Thoughts on the first semester of homeschool

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Overall, I am incredibly happy with how well the homeschooling of Dragon went this semester. We were able to coordinate with her virtual school teachers, and supplemented her assigned schoolwork with pop culture and other activities.

However, some things are going to change next semester, as I feel like the usefulness is not to it’s full potential.

Overview of each section:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days – this will stay the same, although hopefully we’ll be able to do more martial arts.

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano – I need to remember to change the disc more often! Piano will continue as long as Dragon and my mother are okay with it.

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho) – We’re going to keep working on this in the new year.

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. We are also doing the seasons of the year, but verbally. – We will keep doing this. She’s doing well with it.

Printing words

This is going to be changing. Rather than asking questions and having one-word answers, I am going to change this to be a bunch of words related to the movie. Hopefully this will help to increase her vocabulary.

Counting objects/math-type activities

This will also be changing. I am going to have two different worksheets in here. One will be a grid similar to this past semester, although I’ll be making it more squares instead of 25. The other will be an addition/subtraction and/or pattern worksheet.

Storytime

This will continue, as Dragon enjoys it, especially since the virtual school gives excellent online books to read.

Vampirina or other short Disney Junior shows will be watched one episode/day in French.

Activities

These have been a big hit and I will continue doing them.

I will be continuing this blog in the new year with a whole new set of movies, sarting with these four in January:

The Three Musketeers (1993) – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 1993 film The Three Musketeers.

Story

I’ll be honest I only vaguely remembered this and expected it to be a hammy comedy. I was pleasantly surprised. The story was the traditional Musketeers with lines very similar to the book. The beginning was a little slow but overall it was great.

The book is a classic and most movies and shows don’t do it justice.

It was very white, which is both historically inaccurate and frustrating for a work by a black man.

Score: 1

Characters

The characters are great and hold their own versus other versions. The actors are fantastic at what each needs to do. Tim Curry chews the scenery in a way that’s both hilarious and terrifying.

Score: 1

Dialogue

There are lines in it that are brilliant and picked from the books. (With a flick of my wrist I can change your religion.) and then there’s nearly everything Porthos says that is pure gold.

The dialogue manages to oscillate between drama, comedy, and gravitas in a way that is rarer than I like.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

I’ve watched this movie on VHS, DVD, and now Disney+. The scenery, sets, costumes, and shooting are fantastic. However, when this movie goes dark, it’s so dark that I can’t see it (I’m talking contrast not content. Also I hadn’t watched this in over 20 years and the frustration with the dark scenes was the only thing I remembered clearly). I missed 90% of what happened in the tunnels and darker scenes. It’s extremely annoying.

The music absolutely splendid. The ballad at the end is so completely 1990s.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I really like the balance of funny action adventure, with serious drama. It kept everyone in the family interested (except the toddler who only sat still for a few sword fights).

Score: 1

Overall

This is quite possibly my favourite adaptation of the story and I have nothing but nice things to say. I think it’s pretty good at adapting the material.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars

Ever After – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 1998 film Ever After.

Story

An interesting twist on the Cinderella story that concentrates more on the meeting and courting before the ball of the lovers. It makes the love story feel slightly more real.

One of the few “realistic” takes on a classic fairy-tale that manages to work.

Score: 1

Characters

The evil stepmother was evil, the prince was handsome, and the Cinderella was spunky and kicked ass. I like that one of the stepsisters was nice.

I’m not super comfortable with the portrayal of the Romani in the movie. Showing them as brigands and thieves with a sense of honour and humour is very cliché and borders on racist.

I adore Da Vinci as an artist, inventor, and plot device but it made me sad that they had to remove a positive female role from the story to have him in there. Couldn’t they have made Gustave’s patron a famous female artist?

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

This is a movie with a lot of dialogue and a lot of subtext. It might be a Cinderella story but it takes a lot from modern romantic comedy banter and Much Ado About Nothing.

I’m not sure how quotable it is, but listening to the banter and dialogue is like listening to a good musical piece.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

This movie includes some beautiful locations and clothing. It was beautifully shot but everything was marred by a weird blue-green filter. It darkened the movie and made everything look wrong rather than stylish.

The music was lovely and unobtrusive but nothing special.

