Well, that didn't work

Maybe this will:

Harry Term 2

Sam Term 2

Term 2: Starting Jan 2011

I think this might work. I have planned the work out for both boys for the second term of "school." I'm trying to post it on the sidebar, so go there if you are really, really interested in what we're planning to do.

The Week that Wasn't

Sometimes despite any planning on your own part, any good thoughts, and any attempts to "do lessons" as we call it, the world has it out for you. And at some point you just have to accept that things aren't going to go the way you planned and salvage what you can.

This was a week like that. My car tried to kill me, Jason woke up one day in excruciating pain, and one of my good friends went through something amazingly hard and all I could do was pray for her and her family. Plus we were just really busy. We've spent hours at doctor's offices, had several playdates and other things just kind of happen.

So this week we packed up the work we could into bags and backpacks, tried not to lose too many papers, and soldiered on.

Harry worked on his math--it's still review, so that was good. He started Heidi but didn't get too far with it. I know he read Story of the World about Paraguay and Canada, but we haven't done the maps or other work that went with it. As for science, he did the book work, but we haven't had a chance to do the experiments that go with it. He's had ample time to read The Fellowship of the Rings while sitting and waiting in offices and we started Music of the Hemispheres. That was fun. Really. We sat yesterday waiting for Jason to finish at the doctor's office and made "whooshing" and "ssssss" sounds. That may be the best thing I take away from the week.

Sam read and read. He started Little House on the Prairie and Pippi Longstocking. I only assigned the first, he found Pippi and started to read. He worked on his math--skip counting by 10s. I know he read his history, but again we haven't done any of the activities for it. Sam did some science at the beginning of the week, but nothing since then. He also finished some grammar and writing lessons.

Both boys read a book from the library about the gross things through history. Now they keep coming up to me asking me if I know things like where people went to the bathroom throughout history. Yay. Harry and I have had some good discussions about slavery. We've talked about slavery throughout history and how it lead to slavery in the US. We talked about the time after the Civil War and how things didn't just become happy and good for everyone the moment the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. It's interesting to see him realizing that there are gray areas--slave owners weren't universally evil and northerners universally good. Again, I feel privileged that I get to be the one having these discussions with him and introducing these topics to him.

So, if I'm keeping score do I count this week as a failure or a success or something in between? We didn't get close to all of the work I had scheduled for the week finished and I there were a lot of frustrations. On the other hand, we did have some good discussions about slavery and the Civil War and the kids read a bunch of books on their own. I don't know. I know I like our weeks better when things are organized and things go smoothly, but I am pretty proud of what we did do.

But I won't mind at all if next week gets back to normal.

Week Five?

I think I lost a week in there somewhere. It may have been while we were traveling because I know I didn't skip any chapters in their books. Oh well.

So, back to work. I think I'm going to do this like a Top 10 list, rather than going into a lot of detail about everything. You're welcome!

10. Learning everywhere:


Harry doing his math while hanging out at Emma's dance class. Some subjects, like math, are more "portable" than others. Art, for instance and piano are not good lessons to take places.

9. Studying hard things together.

Harry's history program this year covers the 19th and 20th centuries. Those are years full of examples of man's inhumanity toward other men. I love that I can be the one to introduce those things to the kids. Right now we are all learning about the Civil War. Sam is enjoying the maps we color and the facts. Harry is trying to really understand slavery and what it meant for people. They are both studying the same thing, but they aren't learning it the same way. And that's cool, I don't expect them to. Sam will ask the same questions Harry is when he's ready.

I can say that now, but the Holocaust is going to be really, really hard on all of us.

8. Books, books, and more books.

Our homeschool is based on books. For the most part we don't use texts, we read real books. You can go back and tell me that Singapore Math is a text and even Story of the World is. And you would be right. But the basis of our homeschool is reading books. Harry just finished Little Princess and is still reading The Fellowship of the Ring. On Monday he'll start Heidi. Sam reads faster than any other second grader that I know, so it's hard to keep him in books. He reads a variety of books--from picture books to novels. He recently finished Beowulf (and loved it). One of his assignments this week was Owl Moon and he's reading Emil by Astrid Lindgren. At bedtime we are reading Little Men. Those are our major, assigned books, but there are others popping up here and there.

I love that the kids have time to read. It also helps, though, that the kids all really like to read.

