Into the groove

We've had a productive three weeks in school so far.

I have built up a pretty hefty curriculum

that is keeping both the kids and me very busy,

(but that was the whole point!)

We have been studying maps in geography,

specifically how they show information.

We've learned about map keys, scale and different types of maps,

such as political maps, physical maps, historical maps,

population maps and road maps.

We decided to make ourselves a map,

a historical one to show events of the past,

or, in our case, our travel history.

(Click on the map to see a larger photo of it.)

This is Scotty's version of our map,

although Maya made one as well.

The yellow circles show our overnights while on vacations,

and the blue squares show our overnights while moving

to North Carolina.

The green line shows our route from Colorado to Oregon,

the blue line shows our route from Colorado to New Mexico,

and the purple line shows our route from Colorado to North Carolina.

(These are the three most major trips the kids remember taking

in their lives, so we highlighted them.)

The orange star indicates where we live now.

They also wrote the dates next to each yellow circle

and blue square to show when we made the overnight trip.

We had a great time constructing our maps,
and we had the realization that the kids have visited
20 states. They thought that was pretty cool.

Hands on learning...

it's awesome!

We got Maya's poetry book in the mail 

at the beginning of the week.

She's an official published poet!!!!!

Here it is, on page 137!

Inky Black

by Maya Wing!

The contest was regional for both kids
and included the following states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma,
Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Wow.

Both kids have had fun reading all of the poems in their books.

Here's Scotty's poem, Attic,
on page 87.

Steven and I are so very, very proud of them both.

Scott went to his book club meeting on Tuesday

to discuss the book

The Ghost, the White House and Me

by Judith St. George.

He wouldn't read for me all summer,

but he finished this book a week ahead of schedule.

Maya goes to her book club meeting today

to discuss the book

The Cabinet of Wonders

by Marie Rutkoski.

She also finished it early

and can now turn in her reading log for

the Barnes and Noble Summer Reading program

and pick out a free book.

These past two weeks have been great ones.

And we keep happily chuggin' along...