Ten Years Ago: A Homeschooling Day

 First posted February 2011. Ponytails was in Grade 8; Crayons (Lydia) was in Grade 4.

9:00 a.m.: New hymn (see video), Tennyson's poems, and several pages from Marva Collins' Way, which we are reading parts of both for Black History Month and for some character building/academic inspiration.

9:20 a.m.: Crayons do math and Bible Geography with Mom. Ponytails work on independent math and other work.

9:50 a.m.: French: We are supposed to be reading from Les Insectes, but the book has temporarily disappeared so we may have to do something else. Also: French Bible copywork.

10:10 a.m.: Crayons take a break, Ponytails work with Mom.

10:30 a.m.: Ponytails take a break, Crayons do English with Mom. Review the parts of speech, and read two pages about how to make the most of watching educational "T.V. specials." Which shows how old that book is.

10:50 a.m.: "Educational T.V. Special." To be decided...we were going to watch a Christian dinosaur video that Mama Squirrel picked up from a freebie box, but after checking it out online it appears that there were issues with this movie, so we will choose something else.

Lunchtime: Ponytails work with Dad.

1 p.m.: Crayons do geometry (from Math Mammoth Grade 4) and finish a chapter from George Washington's World. Ponytails finish independent work and do any needed work with Mom.

2 p.m.: Group reading from Bulfinch's Age of Fable. Homemaking lesson: read several pages from the Food chapter in Hidden Art of Homemaking, and do some baking together.

3 p.m.: Teatime.

From the archives: Pedagogical Passion

First posted August 2013; edited slightly 

I've been reading The Passionate Learner: How Teachers and Parents Can Help Children Reclaim the Joy of Discovery, by Robert L. Fried.  It's one of those recent educational books that homeschoolers, especially CM homeschoolers, would probably read with caution, if not with outright suspicion.  This guy is an associate professor of education.  He works in public schools, with teachers.  Still, he might be sort of on our side, since he wrote a book about passionate learners (and also one about passionate teachers).  My vote:  I like the book.  It's not a homeschooling book and it doesn't match what we do exactly, but I think it speaks to a lot of the questions I raised in Part One of this post, such as, how do I encourage a student to take ownership of her own learning without dumping the curriculum?

Towards the end of Dr. Fried's book, he points out that there are good schools that are very "resource-focused," and there are those that are "responsibility-focused" (where the onus is on the kids to knuckle down and do their homework); and that there are great educators who are "progressive/child centered" and those who are "traditionalist/authoritarian."  (Not to the point of being destructive, either one; he means those that take their educational philosophy and use it to teach in a productive way.)  And, although he puts himself at particular points along both of those lines, he points out that you can really have any combination of those and still be successful, still turn out passionate learners.

We might be inspired to plot Charlotte Mason on Dr. Fried's grid--was she more "child centered" or more "authoritarian?" (What she really said, I mean, not how other homeschoolers have labelled her methods.)  Was she more "resource-focused" or more "responsibility-focused?"  Or did she come out right in the middle?  Something to think about.

Anyway, back to Dr. Fried's book.  How can you not like someone who writes, "In the best of circumstances, teacher, parent, and student will share the vision of the child as a self-initiating seeker of truth and power through knowledge and skills development.  The teacher will, in most cases, take the lead in creating such a vision, but the student and parent must understand and interpret 'excellence' in ways that make sense to them."  "Quality learning requires the parent to be both patient and supportive, holding in check the voices that want to push the child toward short-term, less-authentic rewards, and keeping in one's mind a vision of the child as a lifelong learner."  "Quality learning has a lot to do with taking what's given--an assignment from the teacher--and figuring out how to make it correspond to the child's idea of a quality experience, how to find an angle on the assignment that the child can be enthusiastic about (or at least help the child not feel insulted or overwhelmed by the assignment."  (all on page 229)

Some of Dr. Fried's most interesting ideas come from the university classes he teaches in children's literature and in curriculum.  One workshop exercise he does with teachers is have them draw a pie graph of the major concepts or skills they want students to take away from a particular course--particular big ideas, ways that they relate material to their own lives, and so on.  Then he also has them graph their grading scheme for a course--15% for term tests, 10% for homework and so on.  Their conceptual goals for the course often conflict with the way the students are being marked; the ideas they say are important get less weight than things like attendance and homework.  We may or may not be grading our homeschoolers' work,  but it's still something to think about, maybe in terms of time spent instead of grades given.  If we say, just for example, that a goal in history is to see how God deals with nations and individuals, do we actually spend much time discussing that, or is it all about memorizing dates on a timeline?

What happens in the workshop, then, is that they take the two pie charts, and try to rewrite the grading-scheme chart to better reflect the important ideas of the course.  Maybe there will be a larger, self-designed project on a major person or event in a period of history, something that allows the student to ask and answer his own questions.  (Like a science fair project.)  Maybe there will be no quizzes, but there will be one short-answer test just to make sure they haven't missed the basics.  This is something that we can apply in home schools, no matter what curriculum we're using: we definitely have the freedom to structure or restructure a course to focus on what's most important.  And then--I found this interesting--the teachers are challenged to take the major concepts they used for the first pie graph, and make them super-clear and intelligible, something that they could hand to the students (or the parents) to explain what they're supposed to be learning, and why they're learning it.

Because if you're the teacher and you don't know that yourself, you're going to be stuck with "open your books and read the next chapter," and that's not very passionate.

From the archives: a few useful things for teaching your own

First posted March 2016

Some useful stuff for teaching parents:

Discover Reading, by Amy Tuttle. How an experienced homeschool mom applies Charlotte Mason's early reading lessons.

Let's Play Math, by Denise Gaskins. Just about everything you need to be a great homeschool math teacher, all in one book. I was impressed by the fact that this is not just another book of website links: it's something I actually enjoyed reading (even without anybody homeschooling here now).

Some things you might like to listen to:

The most recent episode of The Mason Jar, with guest Naomi Goegan. You too can do nature study!

And more nature study: The Deputy Headmistress reads from a CM-era conference paper. The Reverend Thornley is said to have been a favourite guest with the student teachers at Ambleside.

Episode 13 of Your Morning Basket. About Plutarch. With guest...me. I hope you enjoy it. 

