Wrapping up the school year

10 people read my blog...isn't that neat. I know 3 or 4 of them, I think. And I don't even pay them. Interestingly, 1 is from Canadia, 1 from Pakistan and 1 from Indonesia! Welcome, ya'all.

We have been lazily finishing up first grade at home. I finally found a homeschool group, now that they are also finishing up the school year, but they have some activities over the summer, so it'll be nice to get to know them. We went to a play group last week and I really like them. G says I should, cause they're flaky. Whatever.

S and I did some projects. Last week with Venus in transit, which we did not see a. cause it was cloudy and b. cause we didn't send away for special viewing glasses, gave us a reason to talk about how the earth goes around the sun, etc. From a neat book that Aunt Chris gave us, that's ancient (from the 80's), we learned how to make sun dials, so we made two:

the top one is your classic, horizontal dial and the bottom is the same concept, but with a little, bitty bead that casts a shadow.

Here is a neat page about sundials, from down under New Zealand, keep in mind when following the instructions.

S and her dad also started a garden. Our church's community garden had some room, so we took them up on their offer to use the space. They are keeping a journal of their activities. S worked hard, including turning the earth and staking our squares and deciding what was going to go where.

done tilling and weeding

boundary is marked off. with tiki torches, cause we're awesome!

someone has a bucket of tadpoles, so we took a picture. 

 S also finished up with her singing and dance classes AND there was Ag field day AND we took trips to the museum AND....we've been busy. More pics to come.

AND we won tix to see Cirque du Soleil in NYC! So we got dressed up all fancy and went to see a show in the big, big city like we are fancy people. Cause we are. 

S is independently reading! For the past week she's been sitting in bed (or on the potty) and reading Dr. Seusses to herself. Last night she read "Are you my mother?" and I almost cried when she wasn't looking. Later, I told her how proud I was of her and how her hard work had paid off, all those worksheets of phonics and consonants and sounding out words and word-of-the-day.

Then, yesterday, her and G were working on an Egyptian project. He found this thing at a thrift store for $5-it comes with a pyramid encased in "sand" and you have to chisel it out. By translating the hieroglyphics on the side, you find out what door to open and then you use your tools to open the lock. Inside is more sand and more digging out until you find the sarcophagus and the canopic jars and stuff. Anyway, G said that she remembered some of the hieroglyphics and could decipher it on her own. I'm so happy-she remembers stuff that we teach her! I mean, obviously she has learned a lot in the past year, but it's still gratifying and she really enjoys learning that stuff.

Now I just have to come up with a plan for today....

Ooh, look. It's been so long since I blogged that blogger done up and changed their whole format. Took me 10 minutes to figure out how to write a new post.

In weekly news, I've been working many days in a row after spending 5 glorious days at home, including Mother's Day, in which wonderful husband cooked an amazing dish of Salmon with Provencal Sauce over parmesan rice with home made rosemary focaccia. Dessert was cake from Tous Les Jours and ambrosia. Did I mention he cooked for us, my parents AND my sister and her boyfriend. He's too good, but he's upped the ante for Father's Day. Dang.

So, G has done most if not all of the homeschooling for the past week or so. Since taking her out of school last October, S has learned double digit addition and subtraction, lots about the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, and now the Mayans and Aztecs, is independently reading and knows what cells do.

Happy Biodiversity Day! Or Happy Rainforest Day! We spent about 30 minutes this morning learning about the rainforest, which is how I found a great site called Brain Pop, which is not free, but not terribly expensive. For $85/year we can get Pop Jr, for $170 we can get Brain Pop, Pop Jr and Senor Pop(It's not called that, but you get the idea). Right now I'm doing a 5 day trial to see if we like it. So far, Pop Jr seems a little too basic for S but the regular Pop seems too hard, but more to her interests.

So, now, before I go back to work tomorrow I must: send Marilyn my George St. Coop article, exercise, clean the house, finish S's lessons and maybe make a delicious but low carb lunch. I need some more tea.