Weekly update for 3/12/12

This week in RTR he moved more into the Age of Reason in his readings.  It is amazing to me how much he is learning about and covering this year. He loved  learning about Japan and what was going on there during this time period.  He read about Shogun rulers and the class system that was different than what he would have thought it would be.  As he is reading he can't help but stop and tell me all the interesting things he is learning.  He learned how Christianity was outlawed and Japan was closed off to the outside world for 200 years.  I have to admit, I didn't know that.  He has gotten where he wants to watch a Discovery Streaming Video for the topics we are studying so I found 2 short ones about Japan during this time period and also some things about Samurai warriors.  He loved that.  His history project for the week was making foods from the Shakespearean time in England.  The first day he made seed cake.  The second day he made baked pears and we had them for dinner.  He didn't make Yorkshire pudding because his sister had made something similar when she studied England and he knew no one like it. 

In storytime we finished reading "The Story of Sir Walter Raleigh".  Noah decided it was very depressing how he was treated at the end of his life.  We then started listening to the audio drama of "The Story of Squanto".  This also starts our fairly intense and sad.  I love how this isn't watered down history for this age.  He is seeing more the good and bad of history.  I wouldn't have wanted to present this to him when he was younger, but this is a very good age for it.  We have some good discussions about the evil of man and how greed causes them to do some pretty awful things. 

In Science he finished reading "Along Came Galileo" and is now reading "Isaac Newton".  He then did a science experiment looking at the path of comets and how the coma of a comet is formed.  It was kind of cool that as he was taking a ice cube and realizing that comets were cold and learning about how as it traveled close to the sun part of it melted leaving the coma that we had a hail storm.  I brought some hail in and this helped him visualize even more what happened. 

He continues to love the Art study "Looking at Pictures".  He loves studying the pictures and talking about them.  He also is challenged weekly by "Boyhood and Beyond".  All of the resources in this guide have just been so good.