Our Second Break Week is Here

I really needed to update this blog, didn't I?

Another 6 weeks of work have passed and we are currently on our second break week of the school year. However, both kids couldn't keep their hands off the new math arrival...

Beast Academy!

Beast Academy 3A Set

BA is the newly-released elementary math series from the amazing people over at Art of Problem Solving (AoPS.) Unfortunately, it is being released too slowly for us to be able to use as a math "spine," but we are able to use the books as fun supplements. The 3A book is geometry-heavy, which is great since Singapore PM seems to be the opposite. Each year will consist of 4 graphic-novel style books and 4 accompanying workbooks, which can be purchased as a book/workbook set for $27 over at Horrible Ray's Horrible Books. This works out to about $110 for a year of math, which is pretty much the going rate for any other math program. I just ordered the 3A set because it does such a fantastic job covering elementary geometry. 3B & 3C are currently available, and I believe 3D has a release date of early 2013. Anyway, there are far better reviews online for BA so please search around for those if you are considering this math program.

As you can probably tell, I'm having a hard time keeping up with my "What we're reading" tab. These children devour books. I tried to get into the habit of taking pictures of their books before they went back to the library, but I can't even remember to do that every time.

Notable recent reads? Em is enjoying Caddie Woodlawn, El is enjoying some of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, and together we are wrapping up Anne of Green Gables and working our way through Wildwood's sequel, Under Wildwood.The best nonfiction we've read this month would probably be two David J. Smith books, If the World Were a Village and If America Were a Village. These wonderful books are full of culture, statistics, and compassion. We also found a great book on Thanksgiving history: Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Indian Corn: The Story of the Thanksgiving Symbols. (Sadly, I can not recommend the Halloween symbols book by the same author as it is rife with historical inaccuracies to an almost offensive degree. Hey, though, it's always good to give the kids a lesson in "Don't believe everything you read.")

El has been working his way through his "Draw 3D" book. Here is one of his most recent drawings inspired by a that book:

The Draw 3D book is a little too advanced for Em, but she has been having great luck with the Draw Write Now series, which teaches you to learn to draw particular objects or animals one simple step at a time. Here are a couple of her recent drawings:

I never know a clever way to end my posts, so I'll leave you with El's alien guy looking at the World's Strangest Building (or "Stragest" if you want to be technical.) :)