Eureka! We've Struck Gold!

Well, instead of talking about how homeschooling is going today, I thought I'd reflect on happier times. Today is, as Mondays will be, full of tears and anguish, moaning and groaning, and gnashing of teeth. Today everyone is complaining that everyone else is picking on them. Today Timothy's math hates him more than usual. Today the milk has run out. Again.

But ahhh, last week. Last week was golden. Literally. Last week we broke out all of our gold panning supplies and tried our hands at prospecting. We had 2 kits from Hands and Hearts, as well as the supplies included in our history studies from Winterpromise: American Story 2, so we had 3 gold pans going. All 4 kids got to try their hand at it, and I think that Audrey came out as the best (she was the only one not worried about losing some of her gold).We did our gold panning in an ice chest--leaving the cloudy water and gritty residue for Chris to find later that day. Oops.Melinda was SO excited to try this. She enjoyed it very much, and did quite well...after she got her mind around the fact that the ants on the ground were not out to get her.The Hands and Hearts kits had 8 bb/pellet things hidden in the sand and rocks. Audrey found them all without digging around with her fingers (like the older kiddos resorted to doing out of fear that they'd be washed over the edge). They also included a vial of gold flakes to keep.Studying the Gold Rush has been fun, especially being familiar with many of the locations talked about in the books we've read. Adding activities like this has been a remarkable way to make our studies more meaningful. We're really enjoying the approach that Winterpromise takes to learning history, especially in combination with some of Sonlight's great literature pics.

I'll post later about some of our other school activities.