What's in your way? (Archives post)

First posted August 2017

"Consider the trend toward numbers in light of our relationship to God. Metrics are quantitative and not qualitative, so they measure performance, but not relationships. They tell us about the externals of religion and say nothing about the heart...metrics can record the frequency of our church attendance, the regularity of our Bible reading and the exact amount of our tithing, but they can never gauge the genuineness of any of them..." ~~ Os Guinness, Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times

"Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" ~~ Isaiah 55:2a, English Standard Version 

I spent yesterday travelling to, around, and from Toronto. The official reason was that I had a ticket to Courtney Carver's Tiny Wardrobe Tour. I also wanted to spend time with relatives I hadn't seen for a long time, hear a lunchtime concert at a church, and maybe do a little sightseeing slash shopping. The logistics of the day all came together well (Google Maps gets you from place to place very succinctly), and the Greyhound bus got me back here before midnight.

But something was bothering me later, and it wasn't the falafel plate I had for dinner. I had been looking forward to the Tiny Wardrobe event for a long time, and of course it was nice to hear Courtney in person, with her rack of clothes behind her; so why wasn't the event quite the highlight I had expected? Earlier in the day I heard Beethoven and Mozart played in a church with wonderful acoustics. Maybe it was the "acoustics" of the evening event that made the message feel somewhat unclear. Was it the argument over seating arrangements that broke out in the front row, that seemed to sour the evening a bit? In the afternoon I spent time with family, and maybe I expected to find a similar connection with those who had bought Tiny Wardrobe tickets.Was it that I was tired from the day's travels, so of course it all felt a bit disjointed? Was I just "not feeling it," as my teenager would say?

Yes, people make too much stuff, buy too much stuff, dump too much stuff. This is something we really do need to talk about. In a world plagued with over-consumption, waste, garbage, labour injustice, consumer debt, and false promises of advertising, any message that helps us step away from the system even a little can only be a good thing. But in a month like this past one, when masses of people have lost their homes and possessions to natural disasters, any discussion of choosing to minimize can seem ludicrous. It is true that going through flood, fire or political upheaval may change your relationship with "stuff" (such as being all too aware of its impermanence), but in the short term, survival means getting enough of what you need or can pass on to others equally in need, and not worrying about the global implications of too many towels. (For those of us whose lives seem safe and "normal" for now, we might want to consider the ways that the money we plan to spend on "stuff" could be used to help others in need.)

Courtney Carver, Ann Voskamp, and others continually make the point that the goal isn't to have a simple life, or even a beautiful life, it's to have a life. A meaningful life. A good life. A life centered outside ourselves. Simplifying possessions can be a discipline that encourages more focus, less materialism. Or it can be just a numbers game, even if you pick your own number. It can be the pride of money spent for "that which is not bread," or it can equally be the boasting of money not spent. In either of those cases, the focus is on the wrong thing.

"The difference does not seem to be great; but two streams that rise within a foot of one another may water different countries and fall into different seas, and a broad divergence in practice often arises from what appears to be a small difference in conception..." ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education 

And what is it that was keeping me from falling back to sleep? Guilt over a few small things I did buy while I was in the city? Worry about not fitting in with somebody else's minimalist program? No...I think I've come to terms with the "problem" that I like having fun with clothes, and scouting thrift shops is one way I do that without hurting our bank account and producing more waste. That's why I keep posting my own Project 333 stories. I have never done a capsule wardrobe exactly "right." But I am learning to use my own talents (such as scrounging) in ways that, maybe, can encourage others.

Maybe it was just an impossible wish that we could spend more time getting to listen to each other's stories. Not judging, or arguing about details, but seeing each other as people who have lives and stuff and needs and questions and ideas. That means relationships. That means time. We need to make more room for both. And to come back to exactly what Courtney says: if any aspect of your stuff (including clothes) is standing in the way of the important things, it's time to make a change.

So maybe the acoustics weren't so bad after all.

Short On...? Carry On: Part One (Archives Post)

First posted 2007, edited slightly

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking of frugality only in terms of getting good bargains. What is important to remember is that often we can save the most money by not spending at all.--Crystal in "Saturday Savings Smorgasbord" at Frugal Hacks 

Sometimes, frugal as we Squirrels are, it's hard to wrap my brain around that. I have a hard time understanding how those pioneer families managed on their infrequent trips to a store for sugar, salt and shot...or how people concerned with simplicity (who haven't engineered the whole thing ahead of time, stocking up on every possible thing they might run out of) manage to go on one of those no-buying-anything-at-all shopping unbinges.

I mean, some things are obvious to me: if you need to wrap a present and haven't saved up all the bags everybody else has given you presents in, you find some creative wrapping, even the thoroughly-clichéd colour comics. If you're short on baking powder, you can combine baking soda and cream of tartar, assuming that you do have cream of tartar. It makes more sense to use up the getting-dusty bag of split peas to make soup than it does to complain that the canned stuff hasn't gone on sale lately. If you don't have a crib, you can use a playpen (we did). And the list of ways to amuse children and improvise free toys and games can and does go on for pages. That, I get.

But it isn't a toy famine that we're usually experiencing here, nor a lack of furniture. We have more than enough kitchen equipment, lots of books to read, and a flip of the switch provides us with free radio entertainment and edification. What we run out of are the small things. Socks that fit growing feet. Tape. Printer paper. Working ballpoint pens; and I don't think the backyard crows would lend me any quills. Flour (and therefore all the things we make with flour). Toilet paper; and I have no burning desire to start substituting catalogue pages in that regard. Baking powder when there isn't any cream of tartar around. Foil. A VCR that quit working and that Mr. Fixit can't resuscitate. How do you manage without spending at all when life today seems like one big pile of little receipts?

"'What do we need to get in town, Caroline?'

"Ma said they did not need anything. They had eaten so many fish and potatoes that the flour was still holding out, and the sugar, and even the tea. Only the salt was low, and it would last several days."--On the Banks of Plum Creek

Could I actually go any length of time without buying anything? I know there are so many things you can improvise, and many more that you can just do without. But then there's the really good candy corn for Thanksgiving from the Bulk Barn...and some classical CDs from Dollarama that will make great stocking stuffers and Secret Sister gifts...and the purple sweater I found at a rummage sale Friday night (I do need sweaters). And the Turkish Cookbook I got there for a quarter, and a spool knitting set as well. (Crayons thought those were both awesome.) And dancing-class shoes for the younger Squirrelings, because their last-years' pairs are worn out (call them the 2 Dancing Princesses); those cost more than a couple of dollars, but we didn't want them to have to dance in their bare feet.

