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Homeschool Blog 'n' Tell
 Jessica is doing something new for 2009! If you don't know her, she blogs at A Path of Promise and is the owner of an amazingly helpful Yahoo group Notebooking2Learn where she offers an abundance of professional quality lapbooking and notebooking printables for FREE. I always admire moms who freely give away the things they make. Some people are just generous, and Jessica is one of those people.
Her new venture is called Homeschool Blog 'n' Tell.
Each month has a different theme:
January - Lapbooking
February - History
March - Homeschooling Basics
April - Notebooking
May - Homeschool Humor
June - Nature
July - Unit Studies
August - Science
September - Organization
October - Math
November - Encouragement
December - Crafts & Projects
Go nominate your favorite blogs each month and find some new gems to read as well. See you at Jessica's blog!
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Chinese New Year
Christmas is over, and the New Year has officially begun! Most of you have heaved a sigh of relief as "normal" life starts to return.
 But Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival, is still ahead. Bright red lanterns are being hung all over our city. Soon the children will be out of school for a long winter break. And I'll accordingly let Sprite take time off from homeschool so that she can enjoy extended times with her friends. Our "normal" is still a long way away!
According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, 2009, the year of the ox, begins on January 26, 2009.
If you'd like to teach your children about this holiday celebrated by much of the Asian world, I've gathered some resources at Chinese New Year.
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The Luxurious Pleasures of a Muffin
For Christmas breakfast, we had some very special foods – bacon and blueberry muffins. More than likely, that doesn’t sound very fancy to you. You may even think that it’s a pretty pitiful breakfast to be blogging about, especially for Christmas Day. But it was perfect.
Bacon, because it’s a Western food, is often only sold in bulk at hotel or restaurant supply stores. On Christmas Eve, I was searching for a chafing dish to use as a fondue pot (another treat I had in store for Christmas day). After I made my purchase at the restaurant supply store (the same place where I bought my oven), I noticed a large chest freezer in front of the store. I started poking around among the chicken feet and pig intestines, hoping for some frozen treasures. I casually asked if they had bacon. “Yes, we do,” came the surprising answer. Of course, it wasn’t there in the case; the boss had to ride his motorcycle down to the warehouse to retrieve it. When they go to that kind of trouble I generally feel obliged to buy what they bring back. Fortunately, it was 2 kilograms (about 5 lbs) of good quality bacon and at a price that was just a tad more than the pork I buy at the grocery store. I know, bacon is not even considered a meat on the food pyramid. It’s a fat. I guess I should compare the cost to a bottle of oil. But you have to admit that, health considerations aside, bacon is a wonderful treat for someone who hasn’t eaten it in over six months.
I thought the bacon would be perfect with the blueberry muffins. I’d already planned them way in advance. I had bought a tiny bag of dried berries at a special imports store when we traveled to another larger city to spend Thanksgiving with American friends. They cost more than I’d like to admit. But again, I was preparing for a special treat – Christmas Day breakfast. I soaked them in boiling water to plump them up again. I didn’t even have a full cup that the recipe called for and I was sorry that I hadn’t indulged in a second bag. I topped them off with some dried cranberries (also bought at that import store).
The muffins were perfect. The bacon was crisp. I even warmed the plates before we ate. As if bacon weren’t decadent enough, I put butter on the table. This was Christmas Day Breakfast. It was going to be special.
Sprite and my husband raved. They said over and over how good the muffins were, “Better than Starbucks, Mom!” (Poor child, that’s her only experience of blueberry muffins – Starbucks coffee shops in Asia.) We all savored the bacon. “This is a perfect Christmas breakfast, honey!” my husband praised me. And it was. After we ate, we opened our presents and enjoyed the holiday together.
What’s my point here? It’s not really about muffins.
Living abroad has taught me that simple pleasures like a blueberry muffin or a slice of bacon can really be huge treats when they are rare. And when that simple pleasure is truly savored as we did with our Christmas breakfast, it brings the heart so much pure joy. You realize as you’re experiencing it that it’s actually a very trivial thing – a muffin. But at the same time it feels so luxurious. You truly relish the moment as a gift and as a blessing. And I’ve come to love those moments. That ability to give yourself over to an extreme sense of pleasure in an innocent and insignificant thing is a blessing in itself. Living in China has taught me this joy. My husband knows it, and my daughter does too. We don’t feel that we’re missing out by being “deprived” of bacon and blueberries. Actually, we know that we are better off by being deprived because we can find great pleasure in them when we do have them.
I’m not going to make parallels to Americans’ current financial problems. You can make those connections better than I (especially if you live there). But don’t be afraid of being deprived; it can actually make life much sweeter.
