Weeks 33, 34, and 35

As I write, my students are finishing their last day at internship. In fact, today is the last day of school for Pownal Independent School students. These last three weeks have been a whirlwind of wrap-ups, field trips, testing, and portfolio completion. I have really enjoyed this school year, and I think I can say that the kids did too. I want to thank Carol Cyr for always being a good support and for her delicious lunches that she served every day.

As a final, fun project, the students completed a letterboxing project that we hid at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. They chose a history theme, and they came up with the questions and answers by themselves. They carved stamps for each box, and they also wrote explanatory text for each correct answer. For those of you not familiar with letterboxing, this won't make much sense. Perhaps if you give it a try, you'll find that it's quite fun. I am going to post the instructions here, on this site; I will also be posting them on the national letterboxing site, letterboxing.org. Enjoy!

START: Enter the main gate at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. Park in the lower parking lot. Start by standing between the two swing sets with your back to the ocean. [NOTE: Incorrect answers will lead you to places where there are no boxes!]

YOUR FIRST QUESTION: Who was the great leader of the Myrmidons who now has a body part named after him?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS ACHILLES: Turn 45 degrees to your right and walk to the hill that you see across the field. From the base of the hill, walk 23 paces up the hill. You should have a large oak on your left and a hollow stump in front of you. Take a right at the stump and walk 10 paces. Turn to your left. There will be a rock formation in front of you with deep crevices. Box 1 is hidden in one of the crevices.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS ODYSSEUS: Turn 45 degrees to your left. You will see a small hill with a maple tree at its base. Walk to the maple tree. Turn right. Walk 20 paces. You will see a large, flat stone. Box 1 is hidden under the stone.

YOUR SECOND QUESTION: Which three species of Homo Sapiens lived at the same time?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, HOMO SAPIENS PATHODENSIS, HOMO SAPIENS URITRICHENSIS: From the flat rock, face the ocean and cross the road in front of you. Approach the ruins of a building near the shore. Stand in front of the center door. You will see a barred window to your left. Reach between the bars and angle your hand to the left. You will feel Box 2 on a ledge to the left.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, HOMO SAPIENS HEIDELBERGENSIS, HOMO SAPIENS NEANDERTHALENSIS: Look at the stone wall at the top of the hill. Follow the path at the top of the wall toward the ocean. Walk to the Goddard Mansion plaque. Take the path and follow the off-shoot to the right. Walk to the fence. Turn left and find Box 2 in a wall crevice.

YOUR THIRD QUESTION: King Tut was the son of which very strange pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS AHKENATEN: Walk back to the parking lot and go to the first handicap sign. Follow the gravel path to your left up the hill. Walk to the triplet birches growing out of the rocks. Climb up the slate mound and over the triangular rocks. Turn right. Go through two maples. Look to the left. Box 3 is in the crack that splits the rock.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS RAMESES II: Turn around and you will see a tarred path that goes to the left and up a slight hill. Follow that path. You will see a large boulder to your left. Walk past the boulder, heading toward the ocean. There will be a dirt path that branches to your left around a building ruin. Walk around the path to the back of the ruin. Two dead trees are on the ground and are in the shape of an "X". Box 3 is buried at the intersection of these trees.

YOUR FOURTH QUESTION: Which empire introduced the horse and iron weaponry to war?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS THE HITTITES: Walk back to the parking lot and look up the hill on the other side of the park. Walk to the flag pole on the far hill. Go over the hill and toward the Battery Memorial. Climb to the top of the memorial and walk to the right. There are four hollow pipes buried in the roof of the battery. Box 4 is inside one of them.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS THE BABYLONIANS: Walk back to the large boulder. Continue up and over the hill to the flag pole. From the flag pole, you will see the lighthouse. Walk down the hill, toward the lighthouse, until you get to a wooden fence. Follow the fence to the left until it enters the bushes. Turn 45 degrees and walk 10 paces. There will be a rock outcrop with three large stones on top. Box 4 is hidden within these stones.

YOUR FIFTH QUESTION: What does the name "Mesopotamia" literally mean?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS "WITHIN THE DRY LANDS": Walk back to where you can see the lighthouse. Approach the lighthouse and cross the road. Turn to your right and follow the path that leads you alongside the field. You will see two park benches. Walk to the second park bench. Turn to your right. The bench should be in front of you. You will see a stone wall. Box 5 is hidden within that stone wall.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS "LAND BETWEEN TWO RIVERS": Follow the path just beyond the pipes. The path will go through some trees and lead you to another concrete roof. Walk to the end of the concrete. You will see two paths. Take the path to the right. Walk down the hill until the brush doesn't allow you to walk any further. Turn around. Take 6 steps back up the path. Look to your right. You will see a dead lilac with many branches and rocks at its base. Box 5 is hidden within those rocks.

THAT'S IT! For those of you giving this a try, please remember to bring your own ink pad or marker to stamp your books. There are hand carved stamps in each box, and they each refer to the correct answer to the individual question. In addition, there is a little book for your comments in each box. Let us know what you thought! See you next year...

