"One Night..." is the story of Esther from the Bible and how she was able to convince her husband to not listen to his advisors and kill the Jewish people. The movie was very romantic. The actors showed great chemistry with each other and it was easy to believe that these 2 people loved each other deeply. Physical love was implied but not shown on camera. Timing was sped up for the movie, for instance she asked her uncle to fast and pray overnight instead of 3 days, and she only had 1 dinner with the king instead of multiple dinners as noted in the Bible. The scenery and clothing was amazing. The colors and the scope of the scenes really stood out. The location was as much a part of the story as the characters themselves. We went on opening night and the theater was packed full. I believe this is a good sign to Hollywood that we want similar movies made. This had a religious undertone but for those who say they wouldn't watch a religious movie, it wasn't overdone. Esther's faith was a part of who she was, a part of her heritage, not something she put on and took off, if that makes sense.

"Marie Antoinette" as directed by Sophia Coppola was based on a book called "Marie Antoinette:The Journey". It focused more on how she came to the palace and became queen instead of focusing so much on her rule and her death. The movie had a modern feel to it, using mostly music but also some with some clothing choices. If you pay attention when they show her receiving all of her shoes, there is a pair of high topped sneakers visable for just a second :) It was filmed at Versailles and the scenery is beautiful.

I heard Kirsten Dunst say it wasn't her place to judge Marie Antoinette, just play her as a woman in this position. That's exactly what she does, and she did it very well. I'm planning to read the book the movie was based on as well as one about her 2nd son who became Dauphin and died at age 10 during the revolution. William didn't like the movie very much and that didn't surprise me. This movie is more suited to older kids and adults as it does have a good bit of s*xual themes, mostly on the part of her family urging her to do whatever was necessary to have an heir, but it also touched on the king's (her father-in-law's) mistress, Madame DuBarry, and Marie Antoinette's affair with a Swedish solider.

William did 2 days of school work then the rest of the week was spent doing other things, like helping me organize my office which still isn't done. I'm trying to paint as well and I probably should have stuck to just decluttering and going through things instead. I'm also working all weekend, but if possible I'm going to take the 31st off work and finish the office.

Park day was fun, even thought it ended up being in the rec center gym instead of outside. It rained all day Friday and was pretty cold. William played volleyball and basketball with the other kids, which means he pretty much stood around and watched them and joined in the chases every now and again. We aren't a sports family, so he really has had no introduction to any type of sport. Everyone kept trying to get him to play because of his height, but he just wasn't interested. We may need to include some basic info on sports just so he can get familiar with it. Even though we don't watch sports, he should know what "2 points!" and "touchdown!" means, right?

I really need to get a picture of us together to show how tall he is. He is looking me in the eye now and I'm 5'4". He's sure to grow even taller than that. He's the tallest boy his age in the homeschool group.

I went with the moms of the group to see the movie "One Night with the King" and then I saw "Marie Antoinette" with dh and William. They were both very good. I'll have my thoughts posted next.

This week has been pretty slow. Not as much got done as I would have liked, but next week is our catch up week. I don't plan anything during 1 week out of the 6 so it gives William a chance to catch up on assignments that are behind and maybe get a little bit ahead.

I think his favorite lessons over the past 2 weeks have been the sound lessons in science. He's played with a tuning fork, we make a guitar / ukelele out of a kleenex box and rubber bands, plus had discussion about how speakers work. It's been very interesting.

He is now reading Harry Potter book 4. This is one of the longest books in the series, so I'm happy he's sticking with it. His goal is to read all 6 before the 7th comes out, which will possibly be next summer according to the rumors. He's doing very well with the reading.

His paragraphs are getting much better. He's indenting like he's supposed to, he's ending with a conclusion and his spelling is getting better. We still go over sentence structure and comma usage after he writes his first draft. I've started making grammar sheets for him to do a few times a week in order to practice punctuation, comma use, contractions, and whatever else we've gone over. We finally have moved on to parts of speech. Right now he's dividing up subjects / predicates and locating the verb. For fun yesterday we did some online Madlibs.

Today is park day, then he'll finish his work for the week after lunch.

It's been a routine week, but I've seen some progress.

We're moving into the holiday time period and planning to take some time at Thanksgiving to visit my MIL in Florida. I'm making plans for taking care of the house and our pets so that everything will go well when we leave. We're also beginning to make out our Christmas lists.

Dh has started school and it's been hard for all of us. He's only taking 2 classes, but the homework takes up a lot of his time. I'm being encouraging to him and helping in any way possible. I received my finincial aid letter for spring semester and will be registering for classes on November 13. We're trying to get a good routine going now so that in January when we both have classes everything won't fall apart.

I'm behind on blog reading but I plan to catch up today. I hope everyone is doing well.

Gotta run to the park.

Labels: update, week 11

Things are finally moving along at a good pace. Hopefully the colds are behind us and we can begin moving ahead and get ready for the holidays.

