31Oct
5

Sharing our similes

Similes practice from Life of Fred math book

As we were reading Life of Fred: Goldfish last night, one of questions at the end of our chapter had to do with similes.

Similes, in case you didn’t know, aren’t math. (But so much of Fred goes beyond math – which is part of what we love.) They’re literary constructions that compare two things using “like” or “as” terminology.

The question asked us to fill in some possible similes. You know…

His eyes were red like ____________________.

Her smile was as bright as ______________________.

Reading is as enjoyable as ______________________.

We had a ton of fun doing those – and Ashar created her own page of similes in her bedside notebook!

“Similes are just so cool, because you can keep going and going with them. It’s kind of like infinity. Or pi,” Ashar said as we sat down to work on this blog post together. (This is her idea, by the way; I’m just typing!)

Our challenge to you

As we were brainstorming our similes last night, Ashar said, “We should put this on the homeschool blog! And then we should ask people to write their similes in the comments. And if they have a family, they can all do that, and the mom can comment and say, ‘Here’s what I came up with, here’s what my daughter says, here’s what my husband says,’ like that. And then we can do another post and we can include people’s comments.”

(Can you tell she’s being raised by blogger parents??)

So that’s what we’d like you to do today: Come up with a great simile and comment here with it!

We can’t wait to read what you come up with! I know I have some very creative blog-readers 🙂

Side note: While Life of Fred is described as a Christian series, we are a secular homeschooling family and haven’t had any problems using the fairly few spiritual references we’ve found as talking points about what different people believe, which we like to do anyway. I like to mention this any time I talk about it, just to be clear!

30Oct
8

What we’re reading: Bookshelf rotation edition

This edition of “What we’re reading” could more accurately be called “What we’re finished reading and what our options might be for The Next Thing,” but that’s rather clumsy as a post title.

Since I shared about our biography addiction, we’ve finished several books as a family.

I also finished two books I was reading on my own – Buzz Aldrin’s autobiography, “Magnificent Desolation,” and the autobiography of hacker Kevin Mitnick, “Ghost in the Wires.”

As a side note, while Life of Fred is described as a Christian series, we are a secular homeschooling family and haven’t had any problems using the fairly few spiritual references we’ve found as talking points about what different people believe, which we like to do anyway.

 

We tend to do this fairly often – finish a bunch of things at once. The thing is, unless we’re midway through a series, it often takes a little while before we start something new!

So what’s next?

My tried-and-true trick to help us find something interesting usually goes like this:

  • Attend used-book sale. Buy stuff.
  • Bring home finds from used book sale. Pile them in stacks around various rooms. Wince when you knock them over while vacuuming.
  • Look at all available family bookshelves. Wince again when stuff starts falling off as you browse.
  • Try to motivate family members to part with no-longer-loved books (or at least store them away) using phrases like, “Hey! Do you guys want to go play Sort the Books?”
  • Eventually get family members to take pity on you. Sort books using a multi-hour process that is as much family reading time as anything.
  • End up with new book possibilities on everyone’s bedside shelves!

Just did that over the weekend, to great results. We parted ways with many books, packed away a few boxes of Ashar’s still-loved-but-not-currently-being-read collection, and now have some solid leads on possible next books (in addition to Life of Fred: Goldfish, which we started two nights ago!)

What’s your family reading?