Weeks 31 and 32

I've been delinquent in getting these blogs out. I apologize. These last few weeks have been quite hectic. We have two students who are testing in the local public school for assessment, and they have missed several classes because of it. We also have another student who underwent her portfolio review with the State, and I'm pleased to say that she passed with flying colors! So, technically, she has moved onto the seventh grade. Our co-op is wrapping up, and last Thursday we had our last classes. Next week is our final week in Gorham, and we'll spend the day sharing what each class has accomplished.
In short, we've continued to plug along in all of our classes. Spring fever has officially hit, and in anticipation of that, I scheduled most of our field trips for the last few weeks. We took the kids to two fish ladders to see the alewife migration. One of them, Damariscotta Mills, is the state's oldest and most productive alewife fishery. We also went to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art to see their antiquities exhibit. The kids all agreed that antiquities are more interesting when you can recognize the influences (mostly Greek) and you know the symbolism. As for other planned field trips, we are going to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor; we're going to try to get to the Science Museum in Boston; and we are attending the yearly "Homeschool Festival" in Bethel. We'll be tying up the loose ends in our classes, and lastly, we'll be cleaning up our space. Internships will continue to the bitter end, and I know of one student who will continue internship throughout the summer. It's safe to say that we're all looking forward to summer. The kids have worked so hard, and they deserve the break!

Week 30

I think I can safely say that we are all feeling the effects of this wet and cloudy weather. Here at the school, the energy level has been low this past week for all of us. Our routine was further disrupted by the fact that two of our students are taking the NEWA tests at the local schools for end-of-the-year assessments. Nonetheless, we did make some headway in several of our subjects.

The students have been expressing boredom with the math that we have been covering: using percentage, fractions, and decimals interchangeably and within word problems. I decided to take a break from that topic this week and cover a math concept that is a personal favorite of mine: algebra. The students were less than thrilled, almost all of them claiming to "HATE algebra". I assured them that we would not be examining multi-variable problems, yet. We walked through several single variable problems using a "put all of your cows on this side of the fence and all of your people on this side" method, and they seemed to catch on fairly quickly. And you know what? By the end of the second math class, I think they would all agree that algebra is a puzzle. Not "puzzle" in the sense that it is unsolvable, but "puzzle" as in "this can actually be kind of fun".

In Logic, we continued with our new unit in Propositional Calculus which neatly coincided with our Ethical unit on Aristotle. Basically, we've moved from the categorical logic of Socrates and the Sophists and the logic of the ancient courts to the consequential logic of Aristotle and the scientific "revolution" of Classical Greece.

In Latin, we introduced new vocabulary and English derivatives. We are also continuing our noun declensions. Declensions are tough only in that they require rote memorization. Through our prior translations, the kids have come to recognize some of the endings in an intuitive way: possession, direct object, subject. The others will come only through practice. One neat crossover from Latin to our Reading Comprehension: We have been reading all of the Greek play-writes, and the students are quite comfortable with the Greek names of the gods. We are just starting to hear about the Roman pantheon through the poems of Virgil. It gets confusing, sometimes, keeping track of which Roman god is which Greek god. A very logical approach (and granted, not one that works all of the time), is translating the Greek to Latin. For example, Zeus, the father of the gods, translates to Latin as Zeus pater. If you say that really fast a few times, you'll see how the Romans adopted the name Jupiter from the translation.

In History, we are continuing our study of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. This week we focused on Akhenaten (formally Amenhotep), his wife Nefertiti, and the son King Tutankhamun (formally Tutankhaten). We also looked at why several pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom seemed to have a couple of names. Very simply, the Middle Kingdom was a period of religious unrest. As each pharaoh took power, they either sided with the classical belief of Amun as supreme god, or they sided with the new cult of the sun, Aten.

In Science, we continued our study of Arthropods, class Insecta, specifically grasshoppers and locusts, with a dissection. We got these really HUGE grasshoppers online, and they were perfect for seeing the internal organs. In fact, one of them had a cache of un-laid eggs attached to the ovary!

On Wednesday, we had our weekly spelling quiz, and the students received a bunch of new prefix additions. They're picking the prefixes up very quickly. Many of them are similar or the same as the Latin, so they're easy to remember. In Grammar, we continued sentence parsing, focusing on identifying the types of pronoun in the sentence and the antecedents. We finished reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in Reading Comprehension, and we have moved on to Euripedes' Iphigenia in Aulis. Then, after lunch on Wednesday, we went to Portland to our writing workshop at The Telling Room.

Thursday was co-op day, and today our students are attending their internships. Another busy week!

