The History of the World!

We finished off our evolution unit with Gabby creating a picture book, illustrating the different periods of time in earth's history. It was a fun little project for her. She had to imagine what different early creatures looked like. Once her pages were complete, she asked me everyday, "Can we bind my book today?"

We laminated it at U.S. Toy and bound it at Staples. Here's the final result:



































I know some Christian families find the concept of evolution offensive to their faith. I have never been offended by it, though. I love learning about the world and how it works and came to be. I found the sections in our textbook fascinating that told about the changes in earth's atmosphere and oceans and the early photosynthetic organisms. Such tiny animals, making such huge changes in the environment! To me, I find the richness of life and its intricacies evidence of God's hand in it all. I wonder at His power, His intelligence, His creativity in setting all these things in motion. As Gabby and I read her chapter on Darwin, we talked about the controversy of The Origin of Species in his day and in ours. I hope to support her learning, in the sciences and in the Gospel. Some day she'll have to make her own decisions about what she believes. And I hope she'll be well-prepared.

reading The Giver

Last week Gabby finished up her final diarama for The Giver series. During the month of January she read all three books by Lois Lowry: The Giver, Gathering Blue, and The Messenger. For each book she had to create a diarama of an important scene and create a key, noting symbolic elements.

If you have never read The Giver, it is a story of a boy, Jonas, growing up in a futuristic community in which most diversity has been genetically engineered-out and many of life's most important choices are made for you. There, life is peaceful and easy. True feelings - anger, love, passion - have all but disappeared. The novel is about Jonas' discovery that there might be more to life than what he's lived. It won the Newbery medal in 1994.

It is not a series in that one must read the books sequentially or even that the stories depend on one another in any way. Each is its own story. However, the major characters in the third book, The Messenger, come from the other two -- The Giver and Gathering Blue. A final installment, Son, will be released in October. I can't wait.

I loved reading The Giver with Gabby. We discussed things we liked about the community and things that made us sad. When we read about the community's "climate control", Gabby said, "My favorite season is winter!" We tried to imagine what it would be like to never know snow or cold or Christmas. We talked about how we felt when we learned what it meant to be "released."

We didn't discuss as much about Gathering Blue or The Messenger, although both books have worthy themes. I just let her discover them on her own. The Messenger has a beautiful Christian message buried within it. Gabby's diarama shows the scene of Matt's atonement within the forest.

Here are her completed works:
The final scene in The Giver

Jonas and Gabriel

from Gathering Blue

Khira appearing before the council

Matt in the forest, The Messenger

Home sick

It's tough to school when sickness hits the home.

In the wee hours Sunday morning Gabby started puking. She had gone to bed not feeling well. It started with a bad stomach ache at her swim meet. She almost went home early, but persevered. It was around 4 in the morning when Max and I heard her in the bathroom. (Yay! She made it to the bathroom!) I cleaned her up and sent her back to bed with towels and a bowl. She threw up one more time maybe an hour later. I stayed home from church to take care of her.

All day her tummy hurt but she managed to keep water down until just before bedtime. Then one more vomit. Poor kid, she always cried "No!" when she throws up. As though some evil person is torturing her.

That was it, except for a lingering stomach ache.

Yesterday, we didn't do much for school. I read a couple sections aloud from the biology text. I encouraged her to read more in House of the Scorpion but she said reading made her feel worse.
Now it is Tuesday. Gabby's stomach still hurts on and off and I would say her mood is fairly sour. Again I read a couple biology sections to her. She will finish the pages I've assigned in House of the Scorpion, but I'm afraid I won't get her to do more.

If she was in public school I would have kept her home yesterday and today. Bri would have brought her school work. I'd have expected her to be caught up after 3-4 days.
It feels harder to "catch up" with homeschool, though. Each day we do the maximum that we can do. (Or that I can get her to do, depending on how you look at it). She's not a particularly fast worker. She's actually pretty slow -- smart, definitely, not at all lazy, just needing more time. I guess you could call her thorough and careful, a perfectionist.

Those qualities always made bricks and mortar school hard. Gabby felt frustrated with how much time she needed to complete assignments and afraid to bring in anything less than perfect. What child can do 3 hours of homework a night?

Homeschooling has changed things. I feel like a weight has lifted from us. The homework/school project/this things is due when? weight. Now I allow her as much time as she wants to complete assignments. I think we do less of some kinds of work than the children over at the middle school. We never do busy-work, for example. But we do more projects, reading, and discussing.

If I get get Gabby to do a math chapter assessment and take a few notes for her biology project, I'd consider the day a success. Even with no geography or any language arts besides reading. But I'm not sure I can make it happen, though. And should it really matter? I don't know.

But I'm looking around the house and I can tell you the situation is not good. I haven't done laundry, dishes, or cleaned at all today. Apparently Gabby is not the only one who doesn't feel up to working.