Backyard life and death

We picked our tomatoes from the garden! This is the most we've ever had. Some had started splitting.

We lost 3 of the chicks. Something got in their coop. Cowgirl was sad at the loss of Snowflake, the little white one. We buried them in the backyard. The ones remaining are a little traumatized.

Backyard birds

We lost a few chickens. The roof on the coop was not secure and something got in and killed 3, including one of Cowgirl's favorites. The one on the left is either Cleopatra or Nefret, since they both have black around their eyes that reminded Cowgirl of the Egyptians.

Night fishing

The little girl loves her fishing rod. We don't get enough chances to go fishing, so finally daddy just told her to go fish from the back of his truck. She's just tossing a plug into the neighbor's grass, but she sure does enjoy it!

Home School Day

This a a typical day. The blue spiral is Righstart Math B workbook. She has her weaving project next to her, my camera case and a calendar are also on top. Other subjects are in the boxes underneath.

And here we're doing writing. This story was about Arachne from The McElderry Book of Greek Myths.
I bought a pack of paper that is half blank and half lined, so she can draw pictures and write about it. We also use it to make books, just fold the paper in half and staple. Sometimes we use a piece of construction paper for a cover. The paper is 9x12 and the construction paper is the same size.

Comparing Vietnamese curriculum - VN national books

I bought 1st grade Vietnamese language curriculum in two cities, Hanoi(North) and Saigon(South). There is supposed to be a standardized national curriculum where all students study the same things. But the books are different looking at first glance(plus I forgot I had purchased some in Hanoi) that I ended up with two sets of essentially the same material. BUT they have divergent approaches. Lessons do correspond; number 10 in one set teaches the same thing as number 10 in the other, but the Southern book is much more child friendly, with color pictures. There are no pictures in the Northern book. It really was an eye opener.

South - Part 1, Text book, Workbook and writing practice

South - Part 2

North - Text books for both parts, I would have bought matching workbooks if I had found them.

South -Lesson 28

North - Lesson 28 is on the left side, Lessons 29,30 on the right!

Back side of the South text and work books. 

This shows how cheap the books are, yet there are kids who don't go because they can't afford to buy books! 10,700d is about 50 cents for the Text, the work book is 4,000d and the writing book is 2,500d.I had thought to make copies and have her write on the copy, but the copies would have cost much more than the writing book did.

The backs also list the other available books. So for the Text books there are:
1) Vietnamese Language 1
2) Math 1
3) Nature & Society 1
4) Writing 1

Work books have:
1) Vietnamese Language 1
2) Math 1
3) Nature & Society 1
4) Morality 1
5) Drawing 1
6) Singing 1

Last Space shuttle launch(or not!)

A few months ago I found out that there was supposed to be one last shuttle launch, and it was going to be a night launch on my birthday. So, since I had not yet gone to see a launch, I decided I wanted to go. It wasn't easy to get tickets, there was a lottery, but I was selected and we got tickets. They postponed it once, so it's not my birthday and not a night launch either, then after we spent most of a day at Cape Canaveral, it was postponed again. We decided it was fortunate we lived fairly close, since there were people visiting from other places who would not be able to come back for the launch.

Shakespeare's birthday

Sunflower theatre students helped to put on a Shakespeare birthday celebration at the Arts Garage in Delray Beach. Part of it involved dressing up, and there were so many lovely fairy wings to use.