Week 29

After a nice week long break, we are back at school. To get everybody warmed up we did some "easy" stuff. For example, we sat down and started right out on Ethics. You know, where you only have to think...a lot. We studied Aristotelian Ethics and ethics in the modern day. We compared Fatalism to Determinism. After that class, if you haven't already guessed, we were wide awake. Then we did Life Skills math and then jumped right into Latin. Now that class was...confusing. We started noun declensions. For those of you who don't know what that is, don't worry, I'll tell you. Noun declensions are endings that go on Latin nouns to tell the reader if the noun is a subject, direct object, predicate noun, direct noun or a indirect noun. Get it? Okay, of you don't then, sorry. For the rest of you, now you can act like you knew it all along. Then we did a new Cornelia. Now that was a different story. That part was interesting! For whole other reason, this was the best week EVER!!!!!!!!....so far. That is because it was Rue's first week at school. Rue, is my four month old puppy! And she gets to come to school with us! I posted a picture of her at the end of the blog. Anyways, getting back to our day, we all had lunch, then we did math. Just to give you an idea of how much Rue enjoyed math, when we started trying to figure out the problems, Rue fell asleep. On Tuesday we did History, where we traveled to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. We talked about Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, and his wife Nefertiti. Then we came back and had Science. We are moving onto crickets, grasshoppers, and locust. We read a bunch of books, and one of them was how people regularly eat grasshoppers. The book is called Man Eating Bugs. It shows a bunch of bugs people eat all around the world. Some of them are REALLY gross. And it comes with recipes. We learned that grasshoppers shed their skin like a snake about 5 or 6 times before they are adults. Each shed is called an "instar". When they grow wings, it means they are adults and stop shedding. The book also said that they lay 2-202 eggs. We all agreed that that was a big difference and not very helpful. Then after lunch we did math, again. And again Rue fell asleep. But not after she tried to eat my work. I guess she really doesn't like math. And that brings us to today. We started out with Reading Comprehension and read half of the play Oedipus Rex. After that we did spelling, in which we did prefixes and some Latin derivitives. I have a question for you: do any of you know a word with the prefex "dendr-" meaning tree or bush? We could only come up with dendrology and rhododendron. Just leave your answer in the comment section if you know more. Then it was time to go to the Telling Room, where I am writing this. And then, we have co-op tomorrow and internships on Friday. I cannot wait(of course)! It is just so fun! But enough of that, I have to wrap this up. So...the end. written by Sophie, (student)

Here is a picture of Rue! Isn't she so cute?

Weeks 27 and 28

Due to the onslaught of both Easter and Passover last weekend, I wasn't able to get to the blog, so I'll be reporting out on two weeks here. In addition, this wraps up our last week of classes before April break! I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it's a much needed and much deserved rest.

We've been experiencing a few cases of interesting synchronicity across and within several of our classes. In History, we've just left the Greek Dark Age for the Egypt of the New Kingdom (18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties). In Reading Comprehension, we finished Aristophanes' The Clouds and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, and we've moved on to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. We also happened to finish studying the Greek Theater in Ethics. Once we read Euripides, we've completed a work from each of the Greek play-writes.

In Ethics, we've left the Socratic and Platonic schools of thought, and we've moved onto Aristotle. Aristotle's more scientific approach to ethics branches into philosophy and a kind of applied logic called Propositional Calculus. The Sophists that we had been studying earlier in Ethics had used a basic form of logic that was easy to manipulate. They would use its manipulative nature to confuse and convince their audiences. In fact, the Sophists were the first "lawyers". My students, like Aristotle, had found basic logic frustrating. Now, knowing Aristotles' inclinations (through Ethics) and his rationale for Propositional Calculus (from Logic), the students are actually experiencing the relief that come with being able to PROVE why an argument doesn't "feel right".

Another example of "worlds colliding" occurred between our History/Reading Comprehension/Ethics classes. In history, we've been watching how various empires are fighting for boundaries: the Hittites, Hyksos, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. We've seen references to these groups of people in the Greek plays that we've read. We're now able to answer questions like: Why was it so important for Oedipus to answer the riddle of the Sphinx?; what did this 'challenge' symbolize, historically?; what was Aristophanes' satirical criticism of Socrates based on?; weren't Aristophanes' frustrations due to the fact that he was applying Aristotle's logic to Socrates' arguments?

Lastly, we've continued our study of entomophagy as a jumping-off point for Science. We're moving into grasshoppers/locusts/crickets. In addition to their basic anatomy, we will be studying the various cultures who routinely eat them. It just so happens that we'll be starting our reading of the New Testament soon, and I'll be sure to point out that John the Baptist's "bread" that he ate during his stay in the desert was locust. And, we'll have to re-read our Old Testament passages that mention potential grasshopper sightings: Leviticus 11:22 specifically allows the eating of locust, grasshopper, and katydid. In addition, I'd like to suggest the possibility that the "manna" from heaven that sustained the Jews in the desert could have been locust swarms.

As you can see, there are lots of connections lately. There is nothing more rewarding to hear your student say "Oh, hey, that TOTALLY makes sense because..."

