Homeschool Update

Still frolicking through ancient history:







Videos watched over & over...


Some math:



Poetry:





And nature study:







Science: At Tuesday Science class, the kids learned about lasers and radar.

Lizards & Snakes Alive! and Butterfly Conservatory at the AMNH

On Friday, we took a trip to one of Mikro's favorite places with our homeschool group. The American Museum of Natural History exhibit on lizards and snakes was a huge thrill for Dinosaur Boy, who loves all things reptilian. Especially fun was the video game in which you play a snake hunting rats, and use your tongue to locate them, then chase them down, bite and swallow. This held the kids' rapt attention and was hard to tear them away from.







Mikro is also fascinated with metamorphosis and life cycles, and very much enjoyed having a butterfly land on him. Afterwards, we had a blast playing at the Diana Ross playground across the street in Central Park with friends.

King Tut

On Thursday, we went to the King Tut exhibit with Gramma.
There were many exquisite treasures from Tut's burial, as well as those of his parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

One really interesting piece was a statue that had been smashed during rogue monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten's (Tut's daddy) reign, which was restored under Tut, in a more modern style. I was oddly drawn to an ostrich plume fan that depicted Tut hunting ostrich, followed by a figure of a running Ankh... The wooden statue of a very young Tut has incredibly expressive eyes. The small viscera coffinette for Tut's liver was amazing, and the funerary mask of his grandmother was too, especially her eyes, which even had tear ducts! My husband was most taken with the intricate relief work on a ceremonial dagger that was found on Tut's mummy. Mikro's favorite thing was the resin cast of Tut's mummy. He was tiny! His head and rib cage were about the same size as 7 year old Mikro's, but he had really long legs. I was surprised by his slight stature.



My parents have never been happy about our decision to homeschool. It's way too "out there" for them, and I've heard all the usual stereotypical objections over the past couple of years... which is what makes what happened at Tut so funny and so sweet!

My mom could barely see to read the signage at the exhibit, so Mikro was reading everything to her, and talking to lots of older people who were asking him questions about the Egyptian stuff (how do you know that's Thoth, what's he the god of, etc., as Mikro was in full blown little professor mode).

Thursday night was one of the Discovery Center's educator events, so the house was *packed* with school teachers. One of them remarked to my mom on what a fantastic reader Mikro is. My mom, who did not hear my prior conversation with the lady, had no idea she was a teacher, or the following probably never would have occurred:

My mom: "Oh yes, he's homeschooled! His mom is doing an amazing job teaching him. He's an incredible kid!"

The teacher was shocked into silence (and may have thought my mom was being obnoxious...)

I almost fell over. My mother has done a complete 180. She's bragging on homeschooling!

Tuesday Science and Library Day

Tuesday Science was about Newton's Third Law" For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Balloon cars and balloon races illustrated the point.



Space reading was our library agenda for the day, with a little poetry riddle fun thrown in: