The homeschool group had it's monthly geography club meeting today. The country was the Democratic Republic of the Congo. J and her friend A did an oral report on clothing and W did his very first oral report! His was about the styles of music and instruments. He read from the paper (I wrote it out big for him and used some picture clues to help him with the words). He read with confidence and was very proud to finally be brave enough to do his own.

After the readings, we all ate. Congolese food is really really good. We had couscous with okra, chicken stew with rice, chicken and onions, salad with yogurt/cucumber dressing, greens with peanut sauce, and beautiful desserts of coconut pie, mangoes, papayas, and the sheet cake with the country's flag on it. We brought fried plantains. It was my first time making them and I thought they were great. They tasted a bit like french fries, so I brought some ketchup (which was probably not very Congolese, lol, but W liked it).

After the geography club, we cleaned up and set the tables up for the Mad Science demonstration. This is a company that does these great science shows for schools and birthday parties. He was hilarious and very good with the kids. We had about 25 kids at 5 tables. The class focused on Matter. He talked about physical and chemical changes. He showed us flare paper and the vinegar/baking soda experiment (he added blue dye to his - W loved it). The kids made several different molecule models, wore protective goggles for the battery/nickel/paper clip/liquid copper experiment, and got to make their own batch of slime to take home. The presentation lasted about an hour. Then the kids went outside to play cops and robbers while the moms chatted for a while.

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I picked up K from school, dropped the girls off at A's house (where another hs friend was also) and they got to hang out until I picked them up after work. I love fun days like this.