March 31, 2011 2:01 p.m.

Boy it sure is difficult to concentrate on our lessons when there have been three tornado warnings and two severe thunderstorm warnings for our part of the county since we began.  Going to our “safe room” has proven to be a little bit too much fun…

And when we are able to come out, it is entertaining to see whether we can multitask …… read geography and hula hoop at the same time…..

… Or maybe read geography, hula hoop, and talk on the phone at the same time? 

It’s a good thing he isn’t getting a driver’s license any time soon!

(p.s. It is difficult to post this today, since our internet service is intermittent all day long… )

March 26, 2011 7:13 a.m.

I guess that tax refund check we’ve got coming has made us giddy or something.  Because when we did our weekly MalWart grocery shopping yesterday, we decided to blow ten buckaroos on the Bark Off humane bark training device.

Yup – this would do the trick; stop our sweet doggie from waking us up in the middle of the night from barking, instead of using a painful shock collar. 

Yup.  Every time he barks now, it will emit a high frequency sound that will annoy him and train him in not barking anymore.  What a deal!  Imagine, peace and quiet for just $10.

Self-Reliant Man and I pondered this for about five minutes in the store, wondering whether it would really work.  Was it as good as it sounded?  Could it be too good to be true?  Since we cannot hear the sound, there would be no way we could verify if it was actually working, etc.  All these thoughts were bounced between the two of us as we processed this grave decision together. 

Okay, we did it.  It was tossed into our buggy.  We had finally found the barking solution.

But as soon as we got the package open at home, and the fresh new 9-volt battery installed, Chips snapped us back to reality with a simple exclamation:


Hmm.  Didn’t think about that.  Did you, Self-Reliant Man, think about that before tearing open the package?

Nope.

Neither did I.

March 25, 2011 2:19 p.m.

The weather here has been just exquisite for several days.  We have had all our windows, and even our doors at times, open all day long and into the evening.  We only close them to sleep due to the many noisy dogs in our area.

Our house has a long, cigar-shaped footprint with a screen door, or screen-enclosed area at either end.  So when both ends are open, the afternoon sea breeze that gives Breezy Point its name flows through the entire house.  Yesterday, though, the winds were out of the west, and they were strong.

This is the view through the house, to the other end, looking west through the screen door on the bedroom end of the house.

And this is the view from the breezeway on the other end, looking east.  The house was deliberately positioned east to west to capture the afternoon breezes, and it works well.  Almost too well at times.  I love having the house open.

Here are further images from our lives and lessons…

Sweet Girl starting in on her scrapbooking.

She played ball with me in the front yard.   It was so beautiful.

Netfl*x night here, with new bean bag chairs, designed expressly for kids to “veg” in.

Now this kid knows how to study!

Calvert’s 3rd grade Greek Mythology: I read the story, and Sweet Girl listens.  Except I am not content to simply sit and read.  Rather, I make the story “happen” as I go on the dry- erase board.  Sweet Girl gets a kick out of how I do this.

Happy Spring, everybody!

March 24, 2011 3:57 p.m.

In my life this week...

We had a nice, quiet celebration of Sweet Girl’s 8th birthday on Tuesday.  She doesn’t ever specify what gifts she wants or expects; just trusts us to know what she likes.  We hit on some winners with a scrapbooking kit, a bean bag chair,  and some Polly Pockets.  She was also happy to get a replacement kickball and hula hoop.  It isn’t easy to keep those kinds of toys in good condition for long.

And Spring is in all its glory here these days.  Today, especially, Breezy Point is more like Gusty Point!

In our homeschool this week...

Plugging and chugging along.  Chips turned in his second test set last week and is up to lesson 46.  Sweet Girl is on lesson 55.  We gave her a day off from school for her birthday, of course.  She especially enjoyed her science lesson this week, which involved Oobleck. 

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We try to schedule a Saturday between birthdays for a family outing for celebrating Chips and Sweet Girl’s birthday.  But birthday plans for our family outing are on hold.  It is a long story, but Chips really needs to learn not to shoot off his mouth.  Character training never stops around here.  Long sigh..  (How to create consequences for one without the other having to pay, too?)

My favorite thing this week was...

Giving a Russian-English New Testament to our violin teacher, who I don’t think has ever read the New Testament.  She seemed to be happy to receive it.

What's working/not working for us...