Remember when I told you that one blog goal for 2009 is to write more? On Christmas Day my camera broke. Great timing. So I have no pictures of our great breakfast or great day. But I'm writing. So it's all good.
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Living Math is not Quick or Neat
I’ve been investigating living math for quite some time now. And I’ve slowly started introducing some elements into our homeschool – a weekly game or puzzle instead of using the Singapore Math textbook and workbook. I’ve even gone so far as to purchase some lessons from Julie at LivingMath.net. (I’m still waiting for the holidays to be good and over to actually receive it, though.) I’m committed to changing the way we learn math.
 So far most of our activities have come from the Family Math book (pictured at left). They are quite fun and really help to improve Sprite’s motivation to do math as they hone mathematical reasoning skills. That’s all good and well. But the textbook and workbook are really a lot easier.
I know why people don’t do this living math thing. It’s not quick. First I’ve got to plan something to do. Using Singapore math is pretty mindless as far as planning goes. But with living math, I can’t just turn to the next lesson and do the accompanying workbook activity. Instead I’ve got to look through the Family Math book, choose something, and then prepare the materials needed.
And living math is not so neat. One project – a very meaningful project, mind you – involved a super long strip of fax paper and gazillions of tiny squares glued on to a number line. (Just imagine it because my camera is still broken, and I can't share it with you.) The idea was to demonstrate with squares all the possible multiplication problems that could result in that number. As an example, for 12 we had 1 long line of 12 squares, a rectangle made of 2 rows of 6 squares, and another rectangle of three rows of four squares. It’s a great project, a concrete model of multiplication factors! But add two curious cats into the mix and you’ve got a mess. Fax paper in twisted swirls, little colored squares scattered everywhere, globs of glue wiped on pants legs. After locking up the cats we did manage to complete the project.
It was not quick. No “do exercise 13 and tell me when you’re done.” This took a LONG time. Granted, we’ve used the chart several times as a reference for doing other activities. It’s worthwhile, and it’s living. But it’s not quick, and it’s not neat.
Another example is a fun puzzle from Family Math in which you have to arrange a stack of cards numbered 1-10 so that as you turn them over you get that sequence of 1-10. Sounds easy but as you turn over cards, every other card is put back on the bottom of the deck. I thought that this puzzle was doable by Sprite, and making ten numbered cards sounded awfully easy after all those tiny squares and a maze of fax paper. I assumed she’d get so far and want some help. Then I’d give her some clues, and she’d solve it. Done. Over. Moving on to history.
But it wasn’t like that. This puzzle really and truly captivated Sprite. She got so far, as I’d expected, but adamantly did not want any help. No clues. No diagrams. Absolutely wanted to solve it on her own. I was so proud of her persistence. Proud for the first forty minutes. Then I was feeling irritated. “Just give up!” I thought, “Let me tell you how to solve it!” But she remained firm. Because she was seeing slow steps of progress, she was motivated to keep going. She could get the cards to turn over in order from 1-7. It was those last three digits that she couldn’t solve.
Totally impatient, I insisted that she move on to history. Putting away her cards, I started reading about the Cherokee Indians. I looked over at Sprite, defeat all over her face. She was not mad that she couldn’t solve the math puzzle but mad that I wouldn’t let her keep trying. Realization hit me. Forget history. This is ridiculous. I want her to love learning, and I’m being a slave to my schedule for the day instead of allowing her to go off on this tangent. (A tangent I gave her!)
I gave her back the cards and told her to keep working until she solved it. If it took all day, I would accept that. Wrestling with this problem until it was solved was more important at that moment than the Trail of Tears. In less than six minutes, she had totally solved it! Her feeling of accomplishment was obvious as she danced around shouting, “I did it! I did it!”
Lesson learned --not only is living math slow and messy, it’s also amazingly rewarding!
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Homeschool Showcase
 The Homeschool Showcase Carnival is up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Click on the graphic to get there.
It's a really eclectic mix of fun ideas from crafts to camping to foreign languages. Go visit and submit something for next time.
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My Best Post of 2008
One of the blogs that I started reading this year is called Confident Writing. It's, as you can imagine, a blog about writing.
Writing was one of my objectives of starting a blog in the first place, but I feel that I've become sidetracked with other things and have spent very little time actually writing on this blog. So one of my 2009 blogging goals is to actually write more often -- write my thoughts and my observations in words and not simply share in photos.
A photo is easy; it's technical. Snap, tweak, upload, and paste. Voila. A picture. And the readers love them. But I want the photographs to complement my writing, not overpower it. I've gotten lazy and let photos speak their "thousand words." But where has my own voice gone? I want to find it this year. I want to write more and write better. (Don't worry. I'll still be using lots of pictures.)
