Week 2

Happy Monday, ya'll. Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

So, Week 2 of the Doak Family Homeschool went well! Ashlyn's book for her FIAR curriculum was "The Story of Ping," which is a sweet little story about a duck (Ping) who lives on a boat in the Yangtze River in China. He gets separated from his family and almost gets cooked for dinner, but manages to find his way back to his family at the end of the story. It really is a lovely little story and it gave us the opportunity to learn a little about China. We found China on a map, watched "Big Bird Goes To China," and (attempted to) eat with chopsticks. Watching the kids eat with their chopsticks was pretty humorous! Quinn seemed to be the most proficient which, oddly enough, is the truth.

Both Stella and Ashlyn are sailing through their math assignments after a brief (although stressful) few minutes when Stella seemed to have forgotten how to add! ("Oh, yeah...I remember how to do this...") Ashlyn tells me that math is too easy for her..we'll see how she feels about that in a couple of years...

History was interesting this week. We studied the Byzantian Empire and learned about their emperor Justinian who was the first person during that time period to establish a universal set of laws. Some of the laws are really funny, and I got a kick out of this one in particular:

If you are trimming a tree near a road, be sure to call out to anyone coming by, "Be Careful! Limbs might fall on you!" If you don't call out a warning, and a limb falls on a traveler, and hurts him, it's your fault. But if you call out a warning and the traveler walks under your tree anyway, it isn't your fault if a limb falls on him and hurts him. He should have paid attention to your warning.

Stella, however, thought this law was very reasonable and did not find much humor or irony in it whatsoever. We also learned about the Hagia Sophia which was (is) this BEAUTIFUL church in Constantinople (present day Istanbul). Stella has now added this to her list of "Must Visit" places in the world...This list, by the way, gets longer everyday, but that's another blog entirely...

Stella and I completed "The Story of Edward Tulane" which is probably one of the best books we have read together. Go read it if you haven't. It is one of the best children's literature books I have ever read!! Sweet, simple, and very touching....

We continued to study weather in Science and made an anemometer (device used to measure the wind)....No wind this week but lots of rain!! We had cabin fever and by Sunday were itching to get outside so, after church I packed up the kids and headed down to Sandbridge. We had a blast...nothing like re-energizing @ the oceanfront...just fantastic.

So, here we are back @ Monday...back to work, school, and the real world. Take care everyone and have a fantastic week!