Medieval Homeschooling with a Twist
One thing about homeschooling I love is the ability to really dive into subjects and LIVE there. We follow a classical model, with a Charlotte Mason bent, heavily influenced by unit studies, and are extremely eclectic. If you have watched The Five Flavors of Homeschooling video you might understand why this is a little bit funny. We just love to learn and we do it in ALL the ways. Most people pick one or mesh two. We enjoy taking it day by day and the only guarantee is that we are on the classical track. Which means this year we’ve been frolicking through the late ancient era and into the middle ages. Also, Kiddo loves cake decorating and party planning. So for her last “kid” party, she hosted a medieval feast/ ren faire in the backyard.
My mother-in-law and husband are both amazing at decorating cakes (and pretty much every crafty venture they try), so when Kiddo had a BIG idea… well, it turned out like this:
Yes, she asked for a giant pig cake. To make the table look more authentic. The cake took a lot of planning and several days of my mother-in-law teaching Kiddo step by step how to make it and Kiddo functioning as an official cake decorating assistant. The fondant was homemade because it’s my in-law’s recipe and actually edible versus a lot of the weird tasting too sugary stuff you get at the store. I love that I can’t share all the steps with you, because it means Kiddo did so much of the work. She asked for party-planning gifts this year… so helping Kiddo make the cake for the event with her grandmother was the big gift. Our goal is to stop collecting stuff and make a point to collect memories and skills, and build relationships.
Here is the pig next to our (not historically accurate) feast spread. My husband smoked forty pounds of chicken, I roasted about twenty-five pounds of potatoes and sauteed onions, carrots, and radishes. Kiddo baked eight loaves of bread. She served all her friends bread she made herself in addition to making the cake. Remember, she’s given a budget every year and told she may have presents or party or a mix of both but can’t go over budget. She voted for putting in the work on all the bells and whistles of a party. This is my favorite thing about how homeschooling becomes a whole lifestyle. This is her “Home Economics” credit, so much more extensive than a Foods for Today class where we identified a spatula on a worksheet. Sometime in the next semester or so, she will make a cake (of similar caliber) from start to finish on her own and earn a “Cake Decorating” credit. In addition to learning Latin, French, and Spanish, staying well above average in math and science, and a full host of other things, she has time to do all these fun electives that would have been a pipe dream for me when I was in public school. We are having so much fun.
My best friend and her partner then pitched in to put the entire event over the top. Their gift was a jousting tournament.
Let me tell you, this was brilliant. They took tomato plant spikes and attached silver-painted styrofoam cups to them. The cups looked a bit like castles, but their function was to hold the rings you see in the picture. Two blow-up horses and a pool noodle for each made a jousting tournament. The kids had to race to see who could collect the rings in their lane with the pool noodle the fastest. The winner of the tournament went home wearing a crown.
The day was amazing. My twelve-year-old managed to plan something that children of all ages and adults enjoyed. She used her resources, asked for help when she needed help, and tapped into the various expertise of those around her for the best possible outcome. We learned more about the middle ages as we determined that our feast was not actually accurate to the times, but the best fit for the budget we had. Homeschooling looks different for everyone, we bend the curriculum (and create our own) to meld to the personality and mind we are teaching. For my extroverted entertainer, this is how the middle ages came alive for her. Of course, she can dialogue all about Clovis, Augustine of Kent, the evacuation of Rome from Britain, Vikings, and more, but she can also budget, plan an event, manage requests, bake bread, alter recipes, and decorate cakes.
I have the opportunity, every day, to be so impressed by her.
Addleton Heights
George Wright Padgett has done it again – blown my mind with an awesome and fun reading experience.
Addleton Heights will be his third published work, but it’s an epic debut into the Steampunk genre and the world he has built and the characters he created have me smitten.
Just like everything George tackles, he writes his detective story with artistic spunk. Flare abounds from start to finish.
I believe so much in this book, the story, and the time period, I’m obsessed with the idea of launching the book release at the Cabinet of Curiosities at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Of course, this launch is expensive (mainly because booking the museum after hours costs a pretty penny), but would be worth it.
So, Grey Gecko Press and I have set up a Kickstarter page. Please, please, if you appreciate my reviews, value my bookish opinions, and/or love supporting indie authors and publishing houses, check this out:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/greygeckopress/addleton-heights-steampunk-launch-party-at-hmns
Convention Queen meets McCaffrey
I’m not really a convention queen, I just liked the alliteration. I definitely wouldn’t mind becoming one, though. That being said, I had the opportunity to work Comicpalooza (again) in Houston a few months back, and it was amazing.
