School days

We started homeschooling last year with the preschool curriculum from Horizons. It wasn’t a bad curriculum — in fact, Poppy really enjoyed it — but it was very structured and worksheet-driven, and I wanted to try out something a little different this year.

We started our second year of prehomeschool (homepreschool?) this week, and so far I really like the program. The general concept of “Five in a Row” is that you read the same storybook five days in a row, each day focusing on a different subject. This week, using “The Story About Ping,” we did a little bit of geography, we discussed and wrote a bit of fiction and — P’s favorite part — we did a couple of science experiments. For which she insisted on wearing safety glasses. She is her daddy’s girl.

Welcome, baby NotMax!

Big congratulations to Chris and Sinead! I haven’t even gotten to meet their first little guy yet, and they go and have another one. Someday, we’ll make the trek over to Australia and give them all big ol’ hugs.*

*Highly unlikely. But maybe they’ll come to this side of the world someday soon for a visit. Fingers crossed.