Today was park day. William spent over an hour playing with other kids and getting some fresh air. I was able to speak to the moms and look at some curriculum another mom has used, including some stuff I was considering for upcoming years. I also borrowed a book on the middle ages that will be handy when it's time to begin that study. Tonight a group of us are going to see "One Night with a King", a movie about Esther in the Bible and how she used her favor with the king to save the Jewish people. We're going to have dinner before the movie. It will be nice to have a night out.

I think William's favorite lesson this week was using a tuning fork while studying sound. Tapping it on different surfaces gave the fork a different ring as well as a different sounding whistle when you held it to your ear. It was also amazing to think of it as vibrating so quickly that we couldn't even see it.

We also had an impromptu lesson in the food chain. Just outside my office window is a tree where birds sometimes light. My window looks out into the back yard and you can also see one of the windows to the laundry room. One of the birds saw a grand daddy longleg spider on the laundry room window and caught it right in front of us. We watched the bird hold the spider in its beak and fly to the top of the laundry room roof. We didn't see it get eaten, but when the bird came back to the tree branch the spider was gone. We also have a large spider with a web on part of our front porch. Every time we walk past I say "Hi, Charlotte". As long as the spider stays where it is, I'm cool :)

I completed some more planning for the next 12 weeks of school, so my planning is complete until after Christmas. It feels nice to get it out of the way. I do have to buy some things around November / December to have ready to use when the other stuff is completed. As I buy things I'll post what I got and where, as well as a review. I'm very picky about some things and I research books and curriculum a lot. I love Homeschool Reviews website, but I also like to read the reviews on Amazon.com. I've saved money by NOT buying something after reading many bad reviews on the item.

Fall has reached Georgia. We are in long sleeves today and the wind has picked up. The air has more of a bite to it, but it's nice to be free of the humidity. Leaves have begun to change color. I need to take a drive to the top of the mountain and take a picture of the trees. It's one of my favorite places to visit during the fall.

I hope everyone is having a nice school year so far, and happy belated Thanksgiving to Canadian readers. I hope you had a nice holiday.

Labels: fall, planning, update

I have finally updated my family website. The index page, pets page, homeschool supplies and routine pages have been updated. If you go to the routine page you'll see the plan I wrote up from 6th grade through 12th. I had a talk with some other homeschool moms with junior high / high school kids, and based on that talk this is what I came up with. I'm happy with it and not freaking out the way I was a few weeks ago. Check out the site if you wish.

Michelle, you commented on my post about using Lifepacs but your email or website wasn't listed. You can email me at gift_lady@yahoo.com anytime you'd like. You can also use the contact link on the bar above the posts.

I keep saying "You are not behind. You are not behind." I'm hoping if I keep saying it I'll believe it.

William did do some science and history this week in between bouts of illness. All of us came down with colds but William also ran a slight fever for a few days. Thankfully, it all seems to have finally gone away.

Thursday was a big day for us. My dh began school - he's working towards a radiology program - and that began day 1 of worry month for me since the only income we'll have coming in is my income, dh's last paycheck and the money from a part-time job he also holds down. We're hoping we can keep it together and in the meantime he's looking for another part-time job he can do around his school work.

Thursday was also our monthly homeschool meeting and field trip. We toured the local newspaper office. It's a small local publishing company that prints 5 local papers. We only have a weekly paper in our area. We saw how the paper was copied and pasted on computer, then printed. It looks like a negative when it's printed. Then it's copied onto aluminum sheets and put into the press. We watched the first run of a paper section. It was kind of scary at times, this huge machine whirring away with 3 guys walking around it, making adjustments here and there as the machine was running. We also saw the insert machine and watched it do a few inserts for the paper. Some pictures were taken and will be in the paper next week. We also got to see the morgue and I am planning to back one day and do some genealogy research there since some of the info I needed wasn't on microfilm at the library yet. They have papers that go back to 1909.

This was the best picture that came out of the ones I took. That's William in the red shirt, towering over the others. He is getting to be very tall!



We then went to the park and had our monthly meeting. The moms are planning to see a new movie called "One Night with a King", based on the book of Esther. It's coming out next Friday, October 13. **You have to fill out a brief form for a password to see the trailer**

Today was also our weekly park day. The kids had fun, as usual, and we got some much needed talk time amongst the moms. I was able to speak to one mom who had 3 finish school already with 2 more beginning high school now and still 2 little ones doing grammar school work. She gave me some tips for middle school and had some things for me to look through to help with my planning for the next little bit.

Next week we'll be getting back on track, I'm working over the weekend as well as starting on the newsletter for next month for the group. Our next field trip with the group will be in early November and we're going to make a float for the Veteran's Day Parade on November 11.

I'm really glad this group started in our area. I know I said a while back I was going to be a hermit, but I guess I just needed to be patient and wait for the right group to come along.

Labels: field trip, meeting, newspaper, update