1st week of February

Enrichment Activities
At the end of every school quarter, the school the homeschoolers attend part time (an Alternative Learning Environment in official speak), has something called Enrichment Week.  It's a time for fun one day classes, field trips, and guest speakers.  This enrichment week we took part in activities on two of the days.

Wednesday was a presentation for parents.  Bruce Campbell, a classroom teacher with 38 years experience, came to teach us about the latest understanding of how the brain works and how we can enhance learning.  He travels the world doing workshops for teachers and we are lucky enough to have him living in the area.  Back when I was going to college at Western, there was a program where they brought an outstanding educator in for a year and had them teach skills to prospective teachers.  I was lucky enough to attend his class one quarter.  When I saw that he was coming to our school, there was no way I was going to miss out. 

His two hour presentation was very informative.  He taught us about dendrites (part of our brain cells) and how we can continue to grow more through learning.  He shared research that shows that in order to learn and grow, our brains need continual challenge.  He also said that previous thinking about fixed intelligence (the idea that once you have an IQ score, that's what you'll always be like) has been changed to reflect current ideas that we can continue to improve throughout our lives.  I have several kids who seem to be developing on a different timeline than the "norm" so that gives me a lot of encouragement.

Thursday was a fun day for students.  We started with a presentation by the Reptile Man.   He brought about 10 reptiles which he showed the children and taught them about.  Elizabeth loved seeing the big turtles and having a chance to help hold a 12 foot long snake. 

Elizabeth is holding a rubber boa, one of two kinds of snakes native to Western Washington.  The other is the garter snake.

After the reptile man was done, the cooking class at the school had arranged for a Luau.  Before the feasting, they had games set up in different classrooms.  It was a student led activity where the kids in charge of the games were the only ones supervising what was happening.  One of the games they offered was "deep sea fishing".  Once we waited in line, I saw a small sign that said, "$0.25 a fish".  I wasn't excited to have to pay but it was a quarter so I gave Elizabeth the money.  She threw her line in and ended up with a tiny cheap notepad, not even worth a nickel!  The mom behind us also was a bit hesitant to hand over her money.  She only had a dollar bill and the boys said, "Sorry, we don't make change."  Not wanting to disappoint her child, she paid her $1 and let her child fish four times. 

Once the games were finished, it was time for the luau.  The students had made pulled pork, rice, coconut cream pie and punch.  They also had fruit and veggie trays.  I'd paid in advance not knowing if I'd find anything to eat.  I filled my plate with fruit and an orange and decided my real lunch would have to come later.  I noticed a mom sitting down in front of me with a similar plate and asked her if she was a vegan.  She was and said she'd noticed me drinking my green smoothie and wondered if I was a vegan too.  We had a fun conversation about our eating choices.  Elizabeth came up and sat down beside me, totally disgusted.  She'd found out that the boys in the fishing room were "free agents", they hadn't been told to collect money, they hadn't been authorized to collect money, they'd just found a way to collect money!  She felt like we'd been totally robbed, of our quarter!  I had to smile at the audacity of those boys.  Future entrepreneurs apparently!

After eating, we got to watch a professional hula dancer perform a few dances before teaching those interested in learning a hula dance.  I used my bum foot as an excuse for not getting in there and joining Elizabeth in the fun!  Elizabeth and I went home and Isaac stayed behind where his robotics class demonstrated the robot they've built to anyone interested in seeing it.


A quick trip to Portland
I was asked to teach at National Camp School for BSA again this year.  Although it's called National Camp School (NCS), it's held in Olympia at a scout camp.  The name reflects the fact that we are teaching a nationally approved curriculum.  All day camp directors and program directors (volunteers) are required to attend the three day training in order to run a camp.  It will be my third time teaching at NCS.  I love day camp and think it's one of the highlights of summer.  I love having the opportunity to share my enthusiasm with new volunteers.  I've also learned quite a bit over 10 years of running day camps, little things that help a lot, that aren't part of the syllabus.  It's nice to pass on my knowledge to help other camps.

All this introduction to explain why on Saturday I went down to Portland and came back the same day, eight hours of driving for a 5 hour meeting!  The NCS volunteer staff come from BSA councils (geographic regions) in Washington and Oregon.  There are 10 people on staff from 5 different councils.  Each camp school has a volunteer director who works with a professional advisor (a paid BSA employee) to run the camp.  This year the advisor is based in Portland.  The volunteer director lives near Renton, about an hour from me.  I drove down to Seattle and hopped in with her to carpool to Portland.  On Saturday, we all got together to meet each other, decide who's teaching which classes, and try to create a shared vision for camp school.

I was a bit nervous going down.  I knew I'd be in a car with a person I'd never met before for six hours.  I worried my foot would hurt.  I worried I'd be the youngest person in the group.  How did it turn out?  I'm really good at making small talk.  I've been told I have the gift of listening.  It's not really the gift of listening, although that's a part I guess.  It's the ability to ask questions that get people talking.  I kept the driver talking for 75% of the time.  Success!  My foot treated me pretty well.  Driving my van is really tough and by the time I'd gone 30 minutes, I was trying to find a comfortable place to rest it.  The thought of all the miles ahead of me was quite worrying.  Once I climbed into the other car, I was able to stretch out my leg and my foot felt much better.  Was I the youngest person in the room?  Almost!  The professional advisor looked like  he was probably in his young 30's.  There was one other staff member who looked to be close to my age.  Everyone else has many many years more experience in life and BSA.  I'm looking forward to the time in my life when I don't feel like the most inexperienced person in the room.

Back in Arlington, Dode was left with a pretty empty house for the day.  The three girls had gone to stay with my dad for a few days.  Isaac had a school activity in Bellingham.  Jacob was doing his  own thing.  That left Dode and William with a free day.  It was a beautiful sunny day so they went to explore.  They went to a park, checked out an old campground and after much begging from William, they went on a bike ride.  Willian got about 100 feet and decided that he didn't want to be bike riding any more.  In fact, he was convinced that he'd never wanted to go bike riding in the first place.  When Dode reminded him that he'd been asking all morning to go, he countered with, "No I didn't."  After a while he admitted that it had been his idea but said, "Well, I don't want to go bike riding any more!"  So, they came home.  They also did the fun boy activities of going to McDonald's, the hardware store, and two auto parts stores.

Getting Pampered
I have a friend who is learning to be a massage therapist.  Last week was the end of the quarter so they have clinical experiences where people come in and they practice on them.  They were finishing off their "Spa" quarter so you could choose from lots of fun treatments: hot rock massage, aromatherapy, body wraps, deep tissue massage, and Indian head massage.  I looked up Indian head massage and decided it sounded very relaxing.  You get a scalp massage and they focus a lot on the neck and shoulders, the areas where I store all my tension.  I didn't know that part of what Paula needed to practice with the Indian head massage was also a foot soak with foot and leg massage.  I can't soak my foot for another two weeks so she offered a hot rock massage as an alternative.  It was very relaxing.  The hour went by much too quickly!  The podiatrist told me that massage is the best thing I can do for my foot and she wasn't afraid to dig in and really work around my scar and bruised toes.  It felt painful/great and I noticed a greater range of motion in my toes when she was done.  Does that mean I can justify the $30 I spent on the massage as have being done for purely medicinal purposes?!

The fun of heating with wood

One of the fun things of heating with wood is cold mornings.  Here is Anastaya dressed up for church, hiding under three blankets to stay warm!