Today, the big, BIG day: my two Monkeys in school!
Before 8 a.m., little 3-year-old Monkey2, all decked out in her homemade first-day-of-school pink elephant dress, purple backpack, and Fancy Nancy lavender accented sneakers, (photos here) walked/capered her way up to the city bus stop with Dad. They took two buses to get to her preschool, which was only an hour-long first day. Meanwhile Dad attended a parent information meeting, and then they took the bus to his office, where she stuck post-it notes all over his office and window until he took her to Five Guys for lunch.
About a half hour after Monkey2 and Dad left the house, Monkey1 and I headed out in the Golf in the opposite direction for Classical Conversations. She had her pink backpack bulging with a second pair of shoes. She had decided that her show-and-tell would be her sparkly new Hello Kitty shoes, but I convinced her to bring another pair of shoes in case she wants to run around without Cinderella-ing it with the shoes. (We've already lost one sparkly slipper that way.)
This week at CC we added another seven events to the Timeline, plus added memory work of Math, English Grammar, Latin, Geography, Science Fact, and History Sentence. Art was mirror drawing; the children had a paper with several half shapes, and we showed them how to make dots to help draw the other half/mirror image. Science involved refraction, making a quarter in a glass of water appear where it wasn't. Review of last week's material was randomized by tossing a large cube with the different topics written on each side, rather than the beach ball toss of last week, which was too wild with the 5-year-olds. Monkey1 really surprised me with all her piping out the lists of memory work we had only loosely reviewed at home or in the car during the past seven days. She's just a sponge!
We met Dad and Monkey2 at Five Guys for hamburgers, dropped Dad back at work, and then I took the Monkeys to the library, where we exited with another twenty books. And proceeded to read them for the rest of the afternoon, and more of them after supper before bed.
Lately, I've started reading them Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. I'd head about this from several homeschool perspectives (CC, Well Trained Mind parents, and a create-your-own-curriculum parent) and decided to give it a try. Tonight we hit gold -- excited recognition -- with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by King Narmer... also known as Pharaoh Menes. As both Monkey1 and Monkey2 recalled, this was one of the Timeline events learned at Classical Conversations last week!
School? Well, it's somewhere around here...
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Are You Qualified?
While winding down from my evening with four other homeschooling mothers and discussing some points of the conversation with my husband, he said that the question he hears the most is not "What about socialization?" but "You think you can do a better job than the school? What makes you qualified?"
His answer of course brings folks up short: Yes he does think he can do a better job. When trying to register Monkey1 at the public school, the office shredded or lost -- they are not quite sure which -- her paperwork within ten minutes. He CAN do better than that! And since he's qualified to teach at the college level, yes, he can teach kindergarten.
So far no one has questioned my credentials. However, this might need doing, since my own college diploma is completely written in Latin and the only parts I can read are the college name, my name, and the date, which is written in Roman numerals. Fortunately we are participating in Classical Conversations, which started me on Latin this week. First conjugation, present tense. I've got a ways to go. But, it's only kindergarten.
His answer of course brings folks up short: Yes he does think he can do a better job. When trying to register Monkey1 at the public school, the office shredded or lost -- they are not quite sure which -- her paperwork within ten minutes. He CAN do better than that! And since he's qualified to teach at the college level, yes, he can teach kindergarten.
So far no one has questioned my credentials. However, this might need doing, since my own college diploma is completely written in Latin and the only parts I can read are the college name, my name, and the date, which is written in Roman numerals. Fortunately we are participating in Classical Conversations, which started me on Latin this week. First conjugation, present tense. I've got a ways to go. But, it's only kindergarten.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
First Week
This week:
I repeatedly had to answer "So when do you start school?"
I finished Monkey1's first day of school dress.
I packed the first day of school lunch the night before, without using peanut butter.
Our first day of Classical Conversations -- Monkey1's first day of kindergarten!
I met with four other homeschooling moms over a pile of curriculum books, passing cheese and crackers and wine.
"So when do you start school?"
Everyone that asked knew we are homeschooling Kindergarten. To my conventional schooling friends I said, "Oh we already did. We started Phonics in July and Math last week." But to my homeschooling friends, who all seemed to plan starting right after Labor Day, I said, "We start Classical Conversations this week."
Really, I find the idea of "starting" homeschooling comical. After all, didn't we start reading when they started recognizing the first letter of their names? Didn't we start math when my husband showed them how to count on their fingers? Didn't we start handwriting when I let them start scribbling and telling me the stories? I definitely was around plenty of unschooler homeschool preschool parents during those beginning years to think so!
The Dress
The first day of school dress was finished and ironed and hung up ready for early morning eyes to light upon. That's probably the only time the dress will be ironed too. (Pictures here.)
