Harry Potter

The Harry Potter wave didn't hit us when it hit everyone else. We started listening to the first book recently. Can't be done before bedtime, so we listen as we drive to and from school, and any other time the 3 of us are driving together. The girls kept better track of the chapters and when the cds needed to be changed. I seems like everyone is now hooked.

We just spent another $40 plus for the second audio book.

I will be exploring many things Potter.

Here's some to start with:

*What Christians think about Harry Potter.

What do you know ....

"The future isn't something hidden in a corner. The future is something we build in the present." --Paulo Freire

Being different

"I think the biggest thing I would make all School Psychs do is to be forced to take a class for an *entire* semester with students of a 65 IQ or to actually live in a house for Down's Syndrome Adults for the entire semester.
I would make it a requirement that they attend the house activities and that they eat their meals and do the food shopping with the house "family", everything would have to be that they were assimilated into the group. I would require this so that they could experience *first hand* what a PG person goes thru in living their everyday lives. Yes, people with 50 points less IQ are kind and considerate and have worth and can be fun to play ball with and run races and watch tv. But there cannot be a deep conversation most likely. The 115 IQ person or 105 or whatever, WILL feel like an outsider, WILL feel bored when made to sit in the class day after day after day while the other students are learning to carry decimal places for checkbook balancing or whathaveyou. This is the best way to have someone of average intelligence understand what it is like to be a person of much higher IQ. It can be fine and fun some days, but some days it can be excruciating and not worth getting up for. Then, I would have that same person be allowed for 2 hours, once a week, to be with same IQ peers, but ONLY for 2 hours (to mimic a pullout class). I think this would be the best experience for anyone going into gifted education or psychological counselling for the gt and especially anyone who will be responsible for the educational decisions of a gifted population." - AL

Science

I was so going to pursue science if I had stayed in Mozambique. Experiments we did in 5th and 6th grades made me salivate.

So, I will be exploring science na escola. I'll post all I find and my puzzle will come together in a year. Sciencias Naturais, here I come.

Sound making

Our Arts Jam where sound making was the order of the day.

Shakespeare and video games

When children spend hours in front of a computer, let them learn about Shakespeare.

Wisdom

"My dear young fellow," the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, "there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that you haven't even begun wondering about yet." --Roald Dahl, "James and the Giant Peach"