And that aseptically-packaged apple juice from Giant Tiger for 77 cents a box (amazing deal)...and, if you don't think we should be eating candy and drinking juice (too much sugar), how about the pumpkins and apples and squash and broccoli and the most excellent popcorn that will be gone all too soon when the farm stand closes up for the season? And we just bought a hot-air popper at a yard sale for $2...and a couple of VCRs for about the same price, no kidding. I said VCRs, not videos. See, you have to admit, sometimes spending is just fun. And smart; check the big box stores, VCRs are quickly disappearing from the shelves, and then how are you going to watch all your Star Trek videos?

So while my preferred way of dealing with don't-have-that problems is trying to see another way around it, I'm not going to stress out with guilt over the things we do buy. 

"And in the lean-to they found a boughten broom! There seemed no end to the wonders in this house."--On the Banks of Plum Creek

Nothing to Spend, No Place to Spend It: Look, and look again (Archives post)

First posted May 2016, slightly edited

Sometimes we forget that one reason for decluttering is so we can appreciate the things we do keep.

What books do you already have on the shelf? Have you read the ones you downloaded to your Kindle app last year, or the year before? I just finished one of my long-time Kindle-sitters, at 10,000 feet, because the crossword puzzle book I'd brought was excruciatingly boring, and the airplane WiFi wasn't free. Of course looking out the window at the clouds is free, but I wasn't right by a window, and where I could sort of see out, people kept closing the shades. So, the downloaded books came in handy.

What do you have in your jewelry box? I have a necklace with a green pendant that Mr. Fixit gave me some time ago. I cleaned out my box this spring, got rid of the non-keepers, put a few special but unwearable things away, and that left the things I liked but hadn't been wearing, like the green necklace. So now it's where I can grab it easily and put it on.

What do you have hidden in your china cupboard? A pottery dish? Candles? Fancy bowls? We are paper napkin users, by and large, although we do have a stash of homemade cloth napkins we use as well. Sometimes the stack of paper napkins sits right on the kitchen table, which is not attractive. Sometimes they sit in a basket, which is better. Today I pulled out a vintage tin box and slipped the napkins into that, just for a change. Better to use things than to hide them away.

I just finished reading a book that my daughter loaned me. In the story, one character had a special celebration, and two other people decided to commemorate it by giving him a trading card of his favourite Japanese baseball player, Yutaka Enatsu This was not easy to accomplish, because the man already owned most of the early Enatsu cards, but for reasons too complicated to explain here he lived largely in the past, and might not be able to handle it if he found out that Enatsu was later traded to another team. The searchers did, through a few strokes of luck, come up with a card that fit the bill, and the giving and the receiving was everything they hoped for. One little coloured piece of cardboard, but chosen with love, and treasured.

Enjoy your small treasures for the smiles they give.

Nothing to Spend, No Place to Spend It: Revisiting the Tightwad Gazette (Archives post)

First posted 2011, edited slightly

When I first knew Mr. Fixit, I was sort of a tightwad wanna-be; or perhaps a frequently-misbehaving tightwad.  By the time we got married, necessity made us both more than ready to tighten things up more than they had been; late-night courting pizzas had been fun, but a new house (even a small one) and a Squirreling soon on the way meant a different reality.  Plus the whole economy was in a bad spot during those years.  As I've said before, wedding rings were cheap; broccoli was expensive.

So all that is to say that, from our earliest Treehouse days, we tried to be careful with money; we had other books about frugality and quite a few broke-and-or-frugal friends to learn from; but I don't remember exactly when or how I first heard about The Tightwad Gazette. Amy Dacyczyn started the newsletter in May 1990. The first book was published in 1992, but I bought it used sometime later, maybe in 1993 or '94.  The second book came out in 1995, and I got it with "four free books for joining" from a book club (I still had some things to learn).  At that point we started subscribing to the newsletter, and almost right away heard that it would be winding up in 1996.

Bummer.

But we did get several months' worth of newsletters, and then bought the third book when it came out at the end of the year.  Brand new, $17.95.  I knew it would be worth it.

So knowing all that, I guess our most intense apprenticeship with Amy would have been through the early to mid '90's.  I took the handles off a small pot, trying to make it fit inside our pressure cooker to make rice and beans (I gave up on that--pot and cooker were just the wrong shape). I tried a whole lot of things, especially food-related, from the books:  gelatin, popsicles, coffee mixes, chili, breadcrumb cookies, practicing "how to avoid feeling deprived," home haircutting (Mr. Fixit was the first to try that here); buying grains and beans from a co-op; juice-lid toys; the "snowball principle"; the "combining frugal strategies" principle; frugal-baby ideas; newspaper Easter bonnets; and egg-carton crowns.  (I passed on the dryer-lint Halloween mask.)  We didn't try everything (have never been dumpster diving either), but we learned one main principle:  nothing is too weird to try if it means you stay afloat.  And another one:   that a lot of "radical tightwad" ideas are just the "normal" of a couple of generations ago--less stuff, more time and so on.

If fixing, scrounging and occasionally doing without things meant that we could pay off our house, have me stay home with the kids (and eventually homeschool them), and stay out of credit-card debt--then, as Amy says in the intro to her first book, we weren't too frugal. 

It wasn't until years later that I realized, via Google, how many people out there had issues with certain frugal practices and Dacyczyn parenting points.  Given the number of critics who are STILL trashing Amy on message boards for powdered milk and making her kids clean their plates, it's no wonder that their family went into a more private lifestyle after the newsletter ended.   I still admire her, though, and am still learning through her books (I keep them with our cookbooks); Amy stuck her neck out, did the math instead of just saying "this should save you money," and took the risk of being called extremist. 

Maybe it's fifteen years since we connected, maybe it's more; it doesn't matter exactly.  The Dacyczyns' risk gave us more confidence to live the way we wanted, and to keep working on that over the years.  And for that, we thank them, and the Gazette.

From the archives: Living Room (A Mitford review)

First posted December 2007. Edited slightly.

I finished Shepherds Abiding. It didn't matter that it was the eighth in the series and that I didn't know all the characters...the story was exactly what I needed this week.

I've been thinking a lot about things and people that I miss (especially around the holidays), things that have changed, things I'm unhappy about (yes, there are some even though I don't blog about them), the fact that the living room won't stay cleaned (it's a living room), and the general imperfection that always seems to interfere and mess up the perfect life I always thought I was somehow entitled to.

Shepherds Abiding is full of imagery of things imperfect, broken, less than ideal. One-winged angels, families with missing siblings, lost letters, and, central to it all, an antique Nativity set that Father Tim is restoring as a Christmas present for his wife.

