have needed to do to start the process of moving my mom cross country, and where Conor's focus has been also.  I am hoping to draw us more together soon and make sure his hands and heart are getting equal time.

Getting into the flow of the new year

Conor is going to tell you first about our week:

Last week I started going to a math class with 3 other homeschool friends-it was a blast!  Oh yeah, the math was cool, too, I surprised I was better at multiplication than some of my friends.  I even taught them all about lattice multiplication, and yesterday I did it in my head!  We did some chemistry work last week, learning about the first 10 elements.  Drama class started and I love the vocal exercises my teacher does-the poems are so silly.  In piano I am learning the James Bond theme music.  Aikido is great now that we can go on Mondays we can go 2 or even 3 times a week!

Back to mom:

We aren't quite in a new routine yet, what with new outside classes our home routine is really off.  Our friends are putting together an awesome homeschool program at a community center 3 blocks from the house, so soon we will likely add some classes there that will make all this commuting so much easier.  Today we try out a writing workshop and see how that inspires the man.  When he writes, it is amazing.  He is journaling on his own a bit, and writing penpal letters, but writing is still his weaker area-just something he feels less confident at just yet.  Interest in sciences continues to be strong.  We recently did a major archeological dig of his room, i.e. cleaned out ancient toys and dust with our new Dyson vac-which uncovered and renewed an interest in constructing the complicated marble maze he got last year.  This year he picks up the diagrams and runs with it, hardly coming to me for help at all-what a change!

The Holiday and Birthday Recovery

Conor is going to tell you about our time off:

One of the things we did on our break was watch the movie "Food, Inc.".  It has started me thinking more about our food and where it comes from and what they do to it. I think I would like to try to be vegetarian.  It made me think more about what they do to animals, how they feed them, how they make our food.

For Christmas and my birthday I got a Harry Potter Hogwarts game.  You have to build the game first-at least 2 ways to get into each classroom- and then play the game.  I got lots of Lego for Christmas and have been building lots of things.  I also got a water powered engine kit.  So far I built a water powered truck with it and a cutting machine, but too much water force exploded the pipe and sprung it open in my face.  That was a lesson on the laws of physics-a lesson for me and for the people who built it.

Back to mom:

This week we are starting out slowly since it is my work week, and still recovering from flu.  Conor is back to weekly French lessons, this week focusing on the words for weather and ending with a rousing game of hide and seek en francais.  We are back to 2 or more aikido classes a week and taking his role as a green belt, or advanced student, very seriously.  And this week we will start meeting with friends weekly for a math class with a goal of the Math Olympiad next year.

Despite a week or so down with flu, we had a nice, quiet holiday mainly at home.  We watched some good films, read some good books, made good food.  Conor expanded his cooking skills from cookies-hazelnut chocolate drop cookies and date and raisin filled cinnamon rolls.  We had friends over and got down to Tacoma to see the big train show at the museum of history.  It was a memorable and sweet holiday.