Lunch
Classical Conversations meets in the morning, and then everyone stays for lunch and playtime, leaving at 1:00 when the bigger kids go back inside for more class time. Because preschool has not started yet, Monkey2 would be with us for Monkey1's first day of Kindergarten. Three lunches. I already had been warned that one child participating in Classical Conversations had a peanut allergy, so I had to think about how to avoid peanut butter and jelly.
For Monkey1: two mini-bagels, cream cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and an apple.
For Monkey2: one mini-bagel, mini Babybel cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and sweet pickles.
For Mom: chili to warm up in the microwave, and an apple.
I'm glad I packed/wrapped things up the night before because Monkey2 tried to sleep late again. Just getting her up and making sure she ate breakfast and got dressed was enough to keep track of, in addition to the antsy Monkey1.
First Day!
We had already met with our Classical Conversations community, eight families, approximately 14 children (not sure, they don't sit still much), twice for meetings and once for a Pasta Night. So the place and the people were not all strange and intimidating.
We started the day with the Pledge of Allegiance. This was a little tearful for me. Patriotism is so complicated these days. Also, I probably have not said the Pledge of Allegiance since I graduated from school. At the end, I had to bite my mouth closed to keep an "Amen" from escaping. Eleven years of Catholic school, and inevitably half the time someone would put an Amen on the end of the Pledge, either absent-mindedly reverent or on purpose to see if the teacher was paying attention. Meanwhile, my Monkeys were perplexed by the words; they had never heard the Pledge of Allegiance before.
Then, to our classrooms. The eight five-year-olds grouped around a table, eyes on their Tutor, with much squirming. First came the "memory work" that we will be drilling (or simply playing and re-playing our copy of the Memory Work CD in the car) this week: the Timeline events, the history sentence, the Latin conjugation, the science fact, the geography places, the English grammar, and the math work. Remember, Classical Conversations operates on a classical model of education, so at this age filling the little minds up with memorization work is the first item on the agenda. Explaining it can come later (at home or in a few years when the three-year curriculum cycle repeats again).
I won't write this out every week, but here's where we started:
Timeline: Creation, Fall in the Garden, Cain and Able, the Flood, the Tower of Babble, the Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Pharaoh Menes, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.
These eight events were presented on individual large cards with illustrations and a short explanation on the back. The Tutor has a lovely lilting southern accent, and already I'm hearing it back from my Monkeys! At home we reviewed the Timeline cards, and then Monkey1 hauled out our Children's Bible, and we read the first stories again.
History Sentence: Tell me about Charlemagne. In 800 A.D., during the medieval period, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor of Europe.
There was tune for this.
Latin, conjugation of the verb amo.
This is sung to some Protestant children's hymn, which I am not familiar with, so I stumble over it. Monkey2 started singing it on the potty the other day, so I know she's got it down already.
Science: What are seven types of biomes? Seven types of biomes are grasslands, dessert , scrub lands, tundra, deciduous forests, coniferous forests, and tropical rain forests.
There were finger/arm motions with this to help us remember. I had never heard the word "biome" until I came across Classical Conversations, and then recently in the library I saw a group of books, looking like a set of encyclopedias, titles Biomes. Mom gets to learn stuff too!
Geography: European waters: North Sea, Baltic Sea, Adriatic Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean Sea.
To introduce this, the Tutor had several maps for each child's lap. The first map was the whole world, the second was Europe. This moved us from the big picture to the more specific area. Monkey1 promptly marked Russia with an X, noting that Anastasia lived there; this daughter of the last czar is the favorite history character of the moment.
English Grammar: The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, adjectives.
Math: Count 1 to 12. Skip counting by 2's, 2 through 24.
The Tutor was constantly addressing the wiggle situation by having the kids stand up and do hand/arm motions to the memorization work. She did some kind "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" routine for the English Grammar, which I largely missed because I had to take Monkey2 to the bathroom.
There was a snack time, and "Presentations" or Show-and-Tell. We had our cricket, which we had caught in our yard a few weeks ago. My mother had sent us a cricket cage and cricket food. To my great relief, not one of the other Moms said, "ew, a bug!" and a few were very interested in where to get cricket supplies.
We went outside for science, which was a temperature experiment, setting a thermometer in the sun and another in the shade, and an introduction to "orbit" since this year will largely be astronomy.
Art was paper and pens ("Pens," said the Tutor, "because there are no mistakes. You just make it into art.") and a review of shapes -- dots, straight lines, curvy lines, sharp corners, etc -- and then a little free time to draw something using all of those. Monkey1 drew a remarkable version of Ponyo, a little gold fish (or tadpole?) in a Japanese anime movie we watched a month ago.
