Day 101 / 101 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Since this series encompassed so much of our school year, it only seems appropriate that my 101st post should be about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I actually read the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series twice.  The first time I raced through it in a weekend to see how the story unfolds.  Then, I read it audibly to my daughter, and since the book clocks in with a mere 759 pages, that took us a few weeks.  I'm proud to say I only teared up three times while reading it, the second time, out loud for my daughter.

It really is a great series.  I'm so glad we invested the time this school year to read the epic tale of Harry Potter.  In this last book we see Harry move from innocence to adulthood.  We see good versus evil.  Love versus hate.  Harry versus the Dark Lord.  The search for hallows and horcruxes.

And, whereas I truly loved reading all about our hero and his friends, including the epilogue that clearly lays out their futures, my absolutely favorite part had to be Chapter 33, The Prince's Tale.  Here we see the motives, actions, and loyalties of Severus Snape revealed, as well as reading a story of redemption and forgiveness.  Finally, the truth.

"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously.  "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"...."After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape.

I read a New York Times review of the book from 2007, the year of its release.  I believe the author of the review, Michiko Kakutani, does an excellent job summing up the series.  I wholeheartedly agree with her thoughts below:

The world of Harry Potter is a place where the mundane and the marvelous, the ordinary and the surreal coexist. It’s a place where cars can fly and owls can deliver the mail, a place where paintings talk and a mirror reflects people’s innermost desires. It’s also a place utterly recognizable to readers, a place where death and the catastrophes of daily life are inevitable, and people’s lives are defined by love and loss and hope — the same way they are in our own mortal world.

Day 100 / 101 - Football and Dance

I'm making this one post because of some pictures I want to include in our year-end assessment (which I will hopefully have printed by the end of this week).  First, my son and his grandfather had a great day-long outing to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.  Second, my daughter simply loved and danced wonderfully in her jungle-themed dance recital.

Day 99 / 101 - What's the Tip?

I'll be honest.  We eat out more than occasionally.   And, right now with the amount of traveling we've been doing, as well as having our house for sale, we've been eating out frequently.  Earlier this spring, in an attempt to help my son master percentages, we placed him in charge of the tip.  It only took a few meals before he was able to quickly calculate 15% of our tab.  We told him his goal was to figure it out faster than any calculator.  Plus, it has helped him to see the value of money as he has noticed how much we pay at one restaurant versus another versus buying the food and making it at home.

Day 98 / 101 - Popular Mechanics for Kids

Two years ago I invested in the Popular Mechanics for Kids (PMK) 24-episode-DVD-set, and it was worth every penny!  The point of the show is to teach the viewers how things work, whether it be rockets, or roller coasters, or sea creatures, etc.  The show entertains and captivates my children, while providing them with some knowledge on the subject matter.  I cannot begin to tell you how many conversations I've had with my children that sound something like this.....

Child:  Hey Mom!  Did you know komodo dragons don't chew their food, but swallow hunks of flesh whole.
Me:  Where did you learn that?
Child: PMK.

Day 97 / 101 - Iron Ore

My husband works for an iron ore and coal mining company, and our recent trip to Marquette was a business conference for him in which we tagged along.  One morning we had a three-hour behind the scenes field trip of an iron ore mine.  We followed the entire value chain of the product from the moment it is dug out of the ground up until when it is processed into purchasable pellets.  This included seeing the loaders, haulers, processing plant, etc.  It was a very educational morning.

The picture below shows the kids standing in front of a tire from a hauler (pictured above).  Each tire costs $60,000!

Day 96 / 101 - Lake Superior

We spent last week in the fabulous town of Marquette, Michigan.  Our children have now visited all five Great Lakes.  They even chose to swim in the frigid 51-degree-water of Lake Superior.

Day 95 / 101 - Rewrite the Sentence

Earlier this year I posted a diagramming activity that my son and I tried to accomplish daily.  The activity is taken from our Essentials curriculum.  For each sentence we identify the purpose (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory) and the structure (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex), as well as the pattern.  After that we would diagram the sentence and end our assignment for the morning, even though we were given a few 'additional tasks' if we had time.  I always thought we never had time.

Well, even though our Essentials curriculum has wrapped up for the school year, I have tried to return to some activities that I thought we didn't have time for during the school year.  I wish I would have been doing this one all along!  I think this is the best assignment suggested.  All we are doing is rewriting a sentence by purpose and structure.  It is simple and manageable (takes less than 5 minutes a day), yet has been the quickest way for both my children to quickly master the different sentence purposes as well as what is needed to change a sentence structure (independent clauses, dependent clauses, conjunctions, etc).  I guarantee you, we will be doing this task nearly everyday this summer.

Day 94 / 101 - 2nd Dan

On Saturday evening my daughter tested for her Taekwondo Second Degree Black Belt.  As always, she performed wonderfully and is quite deserving of her new rank.

Day 93 / 101 - Mental Math with Dice

 

This was an easy way to spend the morning practicing our math skills.  We rolled dice and added the functions to create problems.  The goal was to find the answer mentally and as quickly as possible.  My son usually won!

Day 92 / 101 - Coal Miner's Son

While in West Virginia, my son attended a safety mining workshop with my husband.  Since he was fresh off his writing intensive camp, I asked him to write a paragraph describing his day.  Above you see him walking the lifeline with his eyes closed as he details below.

The Mining Class

By Alex

      On May 26^th my father brought me to his mining class.  This class, which was about being safe in the mines, lasted seven hours.   Some of the things we learned were: what to do if there is a flood, why not to wear loose clothes, and safety tips.  There were seven students including my dad.  Mr. Bennet, who was the teacher, has bravely worked in the mines for thirty years!  I also visited the practice mine.  In the practice mine I witnessed a massive, white fire hose.  I also blindly walked a lifeline.  A lifeline is a line that is above your head that is used during disasters to safely guide you out of the mine.  You walk out of the mine by holding onto the line.   On it are orange cones and black squigglies.  When you come to a squiggly that means there is a rescue chamber with oxygen.  If you come to a cone that means you continue walking.  If you come to two cones that means the line branches out in different directions. Miners also make brass name tags to identify themselves. I made a brass tag for my DS case.  I learned much new information from the mining class.