Week 26

Hello to all reading the blog this week!  This is Sarah back from a blog writing vacation.  I’ve actually been doing a multimedia workshop at the Telling room these past four weeks.  Go to the Telling room web site to see and hear our pieces!

This week in Life skills math we rolled for our scenarios.  This week, my scenario is that when I was at a club dancing, a big time producer saw me and asked me to make a two minute choreographed dance routine.  I could be famous!  (Metaphorically speaking)

In Ethics, we left Socrates and started learning about Aristotle.  He was one of Plato’s students after Socrates died.  He was the one that taught Alexander the Great, which was very fascinating to me.

In Logic we learned about consistency, necessary truths and contingency statements.  I know, it seems confusing, but once you learn the basics, it doesn’t fry your brain like an egg.

In History we finished our Assyrian mosaics and focused our attention on the rise and fall of New Babylonia, which we stitched into our maps which are coming out fantastically if you were wondering.

In Science our teacher found what she was looking for.  Whitchetty bugs.  Ha!  Fooled you!  We really didn’t eat them!  (We were very very pleased she didn’t find a supplier)  What we did was have eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, Filo dough in the oven.  Not one of us wanted to eat any but she persisted.  She said there was one secret ingredient in the mixture and we freaked, although they were particularly tasty.  Turned out, no secret ingredient.  She did that just to scare us a little, and said that’s what a cooked Whitchetty grub would taste like.  God knows what a raw one would taste like!  Yuck!  We also drew the larval stages of butterflies and moths.

In Grammar we learned about identifying and diagramming object complements.  Again, I know it seems like a lot to cram into your brain, but it’s very simple.  Here is an example.  I’ll help you.  The town appointed four people Selectmen.  First is the subject which is town.  The verb is appointed. The describes town and four describes people.  People is the direct object.  But we have Selectmen left.  The rule for an object complement is that if it follows the direct object and re-describes it, it’s an object complement.  So Selectmen is the object complement.  It might hurt your brain, but take it from me, my brain doesn’t hurt as I’m writing this.

In Spelling we have a change of plans.  Instead of studying the really boring long words (Sorry Jen) we’re doing prefixes.  Pretty simple you think, but think harder.  There are thousands  of prefixes that I can’t even tell you how many!  But we only learn the ones we’ll see around a lot.

In Reading Comp we left Homer and are now reading Prometheus Bound by Aechylus, but first, we’re reading about Greek tragedy, comedy, and Satyr plays and how they were performed and all kinds of other interesting things.  I know, seems boring to you reading this, but if you read the book we’re reading, you’ll be amazed.

I’m writing the blog from the Telling room and we have Co-op tomorrow and the new classes starting.  I’m in homemade cosmetics, my writer’s guild, and Greek drama (Coincidence?).  And Friday I’m back at Grapheteria working on framing and pictures with Jim and Lisa.  If you want a perfectly framed picture or a newly fixed copied photo, I recommend the best.  I hope to see you all back next week!  (Maybe I can convince Sophie to do the blog next week.)

Week 25

It's been a gorgeous week of unseasonably warm weather here. I think we can all agree that we're experiencing a bit of Spring Fever. Unfortunately, some illness kept us out of school on Wednesday, so it felt like a very short week. However, we did manage to get some work done. Two of the students have the State competition of Odyssey of the Mind on Saturday, and much of the time out of school has been spent preparing. Wish us luck! What we covered this week:
1. We had a fortunate convergence between Life Skills Math and Independent Math. Students have been working on the relationships between decimals, fractions, and percentages at their own pace in their Independent workshop. They also had to apply this knowledge to several "situations" presented to them in Life Skills. It's a great remedy to that age-old question "When are we ever going to use THIS?"
2. In Ethics, we read Aristophanes' The Clouds. Actually, we acted it out, and the kids loved it. For those of you unfamiliar with the play, Aristophanes was known as the father of Greek comedy. He also happened to be quite jealous and bitter about the fan-fare surrounding Socrates at the time. As the city of Athens considered their case against Socrates (and his eventual death sentence), they began one of the world's first nasty PR campaigns. They hired Aristophanes to write The Clouds, which is an absolutely hilarious satire of Socrates, his followers, and his school. Because it is chock-full of scatological humor and absurdities, the common folk of Athens LOVED it. And, of course, who wouldn't like to see such pomposity cut down a bit. Our students were thrilled to find that Greek Theater, which is so often considered pedantic, utilizes the same humor seen in movies like "Dumb and Dumber". Humans have not changed much...
3. In Latin, we completed another chapter translation of The Life and Times of Cornelia. The plot thickens as we now suspect that Cornelia's mother is responsible for poisoning members of the farming community!
4. In History, we studied the demise of Old Babylon and the rise of the Assyrians. Because this point in history gives rise to so many nations [Hittites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Akkadians, Elamites, Amorites, etc.], we've found that using our map and acting out the battles, the expansions, and the defeats that take place between these rising empires helps the students visualize the political motivations behind each nation's decisions. Once again, we're learning that humans have not changed an awful lot...
5. In Science, we started a 10 week unit on Arthropods, specifically Insects and Arachnids. I'm using the subject of entomophagy (the eating of insects) as a jumping off point. This week we focused on the Witchetty Grub of Australia as a model for studying the insect larval phase. I'd love to find some samples to taste, if anyone out there happens to have a supplier...
6. We missed school on Wednesday, so we're behind on our C-Day classes [Grammar, Reading Comprehension, Spelling, Word Derivation, and Writing], but we'll make it up somehow.
7. Co-op was on Thursday. For those students in Odyssey of the Mind, it was a full day of practice. My non-Odyssey student, Sarah, spent the day in Writer's Guild, Small Animal Dissection, and Digital Photography.
8. Today is Internship. Abe's is at the veterinary office; Sophie is at the day care; Sarah is beginning her internship at the Salt Institute in Portland (a very prestigious placement, if you ask me).

