Posts tagged ‘Rainbow House of Learning’
Today’s homeschool stories
Today, I arrived home to a meal prepared in the style of the Plymouth pilgrims by Oldest Daughter. As the father, I had been moved to the head of the table, which was a bit jarring, since I’m a creature of habit. Ordinary Spouse sat beside me, and the children had to sit “below the salt”. So we were all in the “proper” order.
Oldest Daughter prepared a menu and small rule book so that we’d know what to expect. The meal consisted of:
- Succotash stew
- Bannock cakes
- Whole, baked squash stuffed with apples
- Bearberry jelly
- Hot nuts (walnuts and almonds)
- Flat bread “plates”
And our rules included:
- Do use a clean knife to get salt.
- Do use your hand instead of a fork.
- Don’t scratch itches.
- Don’t dip your food in the salt.
- Don’t get your own food. (This is for children.)
There was a little verse to help the children remember the rules:
Put not thy fingers in the dish,
Neither in flesh, neither in fish.
Put not thy meat into the salt,
Into the cellar, that is a fault.
But lay it fairly thee before,
Upon thy trencher, that is good lore.- The Little Children’s Little Book
We had the hot nuts for dessert. I found a Valentine nut…
Valentine Walnut says, “I love you.”
And now that supper is finished Middle Daughter and Ordinary Spouse are reading about Babylon, Hammurabi, and his code – not because MD didn’t finish her schoolwork today, but because she wanted to do some more.
That’s the news from the Rainbow House of Learning for today. Now I have to go clean up the succotash stew. I wonder if the Pilgrim fathers would have done that…?
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Cambodia, part 1 – Getting there
It has been three weeks since my blog proclaimed that the ordinary family was on its way to Cambodia. Even though I had composed that particular entry the day before, it turns out that it was pretty accurate in announcing our departure. However, what preceded our departure was (at least in retrospect) somewhat amusing…
About an hour before we were to leave, we got a phone call from Mr. Guest Complacent (my brother-in-law) in Cambodia. He talked to my wife, so I didn’t get the whole conversation, but he said something like…
Well, it’s like this… When are you arriving here?
And in the background, Ordinary Spouse could hear Mrs. Guest Complacent and my mother-in-law (who had traveled there a few weeks earlier) laughing.
It turns out that they thought that we were arriving one day later than our actual plans. But when they read my “Countdown to Cambodia… 16 hours” blog post, they realized that they should probably double-check our itinerary. It’s a good thing, too. We would have arrived with no contact information and no way of knowing where to go. In hindsight, perhaps that wasn’t the smartest way to travel. Nevertheless, we got things straightened out and off we went.
And boy – did we go in style!
The administrator at my work place made a transportation reservation for me: a ride to/from O’Hare Airport with the company that we use for business travel. Little did I know that when they work with groups (six of us went to the airport and seven came home) the company uses stretch limos. I had just assumed that they would send a van.
You should have seen my daughters’ eyes when the limo pulled into our court…
We dubbed our ride “The Rainbow House of Learning school bus”.
We made it to the O’Hare in good time and settled in to wait for our flight. Activities included climbing, reading, and playing farkle.
Ordinary Spouse and I had never traveled with all three girls before, and we were pleasantly surprised when a Korean Air employee approached us shortly before boarding and invited us to the front of the boarding line. Thanks, Korean Air! That made getting settled into the plane much easier.
Speaking of Korean Air, they were the carrier-of-choice for the duration of this trip. Both to and from Phnom Penh, we had one stop at Incheon International Airport near Seoul. And one stop is much better than when Ordinary Spouse and I visited Mr. Guest Complacent ten years ago, the first time he lived in Cambodia. Back then, we flew from Detroit to Chicago to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Bangkok to Phnom Penh. Whew!
The Chicago-Seoul flight is roughly twelve hours – a bit longer if you’re westbound, since you fly into a headwind, and a bit shorter in the opposite direction. I was aware that the shortest flight path might not be readily apparent (since it’s on a sphere), and it turns out that the quickest way to Seoul is to first fly far to the north…
That white line is the “straight” path. Our actual flight path initially took us more to the north – over the western edge of Hudson Bay – before turning west and passing over the north edge of Alaska, essentially where the line indicates. In other words, we flew over the arctic. And when we arrived in Cambodia later in the day, we had been in both the arctic and the tropics in a single day.