Score: 0.5

Fun

Watching a movie this long with a three year old and a fourteen month old isn’t very conducive to fun. The three year old liked the colours and movement but lost interest in the long conversations that were the heart of the movie.

Despite that, I enjoyed myself and look forward to watching it with them when they’re older.

Score: 1

Overall

The movie manages to strike the perfect balance between love story, fairy tale, and alternate history. It’s romantic and lovely without much to cringe at.

Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5

The Christmas Setup – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2020 film The Christmas Setup.

Story

Borrowing partly from indie slice of life and partly from Christmas romances, this is an easy to watch mix of the two. There’s a mystery and a little angst, but overall wasn’t too bad. There are two parts that I didn’t like. I hate the trope of forcing a character to go on stage and then they rock it. If someone doesn’t want to do it, they shouldn’t be pressured. The second time it happened the character didn’t even do what they were supposed to.

I did however love the mirroring in the story of the train station and the main characters. That was cute and awesome.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Fran Drescher plays the perfect meddling mother. She’s never hurtful and she’s somehow always respectful. A nice change of pace for this character archetype. The rest of the cast is both pretty and easy to watch. The characters are believable and overall pretty authentic. I really liked the dynamic of the brothers and how they had to work at understanding each other.

I also like that the main couple being gay didn’t add to the drama but still influenced the character’s stories and conversations.

Score: 1

Dialogue

This movie had an interesting effect. I laughed and loved the clever dialogue… but I don’t remember any of it. It was fast and clever and never took itself seriously.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The movie was well shot, the clothes were fantastic, and locations were stunning. That being said, I wasn’t a fan of the “Northern Lights” scene that looked pretty fake.

The music was good if not memorable.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The movie was fun to watch. It kept my 18 month old completely enthralled. I’m thinking it was the banter, but it could have been my popcorn. The entire family liked it and I hope there will be more like it in the future.

Score: 1

Overall

This is an adorable Christmas love story that is made all the better by wonderful dialogue and authentic representation. I liked this one and look forward to buying a copy for annual watching.

Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5

Week 15 – A Muppet Christmas Carol Results

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Despite being very tired when I woke Dragon up on Tuesday morning, she participated very well at virtual school. She answered several questions, including how many months of the year and how many seasons with FULL SENTENCES in French. We’ve been practicing and it shows. I’m very proud. She also listed the days of the week. She listed the months of the year and the seasons to me, because the teachers asked someone else to list them.

She presented the giant pink pony that we have on top of one of our bookshelves. She mostly spoke in English, but she responded the colours in French when asked.

We came back a little early after the first recess, and she got to talk to her teacher one-on-one. They talked about arbres de Noel, and how we have deux. They talked about her dress (one my mother made for my sister when she was 4 years old) and that it was rouge and blanc.

She listened intently to the story, that was read three times because the kids all loved it so much.

After lunch, Dragon was asked to count as high as she was able, reading the numbers on the screen. She kept losing her place, so I had to get up to point to the numbers (and then the teacher started highlighting them). She got tripped up at 16 again (we’ll continue to work on that) and skipped 19 (ditto), and then refused to count higher than 20.

Then the teacher asked the kids to print all the numbers that they can. Other than a few meltdowns (my 7 looks like a c!) she did excellently.

Homeschool was pretty good this week. It was a little all-over-the-place, since we delivered some presents on Friday.

Dance

She did ballet 2-3 times this week. 

Music

Piano: no piano this week

We listened to French Christmas music this week. (obviously)

Crochet

She couldn’t sit still thanks to the excitement of Christmas. We’ll try to get some more done over the break.

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can tell me the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is also going excellently. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month.

The saisons de l’année are now memorized, including printemps. 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 was pretty good this week, although she was rather disproportionately devastated when her crayon broke, so I feel like maybe there was some underlying stress about printing that I didn’t pick up on.

Counting objects/math-type activities

Numbers were hit or miss this week. Sevens, particularly, were a stress.