7. Trying New Things.

Harry and Sam just started piano lessons this week with the son of a friend from Church. He's been taking piano for a long time and is great with the kids. Harry also started tennis lessons from his Uncle Adam and discovered a love of the game. I'm sure the Jamba Juice Adam got him afterward helped too.

6. Finding the "perfect" Curriculum.

Harry and Sam get lumped together a lot. They aren't quite two years apart and they are both boys. So it seems pretty easy to teach them together. But they aren't the same at all. Sam loves stories and making things up. He loves drawing and creating and seems to have a natural eye for that kind of thing. Harry likes stories too, but he prefers for them to be either fantasy or completely grounded in reality.

Sam likes to get his work over and done with so he can go back to playing with his Pokemon or creating something with Playmobil. I don't spend a lot of time trying to make it super-fun, but just get him through what he needs to do and back to his "real life." That's also a function of his age--he's not going to sit and work for a long time. We do short lessons that get a lot of info into him. Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons work really well for him.

We tried WWE and FLL with Harry and it was a complete bust. He hated them and it made both of us miserable. This year I got smart and started using Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts program. So far, it's a huge hit. We all love it. Sam perks up when he's in the room and we are reading it, Harry thinks it's just a lot of fun, and he's actually remembering what he needs to.

5. Fun Stuff.


Harry's Literature book mentioned making buns. So he did.


4. Math.

I never thought I'd say that. Ever. But when you start giggling over place value notation and estimation it gets a mention in the Top Ten.

3. Brothers and Sisters.

She's not a true student of our "school" yet, but she really likes to do what her brothers and sister do. In fact, they all kind of run as a pack. It can be a little frightening, but overall it's good.

2. Art.

The school my kids would go to doesn't offer art. There isn't enough money for it. Fortunately we do have art in our school. This week Sam read Owl Moon and did an art project to go along with it. The best part is that I got some paints out and worked right along with him. But I'm not going to show you mine. That's the difference between a seven-year-old and a thirty...-year-old.


1. Looking out the back window at our bird feeder, noticing the birds and having the kids identify them by their calls. Something you learned together several years ago.

Cool...

For today's coolest thing, you don't actually have to homeschool, but it's a nice perk.

Sam's assignment was to paint and draw in the same manner as the book Owl Moon. It's one of my favorites. The kids think it's okay, probably because it's such a calm, quiet book. Sam read the book and we have a few things to do that mirror what's in it.

I sat down and painted with both Annika and Sam. It's just a nice thing to do sometimes. Sam really gets into it though. He knows how to make things look like he wants them to. In that way he really takes after Jason.

But it's always fun to take a while in the middle of the day to paint.

Pictures to follow when I have a chance to take them and the camera batteries are charged. In other words, maybe never.

Today's Coolest Thing

So, not every homeschool day is perfect and some of them just need to be gotten through, but today... today has been a good day.

Today we...

laughed our way through Grammar Island. I never, ever thought that might happen.

giggled while talking about place values up to the ten thousands

read book after book to a boy about to get a cast on.

It's a chilly, rainy day and we're about to make buns for dinner, ala Sara Crewe in A Little Princess.

Weeks Two and Three

I won't bore you with pictures of their math work this time, but I do want to remember at least a little of what we worked on in the past couple of weeks.

The kids started their enrichment classes the week of the 13th. So we now have a much busier schedule and things are a lot crazier than the week before. On various days and at various times the boys have a sports class, an art class, Greek and Latin Roots class, and chess club. We started the week off south of our house on a fun field trip that the kids loved. I even took Annika out of school for it, thank goodness she liked it or I would never have heard the end of it.

Anyway, that about covers the fun stuff that we do, let's get down to business.

Literature/Reading:

Harry is reading Little Princess and doing some work on it. I think I've said before that Harry hates all books I recommend until he actually begins reading it. I'm trying not to let the work he's doing on the book ruin the experience of reading it so I'm having him do about half the work required.

I also let him choose his other reading. I wasn't at all sure what he'd pick, but I was willing to consider whatever it was. Actually, I wasn't. But he didn't know that. And in the end he picked The Fellowship of the Rings. Go Harry. I pretended to think it over and told him, "okay, I guess."

Sam finished Children of Noisy Village and I had to scramble to find something else for him. One downside to using the library for a lot of our literature is that it sometimes doesn't come when I expect it to. Anyway, I got an adaptation of Beowulf for him. He really loved it. I like having him read books that tie into his history lessons. I think it's so cool that he likes stories and can recount them almost verbatim. He also read Jumanji and spent some time drawing pictures of animals in his house. I asked Sam to narrate Jumanji and he spent about seven minutes on the first three pages of it. I tried to write as he narrated, but it was really hard to keep up.