I spent a lot of time chatting up this guy:
If you don’t recognize him, that’s Todd McCaffrey, co-author of the Dragons of Pern series – holding up a copy of his latest book City of Angels.
I was waiting to post about this until I had read his book. But a few days turned into a few weeks and a few weeks into a few months. Homeschooling the kiddo took priority and a lot of ancient biographies got put ahead in line. Now I find myself cramming 600 pages the night before I fly out to DragonCon, dying to find out what’s going to happen to this fictional tiny humanoid collection of nanotech. I’ll be working with Wordfire Press, hopefully hanging out with McCaffrey some more, and for sure trying to get this fun bit of sci-fi into more hands.
Wish me luck at DragonCon! And if you’re in Atlanta for Labor Day weekend, swing by. I’ll introduce you to some stellar people who love books just as much as we do.
All Shiny and New
The Bookshop Hotel has a new face! And back. And inside for that matter. It’s been re-edited and fine tuned and re-published by the marvelous Grey Gecko Press.
And right now, you may download this updated version for FREE: http://store.greygeckopress.com/products/the-bookshop-hotel
Book Signing on Saturday
I’ve gotten away from posting these, but I shouldn’t have. If you’re in the area, be sure to swing by Half Price Books Humble on Saturdays to check out local authors.
Houston Pow Wow 2014
Already in the mere four years I’ve been a homeschool mom, with my child not even “school age,” homeschooling in general has proven to be as much an education for me as it is for her. When you homeschool, field trips feel imperative. Not only do you want your kid to interact in the world, but even the most extreme homebody, if not an agoraphobe, gets a touch of cabin fever now and again.
In 2012, we discovered that Houston has an annual Pow Wow and attended. I documented that trip here. The kiddo loved it. We studied everything a two year old could “study” about Native Americans at that time and watched a lot of Pocahontas after the event. The culture, the dancing, the drums, the music, the food, I tried to dip my very pasty child in the whole experience. She came away desperately wanting an out fit just like the girl’s she took a picture with in my previous blog post (see left).
Life happened and we missed the 2013 gathering, though we do intend to attend every year.
This year, though kiddo didn’t do much in the way of pre- Pow Wow “research,” I felt the need to grab a book. On my lunch breaks I’ve been perusing The Five Civilized Tribes
I’m not done reading, so a full review cannot commence. Currently, I’ve read through the Choctaw segment and now am knee deep in the Creeks. The book, however, is thorough and enjoyable though – as the Christian Science Monitor reported – “pure history, sober, and fully documented.” One would assume that it would read dry, but it’s not. Sober and dry should not be used interchangeably when speaking of history, but often it is. Especially when dealing with the history of the Native American Indian tribes. Their cultures are too colorful and their history too rich to ever be considered dry.
My favorite bit about the Choctaw is how thoroughly devoted to educating their children they were. Building school houses and hiring teachers was a huge deal for them. They built educational requests into their treaties. Although I don’t agree with institutionalizing, I do find it interesting how much they wanted to learn about those infiltrating their land. Some would say that it was an effort to assimilate, but I don’t think so. I think it was more of an effort to understand. Understanding and knowledge is important to me, though, so perhaps that is always how I will interpret those sorts of actions.
We don’t speak with the competitors at the Pow Wows much. I’d like to know what tribes they are affiliated with, who their ancestors are, whether they live next door or on a reservation. I’d like to talk to them all, interview them all, watch them all more closely. But they are there for a competition and seem to be far more in the public eye than what could possibly be comfortable. Instead we politely nod, smile, purchase raffle tickets for Indian Blankets, donate money to musicians, and try not to take too many invasive pictures of the dancers. Instead, my child makes friends with their children for the day and blows bubbles, and desperately contains herself from touching their bead work and feathers, lest a fiercely intense father of a playmate scowl at all his hard work being undone.
The event is beautiful. It’s all so beautiful.
Today, however, it was rainy and cold. The Pow Wow had to be moved from the arena to a pavilion. The show must go on, though, rain or shine, and despite the cold and the wet, they danced, and they were brilliant and kind. Kind – even when my daughter said quite boldly during their prayer time, “But Indians DON’T PRAY!” I promise I didn’t teach her that. I popped her little butt and said, “Everyone prays, now bow your head.”
Fall Festival Fun
Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Fall Festival at Good Books in the Woods. A picture paints a thousand words, so here ye be:
#DidntMakeItToTheFestival raffles happening today (and possibly later this week) on twitter.
If you’re interested in being a vendor next year, contact Good Books in the Woods on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GoodBooksintheWoods
Anakalian Whims 