What’s working for us is when I can manage to stay off the internet until we get through most of our lesson day.  If I get online for anything, anything at all, all order and productivity goes out the window.  Just like speaking on the telephone.  I’ve learned this time and time again.  I just have to live by it now.  So, help me, Lord.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

I am thinking that I want to start keeping up with the sixth grade readings in history and geography, now, as well as science and literature.  History is getting more into ancient civilizations, and geography is getting into in-depth covering of all the eastern hemisphere and its individual countries.  I never remember getting any of this in middle school (or, perhaps, I slept through it all) but I am happy to be getting it now.  Having said that, though, as much as I want to do this, it will not be easy because it is all so time consuming.

Photos to share...

Sweet Girl, here, is making a friendship bracelet for her little friend at church.  She pretty much did it with very little support from me.  Just goes to show how “8” she really is!

Chips was a savvy shopper with some of his violin award money.  He found a great indoor flying helicopter for only $26.  This one works particularly well, and has many metal parts.  Air Hogs were cutting it for him anymore (too flimsy).

Here, Sweet Girl can be seen talking to her Mimi while opening her gift.  A lovely set of fresh water pearls!

Who says “School in a Box” is dull?  I’m making Oobleck for my studies in physical science this week.

This is the weirdest stuff, Chips!  Do you remember doing this?  It acts like a solid when you slam something into it, but then things sink if you leave them there for more than a second.  So is it a liquid or a solid?  Hmmmm..  ??

I cannot believe Calvert had Chips balancing chemical equations this week.  I know I never had any of that until high school chemistry.  It was a bit difficult for him to teach it to himself, but once I explained it to him, he understood, and even finds it enjoyable.  I guess I really taught something this week.

New bean bag chairs for all!  I called this a “book nook”, but they prefer to call it a “cozy corner”.  Whatever it’s called, it is a great place to read and write journal entries.

March 21, 2011 11:06 p.m.

Our homeschool group issues a yearbook every year.  It contains photos of all the families in the group.  So a good friend photographed our family at church yesterday, just for the yearbook.  We were pretty pleased with the results.  It has been a long time since we’ve gotten a decent family photo.  I thought it should go on our blog, too, so it is now our new profile photo.

p.s. Happy Birthday, J.S. Bach.  We are so glad you wrote music to the glory of God.

and

p.p.s. In just 2-1/2 hours, Sweet Girl will be eight years old.  I simply cannot believe it!  Happy Birthday, in advance to our dear daughter, who will always be my baby girl.

March 19, 2011  3:48 p.m.

We are happy to announce…

… that the 2011 FSMTA District Concerto Competition winner is……



For exceptional performance in J.S. Bach Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, 1st mvmt.

Now we will be traveling in mid-May to Tallah*ssee.  Yippee!

March 16, 2011 4:25 p.m.

Today our homeschool group did this activity for the first time – Letterboxing.  I’d say everybody in our group had never done this before.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and around 80 degrees, and a perfect setting to search for letterboxes.

There were two such boxes in this county park we visited, and we broke into four groups to accomplish the task.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, letterboxing is like geocaching or orienteering, except without the compass and the technology.  Instead of using a GPS device, you follow the clues provided to find a letterbox.  Then you stamp the book inside the letterbox and write in the date and your trail name.  Similarly, you use the letterbox stamp to stamp your own notebook that you keep just for this activity.   You can note the date and the location in your notebook as a remembrance of the day.  This is a neat activity to do as a family, especially when you are on vacation.  The location of a letterbox near you,  and the clues to find it, can be found at this website and this one.

Here are some of the highlights:

Receiving instructions before beginning.

Starting down a trail after the first letterbox.

Can you see where the first letterbox is hidden in this photo?

Retrieving the first letterbox.

Everybody stamp the book!

At another part of the park, finding the second letterbox.

Stamping away.

A final group photo.

If you are interested in trying letterboxing, or want to find where a letterbox is hidden near you, investigate these two websites:  www.letterboxing.org  and www.atlasquest.com . 

It may just become our newest free hobby!

March 14, 2011 10:37 p.m.

There is not a single reader of this post, I am sure, who has not gone about their busy days with one ear to the news regarding the people of Japan.  Well, the power of prayer is truly great, and if Japan ever needed prayer, they need it now.  As I was finishing up the last post, I received a news alert here regarding the Fukush*ma Da*ichi Nucl*ar Power Station.  If I read the article properly, it appears that all emergency staff are being withdrawn from the plant.  This is a truly dire situation, and we need the grace of God to mollify the circumstances there.  Lord have mercy on Japan and Asia. 

UPDATE (March 15, 2011 7:06 a.m.): A friend notified me about an information source here (International Atomic Energy Agency) that may be giving a more reliable account of the status of the nuclear power stations there.  It turns out that the Daiiichi plant has not been abandoned, as previously reported, and a fire in unit 4, a major cause of the radiation leak, has been extinguished. 