In a nice touch of irony, as Father Tim is consulting Botticelli paintings to choose the perfect colours for angels' robes, the ailing old man down the street is also making a present for his own wife: a wooden tray for her jewelery, with handles swiped from the kitchen cabinets. Both gifts are welcomed and loved.

The book is about restoring, repairing, finding what has been lost, and reconciling the past and the present. And even about extending grace from unexpected quarters: another couple sit "in their twin recliners" in front of a fake fireplace that "featured a forty-watt bulb that flowed through a revolving sheet of red cellophane." The wife opens a gift from a neighbour and recognizes something that she herself donated to a rummage sale "a hundred years ago."

"And to think I gave her a two-layer marmalade [cake]" [she said.]

"Th' poor woman has a gimp leg, Esther, which don't leave much room for shoppin'. Besides, why did you put it in th' Bane an' Blessin'? It looks perfectly good to me."

"Well, yes," said Esther, examining it more carefully. "After I put it in, I wished I hadn't."

"See?" said her husband, hammering down on a couple of cashews. "What goes around comes around."

It's about finding peace, mystery and wonder at Christmas in whatever place in the story you happen to be...understanding that God is allowing you to be a part of it all...whether your life is about Renaissance angels, or recliners, or somewhere in between.

It's about allowing some living room.

From the Archives: Big and Small Things

First posted April 2019

"Care in small matters makes us trustworthy in greater. When we come to be trusted with the property of others, whether in money or material, we are on our guard against wastefulness, carelessness, extravagance, because integrity requires that we should take care of and make the most of whatever property is put into our hands..." Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, pp. 177-178

"At present, too ignorant to know how ignorant we are, we believe that we are free to impose our will upon the land with the utmost power and speed to gain the largest profit in the shortest time...The woods is left a shambles, for nobody thought of the forest rather than the trees." ~~ Wendell Berry, "A Forest Conversation," in Our Only World 

For Christians, the idea of being entrusted with another's property is integral to our understanding of stewardship. God made it all. He gives it to us...trusts us to care for it, not (as Mason says elsewhere) to throw battery acid into the watch workings.

There's also the proverb about borrowing the earth from our grandchildren. Caring for what belongs to others also means honouring the past and thinking of the future. What do we want to hand down, and I don't mean just ecology-wise?

"Any conversation at home between grandparents and grandchildren is potentially the beginning of a local culture, even of a sustaining local culture, however it might be cut short and wasted." ~~ Wendell Berry

Do we want to pass down the values of big ideas and small things, and not just growth for its own sake? Then we have to live like that ourselves. To repeat something from a previous year's Fashion Revolution post: it's never too late to plant some pizza seeds.

"To learn to meet our needs without continuous violence against one another and our only world would require an immense intellectual and practical effort, requiring the help of every human being perhaps to the end of human time.

"This would be work worthy of the name 'human.' It would be fascinating and lovely." ~~ Wendell Berry

So what does this mean when we buy socks?

"The logger who is free of financial anxiety can stop and think." 

"We...must think of reverence, humility, affection, familiarity, neighborliness, cooperation, thrift, appropriateness, local loyalty. These terms return us to the best of our heritage. They bring us home." ~~ Wendell Berry

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series): Multiplying's Not So Tough

First posted December 2006. Ponytails was nine years old.

Ponytails has been doing multiplication since first grade. Miquon Math starts teaching multiplication concepts early, since saying "three five-rods" is no harder than saying "a five-rod plus a five-rod plus a five-rod".

However, now that she's in fourth grade and has moved on to Quine's Making Math Meaningful series, we need to do some serious work on multi-digit multiplication. We worked on that a bit in the last year of Miquon Math, but Ponytails has forgotten some of it, and anyway, she's older now and can make more sense of it.

The Apprentice did this level of MMM several years ago, and I remember going through extreme frustration with it (both of us). They kept explaining and showing, explaining and showing, breaking questions apart until we weren't even sure what we were looking at anymore. Finally I told the Apprentice, conspiratorially, that I was going to teach her a shortcut, and I taught her the multiplication algorithm--the old-fashioned way, the school way. She got it. For her, that was a relief. No more explaining--just do it.

Ponytails needed a slightly different approach. We go in and out of the MMM book; we've skipped a lot of pages in it because there are things she already knows well (like place value and addition), but then there are things that she needs some extra preparation for, and the MMM teacher's book doesn't always explain them in a way that makes sense to her. So we've been working in this sequence: single digits multiplied by single digits; multiplying things that end in 0, which MMM does do a good job on (like 300 x 20); and now two digits multiplied by one or two digits. Yesterday we talked about two ways to handle those bigger numbers, and today I added a third, the one that MMM emphasizes and that the Apprentice found frustrating. What do you know--it makes sense to Ponytails.

Let's say the question is 23 x 45. The first way is to list the smaller questions you could break those down into, multiply them, and then add them all up. So, 20 x 40, 3 x 40, 20 x 5, and 3 x 5. The problem with that method is that you aren't always sure if you've gotten all the combinations.

The second is to use the "school way," the algorithm.

23
x 45
------

It's the quickest way for me because I've been doing it that way for thirty years. The problem with it for Ponytails is that she isn't sure yet of all the steps, and keeps adding where she should be multiplying or vice versa. It takes time to get familiar with this one.

This is the third way, and it's almost like the first. You draw an empty square. Across the top you write "20, 3" and down one side you write "40, 5." You divide the square into four boxes (in this case) and fill in each box, as if it were a times table chart. 

The advantage over Way # 1 is that when you're done the boxes, you know you're done and you haven't missed anything. The disadvantage is that then you have to recopy all your products to add them up, unless you can do it in your head. Ponytails says she doesn't mind that, and it's easier for her right now than remembering all the steps in the algorithm. I wrote out some word problems for her to do, and she decided to do one of them with the algorithm and the rest with Way #3.

It's always nice to have choices.

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series):

First posted 2012; edited slightly.

Now that we're a couple of weeks into this fall's homeschool term, and I'm pretty sure of what we're going to keep using this year (vs. things that, like bad sitcoms, disappear after one viewing), I thought I would try adding up what this year's homeschool materials cost us.

