(no subject)
We had such a super awesome homeschooling day that I want to write about it so the next time I'm feeling insecure I can remember that sometimes it goes OK.
The main thing we did differently was we spent the bulk of the day without any handheld devices. No iPod for her and no phone for me.
The first thing she did was finish reading a book called Paddle to the Sea. It's a children's book, but full of information and beautifully written. It's about a young Indian boy who carves a canoe and names it Paddles-to -the-Sea. He puts it in the water in Lake Michigan, and the story describes its journey through all the Great Lakes and then the St. Lawrence Seaway and on to the ocean, ending in France. It's such a fabulous geography lesson, but not only that - there are illustrations showing how locks work, and cargo ships, and so many things.
The book mentioned where the Labrador current meets the Gulf stream, and the Grand Banks near Newfoundland. I was telling her about the movie "the perfect storm" and she decided she wanted to watch it. Unfortunately I couldn't find it for free online, so we didn't watch it today but hopefully we will tomorrow.
After that she worked for a while on what she is calling the ultimate cat toy. She has some kind of Doohickey rigged up on our ceiling fan with tape and rulers and yarn. It drives the cats crazy but it's not quite perfected yet.
We read a story by Tolstoy called "how much land does a man need?" I think? Something like that. That led her to exploring Samsara and the Volga River on Google earth. She also looked up pictures of the Bakshir (native people featured in the story) and she read about something called Kumiss, a drink made from fermented mares milk.
Then she discovered curlyhaired horses because they are the horses owned by the Bakshir. Seriously freaking awesome.
Poodle horses!!
She did a worksheet on greatest common factor, something she enjoys for some reason.
Then it was back to Russia. She looked up how to write her name in Cyrillic, and then how to write everyone else's name in Cyrillic, and read about what life is like for kids in Russia.
She read a magazine we happen to have about lakes, only the first couple pages which were about how lakes are formed. Then she looked up pictures of soda Lakes.
And Pingualuit Crater Lake in Quebec. It was caused by a meteorite 1.4 million years ago and is freakishly round.
Then, because random is always fun, she decided to look up why xylitol is dangerous for dogs.
We discussed origami and she decided she wanted to create her own. OK. She did a lot of paperfolding, I think the only thing that really worked was she figured out how to make some kind of cup. LOL
I can't wait to see what she does tomorrow.