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Yes. Yes it was. And an ear too, if you must know.
One of the top things I love about homeschooling (other than shopping for the curriculum, and I'll have an article later about that, because lawsy, that is FUN!) is the ability to bridge the gap between the Diva and the Littles (aka Tazzie and The Princess). In this particular case, Wolf had taken Princess out for a little Daddy and Daughter time, leaving me with Diva and Tazzie. What to do, what to do. Haul out an eye ball and ear of course.
Yes, we're talking models, folks. This is 'The Non Stepford Style' not 'The Frankenstein Style', remember?
So, here we have the Eyeball in The Box.
Fancy, no?
If you're able to read the somewhat blurry, small print, you'll notice that the eyeball is made out of 'durable soft foam!'. Soft, yup, and as for durable...well...it survived round #1 with Tazzie. I'll need more rounds to really assess the 'durable' claim though.
So here goes, hands on exploration with the eyeball...
Tazzie gets his half (oh, did I mention its in halves? Yeah, I'll get back to that in a second, cause its really cool the way they did it...)and examines it, then attempts to use it as a spinning top. *sigh*
Of course, Diva is much more studious. At least when there's a camera around. *snort*
Homeschooling gives you the opportunity to say things that would otherwise never be uttered, such as, "You didn't wash your hands! There are dirty finger prints on my white eyeball!" and "Quit squeezing the eyeball! These have to last til The Princess is done high school!" amongst others.
The cool thing about the eyeball model, (ha! Thought I forgot, didn't you? Neener neener, neener!) is that on one half of the model, its perfectly labeled. On the other half, its labeled with only letters, so if you wanted to test your child, you could hand them the letter only half and have them write out the name to each corresponding letter. Clever no? Diva wasn't so enthused.
Moving on to the ear.
Obviously, these things are a wee bit larger than life. Van Goh, where art thou? Yes, I find that funny. Nobody around here gets my humour.
Tazzie thought that if he only yelled loud enough, something would happen. I know that feeling. Its called Motherhood.
Diva, checking out the ear. She made some pretty neat observations, including that the cochlea looked like a snail shell.
All in all, a great success, even if there was some fighting over the ear.
Welcome to Homeschooling, The Non Stepford Style. Perhaps it should have been, "The Non-Stepford Way" but its too late now, the blog url is made.
What, I hear you asking, is the Non Stepford Style?
Well, you probably remember (or don't) the 70s movie called The Stepford Wives, about a community called Stepford that basically set about replacing their flawed human wives with perfect robotic clones. It was remade not so long ago, with Faith Hill as a co-star. A flop that disappeared from the box office with barely a whimper and a moan, if I remember correctly. Anyways, I'm the Not A Stepford Wife. I even have the blog with that title to prove it. Also known as The Domestic Goddess, just because I'm a fan of contradictions, and like to mess with people's minds. Generally, I only get to play with my husband's, and frankly, I have to be careful with that, because sooner or later I may break it, so I move to the internet for a larger audience.
But I digress.
So, as the title would imply, we are so very not perfect. One might even say that we are almost perfect in our imperfections, if such a thing were possible. Human to the nth degree. So, nowhere in our travels will you find perfectly organized, colour coded, filed, labelled anything. This blog will do one of several things: It will make you feel right at home, serve as a cautionary tale, make you feel better about the chaos in your own home as you peer into our world and think, "Whew! At least we're not as bad as the Non Stepford home!", and you may even pick up some handy dandy tips and tricks along the way. I'll be posting about curriculum, what works for us and doesn't, science experiements, all that kinda stuff. If something is an amazing find, or an amazing flop, you'll know about it!
So, allow me to introduce the cast (and crew, since we're one and the same)
Me: Mom, aka Domestic Goddess. A former health care professional, I'm pretty much permanently sidelined by a work injury that's resulted in my having RSD in my right shoulder through fingertips. This has pointed me in the direction of pursuing my first love, writing. My intention is to find work as a freelancer, and to pursue a lasting career as a fiction novelist. I began homeschooling our eldest daughter halfway through grade three, when it became glaringly apparent that public school was failing her miserably, both in keeping her safe, and academically.
Wolf: Husband, father, and unfortunate captive for my secret belief that marriage is a psych experiment. He helps out with homeschooling lessons according to his strengths, and pretty much runs the household these days.
Diva: Eldest daughter of the clan. Currently in grade 5. A voracious reader, she's a few grades ahead in both LA and math. Her huge heart and ready wit makes her a joy to teach...although her preteenish attitude at times has me fantasize about wrapping her in duct tape, gagging her, dropping her inside the doors of the nearest public school, and running like heck. But we get through it, time and again. She loves music, dancing, theatre and horses.
Tazzie: Four years old, and a handful. As bright as he is active, and that's saying a lot. He scares me sometimes. He's already reading, and he's sneaky about it, dang him. He won't always let on that he's reading, then startle you with it, then grin and not do it again for a while. I keep working with him on it, as he'll tolerate. Some days he's eager and raring to go, other days, its 'no ganks, Mom' so forget it! His first love is the xbox, which is sparingly allowed, much to his displeasure.
The Princess: Nickname pretty much says it all. Currently her biggest challenge is potty training, and she's about got that one nailed. All letters are "A!" to her, but she's counting, and starting to learn that there are indeed more names of letters than just A! Her first love is her Daddy, without a doubt.
