We should really have picked new themes last week, but we seem to have decided to let the old ones roll over, and just added some extra math to the plan.

The Math Alive books from the library have been a huge hit -- there's one on how math is used in building, another on math in a variety of scientific fields, and so on. The only downside to the books is that Sarah wants to do each of the hands-on projects *immediately*, and I don't always have all the supplies available. I've convinced her to wait and do them all at once, next week, once I've gathered the stuff we need. She also wants to see me do all the Calculation Station math problems even if the math itself is a little above her head, so I wind up doing a whole lot of calculations in my head. Not always easy to shake awake all those old math skills when we're cuddled up cozy under the blankets, reading together!

We've also been doing business math. She decided to sell lemonade at the craft fair, and so we talked about how to price things -- starting by looking at the cost of supplies, then considering how much profit she wanted to make vs. how much people are likely to be willing to pay for a cup of lemonade. We've been doing other practical math, too -- measuring things, making maps, collecting data and then making graphs or pie charts or venn diagrams.

Since she wants to be doing more math problems that *feel* like math to her, as well, we've settled on Singapore math 2B after playing with their assessment tests together for a bit. I've heard really good things about Miquon as a supplement to Singapore, but can't seem to figure out which books to order. Maybe I'll take another look at it this week.

Besides math stuff, this week we talked about letter writing, about what goes into a formal letter or an informal letter, and how to form a paragraph. Sarah started working on a letter to my sister and will probably finish it up this week when we sit down for more writing time.

This week was also incredibly social. Monday morning we went to the homeschool gathering at the library (I was surprised to see so many friends there, as the previous times we'd gone we knew almost no one), then Fiber Arts, and then joined friends at their library for a storytime and an opportunity to play with a vintage typewriter! Tuesday I dropped Sarah off at K's house for fairy scouts. Thursday I dropped Sarah off at Joe's office for Take Your Daughter To Work day. And Friday was the craft fair, a long and wonderful day in the park with friends. It inspired me to try again to persuade Sarah to try out going down to homeschool soccer on Wednesday. Even if she decides not to play, I think it sounds like a wonderful day for hanging out with friends.

Oh, and then yesterday was G's birthday party, so we had another long day with different friends.

Sarah's birthday is coming up so soon. I can't believe she's going to be nine! She's just gone through two huge growth spurts, and I can feel her gearing up for another one. I feel as if I'm going to turn around and find a young lady in my house.