That was it. Next week is supposed to be colder, so perhaps it'll be easier to buckle down.

Weeks 24 and 25

Hi, this is Able again. I'm sorry we missed blogging last week. Mommy didn't get to it and we had company. Last week I did three more chapters in Independent Math. Decimals are so much easier than fractions. In Ethics, we acted out a play from Plato's Apology about Socrates' trial. In Science we had a murder mystery. We found 8 slipper shells with holes in them and a clam shell with a hole in it. But they died from suffocating first. We had to figure out who killed them. And the killer left behind an egg case that was a clue. We found out that a guy named Maury Moon Snail did the crime. He strangled them and then punched a hole in the shells. He spit poison into the shell to make the bodies liquidy and then sucked them out.

In History, we learned about the Hittite empire and their discovery of iron and how they were finally destroyed by the Mycenaeans. We went to the Telling Room on Wednesday for writing, and we had Co-op on Thursday. We only have two more weeks before our Odyssey of the Mind competition. We're very nervous. And we're very behind. On Friday I went to Internship and we removed a tumor from a dog. I learned the difference between malignant and benign and how to use an autoclave for sterilizing.

This week I did three more chapters in Independent Math. I am on Chapter 6 now, and I am learning how to use "pi" when trying to find the circumference of a circle. We had Ethics and we acted out Plato's Phaedo which is about Socrates' death. I was Simmeas who is sort of the dumb person. We continued practicing our truth tables in Logic. In Latin we practiced how to put the right endings on masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. We learned how to make them plural. In History we learned about Old Babylon and how it got powerful and then was sacked by the Hittites. We got to argue about the laws of Hammurabi. In Science we did the anatomy of the Mollusk and had to draw them in our lab books. We finished reading the Odyssey and then we had to diagram some wicked hard sentences. Now we are at the Telling Room again and I'm writing this blog. Tomorrow we are going to Co-op and then Internship on Friday. I think we are removing another tumor from a dog, but it is a different dog. I think the tumor is benign and just has liquid in it. Cytology is when you study the stuff inside a tumor to see if it is benign or malignant.

Week 23

Hi, this is Able. This week in Life of Fred, I passed the Final Bridge in the Fractions book, and now I am on the Decimals book. In Latin we did our flash cards and the 4th Cornelia translation. I think the farmer in Cornelia is guilty in helping the cousin kill Cornelia's father. There is a person under the barn floor in the story, but we don't know who it is yet. I think it is Cornelia's cousin. In Ethics we learned about a guy named Socrates. He was really annoying, but he was a really good teacher. He only taught by asking questions. Our teacher used his way of teaching to teach us binary arithmetic.

We got to make our objects in Mycenaean style in History. Sarah made a chariot; Sophie made a fork; I made a dagger. The Mycenaeans took over Crete from the Minoans. We also stitched Ancient Greece in our maps. I haven't finished all of the tiny islands in Greece yet. We also learned the life cycle of salmon in Science. We drew it in our lab books and sang the salmon life cycle song.

Today we had our spelling test on cooking words. Our new words and derivatives are on education. We read the Odyssey and we got to the chapters on Princess Nauticca. In Grammar we learned how to diagram compound sentences. We also did writing at the Telling Room in Portland. Our Co-op was cancelled because of the snow. Mommy is panicking about our Odyssey of the Mind team getting all our work done by competition. I spent all day Thursday working on my O.M. hat and costume and balsa structure. I have my internship on Friday. I love my internship. I cannot wait for next week. Mommy told me to say that. We only have 13 more weeks of school.

Week 22

Well, we're slowly getting back into the rhythm of the school day. Our two weeks off were greatly enjoyed and flew by. We began our week with a Logic Day--a quick way to warm up after time off. We began with a couple of hours of Life Skills Math and Independent Math combined. Students had to pay all of their February bills, and we have one student designing the floor plan of his newly up-graded home. Between you and me, I have my doubts he'll be able to afford the mortgage on his salary. He'll either need to interview for a new job or get rid of the second story game room/indoor swimming pool/boxing arena.

