Concert, Mom's Day, Algebra, and a Protest Poster

Lu played a few sets of background music 

with his guitar teacher at a comedy show.

 

I was well-celebrated for Mother's Day <3 

Lu completed 50 hours of a cooking apprenticeship,

which is now over until the chef comes back

for the next high tourism season.

Until then, he's practicing his gourmet skills at home!

We've had incredible plates like Pad Thai

 Mango Coconut Shrimp

and SUSHI!!!

 We started the second chapter in our Algebra book.

Chapter 1 took us four months!

This is hard stuff, but we're doing it. And I'm proud of myself for not hiring a math tutor, because this does NOT come naturally to me. I failed math my last year of high school after years of barely passing, and now I'm successfully teaching it to my son. It's a great feeling. So if anybody out there is doubting homeschooling because you feel like you can't teach something, I'm proof that YOU CAN!

This weekend we're going to the city to participate in the on-going peaceful protests, with dozens of thousands of other people, to demand the resignation of our president and the rest of his corrupt government. Here's Lu making a poster for it:

So we'll be in the middle of this in a few days:

And lastly, here's Lu making up a new tune on his guitar:

The Ancient Maya, a history project

Before our mid-year break,

Lu had two weeks to focus on a history project

about the Ancient Maya.

At least once a year,

Lu works on an independent project

that involves research, a deadline, and a presentation.

I only helped with the final editing,

and double checking historical dates.

Lu planned out his project with a timeline

and checklists, and worked several hours a day,

with short breaks in between

for puppy time

and guitar practice.

 

  

Once he was done with the research,

he printed and organized his information and images.

It's hard for me to not get involved sometimes,

so I left him at the stationary shop with generous funding,

to choose his materials. 

And then came the putting-together part!

I was only allowed in the room to take some pics.

But after this one, 

I was informed that it was the last time I could come in 

until he was ready to give his presentation.

On the Friday before our break (the deadline)

Lu was finished with his project at 8:30pm.

Throughout the project, Lu mentioned several times

how "professional" this kind of work made him feel,

and that he really enjoyed it :)

Great job, Lu!!!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Now we're on a three-week break,

just chillin' with friends and taking it easy

after six months of hard work and loads of learning.

 

India, Hinduism and Buddhism

Our studies on Ancient India were fascinating, and so colorful!

 We learned all about Hinduism,

a religion with over 300 million deities!

Lu takes graphic notes as we read,

and then combines them into a final poster.

As we learned about the Mauryan Empire and Asoka,

we  also learned about Buddhism.

We watched BBC's 6-part The Story of India,

and we did a jump in time and researched the life of Gandhi.

Finally, Lu created a timeline of one thousand years,

through the collapse of the Gupta Empire.

Lu was quite taken with the story of Prince Siddhartha and the idea of enlightenment. One evening, he took the yoga mat into his room, lit a candle and an incense stick, and proceeded to meditate in the cross-legged with elaborate hand position of the Buddha, whose google image he was sitting in front of on his i-pad. It was cute, and weird, and funny all at the same time.

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!