As our flight turned south, we passed over Siberia and China, but then something interesting happened…
Again, the white line is the “straight” path. But it certainly wasn’t the path that our plane took. Shortly before reaching the China/North Korea border, the plane veered west… and stayed well out of North Korean airspace. Hmmm… I wonder what that was all about?
Anyway, we made it to Seoul, not in the greatest shape due to a messed up sleep schedules, but glad that we were most of the way there…
(Ordinary Spouse with blurry eyes.)
(Middle Daughter is much too distracted to rest.)
After a short layover, we were on our way again – the final leg from Seoul to Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, I had something new to worry about – pictures for our Cambodian visas. My father-in-law (who was traveling with us) asked if we had them ready. No, I said. We didn’t even realize that we needed them. This was another example of how not to travel, but there wasn’t much to be done until we arrived in Phnom Penh, so I tried not to dwell on it.
Finally after a full 24+ hours of travel on sporadic sleep (I think I got a total of four hours in two different installments), we arrived in Phnom Penh. Local time: 10:30 p.m. Current temperature: 29° C (84 °F). Relative humidity: something insanely high. Time to start acclimating.
Immigration was our first stop, and we quickly found out that the penalty for not having pictures was that Ordinary Spouse and I would have to pay $5 each* to have the pictures in our passports scanned. Ok – I wasn’t going to quibble with that. I was actually quite relieved. In addition, our visas were $20 each, and the girls’ visas were $5 each. After transferring $65 to the Kingdom of Cambodia, we were on to baggage claim, through customs, and then out the airport doors.
* US dollars are accepted nearly everywhere in Cambodia – at least, I didn’t go anywhere that I couldn’t pay with them. The local currency is the riel. The conversion rate is 4000 riel = $1. I have a hunch that the simplicity of this conversion, along with the fact that every vendor uses it, has helped to peg the riel to the US dollar. The exchange rate has fluctuated between 3800 and 4200 riel to the dollar for at least the last ten years.
Immediately outside the doors, we were met by a mob of people. Some of them were waiting for family and friends; some of them were moto/taxi drivers waiting for passengers; and perhaps some were just there to watch. I was expecting this, since it was the same way ten years ago. The girls, however, didn’t know quite what to do with this. It may have been craziest for Youngest Daughter – light-skinned young children are something of a novelty. When she walked outside, people were openly staring and pointing at her. It wouldn’t be the last time.
However, The Guests Complacent were there to meet us, and they swept the girls away to a van that was waiting to take us “home”.
(Here we are shortly after arriving. Note the clock in the background.)
And that pretty much wraps up the opening chapter of this story. The girls got to sleep around midnight. OS and I got to bed at around 1:30 a.m. (which was 12:30 p.m. Chicago time).
Next up: Acclimating in Phnom Penh (which I’ll provide as soon as I can get it typed up!)
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Countdown to Cambodia… 20 days
As the Rainbow House of Learning prepares for its global field trip, I’m posting updates, links of interest, and so on. I know that you’re curious about my big news of the day…
I placed a hold on our mail for the days that we’re gone.
Exciting, huh?
Anyway…
During our trip, we’ll have the chance to see a bit of the work that Mennonite Central Committee is doing with the people of Cambodia. For those of you who are interested, check out MCC Cambodia on WordPress or Facebook.
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The Rainbow House of Learning goes global!
The countdown is on! In three short weeks, the Rainbow House of Learning sets off on a two-week field trip to Cambodia to see the Guests Complacent and Extraordinary Nephew. Our itinerary includes days in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Mesang, and Kompong Som. By now, most of the vaccinations have been received, and the packing and to-do lists are being written.
Stay tuned for more!
The Mexican “culture box” (a.k.a loving our library)
The students of the Rainbow House of Learning were studying Central American civilizations in their history class this week. Serendipitously, through a search for “Aztec”, Ordinary Spouse discovered that our local public library has “culture boxes”. Evidently, a culture box is one of the really big Rubbermaid™ storage containers filled with “artifacts” from the culture of interest. The library allows teachers and homeschoolers to check these things out. Well – the women decided to bring home the culture box from Mexico.
