Taffy

This is Taffy, a dog who lives in the neighborhood. Her owner informed me that he and his wife have been married since 1953. 59 years!

Another week

This week flew by. Today Milalai was having a hard time with one assignment. Reading about the Oliver Twist novel out of what every 6th grade should know. I had her read to me, since she gets distracted easily. It worked out well. Now, Oliver Twist will be added to the growing list of books she would like to read. She is into Little Women and Hunger Games at the moment. She is taking her time with those. Also, I wanted to add she started her art class yesterday. She painted an abstract piece that should be finished next week. I got a peak at what she did and it looks really nice.

Art Museum

Math

 We decided to use Saxon math for our daughter. You can learn all about the Saxon math here.
We bought all the newest addition books as used through eBay to save money.  It was a smart move as books certainly can add up.

All you have to do is ask, then ask again.

On the homeschool website my hubby saw that some schools will let you borrow text books.  I called what would be our daughters public middle school and asked if I could borrow the same books they use in the classroom.  It took some haggling, some phone calls and a few weeks to get some answers. In the end the answer was no. They didn't have any extra books to loan out to me.  They said they were even short handed.
I called another middle school. I explained my situation and the lady I spoke with happily let me come by to pic up a English book and a Science book. They too, were low on the other books, math and history. However, she did let me know what books they use for math and history.
While there I asked her about the school which is well known for their Science program. She said they have a waiting list for students to get into that school.  I also asked her, out of curiosity, how many students were in each class.  She stated, no less than 30.

Social studies studying

Learning about homo sapiens and homo erectus on social studies. One reason I am enjoying homeschooling is I get to learn along with my daughter.

Rainforests

My oldest, the one I am homeschooling, read about extinction. Here is her summary:
"A lot of animals and plants are being extinct. Every year 27,000 acres of tropical rainforests are cut down or burned.  In 1995, it was estimated that in 2000, 80 percent of rainforest will be gone and the plants and animals will be extinct. Now it is 2012, so probably 95 percent is gone or almost gone. One of the rainforests was cut down to be used to mine tin. Everyday at lease 3 of the species are gone.  I think the extinction needs to stop. So my sister and I are going to make posters and hang them up so we can stop the extinction with plants and animals."
For this being her first homeschool report. I do have some critiques for her. Like, why there isn't any new starting paragraphs? How will you stop extinction through posters? What are some updated information of 2012 you can find out about extinction? I will repost her responses here when we get to it. For now its math time...