In addition to math, we introduced new Latin vocabulary, translations, and derivatives. Our translation this week centered on the Roman occupation of Britain and building of Hadrian's Wall. We finished our Logic Day with Ethics. We're starting a new unit of historical ethics, beginning with the Ethic of Reciprocity [a.k.a. The Golden Rule]. In an effort to underscore the gulf separating the Golden Rule theory from the Golden Rule in practice, we ran through the notorious thought experiment "The Prisoner's Dilemma". It took us seven tries to agree, as a group, on the most ethical solution despite KNOWING the ethical answer ahead of time. It proved to be a great example of how "group think" overshadows individual reasoning.

Other topics we covered this week:
--Examination of the rise, rule, and fall of the Minoan civilization. The kids finished stitching the island of Crete on their ancient civilizations "tapestry" they're each making. We also created examples of Minoan pottery using authentic pottery profiles and designs. We talked about the extensiveness of the Minoan trade route, and how trade with the Egyptians gave rise to the Minoan Linear A script [they copied Egyptian hieroglyphics in many ways], the grandfather to modern Greek characters.
--We studied the floor plan of the palace of Knossos on the island of Crete, the palace of the very wealthy and powerful legendary King Minos. Students made interesting observations regarding how much the floor plan resembled a labyrinth. In fact, they surmised, perhaps the legend of the Minotaur and King Minos' building of a labyrinth was based on how confusing the palace and surrounding marketplace felt to commoners. Above all, we learned that myths and fables do not arise from a vacuum; that all stories have a basis in reality, and it is our job to untangle these legends from history.
--There was some grumbling about getting back to Grammar this week, but I thought they did well recalling prepositional phrases as adjectivals, adverbials, direct or indirect objects. We also warmed up by diagramming sentences with compound parts.
--We continued our reading of the Odyssey, discussing how many classics have been written about the heroes of the Trojan War: Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Joyce's Ulysses.
--We continued our unit on fresh and saltwater bony fish. We spent one whole morning dissecting a couple of 2 pound Striped Bass. Not all of the students enjoyed the experience, but I think we would all agree that it was informative. Students followed along with a dissection Power Point that explained the proper dissection procedure and helped us all locate the organs. The lesson concluded with anatomical drawings, both exterior and interior views, sketched into lab books.
--Students also received new spelling words for the week; we have a culinary theme this week. Students are so happy to have new spelling words after so many weeks without studying!

That was it for this week.

Week 21

Hello to all you Blog readers!  To reintroduce myself I’m Sarah.  I’m hoping you all remember me anyway.  Finally this is the last week before February break!  All of us are very excited but also heartbroken to stop school.  Now let’s talk about what we did this week.

This week we finished Little Prince written by Antoine de St Exupery. “ It’s a very beautiful book,” as our old librarian would say.  As you can tell, he’s French.  We also had another paper of Cornelia translation.  If you remember the last blog our teacher gave you an example of one of the translations.  I also won the lottery!  Okay, not literally but I did win the lottery in Life skills math.  In winning the lottery I had to calculate a tax percentage on $10,000.  I lost about $2,400 of the $10,000.  We also continued our truth tables in Logic.  A truth table is how you see if the argument you have is true or false, even if it sounds true when you read it.  We also learned a little bit about the Minoan Empire on Crete, ruled by king Minos.  In doing this we all agreed to learn about the Greeks next and we had to stitch Crete and the Black Sea on our maps.  In science we learned about freshwater fish, and we finished our frog sandwich.  (“I’m very, very, very, tasty.”)  In grammar we learned how to diagram adverbial and adjectival prepositional phrases. Bet you don’t know what that means!  Well I’ll tell you.  It’s actually quite simple.  If you know about a prepositional phrase then you’re ahead of the game.  If you don’t it simply means asking the question “Where’s Johnny?”  Try to find the prepositional phrase in this sentence.  I was out walking in the great green pasture on a sunny afternoon.  The “where’s Johnny?” is ‘in the great green pasture’.  Now we have to find out what this prepositional phrase is describing.   In the great green pasture is describing where you were walking so it makes it an adverbial prepositional phrase.  Cool huh?  We also went to court.  Not a real court but a mock court to help us remember our spelling words which are based on crime and punishment.  My case was that I was arrested for breaking and entering, attempted armed robbery, and attempted man slaughter.  Poor, poor, me.  In Reading Comp we started on Homer’s Odyssey, the next story after the Iliad.   We went to the Telling room on Wednesday and I’m writing this blog from Co-op.  And tomorrow is our internship day and I have come to tell you that I’ve changed from an equestrian barn to taking photography from one of my mom’s great friends at Graphetria.  That’s all we did and I hoped you liked my blog.  Maybe you’ll end up in better condition than me right now.  I’m stuck in fake jail.  See you next week!