Math:

Harry finished his Singapore Math book. It was 2B, so I knew he'd fly through it once we got started. The best part is that he really likes doing his work again. Math-U-See was one of the first curriculum decisions I made and it really didn't occur to me that it might be a problem. I'm so glad that eventually I was willing to reevaluate it and find something better. Harry finished the book on Wednesday, but since I didn't want to start 3A on Thursday, I printed some division worksheets off and gave them to him to work on. We'll start the new book on Monday.

Math-U-See is still working for Sam, though. I do kind of wonder if I'm going to have to switch him too and if I should do it now or wait until there is a problem. I'm leaning toward later. Last week he worked on estimation and this week skip counting by two's. He breezes through pretty much everything he does and it seems to stick, so that's good.

Grammar & Spelling:

I'll talk about Sam first. He's doing fine. He's using First Language Lessons. I went through and selected certain lessons in year one and then we'll move onto the second year. Sam has memorized a couple of poems and we've gone over our address a few times. Spelling Workout isn't exciting and it's probably a bit too easy for him, but we'll finish it and move on.

Now, for Harry. I finally got Harry's grammar books. They are part of the Michael Clay Thompson language arts program. Harry is on Grammar Island and we've read the first few pages. So far, so good. Harry likes goofiness in his lessons and likes lessons that we talk though, so it seems like a good fit. But, we're only on page 17, so I hesitate to give it a "this-is-the-best-program-ever" review. Give it time. Harry's spelling program is called Working Words in Spelling. For some reason he hated Spelling Workout and really likes this. So, we're doing this instead.

History:

Let's see. Harry has read about Japan opening to trade, the Crimean War, Italy becoming a country and The Taiping Revolution. Seriously, SOTW 4 is all over the place. But Harry likes it. He's making connections all over the place and I like that. I almost forget sometimes what he's already read about and he'll ask me questions and it'll throw me a bit. Clearly there are worst things to worry about.

Sam read Beowulf, he's learning about Justinian and Theodora, St. Augustine and the Celts. SOTW 2 at least stays somewhat the same. I still really like both programs. The biggest problem Sam has is that his teacher keeps forgetting to do the fun projects in his book. But I'm working on it. He also read Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady. I made the big mistake of asking him to write about the book. Remember when I told you that he gives these amazing narrations? He only does that if I write it. Writing is not his favorite thing. But that's okay, he's only seven.

Science

Both boys did some science last week, but somehow we skipped this week. That's okay, Singapore Science is challenging and I'm okay with taking it slow. I would however like to make more of an effort to make those all important connections between what they are reading in their books and real life.

Anyway, that's the basics. My goal for the next few weeks is to add all of the fun things in, including making pizza, illuminated letters and mosaics. Those I will take pictures of.

Today's Coolest Thing

About Homeschooling:

Talking to Harry about The Little Princess and why Captain Crewe went to India. He wanted to know why Crewe would leave his daughter behind and go into the army. Then, on his own, he made the connection between what he read in The Little Princess and his history book that talked about the Sepoy Revolt.

I did have to attempt to explain the entire social structure of 19th century Great Britain to him, but the discussion we were able to have that encompassed both his history and literature studies was pretty cool.

Why should the "real" teachers have all the fun?

Back to Second Grade

So, Sam does not have the same amount of work that Harry does, for one very good reason. He's in Second Grade, not Fourth. Although, if you are Harry you'd probably assume that it has something to do with Mom being really mean.

Overall Sam is following in Harry's footsteps, or at least he would be if Harry had stayed home for Second Grade. I pulled out the plans I had in place and changed the name. Actually, that's not entirely true. I changed a few things because even though people have a tendency to treat them as interchangeable, the really aren't. This is a brief overview of Sam's first week of Second Grade:

Math: Math-U-See Beta. I'm letting Sam zip through the first few chapters as a review. He did the first two pages of lessons one through three and took the tests in order to prove to me that he knew what he was talking about. He did and we're moving on to lesson four. I have no idea right now what it's about, but it's safe to say it'll have something to do with multiple digit addition or subtraction, just like the rest of the 30 lessons in the book.

