bits

We took Labor Day off..although I had to work.  I've spent a lot of my free time on a new 1,000 piece puzzle (well, fifty cents new, from the thrift store).  Esme and Mark helped me put the last of the pesky sky and tree parts in tonight.  Esme has played more Skyrim the past few days and School of Dragons.  She is waiting on a special egg to hatch tomorrow. 

We finished reading the Grimm sisters book number one the other day - we're on to Stephen Hawking's kids' book "George and the Secret Key to the Universe".  So far, it is very exciting.

We will do school tomorrow, and a store run.  I've ordered a lot of new documentaries from our Netflix for her based on things she has been asking about. There is one about Helen of Troy, one about the Telescope, and a pair about World War I and World War II.  She had started asking some pretty deep questions the other day so I started getting recommendations for the history docs.  And we had a side conversation about Galileo tonight while I was reading the book with her - so the telescope one seemed to be a good match.

Future Thoughts: We still have to plan our field trip to the gemstone museum.  And maybe also one to the astronomy planetarium at Land Between the Lakes.  I really want to do some memorable and fun things with her this year as we are increasingly tailoring to have her writing 'on par' to go back to public school for third grade (or maybe skip once they test her....it all depends, she IS ahead in several things but the writing has been the hardest).  Once she gets more comfortable writing and doing her own research with the computer (spelling, sorting out, using dictionary and encyclopedia type functions) I'll feel she has the key knowledge she needs to learn how to learn whatever she wants.  The way things were going with the first grade classroom and the anxiety from the discipline methods - I felt she was going to be herded towards failure and associate school with anxiety, boredom and adults who yelled at her every day.