Last there was "review time" which covered the memorization work introduced that morning, but in coming weeks will cover previously introduced material. The Tutor had a beach ball the kids tossed to each other, with subject words on it (Timeline, history, Latin, science, geography, English, math). Whatever word a child's left hand was touching was the subject they would review before tossing it again. As could be expected with a group of five-year-olds, this bordered on crazy.
Then lunchtime! And recess! The kids played for an hour outside. While there was a ball to kick around, mostly they passed the time exploring behind the bushes and chasing each other with sticks.
The Tutor asked us mothers how we thought the day went. I think I remember her saying she's been doing Classical Conversations for a year or two, but this is her first year as a Tutor.
"Great! I'm so glad we are doing this for Kindergarten!" I told her, noting that a half day in a classroom was plenty, and complimenting her on keeping the children engaged and focused on the material she was presenting.
Hours later, I asked Monkey1 what her favorite part of the day had been.
"Recess!" she answered.
"Do you want to go again next week?" I asked, though I knew the answer.
Vigorously she nodded yes.
Curriculum, Cheese and Crackers and Wine
On Friday night I sat down at the school work table of a fellow homeschooling mom along with three other women in my parish. The hostess has a ten-year-old, eight-year-old, and a six-year-old; she sent the oldest to one year of school before she started homeschooling. The others have children: 9, 7, 5 and 2 (sent the oldest to kindergarten, and then started homeschooling for first grade; this year to homeschool three); 7, 3, and 1 (skipped the kindergarten experience/experiment and went straight to homeschooling); 5, 4, 2, and 8 months (first year homeschooling). I have ages 5 and 3.
The inevitable "when are you starting?" question went around, and I had to laugh because of the group of us, only I had started, and I was the one who had not planned on homeschooling this year!
The more experienced shared the flow of their days, we examined each other's math materials, talked about history story books, looked at the copy work of the oldest children, and shared our art project attempts and plans. We talked about our responses to the socialization question and discussed extended family opposition to homeschooling. One mother confessed that she was tired of the reactions when she says she homeschools, so from now on she's going to say, "My children have a private tutor. She graduated in the top of her college class with two degrees. She worked in politics for awhile, but she just loves kids... it's working great for us." This describes herself of course!
The evening flew by, and too soon it seemed we were tiptoeing back to our cars, cell phones to ears to check on husbands and sleeping children.
I repeatedly had to answer "So when do you start school?"
I finished Monkey1's first day of school dress.
I packed the first day of school lunch the night before, without using peanut butter.
Our first day of Classical Conversations -- Monkey1's first day of kindergarten!
I met with four other homeschooling moms over a pile of curriculum books, passing cheese and crackers and wine.
"So when do you start school?"
Everyone that asked knew we are homeschooling Kindergarten. To my conventional schooling friends I said, "Oh we already did. We started Phonics in July and Math last week." But to my homeschooling friends, who all seemed to plan starting right after Labor Day, I said, "We start Classical Conversations this week."
Really, I find the idea of "starting" homeschooling comical. After all, didn't we start reading when they started recognizing the first letter of their names? Didn't we start math when my husband showed them how to count on their fingers? Didn't we start handwriting when I let them start scribbling and telling me the stories? I definitely was around plenty of unschooler homeschool preschool parents during those beginning years to think so!
The Dress
The first day of school dress was finished and ironed and hung up ready for early morning eyes to light upon. That's probably the only time the dress will be ironed too. (Pictures here.)
Lunch
Classical Conversations meets in the morning, and then everyone stays for lunch and playtime, leaving at 1:00 when the bigger kids go back inside for more class time. Because preschool has not started yet, Monkey2 would be with us for Monkey1's first day of Kindergarten. Three lunches. I already had been warned that one child participating in Classical Conversations had a peanut allergy, so I had to think about how to avoid peanut butter and jelly.
For Monkey1: two mini-bagels, cream cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and an apple.
For Monkey2: one mini-bagel, mini Babybel cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and sweet pickles.
For Mom: chili to warm up in the microwave, and an apple.
I'm glad I packed/wrapped things up the night before because Monkey2 tried to sleep late again. Just getting her up and making sure she ate breakfast and got dressed was enough to keep track of, in addition to the antsy Monkey1.
First Day!
We had already met with our Classical Conversations community, eight families, approximately 14 children (not sure, they don't sit still much), twice for meetings and once for a Pasta Night. So the place and the people were not all strange and intimidating.
We started the day with the Pledge of Allegiance. This was a little tearful for me. Patriotism is so complicated these days. Also, I probably have not said the Pledge of Allegiance since I graduated from school. At the end, I had to bite my mouth closed to keep an "Amen" from escaping. Eleven years of Catholic school, and inevitably half the time someone would put an Amen on the end of the Pledge, either absent-mindedly reverent or on purpose to see if the teacher was paying attention. Meanwhile, my Monkeys were perplexed by the words; they had never heard the Pledge of Allegiance before.
