"Further Up and Further In!": In Which We DO Have Some Warm-Fuzzies, and Alice in Wonderland Becomes Logical

So there are the rather difficult days like the one I described in my previous post...and then there are the "good" homeschool days, like the one we had yesterday. It was a long and busy day, but we did have those "warm-fuzzy" moments, and overall, it was a very productive day at that.

After dropping the older kids off at their Science classes early in the morning, the younger ones and I had our best attempt yet at whiling our time away at the the muffin shop. It was busier, and therefore louder, than usual, so we didn't stand out as drastically. After they ate - and lobbied successfully for juice, and traded muffins and ate some more, and lobbied unsuccessfully for different food, and stood (wrestled and karate-chopped) in line to get some take-home bags for their leftovers, and either ate some more or decided that they didn't want their muffins anymore because a certain little girl had licked the frosting off of one - we pulled out some games I had brought for the occasion.

We played "I Spy ABC Bingo," which is a semi-sneaky way of reviewing letter sounds for certain reluctant six year-old learners. Then we played UNO, which is always a fun way of reviewing numbers, colors, taking turns, and cut-throat competition (the glee with which my kids put down those "draw 4" cards" is disturbing).To an observer, I'm sure this looked like a classic warm-fuzzy homeschooling moment, and we had those kind of compliments. From an insider's view, however, it went a little like this:

"Chase, your turn. No, you can't cheat and take the draw-4 card out of the pile. Ryan, stop complaining. just draw. Scarlett, SIT down. Ryan, go. Ryan, just go, Ryan, darling, it's your turn, Chase, don't get up. Scarlett, SIT down. Please don't stand up in your chair - I'll bring the card pile to you. Chase, lower your voice. Yes, it's your turn. No, it's mine? Okay, I went, now go. No wait - we reversed it? Who did? Scarlett, SIT down. Oh, I don't know - let's just go around this way. Chase, please lower your voice, Scarlett, SIT down!" Etc. But it actually counted as a successful hour or so, and we spent longer there than usual, so we didn't have more time to fill until we picked up the older two. We stopped by the pet store, per our usual, to say hello to the cats up for adoption, and then we went back to the church building where the science classes are held, and we did math in the car while we waited. The older ones emerged after a short while, pleased with the grades they had received on their previously turned-in study guides, and we made our way home.

We had lunch and some time to rest, and the while the younger ones played rather happily together throughout the afternoon, building with Legos and setting up a city with the Little People sets, I sat on my red couch (which always makes me happy to look at, but upon which I rarely get a chance to actually sit) and alternated some planning and paperwork of my own, with doing some school with the older two. The first thing we tackled together was Logic. They groan when I convene them for this purpose, but we almost always have an interesting, if not downright fun, time with it. Yesterday's topic was statements. We discussed self-supporting statements, and their examples were as follows:

Aimee: "I believe in Sherlock Holmes." "I believe that Matt Smith is awesomer [disclaimer: we discussed the fact that "more awesome" is more appropriate, and I know they both know that, so never mind that] than David Tennant. [disclaimer: We didn't need to discuss the fact that while this was a completely valid self-supporting statement, in that we can accept the truth of what she believes on this point, other supporting evidence tells us that her belief is misplaced, as David Tennant is clearly the more awesome of the two.] "It is my opinion that Matt Smith was the best doctor."

Drew: "It is my opinion that this [Logic] is horrible." "I believe that David Tennant is awesomer than Matt Smith."

We then discussed true statements, and their offerings were of the like: "Tom Baker has curly hair." And yes, another true statement would be, "We have a fixation with British television in our house." We spent a good long while on tautologies and self-contradicting statements. Tautologies offered were, "Thor is the best Avenger, or he isn't," and "Matt Smith was the best doctor, or one of the other actors was." They seemed to understand that point, although one of my children fails to see the truth about which actor best served Doctor Who. Self-contradicting statements proved a bit more of a challenge. One of the kids had a harder time grasping how such statements must completely contradict themselves, and not leave other options open, so we grappled with that for a time, explaining how statements such as "David Tennant's hair is awesome, and David Tennant's hair is not awesome," is not self-contradictory, as it could just be stating that his hair has qualities that would apply to both. Finally we landed on, "Extremis [Iron Man 3] has effect, and Extremis has no effect." We then discussed statements which are true or false by definition, and then we touched on nonsense statements.

Then I read them a list of statements which they had to identify as true statements, false statements, questions, commands, or nonsense. They were advised by the book to be careful in their judgments, as they indeed were. They were, in fact, getting bored with the ease of the assignment until I read, "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble," at which they both sat up and animatedly declared, "True statement!" I was pleased that they both knew it was a line from the Jabberwocky, and I complimented them on that. I said, "But of course that's a nonsense poem, so..." "But 'slithy toves' are real in Alice in Wonderland," persisted Aimee. "So it's a true statement in the book." "Well," I faltered. "That's interesting. But I'm not sure..." She got up, and said, "I'll show you! I know exactly where that part is," and ran upstairs to grab the book. A couple minutes later, she came down, with the book open to that exact part, and we read together about Humpty Dumpty explaining to Alice what "toves" were and how they do, in fact, "gyre" and "gimble." So...later we'll talk about source material and how that affects the truth of a statement, but I did concede that within this literary context, "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble" was a true statement. We gave ourselves points for touching on classic literature.

And we shelved for another day a couple of the questions addressed in our Logic lesson, such as who actually best portrayed the doctor on Doctor Who....