Homeschool Update

Ryan has finished his science and English for this quarter. We work from the same texts as his school mates. Of course he continues to learn from watching the Science channel, renting interesting videos from the library, and his Discovery Magazine that arrives in the mail. Speech writing for English will cross over into our history studies, see next paragraph!

We will finish history with our trip to Philadelphia from March 23-27. We will also be visitng Susan B. Anthony house here in Rochester for a formal luncheon and lecture plus tour of her house. Ryan will be studying the 19th amendment and women's suffrage which will culminate in a speech he will give at the Minehart. The Minehart is a competition which takes place each May. Members of the Rochester Junior Numismatic Socieity (RJNA) prepare speeches to be judged by the senior Rochester Numismatic Society (RNA). Ryan's speech will be on the Susan B. Anthony dollar and his theme will be how numismatics is more than just collecting money, it is also an opportunity to learn about history.

For art, Ryan is learning basic digital photography which he will use to put together his portfolio showcasing his pottery and origami pieces from the last two quarters. Ryan is donating one of his pottery pieces to be auctioned off at a benefit for the Irish Children's program. We'll see how high people bid!

Ryan continues to study under Spindler each week for Piano and attends a high school level music theory class at Eastman each Saturday.

We (mom and Ryan) swim and walk (mom jogs) side by side on treadmills each week at the YMCA for gym. We play raquetball on some wednesdays at the downtown Y. Plus Ryan continues to bowl with his best friend Cody on a bowling league every Friday.

As for math, that's Mark's department. Ryan and Dad do math together a few times a week. They do Algebra together.

Mom must be doing a good job teaching history because Ryan used to like this subject the least of all when he went to public school. He would say "Why do we have to study history? It's already done, it's over!" But now Ryan says "Math used to be my favorite subject but now I think I really do like history the best."

In other news, Ryan has taken a huge interest in filmmaking this past year. He says he would like to be a movie director when he grows up. This is great because Mom can teach him all of the basics since that was a huge part of her degree - she wrote and directed a few short videos while at college. Ryan can do amazing things with Flash animation right now. We are looking to purchase the latest edition of Flash. Plus, as soon as Mom can get premiere up and running, Ryan will move on to shooting and editing video with the new cool mini-dvd camera we recently purchased!

Mom thinks Ryan should aspire to write musical scores for movies and become the next Danny Elfman, thus combining his amazing talent for music with his love of film. But who knows what the future really holds......