I didn't get very far with it.  Besides, it would be pretty irrelevant.  Most of our stuff came from the thrift shop or was already on the shelf. And the other slightly misleading thing about saying that we're using a thrifted math book, or whatever, is that usually we didn't make the choice based on cheapness, but more because we found something secondhand that looked like it would both meet our goals and fit Dollygirl's learning style and our current homeschool situation (Mom teaching Dollygirl, and Dad usually working in the next room). I wanted to use a more "out of the box" approach to math thinking this year, and if I had had to buy something new to make that work, I would have. But I found Minds on Math 8 already on our bookshelf, and that seems to be a good choice so far. 

With all that said, here are some of the frugal ways and means we've found helpful so far this year.

1.  Craft materials:  we are using up some of our own stashed yarn and fabric, and buying carefully when it seems we can't find what we want. We went looking for "fat quarters" at the mill outlet store, thought they were a bit expensive, but then discovered a huge box of bandannas priced at a dollar apiece.  Did you know that bandannas are about the same size as a fat quarter? Dollygirl picked out a few that she thought would make good doll clothes, and she's already made Crissy a bandanna-print blouse.

 Dollygirl pulled out her old weaving frame a few days ago, along with some thick, fluffy yarn, and decided to weave her dolls a living room rug. She's almost done.

2.  French:  Although I did spend money last spring on the next level of the curriculum we were using, I just didn't have the interest (and neither did Dollygirl) in jumping right back into nouns and verbs.  I found a school copy of Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon at the antiques market, I think for about a dollar, and I also made paper people to go along with the story. We read it, and sometimes I have Dollygirl narrate it or re-read a simple part with me. We are also singing French children's songs out of a library-discard book we've had forever.

3.  Poetry:  Poetry is not hard to find, and it's not hard to teach, honestly: mostly we just read it.  Today I read Robert Frost's "Birches" out loud, and then I had Dollygirl pick out and re-read her favourite pair of lines, and I showed her mine. Dollygirl got a cobweb in her face yesterday when she went outside, so she could relate to that part, about wanting to swing on birches, somewhere up above the ground and not where nasty things hit you in the face.  Next time we do poetry, we'll use You-tube to let Mr. Frost read it himself.

4.  Literature:  Dollygirl tried reading The Hobbit when she was too young for it, and I think she got stopped at about "Out of the Frying-Pan." This time around, she can't get enough, and we are going to be done with it way before the term is over.  We have a junior LOTR fan in the making. So what's frugal about that?  Just this:  for the first time in history, probably, we are in a position where books, books, books are all around us, at the click of a button, at the dropping of a few coins at the thrift store, at the flick of a library card.  And the large number of North Americans (and others) who admit that they Don't Read and have No Interest in Reading is appalling.  Abraham Lincoln used to walk miles to borrow a book-when you have that much footwork invested in reading something, you make the most of it. 

5.  History, geography, science, and all that:  we bought ONE brand new book in those areas, and that was The Great Motion Mission for science. And two DVDs, about Marie Curie and Albert Einstein.  The real key to what we're doing frugally here is not the books we're using, but the variety of ways in which I'm trying to use them.  We read out loud, sometimes, often discussing and questioning as we go.  (Why was the Kuomintang's idea to get help from the large, powerful Soviet Union probably a bad idea?  Because somebody large and powerful can help you at first, but then they just want to take over.  Right...)  Sometimes Dollygirl reads to herself and reports. Sometimes I have her do something unexpected like re-read a point three times in a row, until it really makes sense. Or make a grapefruit globe.  Or go outside and measure a tree (that was for math this morning, but it could have been from the science book).  When it's just you, me, and the books, it's important to keep things stirred up a bit.  And it also helps when grandpa or somebody asks, "what did you do in school today?" 

I could mention other frugal things we've done, like re-using school supplies, but everybody knows that stuff already.  The point here isn't what you have.  It's what you do with it.  It's a clean, re-organized desk space for Dollygirl, and also one for me. (To quote a Mary Engelbreit saying we have posted, everybody needs their own Spot.) It's the routine of starting school mornings with a hymn and Bible verses, but jacked up a bit with the addition of (thrifted) puzzle cards--and the additional motivation of trying to solve them along with Dad. It's the freedom we're trying to achieve this year to take a bit longer on some activities--to throw in a math game or a craft that might take a good part of the morning.  (And it's okay, because we don't have other students waiting.)  The schedule is there, but it's not bossing us around too much.

Frugal?  Yes.  But it's not about the money.  It's about making sure we keep on caring about what we're doing.  Cost of that: priceless.

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series): When We Ourselves Retreat

First posted in October 2017, after coming back from the L'Harmas retreat

Have you ever heard that quote from the senior citizen (sometimes it's attributed to a man, sometimes a woman) who said "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits?"

Last weekend I was at the L'Harmas (Charlotte Mason) retreat, and the word "simplicity" came up in one of the talks: not as a question of how many wooden spoons and pairs of shoes you have, or what you wrap your avocados in, but more as a contemplative, even agrarian, old/new set of values; something that people are looking for but not finding. 

The idea of a retreat implies slowing down, unplugging, renewing. At L'Harmas, we often find ourselves asked to slow down in ways that are out of our "ordinary." If we're homeschoolers, we might be used to reading poems to our children, or showing them how to do a craft; but it feels different, even uncertain somehow, to have someone asking us, the grownups, to try Swedish drill. Or to have someone read a poem just for us, or show us how to needle-felt with those scary-looking barbed needles. Yes, I know needle-felting has been popular for ages, but some of us have never tried it (preferring our nice safe crochet hooks).

Or (at last year's L'Harmas), singing The Gypsy Rover, learning about ladybugs in greenhouses, and making a paper box, Sloyd-style.

To hear something different, to try something new, we have to slow down, listen to the words or the instructions, make our hands, voices, or bodies do something they don't normally do. We re-discover a place where the reading, the making, the singing come from our own initiative. This is the complete opposite of pushing a button or clicking an icon.

Those are the things I bring back from such a time away. Where do they lead?

Since returning, I've also sat in a church workshop on conservative Mennonite choral traditions, watched clouds from our balcony, spent a morning sorting books at the thrift store, baked a new/old gingerbread recipe, thrifted a cardigan, put away a few last summer clothes, picked up bananas and chocolate rolls at the discount store (because I can walk there), hand-washed my sweaters, and thought through the counting-clothes, capsule wardrobe problem again. Tomorrow night will be our local Charlotte Mason study night; we're working through School Education.

I have been listening to a CD of hymns and the radio jazz station, and discussing retirement finances with Mr. Fixit. We have an at-home daughter doing late-night essays and wondering what to wear for Halloween, and grown-up Squirrelings dealing with work, sick pets, and other life issues.

