New Adventures

I gave Nadia the first three Imagination Station books for Christmas, and we read those in January. The kids loved them, and it also taught them a little history (ancient Rome, Mongols, etc.). They are basically a Christian version of the Magic Tree House books. We read our first Magic Tree House book during our Olympic unit. I prefer the Imagination Station ones, but the one downside is I have to purchase them, as I can't get them at the library, and generally I don't buy chapter books for the kids. I got Nadia books #4-6 for Valentine's Day. We haven't started reading them yet because we've been reading The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I had been contemplating buying Nadia some cd's of Adventures in Odyssey for her next birthday, but then it hit me that we could start listening to it on the radio (for free). For now we're going to listen to it from 6:00-6:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If the kids want to expand that to other nights, we can listen to it more often in the future, but for now we're going to listen twice a week. Nadia really enjoyed the program last night.

My new adventure yesterday was with baking a lemon meringue pie. I hadn't made a pie in more than 10 years, and it had been more than 20 years since I made a pie crust from scratch. I don't believe I had ever made a lemon meringue pie before. I wasn't feeling very confident, but my first attempt was a success! It's so easy to get stuck in a rut with cooking, and one of my goals this year had been to start making pies. Next month I want to make my first pecan pie.

Over the past 13 months I have gradually been adding subjects to Nadia's homeschooling routine. Yesterday we added another subject - science! I was waiting until her reading skills had progressed to the point that she could read a first grade science textbook. As part of today's lesson on our hands, Paul, Nadia, and I put a thumb on an ink pad so Nadia could study the thumbprints with a hand lens. We haven't officially added social studies into our curriculum yet, but that will be coming soon. Over the past two months she watched 40 episodes of the Liberty Kids dvd's (about the American Revolution), and we were reading books about George Washington in celebration of President's Day, so she has been learning some history even though it hasn't been a part of our formal curriculum yet. Also, during our 3 week Olympic unit she practiced finding several different countries on our globe every day (Australia, Russia, Mexico, Canada, France, etc.). Ian's favorite winter Olympic sports are the luge, skeleton, and bobsled. Nadia's favorite is the figure skating (pairs and ice dancing in particular). Paul has been most interested in the hockey.

I haven't taken any pictures the last few days, but I did take two videos today - one of Ian reading some words and one of Nadia reading a few pages of a Little Bear book. That book is only Level 1 (according to the I Can Read label). She has read Level 2 and Level 3 I Can Read books. The hardest one she's read to date was Daniel's Duck.