A better view of the ship. And what’s that behind it?
Week 24 – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Results
Virtual school was good this week. I was feeling pretty awful because Pegasus had woken up every half hour during the night, but fortunately his wakeups hadn’t bothered her because I think she was pretty awake right away.
She paid attention to the regular morning songs and sang them when requested. She lost focus right before being asked about the seasons, but was able to get back on track fairly quickly.
She enjoyed writing out words that began with the letter “t”. She is remembering to write in small caps more often, which I’m impressed by.
They’re talking about professional jobs in school this month, so she had a bunch of questions for me regarding the strange words.
The story was about building toys with recycled materials, and Dragon was very excited about that idea.
Math was talking about solid shapes and having the kids go on fetch-quests to find household objects that fit the description. They had to organize them based on whether they roll or slide.
Homeschool was pretty great this week.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week.
Music
Piano: Same issue with clapping and counting – the first one she misses, no matter which one it is, but all the rest are fine. They skipped lesson one and did lesson 2 (CD on right hand CB on left hand) and she does the whole lesson perfectly so they’re going to skip it in the future. Then they did lesson 3, which adds E on right hand and A on left hand. That went alright. Then lesson 4 was adding F on right and G on left, and she got it eventually, but it was like she’d never seen it before. And this was review. There was no focus by the end of lesson 4, so they did not learn anything new.
We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
She did several stitches this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week. She had some issues with the letters on her own, but I think she just wasn’t concentrating.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 70 out loud (still remembering 16 without prompting). I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s.
Math went incredibly well this week.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Weather – We looked at a book about weather that we have. We talked about the water cycle, water and air currents, and how geography can change what happens with the weather (Vancouver vs Ottawa). She enjoyed it so much that I added a water cycle colouring sheet.
Design an island – She had fun deciding what to put on her island, but had a little difficulty implementing it. She hadn’t really done much with markers before this and was upset when her lines were too thick.
Cook meatballs – Dragon made this for my birthday dinner (Friday March 5). It was delicious.
Cancel Culture and Bullying
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
I’m sure you’ve heard about Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss. If you haven’t, let me explain quickly. Dr. Seuss has some books with extremely racist imagery and his estate has decided not to publish them anymore. Mr. Potato Head has changed the brand to Potato Head and will sell the base set as gender neutral to make it possible to build any sort of family. Unfortunately, the press release forgot to mention they were still going to sell the legacy Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head.
All this has brought back cries of “Cancel Culture” (I talked about this back when a certain millionaire author felt cancelled. Part 1 and Part 2, I also talked about being problematic here.).
There’s a lot of stuff to unpack when it comes to Cancel Culture and I don’t have the energy to write a book about it. Instead I’ll tell you a story.
I’m a Geek or Nerd, whatever you want to call me. I live in pop culture and spend way more time reading about tech than is necessary for me. A few years ago, someone confronted me about how problematic the idea of “Talk Like a Pirate Day” was, considering their ancestors had been kidnapped and enslaved by real life pirates. (Pirates, corsairs, and privateers were a big part of the slave trade.)
I thought they were kidding; it wasn’t about real pirates, but just a silly internet meme based off cartoon versions. I swear I went through the full gamut of grief. I still have no idea why I was so attached to the damn thing.
In the end, a friend messaged me and said something like, “I get that you’re upset but maybe you should listen to the victim about what bothers them.” I’m sure it was better worded than that, but it’s what made me stop and think. I don’t have the right to question what hurts other people. With that and a cooler head, I realized that, yeah, the day was glorifying a group of people who stole people from their homes and families. Beyond that, they facilitated the complete erasure of multiple cultures. That’s stories, myths, religions, customs, food, etc, everything that makes people feel like people. That’s horrific, and if you don’t think so you need to think some more.
Being told that something hurts others when you thought it was part of you makes you feel like you’re the one to blame. It causes an internal struggle that makes you have to choose between something you think is part of you and another person’s pain. It’s guilt and sorrow and it’s completely on your shoulders.
It’s our responsibility as privileged people to listen to those who have been hurt and try to be compassionate. If something that hurts others is part of you, it might be time to consider if it’s that important and at the very least, admit that it’s a problem.
The calls of “Cancel Culture Gone MAD” and other bullshit is a self defence reflex, but it serves a major purpose, it’s a form of bullying.
Yelling and writing article after article about how sensitive people are and how they should just leave “culture” alone is a backlash that is meant to silence victims and make them question their own hurt. It’s also a way of bullying victims into having to defend their reasons for being hurt.
