It's so easy to get caught up in other things ...

A brief recap of October and November is in order (and my apologies to friends and family who asked for updates!). Despite my best efforts, I got caught up in election emotions. Every time I started to write here, the entry turned into a rant about something or other that didn't have much to do with our homeschooling experience.

Five In a Row for us has become Five Every Other Day or So Spread Out Over a Couple of Weeks. Or in the case of Who Owns the Sun by Stacy Chbosky, it took us a month. The book is narrated by a boy who discovers there are some things too wondrous to be owned, including a person's heart and soul. He and his family are slaves in the pre-Civil War South; it is quite a lesson for him.

The author was a fourteen-year old girl in the '80s. The last line of the book is something to the effect of "My parents would be proud to know that their great-great grandson became governor of this state." It was moving to read this in the context of the presidential election of 2008. TJ and PJ don't really get how wondrous it is that America has elected Barack Obama.

We didn't do a lot of math or science with this book. The girls created a list of their own of "Things too wondrous to be owned," which inspired their own artwork. We also attended a political rally for Obama with 35,000 other people, a crowd that included at least twenty of our local friends. It was a great experience to be in that crowd -- such good will, hope, and energy.

I have to leave this update here for now. The girls are asking to play, and why would I sit at the computer instead of having fun with them?