Day Two: Fun with Microscopes

Happy Mabon (first day of Fall). Everyone here is ready for the leaves to really start falling so that we can jump in piles.

Today we started out the day with Zhara doing Spanish. She really likes Rosetta Stone and is starting to learn some basic nouns.

Then we read some more on germs. We learned about the four kinds of germs -- bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. We looked at some pictures and talked about some historical epidemics caused by germs. We also discussed common illnesses caused by germs, as well as the helper germs that make our world go around.

Then we took out the microscope (a huge hit with everyone), and looked at some prepared slides. We don't have a super high-powered scope, so we saw basic structures only. Then we talked about other things we would like to look at. We looked at one of my eyelashes and identified the follicle and the sides of the hair itself. We looked at cells from the inside of my cheek, and some mold we found in the bathroom -- yuck! I said perhaps there would be less mold if Zhara would do her chore of cleaning the bathroom more often. She declared herself uninterested in ever entering the bathroom again after seeing the moving mold bacteria under the microscope -- blech!

Angus and I practiced some sight reading. He is not a great phonics guy, but a really good pattern/sight reader. He is still really learning to recognize the alphabet. My mom, a special ed teacher, noted today when we visited her for lunch at her school, that kids on the spectrum (as Angus is) tend to be MUCH better sight readers than phonics readers, which definitely holds truth for Angus man.

Zhara worked some more on Math Quest cards. She did some work in fractions, multiplication and division. We are really looking forward to getting our Singapore Math books in the next few days.

Everyone is loving reading The Three Musketeers, and we are already planning on making Heidi and then The Swiss Family Robinson our next two books.

Tonight Angus has his first drum lessons, and he couldn't be more excited.