Then, to our classrooms. The eight five-year-olds grouped around a table, eyes on their Tutor, with much squirming. First came the "memory work" that we will be drilling (or simply playing and re-playing our copy of the Memory Work CD in the car) this week: the Timeline events, the history sentence, the Latin conjugation, the science fact, the geography places, the English grammar, and the math work. Remember, Classical Conversations operates on a classical model of education, so at this age filling the little minds up with memorization work is the first item on the agenda. Explaining it can come later (at home or in a few years when the three-year curriculum cycle repeats again).
I won't write this out every week, but here's where we started:
Timeline: Creation, Fall in the Garden, Cain and Able, the Flood, the Tower of Babble, the Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Pharaoh Menes, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.
These eight events were presented on individual large cards with illustrations and a short explanation on the back. The Tutor has a lovely lilting southern accent, and already I'm hearing it back from my Monkeys! At home we reviewed the Timeline cards, and then Monkey1 hauled out our Children's Bible, and we read the first stories again.
History Sentence: Tell me about Charlemagne. In 800 A.D., during the medieval period, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor of Europe.
There was tune for this.
Latin, conjugation of the verb amo.
This is sung to some Protestant children's hymn, which I am not familiar with, so I stumble over it. Monkey2 started singing it on the potty the other day, so I know she's got it down already.
Science: What are seven types of biomes? Seven types of biomes are grasslands, dessert , scrub lands, tundra, deciduous forests, coniferous forests, and tropical rain forests.
There were finger/arm motions with this to help us remember. I had never heard the word "biome" until I came across Classical Conversations, and then recently in the library I saw a group of books, looking like a set of encyclopedias, titles Biomes. Mom gets to learn stuff too!
Geography: European waters: North Sea, Baltic Sea, Adriatic Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean Sea.
To introduce this, the Tutor had several maps for each child's lap. The first map was the whole world, the second was Europe. This moved us from the big picture to the more specific area. Monkey1 promptly marked Russia with an X, noting that Anastasia lived there; this daughter of the last czar is the favorite history character of the moment.
English Grammar: The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, adjectives.
Math: Count 1 to 12. Skip counting by 2's, 2 through 24.
The Tutor was constantly addressing the wiggle situation by having the kids stand up and do hand/arm motions to the memorization work. She did some kind "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" routine for the English Grammar, which I largely missed because I had to take Monkey2 to the bathroom.
There was a snack time, and "Presentations" or Show-and-Tell. We had our cricket, which we had caught in our yard a few weeks ago. My mother had sent us a cricket cage and cricket food. To my great relief, not one of the other Moms said, "ew, a bug!" and a few were very interested in where to get cricket supplies.
We went outside for science, which was a temperature experiment, setting a thermometer in the sun and another in the shade, and an introduction to "orbit" since this year will largely be astronomy.
Art was paper and pens ("Pens," said the Tutor, "because there are no mistakes. You just make it into art.") and a review of shapes -- dots, straight lines, curvy lines, sharp corners, etc -- and then a little free time to draw something using all of those. Monkey1 drew a remarkable version of Ponyo, a little gold fish (or tadpole?) in a Japanese anime movie we watched a month ago.
Last there was "review time" which covered the memorization work introduced that morning, but in coming weeks will cover previously introduced material. The Tutor had a beach ball the kids tossed to each other, with subject words on it (Timeline, history, Latin, science, geography, English, math). Whatever word a child's left hand was touching was the subject they would review before tossing it again. As could be expected with a group of five-year-olds, this bordered on crazy.
Then lunchtime! And recess! The kids played for an hour outside. While there was a ball to kick around, mostly they passed the time exploring behind the bushes and chasing each other with sticks.
The Tutor asked us mothers how we thought the day went. I think I remember her saying she's been doing Classical Conversations for a year or two, but this is her first year as a Tutor.
"Great! I'm so glad we are doing this for Kindergarten!" I told her, noting that a half day in a classroom was plenty, and complimenting her on keeping the children engaged and focused on the material she was presenting.
Hours later, I asked Monkey1 what her favorite part of the day had been.
"Recess!" she answered.
"Do you want to go again next week?" I asked, though I knew the answer.
Vigorously she nodded yes.
Curriculum, Cheese and Crackers and Wine
On Friday night I sat down at the school work table of a fellow homeschooling mom along with three other women in my parish. The hostess has a ten-year-old, eight-year-old, and a six-year-old; she sent the oldest to one year of school before she started homeschooling. The others have children: 9, 7, 5 and 2 (sent the oldest to kindergarten, and then started homeschooling for first grade; this year to homeschool three); 7, 3, and 1 (skipped the kindergarten experience/experiment and went straight to homeschooling); 5, 4, 2, and 8 months (first year homeschooling). I have ages 5 and 3.
