Carbon has informed me that I don’t do enough science with him. On our weekly trip to the library today we loaded up on more science books and movies, and he says we need to do “one experiment a week”.
He also says that he likes science books and movies because he “wants to know more [...]
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These posts are kind of fun, so here I go again. I admit to not being perfect in my pursuit of simplicity, and this corner is the worst offender in my house. This picture was taken this morning, while Hypatia and I are the only ones up and she’s watching some Scooby Doo while she [...]
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Carbon has been making some big conceptual leaps with math. Suddenly, he was just adding. Then, he could count to 100 (and beyond if we have time). And then, he started to understand base 10 and place value. He feels really good about his increasing abilities and understandings, and even boasted one day “at this rate, I’ll [...]
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I asked “how short do you want it?”. He replied “you can just shave it all off”. I took him seriously, not remembering his recent forays into the use of sarcasm. I put the 1/4 inch guard on the trimmer, and worked the whole head over. When he looked in the mirror, he had hysterics. [...]
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The Story of Stuff is a longish (20 minutes) video, but it does a great job of explaining the whole material economy and system, and what’s wrong with it. One of the shocking things in the video is the fact that after 6 months, only 1% of what we buy is still in use. The rest [...]
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Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet B. Schor
Schor is an economist and sociologist, and the author of two other books: The Overworked American and The Overspent American. This book is full of research, statistics, and interviews with advertising industry people and mainstream parents. It’s not a fun read [...]
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Carbon has been taking tap dance since December, and they even had a little performance! He’s super cute, and he’s been learning a lot of coordination, rhythm, and memory-work. I’m convinced that memorizing dance routines is Really Really good for the brain – and some of the research around things like Brain Gym and so forth [...]
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We’re just wrapping up some reading about The Transcendentalists, which I started (once again) as research for work. And (once again) we ended up all enjoying the study as a family.
First, I read American Bloomsbury which was an engaging look at the personal lives (and entanglements) of the Conchord residents: Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Alcott. [...]
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DH is out tonight, at the inaugural game of the new Seattle Sounders. It’s our first ever pro-soccer team, and DH bought two season tickets for himself and his step-dad. They got cool scarves to wear to the games, and they are planning on attending as many of the games as they possibly can!
The ticket [...]
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Carbon and Hypatia have been playing school. He’s the teacher, and he’s using his real handwriting workbook pages to “teach” his sister. They were so cute sitting at his desk, bent over the paper. But then Hypatia said, melodramatically, “I’m so tired of this school! I want to go somewhere else.”
Carbon said, very sternly, “Hypatia, [...]
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