So, step one is to look backwards. Joanna at Confident Writing is hosting a group writing project titled Simply the Best. The task is to find my one best blog post of 2008 and explain my choice.
So, I've chosen Our New Apartment -- The Real Estate Agent. I'm cheating a tiny bit because this post is the first in a seven part series. I think the series was the best thing I've done this year. Ironically, the series is full of pics! I'm choosing the first one as a representative of the entire series.
This post (okay, the series) is simply the best because it drew far away readers right into my city and then into my home and finally into a dialogue with me via comments which in turn stimulated more blog posts.
Because it was a series, I didn't feel that I had to explain everything in one single post. Instead, I could leisurely dissect our new apartment part by part. That gave me material for many posts. Evidenced by all the comments it received, this series was very popular. Within those comments and questions I found even more to post about. Who knew that the squatty potty would be so interesting to as to warrant its own entire post?
If you'd like to participate in this group writing project, you have until Dec. 28 to post. Read the details here.
Before the new year, I'll post a recap of 2008, linking to 12 of the best posts of the last year -- one for each month.
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Absolute Silly Christmas Fun
This is so totally ridiculous! But I love it!
Merry Christmas from the three of us!
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2008 One Child Policy Homeschool Recap
2008 was a year of transitions for us. And despite all the turmoil, I managed to blog fairly regularly. As a recap of the year's blog posts, I've chosen my best post for each month to share again with you.
January
Winter Ice Play
We had a severe ice storm that dramatically affected our daily life but gave us some neat nature study opportunities.
February
Fireworks for the end of Chinese New Year
We experienced late night noise as the Chinese New Year finally ended in a "bang."
March
Lapbooking and Charlotte Mason
A thoughtful post in which I defend lapbooking in a Charlotte Mason styled homeschool.
April
Hong Kong Disney -- It's a Small World
We visit Disney and get to ride the brand new It's a Small World ride before it even opened to the public! What a treat!
May
Field Trip to Lei Cheng Uk Han Dynasty Tomb
Still in Hong Kong, we took advantage of the historical and cultural opportunities to visit an archaeological site.
June
Crazy English
A hilarious post of Chinglish.
July
In July, we moved and thus started the 7 Part Series -- Our New Apartment. The Real Estate Agent was the first installment.
August
The Squatty Potty
An amazingly popular post! Yes, about the potty. A segment in the New Apartment Series.
September
Is Lapbooking Controlling Your Curriculum?
I got thoughtful again in September and considered lapbooking again.
October
Raising Children Overseas - How to Deal with Curious Onlookers
Another deep post based on years of experience living abroad.
November
Lunch at Our Home
I share a revelation -- I have a house helper who cooks lunch! Actually this post is about what she cooks for us. I got lots of recipe requests after this one!
December
Christmas Chinese Style Series that starts with this post
What is Christmas like in China? I try to share a bit with you through this series.
Blogging accomplishments for 2008
I discovered that creating a series is a good way to blog.
I've learned a lot this year about welcoming more interaction on my blog, for example turning your questions and comments into new blog entries.
I was nominated for the 2008 Homeschool Blog Awards in three categories.
Blogging goals for 2009
Write more -- use words to express myself and not "cheat" with photos. (On Christmas Day, my camera chose to stop working correctly. So it seems that fewer pictures are a necessity until I can get to the repair center. Thankfully it's still under a one year warranty.)
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A Condiment Disaster
This is a gingersnap and a piece of fruitcake.
With mustard on them.
 Lessons learned ---When you have a party, be sure to clearly state that the ketchup and mustard both go with the pigs in blankets. Also don't forget to share that gingersnaps and fruit cake are desserts and are meant to be sweet. (In Chinese there is only one word for both cracker and cookie.)
or
When you have a party, keep the desserts far, far away from the mustard, preferably on another table.
For the second party, I chose method #2. And we saw no mustard covered sweets. What a relief!
PS The person who put mustard on the cookie and fruitcake said it was delicious. I've got to trust him because I'm not trying it.
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Christmas Chinese Style #4
Oh, we're not done yet. We've got to show you the wonderful(ly tacky) Christmas decoration options that we have in our city.
First an assortment of dangling decorations:
The grand prize goes to the paratrooper Santa!
And of course, there is a wide variety of Santa posters.
But our favorite thing of all, something that made us pause and nod at each other with a knowing smile was this simple, almost tasteful decoration.
No, we didn't buy it. We left it, hoping that a local who understands what Christmas means would buy it and adorn his home for the holidays. Happy Christmas Eve!
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