The inevitable "when are you starting?" question went around, and I had to laugh because of the group of us, only I had started, and I was the one who had not planned on homeschooling this year!
The more experienced shared the flow of their days, we examined each other's math materials, talked about history story books, looked at the copy work of the oldest children, and shared our art project attempts and plans. We talked about our responses to the socialization question and discussed extended family opposition to homeschooling. One mother confessed that she was tired of the reactions when she says she homeschools, so from now on she's going to say, "My children have a private tutor. She graduated in the top of her college class with two degrees. She worked in politics for awhile, but she just loves kids... it's working great for us." This describes herself of course!
The evening flew by, and too soon it seemed we were tiptoeing back to our cars, cell phones to ears to check on husbands and sleeping children.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The First Day of School Dress
Someone questioned the fact the I'm sewing a "first day of school" dress for Monkey1 when she's not going to school. As if we are going to homeschool in our pajamas!
First of all, Monkey1 is definitely a get-dressed kind of girl. She gets up in the morning, and she gets dressed, usually in a dress, and then she comes to tug on my arm, "I'M HUNGRY!" By the way, there's no secret I can share on getting your child to do the same. Monkey1 has always been interested in selecting her own clothes. Monkey2, however, could, and does, wear her nightgowns all day.
Secondly, new clothes and special clothes mark important days. Baptismal gowns, First Communion dresses (she's seen some of her older cousins), wedding dresses... and so, school is important and worthy of a special dress. A dress made by Mom.
Thirdly, we're not staying home to school every day. Once a week we will be schooling with a community called Classical Conversations. Tonight our CC group had a Pasta Night for all the families. The kids played, the grown-ups talked, we all ate, more playing and talking, then ice cream before good-night. Sharing a meal and getting to know the other parents, also near the beginnings of their homeschool adventure, I felt so much more at ease than I ever felt last year standing in the parking lot with the other preschool mothers. Truly, I felt like an impostor there. For all my uncertainty on how homeschooling will pan out, I'm glad we have this chance to try it.
So, the first day of school dress.
For some reason Monkey1 got in her head that she wanted a dinosaur print.
At the fabric store I found one bolt of dinosaurs on flannel.
Monkey1 was horrified. "They're green!"
"They're dinosaurs," I pointed out, "They're either going to be green or brown."
She changed her mind in favor of what she called an aquarium print, with colorful dolphins, turtles, and octopuses.
So my treadle Singer is singing away.
The first day of school is September 1st.
(Of course, I am also working on a first day of preschool dress for Monkey2. As she requested, her dress will feature pink elephants.)
First of all, Monkey1 is definitely a get-dressed kind of girl. She gets up in the morning, and she gets dressed, usually in a dress, and then she comes to tug on my arm, "I'M HUNGRY!" By the way, there's no secret I can share on getting your child to do the same. Monkey1 has always been interested in selecting her own clothes. Monkey2, however, could, and does, wear her nightgowns all day.
Secondly, new clothes and special clothes mark important days. Baptismal gowns, First Communion dresses (she's seen some of her older cousins), wedding dresses... and so, school is important and worthy of a special dress. A dress made by Mom.
Thirdly, we're not staying home to school every day. Once a week we will be schooling with a community called Classical Conversations. Tonight our CC group had a Pasta Night for all the families. The kids played, the grown-ups talked, we all ate, more playing and talking, then ice cream before good-night. Sharing a meal and getting to know the other parents, also near the beginnings of their homeschool adventure, I felt so much more at ease than I ever felt last year standing in the parking lot with the other preschool mothers. Truly, I felt like an impostor there. For all my uncertainty on how homeschooling will pan out, I'm glad we have this chance to try it.
So, the first day of school dress.
For some reason Monkey1 got in her head that she wanted a dinosaur print.
At the fabric store I found one bolt of dinosaurs on flannel.
Monkey1 was horrified. "They're green!"
"They're dinosaurs," I pointed out, "They're either going to be green or brown."
She changed her mind in favor of what she called an aquarium print, with colorful dolphins, turtles, and octopuses.
So my treadle Singer is singing away.
The first day of school is September 1st.
(Of course, I am also working on a first day of preschool dress for Monkey2. As she requested, her dress will feature pink elephants.)
Friday, August 20, 2010
Sewing, Fashion, and Shopping
So I'm sewing Monkey1's first day of school dress, and suddenly I run into a bunch of interesting sewing blogs...
The Uniform Project.
