Day One Hundred Ninety-Five

A day in the life.  One of the things I love about homeschooling is the freedom we have to follow the rabbit trails.  Today we learned about a new mammal simply because we saw a picture of it on the internet and looked into it a bit.  The civet is an interesting little creature.  Not only have people used them for their musk (Chanel no. 5), but apparently if you want some really good coffee, you should be willing to fork out some serious cash for the beans that have been eaten and excreted by the civets.

http://dailycoffeenews.com/2011/11/01/philippine-farmers-cash-in-on-civet-coffee/

So, that was cool.  But since it was an unusually warm and sunny April day, we decided to spend the majority of the time outdoors.  We started the day with a read-aloud session on the back porch about Apollo 11 and ended our day with painting the chicken coop.  There was a lot of schooling that happened throughout the day.  We moved rocks with a wheelbarrow.  We talked about kinetic motion.  During our break from manual labor, the boys played math drill games on the computer. Dom helped me count by fives as we estimated how many pounds of rock we moved (each stone weighed approximately five pounds).  Aidan measured the area of the chicken coop door, the porch, etc.  Simeon sang his heart out and observed the bees.  We found worms, slugs, pill bugs (or potato bugs, roly poly bugs...whatever you choose to call them).  Aidan had a lesson in moving the lawn.  It was one of those days where I felt affirmed in what we're doing here.  The freedom, the joys we share, and the time spent together.  It won't last forever, but I'm holding on to these years.