The Winter Park Art Festival and Getting to Meet Gail Carriger

We drove all the way to Winter Park and back in a single day (about 10 hours in the car), but it was for a good cause. One of my favorite authors, Gail Carriger, was doing a book signing at the Writer's Block Bookstore.



The Winter Park Art Festival was also going on only about a block away from the bookstore, so we arrived early to wander around.

Parking is usually a problem during the Art Festival, but it rained most of the day, so downtown Winter Park was delightfully free of crowds and we found a surprisingly close parking space.



The rain cooled things off, so that the temperature was much more comfortable than the 80+ degrees that had been predicted and it did stop raining in the late afternoon.











The incredible steampunk art of Gabriel Puyana:





These fantastic teapots are all functional:



It's hard to tell in this picture, but the potter/sculptor, Robert Kastrino is holding a sleeping baby squirrel in his hand. The tiny squirrel had fallen out of a tree behind his tent the day before and had crawled into his hand for comfort both Friday and Saturday.









The professional artists were not the only ones with their art on display. The Winter Park Art Festival always includes tents full of local students' art.







Blaze and I being silly:



After exploring the entire art show, we had a dinner at the Bosphorous, a Turkish Restaurant, since that is something we don't have in Tallahassee. The food was excellent!



For Gail Carriger's book signing, we had come up with a quick costume for Blaze. He is supposed to be a "Piston", one of the cool kids at Bunson's, the boys' school for evil geniuses in the finishing School series.









The question and answer period before the book signing was a lot of fun! Gail Carriger is just as good at telling stories in person, as she is in her books, and just as humorous. Her beautiful, bright pink, lace dress and constant smile brightened up the tiny bookstore. The space was not really designed with popular authors in mind and fans were packed in tightly to see her, but everyone was so friendly and polite, that they managed to squeeze in each new arrival.

This was the first time that Blaze had ever met the author of one of the books we have read and I'm glad that he enjoyed himself. He was acting a little shy at the bookstore, but afterwards he said she was very funny.

For tonight's bedtime story, we are beginning Gail Carriger's book, Curtsies and Conspiracies.






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Reading Improvement

After many years of trying to teach Blaze to read, he is finally showing some lasting progress ( there has been much backsliding in the past, that has required a lot of patience and repetition).

Each day, Blaze does two pages from the phonics workbook series Explode the Code. He has completed Explode the Code 2 already this year and is about a third of the way through Explode the Code 2 1/2.


At the beginning of January, I discovered an online phonics program that has been working well. Blaze does one lesson each morning, before we leave for school or therapy.
Click 'N Kids Phonics:
http://www.clicknkids.com/Public/MemberLogin.php

Blaze's speech therapist has also been using the Barton Reading program with him, although not in a very consistent way, because there are so many other things that are being squeezed into those two 45 minute sessions each week.

http://www.bartonreading.com/

More than any of these programs or curriculums, though, I believe the greatest help in teaching Blaze has been getting his seizures under control. Since the proper balance of medication was found, his language skills, math, and reading have improved.

Schooling Never Really Ends

One of the many obstacles that Blaze has to overcome, is a reading disability. Our progress is very slow in this direction, but it is happening. However, if we took the entire summer off, the way the schools do, we would loose what we have gained. I have continued to have him do one page a day in a simple phonics workbook and I found an app. for the Ipod that was only 99 cents and has over 300 sight word flash cards. The educational Ipod apps mean that Blaze can be learning new words while we're driving to swimming class, or his various appointments.

When we went to Jacksonville, a couple days ago, to pick up the newly repaired desktop computer, we went to the Anthropologie store and Blaze saw this children's cookbook that he really wanted.



The deal I've made with him is that I will buy the cookbook, if he can read all of the words on that sight word program without assistance.

This week in homeschooling

This week, for science, we read books about force, motion, gravity, and speed.









Since we had read about Newton's law, that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, we were able to watch the vultures flying above our heads ( they still congregate in large numbers at the school) and see how pushing their wings down against the air gives them lift.


We also watched the following videos:





It turns out that the old roadrunner cartoons are a great way to explain potential energy vs. kinetic energy.



Math:

We did not have any school on Thursday, as a reward for Blaze finishing the Math*U*See Alpha math book.



Today he will begin the Beta book.



We have been reading some Winter and Christmas books that we checked out of the public library:







Blaze has gone with me every afternoon this week and last week to help the elementary students at the school with their Christmas crafts. Mostly he has been playing with legos in the back of the classroom, because he doesn't feel comfortable doing crafts in large groups, but he did start sewing a felt stocking a couple days ago, when he decided he wanted to sit next to me instead of being alone.