I'm a year behind on this fashion statement. A young woman in NYC advertising decided "to wear the same dress for an entire year ... [and] to make it look unique every single day and do so without buying anything new." New meaning off the rack newly produced; items could be new to her from thrift ("vintage") shops or handmade or donated. A friend helped design and sew a little black dress that could be wore backwards or frontwards or open like a long jacket. And every day for a year she reinvented it. The dress turned out to be not so much a uniform as the starting canvas each day. Hats, scarves, collars, jewelery, belts, colorful stockings, overskirts, underskirts, vests, ponchos, capes, you name it, she worked with it. And she made it look cool. No, fashionable. No, above fashion. Chic.
The project was also a charity fundraiser for a school serving the slums in India. (The link: The Uniform Project ) The Uniform Project is now in its second year, proposing that each month someone new will try to reinvent their own little black dress uniform.
I wish I could do this, I thought as I read the blog and looked at the photos. But I'm got a huge problem, starting with my feet. How on earth could I pull something like this off for even a week with one pair of sneakers? I was horrified at my last shoe fitting to find myself back in mens sneakers. Thank goodness Monkey1 found some pink shoelaces for me, restoring a small sense of femininity to my wide wide feet.
The Little Brown Dress
This was several years ago. An artist and mother on the west coast decided to wear the same dress for a year "to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting." She designed and sewed herself a brown denim dress, used stuff she had in her closet to layer during colder weather, and only $20 in a thrift store during her year-long challenge. She did not try to dress up the dress because she was confronting consumerism.
As I looked at some of her photos, I nearly choked. One picture showed her sitting beside an little inflatable pool with her son, and she looked just like my mom (minus 20 inches of hair) c.1976. There was just something about the brown button-up sleeveless jumper... (The link: The Little Brown Dress.)
This I would definitely not do, I thought. It is too much like a nun's habit, and I'm not a nun. And I'm trying not to look like my mom, though as the years go by, more and more pictures of me come back looking like her.
New Dress A Day
This one is current! In California a single 30-year-old decided "to be spending the entire year without doing an ounce of traditional clothing shopping... Each day for the entire year, I’m going to introduce a new piece into my existing wardrobe that I’ve found from these places [flea markets and garage sales]. On top of this, I’m giving myself a budget of $1 a day." This girl finds voluminous numbers (what else could you get for a dollar?) and cuts them down to size, into dresses or shirts. She does before and after shots, as well as some during cutting and sewing pictures. (The link: New Dress A Day.)
Her persistence is amazing. However, I do not have the time or inclination or space to add 365 items to my closet and bureau space.
However, I find all these confrontations with spending and clothing fascinating. As summer closes, at least as the "vacation" mentality of summer comes to an end and school looms ahead, preschool for the littlest Monkey and homeschool for the oldest Monkey, I find myself looking for a change too. Will it be a change from my rotation of REI hiking skirts and Tshirts? Or will it be something less outward, like the kinds of books I try reading?
That's not something I'll decide tonight. It's taken me three evenings just to write this post, and now I'll let my subconscious stew about fashion and consumerism. Or maybe I'll just have a dreamless sleep without a restless Monkey sticking her toes in my ear.
The Uniform Project.
I'm a year behind on this fashion statement. A young woman in NYC advertising decided "to wear the same dress for an entire year ... [and] to make it look unique every single day and do so without buying anything new." New meaning off the rack newly produced; items could be new to her from thrift ("vintage") shops or handmade or donated. A friend helped design and sew a little black dress that could be wore backwards or frontwards or open like a long jacket. And every day for a year she reinvented it. The dress turned out to be not so much a uniform as the starting canvas each day. Hats, scarves, collars, jewelery, belts, colorful stockings, overskirts, underskirts, vests, ponchos, capes, you name it, she worked with it. And she made it look cool. No, fashionable. No, above fashion. Chic.
The project was also a charity fundraiser for a school serving the slums in India. (The link: The Uniform Project ) The Uniform Project is now in its second year, proposing that each month someone new will try to reinvent their own little black dress uniform.
I wish I could do this, I thought as I read the blog and looked at the photos. But I'm got a huge problem, starting with my feet. How on earth could I pull something like this off for even a week with one pair of sneakers? I was horrified at my last shoe fitting to find myself back in mens sneakers. Thank goodness Monkey1 found some pink shoelaces for me, restoring a small sense of femininity to my wide wide feet.
The Little Brown Dress
This was several years ago. An artist and mother on the west coast decided to wear the same dress for a year "to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting." She designed and sewed herself a brown denim dress, used stuff she had in her closet to layer during colder weather, and only $20 in a thrift store during her year-long challenge. She did not try to dress up the dress because she was confronting consumerism.
