Someone on the unschooling.com message boards posted a panic attack that her 4 year old child wasn't learning anything. I honestly can't imagine a child that age not soaking up the world around them like a sponge. I am now watching PBS's Colonial House for the second time in a row tonight--just with different children. Julia and I watched it at 8:00 until she fell asleep next to me around 9:00. Emily joined me shortly after 9 and is now watching the beginning segment, which she missed while she was downstairs. She's totally into it and got very excited at the mention of John Smith, though the lamb slaughter grossed her out a bit. Em was very excited by the preview for Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire, which airs on Wednesday night and for a Sunday Marathon of 1900 House. All of this is just as engaging as anything else she might want to watch, and that's just terrific!

Today we met friends at the park to do our year-end homeschool review. The kids played, ages ranging from 4 to 13, while the moms brainstormed and reminded each other of all the things we've done the past year from a class in American Sign Language to field trips to in-depth study of American history. (Somebody at the dinner table the other night quoted, "Give me Liberty, or give me death," and Emily jumped in with "I know, Patrick Henry said that!")

Afterwards, we found our second seahorse on our Seahorses by the Bay Scavenger Hunt. So far we've learned that male sea horses actually give birth and that sea horses are, indeed, fish, complete with gills and an air bladder. Then we went to Blockbuster, rented some videos, prepurchased Lord of the Rings and found some previously viewed videos for the kids, one of which was Dragonheart, which we had caught the end of on tv several nights ago. The kids were so excited to come home to watch it! We briefly talked about what a "brother" is in a religious context, and I'm sure we'll have many follow up discussions this week.

Once dh got home, we went down to the climber to play on the new climbing wall he built this weekend, which is 8 ft wide and about 9 ft. high and overhung by about 10-15 degrees. It's pretty tricky, but it's going to be loads of fun! I'm trying to talk him into building another panel on the other side of the climber, which will be vertical and meet up with the first panel as an arrete. Should be totally awesome when he gets it done! Way fun for the parents and the kiddos!