Hello! If an old link or a google search has led you to this blog, I hope you'll join me for more recent posts at the new home of Three Plus Two: threeplustwohomeschool.com . I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how to move the entire contents of my Typepad blog to my new site. Moving a Typepad blog is really, really, really hard, but hopefully it will all be accomplished (for better or worse) some time in the next few months. Unfortunately, Typepad has no means of redirecting readers to a new site, so once the move is finally (and hopefully!) accomplished, I'll be taking this blog down.
Click over to the new Three Plus Two and see what's been happening lately!
Well, I was going to put a photo of my homeschool book bookcase here to point out the difficulty I might have with "one" book, but... I couldn't get the bookcase to fit in the frame! Actually, that's probably not as bad as it sounds, because it's a tall skinny bookcase, and there's not a lot of room to maneuver in the little piece of hallway where it resides, but still... I've collected a lot of books over the past 10 years. For instance, I have all 3 editions of The Well-Trained Mind. Does that sound nutty? I use it mainly for the resources.
Since I have a hard time following directions, here is a list of some of my favorite homeschooling books:
Pretty dang unschooly. With a little classical thrown in for good measure.
2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT
Er... one? Well... if I was stranded without all my stuff, what I would absolutely want most would be a library card. So I guess the one resource I wouldn't be without is ACCESS TO BOOKS, and lots of them.
3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT
Hmmm... Off the top of my head, I would say the IEW writing curriculum. I don't know how I thought I could get past my deep aversion to teaching "dress-ups.
4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR
Gee, that's tough. There were some good books last year, but I think one of the "resources" we most enjoyed last year was the Lego unit I blogged about here.
5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR
Would that be this year maybe? Because I can't plan to the end of the week, much less know what we'll be using next year!
Does anybody have a schoolroom/art studio/home library space for sale, cheap?
7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED
A schoolroom/art studio/home library space you could unfold and attach to your house. Like the TARDIS -- bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
(This sounds like a good excuse to stick in a Doctor Who Youtube montage.)
Actually, Doctor Who has led to some good discussions in our house, so I guess it counts as one of my favorite resources, right? (Just smile and nod; it's easier that way.)
8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOG YOU ENJOY READING
Sonlight (although I don't like their new catalog as much as I liked the old format) ... Emmanuel Books... Montessori Services... (I guess that's technically not a homeschool catalog, but that's what I use it for, so I think it counts.)
Ok, so -- tag, you're it! If you haven't already done the meme and you'd like to, consider yourself tagged!
Wow! I can't tell you how surprised I was to wake up this morning and find that Three Plus Two was nominated for Best Nitty Gritty Homeschool Blog. In fact, I am so surprised I'm almost speechless! But not so speechless that I can't say THANK YOU VERY MUCH.It's nice to know that my blog made even one person feel "that it is OK that we aren't perfect." Because that's what I'd like my blog to be. Kind of a virtual, "Honey, I've been there."
Well! Now that you've made my day, head on over to the polls and check out the nominated blogs in all the other categories, too!
Just a couple of quizzes today. (HT: And Sometimes Tea) (Isn't it interesting how not all my results match up? Hmmm...)
You Are Tomato Juice
You are unusual and unconventional. Some people find you a bit overpowering. You're not normal, and that's totally okay with you. You're comfortable in your own skin.
You are outspoken and quirky. There's nothing subtle about you. And while you're powerful, you're not stubborn. You can be quite flexible and adaptable.
You are highly ambitious and goal oriented. You feel like there isn't enough time in your day to get it all done. You are outgoing and creative. You love talking with people, thinking up crazy plans, and then acting immediately on them.
When it comes to caffeine, you'd like a refill. You can almost always use an energy boost. Life is too short. You're going to get as much out of it as you can. You live for today.
You are a traditional and conservative person. You value the past, and change frightens you. You are very loyal, especially to your family. You prefer a low-key life, with lots of time spent at home.
You like soup because it's easy, quick, and cheap. You tend to have a favorite soup you stick to. Why change a good thing?
