1776

Beginning this past week, one of Noach's friends and her mother, my friend, starting coming over on Thursday mornings to watch movies for American History. She is studying American History and we are just watching for pleasure. Some of the movie choices will reflect topics in Noach's Civics but I don't expect him to do any assignments related to the movies.

Our first movie was a light one, 1776. Not a great movie, only somewhat historically accurate, no memorable songs. Well actually, JP, who played in his high school orchestra and thus knows ALL of the lyrics to MANY musicals produced by high schools in the early 70s, is known to sing the Richard Henry Lee song whenever this movie is mentioned but otherwise it's not a musical known for its show tunes.

But I thought it did show how the founders, those venerated, almost worshiped, men were not of a single mind about the beginning of our country. I know this was not the Constitutional Convention but it was many of the same men, the same contentious, egotistical, opinionated men. You don't have to know too much about American history to know that there were Federalists and Anti-Federalists, that much compromise was necessary to produce a document that would be acceptable to enough people and states. That some of the compromises were quite ugly and have been corrected by amendments.

So when people talk about getting back to the Constitution, whose interpretation do they mean? PRM

All in all

it was a good Yom Kippur. We all agreed the fast was not too bad, as we jostled in line to get water Saturday evening. Yakov came home Friday night and stayed through a break the fast Thai dinner.

This was the second year our family did the Jonah haftorah for the late afternoon service. We missed Shoshie's help but were grateful to have Yakov's. JP did most of the Hebrew chanting and gave the D'var. Noach did the blessings before the reading and could easily learn the blessings for after if someone would just take the time to work with him. Unfortunately my Hebrew is inadequate to the task. I'll try to pay attention next year and get it done. PRM

Cooking lessons

This was Noach's submission for dinner last night. Seared fish with shallot parsley butter. Delicious, too.

He is working through the chapter on searing from the book How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson. He will be preparing something from this chapter weekly for the next few weeks. PRM

First Amendment Right to be an ass

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Just as we have the right in this country to religious freedom, we have the right to free speech, a right that often equals the right to be an ass. The attention seeking preacher in Florida has the right to burn a book, even a holy book. What is most offensive to me is the press's giving this creep the attention he desires. Why can't we just ignore him? Move on! Just another religious jerk. Move on! PRM

Week 2 in Review and more

Our second full week was largely uneventful. We watched all of It Happened One Night and both enjoyed it. He chose Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the next movie.

We have settled on a routine for the morning. First we listen to the Writer's Almanac, followed by CNN Student News. Noach is very fond of poetry and the Writer's Almanac is usually a charming beginning to the day.

OM Civics really increased his workload and he was displeased by that. There is a lot of writing to do. There were two essays to be done last week. Since this is a very short week I let him put one of them off.

Math at the whiteboard is much less stressful for both of us. He hates to write on paper.

Week 2 1/2 Preview

We are not adding in any other Civics or Science during this week which will be Week 2 1/2. Rosh Hashanah will take up the last two days. Practicing the Ashrei for Thursday morning will be Hebrew for this week. Completing the literary essay from K12 Language Arts will be the prime focus of work. Finishing the last essay from Lesson 2 in Civics will be the second focus.

L'shana tovah. PRM

It Happened One Night

My choice for the lunchtime classic movie festival. I wanted to chose a comedy.

I first saw this movie at a college movie festival, long before you could buy a movie and watch it whenever you wanted to. Everytime this was shown on television in Nashville, the newspaper would note that one of its editors had a brief role greeting Clark Gable in the newspaper locker room.

So far we've seen the "walls of Jericho" and the hitchhiking scene is soon. PRM

Week 1

We finished our first full week. We had "preschool" the week before. During that, we began Rosetta Stone Hebrew and Math. We are doing, I hope quickly, a pass through pre-algebra topics and then will move into Algebra 1 in the winter/spring. Dolciani's PreAlgebra book was my text choice.

So our first full week

1. Continuing K12 Literature. We only have time for one more unit so we are doing Unit 11. This finishes with a literary analysis essay.

2. Oak Meadow Civics for 8th grade is our social studies topic this year. He will be completing three Eagle-required merit badges that coordinate well with this. He completed Week 1.

3. CPO Life Science, jazzed up with extra reports, labs and reading will be science for this year.

4. Modern Hebrew. We started Rosetta Stone. I'm not convinced yet that he is learning much. With the homeschool edition of RS there are supposed to be worksheets and other teaching helps. Not so in Hebrew. I am looking for supplemental materials to have him writing in Hebrew, too. This is difficult since I don't read or speak Hebrew myself.

5. Kitchen studies, some techniques, some kitchen chemistry. We won't start this until next week.

6. Math, Dolciani PreAlgebra, finished the first chapter. Chapter test on Monday.

7. Megawords to improve his spelling. We are doing 2 pages/day. I want to get through 2 or 3 books this year.

8. Handwriting. Someday he will have to write an essay for the ACT or the SAT and someone will have to read it. Right now they could not. I want to work on this for a few weeks and then just re-enforce as we go along.

9. PE. He lost about 15 pounds at camp this summer and it has given him the incentive to lose some more. I can't say he is interested in sports but he is willing to be more active this year. Right now he wants to run each morning. If that doesn't last, then I will have to enroll him in martial arts or swimming. PRM

Classic Movie Study

Fancy name for watching classic movies by streaming Netflix during lunch. Noach chose The Odessa File for our first movie. I am going to try to keep a running list of what we are watching in the sidebar to make sure we are mixing it up a bit.

And "study" is a bit misleading since basically we are watching them during lunch and talking about them informally. I do plan to have a formal movie study at some point in his education but not yet. This is for fun.

The hard part will be choosing. PRM

Moving day

Today Yakov moved into the dorm. His school is about 1 1/2 hours away. Shoshie, Noach and I helped him pack all his stuff into the car. Jasper says "Good bye". Or "I want to go to college". It's so hard to tell which.

Pictures of his new digs await someone's help with getting them off my phone and into email. I haven't quite mastered that consistently.

It was sad to leave him but not nearly as sad as it was last year to watch him walk through airport security and think we would not see him for 9 months. In 9 days we can watch Shoshie do that. PRM

"THEY CAME FIRST for ...

Well, my small voice is speaking out. Now they are complaining about the Muslims and their community center. Someday it could be the JCC or a synagogue. Who knows?

Sometimes people just want to be angry about something. But it is so tiresome. We really need to discuss some important issues, our economic situation, our national debt. But no, let's waste our time and energy on BS. And intolerance.

For people who claim to revere the Constitution, they sure like to ignore it when it suits them. PRM