Monday our homeschool group had a Winter Solstice Celebration. There were great presentations on the different ways the December holidays are celebrated. We heard about Hannukah, Christmas, Atheists and cultural celebrations, Buddhism and the new year celebrations, and most of all, what the Winter Solstice is, scientifically and traditionally. We had a Wassail toast to the return of the light and celebrated with lots of food and games. A main theme was religious tolerance. I think we all learned a lot about each other. One game the older kids played revolved around that theme and was created by one of the moms (she will soon be patenting the game and plans on getting it on store shelves!). Very fun day.

Yesterday, we stayed in and just hung out. K spent about an hour reading and W and I did a few workbook pages. Then J and I did some. She did reading comprehension and spelling/vocabulary. The spelling words incorporated geography in that all the words were names of continents, oceans, seas, and mountain ranges. So she had to know the what-and-where as well as how to spell the words. The last bit was proofreading, which she loves doing. The funny part was that we had to leave after about 45 minutes and she was really disappointed to have to cut the workbooking short. I just think that's so cool. Learning for her is no longer a miserable chore to be rushed through in order to get to more fun things. Learning has BECOME one of the fun things.

Today we saw a wonderful production of "A Christmas Carol" at Hofstra University. There were about 25-30 of us there from the hs group. We met some new families with 9-11 y/os that I would love to see more often. At regular hs events we have at least 15 kids in that age range. And of course there's always plenty of 4-6y/os for W to play with. But I'm glad that there is the potential for a strong teen group in a few years. I'm sure there will be some who choose to go to high school, but even 7 or 8 regulars will be plenty for that homeschooling teen comraderie. K is making do usually being the oldest at the events - although there are some older boys (14-16) that usually just keep to themselves. She's content with the several outside friends she has for now. I'm still on a quest to recruit more teens for our group, though.