Deep Winter and Building The Wall of Asgard

It's deep winter now, which is proving to be the perfect time to snuggle in with stories of Norse Gods and their colorful adventures.  It's been a particularly chilly snap lately, which means the kids have only been able to go out and play after noon time when the sun is "warmest" overhead, and even then for only about 30 minutes. Even with multiple layers and snowsuits, it has just been too blustery for the kids to stay out for much longer than 30 minute stretches

 at a time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first story we encounter in the Children of Odin is about the building of the wall around Asgard (the city of the gods situated high above Midgard, which might also be commonly thought of as "Middle Earth" by some in other traditions).  The story tells of a "stranger", who approaches the All God (Odin) and offers to build a great wall around the great city of Asgard, promising to finish it within a year's time. With him is his great horse (who is apparently very handy when it comes to building walls). We later find out that the "stranger" is a giant and his horse is named Svadilfare (meaning "Unlucky Traveler").

Photo of Svadilfare building the wall, from the book The Children of Odin, by Padraic Colum, 

which is in the public domain.

I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you planning to read the story, but it certainly is entertaining. 

We are planning a long trip north at the end of the week, and so we'll be listening to more stories from this audiobook while in the car.  I highly recommend audiobooks for long drives, since it wonderfully kills two birds with one stone: it adds entertainment to the trip, and it becomes an educational experience.  I think that if more students could listen to more of their required literature pieces via audiobook like this, there were would a greater interest in literature in general at younger ages. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been baking a lot of bread, biscuits and rolls lately - partly as an excuse to fire up the oven to help add heat to the house, and partly because I have rediscovered how much I love to bake (as well as how much we all love the taste of fresh bread out of the oven!).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recently discovered that we are at least 10 pages ahead of DS9's math class at school. I had asked a question about the website that accompanies the workbook when I was told what the classroom was doing. I have decided that we will keep the same pace that we have been on, with the hopes that we can finish the math curriculum early and have a nice break from it before we dive into the next book.  

I am ordered the 5th grade set (workbook and textbook) for Everyday Math with the intention of starting it in June. Yeah, I know.  "Why not give the poor kid (and yourself) a break?" you ask.

Well, we've always done at least a little "school" work during our summer breaks. I find that just doing about 30 minutes to an hour once or twice a week helps keep the kids' minds working. They also don't tend to forget things, which means less review in September.

We still listen to audiobooks, get books from the library, and watch documentaries and educational shows like Bill Nye, too.  

I personally do not think it is too much of a burden on kids to sit down and do 30 to 60 minutes of work at the table once a week. This is often best accomplished in the evening (in my experience)...or during the day when it is raining.  If you know the weather forecast for the week and know which day it might rain, that might be a good day to choose to do some bookwork. 

Another benefit to this schedule is that we can be very flexible the rest of the year.  This year-round schedule allows us to only do 4 day school weeks....with only about 2 hours of work per day (some days, of course, there is more depending on the activity).

This means that if we feel like only doing 45 minutes of work one day, we totally can and we don't feel the least bit guilty about it.  

This allows for my son to get really into a Minecraft build (for example) on occasion, and I just set his table work aside for the following day.

Now, please understand that I am not an advocate of just letting him play Minecraft all day every day. I make no apologies to those folks who think it would be enough to give him all the skills he needs to move forward in life with.  I definitely agree that there are educational benefits to Minecraft, but he's not going to be doing a lot of pre-algebra, intense grammar work, or gain a lot of literary benefit from the game. It won't be enough to prepare him for college, even if he wants to become an IT or computer guru. Sorry, but it just won't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, I am starting a new crochet project: mittens.  This is very new for me, so I'm really excited to learn how to do something that I've always wanted to learn.  That feeling of accomplishment when I finished the ribbed hats for Christmas this year really felt amazing. I guess you are never too old to learn a new skill.