Pompeii

We finally saw the Pompeii: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius exhibit at the Discovery Time Square Exposition Center. It was a very interesting exhibit, broken into a before and after arrangement. In between the two sections, there is a video presentation showing a recreation of the erruption of the volcano. The sound system lets you feel the rumble.

The frescoes are incredible. As a potter, I really enjoyed the terracotta vessels (and annoyed my family by sketching them...) The body casts are chilling, especially the toddler and the small children. They got to me in a visceral, mama bear way. There's a lot of information on daily life, including food and cooking, house layout, trade, jewelry, etc. Very worth a visit, though I'm not sure I would take a kid much younger than 7, because it's a fairly traditional museum exhibit-- not a lot of hands on, specifically kid oriented material, but if your kids have studied Pompeii, definitely see it before it closes on September 5th!



The published exhibition catalog really isn't a catalog-- it's very short and light on content, and made me wish photography had been permitted...

Homeschool Update

More books, mostly history related...








Science class was about meteors and comets. There was an experiment with flour (about meteor craters) that Mikro had to sit out, due to his wheat allergy. But Nitro John let him assist in a demo, so he was OK with it. They made a dry ice comet, and then made superball comets (with sparkly tails) to take home.



Reptile Boy enjoyed coloring these wooden lizards with wood markers (both from Oriental Trading Company).



And in honor of our Roman History studies, he made this dragon mosaic (with some help from me whe he got bored filling in all the blue sky pieces...)

Homeschool Update

We've been reading:

History:




And continuing our scavenger hunt for things mythological:



And dressing up as Poseidon. He wants to take his trident everywhere...


Some science: reading (including science poems) and classes on life in outer space and rocket building...









And there has been lots of Math. We are loving Math Start books, and some others as well. He's really starting to get place value and regrouping. I am thrilled that he seems to have a good grasp of math concepts, even if remembering math facts is not high on his priority list at the moment. He's getting some from using them, and he's picked up some from math songs, including the We Love Math CD by Jennifer Fixman (and we also highly recommend her Science Songs with Miss Jenny.)









Some general reading:





Playing with art supplies (and as you can see, Mama got into them, too!)







And helping weed, plant and mulch our kitchen garden:





I love that my son will read anywhere he can! If I'm busy, and he needs to find something to occupy himself with, he doesn't look for trouble; he grabs a book. I couldn't be more thrilled.