Sarah was reading about Newton's Laws, and she asked me what the second and third ones meant. She read them to me, and I explained each one. Then she said the nicest thing, "Homeschool moms are smarter than other moms." Of course I agreed, laughing; but she said, "I'm serious. I've made observations." I love it. She says it's because we remember all that math and stuff. Actually, I don't know if I remember anything. I've just learned it for real in my adulthood. And what about all those public school moms who are physics geniuses?
She continued to read past where Newton's Laws were stated and the book had explanations right there, of course. Then she asked me about something on the next page, and we talked about it for a bit. And again, the book answered the question. I love how it always tells you something big and then says something like, "You're probably wondering. . ." Sarah says they're so smart always knowing exactly what you're thinking. She's right.
Rachel was working on ratios in Algebra 2 and I learned something that opened up a world of math problems for me. I cannot believe I never figured this out before! A few months ago, I was doing a problem out of Ray's Arithmetic and it was something like, a certain number of sheep and cows were in a field and there are twice as many sheep as cows, how many of each are there? I got out beans and did it by hand. Trial and error until I had it. I couldn't imagine how to do it mathematically. I'm so silly.
So I know the total number of animals (let's say 39), and I know the ratio of sheep to cows (2 to 1). Now I just need to think of the ratio of sheep or cows to the total animals. Sheep to total: 2 to 3! That's unbelievably what I never thought of. I could only imagine the total as 39. So I just set up the proportion: 2/3 = x/39 and get 26 sheep. Same with cows: 1/3 = x/39, and I get 13. I had racked my brain and just could never do it. Funny.
We went and looked at a house to buy today. It was a total bust. The pictures online always look so good. I wish our lease wasn't up in less than three months. I'm certainly not going to buy something just because of that, but the landlord wants a whole year lease--no partials. Maybe we'll just stay another year and relax since we don't have to maintain two houses any more.
See you tomorrow!
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