Thursday, November 30, 2017

Congratulations, Mikro: 2017 YWP Winner!





I will post the story later, once I resolve some tech issues with Word and my old laptop...

This year, Mikro wrote about two more adventures on the quest to obtain ingredients to put together a healing potion to save Enewan's Home Tree. I collaborated on it a bit, mostly in writing the spell songs, since Mikro does not think of himself as a poet. Yet. I'm working on that!

Sunday, November 12, 2017

"I Am..." Poems

I think every teenager should learn to express him/herself in poetry. It saved my sanity more than once at that age... So I am trying to get the boy who would rather read about paleontology to write some... We are using the Poetry Friday Power Books for inspiration. Here are our attempts at "I am" poems:

Mikro's effort:

Today I am...
Someone who doesn't want to write a poem;
Someone who got up too early;
Someone who is going on a field trip;
Someone who will see my best friend;
Someone who will learn something new.

Chele's take:

Today I am...
Someone who got an hour's sleep;
Someone who needs coffee;
Someone whose feet hurt already;
Someone who will wander marble corridors for hours;
Someone who gets to see great art!

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

The 2017 Not Back to School Interview


Q: What is your favorite subject?
A: Biology, evolutionary biology, paleontology and history, especially military history.


Q: What are you best at?
A: Seeing/making connections between things; imagination; inventing new worlds and mythologies. Procrastinating.


Q: I need to get better at __________.
A: Nothing. Just kidding. Handwriting, typing, being organized, not procrastinating.


Q: What's the best thing about being a homeschooler?
A: Getting to study what I want, but that's what I said last year. Um, I like the teachers! Oh, yeah, and lots of field trips.


Q: What's the worst thing?
A: This questionaire. Just kidding. Um, I don't know. ... I guess maybe not seeing my friends as often as I would like to.



Q: What kind of work do you want to do when you grow up?
A: My answer hasn't changed. I want to be a paleontologist, and an evolutionary biologist.

Q: This year I want to learn about ________.
A: Paleontology (as usual), anatomy, zoology. I want to do that college Evolution textbook. Modern history, Shakespeare, geometry [we are doing algebra first], more astronomy and space science, robotics, Arduino, wire sculpture, mobiles, surrealism, origami, survival and camping skills, Broaqdway musicals, geography, cartography, history, military history special effects and animation.



Q: I want to do more _________.
A: Hanging out with my friends. Field trips. Astronomy.

Q: I want to do less _________.
A: Math.

Q: Who is your best friend?
A: Koby.

Q:I want to go on a field trip to __________.
A: Yale Peabody Museum. The Bruce Museum. The Calder exhibit at the Whitney. The World War I exhibit at the Met.

Q: I want to go on vacation to __________.
A. Washington DC (and the NASM), Philadelphia and Boston. Florida, especially Kennedy Space Center. Space Camp and the space space museum in HUntsville, Alabama. Montana. Ireland, Germany, Mongolia, Iceland and France and the U.K. (but not if there's terrorism.)


Q. The most fun or best thing I did last school year was:
A. Competed in the National History Bee. Visited the Atlanta museums, especially the Carlos Museum at Emory University. It has really nice archaeology collections, the Geogia Aquarium (amazing whale sharks and rays in a huge tank), and the Center for Civil and Human Rights.



Q. What are you looking forward to doing this year?
A. More evolution and anatomy stuff.

Q. What do you think about starting high school next year?
A. It's sort of a combination of exciting and scary. Time is passing fast.


Q. What are some colleges you might want to apply to?
A. Yale, Cornell, University of Alberta, University of Montana, Richard Gilder (AMNH, mom), Columbia, SUNY Stonybrook, Hunter College Macauley Honors, NYU, Columbia.