History

This week in “Story of the World,” we talked about the Diaspora, or the scattering of the Jewish people after the Romans kicked them out of Judea. Our project was to do our own responsa, which SOTW tells us is how the rabbis communicated their beliefs and ideas via letters to the scattered people. Poppy and I tried to communicate only through the written word for an hour, but we only lasted about half an hour. She said the hardest part about it for her was not being able to say “I love you” to me (melt), and I found it difficult because by the time I’d finished writing something to her she was already thinking about something entirely different. It was an interesting experiment.

Reading

Pete is gaining confidence in his reading. He’s a few books into the third set of Bob Books, and every now and then he does a little spontaneous reading while we’re out and about. I don’t think it’s entirely dawned on him that the can read, if that makes sense, but he’s nearly there.

Poppy, meanwhile, is reading everything in her path as long as it isn’t something suggested by her mother.

In read-aloud news: Rockford is very slowly making his way through “The Hobbit” with the kids, and I’m reading “Gone-Away Lake” by Elizabeth Enright with them.

Math

The kids have both been working on new concepts recently. Poppy’s McRuffy Math introduced fractions a few weeks ago, and Pete is starting to learn to tell time and use coins. Big doings ’round here.

Science

We finally finished the first section of Nancy Larson Science 1 this week. It was all about human development and life stages, and I have to say it was less engaging than I’d hoped the curriculum would be. We’re going to skip around a little and do the insect section next. I’m hoping there will be more hands-on activities involved.

Extracurricular

Our homeschool co-op had a talent show this week, and both of the kids participated. Poppy recited the Preamble to the Constitution, “Toasting Marshmallows” by Kristen O’Connell George and “Sunflakes” by Frank Asch, and Pete did some freestyle dancing to the “Ghostbusters” theme song. They were both fearless and awesome. Some of the other kids played piano, sang, did tae kwon do and played guitar (not all at once), and one girl did a crazy-impressive routine with hula hoops. Pete was astonished by that one. I heard him whisper “But you can’t do that” to himself when she added the third hoop.

The kids have been taking an art class at a local art studio for the last few months. Poppy loves it, but I’m afraid Pete is going to get kicked out. There was an incident this week with the sprayer and a ruined screen print.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!