Oldest Daughter decided to create a museum in our living room…
… and create an Aztec sun-catcher on the front window.
Middle Daughter and Youngest Daughter collaborated on a dance…
(I have no idea why YD is in the laundry basket in that last pic.)
(Mexican costume, Spanish sword dance, and classical ballet! If the video doesn’t want to load, watch it on YouTube.)
How to change ‘rainbow’ to ‘New Year’s Day’
Another entry from the Rainbow House of Learning – this one from Middle Daughter. She found a way to change ‘rainbow’ to ‘New Year’s Day’, one word at a time (give or take)…
- Rainbow
- Rain boots
- Snow boots
- Snow balls
- Beach balls
- Beach hut
- Pizza Hut
- Pizza pie
- Apple pie
- Apple sauce
- Chocolate sauce
- Chocolate bunny
- Cottontail bunny
- Cottonwood tree
- Maple tree
- Maple syrup
- Chocolate syrup
- Chocolate egg
- Fried egg
- Friday
- Christmas Day
- Christmas Eve
- New Year’s Eve
- New Year’s Day
Random blogging, part 6 – appleratings
The Rainbow House of Learning has undertaken a new project: taste testing apples! Then we write down our thoughts on the apples and as many apple-related things as possible. Maybe you’d like to join in the apple conversation!
Ornithology at the Rainbow House of Learning
Middle Daughter has taken a huge interest in birds – she probably knows more about them than I do at this point. Given her imagination, she sees quite a few more than I do, as well. 
A couple of weeks ago, she called our whole family together to do an art show. She welcomed us in to her “gallery”, read her artist’s statement, and then showed us around. I loved that she took the initiative for the whole event. Here is some of her work…
And I asked her if she’d do a drawing of my favorite bird for me…
Eastern Bluebirds by Middle Daughter
(Watercolor and pencil, 8½” × 11″, September 2011)
Back-to-school special
The Rainbow House of Learning is back in session. After the Not-Back-To-School party for homeschoolers on Wednesday, we ate the traditional beginning-of-the-year doughnuts on Thursday a little after 8 a.m. – and two hours after the students in the public high schools had to start catching their buses. Crazy.
Here are the students on the first day of school.
(As one of our friends pointed out, you can be barefoot at school, if you like.)
It’s been a busy week. In addition to the party on Wednesday, there was a field trip to the DuPage Children’s Museum today (pics below!) and a trip to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie scheduled for tomorrow. (Gasp! On a Saturday! Don’t tell the students that they’re going to school on the weekends!)
Not all of the school work involves trips. During more routine times, they’ve started studying art and art history and the Jewish diaspora and the Mongol empire; reading a new book (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) for book club (which is a group of homeschooled girls getting together to discuss literature); expanding their numerical literacy by learning numbers to one million, one thousand, or twenty (as appropriate for their age) and by learning to count money; working on writing or spelling; exploring the fifty states; and continuing music lessons (piano or violin). (Links are to the curricula used at the Rainbow House.)
And they made a mosaic!
Stories of the day
Here are a few stories featuring Youngest Daughter…
At breakfast, we overheard her gearing up for today:
I need something to do. I need to find an action word!
Later, while I was still at the table with Pandora playing on my laptop, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” came on. It was very cute when YD grabbed her harmonica and joined in.
The Rainbow House of Learning is getting ready for another year of school. Today, one of our friends hosted a party for a bunch of homeschoolers. It was a “Not-Back-To-School” party. And YD declared to Ordinary Spouse:
I want to learn how to read!
OS found the easiest book in our house. So tonight, instead of listening to her bedtime story, YD read to me.
And finally, I wanted to share a picture of supper tonight. Because it was awesome. And Ordinary Spouse is awesome.
She served homemade spinach and cilantro falafel with pita bread and a mint yogurt. Additional tomatoes and cilantro are on the side. The recipe was based on one from Green Kitchen Stories. I’m guessing I had one of the best meals in town.
And we have leftovers.
