I am going to turn away from the serious subject matter and review a couple of books that I have been using for history & science. Please keep in mind this is my first attempt at reviewing ever and that I am also learning to type on a tablet. Mistakes will be made and probably not noticed by me until later. I am definitely ordering a keyboard, so be patient.
The first book we enjoyed is The Kid's Book of Clouds and Sky by Frank Staub. This is our first experience with this author but he has also written many other educational books on a variety of science and social topics.
The targeted grade level for this book is 5-7, and indeed, some of the words are on the difficult side and it can get lengthy for my guys, who are in 1st and 3rd. The book is written as a series of questions, which is nice for easing the length. I was able to read a question or two, or a page or two, each day and we weren't feeling overwhelmed.
With every question topic, there is a group of small photos with captions that reinforce the topic discussed. This is not normally a format I get behind, because I have a pretty short attention span and a lot of clutter on a page overwhelms me quickly and tends to confuse the boys. In this case, though, it is done simply and with purpose and for the most part the photos and captions really do reinforce the topics instead of confusing them.
I chose this book primarily to help teach cloud formations, but we really got a mini-course in weather forcasting. It was fun. The book includes several mini-experiements such as making rainbows with water and prisms and making clouds in a jar. I think most of the experiments are too simple for the average 5-7 grader, but my boys loved them. They begged to do more experiments and then to do them again, which is really music to a mother's ears.
While we learned a great deal about our atmosphere and weather patterns and a lot of the material was on or around our level, the book does go into great detail on cloud types and is a bit more than I was originally looking for. I thought it was important that the boys know the basic cirrus, cumulus, stratus and cumulonimbus and thought they would be confused by terms like altostratus and cirrocumulus.
That is, until we went outside. We spent a lot of time looking at the sky with and since this book and we noticed nearly all of the cloud types identified in the book in our own backyard view of the sky. The boys did ask for an explanation of a cirrocumulus sky and they seemed to enjoy terms like 'mackerel sky'. I think a lot of sky time is a must to learn all of the terms and topics covered.
Almost as a bonus, the book also covers the night sky, auroras, constellations and moon phases. It provided a good introduction to our next topic, which will be the moon, the stars and the planets.
While my third grader probably got more out of this than the first grader, I think we all now have a greater understanding of our sky. This is worth a check out at the library, at least.
Stay tuned for my review of
The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
In the Wake...
Yesterday evening, I was driving back from town on the quaint little road that winds through the river valley and I was thinking of how much I love this sleepy little area. I've lived a lot of places, but here the time seems almost suspended, especially when the sun is shining down on the green and golden hills surrounding our home.
But as the thought of love entered my brain, a little shot of pain was felt in my gut. We are faced with leaving this place. It's mostly out of our control; this little fantasy life is fleeting and charmed as it has been, it has also been peppered with hurt.
We live outside of two very small towns and I recently feel like we don't really belong to either community. I feel much more connected to the countryside, to the neighbors who have helped us in times of need and to the land itself. Being the hermit that I am, I can't imagine having the neighboring communities involved in our business, although there is a degree of that anyway. A small town is a small town is a small town and people assume to know many things.
I have become aquainted with some of the townies, and some of them are good people. Some are curious (like a fellow parent at the school who followed me out to my car to ask if it was true that I was 'that model who lived outside of [town] with three kids'), and some are just downright nosy.
There are a few people in the community who I have been very disappointed with, who I might say have turned me off to both communities. There is a woman who befriended me, or tried to. She happens to be a fellow heart mother, and I would love to only say good things about fellow heart parents, but I learned this lesson from her: people of all walks of life can be selfish and cruel and having children with congenital heart defects does not make us kindred spirits.
I really wanted to connect with this woman and I thought we could work together to bring heart awareness to our mutual community by including all the heart families in the area, of which there are more than just us two. I tried to get her on board, but in the end I found out that her need for attention seemed to outweigh the heart communities' need for awareness. And when I tried to go around her and do what I had proposed on my own, I was ignored outright by the local leaders. I felt a little betrayed and it has left a taste of bitterness in me that has prevented me from trying to be more involved in the local community and even in the heart community.
I am writing about this in an attempt to purge the bitterness. I know in my heart that this woman really has no effect on me or my family and that I am actually much better off without her negativity in my life. I can't help, however, feeling left behind in the wake of that bitterness. We could have stood strong for each other, instead of trying to compete for crappy small town newspaper space.
There is an event this weekend for heart families that will celebrate the lives of our miracles and I thought for a long while that we would attend and be proud of our little Charlie and celebrate the other heart kids and remember the angels. But frankly, now I am just so tired of the rhetoric that I could scream (if I thought the scream would be heard), and I find that I want very little to do with these public displays, no matter how great and good the event. Trying to be a part of it has proved more isolating than when we didn't know anything about heart defects and were just another set of scared parents in the NICU.
I don't want to make it seem as if there aren't any heart families or NICU families that have reached out to us or been very kind to us, because there have been wonderful people who have fed us in the hospital and kept us company and prayed for us in our most desperate hours and even helped keep a roof over our heads. And I have tried to do the same for others I come across in my life who need a friend or a prayer.
