Best Day Ever!

Gemma often says, “Today was the BEST DAY EVER!” This evening, as we were walking in the door after seeing the teen musical variety show her big sis had worked on as musical director, and after Gemma had said today was a “best day ever,” I said, “You have more best days ever than any other kid.” And she giggled agreeably.

Geography

Today we read in The World By the Fireside about the Tartar princes going to the Chinese emperor to prostrate themselves and pay tribute. This led to looking up where Pekin/Beijing is, and reviewing where the Steppes are in Kazakhstan...and this led to Gemma pulling out her Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and turning to probably her favorite biography in the book: the falcon huntress - Aisholpan Nurgaiv.

Brunch Bowling

 

This morning, Gemma had bowling alley bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Benihana & Summer Reading

We’ve had Gemma’s coupon for a free kid’s meal at Benihana from the library’s Summer Reading Program stuck to our refrigerator for almost a year. The coupon was set to expire in two months, just before this year’s Summer Reading Program begins, so I decided that this was the weekend to go have hibachi shrimp and scallops. 🍤 🇯🇵 🍣 🥢 🍚 

What I learned from El Raton Pablito

Recently, I purchased some little books in Spanish, and some in French, from TPRS Books. The past year and a half, we’ve used apps, workbooks, and videos that have given Gemma exposure to vocabulary (fruit, colors, etc.), as well as listening to Spanish songs and French songs (and learning to sing parts, if not all, of them). But I felt like Gemma needed something more. 

So I ordered the TPRS books. (I had been thinking about them for about a year.) I let Gemma choose some she wanted, and I chose some I wanted her to want. One of the books she chose is called El Raton Pablito (Pablito the Mouse). It has illustrations and is silly, and she wants to read it. She reads it aloud, trying to pronounce the words, wanting to try. And then she giggles. Because el raton has opened puerta numero tres and discovered a tomato en el baño. Que verguenza! (How embarrassing!)

I thought reading the TPRS books would become our new foreign language lessons, but Gemma told me she wanted to continue using her language apps. She proposed that we alternate book-app-book-app. I hadn’t considered that she might view my choice to replace the apps with fun books as me taking something away from her. But then I did.

When we set little goals for ourselves, and meet those goals, we feel happy. Gemma had gotten used to looking forward to using her language apps to meet little learning goals, and here I was telling her that she was all done with that. 

One of the things that I don’t like about Charlotte Mason group-think is the way the phrase “children are born persons” is repeated like the first rule of Fight Club, but when a homeschooler brings up the idea of CMing and giving a child a choice in what they study, she’s told all of the reasons why doing that would be anti-Mason.

I’m so glad Gemma wants to keep using her apps, and wants to set educational goals for herself, and understands how good it feels to reach a goal she’s set for herself. I’m also glad she feels comfortable telling me what she wants, and feels capable of presenting a solution to a problem. 

And to think I thought all we were going to learn from El Raton Pablito was some Spanish. Que verguenza!

Our New Shower Curtain

Field Trip: La Brea Tar Pits

A Letter to the Tooth Fairy

Mam Papaul King Cake

Gemma asked for King Cake, but since we were a little late and I wouldn’t be able to buy one from a bakery, we ordered a “certified product of Louisiana” cake mix from Amazon - the Mam Papaul King Cake. For $11, we got the cake mix, praline filling mix, glaze mix, sugar sprinkles in purple, green, and yellow, AND a plastic baby to hide under the cake.

Things Gemma said this week...

Sunday afternoon at Trader Joe’s, Gemma complimented a young woman with Bowie glam rock hair and eye makeup by saying, “I like your hair. You look like you’re in Cats. You look like Rum Tum Tugger.”

Two nights ago, Gemma snuggled up to me and said sweetly, “Mom, if I were queen, I would want you to be my regent.”

Last night, while doing some activities in a BrainQuest workbook, Gemma said, in that grave tone teachers use to ask students why they were running in the hall, “Mom. Why have you not taught me social studies?”