Sunday, March 31, 2013

Spring Break 2013

Around here, Easter Week and Spring Break are one and the same. So, Lu and I took this past week OFF! Hurray for vacations! We worked hard the first three months of this year, and a break was much needed. 


We got lots of lake time. 




 That's a friend's tattooed foot, not mine.
I'm too chicken to get a tattoo.

But, if I ever did...
it would be a hippo with butterfly wings.

The hippo for my son,
the butterfly wings for my mom.
Long story...
 


Lu took advantage of the 7-day presence of people
visiting from the capital, and other places,
to sell his jewelry.

He also paid his first municipal tax
as a street vendor.



Sushi was a very big part of our break.

Sushi is, and has always been (since I tried it), my absolutely most favorite food in the whole wide world, and Lu shares my sushi passion. Recently, we've had a REAL sushi chef and his assistant/girlfriend RIGHT HERE in our TINY little town. OMG!!! How lucky is that? 

So, we went as often as we could, 
and Tanner even gave Lu some sushi rolling lessons.



Colleen was also homeschooled, and told us that she was very grateful to her mama for an awesome education at home. It's nice meeting homeschooled adults - I don't know many.






Mmmm.... teriyaki salmon and mango, 
spicy tuna and cucumber, lots of wasabi and ginger, 
lemonade for Lu, and a dark beer for mama.

¡Salud!


Breaks are nice. Very nice :)

Friday, March 22, 2013

Ancient Greece - The Poster


We've come to the end of our 3-month journey
through Ancient Greece.

We read Socrates and learned about Archimedes.

We watched  Engineering an Empire - Ancient Greece , both the 1956 and the Oliver Stone versions of the life of Alexander the Great, and The Odyssey.

We learned about the earlier Greek civilizations, the wars, the great thinkers, the discoveries, and the conquests.

And finally, we came to our final project:

A Poster

Day 1

Drawing the map of Greece



Finding Images

and learning to edit them in Photoshop


Mama Helping

Lots of Cutting and Gluing

Crash

Back to Work


Day 2


Final Touches



And Done!


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Triangles, Translations, a Stool, and a Floor Plan

We continue working with triangles, and we're really starting to get into the thick of 5th grade geometry. This stuff is no joke. It's got me on my knees. I've been having to do some homework on my own time, so that Lu doesn't catch on to how clueless I am. lol. No, actually, he already knows.


Between Khan Academy videos and 5-minute tutorials from my husband, in a rush after lunch, when we weren't able to find the solution to a problem, we manage to "get" the math.



Lu's been translating for a photography workshop. The teacher doesn't speak much Spanish, so he translates for her, while learning about photography himself. I'll post some of his photos soon.



In History, he's been making a glossary of famous Ancient Greeks.



He's spent hours in the tool shed, building a little wooden stool for a friend who is celebrating his second birthday.







It's not even finished yet, 
and kitty is trying to claim it for himself with his 
"Don't touch my stool, fool" face on.





 Back to geometry (which has been taking A LOT of our time lately)...

I was terrible at math (as I've mentioned about a million times here), and nothing much stuck after the 4th grade. But I had a special experience with geometry when I was 25 and building my first house - specifically, doing floor plans. It was a very simple house, that only cost $5,000 to build, but it still required some design and know-how. As I worked through it, it all started making sense, and the little geometry I know, I owe to that house.

So, it occurred to me today,
just as I was REALLY needing a coffee break and some ME-time...

What better than to have Lu make a floor plan of his bedroom to appreciate geometry in a more practical way?








He did a great job! And I got a lovely hour ALL to myself.


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Archimedes

After reading about Archimedes in our studies on Ancient Greece, we headed over to our book on Great Scientists to learn more about him.


We learned about his inventions,


like the hydraulic screw, and compound pulleys.



And we read all about how he ran through the streets of Greece naked, yelling "Eureka", in the famous story about the king's crown and the bathtub.



We also watched on YouTube -

fascinating 50min documentary

and

 8min science video explaining the principle


Then Lu went off with his notebook to give it a try











 We also learned about circles...



 Archimedes loved his circles.


Some people think that we would have gotten to where we are now a thousand years earlier, had the writings of Archimedes not been lost. 

Imagine that! 

Where would we be now 

if we were 1,000 years ahead?