Written by Sarah Cyr.  (Student)

Week 20

We had another busy week here. New classes at our co-op began yesterday, and our students are taking Robotics, small animal dissection, the second part of the digital camera workshop, paper quilling, and continuations of Odyssesy of the Mind and Writer's Guild. During the school week, the most notable projects we completed were frog dissection labs and the completion of the Iliad. The kids were actually disappointed to end this reading, and we had a lot of fun comparing the real story to that portrayed in the movie Troy (the one with Brad Pitt).

I think, however, that the subject that elicited the most interest this week was Latin. I had mentioned in an earlier blog that we are supplementing our first year Latin with a primer published in 1933 called Cornelia. Like most first year language readers, Cornelia tends to be a bit insipid. As in the study of most new languages, students are introduced to new vocabulary, gender-ed words, and irregular verb tenses. In the case of Latin, nouns also require different suffixes depending on their role in the sentence. A complete Latin noun declension consists of seven grammatical cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative and locative.

The nominative case marks the subject of a statement and performs the action of the verb. The vocative case is used to address someone or something in direct speech. The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb. The genitive case expresses possession, measurement, or source. The dative case marks the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. The ablative case expresses separation, indirection, or the means by which an action is performed. Lastly, the locative case expresses the place where an action is performed. Dull, right? Well, multiply that by five (as there are five different forms of declension) and add your irregulars, your pronouns, and your peculiarities (yes, these are the technical terms), and you'll understand why Latin is a dead language. Why study it? I go into detail on that argument in the sidebar to the right, but the short version is that Latin is a great brain workout. It helps to strengthen grammatical understanding, it requires strict logic for successful translation, and it is the source language for all of the Romance languages.

In any case, Latin can be excruciatingly dull to learn, and most Latin primers worth their salt are fairly tedious. The primer Cornelia, in its original, is about a young girl who lives with her mother and siblings on a farm during the very beginning of what we now call the Dust Bowl. I can only surmise that the lack of explanation regarding the absent father, female cousin who lives with the family, and the jingoistic (one of this week's vocabulary words) tone of the narrative is due to the era in which this primer was written. Also, there are no pictures. That being said, the students at Pownal Independent and I are rewriting our Cornelia primer. I can't give too many details for fear of spoiling the ending, however I will state that Cornelia's squatting cousin is not to be trusted. And that absent father? Well, he might turn up, literally, in the back field like some nightmare Mildenhall treasure. Here's a teaser:
Puella pulchra est Cornelia. Estne haec alta puella soror Corneliae?
Haec puella est discipula. Haec puella non est soror Corneliae sed hic puer est frater Corneliae...Fama Americae est magna. Vitae Americae sunt longae. America est patria Corneliae. Corneliae vita erit longa. Cornelia Americam amat. Mater Corneliae Americam amat. Frater quoque Corneliae Americam amat. Haec femina est Corneliaem matruelem. Sed haec femina Americam non amat.

Haec femina nihil amat. Eritne haec feminae vita longa? Non ita.
[Translation: The small girl is Cornelia. Is this tall girl Cornelia's sister? This girl is a student. This girl is not Cornelia's sister, but this boy is Cornelia's brother...The wealth in America is great. American lives are long. America is Cornelia's country. Cornelia will have a long life. Cornelia loves America. Cornelia's mother loves America. Cornelia's brother also loves America. This woman is Cornelia's cousin. But this woman does not love America. This woman loves nothing. Will this woman have a long life? It is not so.] Riveting, right? Well the kids thought so. And they can't wait to see what happens next which I guess is the best I could hope for when studying Latin.

A Little Bit About the Rest of Our Week

Jen and the kids do such a great job telling you all about the "classroom" work that they do each week that I wanted to get in on the action too. I thought it would be interesting and fun to let you know some of the other things we do when we are not at school.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON'S
On Wednesday's from 1:30-4:30 the kids go to The Telling Room in Portland. The Telling Room is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping kids (and adults) find their inner writers. They offer many workshops and programs at no charge. Every Wednesday they open their space to young adults to come and write. There are volunteers there to help with ideas, critique work and offer inspiration and encouragement.
THURSDAY'S
Every Thursday we carpool to Gorham to participate in the classes that are offered by the co-op that we belong to. The name of the co-op is Earthschool and there are approximately 85 families and over 150 children ranging in age from 4-18. The classes are taught by the volunteer parents and some are even taught by the kids themselves. Our day begins at 10 a.m. with a one hour lunch break and recess/game/play time and ends at 3 p.m. Here is a sampling of the classes that our kids have participated in so far this year:

• Odyssey of the Mind
• Leggo Robotics
• Animee Art Class
• Digital Photography
• Drama
• Cooking
• Paper Quilling
• Journalism
• Writers Guild
• Dissection
• All kids have served on various planning committees

