Cities of the World

Last year, Lu worked on an independent research project on fifteen of the world's most influential cities. He worked on it over several months. He had many technical difficulties: his computer breaking down, realizing that he had only downloaded the thumbnails of the hundreds of images he'd found for his presentation, and losing information several times. He continued working over the Christmas break and finally gave his presentation. It worked out nicely because grandma, aunts and uncle were visiting, so Lu had a good audience.

Thirteen

Lu just turned 13!

Here he is with all his presents, minus a goat.

Yup, a goat.

About a month and a half ago,

Lu decided he wants to get into the goat farming business.

Since then, he's been getting up at 5am, 

three times a week, to go apprentice on a friend's goat farm.

Cha and I take turns dropping him off.

We run with the dogs, Lu takes his bike.

5am is not my favorite time of the day,

especially not for actually being awake.

But I can't complain about my early morning walks

with views like these:

He's already put in over 50 hours, so,

as promised, we're getting him a goat!

 

The goat house, companion goat, and goat accessories

will have to be paid back in milk, cheese, and meat.

But the first goat is a gift.

Lu's already done some successful cheese-making

with cow milk. Can't wait for that goat cheese!

AND he helped slaughter and butcher a sheep!

Here's Lu moving rocks on the land

where the goat house is now almost up:

And taking a break by getting some jocote fruits
down from the tree:

Jocote season is definitely a favorite time of year.

On the academic front,

Lu's been busy writing essays.

We took a class with a professional writer

who taught us basic structure and gave us

lots of useful tips.

Here are some paragraphs from his

instructional, compare/contrast,

and character development essays.

He's editing and typing his favorite two

for our homeschool archive.

 This year's math was mostly algebra and geometry.

To keep up with Lu, I covered all the new stuff with him during

the first half of the year, and then got a tutor for reinforcement,

the second half of the year (for my sanity).

Here's his last math homework assignment:

And making shapes with M.C. Escher:

With the rains finally over

(rainy season is about half the year here)

it's time for swimming!

And swimming with friends:

For one of his 13th birthday presents, I gave Lu permission to join facebook. This was something I decided on just over the last few months. I used to think we'd wait until he was at least 16, but I found myself often thinking "this article would be great for Lu" or "I wish Lu was on here to share this with him". And indeed, it is very handy for homeschool, as well as for keeping in touch with long-distance friends (one of the downsides of living in a town that is a tourist attraction, is that friends are usually temporary or seasonal). But having a facebook account comes with many rules, like not blocking me from anything, showing me his news feed whenever I ask, and only friending new people with my consent.

Lu has grown up so much this past year. 

He's done two major apprenticeships 

(restaurant and goat farm),  

and showed serious commitment and responsibility in both. 

I'm so proud of my official teen-ager.

Science Is All Around

Lu recently finished the book we used for science this year. A book all about our universe. A very thick book, with lots of information and beautiful illustrations. I thought it would take him all year, but we still have two more months of our school year. But this is not a problem in my house, with my science-loving kid. Lu will be in charge of his science curriculum for the rest of the year.

He's been doing daily science experiments 

that he finds on websites and on YouTube,

like this balloon launcher:

 

Science projects/experiments are so much more fun 

now that Lu is old enough to find all the stuff he needs, 

follow the instructions, and research the explanations

with no help from me. lol

The homemade thermometer:

Making a saltwater battery:

 Listening through a stethoscope:

Here Lu and a friend are building a forge.

They spent all day forging metal into knives and swords.

On Sunday, we went to our friends' goat farm

and Lu got a chance to play with the little ones,

and milk one of the mamas.

He drank a WHOLE liter of goat's milk!

We're lucky to have science learning built into our every-day lives.

And there's  so much wonderful stuff to be found online.

 Science is all around!

Old Books, Big Cities, Free Flow, and a Rock Star

 Our school year runs from Jan-Nov,

so these are the last few months of 6th grade for us.

After finishing the first two books of the "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness" series, and not having the third, Lu pulled "Black Beauty" off of my childhood bookshelf and is reading it mostly from a lack of a better book, aka We Need More Books. 

Morning reading time is VERY important around here 

(specifically for mami's quiet coffee time).

Creative writing has always been a struggle for Lu, so we let it go for a while, but recently we bust out a notebook and started 

"Free Flow Writing/Doodling Time" and it's been a HUGE success!!!

 

The first half of our year was very science-heavy with lots of documentaries, including the complete "Through the Wormhole" series with Morgan Freeman (the only man I'd leave my husband for, I luuuuuv Morgan). Now Lu is just chilling with some reading on deep space from another book from my childhood, this Nat Geo "Our Universe" book that my great-grandfather gave me when I turned five, 35 years ago:

For history we're reading about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Guatemala. It's a very old book written by a Spanish soldier. We take turns reading aloud in a Spanish that is old and difficult to read. We're slowly working through the over 800 pages, but it's worth it because the story is truly fascinating.

As a final 6th grade research project, Lu is putting together a slideshow presentation of ten major cities of the world. He's having a great time with it. He'll come running to ask "Did you know there's no toilet paper in Tokyo, because the toilets wipe your butt for you?!" or "Did you know that pinball machines have been illegal in New York since the year...?!" Some of his findings are questionable, but it's so much fun to see what he gets excited about. lol

 We recently participated in an artistic photo shoot 

for a make-up artist friend.

 Lu had a blast getting made up and posing.

Here's one of my favorites: The Rock Star

Lake Day

All these big, thick books! It feels so... scholarly!

I was intimidated by our million-page algebra book in the beginning,
but we're managing just fine.

We've been learning about stuff like

(read with loud, thundery voice)

The Transitive Property of Equality

(say whaaa?)

Oh yeah.

If a=b and b=c, then a=c.

And we've been learning about stargazing and

the ideas of Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo...

In history we've been reading and watching documentaries

about the Ottoman Empire.

Oh so much sophisticated learning!

****

But in the middle of the week, on Wednesdays,

we leave the books on the kitchen table,

and we take a Lake Day.

It's a 7-minute walk from our house.

  On the weekends we go swimming too,

and sometimes run into friends

(ya know, 'cause they go to school and can only go to the lake on weekends ;)

We moved here when Lu was one month old. I was a young, single mother. Everyone thought I was crazy. What would I do for money? Where would Lu go to school? There are no hospitals nearby! Were we safe, alone on the mountain? We didn't even have electricity in the tiny house I'd built for us!

But it was my dream,

and it all worked itself out,

and it was the best decision I've ever made.

Lu agrees :)