Much better today

Today was so much smoother than yesterday. Hooray! I am now regarding our schedule as more of a guide than anything and I think just that bit of mental relaxing took the pressure off.
For Superboy, math and science continue to go well. For math he loves his "I Hate Mathematics" book. How ironic! Chalk on the sidewalk, ice cream cones, what fun! He also really like his "Get a Grip" math kit from TOPS. Had to pry him away with promises of another day!

For science yesterday I had him go on a scavenger hunt in the woods and that was alot of fun. I had made up a list of things for him to find-three different kinds of tree leaves, something soft, a stick shaped like a letter, three kinds of seeds, etc, etc, and he went merrily off on his hunt with JBug happily following. Then when he brought in his finds I had prepared a few activities for him to do- a rubbing of one of the leaves, identify one flower, draw the most interesting thing (a snail shell), find out three facts about one thing. It was fun and relaxing to just look through all the stuff he found and peruse the guidebooks-a good start to our forest study.
Today he read up on moths and has set up an experiment for catching moths. He has strung up a white sheet outdoors and run an extension cord and a shop light out to it. Tonight this light will shine on the sheet all night, attracting (hopefully) some moths. In the morning we will see what turns up, take some digital photos, do some sketches, and try to ID what we can.
Another thing that went really well was Superboy's history. He listened to a chapter of "Story of the World" on CD. I had him take notes in the form of keywords as he listened. Then he read over his notes, and narrated the story back to me in his own words, using his notes, while I keyboarded. It was awesome! I showed him his narration afterwords and he was so proud. He couldn't believe that just listening and taking notes could produce an original "report" so easily! Thank you Julie Bogart of Bravewriter.com! Writing may not be painful this year!

Modgirl had a successful day as well. Her world religion project is starting out beautifully. She is writing it in the form of a Victorian era journal of a sociologist traveling the globe to study religious beliefs of other lands. If you've seen the "Egyptology" or "Dragonology" books you can get an idea of what she's going for. She has such great ideas, I cant wait to see the final product.

Our first Tuesday tea was a big hit as well. Poetry and poundcake with raspberry jam and fresh raspberries, and Tara's "Jumpin for Joy" tea in our special antique cups- a soothing way to wind up the day.
Good stuff.