Homeschool Highlights: January

January had some highs and some lows.

Let's talk about the highs first, shall we? We finished our science unit on bats. Such fascinating creatures they are. For example, bats usually have only one "pup" per year. They leave their pups in these HUGE bat nurseries while they go out to hunt and then have no problem finding their very own little pup when they return based on smell alone. Oh, and they bathe them daily with their little tongues. Very sweet. Did you know that bats live for an average of 30 years? I didn't. Thirty! They have such a bad reputation, those sweet little creatures. I have a new appreciation for them as does Sam. He decided they are now his favorite animal and spent a good part of a couple afternoons trying to figure out how he could invent wings so children can fly. We set lofty goals for ourselves in this house.

Going along with the flying creatures theme, we did our own mini unit on owls and dissected an owl pellet. Yep. I spent $6 for owl puke. I ordered the pellet from Copernicus Toys. I was pretty sure it would be fun. We were not disappointed. Here are a few pictures for you...

Those are vole bones.

We've read some really good books this month. We finished Indian Captive by Lois Lenski. Quote from Amazon:

In this classic frontier adventure, Lois Lenski reconstructs the real life story of Mary Jemison, who was captured in a raid as young girl and raised amongst the Seneca Indians. Meticulously researched and illustrated with many detailed drawings, this novel offers an exceptionally vivid and personal portrait of Native American life and customs. A 1942 Newbery Honor book.

A friend gave Sam the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen for Christmas. I read it first (as is our custom) and could not put it down. This is a story about a 13 year old boy who is flying over the Canadian wilderness in a small place. The pilot, the only other person aboard, has a heart attack and dies. The plane runs out of gas and crashes into a lake in the middle of nowhere. The rest of the book tells the story of how this boy survives. Full of adventure, courage and ingenuity, this book is a fun read-aloud.

One note of caution for some- the boy was taking the plane trip to visit his father for the summer. His parents are divorced. He knows the "secret" of the divorce- that his mother was seeing another man. In the entire book, there is probably only a few full pages that deal with this issue, but one memory is recounted where the boy sees his mother kissing the other man. I decided this was not appropriate for my 7 year old to read even though he was chomping at the bit to read the book by himself. Instead, I read it aloud to about the half way point (passed the discussion of the "secret") and then turned the book over to him to finish. He loved it.

Another wonderful read was The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz. This is the story of a girl whose family leaves their comfortable life in the east to settle in the wild west. She missed her friends, her school and her tea parties. Slowly Hamilton Hill, on which their cabin was built, grew on her as did her love for the vegetable patch she helped care for. This was a lovely read with a wonderful surprise at the end.

We've read several children's books on the Iditarod in the past month and are having so much fun learning about the race. A major highlight for the whole family was watching Iditarod: The Toughest Race on Earth, a Discovery documentary of the 2008 Iditarod race (Netflix carries it). What an entertaining way to learn about the race, the dogs, a number of the mushers and the huge event that the Iditarod is.

And, we made our Alaska map. Well, mostly Jamey and I made the map. Sam was out of sorts that day. You know, my-sister-had-a-birthday-and-I'm-insanely-jealous-and-out-of-sorts kind of day. He did help outline and label. Sometimes, you just have to take what you can get.

The not so fun parts of this month have been the times when Sam has decided that singing, making loud noises, dropping his pencil and, in general, being disagreeable is more fun than doing his school work. Then, there are the lovely moments when he's said things like,

"I hate school."

"I wish school was never invented."

And, my favorite,

"I would rather be at the dentist."

And Sam HATES the dentist.

So, to recap. A lot of fun stuff + A handful of not-so-fun stuff = 3 3/4 pencils (out of 5)

And, I'm sorry, but there are no pictures out there in internet land of 3 and 3/4 pencils, so you'll just have to use your imagination:-).

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