Wednesday, August 22, 2012

World's Worst/Best Homeschooler or Day 5


After we finished our schoolwork today, I took George up Pilot Mountain to practice tree and plant identification, using this beginner's foldout guide as his reference.

WHY, YES, IT DID RAIN! THANK YOU FOR ASKING!

49% of me is appalled I didn't think to check the forecast before we set out, but the other 51% is so glad I didn't, because of course I would have postponed it, preventing us from seeing The Coolest Thing Ever.

Yes, that includes the two does, one with fawn, noshing roadside, as well as the man riding up the mountain on the recumbent bicycle with the rainbow windsock.

So it's still sunny when we get to the top, and we begin to do our plant/tree thing. We've only knocked out three identifications when we realize an older man is waving to us and hollering, "Hurry! Come see it before it gets here!" We're confused, but we quickly walk over to the lookout where the man is standing. There's a bit of a breeze, but that doesn't explain the noise like a droning pounding of drums.

Only when I look out and see a line as clean as if it was drawn with a ruler do I realize that what we are hearing is the approaching rainstorm pummeling the land below. We can actually see where the edge of the rain is, so George and I dash to Little Pinnacle to get closer. From there we can see cloud wisps flying between Little and Big Pinnacles, but the rain seems to sort of be sticking to the other side of Big Pinnacle, so we race over there to see what it's like...


...And in the end we totally got drenched.

But wowsers, it was so worth it.

nonfiction read & react: Making meals for a mission to Mars
math unit: Chapter 1, first half of Lesson 4, Houghton Mifflin Math North Carolina, Grade 4
daily poem: "The Monsters in My Closet" by Phil Bolsta
plants/trees identified: Loblolly Pine, Goldenrod, Chestnut Oak




8 comments:

Yarddawg said...

I know George will make the Headmistress List. By the way is purple one of the school colors?

Lucy said...

Could it be otherwise?

He's firmly on track for valedictorian.

RLR said...

Oh, how I've enjoyed hearing about your new adventure! M seems to be enjoying her new schooling adventure, too. She says dance class is "double awesome"!

Lucy said...

I'm SO happy for her! Is it tap? I could totally see her as a tap phenom.

turketwh said...

Hi Lucy, a fellow Winston-Salemite (she teaches at WFU) who is homeschooling also keeps a blog. Could be useful for inspiration: http://fannyharvilleunschool.blogspot.com/

Lucy said...

Thanks,turketwh! May I call you Turk? :)

The hardest thing thus far has been reining it in, frankly. George came in with some hefty interests (history, non-lying books, krakens...), and since then he's added in poetry and yoga.

Ack!

KerriCW said...

This entire enterprise feeds my soul. Little Jimmy Mac might be my project. Also, right before I got a link to this, I was listening to NPR and now think this book might be of interest, not that G doesn't think of his own questions already. http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/08/23/educators-students-ask
It just struck a chord with me because this week I've been exhorting college students to learn to ask the right questions.

Lucy said...

I'm working from a Socratic Seminar approach, which is how I ran those third grade reluctant reader book clubs all those years (and how the middle school I'm hoping George will enter operates in many classes).

I look forward to reading the JMK blog one day!