The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home

So this is what my kitchen island looks like:

Homeschooling happens here.

This week at Redstone Academy: A Photo Essay

Bedtime Protests

"Anti-cookies and anti-screens will not be allowed when we rule the seas!"

"Screens for everyone! Screens for everyone!"

***LATER***

Connor figured out how to solve the 3x3x3 Rubik's cube just before bed.  He was not interested in going to sleep at all.

I finally convinced him to go to sleep, but he wouldn't give up the cube.  Later, we could hear him playing with it in the dark.  I whisper-yelled for him to go to sleep, and he responded:

"I'm shaving seconds off my time, Ma!"

This is what I found when I went to check on him a while later:

Happy Dreams of Rubik's Cubes!

Rubik's Cubes

Connor taught himself how to solve the 2x2 Rubik's cube that he got for Christmas, and then he decided that the Rubik's brand cubes were inferior, and so we ordered different brands of speed cubes on Amazon so that he could figure out what kind of cubes were the best.

I made sure that all the cubes that I bought were championship approved, because apparently that is a thing.

He has almost got the 3x3x3 cube all worked out.  He'll have it down soon, I'm sure.

Rubik's Cube

If you have been to our house in the past few months, you probably saw the Rubik's Cube sitting on the mantle in our living room. Maybe you even tried to solve it for a moment or two. Well, last night, I solved it!

I used the layer method, where you start by solving the white face first. If you do that properly, then the first row all the way around the cube is also solved. Then, you turn the cube so that the white face is the bottom, the red is the front and the yellow is the top. Using a few algorithms, you solve the middle row all the way around the cube, and then the top!

After I solved the white face for the first time last night, I ended up having to solve it four more times because I messed up during the next steps. Each time it was easier for me to do the white side, mostly because I *knew* that I knew how to do it, having done it before.

As soon as I had solved the cube and showed Kevin and let him take my picture, I had the urge to scramble it up and do it again. (I didn't, though, as it was late and time for bed.) I started playing with it last night after Connor went to bed (shortly after 8:00), and I had solved it by about 10:00 PM.

After I master this method, I want to learn another way to solve it as well.

The Rubik's Cube

Kevin bought a Rubik's Cube at the grocery store the other night. He plans to use the hints booklet that came with it to figure out how to do it. He told me that there are a ton of blogs out there about how to solve this puzzle. I'm going to try to solve it by myself for a little while. We'll see how we do.

P.S. Our cube doesn't look like this anymore.