I have been severely lacking in motivation in keeping up my blog. It is partly because I feel really pressed for time during the day and am not mentally cognizant after about 6pm. It may also have to due with the length since my last entry and the waning entries leading up to the end of the year. It's sort of like a friend that you keep saying you should call, but then the more time passes, the more awkward it feels to get back in touch. But I've learned from experience that I feel better after I make the initiative, so I'm jumping back into my blog, hoping to revive some of the same sentiment.
There have been some changes, but mostly we're operating in the same behind-schedule, hectic method that I fall into by October. Casia's finished biology and she recently started learning some physics. This was Casia and Jacob's idea. I put my vote in for Earth science but lost. So I bought an easy to understanding basic Newtonian physics book by Karl F. Kuhn called Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide and a physics lab experiment book. So far its going well; even I am able to understand it and Casia is really enjoying physics.
Casia also finished up algebra and has moved on to geometry. Geometry has always been a favorite of hers, so she is far more enthusiastic than she was while doing to algebra; enthusiasm on her part always makes my job so much easier and more enjoyable.
She hasn't been doing much computer science lately, but we've added in two new topics of study. In the first, Casia is learning about the election process by following the news and watching the debates with me. It's only the primaries, but I figure it will take until November to really explain our presidential election process.
The other new element is that we're dedicating a day of language arts each week to vocabulary building. I bought Vocabulary from Classical Roots from my homeschooling group for $1. Casia is also keeping a list of new words from her readings that she wants to learn. She came across 'immolate' earlier this week and when I told her it meant 'destruction by fire' she replied, "Cool! I'd been looking for a word like that!" It turns out she plays this Disney video game on the Wii with some friends and when they fall into a pit of fire, she can now say in her most evil cackle, "You've been immolated!"
