Negative Numbers, Loquats, Hoops, and First Aid

Most mornings, Lu gets up at around 6am and makes his own breakfast. Today he made cheesy eggs and tortillas.

We're still on semi-vacation, which means that we only do a couple hours of schoolwork a day. I don't want us to slip out of our early-morning rhythm. Today we managed to start at 7:45 am, which is pretty late compared to the 7am-start I strive to maintain. We did some singing, reading, geography, homophones, and math - all by 10am. 

We've started working with negative numbers,

and it's going smoothly so far.

 There was some working on a basketball hoop.

There was some serious loquat picking.

 There was a soccer match,

and some hula-hooping.

There was participation in a First Aid workshop.

 

There was Art Group in the afternoon,

finally back in session after a month-long break.

 

 Lu was very excited to see his friends.

And there was this magical fellow,

resting on an avocado.

The Perfect Getaway Checklist:

One hot tub,

 a swimming pool,

canoeing,

a hammock and a nice chair,

sunglasses,

a suntan,

great food...

 (with drinks of course),

(particularly this Dragon Fruit Margarita)

a twirly dress,

(photo by Lu)

and a swimdress...

Well, that's a post for another blog that I'll someday start - about embracing my curves and feeling comfortable in my aging body, and not having stupid prejudices about swimdresses, and realizing that they're actually really great. Anyway, that blog would be called Stop Waxing and Get a Swimdress! or something like that.

an 8th anniversary to celebrate,

(photo by Lu)

and beautiful sunsets.

It's good to get away for a few days.

If you're ever in Guatemala, Posada de Santiago on Lake Atitlán is an amazing place to stay. The cabins and gardens are dreamy. The food is SUPERB. And, the lakeside pool-hottub-sauna-bar area makes for perfect days of sun, swimming, and relaxation.

Solar System Poster - Starring Super Jupiter

Last year, we made a Solar System Mobile and staged a play about Pluto.  This year, for our Space Unit, Lu decided to make a poster. 

He started out with his favorite planet - Jupiter. 

Like a superhero, Jupiter saves life on Earth time and time again, with its super size and super gravitational pull.

Cha helped us figure out the proportions

based on the size of Jupiter (the metal bowl), 

and Lu learned how to use a compass.

 He framed the central part of the poster

with information bits,

 and clip-art from google images.

He formatted in PhotoShop for printing,

And it was time for some COLOR!

He used oil pastels.

 I love that he included this bit about Laika, 

the Russian dog.

The last step was gluing on the clip-art

and labeling the planets.

We're both slightly obsessive-compulsive completer-finishers, and did this in a day. Lu started at 7am, and was done by 7pm - with some math, reading, breaks, and eating in between. All in, it probably took him a total of 6 hours of focused work. We've done several posters now. I helped very little on this one - with smudging and letter spacing, but I look forward to him doing his next poster entirely on his own.

Short Stories, Reviews, Titans, and Plantains

 Lu read this short story in Spanish about gravity and mass.

He's been enjoying the break from longer chapter books.

He also took his keyboard apart to fix it.

He did great on his math review. We've learned so much with this math resource, I wanted to make sure that we weren't forgetting what we learned over the last 6 chapters, so I wrote up a simple review.  This also helps me stay on the math ball, as far as hammering the concepts into my own mathematically-challenged head.

Lu's learning about the Titans,

in preparation of our upcoming studies 

on Ancient Greece.

 And... drumroll...

It's plantain season!

Plantains are best when left long enough to darken.

 And fried in butter.