Today we got to go to my parents and see my brother that lives far enough away so we only see him twice a year. He is hilarious. We always spend all our time laughing when we're together. He'll be here all week, and we get see him almost every day. He loves to talk about everything: aliens, the earth being flat, totally made up stuff. Love the conversation when he's around!
Don't you love conversation? I think that's where so much of our education and our kids' educations find growth. Sharing ideas, listening to others, willingness to consider other opinions in kindness, laughing, reading body language, finding out what's acceptable to say in different situations, so much valuable learning.
In the car on the way home, the kids were talking about this book series they're all reading. And Sarah isn't sure she wants to continue it. She thought she'd stop with book two, but she took a peek at the first few pages of book three to be sure. The problem is that the main character's wife dies of cancer at the beginning of book three. She hates that, so she'll have to decide whether to go on, but I love what Rachel said about it.
She pointed out that the author didn't have you get too attached to the wife like you did the husband. There isn't that connection to her, so you're less affected when she dies. What an amazing insight! Maybe having written a fictional book helped her see how plot is related to what's actually written. I don't know, but I loved that she could see that from the author's point of view.
I feel like so many times, I write about what we did that isn't school and how we learned from it anyway. I guess I could tell you that we did math, history, science, copywork, reading aloud, etc. I think that would be nearly the same every day though. I'd really rather talk about something else. I guess that explains why my kids would rather do something else!
I do want to talk about copywork for a minute. I want to love it, I do. I just can't get myself to. I think it's like eating vegetables; people believe it would make them healthier, but they just can't make themselves do it. Now, we love our vegetables, because we make them delicious. We roast them with garlic or sautée them with garlic, or even bread and fry them (zucchini), eat them raw dipped in yogurt dressing, put them in with a roast, or put butter and maple syrup on them (sweet potatoes). We never boil them. I think a lot of people make boiled veggies or used canned ones--something we only do when we're making pot pie.
I believe copywork is important and effective, but it's so hard to do. So I guess I need to sautée it and stop boiling it. Actually, my kids like copywork just fine; it's me. I never feel like having them do it because it seems bland to me. I think it needs to be more meaningful for me to feel better about it. A couple years ago, we started to sew books for ourselves to copy quotes into. We felt so powerful; we could make books! We never did finish them. Maybe it's time to get those done and copy meaningful quotes into them.
See you tomorrow!
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