But mybe ya'll already know that.

That'll teach me to comment on current events before the ink has dried.

Nevertheless, a call to pray.

March 14, 2011  10:25 p.m.

. . . . . Smokin’!

Readership has gone up a lot in the past month or so, and it is exciting!  I am not sure why, but I suspect it has a lot to do with my membership on the Calvert School blog network and with various inquiries about Calvert on Yahoo groups. 

But in addition, I have met friends through this blog who have other things in common with us besides Calvert, such as music / violin studies.  Whatever the reason, I am glad you are here.

It has been a very long time since I have asked this, so please bear with me, but if you feel inclined, please drop me a comment to this blog or send me an email at billberna     @    bellsouth    .  net     so that I can “get to know” you a little bit.  Maybe you’re a homeschool family, maybe we live in the same state, or maybe we share some other interests.  I would love to hear from you; it helps to have a sense of who my readers are, and approximately where they are from (especially you who are visiting from the other side of the world).

I’ve already made some very nice bloggy friends, and it would be great to meet more.

Thank you!

March 14, 2011 5:09 p.m.

On Saturday, the ladies of our church celebrated Spring with its annual tea.  Although I am not a collector of tea time finery (and could not hostess a table, unless styrofoam cups would have been alright, and I suspect not), Sweet Girl and I were able to attend as guests and meet and get to know more women in our church.  It was Sweet Girl’s first ladies’ tea (not including the tea party we had here at our house when she turned 5).

This tea is a tradition for our church, and began back in the day when the senior pastor’s wife used to host it in her home.  The church is now much too big to allow a ladies’ tea to be held in her home, so it is in the fellowship hall.  And unfortunately, our senior pastor was hospitalized over the weekend, so his wife was not in attendance at this tea, either. (but as best we know, he was to be released from the hospital this morning).

Anyway, this was some tea!  An event that is best explained with photos.

Here we are just before leaving home.

This is the table to which we were assigned.  One of the prettiest, I think.

There were 17 tables in all, but I am showing just a few here.

Lovely in blue.  I enjoy all these other ladies’ talents.

And their vision and creativity.

Each table is as unique as its hostess.

I love these colors here.  So Springy!

Love this even more.  The Youth Group boys (middle school through high school) take on the duty of being waiters.  Our waiter was a 13 year old boy named Holdane.  So polite!  I loved seeing them rise to the occasion and act as gentlemen.   I really think the experience is good for them. (and Chips will probably be doing this next year).

These cakes were given away as door prizes.  Our table hostess won the big teapot one in the middle.

Is it dessert time yet, Mommy?

Who could wait very long to try out all these truffles?  Lemon ones, red velvet ones, chocolate mint ones, and chocolate covered strawberries that were hand-picked from the farm the day before.

Another gentleman providing the music.

All the ladies had a wonderful time.

So did Sweet Girl and I.  She was proud to pose for this photo after much happy nibbling of hors d’oeuvres and truffles.  It was a wonderful first tea!

March 10, 2011 8:00 p.m.

It is not that often that an experiment turns out so well, but this week Chips was studying ions, ionic compounds, and molecular compounds, and he needed to do an experiment that demonstrated the conductivity of tap water, distilled water(reverse osmosis, in our case), dry salt, dry sugar, salt water, and sugar water.  Calvert sixth grade science is definitely middle school level, and it is taught in depth (much moreso than when I was in sixth grade).

Self-Reliant Man helped him set the experiment up, and the results were great.  The liquid, in each case, was inserted into the DC series electric circuit using metal “electrodes” of our making (paint can opening pry tools from L*we’s).  The experiment showed that the liquid was not conductive in any form except with salt dissolved in it.

With the salt water in the circuit, the light bulb was illuminated and there was actually a sizzling sound with motion in the water.  Chips loved it.  When we took the experiment apart, we noticed that the electroplated coating on one of our “electrodes” had actually been removed.  That was an unexpected effect that made it all that much more interesting.

Pictures, of course!

Here Chips is testing to see whether dry salt crystals were conductive.  They weren’t.

Yep.  Salt water is definitely conductive!  (but sugar water isn’t).

It is actually sizzling, and the light bulb is lighting, too.  Great experiment!

I think this was one of the best experiments we have ever done in our homeschool.

March 10, 2011 4:54 p.m.

Chips and Sweet Girl went to a friend’s birthday party this week.  They had a great time.  The weather was gorgeous, too.

You can see that a lot of fun was had.  This party was different because it was on a “school day”, throughout the later afternoon and early evening.  But it sure did break up the routine.