Month: November 2011

Against our habits Leiiani and I watched a movie. Not a kid one. If you watch it with a 6 year old make sure to turn it off at or before 1h 20 (which I didn’t I waited until the first occurrence of the word eugenics) and watch the rest at night (which I haven’t yet). But you really should watch it. If it turns worse I’ll update the post tomorrow.

I had a link to the movie here but it was removed. The official website is here.

Found a new link.

Anyway, Leilani promised not to have night mares, and asked a lot of questions, and a few times I had to pause it to answer. One time the person interviewed tried to make sense of the power hunger of the ruling elite by saying: “… they think We are so much smarter than the rest, we really know how it’s done, we know what’s good for them we should rule the world…” and Leilani said: “You know I really believe this. We are, we do. We should rule the world.”

In the end, after watching the whole thing, talking with others about it and mentally digesting it, I find that there are too many topics and too few results or conclusion. It has lots of elements, some of which really appealed to me, and others I was willing to tolerate in the hope of getting more of “my” topics. I would not have listened to the whole Illuminati story, had it not been preceded with Tessla’s ideas and tauruses and crop circles. Having heard it it does sound plausible though. The end of the movie I thought was rather weak, but I still think it’s worth watching…

Leilani loved it though. When we went to the ATM at the bank the next day she commented: “I don’t want to go near a bank. You would not believe all the mean things they do. They actually take people’s money. And then they give them rotten oranges.”

Yesterday’s first lesson was on the computer. My aunt had sent a sweet email with animal pictures that had delighted Leilani (and I was grateful it was not in Power Point). Leilani wanted to write a Thank-You note. While I made breakfast Leilani managed to type:

Liebe Jutta!
Danke fuer alle die herzigen Bilder. ich hab die komischen sehr gemocht!
alles liebe
Leilani

(Dear Jutta,
thanks for the sweet pictures, I liked the funny ones a lot.
Love
Leilani)

There were about 8 typos, and after I showed her how, Leilani fixed half of them herself. I have to point out that she spelled “komischen” almost correctly, I’m very proud of her. Typing is going very well anyway because the d-b and q-p problems go away, and the j is always facing the right way.

(And for the German speakers: Grossschreibung kommt als naechstes dran – Capitalization is next)

(And for the English speakers: I believe English spelling is way too hard and confusing for kids that age. I’ll start on that later, and after I had some phonics training myself…)

We arrived a bit late for dinner on Friday, but we had everything ready to go.

And we let them watch TV. As we all know it turns off the brain and makes people look like zombies. Kids look like little zombies, still scary though. Leilani, in case you ask why we don’t let you watch TV that often: That’s why.

We started Sunday with a breakfast that included Andy’s crepes, fruit salat and Nutella and a memorable nut-nutella sauce (made by Amaya). Most of the morning was spent cleaning and packing, then the kids got a snack and we set out on the Berry Flats trail:


There was a guava tunnel

Beautiful orchids near the cabins

And many mushrooms. Derick found a Sulfur Shelf that I took home, but we didn’t eat it, as the pore surface was orange and I could not verify the rumor that that’s the way they are in Hawaii. Here a less edible Amanita Muscaria:

The roots of a fallen Redwood made a good climbing gym



And then we reached the fairy houses.



The kids pulled up (invasive) ginger from areas where it was sparse

And this tree is an old friend of ours:

That were me and Leilani when she was 9 months old

A starfish stinkhorn

Before we left the kids played on the meadow

I never thought I’d be home schooling Leilani, but after 7 weeks at Island School I felt I had no choice. Unlike the teacher she had the last 2 months of the previous year Mrs Cristy was an excellent teacher, fair and attentive and definitely took her job seriously but… I felt Leilani was missing out on her childhood. 7 hours in school a day, plus about an hour’s worth of homework, add to that the getting ready and driving to and from school, for someone who sleeps close to 12 hours that leaves less than 2 hours for playing, bathing, dinner and bedtime routine. Leilani liked a lot about school, but by Thursday or Friday she was exhausted enough that we let her stay home. If we didn’t she had the school office call us to pick her up as she lay there “sick”.

Leilani had started to complain her skirts were too long and rolled them up at the waist to make them as short as dress code allowed it. Justin Bieber was big. If she sang it was “Baby, Baby, Baby…” and “Dynamite” in very inappropriate imitations of her stars. She did not go as far as her classmates who tried to ban their moms from attending the field trip as the moms would be “embarrassing”… I know eventually she will turn into a teen, but 6 seems a bit early for that. Now after 6 weeks away from school she has forgotten most of that stuff, and happily listens to the Wiggles and Austrian kids music again.

Another really big thing for me, I was not allowed in the classroom, they told me they didn’t want volunteers, although other moms (the classroom mom and her assistant…) were obviously more welcome.

It was a bit scary to make the decision to take her out, but now we are really glad about it. We were thinking about a home school study group, but after paying Island school about $7000 tuition for these 7 weeks (read the fine print when you sign up for tuition insurance…) it’s either public, charter or home school. Leilani really likes the idea of home schooling.

It is sometimes a bit difficult. I’m not very good at schedules, and as a teacher I am supposed to be a lot stricter than as a mom, and I’m not too good at that either. But Leilani is a great student and most the time it’s good. Some days all she wants to do is read, but we had days when she did 15 or more math sheets. In the beginning I fretted about that but now I think it evens out, just like sometimes she eats a lot and sometimes she doesn’t… We try to have 4 schooldays a week, 3-4 hours learning plus PE, cooking and art. We’ll try to add music to that soon, and make the PE a bit more organized and fun. I wish I had space for a garden. That would be another project. Everything here is so shady, and most of what I planted is not doing so well… frustrating enough for me, not good for sharing.

Leilani has great interest in surprising subjects (combustion engine, evolution, weather…) and I think it’s a lot better than re-doing the life-cycle of the butterfly or frog for the 4th time. And since she already knows more dinosaur names than I do, I now torture her a bit by making her memorize the layers of the atmosphere and such (Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere and Exosphere in case you did not know…). Best of all, she reads about half of her science and history material herself.

Socially we do a lot. One potluck a week, one Art afternoon at our house and shortly one afternoon at a home schooling friend’s house makes for 3 multi-kid play dates and learning fun.