My camera's batteries are dead and so I can't download any Christmas photos for you until later today, after we do our Saturday errands. But if you lived next door, or down the road, or a few miles away, I would tell you that you should drop by some afternoon to have some coffee and cookies, bring the kids, don't mind the mess, please. Christmas presents are still all over the place, although we try to keep them corralled beneath the tree when no one is playing with them. If you have daughters (hi, Amy!) they might be a little overwhelmed with a bunch of boys who try to use wooden train tracks as axes sometimes, but really, they can be gentlemen, too. (Sometimes.) Because this is a blog, I can ignore the fact that I am usually too embarassed by the state of my house to have anyone over -- maybe because I'm still trying to live up to standards set by my super-organized mother who only had 3 children, and all of them daughters -- but because this is a blog, I can also tell you that I have made some good friends through this blog, and sometimes what I wish most is that I could just have all of you come by sometime.
If you came for coffee today, we would probably have something to say about the weather, which is now raining after all our snow last weekend. I would express some amazement over the forecast, which is for thunder later today, and maybe you would tell me how your family fared in the ice and snow from a while back. Farmerboy would probably run by wearing the WWII helmet he got for Christmas, and I'm sure my boys would have dealt out various weapons to your kids, and we would tell them, don't run in the kitchen! but I'm sure the battle cries drown out the sound of motherly reason. In a while we'll have them sign a peace treaty and call them in for cookies. While we're in the kitchen, maybe I'll show you the Vitamix my dear husband bought for me and I will have to exclaim about the utter coolness of being able to make peach ice cream in 30-60 seconds... and I'm afraid you'll just have to humor me, because I do think this is about the coolest thing since Ben and Jerry's, and you'll just have to excuse my inadvertant puns. You'll also probably have to accept the "deliveries" the twins bring to you, because they are playing UPS guys. You needed that tractor, those blocks, and the tattered spatula they were using as a fireman's axe, didn't you?
If you came for coffee, you would probably note the long wood rails lying in the hallway. "Pieces of 'real beds' for the twins," I would explain. "They're supposed to be bunk beds, but there is no way the twins are ever going to get bunk beds. When we moved, all the hardware for our beds was scattered all over the place and we couldn't find a lot of it." Now, nearly four years later, we are still in a state of disarray: part of our Saturday errands will include finding the hardware to put those beds together. Right now Pip and Pop sleep on mattresses on the floor, and I think that they are almost as excited about getting "real" beds as they were about Christmas. They were even excited about cleaning their room yesterday.
If you came for coffee, I'm sure we would talk about what you are doing right now, and how your kids are, and school, and probably a million things that a one-sided blog post cannot cover. The internet is a pretty paltry substitute for a real-life community, but it fills in the gaps for some of us who have a far-flung real life community, and in the end, becomes a blessing as it introduces you to people you never would have met any other way. And then, in your travels, maybe you will get up the courage to actually meet those people who were once pixels on a screen, and then you will have created a real-life community, and maybe it all started with a blog.
In some ways, it's a very interesting thing. But it would still be far nicer if you could come for coffee, or stop by when you see us out in the garden when it's warm, or run into us at the grocery store and trade a few words before Chipmunk and the twins started pulling stuff off the shelf.
So, if you pour yourself a cup of coffee this afternoon, unwinding a bit in the afterglow of Christmas maybe, have a cookie on me. If it's chocolate chip, you can rest assured it's probably what I would have offered you, from the green and red Santa containers on top of my microwave. Or if you didn't want chocolate chip, there would be S cookies, and possibly -- if I knew you were coming -- I'd have baked some strawberry marzipan bars for us, because those are my favorites.
But right now I have some diapers to change and laundry to start and errands to contemplate, and Chipmunk is most upset that I won't let him type, too. And since you can't for coffee, I'll just wish you a merry Twelve Days of Christmas and a Happy New Year... and I promise that as soon as I get those batteries, I'll put some pictures up.
by Nancy Wallace
by the Colfaxes
by John Holt
by Alison McKee
