This month's Country Day was set in the USA. Sarah did a presentation on the Lenni Lenape (also known as the Delaware), and we brought baked beans to share. Her presentation was excellent, and she brought in the lenape toy and the clay pots she made at the Essex County Environmental Center's Lenape program, the other week.
We took the train down there (we're without a car for the moment) and, while the trip was a lot of fun, it was obscene how expensive it was. It would have been only marginally more expensive to rent a car for the day (seriously, we're talking maybe another $5 to rent a car, including all the fees). But Sarah had so much fun that she's asking to spend a day just riding the rails from place to place. Our friend K suggested taking a train down to Trenton and from there to Philly. The evening was gorgeous and stormy, and we had a good time watching all the layers of clouds floating by.
Today we hosted a singing gathering here at our place. We introduced our friend B to a few new songs, and she introduced us to The Island Song and Hoist The Colors (from POTC3). I think we're going to shift the music group to being a straightforward singalong one afternoon a month, instead of trying to integrate any music instruction, right now.
I really need to get a couple digital cameras -- one for family photos and one for taking photos of our homeschool activities for scrapbooking and posting. Maybe for Christmas.
This week we mostly focused on getting back in the habit of playing school every morning (November was a hard month in our household, and a lot of our routines fell by the wayside). We worked on Sarah's NaNoWriMo project, continued researching Chinese mythology, researched the Lenape, and did a lot of reading about New Jersey (history and political structure, mostly, but also familiarizing ourselves with the map of NJ and learning where on the map to locate the towns where our friends live).
Next week we're finishing up the prehistory reading we've been doing (mostly in The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History), and putting together our own book on prehistory. We'll also be continuing with Spanish and math (I can't wait to take a look at all our new math books!) and spelling (we've been slowly compiling a list of the words Sarah knows how to spell and making a point of paying attention to the spelling of words she writes frequently).
About Me
- Elizabeth
- I'm a homeschooling mom, an activist, a lifelong learner, an expatriate New Yorker, an amateur musician. I'm passionate about music, food (making it, eating it, and making sure it's safe, healthy, and plentiful for everyone), civil liberties, social justice, education reform, and books. My past lives have included stints in the fields of social work, tech support, and alternative education. My super secret goal is to be part of a band that's just good enough to play at local pubs and get paid in bottles of Original Sin hard cider. Well, that and to take over the world.
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