FRIDAY'S
Friday's are internship days. The purpose of our internship program was to give the kids an opportunity to "work" in a field that interested them. Each of them had to create a list of goals that they wanted to achieve during their internship, and while they are at their respective jobs they are required to keep a journal. In the journal they record what they have done that day, any challenges they encountered and what they learned that brought them closer to their goals.
Able chose to do his internship at Pownal Veterinary Hospital. While there Able is allowed to observe operations such as the removal of an ovarian cyst. He has witnessed the intubation process and has learned to identify various blood borne parasites. He is also able to participate in patient interviews and assist during all appointments. During the down time, Able helps with general office chores.
Sophie's internship is at Rise and Shine Child Care Center in New Gloucester. Sophie's interest is in early childhood development. She has been helping in both the infant room and the toddler room. To prepare she participated in a workshop and has had hands on instruction. She also participated in a recent open house. She helps with feeding, diaper changes and nurturing. One of her other duties is to record data on each child that she assists with.
Sophie is also involved with The Children's Theatre of Maine and will be performing with Youth Voices in the coming weeks. Youth Voices is a peer group that brings anti-bullying messages through role playing to local schools.
Sarah will be finishing up her first internship at the end of this month. She wanted to do her internship at Sable Oak Equestrian Center in Brunswick with Sherrye Trafton-Johnson. Sarah has been riding horses since she was 6 years old and wanted to learn more about training, natural horsemanship, breeding and barn management. She also helps out with school vacation camps and has regular barn chores. Starting in February she will be interning at The Grapheteria in Portland. She will be working with owner Jim Castonia learning about photography. Jim is a published photographer and talented artist. While there she will have the opportunity to work with The Salt Institute to learn about photo journalism and writing.
So, as you can see, we have a pretty full week with lots of variety. Either Jen or one of the kids will be back to update you next week. Until then you can check out some of the websites we like:

Wonderopolis , MIT Open Courseware , Saylor free online courses , In Praise of Homeschools , Virtual Dissection

Week 18

Hi this Able again. What happened to you guys? The answers are:
1. "Perissodactyl" is a hooved animal with an uneven amount of toes.
2. It comes from "perisus" which is Latin for "uneven".
3. "Pinniped" comes from two Latin words: "Pinnus" which means "fin" and "pes" which means foot. A pinniped is an animal from the water that uses its fins as feet on dry ground.
4. A symbiotic relationship is when two things depend on each other to live well.
5. Lichen is made up of algae and fungus.
6. Trojans: Paris, Hector, Priam Greeks: Achilles, Diomedes,Meneleus, Agammenon, Teucer, Ajax the Greater
7. Homer wrote those stories.
8. Homer is called Homer because that was what they called blind people in ancient Greece.
9. I tried to put the diagram on this blog but it came up in codes. So, I'll tell you what everything is: subjects are "class" and " teacher" combined by a conjunction; the verb is "are taking"; the prepositional phrase is "to beautiful Paris"; the object of the preposition is "Paris"; "trip" is direct object; adjectives are "our, French, the, a," and "beautiful".
10. Categorical ethics is when you believe that there are rules that can't be changed no matter what. If you believe that people should go to jail if they kill someone no matter what the situation is, that is categorical thinking. Consequential is when you think that not all situations should be handled the same way. If you think that most people should go to jail if they kill someone except in cases of self-defense or protecting a baby or something like that, then you are a consequential thinker. God in the Old Testament is definitely a categorical thinker. One example is when Moses tapped the rock twice instead of once (which was what God told him to do). God told him he would be punished by never getting to the Promised Land. There are a bunch of other examples, too.

That's all I have for today. Goodbye. Able Henry Kaplan

Week 17

Hi, this is Able. I'm happy to be back at school because I love the subjects, especially Life Skills Math and Reading Comprehension.

I got a C average on my mid terms. I want to work harder next time. This week we read the Iliad which is a really good story. It's as good as the Epic of Gilgamesh. This week we also went over our mid term tests to review what we got wrong. We also paid our monthly bills and worked on our projects in Life Skills Math. Our project is to make a presentation for a travel agency about Pownal. In the project, we have to make a model of a place in Pownal, and we have to pick 5 places in town to write about. We also got new words in Latin, and I won this week's Spelling and Derivation quiz.

I have a test for you. Here are 10 questions.
1. What does perissodactyl mean?
2. "Perissodactyl" is an English word. It is a derivation of which Latin word, and what does that Latin word mean?
3. What does pinniped mean? Which Latin word and meaning is it derived from?
4. What is a symbiotic relationship?
5. What symbiotic relationship creates lichen?
6. Name 3 Trojans and 6 Greeks from the Iliad.
7. Who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey?
8. Homer's real name was Melesigines. Why was he called Homer?
9. Diagram this sentence: Our French class and the teacher are taking a trip to beautiful Paris.
10. What is the difference between catagorical and consequential ethics? Was the God of the Old Testament a catagorical or consequential moralist?

Next week we'll pick the top 10 winners to play again. The week after that, we'll pick 3 winners. The last week, we'll pick the final winner. The final winner gets to visit our school! In next week's blog, I will answer these questions. Comment your answers below. By the way, I love China. Goodbye. From Able Henry Kaplan