But here on the prairie, where I had observed such kindess from my neighbors, I never thought I would be let down by the communities that we have been interacting with for years, or a fellow heart mother, especially when all I asked for was a chance to do good. I can only think that I was exposed to this person so that I could hold a mirror up in front of my face and stop myself from going down the same negative path. I sincerely hope that I am not.
Let down as I am, I still feel sad at the thought of possibly having to leave. It feels like home here and what I really want for my daughter is a home where she can be normal. Terel said it best to me one night, after I realized that the other woman was only out for her own interests. He said, "Awareness is important, sure, but so is our daughter living as normal life as possible. Think of that other kid, and how everyone in town will always see him as 'that heart kid'. That's not what we want for Charlie. We don't want stares and whispers and pity."
And he's right. While I appreciate and admire the good people out there who are raising awareness and supporting the heart community, that path is not the path for our family. Instead of attending the event this weekend, I will keep all of you wonderful heart families in my thoughts and continue to go about our normal lives. If you need something from me, I will surely try my best to give it. In the meantime I want to do a better job of living in the moment in this blissful prairie life. I want to cleanse my thoughts of negativity and appreciate the chance I have been given to be here with my family while it lasts. And then, to move forward without regret.
But as the thought of love entered my brain, a little shot of pain was felt in my gut. We are faced with leaving this place. It's mostly out of our control; this little fantasy life is fleeting and charmed as it has been, it has also been peppered with hurt.
We live outside of two very small towns and I recently feel like we don't really belong to either community. I feel much more connected to the countryside, to the neighbors who have helped us in times of need and to the land itself. Being the hermit that I am, I can't imagine having the neighboring communities involved in our business, although there is a degree of that anyway. A small town is a small town is a small town and people assume to know many things.
I have become aquainted with some of the townies, and some of them are good people. Some are curious (like a fellow parent at the school who followed me out to my car to ask if it was true that I was 'that model who lived outside of [town] with three kids'), and some are just downright nosy.
There are a few people in the community who I have been very disappointed with, who I might say have turned me off to both communities. There is a woman who befriended me, or tried to. She happens to be a fellow heart mother, and I would love to only say good things about fellow heart parents, but I learned this lesson from her: people of all walks of life can be selfish and cruel and having children with congenital heart defects does not make us kindred spirits.
I really wanted to connect with this woman and I thought we could work together to bring heart awareness to our mutual community by including all the heart families in the area, of which there are more than just us two. I tried to get her on board, but in the end I found out that her need for attention seemed to outweigh the heart communities' need for awareness. And when I tried to go around her and do what I had proposed on my own, I was ignored outright by the local leaders. I felt a little betrayed and it has left a taste of bitterness in me that has prevented me from trying to be more involved in the local community and even in the heart community.
I am writing about this in an attempt to purge the bitterness. I know in my heart that this woman really has no effect on me or my family and that I am actually much better off without her negativity in my life. I can't help, however, feeling left behind in the wake of that bitterness. We could have stood strong for each other, instead of trying to compete for crappy small town newspaper space.
There is an event this weekend for heart families that will celebrate the lives of our miracles and I thought for a long while that we would attend and be proud of our little Charlie and celebrate the other heart kids and remember the angels. But frankly, now I am just so tired of the rhetoric that I could scream (if I thought the scream would be heard), and I find that I want very little to do with these public displays, no matter how great and good the event. Trying to be a part of it has proved more isolating than when we didn't know anything about heart defects and were just another set of scared parents in the NICU.
I don't want to make it seem as if there aren't any heart families or NICU families that have reached out to us or been very kind to us, because there have been wonderful people who have fed us in the hospital and kept us company and prayed for us in our most desperate hours and even helped keep a roof over our heads. And I have tried to do the same for others I come across in my life who need a friend or a prayer.
But here on the prairie, where I had observed such kindess from my neighbors, I never thought I would be let down by the communities that we have been interacting with for years, or a fellow heart mother, especially when all I asked for was a chance to do good. I can only think that I was exposed to this person so that I could hold a mirror up in front of my face and stop myself from going down the same negative path. I sincerely hope that I am not.
Let down as I am, I still feel sad at the thought of possibly having to leave. It feels like home here and what I really want for my daughter is a home where she can be normal. Terel said it best to me one night, after I realized that the other woman was only out for her own interests. He said, "Awareness is important, sure, but so is our daughter living as normal life as possible. Think of that other kid, and how everyone in town will always see him as 'that heart kid'. That's not what we want for Charlie. We don't want stares and whispers and pity."
And he's right. While I appreciate and admire the good people out there who are raising awareness and supporting the heart community, that path is not the path for our family. Instead of attending the event this weekend, I will keep all of you wonderful heart families in my thoughts and continue to go about our normal lives. If you need something from me, I will surely try my best to give it. In the meantime I want to do a better job of living in the moment in this blissful prairie life. I want to cleanse my thoughts of negativity and appreciate the chance I have been given to be here with my family while it lasts. And then, to move forward without regret.
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