Some recent stuff...

We had numerous field trips incorporated into our two week California trip last month. We visited ten of the California Missions (generally including their museums and grounds too - took lots of great pictures), the San Diego Wild Animal Park, several beaches, a sea lion refuge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden, and the rare books room in the library at Thomas Aquinas College (includes a number of very interesting artifacts - such as an ancient Hittite seal). We also drove along Highway 1 from Carmel to San Luis Obispo. Gorgeous views and an interesting variety of shoreline and geology.

Ria and Gus are really enjoying the Geology course we bought last summer from the Teaching Company. Ria is taking copious notes and Gus some brief basic definitions on index cards. John has been reading Mary Daly's Geology text aloud to the four older kids when he kids and a chance and that's going really well too. Ria and Gus particularly enjoy it because it's reinforcing what they've been watching on the DVD series.

Ria got a little bogged down in Math this Spring. After floating around between a few different things, she finally cruised through The Life of Fred Fractions book and is now plugging away quite steadily at Jacob's Algebra.

Gus is now working his way through The Life of Fred Fractions and is more focused more consistently than he's every been at Math. He likes me to read aloud the lesson and then he works through the problems (and corrects them) on his own. This has been working particularly well since I finally set up an organized study area for him downstairs.

Terri and Bernie have been enjoying the Page to Stage book and movie club in our homeschool group. They generally get to listen to the stories (most recently Kidnapped) along with Gus.

Kate just finished Book 10 of set one of the Bob Books.

Frank is simply infatuated with numbers. He constantly asks about how much something is and has even started talking about sets of numbers a little. Watching him try to count large numbers of things (particularly if he gets distracted) is quite entertaining. We've all been playing lots of the card game Set lately (a good brain-exercise game, by the way) and at first he was frustrated because he couldn't quite get the hang of it, even though it doesn't require reading skills. He's contented himself with being a team with the best player available (in his mind) and counting their cards for them.