Here's some proof that Sam knows his math:



History: I'm separating the boys for history this year. They've always done the same time period, but I want Sam to have the joy of discovering the Middle Ages when he's actually interested in them. This time period was just made for a seven-year-old to discover. This week he read about the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm definitely going to have to get our Romans out of the attic. It'll be hilarious to listen to the stories Sam comes up with.


Science: I chose to buy an actual science curriculum this year. After trying and absolutely hating NOEO Science last year, it seemed like a good idea. Sam is working on Singapore Science 3/4. The first book in the series is called Diversity. The actual textbook and activity books are pretty basic. The homework and test books require more thought and will be challenging.

This is a page from the activity book:

I'm excited about science for the first time in a couple of years. Harry is using the same program, just a different level.

Reading and Language Arts:

Sam didn't start spelling this week, he will next week. He read Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say for his literature book. It's one of my favorite picture books ever and I was excited for him to read it. Unfortunately I don't think a 7yo can really get everything this book has to offer. There are themes of family, war, fitting in and others all in this little picture book. Allen Say has just done such a good job with it. Anyway. I talked to him about these themes and he grasped that the grandfather moved and missed things from both places and that's what I was going for. Here's his response page:


He's also reading Children of Noisy Village which makes him laugh hysterically. It's so fun. Like I said, I love introducing the kids to books I love and this is no exception. Sam just sits there giggling and then spends more words than Astrid Lindgren herself describing just what was so funny.

Sam started Writing with Ease, Level Two with a narration of an Aesop's Fable. I of course didn't take a picture of it (be glad). He does well checking off lists and having a predictable routine, so I think for this year WWE will work for him.

So, there we have the basics for Sam. There are a few things he hasn't started yet. I mentioned spelling, but we'll start grammar in the next few weeks too. Sam like stories, so I'd like to read him 50 Famous Stories and a few other collections I have. He's combining with Harry for art and the other "Specials." He'll start piano and sports again. I'd like to be able to keep as much time as I can free for him to play. I'm past making the early grades time-consuming. That doesn't mean that we skimp on his education at all, but I try to have him work "efficiently." Each year gets a little harder, just ask Harry. But second grade is still a lot of drawing, coloring, and playing. At least for Sam.

See you next week.

Back to School (Harry)

So, we all started school this week. On Monday Annika got all dressed up, put on her new kindergarten shoes and backpack and headed off to regular school.

The boys and Emma, on the other hand, got dressed in their regular clothes, probably forgot to comb their hair, and sat down at the desk in the loft. I'm pretty sure Annika was much happier than the boys were about starting school. Emma was pretty devastated to have Annika gone for three hours. Fortunately Grandma was here to help Emma get through it.

You may ask: "What is a homeschool day like?" And I'll answer, "it depends." Then you'll ask, "on what." And then I'll answer, "it depends on so many things you'll get bored of seeing quotation marks way before I finish."

Then I'll just give you a brief rundown of our week, complete with pictures. But I want to warn you, pictures of the boys' work is not that exciting. Don't tell me you weren't warned.

Harry: Harry is in 4th grade this year. He is studying the modern age starting with Queen Victoria, in History, right now he's reading Little House on the Prairie, and he's just started a new math program. He's also starting a new literature program and for that he's read an adaptation of a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories, he does spelling, and some other stuff I can't think of right now and that we haven't started yet.

Would you like to see? Ok...

Math: I switched Harry from Math U See to Singapore Math. The programs are completely different and SM starts fractions much earlier than MUS does, so when I gave Harry the placement test, he tested into book 2B. So most of it's easy review, but he really likes the fraction parts. I have to say, I loooove SM. MUS is great and both boys have learned their math facts well using it, but SM is better. Harry and I were talking about math this morning. We were looking at the books and joking about the different shapes and fractions. How often does that happen? I love SM. Here are pictures of some of his work.



Literature: This is the first time I've ever used a real literature program with Harry. It was written by another homeschool Mom who used it with her children. So far we like it. My only problem is that it uses adaptations rather than the actual books. Harry reads well enough that he could read the real Little Princess, but I'm not sure if it would match up with the work we have for the book so I'm hesitant to substitute it. Harry's favorite part of the program are the Story Charts. He uses the chart to decide which part of the story is the setting, the exposition, the climax, everything. I like that he's getting used to these terms. Again, it's been really fun to talk to Harry about his work and have real discussions over whether this part is the rising action or the climax and why. Here's a picture of his completed Story Chart for the Blue Carbuncle:


History: Like I said, he's starting the Modern Age. This week he read about Queen Victoria and the Sepoy Mutiny. This is the first year he's had to read his history book to himself, in years past, I've read it out loud. He's learning how to outline the chapters and his mapwork is more difficult than in years past.



