Thursday's Homeschooling

We started today with the Golden Rule. I asked Aaron to read and write it. He resisted for a while but finally got through it. His reading seems to be getting better.

Next he asked me to read him the Declaration of Independence. He wanted to see a photo of the original Declaration, but all I found this time was a scan of a 1776 newspaper with the Declaration printed on it. We read and discussed it as we went. Aaron understood a lot of it just fine. Then I read from an adult book called Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution by Langguth. We were trying to get a feel for what the colonies were like before the Revolution, to understand better why the Declaration was written.

Next we read more from the book we have on New York. I informed Aaron I want him to remember all the state capitals as we read through the books. So far he's learned Trenton, NJ and Albany, NY. We spent some time talking about the Revolutionary War, and reviewed a bit about the French and Indian war. Since he's my only student, this is how I test him... rather than giving quizzes, I just ask questions to see how much he remembers and then we talk it over so hopefully next time I ask he'll remember.

Math was multiplication which he suffered through for the first two problems, then flew through the rest.

He did PE earlier in the day with his bike riding. This evening I showed him how to fix jello... let's call that home-ec... or is that science?

After that he worked on an art project - making a cartoon book. While he did that I read him the first two lessons for Latin for Mountain Men. We both enjoyed learning "Flamma fumo est proxima."

Wednesday's Homeschooling

Today we listened to a radio show about the Great Pyramid in Egypt, for our Ancient History class. We also read the news from this week's Pioneer Press and discussed it. The story Aaron wanted to hear was about a guy in Weed (that's a town near here) who was trying to hand start his small airplane. He had the throttle on full and flaps up, and it took off without him, dragging him a bit then going airborne a few feet, then crashing on the freeway. Very, very messy. Nobody was hurt, other than a few scrapes on the pilot. The plane was totalled.

After that Aaron wanted a haircut and I got out a book on how to do a boy type haircut and we looked at it, I did it, and it looks good.

The only other thing he did that I consider part of homeschool... is his bike riding - which is PE. He keeps saying he wants to get good at it and ride in the Tour de France. His current bike is a 10 speed, and he's really, really fast.

  ¶ 2:21 AM