our week

This was our first week back to homeschool, and I was a little busy fine tuning our new rythym to post, so this will be a couple of posts rolled together. Try to keep up if you can.

The corn is officially upon us, washing over us in waves along with the zuccini and tomatoes, a perfect vegetable storm. The kids have just discovered raw sweet corn is a perfect summer treat. Plundering the garden for snacks is one of the best things about their summer.

the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Luc's foot for scale.

We kicked off earth science this year with a scale model of the solar system. So many representations of the solar system in childrens books and encyclopedias are not to scale. I think it is impossible for kids to really understand the immensity of space and our tiny spot in it by looking at picture books. Our scale is roughly 1"=20 million miles. We made a large circle of paper aprox. 27" in diameter to represent the sun (the kids colored it to look like it was on fire and labled it). The rest of the planets were made with playdoh, and we used the driveway for a back drop since we needed over 15 feet to lay it all out.

Pondering our insignificance in the universe. The Sun is at the bottom of the photo next Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars (which you can see if you squint) followed by Jupiter (white) Saturn (yellow) Uranus (lavendar) Neptune (pale yellow) and the dwarf planet Pluto (so tiny 1/8 " we made a chalk circle around it so we wouldn't lose it)

our wee little playdoh earth

Emory has complained that she did not have enough skirts in her wardrobe, so her new fall clothes have included mostly denim skirts and lots of colorful tights and leggings. It is not fall yet, in fact it is still quite hot, but she begged me so prettily that I consented to let her try out her new clothes this week. She must have been sweating a lot.

I love tights and chuck taylors

The alternator died on our car last Friday. Bruce resourceful as he is, decided it was a repair he could do himself. I admit I was doubtful. He bought a Chilton guide, a serpentine belt and a rebuilt alternator at the autoparts store. Two hours later our car was in perfect working order. Color me impressed. Bruce confesses that he owes his success to my dad's well stocked tool cabinet. It cost us less than half of what it would have if we had taken it to the autoshop.

Emory discovering how to blend oil pastels, and Luc exploring his cuisenaire rods

Our new approach to school has been fairly succesful, though it has only been one week. Emory has had a lot more control over her school work and more time devoted to the things and subjects that she likes. Art for example. I am so exicted to introduce her to real art materials. I didn't get my first set of oil pastels until I was in high school, and my first set of acrylic paints until I was 16. It is magical watching her experience and explore all of this cool stuff she has never seen or used before.