One week down. And I think we both really enjoyed ourselves. I feel so blessed to be able to do this for Annie. And I feel lucky for myself as well. It's so nice to get to spend so much one-on-one time with her. And I hope it will help our relationship with all those tumultuous years ahead. Maybe it will, maybe it won't...but it sure seems like it can't hurt.
We didn't really do anything overly exciting during our first week. We started To Kill a Mockingbird, and Annie is loving it as much as I'd hoped she would. We've done a lot of fun writing exercises...probably Annie's favorite part of school. We're studying U.S. Elections, and Rocks and Minerals, and Natural History of New York. The U.S. States is making up the biggest part of our geography studies this year...we covered Delaware and Pennsylvania during our first week. Though we still need to bake some Double Chocolate Cookies this afternoon...one of the fun things we're doing is baking recipes representative of many of the states (so thank you Hershey, PA!). Math continues to be Annie's least favorite subject, despite the fact that she does well with it.
Anyway, those are a few of the highlights from week one. May week two go as smoothly!
9 comments:
That all sounds awesome! I've said it before and I'll gladly say it again, that I think moms who homeschool are totally admirable :) Love what you guys are studying and doing together. Hope the next few weeks are even better than the first!
Your household sounds so cool and fun! :D I love all the books in the background of the photo too ;)
Baking recipes representative of the states, huh?....need someone to test the quality of the baked goods? ;)
I'm so glad your forst week back was so good! We start tomorrow. I sure hope our first week is as good as yours, LOL.
I just love, love, love that picture of Annie working. :o)
Hey Debi! Glad to hear things are going on well with you and your family!
Love the pic of Annie working... and all the books in the background as well! ;P
When you study Oklahoma you can make Indian fry bread :o)!
Cute picture, sounds like you have gotten off to a wonderful start.
In terms of math, don't forget to graph the weight of the mummifying chicken each time you change the salt mixture. If you let me know when you're doing it, I'll send you a couple of other graphs done during the process. The shape of the curve is basically the same shape each time. It's a fun way to work some math in along with the science and history.
Ooh, I just thought of another one, one that I did for accelerated math enrichment with a group of kids back when Steve was in 5th grade. I've pulled the article and will copy it to send to you along with a couple of others I found on math and middle school kids. The really fun one centers around the question "How big is Bill Gates's fortune?" You take the amount of his wealth and the dimensions or weight of a $100 bill and represent his fortune. One student calculated how much of our county's area in square miles could be covered. Another compared the stack of bills to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. Another represented the wealth in terms of number of whale sharks (using the average weight). You might also check out a new book by Danica McKellar, who used to be on The Wonder Years. Besides acting, she's a published mathematician and has just released a book on how to make math fun for ... middle school girls.
Want me to send up a small thing of Virginia peanuts for when you study the Old Dominion (one of four, I think, commonwealths as opposed to states)? It beats our other big product, tobacco.
Love the pic, sounds like a good week! I want some of those chocolate cookies...and I want to know, if you study Mississippi what will you make/bake?!!
I am glad you two are having fun...and the mother daughter bonding can't hurt a bit! And it looks like Jean is going to keep you in the know on some additional good activities!
Also glad that the boys had a good first day of school. Like you said, when you prepare for disaster, it is never quite as bad as you think it's going to be!
I'm glad to read the first week went so well. I like the idea of cooking your way through the state :) :)
I remember reading To Kill a Mocking Bird in high school. I enjoyed the book. This past summer I watched the DVD that I had bought about a year before. It's a great movie as well.
I hope this year is a wonderfully successful and happy school year for all of your kids.
take care,
Dawn
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