Doldrums

Topic: Doldrums

February 25 – March 1

The Phantom Tollbooth, Chapters 1 & 2

Workshop Activities

1. Craft – Play with gears

2. Key Points - Doldrums

3. Collaborative – Quest for Questions

4. Writing – Homophones Hunt

5. Math/Logic – Lethargarian Schedule

6. Genius Principle – My Schedule

7. Big Activity - Beating the Doldrums

8. Movement - Take a Walk

Minecraft Activities

Explore Milo's room
Go through tollbooth, beyond Expectations, and into the Doldrums
Escape the doldrums by thinking of great thinkers
Experience multiple intelligences
Build Challenge: What you like to do in order to stay out of the Dolrums

Upcoming Events

Weekly teen hangouts in Santa Ana https://www.facebook.com/events/317560022131506/
Disneyland meetup: March 6 - Worlds of Words and Numbers https://www.celebrationeducation.com/copy-of-theme
Field trips – Trips are currently being scheduled! New trips posted here: https://socalhomeschooladventures.com/product-category/field-trips/celebration-education-field-trips/
4/10 Celebration: Milo's Homecoming https://www.celebrationeducation.com/celebrations

Fireworks

Read through the fireworks and choose about five that you think might interest your child. Allow him or her to select 1-3 of them.

Have a do nothing day. Try to do nothing for an entire day.
Milo didn't like “learning to solve useless problems, subtracting turnips from turnips, or knowing where Ethiopia is or how to spell February.” Can you do these things?
Create a bulletin board full of pictures of things you can do instead of getting lost in the doldrums.
Different from the Lethargarian's rule book, create a rule book full of ordinances that will keep you from getting caught in the doldrums.
Make your own tollbooth.
Practice telling time. Throughout the day, look at clocks in your home and identify what time it is. Do you have a face clock? Have your parents help you tell the time on the face clock.
Notice the map in the front of the book. Make up your own map for a fictitious place. Include several different land formations, such as mountains, islands, harbors, etc.
Read these quotes from the book:
“Seeking knowledge is the greatest waste of time of all.”
“Time is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds.”
“People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums .”
“Expectations is the place you must always go before you get to where you're going.”
“Expect everything... and the unexpected never happens.”
“If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.”
“You must help yourself.” What do these statements mean? What are your thoughts on these statements? Do you agree or disagree with any of them? Write your ideas down. Can you write some of your own statements?
Set an alarm to wake you up in the morning or to do something such as schoolwork, eat a meal, or do a chore.
Tock said that time was invented. If you invented time, would you make 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day? What about dividing up a day, hour, or minute into parts that are easier mathematically? For example, What if a day were divided into 25 hours? Then it's easier to remember how many hours in four days: 100. How would you divide time?
A Lethargarian said,“We'd never get nothing done.” This is a double negative. Does it mean they always get everything done? What do these sentences mean?
I didn't go nowhere today.
I'm not hungry no more.
You don't know nothing.
There was never no more laziness at work than before.
I didn't not go to the park today.
We can't not go to sleep!
Hold a laughing competition with a friend or family member. Who can go the longest without laughing? Clock it on a stopwatch.
Dissect an old watch.
Experiment with gears: http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html
Explore ratios and proportions with gears: http://teachergeek.org/gears-basic-ratio-lab.pdf