Victory Laps

Languages, a book & movie pairing, a bubble gum kit

In the Northeast, early summer is like early marriage. It’s all so wonderful and new, you can’t imagine why anyone would ever tire of it. It feels so easy, so rewarding, full of little joys and daily pleasures. It’s so green through the windows, it’s hard to even remember what you worried about in January. The labors of yester-season have fled.

Whether your school year is finishing up or simply pausing for a couple of weeks, I hope you’re celebrating the things that worked. I hope you’ve written a frank list of everything you tried, and what you learned. I hope you’ve said nice things about your family to the mirror.

A funny thing: there are already some things about this school year that I know can’t happen again next year. Schedules have changed. Kids have aged out of things. It’s a fantastic reminder to be thankful for the opportunities that fell into place in 2020-2021, and to feel brave about praying for new opportunities to arrive.

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Make Your Own Gum: $16

A make your own gum kit that was pretty fun to put together. Our eyes were opened to all the sugar that goes into making gum flavorful, and how profoundly bland gum is on its own. It took about fifteen minutes and felt impossible to mess up. Talking about branding, packaging, shape, and flavor were all part of the fun. A timeline of the history of gum chewing is included in the kit.

I did buy four pieces my old favorite reading¹ gum, Bazooka, to share, for comparison.

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Two Things on Language Study

1.Ever since DesignMom moved her family of eight to France in 2011, I’ve been fascinated to watch her children weave France into so many aspects of their lives. The family spent a little over two years there and then moved back, to California. In one way, it was a blip on the radar of adult life. But for the children, it seemed to change everything for their family. Gabrielle recently wrote a post with all her thoughts on kids learning languages at various ages, a rich post since she had six children to observe during that time.

I really enjoyed her post and I think we can all learn a lot from her family’s experience.

2.For our part, the app Duolingo has been welcomed into our daily lives. Our nine-year-old became very engaged by the gamification that Duolingo does so well. Most of that clever structure points towards doing it daily. This was a big screen-time pivot for our family. Until earlier this spring, we had not allowed daily screen-time. But now, with the oldest requesting it to practice a totally legitimate learning endeavor, we are allowing all the children to use ipads for an hour every day. I particularly enjoy receiving the weekly progress reports (my email is linked to her account) in my inbox. I’m always astonished by all that she’s accomplished in a few short hours that week.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done an educational app round-up and it’s on my mind! For now, I’ll say those ages seven and younger, Starfall Learning is the favorite.

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A 9/11 Documentary

Explaining 9/11 to children is a hurdle. You try to explain your experience. You try to explain the national experience. You try to explain what we’ve learned about “the war on terror” since those days. It’s history to them, but it is practically current events to you. After a recent discussion with the girls, I googled for documentary options, hoping just to find some footage of the planes hitting the towers.

But instead I found a 30 minute HBO educational documentary that worked very well. The day was not depicted in a frightening manner. The Muslim element was handled tactfully through an interview with an American Muslim woman and her daughter. Osama Bin Ladan was introduced (he is a historical figure at this point, after all) but not dwelt on. A present day firefighter and child of a first responder was interview by children on screen.

Recommend, for when that conversation next comes up in your home.

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Book & Movie Night Pairing: The Martian

I’ve added The Martian to my list of Bedtime Read Alouds because the girls just finished reading it with Joe!

(Note: I don’t read aloud at bedtime. I am exhausted at bedtime. I can barely engage with the children after dinner. Joe reads aloud at bedtime, so that is really his list.)

Anyway, I could have saved some nighttime brain power for him by ordering the classroom edition! I did not even think to wonder if that existed. As it was, he had to edit out a myriad of swear words on the fly. So you can learn from my mistake there.

Seven-year-old’s thoughts: “I like how everything is always going wrong for Watney, but he can always find a way to work through it.”

The girls love to recount stories from the book. Their favorite scenes are set on earth or in the spaceship Hermes, as the parts on Mars quickly get technical.

We’ll watch the movie this Friday for family movie night…I’m on the hunt for a space themed drink to offer alongside the requisite popcorn (bits of which are inevitably vacuumed up on Saturday morning).

And, a Quote Just for You

At home, I mooch around the garden and notice the first herb robert flowers, pink wild bloom amongst the verdant. I note it down on my list of firsts in the garden and feel good. I hear Dad come back from work, and with him an injured bat. She’s the first of the year and we tend to it – females only have one pup a year, such precious cargo. We feed it mealworms and put water in a milk-bottle lid.

[…]

The bat sleeps in my room. They always do because it’s quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the McAnulty family. I always sleep so soundly when I have a bat staying in my room. I hear it scratching about in the night and am never afraid, I am comforted.

-from the forthcoming Diary of a Young Naturalist, by Dara McAnulty. Expect a book review in the next newsletter, or two.

1. By “reading gum,” I mean gum that I saved for eating while reading, in a bedroom armchair.