End of Semester

We celebrated the end of our homeschool semester by ordering up some snow. It might have only been a pathetic dusting, but it was enough for Catherine to whip up a tiny snowman!

Since we don't have an academic co-op this year, our end-of-semester presentations were given to Daddy instead of friends. Each of them got to pick one topic from history and one topic from science to present about. Aaron opted for the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem (he was intrigued by the idea of the soldiers prying up the melting gold):

For science he wrote/dictated a book about gems (his current obsession):

He also illustrated, with a bit of coercion.

Definitely more of a Seth than a Catherine when it comes to art. 

Catherine learned a lot about sugar (how it's made, different types). She even did a sugar-tasting survey and collected and analyzed the data:

It was a lot of fun tasting all those different sugars (and seeing what our friends and family thought about each type). Generally, the adults preferred the darker sugars and the kids liked white or powdered sugar. But EVERYONE liked the raw cane sugar! And molasses and raw sugarcane were definite losers. 

For history she researched Cleopatra and put together a poster. Thankfully her reading comprehension is still lacking enough that she passed right over the word "incest" without even asking. Gah. 

Seth spent a LOT of time creating his presentation on the division of the Roman Empire. He made a ton of little soldiers in Paint and then created his own infographic:

He also made some Roman honeycake, which was delicious!

His science presentation will be his robotics competition in January.

We're still tweaking and adjusting our new co-op-free schooling, but overall I'm really loving the freedom and the more relaxed academics.