A fresh start

Well, we seem to finally be back on our feet. Mango was terribly sick the week of Thanksgiving, and I've spent the month recovering from surgery. Mane has been learning lots just by living life and talking with us, but today we had a "real" day of homeschool...one that resembles the structure we started with this year.

Mane reviewed Psalm 23 after breakfast. Then we worked on adding a new portion of The Lord's Prayer. We read about the Maccabees again and about the significance of the menorah for Hannukah. We listened to Michael W. Smith's song of The Lord's Prayer, and then Mane listened to a story about the Maccabees that we found on the internet. I have a DVD from the library about Hannukah that we'll be watching this week, as well.

After that we did a Hooked on Phonics lesson and a lesson from Making Words.

We dug out the Human book and looked at the eye. Mane drew a picture of an eye - with the optic nerve, lens, cornea, and muscles. We talked more about optical illusions. Then we turned the page in the Human book and reviewed how our ears help us balance.

We began the next chapter of Story of the World about ancient China. We looked at the map and discussed why the Mesopotamian people referred to China as the Far East. Mane traced the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers on a map for her history binder, and we talked about the kinds of food grown in the Yellow River Valley. We read the story of how the first emporer's wife supposedly discovered silk, and Mane retold the story in her own words. Then she copied down some ancient Chinese pictograms from the Story of the World text.

When Mane got up this morning she was asking when it was going to snow. So, we looked at the 10-day forecast on the internet. Then we discussed whether the forecast was likely to be right or not, and we decided to keep a log of it for the next ten days. This led to a discussion of the scientific method, and we wrote out the method we'll be using to find out if the forecast is more often right or wrong.

Mane finished out the day by taking test 13 in Math U See. We'll be moving on to a section on measurement next!