Celebrating 7, and Rome wasn't built in a day...

Over the weekend W turned 7 years old. His party will be next week, but he had a fun time on his birthday going out for lunch, getting fish to finally add to the tank (black neon tetra and two snails), going to a dinner at church, and then having dessert at home. In addition to the fish, he got a lego game: Minotaurus, Peanuts figurines to act out his favorite comic stories, and an Absolutely Lucy book (thank you Aunt Cassy!) I have been taking pictures but unfortunately the puppies have chewed the camera USB cord and it is no longer working to transfer them, so we will have to deal with phone photos until the new cord arrives.

W has been learning about ancient Rome through The Story of the World. He and I put together the Haba version of the Coliseum, and read about gladiators. He then acted it out with lego minifigures.

our Coliseum

In SotW, a fictional character called Servius is taken from his rural village, and forced to become a gladiator or face execution. He does not want to fight, but faced with death, he continues with the training, and eventually is put in the arena. When he overpowered another fighter who was on the ground at his mercy, the audience "booed" because he did not kill him. Servius would rather die than kill another man. Although Romans are notorious for being bloodthirsty, there were some exceptions, and I appreciated that the author chose this chapter to add some compassion to an otherwise brutal scene. W is not into blood and guts either, so it helped him relate to this ancient society and feel empathy for Servius and the other people forced into being Gladiators.

W read the book Fun with Roman Numerals by David A. Adler (pictured above). It is a colorful introduction to the concept of Roman Numerals. We are also reading City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction. This is best as a parent-read-aloud selection. The illustrations are marvelous, and the text introduces technical terms and concepts while inspiring play building with blocks.

For a Math update, W has been upping his work a couple pages more per day in Math-U-See Alpha, so I think that is more challenging for him while still being reasonable. I think at this rate we will be able to start the next book, Beta, during the summer. He requested to keep going with Math over the summer (at least for most "at home" days) after some frustration picking it back up in August last year.

March Math

Ch 12 E (p. 145 of Alpha)

W is finishing up Chapter 12 of Math-U-See, so I thought I would share a couple examples of his work here. Math-U-See has a test and Xtra fun book to go along with the textbooks, and W loves the Xtra fun pages. This one involved a crossword puzzle, and got him excited about writing letters when usually he prefers to use the digits. As you can see, he still writes backwards sometimes but as long as I understand that he knows the number and concept, that is what matters at this age.

                                
                                          MUS Alpha Ch 12 Extra (from test booklet)

Other math supplements include math themed games, verbal math problems, real world examples, other worksheets like connect-the-dots by numbers, and online math games. I try to fit in "something" math each day, and a little bit frequently seems to be working well with W.

C likes numbers and counting, but at 3 years old he often "forgets" numbers as he is counting, or they wind up in the wrong order. I figure he's got a couple more years until he's ready for the Math-U-See Primer. ;)

Astronomy Skywatch

We had homeschool friends over on Saturday for a skywatch. It had rained all day long, but Accuweather.com kept saying it would clear out and lo and behold it did! We were able to view Mars, Venus, Jupiter, several constellations, and star clusters. The moon was waxing gibbous, so there was a lot of moonlight. There was also a lot of snow and slush, but the warmer temperatures helped delay it from icing up. The kids had a lot of fun. W said his favorite star was Polaris. W has been reading Stars by H.A. Rey with me and it is a nice way of understanding more about constellations.

Our next event with our Astronomy Club will be later in April, during the Lyrids meteor shower on the 21st-- hoping for clear skies! There will be a new moon so it will be easier to view more stars if the weather cooperates.

The Long Winter

W and I finished reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have read it so many times, yet reading the full book aloud was a wonderful experience. W took turns reading several chapters to me as well. We have had The Mild Winter here in New Hampshire this year, which was pretty unusual. So we have had to make due with imaginary snowballs and paper snowflakes for the most part (but I'll take that)!

See the flour in the drawer?

Ironically, our book club has been pushed back due to weather (the one day it was freezing rain/hail/snow here), so we will meet this Friday, barring inclement weather. We tried out the activity we had planned anyway last week, as I was not even sure it would work very well. We used an old fashioned coffee mill to grind wheat (using hard white wheat seed). It takes a couple of turns through the mill but it does wind up producing  flour. Next up, grinding enough to actually make bread. This will take a while. It was difficult enough for W to turn the crank so it showed him how hard it would have been for the Ingalls family to endlessly grind wheat to survive during their most difficult winter on the prairies of South Dakota.

Here are some highlights from W, age 6 and 11/12ths :)
"I liked the parts about Pa helping to dig out the train line, and the wheat in the wall that Almanzo had. I liked Merry Christmas when they were all excited, and Christmas in May. The chapters when Almanzo and Cap Garland went to find more wheat were good. And I liked when Almanzo made pancakes for himself and his brother."

Pack Monadnock

Yesterday Jacob took a day off and we went for a hike at Pack Monadnock. It is February in New Hampshire but the weather was clear and it was actually quite warm while we were walking. Jacob was vague about how far we needed to go, otherwise I doubt I would have agreed to join along. I had a heavy coat on when a fleece would have been a better choice, and I get so winded going uphill so that was tough for me. It was difficult for C as well, who needed to ride on Daddy's shoulders for most of the way. W was a trooper and he was amazed at the view from tower at the top, so that made it all worth it. Sherlock enjoyed it but was interested in sniffing all around the woods instead of staying on the main path.

Jacob assisted with lending his phone when there was a minor accident for a fellow hiker, whose daughter was able to call 911, and we waited with them for help to arrive. The boys were excited to see the fire rescue truck; we hope everything went okay for them. There were several places where there was icing. Even our own yard has been slippery with ice that has refused to melt.

We didn't take Lucy on this outing, since she was at the Vet's office yesterday being spayed. She will be home soon and is recovering nicely.