Week 35 - 2012 - One More Week to Go!

Since we are continuing to wrap up outside classes, as well as work at home, there's not much to report save for our continued reading.  I think that I neglected to mention some of the books we have been reading related to our week 33 study of Australia and Oceania.  I have been reading aloud from Australia, Antarctica, and the Pacific, Kate Darian-Smith; and Hawai'i, Martin Hintz.









           


My son read Islands of the Pacific Rim and Their People, Macdonald.













This week, we have continued with work related to the presidents, civics and government topics.  I used a voting manual I've had around for a while to talk to him about ways that we can inform ourselves about the voting records of candidates before voting for them.  He has been reading through the information about the more recent presidents (from Reagan forward) in Scholastic's Encyclopedia of The Presidents and Their Times, David Rubel.

He read the last chapter in SOTW IV this week, and is reading from chapter 41 to the end of Volume 10 of Hakim.

We covered the period of the 1990's into 2000 this week, focusing on human rights issues.  In addition to reading from our standards:  the Haywood Atlas, Usborne Atlas, Kingfisher Encyclopedia, Remember the Ladies, and Haywood's Atlas of Past Times, I also read Hillary Clinton's speech to the UN Conference on Women from Words That Built a Nation. 

I read aloud a simple, children's version of the universal declaration of human rights adopted by the UN.  It was prepared by Amnesty International.  We discussed at length the good intent of the document and the problems caused by the simplicity of the language when applied to real life situations around the world....

I read a chapter on Bosnia and Kosovo from Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response, John Shattuck.  It was interesting that General Mladic has been in the news this week and we discussed the lengthy time it has taken to bring some war criminals to justice.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mladic-trial-20120517,0,6653722.story?track=icymi

On the science front, the boys finished the robot they were building and were so enthralled that they wanted to build another, so I agreed to let them meet again next week in attempt to get another one done.  Here are some pics of their current creation:

My office is currently full of books that I'm going to be selling as soon as we're finished with school and I have time to list them.  Once we conclude, I've got to make another run through the school room to see if I can cull more books.  I'm trying to clear the room enough to put a large table in there so that I can hold classes for homeschoolers there next year.  I feel like I'm swimming in books right now!

Regena