Road Trip

DrS and myself have to go on a road trip so he can spend the holiday with his paternal family. This involves a lot of driving on my part, a lot of whining on my ex-husband's part, and a lot of data usage on DrS's part.

It feels a lot like this but it's actually much, much worse.

This also means that homeschool is officially/unofficially on holiday break. Except that DrS and I are leaving on Monday and Reo isn't going on break until Wednesday. So, with my oldest son - an eighteen year-old public high school senior - on break for the week and the husband continuing to work from home, I can enlist the help of substitute teachers for two days of valuable learning.

This can be best achieved with more traditional methods so these men can plug 'n play teacher with no difficulty and Reo can complete tasks without much assistance or additional guidance.

In Geography and History, Reo is going to learn the US State capitals as well as the capital cities of Ancient Egypt. Unfortunately, I haven't found any handouts or worksheets that are suitable for learning the Ancient Egyptian capitals and their unique qualities so I've been writing this material this evening. This is not the first time that I've had to structure my own curriculum so I could teach the appropriate information, but this is the first time I've had to create an original and informative hand-out that anyone could read and understand as a solitary lesson.

If I'm in the position to do this more often, especially if Reo responds positively to this format, I will likely create a folder in my Google Drive to share these docs. Time will tell.

Insomnia. I have a cure for that!

The fourteen year-old homeschooler, who shall be known as DrS, has been suffering from Summer Vacation-itis since homeschooling began. His schedule has crept into nightowl territory. The Facebook status updates noted at 3am were a big tip-off that he was headed in the wrong direction. This is something I do not want happening, but insomnia can't be turned off like a switch.

When Reo has difficulty sleeping, I take away the laptop and restrict the use of his Kindle Fire to just reading books. No videos, no games. While he enjoys reading, there's something about reading in bed at the end of the day that really puts him out for the night.

It's not that simple for DrS, who can be kept awake all night with a good book.

So, I gave him one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors:

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
[Buy it here]

Who is the monster and who is the man?

Notre-Dame de Paris, or The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo is one of my favorite novels. I have been in awe of the dynamics, the moral and ethic challenges that he posits for people in positions of power versus those who are in a less privileged circumstance, and the way Hugo unfurls the heavy curtain that covers the corruption, greed, and base gutteral humanity of those who present themselves as most pious. You are meant to read his words about his beloved France and then apply them to your own world, then challenge it. Disney's talking gargoyles nowhere to be found.

So, to make sure DrS reads it, I've assigned it. He must read the novel and write a full book review by the end of the second quarter.

In the meanwhile, I think Hugo's knack for sharing the detail of every inch of architecture present in the buildings of his beautiful city will really help DrS out with that insomnia and get his circandian rhythm back on track.