For a bedtime story we've been reading The Great Illustrated Classics version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Modern Demigods

I have a Summer Reading Recommendation for anyone over 4th grade, especially if you like Greek Mythology, the five book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, by Rick Riordan.

The first book in the series, The lightning Thief has been very popular with the Middle School boys I work with. I've been recommending the book to children with ADHD, Dyslexia, or both, because according to this series, that is a sign you are a demigod (one mortal parent, one Greek God parent). The Dyslexia is because your brain is hardwired for ancient Greek and the ADHD will keep you alive in a battle situation.

One of the things that the middle school boys particularly like, is the fact that the story doesn't take place in ancient Greece. Percy is a modern American boy, who has been raised by a single mother in New York City. At the beginning of the story, Percy has no idea he is anything special, in fact, he has pretty low self esteem, because he struggles with reading and paying attention. He has also been kicked out of several schools.













J.R. coloring a picture of Zeus for the marque of The Lightning Thief he had to hold up during his oral book report at the end of the school year:


If you or your children really enjoy Greek Mythology and would like to color some pictures to go with your reading, here are two links to coloring pages.

Greek Gods, More Cartoon-like

Greek God Coloring Pages, More Detailed


I get a kick out of the fact that there are now book trailers, so here's the one for the latest Percy Jackson book:


If you are already a fan of Percy Jackson, there is a great website with trivia games, word puzzles, computer wall paper, and many other fun things:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I just finished reading the last book in this series, The Last Olympian, which was just released in hard cover last month, but I don't think this is the last we will hear of Percy Jackson.

Eat Your Words

This is a game for emergent readers, that DH helped me make:



The game pieces are Nabisco Alpha-Bit mini cookies.






At the beginning of the game, open a couple of the small packs of cookies and lay them out on a clean table or plate face down. Then each player takes a turn picking a cookie. If they can use that cookie to make a word on the board, they get to eat it.

I'm going to laminate the board, so it doesn't get messy from the cookies.

Eat Your Alphabet

We recently saw a reality show where a chef had to come up with foods for each letter of the alphabet to feed the contestants of the National Spelling Bee. I was so intrigued by this idea that I decided to come up with our own alphabet menu.
Yesterday, with a lot of brain-storming help from Blaze and a little help from him in the kitchen, we ate our way through the alphabet.




A : Apple and Avocado

B: Banana and butter milk

C:Croutons, carrots

D: Drumsticks

E:Eggs

F: Feta Cheese

G: Grapes and Garlic

H:Honey

I: Ice cream

J: Japanese style bread crumbs

K: Kiwi Fruit

L:Lemon Juice and Lettuce

M: mandarin oranges, mushrooms, and Mayo

N:Noodles

O: Olives and Onions

P: Pumpkin Seeds

Q:Quaker Oatmeal

R:Root Beer, rosemary

S: Seasoned Salt, Strawberries

T: Tomatoes

U:Ugly fruit

V:Vanilla

W:Walnuts

X:

Y:Yogurt

Z:zucchini



SALADS:







Fruit Salad
----------------

Apple
banana
strawberry
grapes
kiwi fruit
Ugly fruit
Mandarin oranges
Lemon Juice

Served with Vanilla yogurt
Topped with homemade granola (oats, coconut, almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts, raisins, dried apples, dried cranberries, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, and vegetable oil)


Tossed Salad
----------------

Green leaf lettuce
carrots
avocado
mushroom slices
onion slices
tiny tomatoes
pumpkin seeds
Garlic Croutons


Homemade Buttermilk Dressing
-------------------------

1/2 Cup buttermilk
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 Seasoned salt


Main Course:




Sauteed Zucchini
----------------

Sliced zucchini
butter
garlic
rosemary
salt


Drumsticks
---------------

Chicken drumsticks
Eggs
Japanese style bread crumbs
ground walnuts
pepper
salt
butter


Noodles
_____________

Wide egg noodles
butter
pepper
Parmesan cheese



Desert:





Root beer float
-------------
Root beer
Vanilla ice cream



X
-------------
The only letter we were unable to find was "X". There is a thickening agent used in some bottled salad dressing called xanthum
gum. but since we made our own dressing, we had none.
There is a noble gas called Xenon that is present in small amounts in Earth's atmosphere, so perhaps we breathed a little of that.