I'm reading a book by Madeleine L'Engle where she muses on a similar variety of this-is-life happenings. In the first chapter, she's awake in the middle of the night, watching out the window, listening to the night sounds. Sometimes that's the best place to find quiet and think about simplicity.

Some of the minimalist writers are big on saying No. I would like to turn it around and say more Yes. Yes, I can come help. Yes, that thrifted purse would look nice with a dress.Yes, I'll make time to read that book. Yes, I will talk to someone instead of doing something else that I thought was going to be important (and it wasn't). Yes, I will try that new thing.

Because simplicity allows us to refuse, but also to choose. And Yes can be a good choice.

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series): Wide Open Spaces

Excerpted from a March 2014 post

Narration begins with silence. Silence, like blank pages, or a tree to climb, can be disconcerting.

One of my children was once handed a cassette recorder and sent off  to record some examination answers. In an attempt to cover up the fact that she couldn't remember anything about one particular story, she recorded a few words and then gave us several minutes of feigned static, via some noisy crinkling paper. The cassette recorder had inexplicably developed technical trouble.  And I believed it, for about twenty seconds.

But often it's the adults who don't welcome large spaces, white pages, silences.  There is some risk involved with these things.  Multiple-choice questions give you a defined start, a fixed stop, and, if they're to be computer-answered, you had better not colour outside the little circles.

It's a bit like imagining ourselves flying through the air, or sailing over the sea, or galloping across an open field, vs. staying on the footpath.  Yes, there are lots of places where habit and duty and reason make life easier.  Some things just have to be roads, rails, and structure, and that's a good thing too.  But here we're talking about giving our students' minds room to stretch, play, run, and fly.

Mr. Quimby set his cup down. 'I have a great idea! Let's draw the longest picture in the world.' He opened a drawer and pulled out a roll of shelf paper....Together she and her father unrolled the paper across the kitchen and knelt with a box of crayons between them.
'What shall we draw?' she asked.
'How about the state of Oregon?' he suggested. "That's big enough.'
Ramona's imagination was excited. 'I'll begin with the Interstate Bridge,' she said.
'And I'll tackle Mount Hood,' said her father....
Ramona glanced at her father's picture, and sure enough he had drawn Mount Hood peaked with a hump on the south side exactly the way it looked in real life on the days when the clouds lifted." ~~ Beverly Cleary, Ramona and her Father

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series): Laying Out Your Week

First posted 2013. Links omitted.

Sunday-night planning is tradition for a lot of homeschoolers.  At our house, because the trash gets picked up early Monday mornings, it's part of the Sunday evening routine: take out the garbage and recycling; make sure  any public-schoolers have signed permission slips or whatever they need; and go over the week's homeschool work.  That's when I rescue the 2-litre plastic bottle from the recycling, because it's on the supply list for a science experiment; when I track down a book that's gone missing from the shelf; and when I try to figure out the tune to the next hymn or folk song.  It's the homeschooling equivalent of looking in the cupboard and seeing if we have enough oatmeal and sugar to make cookies tomorrow.

But the best kind of planning goes beyond that.  I don't mean in a compulsive, track every minute every paragraph way, but in terms of overall goals.  Do you know, for example, what pages or chapters or topics your students are going to read this week, or that you're going to read to them--and if they read their own work, how are you going to communicate those plans to them?  Or if you don't plan ahead to that extent, do you at least know what books or materials they're going to use this week, and in what sort of order? If you have older students who do written narrations, do you have a couple of the readings tentatively (or definitely) marked for that?  If you want older children to help younger ones with math or reading, are there particular topics this week that would be a great match for those kids (or not)?

If there's a new and difficult book you have worried about starting...and in AmblesideOnline Year Seven, there are a few of those...your planning time is also the time to boost up your own confidence and ability to communicate what's important or special about this book.  A couple of school years ago, I decided to start reading Silas Marner to Dollygirl.  Silas has been the butt of bad-English-class jokes since about the day it was published, but it honestly doesn't deserve its long/boring bad rap.  But like Shakespeare plays, it's easier to follow the book if you have some kind of a character guide; so Dollygirl got one made from "Mom's doodles"--like stick figures. Like meeting too many people at once in real life, it's hard to make sense of all those names without a bit of a hook; but it doesn't have to be complicated.  Just drawing the bad guy in an evil-looking hat or with a sword is enough.

You might have been thinking about a particular child's learning style, say a Visual-Spatial Learner and wanting to incorporate some good ideas you read about in Upside-Down Brilliance.  Some parent/teachers can think on their feet and come up with stuff on the spur of the moment: "Quick, grab ten books off that shelf and put them in alphabetical order."  But for the rest of us, it makes more sense to preview the week's plan and pencil in some "let's try this" ideas, than to finish Friday and wonder why the week dragged so much.

Real-life examples:  At the Treehouse, this is the week we start Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, so I'll pull out the family box of coins.  This isn't just for amusement--we have some U.S. and other coins in there that have "reeded" edges, which is something discussed near the beginning of the book.  Why do coins have the features they do, such as reeding?  It's based on a question of honesty (keeping coins intact, not being able to shave off the edges without being detected).  I also noticed that there's an article in today's paper about Bitcoin, which I don't think we'll need for Chapter One but which is worth hanging on to for a later chapter.

When I look at Monday's work, I realize that we have three book lessons in a row, unintended, and they're all on British history (or history of literature), or British geography, also unintended.  Simple fix:  since we're rotating history and science, Monday's main history lesson moves to Tuesday, and we'll do science experiments today instead.  And what's that Robert Browning quote in the first chapter of English Literature?  About a magic place--

"Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
 And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
 And everything was strange and new;
 The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
 And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
 And honey bees had lost their stings,
 And horses were born with eagles' wings."

Oh--it's from "The Pied Piper."  Well, I'm not going to re-read the entire poem during our opening time today, but maybe the last part.

For geography--well, Dollygirl will be doing most of the other readings today on her own, so it wouldn't hurt to read In Search of England together, and then we can talk about the narration project I want her to do over the term.

And so on.

A final note, and this is important:  I am not a compulsive planner in every area of life.  For instance, I've tried writing detailed dinner menus for the week, but for us it doesn't work well; if we have the pantry ingredients, we're usually good with day-ahead meal plans or even "it's three o'clock, what are we going to eat?"  As long as the food gets on the table, it seems to work.  I'm not knocking those who prefer to know every meal a week ahead: if others are cooking or you have to buy ingredients, it's good to know what's coming up.

