Adventures of The Haven School for Boys: Field Week

Monday was a great day, and it wasn't supposed to be. I went to bed Sunday night without having done a lick of preparation. And instead of hitting the books at the crack of dawn, I cracked THE Book and found myself seeking God's direction and grace for my day. It escapes definition, the way that God takes our yoke upon Him. But he does, and my burdens became His. The fog lifted and I felt a renewed purpose. The truth is, it struck me like a ton of bricks that all this effort I am investing into our boys is moot if they do not choose to follow God first in their lives. We are here on this earth for a blip on the radar screen of eternity. I love my boys enough to sacrifice my personal sanity (tongue and cheek, of course) as a homeschool mother. But, am I seeking first His kingdom? And am I willing to lose them for eternity because I failed to be faithful in demonstrating what it means to walk with the Lord, in order to get through my lengthy curriculum checklist? Emphatically, no. And Monday morning I started taking that commission more seriously. We delved into our Bible passages with a new vigor, and started to commit the Fruits of the Spirit to memory, praying over a particular "fruit" of choice. For James, it was self-control. Joshua tagged along. For Mama, patience. We took time to pause our CNN Student News broadcast and pray for the victims of the Reno Air Show crash. And we stopped to remind ourselves throughout the day, when our morning resolutions were wearing thin, and as our frustrations were mounting, that God's faithfulness is new every morning...and afternoon. We are reading through the New Testament in the Discover's Bible (verse for verse the real scriptures, but paraphrased for children), and our story was about adolescent Jesus going to the synagogue as a student. It was valuable to be able to share with James that even Jesus, the Son of God, was a student during His life on this Earth. If He did not consider himself above diligent study, then what is our excuse?

The Usborne Encyclopedia MONSTER set came over the weekend, so we were able to jump into a lesson about planets in the Geography and World Atlas. James and Josh are so engaged by history and science, and these particular books stimulate their interest to the hilt. To make matters even more interesting, each page is linked to six or more websites that expound upon the subject. So, we watched a short video about how and why Pluto was stripped of its official planetary status, or should I say demoted to dwarf planetary status, and found a great interactive view of the moon cycles. I am now going to admit that we splurged on the purchase of an iPad over the weekend. So, instead of hurdling over baby gates and pushing aside piles of office clutter, we can access our links from the comfort of the couch and our laps. Not to mention Matt found a decently cool roller coaster application that has absolutely no educational value (In fact, it might even give us negative points...but who's counting?) except that it serves as a fabulous incentive for James and Joshua to push through the more tedious tasks of the day.

Haven Pad

Were you aware that nearly 95 (that's a nine, by the way) percent of the dates consumed in the U.S. comes from our little valley? And did you know that nearly the same percentage represents the number of female date palms to male? These are a couple of the interesting tidbits we were thrown during our field trip to the locally famous Shield's Date Garden. We watched a video with the scintillating title, "The Romance and Sex Life of the Date." When you consider this informational flick made its debut in the 30's, it's even more scintillating. Do not be alarmed. Apart from the title, it was quite tame...detailing the history of dates in our local valley and the art of cultivating them. Our valley is a perfect mecca for date farms because it is generally HOT and ARID. Humidity or rainfall makes for poor date cultivation. In fact, the little bags that are placed over the bunches of growing dates serves the purpose of keeping them as dry as possible. The single most interesting detail that sprung from the date chat was that each female date palm has to be hand-fertilized with pollen from the male. Apparently, date palms to not naturally pollinate one another. Naturally, the hand-fertilization accounts for the disproportionate number of female date palms in the valley. If you ask the boys what they took away from the whole experience, they would all agree that the date shake was the hit of the day. Since they have been showing some greater tolerance for fatty milk products such as cheese and butter, I figured allowing them to split a small ice-cream and date crystal-based shake would not be too risky. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads...and I do not think they heard another word of the video after that.

