LEMON

Connor (13.5) found a lemon on the tree next door. The n eighbors all agree my kids can pick the lemons and oranges next door because no one owns the house really, it has been forclosed.

anyway- this is the lemon he found. looks like a grapefruit!

FINANCES/MONEY MATH

i got this book last year, it was mailed to me free.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/mar/marmoneymath.htm

Money Math Lessons for life. This link has a free download. it seems well written. I use it as a 'idea spring board' and plan on doing more with it this year.
OK.. found it... for a free copy, email moneymath@pbd.treas.gov

from the website:
"For years, teachers have used Money Math: Lessons for Life in core mathematics classes, helping to promote financial literacy among students nationwide. Why? With America's household debt reaching a staggering $13.6 trillion, it is important that we make financial education a priority, and provide our kids with the knowledge and skills they need to manage their money, stay out of debt, and save for retirement.
Money Math: Lessons for Life is a four-lesson curriculum supplement for middle school math classes, teaching grade 7-9 math concepts using real-life examples from personal finance. The 86-page book is a teacher's guide with lesson plans, reproducible activity pages, and teaching tips. A teacher needs only one copy of Money Math: Lessons for Life to teach several classes of students.
Free to teachers, Money Math: Lessons for Life was developed by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in accordance with national school mathematics standards. The lessons were tested in Missouri schools and received rave reviews. Teachers need not be experts in personal finance to use Money Math in the classroom; questions and answers are clearly provided in the book.
A second printing of Money Math: Lessons for Life is now available. It is co-sponsored by a group of four generous partners who provided monetary grants and in-kind assistance to the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. Many thanks to:
Citigroup
Department of the Treasury
Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy
University of Missouri-St. Louis "

sponsored by:

unschooling works

Ki is going to be in the 6th grade. he has never done well in math. he gets easily confused. He decided to do the SAT question of the day. it was a MATH question. So I read it to him. It was:

For a certain Triangle the (BCline) [written mathematically, I don't have the font. a BC with a line over it]
ANYWAY- there is a triangle. BCline = 2 and ACline=12. What does ABline equal?

and he drew the triangle and filled in the info and said "It's 12." and explained why (the most important part, I think). He was correct and only 49% of the people who answered got it correct!
He did a Grammar question last week on the SAT question of the day (his big brothers do them so he likes to do them, too, of course).

He reads about 2 grades 'below level' and has dyslexia and dysgraphia, so we doesn't write much. Ho got that question correct as well.

I guess I shouldn't worry so much about him. Though his 'daily performance' isn't always 'grade level', he's obviously a smart kid and can figure things out when he needs/wants to do so- eventhough we let him go at his own pace and only learn when he's ready and what he wants to be learning (for the most part). Once again I am reminded the reason we homeschool is to teach them HOW to learn, not to have them memorize a bunch of facts.

To My Mom - - -

Mom, leave me a comment here sometime. You should be able to click on the link at the bottom of the entry that says # COMMENTS . I tried to set it up so that you don't need to enter code or have your own blog here. Let me know if it works.

After some thought, Brian realized we CAN afford to fly Ki back with him in September! They'll be there Sept 12-18 (approx). Brian plans to go to an Aerodrome Convention on that Saturday. If Ki doesn't want to go, maybe he can hang out with you and dad??

Farmer's Market

Mmmmm! man, this is SO GOOD! I could have this for lunch everyday! And it taste CLEAN. not like soap, but like a clean, crisp mountain spring. With just right amount of chewing. And it smells so yummy!! I bought it today at the Farmer's Market. $10. So good. worth every penny (as was the bad for me, churro! good thing I rode my bike, burnt some of the calories from that.)
So, what it that I am eating?
Pita Bread (the non-pocket type) with
Avocado & Cilantro Hummus ...andtopped with
Taboulie Salad- heavy on the parsley.

for $10 I got 5 pitas. a tub of taboulie salad (maybe 1.5 cups? 2 cups?(all with no additives or persavities. not big words in the ingredients)
and an 8 oz tub of the avocado cilantro hummus. I could be 5 meals- if I had eaten just ONE today...
Also at the Farmer's Market today: (we rode our bikes. 2 miles round trip- how nice is that??)
fresh picked California Strawberries.
the most delicious white necatarines I have ever tasted
TriBerry Jam (For Gavin) it has raspberry, marion berry, blueberry, sugar, pectin, lemon juice (I think that's it) It wasn't cheap. It's a special treat I think. $5,50 for 10 oz.
KETTLECORN - always SCRUMPTIOUS STUFF! fresh popped!
Gavin had a few dollars of his own and bought one of his favorite snacks. red & yellow cherry tomatoes. I bet he'll come next week too. It cost him $1 (1/2 pound and it was more than I would have thought)
2 broccoli heads (2 for $1)
and we tried our first, and definately NOT LAST, churro

wipedia:
A churro is a fried-dough pastry-based snack, sometimes made from potato dough, which is believed to have originated in Spain, and is popular in Latin America, France, Portugal, the USA, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. It is sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut or Mexican doughnut. The snack gets its name from its shape, which resembles the horns of the Churro breed of sheep reared in the Spanish grasslands of Huarocho.[citation needed] There are two types of churros found in Spain. One is long and fat and the other is thin and knotted.
The churro is typically fried to a crunchy consistency. Its surface is ridged due to being piped from a churrera, a syringe with a star-shaped nozzle. Churros are generally prisms in shape, and may be straight, curled or spirally twisted.
Like pretzels, churros are often sold by street vendors who in many cases will fry them freshly on the street stand and sell them hot.

**ours were coated with sugar and NOT filled with anything: