What we do

We work hard most days. Indy is making great progress despite the fact that he still can't read. Sigh. Here's a glimpse at our day.

Indy putting his spelling words in alphabetical order. The blue thing there is his "office." It is a great reference tool for him.



Being silly, showing off his Ancient Mesopotamia post card. Didn't he do a nice job coloring?



Here's our board where each day I write down daily info, and the weather, which Indy loves to report on. BTW, einundzwanzig is twenty-one in German and Mittwoch is Wednesday.


And here's the board the next day. Indy decided to "decorate" it while I made lunch. I could hear him giggling, but I had no idea what he was up to.


Let's zoom in for a closer look:


We finished up Mesopotamia last week and started Egypt this week. He is over the moon about this. He loves Egypt. We'll probably study it for at least another week (maybe 2) before moving on to Ancient Greece. Yesterday, we learned about Egyptian home life. He was interested and asked a million questions (thank goodness for the internet!). We decided that it would be great fun to have an Egyptian meal for dinner. Oh, it sounds easy, but really, not so much. First off, finding Egyptian food is HARD. We finally had to compromise and have a late Egyptian meal after the Greeks and Romans had introduced them to some new foods. We had falafel in pita with lettuce and a yogurt sauce, flat bread with hummus, dates, nuts and melons. We sat on cushions on the floor around a low table and talked about Egypt while we ate everything with our hands. It was great fun. M was looking at me like I'd lost my mind when he saw me cooking falafel, but once he tried it, he really liked it. He actually enjoyed the meal more than we did I think. Who knew? Indy loved the dates. He's never had them before. He asked me like 10 times before he ate them though if I was SURE they weren't poisoned. Why? Remember the monkey that ate a poisoned date meant for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark? That's why. I assured him they were poison free and he tucked in.
After the meal, Indy bounced up and went to play, while M and I struggled to get off the floor. We felt so OLD! We laughed at how, when we were in college, we used to sit on the floor by choice. We eschewed perfectly good furniture to sit on the floor. We loved sitting on the floor. Now we sit onthe floor for 30 minutes and we aching and creaking like 90 year olds.

I'm such a slacker!

Ugh! I have been so bad about keeping this blog updated. Now that the holidays are over though, I'll try to keep up with it a little more. We have not been slacking in home schooling though. We are so close to getting over the "I can't read" hump I can almost taste it. It gets better every day and all I can say is THANK GOODNESS! This reading thing is killing me! Killing. Me. There are days when I just want to bang my head on the table. He's such a smart kid (if you don't believe me, just ask him, he'll tell you!), but he's super lazy about reading. Ack!
Here are a sampling of the things we've done over the past few weeks:

made a compass (water, needle, cork)
grew borax crystals
made a gingerbread house (and then ate a large chunk of it)
strung popcorn and cranberries
read most of Despereaux (I read it it to him-we're a little over halfway through)
learned about nomads, and the first farmers of Mesopotamia
caught snowflakes on black paper and studied their shapes
cut out paper snowflakes
made a magnetic paperclip chain
planted seeds and watched them grow

Wow, when I look at the list, we've done quite a lot. And this of course doesn't include daily stuff, like reading, writing, math, German, etc.

And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again

Ah, the holidays. Fun, family, togetherness. Isn't it great? I think so...most of the time. I'm sure we've all heard It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas eleventy-billion times and sing every word verbatim. It's running through your head now, isn't it? Your welcome.
On the radio and TV for the past 2 weeks (well, the ones in English anyway), they've been giving parents suggestions on what to do to keep the kids occupied until school starts back after the holidays. I have to say I've never really given it much thought before, but now I'm wondering why it's such a chore to have your kids home all day? They make it out to be such a rough thing. Poor parents, they can't cope with their own children for 2 weeks. Home school parents are with their kids all the time and rarely do they end up in the loony bin. Okay, maybe a few (I could be one of them one day). Why are people so dependent on school to keep their kids occupied? Let me tell you that I do NOT keep Indy occupied 24/7. If he's bored, he has plenty of toys, books, games, whatever, to do. I'm his mom, not his entertainment director. Ooooh, now I'm totally imagining myself like that woman on The Love Boat....Julie? Was that her name? Whatever. I'm curious as to why people think children must be entertained or occupied. Sometimes life's most wonderful moments happen in unoccupied moments. I am not saying that because I'm with my kid all the time I'm a better parent (believe me, I am flawed beyond measure), but spending a whole day, a weekend, a week or even a month with my child doesn't strike terror in my heart.