Field work was plentiful this week; we ventured to the Pacific of the Aquarium in Long Beach for "Homeschool Days"--they offer a discounted entrance fee for families such as ours. Of course, once you take into account the gas required to get there, the discount is negligible. But the greatest benefit is that they do not schedule any other school groups on that day. Highlights of the trip were many. The boys enjoyed the drive since they were able to chat with their close friends who made the journey with us. One of the neatest moments of our aquarium experience was the scuba diver chat, made from the gigantic kelp forest tank. Seeing the men up close with their huge flippers and air tanks, suspended amidst the colorful fish and waving kelp seemed almost science fiction. The boys were later able to try on some of the divers' gear, from the knight-like mesh gloves (to protect against accidental chomps during feeding), to giant flippers and buoyancy compensators. This particular aquarium does an especially good job of organizing hands-on encounters with the sea life. Here the animals were plentiful and the open pools were designed perfectly. The boys were in fish heaven, petting the sharks, rays, jellies, and sea stars. Near the end of our visit, we watched a 4-D movie (complete with misters and occasional squirts) called "Turtle Vision," a cute video that took us on a journey through coral reefs, piranha-infested rivers, and frigid arctic seas. Samuel did not share the same enthusiasm for sitting confined with special glasses affixed, so he enjoyed the movie from the back row, rather content running up and down the aisle with reckless abandon. Before making the journey home, we picnicked at a park that overlooked the Queen Mary, complete with a nostalgic little lighthouse that the boys enjoyed circling and then rolling down the grassy green hills. All in all, a perfect day.

Such Sleek Swimmers

Trying on a Shark Jaw for Size

Star Fish

Shark Touching Pool

Beautiful Ray!

Heeeeere, Sharkey-Sharkey-Sharkey!

Ray Smiling for the Camera

Trying on Flippers for Size

Mesh Gloves

Zen Viewing Moment

I'd Love to Take This Globe Home!

Jelly Fish Petting (Tops Only!)

4-D Turtle Vision

Anchors Aweigh, My Boys!

Sam, Guide Dog-To-Be

Yep, Still Awake!

It occurs to me that there is such a thing as enrichment overkill, and I think we reached that point this week. Add to the previous activities two Xavier sporting events, art class, piano lesson, soccer practice, and attendance to a local museum on Saturday for the free Smithsonian Art day...and you have the recipe for one exhausted family. We are all in enrichment detox this weekend, engaging in do-nothing therapy.

Our "Five in a Row," which is fast becoming "Three in a Row" due to time constraints, was a precious story called The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills. It takes place in the rural Appalachian Mountains, and is centered around a little girl named Minna whose father dies of a coal mining-related illness when she is still young, leaving her the onus of responsibility to help her mother sew quilts to keep them afloat. Her dream is to attend school, but she cannot begin to realize that dream until she has a coat for the freezing winter walks. The "quilting mothers," as she calls them, apply themselves to piecing together their leftover rag scraps to make her a quilt reminiscent of Joseph's coat-of-many-colors. Finally, the day comes when she not only wears her coat to school, but gets to share it for her special sharing day. As I am sure you have already guessed, she is teased mercilessly upon entering the school yard, to the point that she runs away in tears to find solace in a quiet wood. Minna eventually gathers strength from remembering words of wisdom from her father about people needing people, and she marches back into the classroom with chin held high. She proceeds to share that her coat is not just a bunch of old rags, but that each piece was chosen carefully by her for the special story with which it was connected. She went on to share the stories behind the rags--a baby blanket that kept Shane alive in his first precarious days of life, scraps from Lottie's doll dresses of old, the feed sack her father wrapped her in to keep her warm on rides to church, and the coal-blackened piece of cloth from her Daddy's work coat. Such a beautiful tribute to the qualities of selflessness and to the enduring emotions embedded in our collective memories. We re-read "When I Was Young in the Mountains," also a story from a similar setting, and watched an excerpt from a National Geographic special on the Appalachian Trail. What an incredible section of wilderness. We were surprised to learn that the greatest threat to the Appalachian ecosystem is acid rain. We are currently weaving our way through bit and pieces of The Foxfire Book, a collection of Appalachian lore, crafts, tales, and other affairs of plain living, in their words. The Foxfire books have been compiled by students of Rabun Gap, an Appalachian community in northern Georgia, and the proceeds have gone on to benefit classes that enrich their local district and community as a whole. You will be happy to know that we now have all the details necessary to start our own backyard moonshining operation. And I have a step-by-step plan for building my own log cabin. On second thought, I had better stick to basket weaving.

One of my goals is to give the boys (James in particular) a comfortability with navigating the globe. History and current events will be far more interesting (not to mention have longer staying power) if he has a growing schema of place. One of the ways I try to accomplish this is by having James weekly tag our globe with arrow stickies to mark current event locations. Above is an example of that. He enjoys sticking and unsticking, and it makes for easy review throughout the week.

Life skills matter, so we have been gradually working on building domestic skills as of late. James can now sort, fold, and put away his washed clothes, and he is a darn good egg cracker and scrambler. They both had some fun learning to grate zucchini for muffins early in the week.

All James

Zucchini Muffins

Following are a smattering of other pics from the week. Here's to another half day of recouping, in the form of grocery shopping and library browsing. Down time? Who needs it.

Love To All,

The Haven 5