Ancient Egypt Connections

We've been reading the "story of people" in Usborne's Children's Encyclopedia the last two weeks. It's amazing how meaty it is. We've had discussions about evolution vs. creationism already, and discussed cave people, ancient Egyptians, ancient Romans, and people of the middle ages. Next up is the Industrial Revolution. It's very cool- it just lays it out in a very basic way, what people wore, what kind of houses they lived in, jobs they did, how the government was, stuff like that. Nothing goes into great depth this year, but I think it lays a great foundation for basic knowledge and making connections of how the world works. She's asking lots of questions and we've looked some stuff up on the internet that she wanted to know when it wasn't in the book.

So. Last night we were out and were driving by this really smelly open area a few miles from our house. I'd always thought it was an old landfill, although my mom informed me later she thinks it might be a water treatment plant instead. But anyway, it smells like the dump. Things have gotten better lately- there used to be trucks there, and bare dirt, and birds circling around. Now it looks like they've finished using it or are trying to make it better- grass has grown over the top of it and it only smells on really hot days.

She was noticing how nice the houses were in the neighborhood right next to it, and I told her we had looked at a few of them when we were buying our house but decided not to move there because of the smell. As we drove by the plant, she saw the grass, and realized that it didn't smell anymore.

Light bulb moment for a five year old, I think!

She said, "Oh, there's grass now. So the yucky stuff is buried and it doesn't smell so much. It's like when the ancient Egyptians used to put spices on the dead people and bury them in the pyramids. The grass is like the spices, so we can't smell the dead stuff."

maybe it's not a perfect analogy, but I love that she's thinking about the things she's learning and trying to make connections in her world. So smart, my girl.

Day 3

We've had a few setbacks today. Already? Really? I thought we're still in the honeymoon stage. Anyway. She got frustrated writing her 5s last night and erased all of the math work she'd done so far- 12 lessons worth. So today we had a talk about practice and how NO I do NOT expect perfection from her, it's OKAY if it doesn't look good, that's what practice is FOR! And I want her to leave her work there so that we can look back in the book after we've finished and see her progress. She's redoing it and is already up to lesson 7, and it's only day 3, so we're still ahead.

I realized there's a study guide for history that I was supposed to be reading ahead of time, and it had a whole bunch of stuff in it about Martin Luther that frankly confused me. They said the book I was reading was written inaccurately and had a strong Protestant bias and might anger some readers and that Luther would be studied again a few years down the road and that it was okay to skip it for now if it didn't make sense. And yeah, that didn't make sense. So we blew off the history reading for today, but did do some more map work because they had a blow-up of Germany to discuss the different towns in the reading.

We've done our poetry and copywork for the day, and we'll read more Boxcar Children later, so officially we're still right on track. I just feel like we didn't do anything today.

And oh yeah, I have two kids! I need to be making a list of goals for Robin Hood and figure out what I want him to learn this year. He's never been to the zoo, and we haven't gone in so long that Maid Marian barely remembers going either, so I know I want to do a lot of animal work with him. It's still too hot to go, but we're planning a trip for the fall. I'm going to do a lot of Little People zoo "work" with him and teach him the animal names. I haven't gotten in the floor and just played with him lately.