Next time you are confronted by something that makes you feel like you have to defend yourself against a victim, take the time to think about their point of view and why you have internalized something that was hurtful.
Be safe and be kind,
Éric
Upside-Down Magic – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2020 film Upside-Down Magic.
Story
It’s probably not fair of me, but after Secret Society of Second-Born Royals, I wasn’t too hopeful for this one.
Boy was I surprised. It has the feel and tone of good YA, while also poking subtle fun at the genre’s recent prevalent tropes. The story doesn’t get bogged down by any of the usual annoyances, and despite a pretty predictable plot, it’s a lot of fun with some decent worldbuilding.
Score: 0.5
Characters
There are many tropes and archetypes in YA. This movie takes the most prevalent ones of the insecure super-powerful main character and the quirky super-positive sidekick and switches them places, leaving us with an extremely interesting main character that doesn’t mope. It’s nice.
The rest of the cast are a little underdeveloped, but diverse and entertaining.
I also have to talk about the grumpy teacher turns out to be a softy trope. It’s really one of my favourites and works extremely well here.
Score: 1
Dialogue
The dialogue is young, but not condescending. It has some pretty smart moments and great banter. There are also more than a few lines that are so generic that they could be part of a YA magic school generator.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
The visuals are really well done. The special effects budget was obviously not big, but they used it efficiently. I enjoyed the use of camera angles and colours to guide the viewer.
The music did what it needed and, other than the little singing in the movie, was not extremely noticeable.
Score: 1
Fun
For my four year old this was amazing, for the toddler he was glued to the screen. For me it had enough fresh material and awesome characters. It never really dragged and had a nice little twist. The movie made me want more and add the books to my TBR pile.
Score: 1
Overall
A thoroughly charming, self aware, and fun young adult magic school adventure. The characters, world, and magic are great. Refreshing not have a forced love story and reinforcing the strength of friendship. I look forward to reading the books.
Final Score: 4 stars out of 5
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! AKA working with your partner.
Hello people,
I’m extremely lucky to have found a partner who I can spend lots of time with, who I can talk with until ridiculous o’clock in the morning, and who I can work with efficiently and happily.
Of course we have our problems and our disagreements, but I think we’re handling them okay. At least I hope we are.
Look at those baby faces.
Ten-ish years ago I ran a D20 modern game that was effectively my spin on Stargate. Jen played a character who was both awesome and badass. At one point I introduced a mafia/pizza restaurant owning superhero. He was supposed to be a one time character but the group kept bringing him back and Jen’s character developed a relationship with him.
When the game ended, we talked about their story and then it slowly faded into my subconscious.
Fast forward to five years ago and a very sleep deprived me. I was doing NaNoWriMo and felt like I needed two alien hunting characters. I used the ones from our game as a stand in.
A year ago, I mentioned it to Jen and we started talking about it. The more we talked, the more we planned, until finally I said we should write a book about them. We discussed it for over four months as I was trying (and failing) to finish other novels.
January 1st we started. As of today we have roughly 78,000 words and 21 of 26 chapters written in Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. Jen has been so excited that we also have 3 short stories and the basic plot of the next 2 books discussed.
(That’s approximately 1100 words a day or 2.3 chapters per week.)
I’ve never written at this pace and not gotten burned out or stuck in my writing. Splitting the writing and Jen’s abundant enthusiasm has me writing so much better. Also having someone as, or more, obsessed with the story has made it much easier.
It’s stressful, because I’m constantly feeling like I’m slowing her down, but overall it’s been a great experience. One I hope she’ll be willing to repeat in the future.
All that to say I’m extremely lucky and thankful for my wonderful partner.
Happy Birthday Jen and thank you!
Éric
Week 25 – Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest
Something that we were really excited about with her school is their emphasis on Ecofriendly Environments. So I obviously had to include this movie.
Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Watch movie | learn about the 3Rs | learn about the Amazon Rainforest | plant seedlings | Flex |
Summary of the week
Daily details:
Dance
Ballet and martial arts on alternate days
Music
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet
Storytime
Activity
3 Rs – link
Learn about the Amazon Rainforest – link to ScienceKids, link to NatGeo
Plant seedlings in the house
Next week: Inside Out
Week 23 – Zootopia Results
Virtual school went very well this week. After a bit of a difficult morning waking up, Dragon rallied nicely and focussed very well on school.
The morning routine was back to normal, with Oh Canada, the bonjour song (she was asked to sing after and did very well), the petit prince song (she was asked to sing the lundi verse and did well), the jours de la semaine song, the mois de l’annee song, and then she was asked the names of the seasons.