As I looked at some of her photos, I nearly choked. One picture showed her sitting beside an little inflatable pool with her son, and she looked just like my mom (minus 20 inches of hair) c.1976. There was just something about the brown button-up sleeveless jumper... (The link: The Little Brown Dress.)
This I would definitely not do, I thought. It is too much like a nun's habit, and I'm not a nun. And I'm trying not to look like my mom, though as the years go by, more and more pictures of me come back looking like her.
New Dress A Day
This one is current! In California a single 30-year-old decided "to be spending the entire year without doing an ounce of traditional clothing shopping... Each day for the entire year, I’m going to introduce a new piece into my existing wardrobe that I’ve found from these places [flea markets and garage sales]. On top of this, I’m giving myself a budget of $1 a day." This girl finds voluminous numbers (what else could you get for a dollar?) and cuts them down to size, into dresses or shirts. She does before and after shots, as well as some during cutting and sewing pictures. (The link: New Dress A Day.)
Her persistence is amazing. However, I do not have the time or inclination or space to add 365 items to my closet and bureau space.
However, I find all these confrontations with spending and clothing fascinating. As summer closes, at least as the "vacation" mentality of summer comes to an end and school looms ahead, preschool for the littlest Monkey and homeschool for the oldest Monkey, I find myself looking for a change too. Will it be a change from my rotation of REI hiking skirts and Tshirts? Or will it be something less outward, like the kinds of books I try reading?
That's not something I'll decide tonight. It's taken me three evenings just to write this post, and now I'll let my subconscious stew about fashion and consumerism. Or maybe I'll just have a dreamless sleep without a restless Monkey sticking her toes in my ear.
Monday, August 9, 2010
NOI
Dear Superintendent,
This letter and the enclosed supporting documents constitute our Notice of Intent to provide home instruction, as provided for by 22.1-254.1 of the Code of Virginia (1950) as amended, for our daughter [Monkey1].
[Monkey1], residing in the school zone for ..., born ..., would enter kindergarten this school year 2010-2011.
We wish to be recognized as eligible to provide home instruction by the following option: we have baccalaureate and higher degrees. Copies are enclosed.
For [Monkey1]’s kindergarten year of home instruction, we will follow a curriculum as follows. Language arts: preparation for reading, introduction to phonics, handwriting skills, listening comprehension, and verbal communication. Math: counting, addition and subtraction with objects and sets of objects, an introduction to measurement, the identification and comparison of geometric shapes, and the identification of patterns using shapes, sounds, and experiences. Science, History, and Fine Arts will be covered with the “Classical Conversations” Foundations curriculum for five-year-olds.
Sincerely,
This letter and the enclosed supporting documents constitute our Notice of Intent to provide home instruction, as provided for by 22.1-254.1 of the Code of Virginia (1950) as amended, for our daughter [Monkey1].
[Monkey1], residing in the school zone for ..., born ..., would enter kindergarten this school year 2010-2011.
We wish to be recognized as eligible to provide home instruction by the following option: we have baccalaureate and higher degrees. Copies are enclosed.
For [Monkey1]’s kindergarten year of home instruction, we will follow a curriculum as follows. Language arts: preparation for reading, introduction to phonics, handwriting skills, listening comprehension, and verbal communication. Math: counting, addition and subtraction with objects and sets of objects, an introduction to measurement, the identification and comparison of geometric shapes, and the identification of patterns using shapes, sounds, and experiences. Science, History, and Fine Arts will be covered with the “Classical Conversations” Foundations curriculum for five-year-olds.
Sincerely,
Sunday, August 1, 2010
More CC
I got a bit derailed in the last post due to the hour of writing.
The Parent Practicum was an "equipping event" for families heading into a Classical Conversations school year. I met another mother who will be attending our same local CC group with her two five-year-olds. I listened to veterans, who have been homeschooling for nearly a decade, some brand new to the classical model and some who have been part of Classical Conversations since their family started homeschooling. Everyone has come to it differently, some intending to homeschool from the time their child was in the womb, others having tried conventional schooling and been dissatisfied or disappointed, but there is obviously an explosion in education. Homeschooling is growing, and some veterans noted, colleges are seeking out homeschoolers because they are so well prepared.
The days were not without their bumps.
After the lecture criticizing Darwin and Dewey, that is, evolution, one mother pointed to the sign on the wall that said, "Sunday School... so easy, even a caveman can do it" and wondered in horror what this church (which was providing the space for this large event) was teaching its children.
The answer came from the man running the sound, lights, overhead projection slide shows, and other technical details from a booth the size of my kitchen. Now, I've been in theater and television production long enough to note that there are two kinds of techies: the techie slob, and the techie hunk. This fellow, with a little bit of beard stubble, in jeans and a black T-shirt over his lean frame, was definitely... "and I've been associate pastor here for seven years," he introduced himself.