Science: Well, we didn't get Harry's science books until today, so we're going with the nature is good theory of science. Get the kid outside and have him observe for a while. Ask him what he saw and expound on that a little. There, nature studies.

And a whole bunch of miscellaneous notes:

Harry's required reading this week is Little House on the Prairie. He has an interesting way with books. If I choose it, he automatically assumes that he'll hate it. If I force him to read, by the second chapter he almost always get into the book and begin to like it. I've shown him the pattern and we laugh and he agrees that it's kind of silly and then it starts over again each and every time.

So now I just tell him to suck it up, deal, and read. So he's enjoying LHOP and it's really fun for me to hear his observations. One of the best parts of homeschooling is picking the books you liked as a child and introducing them to your kids. I know that you don't have to homeschool in order to do that, but hey I do, it's my blog and I'm saying it's cool to be a homeschool mom. Once or twice a week I have Harry write about what he read.



We do spelling, but it's not real interesting, so I'm not going to post any pictures. Although, you probably could debate whether any of the pictures were interesting, so here is a picture of Harry's spelling work:


We haven't started everything yet. Latin will come next week and once Harry's other Language Arts books get here, we'll add those in. Fourth grade is a big deal around here. There's a lot more work and more responsibility but I'm trying to balance that out with some freedom. Harry and I will talk about which books he'd like to read through the year. He'll get to pick from a list of books I've approved. (Of course, his non-school reading is his choice.) And I'm planning to do more projects with him. I also have one fun thing each day planned. At least I think it's fun. It's kind of like Specials. We'll do Shakespeare on Monday, Art on Tuesday, etc. Ending up with Beach Day Friday.

This is really long. I can promise you that future weekly posts won't be this long.

Now, off to Sam.

What works for us...

So, we're at the point when many homeschoolers start planning for the next year. We're nearing the end of the books we're currently using and on the hunt for what to use next year. I've been going through the kids books, taking stock of what we've liked and what we haven't and what works well enough that I'm not changing.

Math: Both boys use Math U See. It's not the most exciting program ever and I've never seen them jump up and down when I tell them to get their math books, but it works. It works probably because of constant repetition. I do mean constant. Sam's book this year, Alpha, only deals with single digit addition and subtraction. Harry's is only multiplication. They do enjoy the movies that "teach" the lesson--they think it's kind of funny that there are kids answering off camera. This really falls under the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" column.

The only problem I have is that the lesson books only have 30 weeks of lessons. So the boys only have about eight more weeks to go until...hmm, good question. I just don't think that letting them have that much time off of math is a good idea. So I've ordered a supplement for Harry, Singapore Brain Maths 1. It looks like logic problems, which Harry is very good at and enjoys. So he'll do this and both he and Sam will have to suffer through worksheets I print from the MUS site and other places around the web.

History: This is a tricky one for us. Both boys started the year off with Story of the World, volume 3. Up until around February, I read it out loud to them and they both did the same work. The only difference was in the supplementary books I had them read. Harry's were harder and Sam's a little bit easier, if not non-existent. Recently though, I decided that Sam should be doing something different for his history and I've been printing up pages from 50 Famous Stories for him. I'm trying to match the time period of his stories with the time period that Harry's reading about.

Our current plan is that Harry reads the SOTW text to himself. He then answers the questions I have for him and completes the map work. If there is a supplementary book, he reads that and we do any projects that come with the chapter. (Not all in one day, of course, I'm talking over the course of a week.)

Sam reads his Story and narrates it to me. I've had him draw pictures, write a sentence or two about it, or just tell me. Harry tells Sam what he's reading and he does the map work as well. Sam will read a book that relates to the subject in SOTW and joins in with the projects.

It sounds much more complicated than it really is. Remember, things are spread out and we've worked on a routine that seems to keep everyone happy. And happy is very important when you are dealing with kids who have a tendency to shut down.

Science: We are using Noeo Science Chemistry. I have to say that I do not like this science curriculum at all. Not at all. I was so excited because 'everyone' says that this is the science to use. That'll teach me to listen to 'everyone.'

