Iris bulbs

We had a great visit today with Auntie, who brought iris bulbs for M to plant! After lunch, we spent awhile at the library, and M asked the librarians for books about flowers and gardening. She and Auntie did lots of reading and took turns pretending to be the "teacher" who read the story. M's story inevitably revolves around Dora and the Crystal Kingdom! It's wonderful to see how the library fosters such great "unit studies," where we do some kind of activity (e.g., bake gingerbread men, plant flowers) and then learn more about it at the library!

Gingerbread Men

Well, baking is progressive, right? Maybe next time I won't burn the gingerbread men, but this batch is at least very fun to play with!

M and I borrowed a couple of books about gingerbread men from the library and we decided it would be fun to bake some -- and see if they come alive like in the story! These guys are too blackened to be alive, but we have left-over dough in the refrigerator to try again later.

We also made up a really fun song, sung to the tune of "Jingle Bell Rock:"

Gingerbread, gingerbread, gingerbread man,
Gingerbread man, oh, gingerbread man,
We roll you, and pat you, and bake you today,
We hope you come and play!

Better Than School

I just finished reading a fabulous homeschool book entitled, Better Than School: One family's declaration of independence, by Nancy Wallace. The book was published in 1983 and is now out-of-print but the library had a copy and it is such a gem. It's amazing to read about the fight the family went through with the school board to homeschool their two kids when the homeschool movement was just beginning in the late-1970s. It really is so easy for us now.

I love this quote from the end of the book: "The thought of having them spend so much time in school when there were so many more interesting things going on right in the community seemed absurd (p. 237)." That's exactly how I feel about homeschooling here in the city.