The Run-Down from Last Week

Although last week wasn't quite as full as the week before, we felt comfortably busy. On Thursday we drove Mango & Vespera to school so that we could have the car for the day. We spent some time at a coffee shop. Mane took the test for math lesson 25, moved along in the 100 words book, and read me some more of the Berenstain Bears Honey Hunt story. Then I read to her from Story of the World. We read the story of Joseph from the Bible and saw how it fit with this place in history, and we also read The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story. This story is set in Mesopotamia, the region of the world we're studying right now. I like parts of it better than the traditional Cinderella story. It's interesting, too, that we just saw a ballet of Cinderella. So, we're getting lots of practice comparing and contrasting the different stories.

In the afternoon, we met up with another homeschooling family at the Carl W. Kroening Interpretive Center in Minneapolis. The building doesn't look all that beautiful from the outside, but it's a wonderful place inside. There are various activities for kids, including aprons and baskets of plastic foods to pretend Farmer's Market. We were there to watch the birds out the window, but, apparently, there had just been a group of people at the Interpretive Center, and the birds were hiding out. So, we walked through the animal room, which had a bunch of aquariums with different types of turtles (and a centipede - yuck!). Mane says her favorite part was playing with the Farmer's Market and pretending to drive the old car they have set up in the middle of the room. I should have taken photos. I guess there'll have to be a next time, no?

The homeschooling family we met up with has 2 girls, one younger and one older than Mane. The younger girl invited Mane to her birthday party in a few weeks. The two of them are very similar in personality, and they are separated in age by just a year. We picked out a birthday present for her over the weekend, and we're looking forward to getting to visit their house since they've already been to ours.

After the Interpretive Center, we headed over to Sumner Library in North Minneapolis to bide our time until we needed to pick Mango & Vespera up from school. We checked out some books on spring and maple syrup.

Over the weekend we participated in Earth Hour (see the previous post here at Peregrin House), and we also spent about an hour at Borders book store checking out their bargain book sale. Mane and Mango sat down and looked through huge books about Egypt, which was a perfect reinforcement of all we've been learning. I picked out a book called The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Aztec & Maya. I love having real books to reference as we learn history, and learning about the history of Mexico is something we've been wanting to study for some time now. The Aztec and Maya people are in the later part of our Story of the World book. So, I'm getting ready to make it a really great unit. We also picked out a book of poetry that came with a CD of the poets reading their own poems. Mane was fascinated to hear Robert Frost reading Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, since we have the picture book, and Mane knows the poem well.

As spring comes, I'm definitely feeling more energetic, and I'm starting to look at what homeschooling over the summer might mean for us. I have more energy in the summer, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't do more focused learning in the summer than we've done in the past. ...and then I might feel less pressured in the winter when we just want to sit by the fire and read books.