Oh! Well, the pastor should know how to turn on the lights and the sound system, but I had not yet met one that could also run four computers simultaneously, and look like a movie star on his day off.
The caveman sign was campaign the church was using to start their new Sunday School year, borrowing from the popular insurance ads. The church team had created several little videos with the pastor and the cavemen, "and if you want to see them, come here on Sunday!" he invited us.
I doubt this in any way mollified the original protester, but it did make me wonder about this group with which I was becoming involved. In a small group discussion later, the evolution vs. creation issue came up, and I remarked upon the notion that the two ideas can work together, that "God created" in a day could be 24 hours or it could be millions of years; who knows what a day is for God? Apparently this idea was lost upon my listeners. "But it's God, why couldn't it be 24 hours? He can do that!"
Discussing this later with my husband, he repeated his worry about these "Christian" educators. Plus we are living in the south. Even public school boards have been known to throw out evolution and text books mentioning it.
However, my comfort came the next day, when I met some Catholics.
"I thought I was the only one!" I said, and the other mother laughed, "Oh no, I usually find another Catholic or two at these CC events."
I sat with her for lunch, along with two of her friends, one a graduate of the Franciscan University at Steubenville (another FUS alum who homeschools! Virginia is just overrun with them!) and one from Christendom College, a place I had visited during my college search but had concluded was too far from home. One had been part of Classical Conversations for several years, the other, with younger children, had just started last year. These articulate women helped set my mind at ease, talking about their experiences, that CC teaches in outline while letting the parents fill in the particulars on such topics. One even spoke to me about how evolution without God denies the soul. Souls aren't part of evolution, a being either has one or does not -- it's not something that you get after a certain stage! We had a lovely time, and I look forward to seeking them out at future events.
The Parent Practicum was an "equipping event" for families heading into a Classical Conversations school year. I met another mother who will be attending our same local CC group with her two five-year-olds. I listened to veterans, who have been homeschooling for nearly a decade, some brand new to the classical model and some who have been part of Classical Conversations since their family started homeschooling. Everyone has come to it differently, some intending to homeschool from the time their child was in the womb, others having tried conventional schooling and been dissatisfied or disappointed, but there is obviously an explosion in education. Homeschooling is growing, and some veterans noted, colleges are seeking out homeschoolers because they are so well prepared.
The days were not without their bumps.
After the lecture criticizing Darwin and Dewey, that is, evolution, one mother pointed to the sign on the wall that said, "Sunday School... so easy, even a caveman can do it" and wondered in horror what this church (which was providing the space for this large event) was teaching its children.
The answer came from the man running the sound, lights, overhead projection slide shows, and other technical details from a booth the size of my kitchen. Now, I've been in theater and television production long enough to note that there are two kinds of techies: the techie slob, and the techie hunk. This fellow, with a little bit of beard stubble, in jeans and a black T-shirt over his lean frame, was definitely... "and I've been associate pastor here for seven years," he introduced himself.
Oh! Well, the pastor should know how to turn on the lights and the sound system, but I had not yet met one that could also run four computers simultaneously, and look like a movie star on his day off.
The caveman sign was campaign the church was using to start their new Sunday School year, borrowing from the popular insurance ads. The church team had created several little videos with the pastor and the cavemen, "and if you want to see them, come here on Sunday!" he invited us.
I doubt this in any way mollified the original protester, but it did make me wonder about this group with which I was becoming involved. In a small group discussion later, the evolution vs. creation issue came up, and I remarked upon the notion that the two ideas can work together, that "God created" in a day could be 24 hours or it could be millions of years; who knows what a day is for God? Apparently this idea was lost upon my listeners. "But it's God, why couldn't it be 24 hours? He can do that!"
Discussing this later with my husband, he repeated his worry about these "Christian" educators. Plus we are living in the south. Even public school boards have been known to throw out evolution and text books mentioning it.
However, my comfort came the next day, when I met some Catholics.
"I thought I was the only one!" I said, and the other mother laughed, "Oh no, I usually find another Catholic or two at these CC events."
I sat with her for lunch, along with two of her friends, one a graduate of the Franciscan University at Steubenville (another FUS alum who homeschools! Virginia is just overrun with them!) and one from Christendom College, a place I had visited during my college search but had concluded was too far from home. One had been part of Classical Conversations for several years, the other, with younger children, had just started last year. These articulate women helped set my mind at ease, talking about their experiences, that CC teaches in outline while letting the parents fill in the particulars on such topics. One even spoke to me about how evolution without God denies the soul. Souls aren't part of evolution, a being either has one or does not -- it's not something that you get after a certain stage! We had a lovely time, and I look forward to seeking them out at future events.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)