Homeschool Wednesday

We're working on multiplication right now, so we told this story:



And Z copied the chalkboard drawing into his main lesson book



Then we reviewed the 2 times table which we have been saying on our morning walks and Z copied that into his book as well.



So cool.

A semi-local Passover

Keeping kosher and pesadik (Passover-like) and local is an impossible affair, at least around here. There are things scattered across the globe that meet upon my Passover table (and many many others) My matza and matza products are from Israel, as is my tea, some of my cheese, chocolate, coffee and a few other sundries. Most packaged goods are from New York, especially the dairy. The meat, is, thankfully, at least from this country and processed here as well, so I don't have the concerns about South American meat and all the myriad of problems that stem from that.

But at least I have the fresh goods taken care of at the local level. Now that spring is here, the market is fairly bursting with fruits and vegetables. My bill at yesterday's farmer's market was staggering ($70), but included 5 dozen eggs, 1/2 a flat of strawberries. 10 lbs of potatoes and onions combined, kohlrabi, apples, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, basil, tomatoes and persian cucumbers (! how can you not love living in California. They are from 15 miles away.)

Funny story about the eggs. Last week, instead of the farmer's market, we did a drive into LA, so I ran out of eggs and needed to pick up a dozen from Trader Joe's. And throughout the entire weekend, DH and I kept hitting the eggs much too hard to crack them because the eggs from the market have such thick strong shells. The eggs from TJ's shattered under the same force we use to just crack the other eggs.

Back to cleaning.

Preparing for Pesach

Another week has raced by. There is so much to do each day that I often have to choose what gets left behind. My laundry is complaining about living in baskets. And the dryer. And the washer (although I try not to do that one too often.) And don't ask about meals. *sigh* At least they are usually at home. Usually.

And Passover is coming up. In honor of that - and the fact that we live in an area where Passover food is scarce - we headed to the local megalopolis, Los Angeles, to do the shopping. With 2 small children in tow. First we stopped off at Hanna Andersson at the mall to pick up a few things because B is learning to use the potty and I wanted some of their training unders for him. I spent too much there and then we headed on to the park for a little hiking and playing to burn off the veeeeeerrry long drive. We saw loads of birds, some we had never seen before, and the kids really got to explore a little bit of the wild right in the middle of the city. Very cool. After hours of that, because we checked out the archery field, the wildlife reserve and the model airplane field, we headed off to do the Passover shopping at a place in the Valley that I thought would be great (after all, I had been to it's sister store many times and thought that was just great) But it didn't have the things I am used to buying at Passover, so I headed across the street to the Ralph's with the good Passover section (wish we had one of those) and picked up some stuff and then headed to a place a friend recommended when I called her in desperation after the 1st place didn't work out. And of course it was closed.

So we have had to regroup and I'll be heading out again to a different place, slightly closer, but not tons, to see what I can pick up there. So instead of an hour and a half, it'll just be 45 minutes drive. Yay. Hopefully I can get the most important things.

Homeschool - no excuses

None whatsoever. Not because there aren't any, but because I'm tired of the same ones. Ear infections. Strep throat. Crowns. Root canals. Everyone in the family has gotten a little something into the list. Mine is the strep and the crown.

We've done so much though. I just haven't had the energy to put it here. Here's some photos of our lives the last few weeks. in homeschooling:

First from today. We are in another Math Block starting this week. We are hitting addition and subtraction lightly this week and will move onto multiplication next and division the week after, just sharing some stories, doing some artwork, movement exercises, etc. Today on our walk we counted 100 steps forward and then turned around and counted 100 steps backward from 100. Well, I walked backwards, Z did the counting.

When we got home we had morning verse and then headed outside to fill our sidewalk with the number family for 12.

Here's what that looks like in progress:

And Z wanted his picture taken with his accomplishment because it was quite the work of will for him (although he wouldn't call it that.)

Over the last few weeks we finished up the Language Arts block, focusing on lower case letters and handwriting. He's made enormous progress over the last few months