First week back and a field trip

Ah, school! We are officially back session and so far, so good. We are using Sonlight this year and we are enjoying it. I've had to do a lot of tweaking to it, but it's nice to have most stuff just laid out for me. I open the schedule book and off we go. Heaven! There is a lot of stuff included in this program, but I've already started supplementing it. This is a Christian curriculum, but I actually prefer not to include religion in our homeschool. Why did I choose Sonlight then? Well, the fact that it's literature based and comes with fantastic books is the main reason, but again, having the schedule laid out was a HUGE plus. The biggest disappointment with the program was that the first 17 weeks of language arts (reading done by Indy) was from the Bible. Indy was so not happy about this. He wanted to read all the other books that were included. He knows his Bible stories and really, really, really did not want to read nothing but the Bible (seriously, every day for 17 weeks!). I knew this would not instill a love of reading in him, which is what I'm really trying to do this year, so I ordered a bunch of basic readers from Amazon, took out one of the blank scheduling sheets Sonlight so thoughtfully provides and made up my own LA program. He's so happy with it. I did leave in some of the Bible stories for him to read because he should be well versed in certain stories (for cultural references if nothing else), but 17 weeks? No thank you.
I've also added a section on world religions (using The Usbourne Encyclopedia of World Religions) because I think it is important for him to know about more than just Christianity. He finds the concept of other religions really interesting. We're also supplementing a world cultures program (using Children Just Like Me). He loves CJLM. I find it funny because it was published in 1994 and the fashions are early 90's awesome.
We're currently reading Charlotte's Web for our read aloud and it is great. Story time is his favorite time of the day. We leave the school room to go cuddle up on the sofa and read. I know I'm going to cry though. Charlotte dies, people! She dies! Hope I didn't ruin that for you. ;)

On Friday we took a field trip downtown (I promised him a field trip for our first week) to the Kurpfalz Museum. The jawbone of the Heidelberg Man is there and as we're working on prehistoric stuff (well, not yet, but we will) I thought it would be fun. He loved it! Unfortunately they don't let you photograph inside the museum (boo!) so I couldn't take any cool shots inside.

Indy waiting at the bus stop for the number 29 to the Bizmarkplatz. He's very excited.


Here we are!


We stopped for lunch at a cafe first (priorities people!). Indy ordered a Margherita pizza (cheese and basil). Look how big that thing is!


I had 2 bites! Indy ate the whole thing!


Outside the museum in the courtyard.

After we saw all the cool stuff (and there is lots of cool stuff there, including artifacts from when HD was a Roman encampment), we went to the cafe that is in the courtyard for a little desert. Indy loved the fountain.


In addition to some postcards we bought to show what we'd seen (since I couldn't take pictures-bitter much?) he HAD to have the Emperor's ring. He wore it all day at the Roman Fest the next day and told everyone he was the ruler. He's so humble, my boy.

Something he liked more than the fountain and the ring:


By the time we headed home, it was about 5pm and the evening entertainers were coming out to make their money. This guys was awesome! The 'dancing' puppet cracked us up.


The musicians were really good, but the dancer was a bit loopy. She kind of scared me. Plus her dancing style totally didn't match the music. Whatever.

There were actually about 7 more entertainers out, but I decided not to take pictures of them all. If you take photos, you kind of have to give them money, and well, some just weren't that good.
All in all, it was a great field trip. We saw tons of cool stuff and it helped him to relate more to the stuff we've been reading about. Go field trips!