"How do you pour kids?"

That one's from Sylvia. I was being silly about something and said, "You poor kids!" and we were playing with cups and water at at the time, so she took it as "pour" and asked, "How do you pour kids?" I just shook my head and laughed.

DH took the girls up to his mom's over the past weekend and he happened across a program on the History Channel (or National Geographic, I forget which) about Alexander's tomb. Becca heard "Egypt" and "Alexander" from the next room and ran in to see the show. She actually sat down and got interested in the show! Sylvia wasn't happy about losing her sister's attention so she kept trying to make noise and distract her. MIL kindly took Sylvia in the other room and painted her fingernails, reasoning that, "Any six year old who wants to watch a show about Alexander's tomb should be allowed to do it in peace!" LOL

They're loving the library's summer reading program, even though it's kind of a joke because the library doesn't actually reward reading this year. They go and sign up and get entered into a drawing for every 5 books we check out. But it's on the honor system, so who knows if the books are truly read? Of course we'll read ours, but that's not my point! We also get special activities in and out of the library, which is fun. But at least last year we got coupons at the end of the program, and my girls actually had the joy of turning in a full reading log. This year we just have a checklist, which Sylvia is filling out at an alarming rate. It's not a big deal, because summer reading is just gravy for us, but still - my girls are reading a LOT and it would be nice to let someone besides Mommy and Daddy notice it.

We started a plant experiment with our bean seedlings today. The girls got some simple blank books from the teacher supply store for Plant Books. All of our notes and pictures go straight in there - it saves me a couple of extra steps this unit (the human body unit was extra challenging!). I gave Becca some sentences to copy into her book describing the experiment and she added "hypothesis" in at the appropriate place. She almost spelled it correctly on her own too!

Where do you go when you don't know what a word means?

We were driving home from Becca's choir concert and talking about Word Girl. DH asked Becca, "If you don't know what a word means, where can you go to find out?"

I knew her response a split second before she said it.

"A computer?"

Yep... 21st century kid alright! Don't get on me, we do have and USE a dictionary, but we haven't gotten to full-on dictionary skills yet.


Becca won two silver medals (floor and balance beam) and two bronze medals (bars and trampoline/vault) at her gymnastics competition. She was great at choir, sang beautifully and had a short solo part. Sylvia had her first gymnastics exhibition and was beyond adorable. She did a great job - I was pleased with how well she did, given that this was her first semester in class!

That boring math

We're 17 lessons from the end of RightStart A. Becca was showing a little impatience with it today (it's a K level math) and I asked her if it was too easy. "Well, not too easy..." Uh huh. It's a little too easy but math sometimes freaks her out, so she likes it a little easy. I tried to gently talk to her and tell her that we were going to move on and it might get a little more challenging soon. She said she didn't want to go back to "that boring math that we used to do" (Singapore Math) and I reassured her that she'd still get to use the abacus, play card games, and have a lot of fun. She was so excited she wanted to do the remaining 17 lessons today! I guess she really hated Singapore - it moved quickly but wasn't fun enough or something. I liked it, but that was the parental perspective, and if she's not learning from it that's a moot point. She wanted to know if RightStart went up to Level Z and was worried to find out that it only went up to E and then Geometry. I assured her that they'd probably make more books as she advanced and it would probably take her to high school level math. High school seems far enough away for her to not be too worried about it. Maybe I'll try to pick up the pace for our last few RS lessons and go on into Level B. I'm just nervous about hitting a wall again like we did with Singapore.

She's also enjoying some fun math supplementation from MEP (Mathematics Enrichment Programme). This is adapted from some Hungarian model... something like that. Exotic countries have the best math, apparently. It's getting a lot of play on the WTM boards right now, so I've printed off the early sheets for Becca to play with since RS doesn't have many worksheets. Oh - MEP is free. Don't all stampede over there at once! She shows a real interest in these sheets - they help her thinking and logic skills too, and she gets to use colored pencils and draw pictures. Here's the link: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

It's not a science book, sweetie.

Headed to the library today to grab some African folktales for our next unit and more reading material for Sylvia. I got a ton of Anansi tales, including one retelling titled Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. Becca helped me put the books in the bag, noticed the title, and asked to read it in the car. So I handed it to her and we drove home. The library (tiny though it is) is very close to our house. When we got home, Becca said, "This book doesn't tell us why mosquitoes really buzz in people's ears!" She was about halfway through and I had to explain that this wasn't a scientific text, but a folktale!