  • It’s slightly different and I didn’t notice! :O

I had her figure out how many cookies were across and how many were down on the cookie sheet, and then I asked how many rows down I’d need to do, and she figured out that there needed to be 6 across:

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

Make toilet paper roll art – This was a HUGE hit with Dragon. We picked out what designs we wanted to do, and then we went through the button stash to find appropriate buttons. Apparently we have no black buttons….so instead, we picked out fun shapes and painted them with nail polish. We also had no green buttons, so the nail polish was used for that as well. Then we fought with paper and pipe cleaners and fortunately found little puffs for the ear muffs because I hadn’t considered that we needed that sort of craft supplies! Then came the glue challenge. Gluing pipe cleaners is NOT easy, and I had completely forgotten! Punching a hole and threading it through or stapling it would have worked much easier, however, when I checked them the next morning, the glue seemed to have solidified nicely, so I’m not too worried about it. I will call this a success.

Bake cookies – We made A LOT of cookies. She helped make doughnuts, too.

  • Making doughnuts too!
  • Cherry ice box
  • Orange cookies
  • Brown sugar cookies

Learn about Xmas pasts and other culture’s Holidays – On Monday, we had a video call with a friend of ours who celebrates Hannukah. He told Dragon about what the holiday means to the Jewish people, and how it has become more celebrated more recently as Jewish and Christian kids are closer friends and discuss their traditions more often.

On Thursday, we talked to a different friend, who celebrates Lucia. She told us the history of Lucia, how she brought an end to a famine in Sweden, and how it is celebrated now. Here are some videos you can watch about it.

One – the swedish tourism board put out this “lucia for dummies” video a few years back and it manages to be both informative and quite funny! And two – a long string of Swedish Christmas songs for kids.

Jasmine Murray-Bergquist

Keep your eye on this blog, as next week on Tuesday I will be doing a review of the semester and how things will change next semester. Then on Thursday I will be positing the first movie for January! How I Taught My Dragon blogs will continue on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule throughout the new year.

Resolution Review 2020

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

What a year this has been. I’ve been extremely lucky overall, but it’s been an emotional rollercoaster.

I made 13 resolutions last year and then this summer I checked in to see how I was doing.

Calvin and Hobbs reading a newspaper. Calvin says, “These are interesting Times”.

Writing

1. Finish Writing The Dancing Lights (Failed)

Well this failed completely. I’ve had a really hard time writing this year. I need to find a way to force myself.

2. Finish Writing Paragenesis (Failed)

I’ve decided to rename this one… again. Other than that, I haven’t touched this since early in the year.

3. Write a Monthly Serial Story (Success)

Yay I did it. and I think it’s pretty good: Read this year’s serial story

JenEric Designs and Coffee

4. Ensure there’s content 5 days a week on JenEric Designs (Success)

It’s a year of change and there will be more in the new year.

5. Design and Produce 2 new coffee flavours (Success)

We released Apple Pie and a new branding for our unflavoured medium coffee. I’ll take that as a win.

6. Print, Package, and Sell Oneshot – The Simplest RPG (Fail)

I really think this will sell better at conventions if I can keep the price down. It’s on hold until the world is more vaccinated.

Editing and Marketing

7. Finish Playtesting the higher levels of Fadds (Success)

We tested the higher levels and it was great. I have a really good group at the moment and they’re finding all the loopholes and issues. I’ll hopefully keep going in the new year.

8. Figure out how to market my books better (Fail)

This is a great goal and a great idea… I wish I had something beyond this… I’m not great at pushing my stuff.

Personal

9. Read 20 books (Failed)

I managed 11 books this year. It’s not as much as I’d like, but like writing, I’ve had a hard time finding time to read.

10. Don’t Burnout (Success)

November almost killed me after some health issues. I came very close to a total burnout.

11. Be More Patient (Partial Success)

I’ve lost my temper a lot more than I should. I hate yelling. I hate that sometimes it’s the only way either child listens to me. I think I’ll say I half succeeded.

12. Play Some Video games with Dragon (Success)

It’s been ridiculously busy but we’ve played a few times. It’s fun and I hope we can manage it more in the new year.

13. Play Some Board Games with Dragon (Success)

We’ve played a few times and the holidays will hopefully lend themselves to some more games.

Looks like 7.5 successes out of 13… That’s 58%. For 2020, I’ll take it.

Here’s to hoping 2021 is a better year, for everyone.

Éric