Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Excitement!

I don't see it very often anymore in my 11 y/o. She acts ho-hum about every assignment and every experience. Truly she has been outright resistant to learning these days. Until this morning. My husband had been talking to me about Asian children learning computer programming in the 1st grade, and I vowed to start my 7th grader. It took me a few weeks, but this morning I went over to Khan Academy to browse their free lessons, and there was computer programming. I know a few things about script, since I did a lot of statistical script writing in my other life. When I saw the examples, I was very excited, so when baby girl woke up I introduced her to computer programming. She stayed on Khan Academy's website doing computer programming for about 6 or 7 hours. She was excited about it, and I realized that it can assist with several subjects.


  1. Math (Geometry & Algebra)
  2. Science (Mechanical engineering)
  3. Spelling (She reads like crazy, but doesn't pay the necessary attention to spelling to be great at it. Script writing require attention)
  4. Art (color mixing, drawing, creativity)
  5. Critical Thinking (so many decisions to make to draw with script and to animate with script).
It's so funny because when she started it, it was like she was made for it. I got a little misty watching her go at it.


Friday, November 9, 2012

Pagliacci

I'm going to admit something. I am ignorant. Not about everything, but I was certainly ignorant about Pagliacci.  When I was a child my mom used to say "Don't play Pagliacci with me." We heard it all the time, whenever we did anything she perceived as being slick or clownish. One day I found out he was a clown. Last night I went to Educational Opera Night at the Performing Arts Center, and I found out he was a sad clown. I kinda knew that too because of Smokey Robinson's song "Tears of a Clown."

Anyway, Me & the 11 y/o went to the Opera last night and I learned so much. I heard songs that I have always heard on a quick commercial for a Pavarotti performance.

I learned about Pagliacci's story and it was educational and moving. I am very thankful for free Educational Opera Night here .