We made paper today (actually, we recycled it, but it's close enough) and Becca finally got to have free rein with her Ancient China box! Heaven!

"How do you say ice cream in Latin?"

That's what Sylvia asked me last night during her pre-sleep snuggle. I promised her I'd look it up and tell her tomorrow.

By the way, it's gelidum cremum. Sylvia was tickled when I told her!

Today's activities and some old ones too

We're on to ancient China, which is fascinating... okay, all of it's fascinating to me. A product of US public education, I am encountering all of this for the first time. So today we opened up our Ancient China Treasure Chest and ground an ink stick to practice a little calligraphy. Sylvia wanted to try it out too, but I was surprised by it and didn't get her in the pics.

Grinding the ink

Calligraphy - she was determined to do them ALL!


Other highlights from today:

Sylvia marching around while singing along with the Latin songs. Why does this seem so out of reach for preschoolers? I think Song School Latin, at least the songs and vocabulary, would be completely doable with a small 4 year old class. Or maybe I just don't know 4 year olds very well. One of the songs says, "If you bump into a little man and make him spill his tea, say ignosce mihi." Becca said, "But what if he doesn't speak Latin?"

Right Start math - I just got Level B and after a brief period of mild panic, I think we can do this. We - Becca and I. I could do Singapore, maybe Becca just couldn't. So far our Right Start results are promising. Becca asks to do math first almost every day. She loves the card games and really seems to be getting it. Maybe it's because we went back and are re-doing things we already covered in our Singapore experiment, or maybe RS has a better touch. All I know is that Sylvia - SYLVIE, my 4 year old - is starting to remember number pairs that make ten. Yes, "Go to the Dump" really is that great.

Speaking of Sylvia, she took a ton of books off the shelf and just started to read them. She counted them and had in the neighborhood of 22. She's starting to truly take off in her reading and become a little more fluent, less halting.

I just love the little things in homeschooling. The silly, strange moments you'd never get with any other experience.






Becca tracing her digestive system - 4 and 6 year olds find the manufacture of poop to be endlessly amusing.
Sylvia posing with her outline
"Helpful Spit" from Head to Toe Science. It would have been helpful to have unexpired iodine, which I think might have affected the outcome of this experiment. I don't know if I was able to accurately convey to Becca the role saliva plays in our digestive system, but it's all about the experience when you're five - er, six. Right?

The Golden Apple, from our studies on ancient Greece (SOTW Ch. 23). The whole thing says "For the Most Beautiful." DH presented it to me. Smart man.


Olympus Family Tree, also SOTW Ch. 23. The book that more thoroughly explains this was perpetually checked out of the library, so we just got our hands on it. We tried to put the gods and goddesses in some sort of hierarchical order, but who knows. It's the experience that counts, it's the experience that counts...


Pharos lighthouse (SOTW Ch. 25). I just couldn't buy a whole roll of yellow plastic wrap, so we just put it in the window so the sun would shine through the windows. Becca was more fascinated by the library in Alexandria - girl after my own heart!



We're almost done with our Mommy-designed human body studies and I'm making preparations for a short unit on plants. Very short, as in, how can we get this stuff in before Mommy kills all our specimens? I just killed a batch of three seedlings we were growing "just for fun." *rolls eyes at self*

Questions, questions...

A small sampling from the past few days, all Becca:

Why is the ocean blue?

Why is the sky blue?

Why is the sand yellow?

When will they make it stop raining? (we were in a rain delay at a baseball game)

When will I be in high school?

What will I learn then?

Why am I not as tall as this? (4'9" booster seat info sign - and I'm wondering why I had to go to a rest stop to see this kind of info - why isn't it at the doctor's office? Wal-Mart? Posted near any place you might buy car seats? Gas stations?)

What if I was one foot tall?

Will you give me a challenging spelling word?

Is she trying to steal my goat? (After I was explaining how Sylvia deliberately did some things to "poke" at Becca and Becca obliged her by getting upset)

What if the Gingerbread Man ate himself?


I'm exhausted just remembering all of these!