They learned about the letter ‘j’ and she wrote several words that started with ‘j’. She was very excited to practice her printing with other kids.
The story was cute, about a fly that went to space. Then they watched a video about the way they bring food to space with Chris Hadfield. She was excited because she has his kid’s book The Darkest Dark. She loves it.
Math was about locations (far, near, in front, behind) and they played a game where the teacher told them where they had to go. Dragon got used to the words eventually. We’ll practice them. Then they did coding again, which she LOVES. She got to do 5 sets with the teacher, and then she did 5 more by herself. She had to tell the teacher the direction (haut, bas, droit, gauche). We’ll practice that more.
The last thing they did was dance, which she always enjoys doing.
Homeschool this week was pretty great as well.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week, and practiced doing the spilts. She also danced with her Yoshi.
Music
Piano: There was no full lesson this week. She practiced her finger movements for the five notes and her triads.
We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
She did several stitches this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week. She had some issues with the letters on her own, but I think she just wasn’t concentrating.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 50 out loud (four days in a row she has remembered 16 without prompting!). On Friday, she counted to 70!
Math – the math went very well. She has been completing the worksheets with very little assistance.
We did coding through the computer program that the teacher gave us. I had Dragon say the direction before she clicked on it. She LOVES this game.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Experiment Blue Eyes – I had her group the shapes by colour, and then by shape. Then I told her to put all the ones with angles in one group, and the circles in another. I told her that the angled ones were better. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you think?” I replied. “Maybe because there’s more of them?” she answered after a great deal of thought. “Is that a good reason?” I asked. “No!” immediate response from her. Then she added “the circles would feel sad.” So I told her, “oh, you’re right, the circles must be better, because there’s less of them.” And she vehemently shook her head. “Why not?” I asked. “Because they’re all shapes. They’re all the same thing.” she replied. I told her that she was correct, and we should never make someone feel bad about being who they are.
Thank you, Dragon. I didn’t even need to teach you the lesson today.
She’s disagreeing with me saying that one pile is better than the other
Shapes Activity – we used the book she made in Week 16 to identify the shapes
Using her book to find the names
Elephant rescues in Africa – we watched the video and Dragon was very sad that mother elephants had been killed or were dying. I got lots of cuddles. She was happy that the babies were taken care of and she liked watching them hold the bottle.
Title Reveal of The Untitled Mystery Book Project
Hello Book Lovers,
Jen and I have been writing, a lot, lately and we’re at the 2/3’s mark of The Untitled Mystery Book Project. It’s been a lot of fun working on it with her and I hope we can keep pace with the rest of the book.
“The Untitled Mystery Book Project” is a cool name but since the book doesn’t involve mystery, projects, or books; we thought we should probably pick a better name.
Without further ado the name is:
Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers
The Gates of Westmeath book 1
Hope you’ll enjoy reading this half as much as we enjoyed writing it.
Stay safe and stay kind,
Éric
Monster Trucks – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2016 film Monster Trucks.
Story
This felt like a trippy 80’s plotline, however it was much more coherent and actually had some good messages. It’s scientifically ridiculous, but a great parable. I appreciate that they didn’t go into wish fulfilment with the father storyline. I also liked the emotional twist with the stepdad.
Score: 0.5
Character
The main female lead is smart and capable, the male lead isn’t an idiot, the majority of the other characters feel pretty well fleshed out. They’re all a little cartoony, but acted in a believable way.
There’s a huge lack of diversity and I’m not very comfortable with the “Wise Mentor” trope being a black disabled person.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The movie is worth it just for the dialogue and the way the actors deliver it. Jane Levy and Lucas Till are brilliant as are the rest of the cast.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
To balance off the heavy use of special effects, the film makers gave us beautiful nature shots and vistas. Every shot is thought out in advance and works really well.
The music is used perfectly, as a movie where the monster isn’t supposed to be scary, the use of music makes all the difference in the early scenes. Had they used more dramatic music it would have been terrifying, had they used lighter it would have been ridiculous.
Score: 1
Fun
This movie was designed to be fun and slip in some environmental and emotional messages. It succeeds and has more than one awesome moment. Both kids were glued to the screen and my wife and I laughed a lot.
Score: 1
Overall
This movie is much better than it has any right to be considering the premise. It’s an exciting and wholesome movie with great comedic moments and awesome action sequences. The moral and environmental questions are subtle, but present and the movie values intelligent characters. Plus the monsters are really cute.
Score: 4 Stars out of 5