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The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played

Time for an update on T.J.’s studies. We had some breaks for the Christmas holidays, and also took about two weeks off in early March due to the birth of T.J.’s newest cousin. Otther than that things have largely been uneventful.

Mathematics: Deductive logic and lengthy forays into applied statistical analysis.
English: Moving through American Literature sparked a real passion for hard-boiled detective fiction. Our exploration of what I term ‘Gumshoe Lit 101′ is focused on the works of Robert Parker, John D. MacDonald and Ed McBain. Parker is the most heavily represented as T.J. and I have both read over 20 of his books in the past 4 months.
Humanities: T.J. continues to play guitar and feels comfortable with acoustic and electric versions of same. We have also made a brief survey of world religions and may return to that study at a later date.
Social Studies: We have completed our Economics unit and had a series of shorter topics since then. Among them are:

• discussion of American social mores and their changes over time, including same-sex marriage, the rise of divorce, etc
• the drug war and the rise of methamphetamine abuse
• the problem of global warming and what would be most effective to slow it

General Science: Several of our Social Studies topics above were so enmeshed with scientific study as to render a distinction between the two basically meaningless. All other science study has remained learner-led.

Of note: After scoring a 31 on the English portion of the ACT (97th percentile), practice has continued. T.J. plans to take the Science and Reading portions next.

Future Plans: Continued ACT preparation, summer employment, possible community college enrollment (part-time) in the fall.

I was reading at Roundrock Journal and musing about meteor impacts, when I remembered a cool word: astrobleme - meaning star wound - and the official word for the crater left by a meteor impact.

Today was the Oklahoma Natural Parenting Homeschoolers park day. It was a little on the hot side but we had a great time.

Pictures behind the cut!

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On Friday, we took a field trip to the University of Oklahoma Medieval Fair, the annual event which for three days every year magically transforms Reaves Park in the college town of Norman, Oklahoma, into an authentic park with a Medieval Fair.

Here are five-sevenths of our entourage, standing among the authentic Medieval straw bales. Abby and I are not pictured. You can more or less see Trixie’s ankle.

Princess Faith (see the crown?) tripped and skinned her knee on some authentic Medieval pine needles.

Faith and Abby rode authentic Medieval ponies…

…and an authentic Medieval elephant,…

…and posed for a Polaroid with “Cyaine,” the authentic Medieval mermaid.

And their faces broke out in authentic Medieval paint. (It seems to have mostly cleared up by the next day.)

So long, Medieval Fair. See you next year.

Best Homeschooling has a great collection of essays on, you guessed it, homeschooling.

I particularly enjoyed Just Do the Math, by David Albert, as it is a very good description of how I learned mathematics one summer. I went from barely managing basic computation to college algebra in about a month and a half of study - because for the first time in my life I needed to know it.

Abaigeal can read too! She was sitting on the sofa the other day and I heard her talking to herself but since I was a room away, couldn’t quite make out the words. I walked in (she couldn’t see me at this point) and she was sitting there, happy as you please, reading a book we got for Christmas - that she had had read to her maybe once, right after we got it. Really reading it, not just remembering the words, which she’s been doing for years.

How exciting! Again, credit to Sean, who reads to them tirelessly, Starfall, and LeapFrog Talking Words Factory.

Unschooling at its best.

THE FIELD TRIP

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, Phoebe and I took Faith, Abby, Bede, and Gilbert on a field trip to the Bedré chocolate factory. The excursion had been planned by Phoebe’s Yahoo group, Oklahoma Natural Parenting Homeschoolers. Quite a few families participated, and all the children seemed to have a good time, so the event must be judged a success.

It was educational, too. At least, I learned a few lessons.

Frankly, none of us knew what to expect. All we knew was: this was a chocolate factory, and they offered public tours. Since chocolate is a topic in which our offspring have a demonstrated interest (sometimes bordering on devotion), we hoped it would be a good introduction to the world of industry, commerce, and free enterprise. It was all that.

And yet, I have to say it was a disappointment. I had hoped to be conducted on a tour of the facilities there. But the only two rooms open to the public are the gift shop, and an empty narrow hallway behind the gift shop.
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“Mama. It’s like this. ‘Today on Jakers: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.’”

Snort. Indeed.

The very first Carnival of Homeschooling is up at the Why Homeschool blog. I haven’t even read any of it; I’m so excited about it that I’m blogging about it first, then reading it.