I know some people reading this will have more children, more books to read, and more plans to write.  It is not possible to pre-read and pre-think absolutely everything during the week, and I'm not suggesting that our look-ahead weekend planning is the right way or the only way to homeschool, to do Charlotte Mason, or even to do AmblesideOnline.  If your students are more independent than mine, it may be possible to just turn them loose with a checklist of chapters to read.  For us, it works better to have a bit of a Mom-plan.

P.S.  The funny side of planning:  I called down to Mr. Fixit to ask if he had a piece of cork for Dollygirl to use in a science experiment.  "Yes, but you'll have to thaw it," he called back.  Thaw it?  "Not pork...cork!"

How Homeschoolers Do It (Archives Series): A Measuring Lesson

First posted 2010.

The book: Math Mammoth Light Blue Grade 3B, unit on measurement, lesson on "Milliliters and Liters."

The props: 250 ml measuring cup, 1 liter measuring cup, 1.2 ml measure (also known as a quarter teaspoon), several bottles and packages from the cupboard, several cups and mugs, water, towel.

Purpose of the lesson: to introduce the idea of volume, using the metric system. We have done linear measurement, first in imperial and then in metric units; we've weighed things, first in imperial and then in metric units; and now we're onto volume. I'm deliberately switching the order this time, since although we use lots of teaspoons and cups in cooking here (I cannot wrap my brain around cooking without my teaspoons and tablespoons), we don't hear as much about pints, quarts and gallons. So today's lesson focused on metric volume.

What we did: I put several bottles, jars and packages from the cupboard and fridge on the table, and asked Crayons to sort them into the ones that were marked g or kg (labelled by weight) and the ones that were marked ml or L (labelled by volume). The cereal and baking soda went to one side; the vanilla extract and juice went to the other. What was the difference? Crayons figured out quickly that the dry foods were mostly sold by weight, and the liquids were sold by volume. (Honey is an exception--I still don't know why it's sold by weight instead of volume.)

I showed Crayons how much a liter is (as big as our big measuring cup), and how much a milliliter is (about as small as the quarter-teaspoon measure which also shows 1.2 ml).

Then I had her do an activity from the worksheet: measuring the volume of cups, glasses, jars, or other small containers. We poured water into the cups and then poured it back into measuring containers. The Apprentice's giant tea cup holds 500 ml (2 cups for you Americans); an average coffee mug holds 300 ml; a small drinking glass holds 200 ml; and a tiny doll cup holds 5 ml. (We had to measure that one with a spoon.)

We skipped several of the calculating activities on the sheet--I'll probably have her go back over some of them tomorrow. Instead, we skipped to the end of the lesson, where there were three word problems. "One shampoo bottle contains 1 liter of shampoo. Another one contains 478 ml. How much more does the bigger one contain?" The other two problems were about drink bottles and juice in a pitcher.

And after all that we were very thirsty.

I told Crayons that if she wants a homework assignment, she should go ask The Apprentice if she can examine her stash of cosmetics, lotions, potions etc. and see which ones are packaged by weight and which are packaged by volume. I just thought of another fun homework assignment: figuring out how much toothpaste and shampoo you can fit in a zipper bag to get through airport security without going over the milliliter limit. See, grownups have to know about this stuff too.

From the archives: How to be a mensch (or a womensch)

First posted 2015; slightly edited.

"If it be not goodness, the will is virtue, in the etymological sense of that word; it is manliness." -- Charlotte Mason, Ourselves (Volume 4)

In other words: Menschliness.

Mini poster and further explanations found on Life Without Pants.

The post at Life Without Pants refers to a book by Bruna (not Brenda) Martinuzzi, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow. 

So what does that have to do with homeschooling parents? The attributes listed in the above poster, which are summarized from Martinuzzi's book on leadership, can be taken as characteristics of good teachers, and also of good parents. I won't paste the explanations as given on Life Without Pants, but here are my own (homeschooling) takes on the list.

1. Give people gifts other than those that you buy.  LWP mentions the gift of "A reason to care," among other things. We invite, we offer, we give; we don't invade or impose.

2. Become a talent hunter. See #5.

3. Share ideas and information that can enrich. Don't keep all your good ideas to 
yourself. Homeschooling parents seem to understand this naturally...hence the existence of support groups and the publication of many "how we did it" books and magazines, not to mention the Carnival of Homeschooling. And of course it applies as well to what we actually teach. One way we frequently start our day here is with our homeschool "principal" (Mr Fixit), who tunes in closely to current events of all kinds and who is usually good for a "weekday update."

4. Spend more time in the “beginner’s mind.”  Put yourself in the student's place. What would you want to know about a topic? What would be a good way to communicate a particular idea? What points should you explain first, and which ones does your student need to discover for him or herself?

5. Don’t tell people what they can’t (aren't able to) do.  Marva Collins is a prime example of ignoring "can'ts," and so are John Holt and John Mighton.

6. Minimize the space you take up. LWP interprets this as referring to focus and lack of clutter, but I actually see another meaning in it: what Charlotte Mason calls Masterly Inactivity. That is, the focus is put on the student, rather than on the teacher. The student gets to ask the questions instead of just answer them.

7. Become a relationship anthropologist.  It means we have to work at listening to and understanding each other.

8. Be happy for others. At the L'Harmas retreat one year, we heard about a boy attending a small school, who had a particular set of special needs and who was also hypersensitive to noise. On one occasion, when he demonstrated how far he had come by doing some kind of classroom presentation, the rest of the students all clapped for him...quietly.

9. Get rid of grudges. Allow second, third, fourth chances. Don't let past tensions spoil a good learning opportunity.

10. "Help others caress the rainbow," which means "Inspire hopefulness." One way to do this: include books that inspire in your homeschool curriculum: poetry, fiction, biography.

11. Make people feel better about themselves. No matter where they come from, no matter what's happened before. Give them opportunities to succeed, and let them know they're smart.

12. View promises as unpaid debt.  And don't promise what you can't follow through on."How do you become the kind of person others want to follow? By being a person that people trust." (LWP)

From the archives: Homeschooling with what's on hand

First published 2012. Over two decades of homeschooling, I wrote many articles like this. This one seemed worth reposting right now.

The why of frugal homeschooling is the easier of the two to answer.  The why is that you (if you're frugal-homeschooling) have limited funds, your family is probably living on one income, or at least less than two full-time incomes, so that somebody can be home to homeschool.

