Week in Review

The big question being, did we do history on Friday?

No, we didn't.

Yes, OT ran late. Yes, the kids took forever to clean up. Yes, we had to catch-up in other more important subjects first. But, its possible that it still could have been accomplished. I have all weekend to remedy this situation and we will try again next Friday.

We did manage to knock down one of the planned projects: origami. This tied into our study of medieval Japan. What did we learn? We are all terrible at origami and, what's further, none of us really cares. I may not be able to fold papers beautifully but I can make lots of snide remarks about how pointless a skill that is anyway. And now, so can my children. And according to the standards of our time, being snide about paper folding is no better or worse than being excellent at paper folding. Its just different.

I kid about spreading my message of origami-hate to the children. I kept most of the comments to myself.

Other unmet goals: Henry missed one day of cursive, Sadie missed one day of reading lesson, history reading did not get finished, spelling tests are pending, Eleanor needs to complete her writing lesson. Just like conventional schools, we sometimes get "homework".

We also did not make it to park-day but that was through no fault of ours. It was pouring. Based on the number of e-mails I received from people on the park-day list boasting about who showed up in spite of the weather, I now know that I live in an area where people are obsessively prideful about how much rain they are willing to endure for absolutely no compelling reason. I don't care. Turns out that I do know enough to come in out of the rain in spite of my parents' early concerns.

Eleanor had her last basketball game of the season this morning. As a parting gift she was presented with a medal. For showing up. That is everything that is wrong with our world right there. Participation gifts should not resemble those things we typically associate with achievement. A t-shirt is also an excellent way to say, "Good work and thanks for supporting the league." Pencils that say, "Shoot for the stars", or something equally stupid. Not medals. Not trophies.

More on this later.