There are things that I do like, I'll go into that first. I like that they schedule in biographies and that they don't use text books. And after that short list, I don't like how they have the readings broken up. There are four scheduled days each week and you might read one or two pages of a book each day and define or draw pictures of a few vocabulary works. It's very Charlotte Mason-y in the short readings, but these aren't difficult, Victorian-era books. They were written just a few years ago and they aren't that hard to understand.

Basically, it's really, really boring and we won't be using it again. But I'm stuck with it this year, so we've basically combined a week into a day or two and go about it that way. Since Jason is a scientist though, we tend to discuss scientific things anyway, so I'm not too worried that they aren't learning enough.

Spelling: Harry uses an old book that we found somewhere called Working Words in Spelling. There are newer versions of this, but I really like the old one that we have, so I don't let him write in the books, I copy them for him. (The link goes to a newer version. Ours is from 1980 so it's quite a bit different from the new ones.) Sam works with Spelling Workout. Sam says that he doesn't really like the lessons, but he does like the cover.) He does fine with it and becoming a good little speller, so I'm happy to keep with it. We do spelling every day, one day they will do the chapter and the next I quiz them on it. It seems to work well for them, they rarely forget a word and both boys, Harry especially, is really improving this year.

Grammar: We don't do grammar for either boy this year. If we did, we would use First Language Lessons, because I have them on the shelf just waiting. Maybe next year.

Writing: Harry is working on his cursive. Sam writes a lot in print. He has really nice printing.

For actually learning how to write well? Both boys use Writing With Ease by Susan Wise Bauer. Harry is in level 2 and Sam is in level 1. They both do fine with this program and like reading about new books. In fact, much of our free reading this year has been inspired by the books used in WWE. For that, I'm thankful.

On the other hand...I'm not thrilled with this program. When we were doing FLL and WWE together it was overkill. I'm happy with taking grammar (FLL) out of the equation, but I still find the basic structure of WWE kind of boring. The kids don't really enjoy it either, even though I know they are learning. This makes a tricky decision for next year. Do I stay with what they are currently doing or do I branch out and see what else is out there?

You'll have to tune in tomorrow night to find out what I plan to do. And what about Annika? Isn't she school-age soon? Hmmm....

The Black Hole of Calcutta

Guest Post by Harry

The English started the East India Company and the Persians came and took over Delhi and took all of its riches back to Persia. They also burned Delhi. The English thought the Persians were going to attack the East India Company so they built a fort called Fort Calcutta. The Indians thought the English were trying to attack the Indians so they banded with the French and they took over Fort Calcutta in four days. They threw the prisoners, 145 men and one woman, into the Black Hole of Calcutta which was the dungeon. 120 prisoners died in the night because of suffocation. They didn’t have any water or food. The English sent a big army and beat the Indians but the Indians didn’t do anything. Then Siraj, the king of the territory was killed and his Chief General, Mir Jafir, was made the king of that territory. India had fallen to the shopkeepers.

This is the project we did about the Black Hole of Calcutta.

This is me and Sam counting M&Ms. They represent the people standing in the Black Hole of Calcutta. The tape is the Black Hole.

These are all the prisoners standing in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

The peanut M&Ms are the people sitting in the Black Hole. We couldn't fit all of the sitting people, so we had to take some out and replaced them with the regular M&Ms, or the standing people.

This is the final picture. We got 120 people sitting and 46 standing in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

(Mom's note: the cheery colors of the m&ms are kind of odd, considering the topic, aren't they. Especially the Easter ones. )

How did we

go from discussing William Penn to screaming in pretend agony?

Just a few swift steps:

1. Harry read his history assignment on the founding of Pennsylvania.
2. He discovered that for many years, no building in Philadelphia could be taller than the brim of WP's hat in a sculpture on the top of the City Capitol Building.
3. Googled the statue.
4. We found the statue, it's pretty tall. In one of the pictures it shows a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin.
5. We googled that sculpture.
6. In the background, there were some blue spots that Harry discovered might be giant Monopoly pieces.
7. We googled Your Turn and discovered that it is a huge sculpture of different games in Philadelphia. We decided we'd have to go there the next time we go to Maryland.
8. Harry glanced at the bottom of the page where it said "Medium: Metal."
9. After I explained what a medium in artwork is, he pretended to play chess with giant marble pawns.
10. Which he then dropped on his foot leading to the screaming in agony.

This home education stuff is pretty great, when it's not completely painful!