Or maybe you just like a challenge.

The short answer of "how" is "don't spend much money."  But since that's also a silly answer, I'll try to expand that into something more useful.

1.  Use what you have.
2.  Use what you have creatively.
3.  This is the hardest part to explain:  stay aware of your "big picture."  Unless you're naturally serene about letting the unschooling chips fall where they may, you need to keep evaluating, planning, trying to keep in mind whatever educational goals or philosophy you steer by.  Plus whatever family circumstances, special needs, etc. you have to deal with.
4.  In other words, you can use what you have, or what comes your way, as long as it fits into your overall education plan.

In Lloyd Alexander's book Taran Wanderer, the main character Taran meets Llonio, a father who supports his family by taking hold of anything that fate throws in his net--literally.  The family never knows from one day to the next what will float down the river, but they cheerfully take whatever comes, and eat it or wear it or use it.  As Taran stays with Llonio's family, he appreciates their generosity and their creativity, but he also eventually realizes that their way of life is not exactly for him.  He wants to do a little more purposeful seeking, instead of just catching what comes his way. 

I think there's room for both, even in a frugal lifestyle and in frugal homeschooling.  When I wanted to make a particular doll from a particular pattern, I kept my eyes open for certain colours and fabrics.  I never did get to the outlet store that sells rug yarn, but I found something pretty close that also worked.  When I crocheted monkeys last Christmas, I bought yarn in the right colours.  On the other hand, I've sometimes started with a piece of fabric or a ball of yarn, and asked "what could this be? How big is it, how much of it is there, is there enough for this or that?  What else would it work with?  And what do we need right now, who still needs a Christmas gift?"

The same principles apply to menu planning.  What's available? What's the weather like?  What sort of meals does your family eat?  What do you need to add to the shopping list to turn wieners and cauliflower into a meal?  What's still a favourite, what's getting old, and what new things have you been wanting to try?  Sometimes you go shopping intending to buy chicken thighs, because somebody gave you a new recipe, and that is what you bring home.  Or you look in the freezer, and that's what's there.  Or it could happen that chicken is too expensive, so you buy something else. 

One useful exercise to strengthen frugal homeschool muscles is to pretend you are (or maybe you really are) in a situation where, for whatever reason, you are suddenly limited to a few books and resources.  It could be a Bible, dictionary, telephone book kind of thing; or you can go with a more random choice, like the stack of books you just brought home from the library.  From very loose planning ("read the book"), to more structured copywork and dictation, notebooking, dramatizations, or complete unit studies, how many ways can you think of to get the most out of this resource?  If it's a map, are there ways you could add tags or markings to illustrate something you're studying?  If it's a math activity book, which activities can you honestly imagine doing, and (just as important), which ones will provide the strongest learning experiences for your children? 

If it's a book of poems, how will you get the most of out of it?  Have any of the poems been set to music?  Have any actors recorded them?  (Check out any vintage stuff you can find by the First Poetry Quartet)  Are there possibilities for acting them out?  (Never underestimate the potential for this--I still remember the Apprentice dramatizing Blake's "A Poison Tree," including the enemy's death throes.)  Can you use any of Ruth Beechick's suggestions, such as turning verse into prose?  Or can you use a poem as a jumping-off point for something original?  Or you can just read a poem slowly and carefully, maybe taking turns on stanzas, copying or memorizing favourite lines.  It's also educational, or just entertaining, to group certain poems together, maybe in combination with art, music, or other readings.  Our church music director once did this as part of a holiday program:  several people of different ages read winter-themed poems by Robert Frost.  Can your students plan a "poetry concert," just for your family or for others as well?  You can see where I'm running away with this...but that's the point, that you can take any worthwhile book as far as you like, use it as far as you can, and it won't cost you any extra.

From the archives: When Lydia was almost six

First posted April 2007

1. "You know what I like to do? I like to bake cookies and then even after I wash my hands my hands smell cookie-ish."

2.  Mama Squirrel: Now it's time for memory work. We're going to say the Ten Commandments.

Crayons/Lydia: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick...

From the archives: Ponytails' really good narration about Theseus

First posted June 2006. Ponytails was almost nine.

(Note from Mama Squirrel: Ponytails dictated this to me recently. It's from the middle of the story of Theseus in Charles Kingsley's The Heroes. Some background: Theseus has been on a quest to find his father, King Aegeus (who doesn't know him), and on the way he has had to kill various monsters and so has gained a reputation for himself; one of these slayings turned out to be some kind of a kinsman, so he had to go and get purified for that (forgiven, as Ponytails says here). When he finally arrives at the palace, he finds it has been taken over by his partying cousins.)

Theseus went and got forgiven, and then he went on to the palace. He looked around for his father, but he wasn't there. He said, "Where is the master Aegeus?" "We are all masters here! You can ask one of us instead. Come and eat and drink with us (hic!)! Heh heh heh!" Theseus looked around, but he did not see Aegeus. Then he said, "Go and tell him Theseus is here!" "Yes, your majesty--Mr. Theseus--I will go and summon him!"

So he went, and next to him [Aegeus] was Medea, and she was a snake woman. So Aegeus turned pale, red and then white. He went out because he knew this was going to be important.

Theseus said in his mind, "I'm going to test him first before I say I am his son." So he said, "I have come for a reward." Aegeus said, "I cannot afford it." But Theseus said, "All I want is dinner." "Okay, I can give you that."

Medea was watching. She went back into her room, and she came back out. She said, "This is a troublemaker." She saw him [Aegeus] go red and white when he heard the word Troezene. So she was going to get rid of him, Ah ha ha ha! She dressed in jewels and got a golden bottle full of magic wine and a golden cup. And she came out to Theseus and said in a soft voice, "Theseus! Please drink from this cup! It will give you strength and heal your wounds, it will give you fresh blood in your veins, so please drink." But Theseus saw the look in her eyes, the black smoky evil look with a tint of red, it turned up at the corners to make her look evil. He said, "You drink first." But she said, "I can't, I'm ill, I'm very ill. So I cannot drink." (But it's supposed to HEAL wounds!) He said, "Drink from it or you die!", swinging his club. She dropped the cup and ran. She called for her dragon carriage and went off, far away from the kingdom.

The stones bubbled from the wine she had spilled, and they just kind of disappeared.

Aegeus said, "What did you do? That was sort of my wife!"

But then he pulled out the sword and the sandals, and he said the words his mother bade him to say. And they hugged and wept until they could weep no more. The end!