Erin enjoys reading and wearing pyjamas all day. The ideal homeschooling kid! Explaining something about dragons to Cormac, Heather, Rebecca and Liam of our homeschooling group.

Erin is a precocious reader, spending at least an hour or two a day with her nose in a book. Although she's been sounding out words for quite a while, she became a fluent reader about eight months ago. She was suddenly able to read almost anything she got her hands on. She now likes to read silently to herself much of the time, and for this she likes simple chapter books with a pictures every few pages. For a quick easy read, she loves Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House series. She is interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series now, and reads these books independently for the most part. We also share the reading of more challenging books, alternating pages between us. Typical of this sort of fare is Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family or C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. We are beginning to assemble an annotated bibliography of fiction we've particularly enjoyed since Erin turned five. She also likes reading picture books aloud to Noah, and she is a voracious browser of reference books, especially DK's Eyewitness Books.

Through the Eyewitness Books, computer programs, nature TV shows, atlases and many other avenues, Erin has spent much of the past six months accumulating information about world geography, the science of human anatomy and physiology, embryology and childbirth, various sorts of natural environments and animals, and general world history. She really enjoys Usborne's "Great Search" books, especially the Great Animal Search. Animals and world geography have been the major obsessions of the past few months. She will tell you in a snap what kind of environment a meercat or a manatee prefers, recognizes the flags of many countries, and can locate dozens of countries on a globe or map. We recently built a large paper-maché globe of an imaginary alternate earth complete with relief, place names, an equator and all the necessities. This other earth is now developing its own mythological inhabitants and stories. We are lucky enough to live in close proximity to nature, and Erin learns first-hand about the world around her. She is particularly interested in birds and trees. Her favourite tree is the larch, which provides her with edible new needle clusters in the spring and a sunny yellow display before dropping its needles in the fall. She has had opportunities to watch black bears skulk in the woods, deer browse on the lawn, pileated woodpeckers hammer away on the cedar trees, rufous hummingbirds engage in aerial battles, and ospreys ride thermal wind-currents while hunting for supper. In summer she helps in the vegetable garden.

"Skeleton World", where a lot of things happen backwards Practising the violin "Two Bombooses" (construction paper)

Bear (pencil on paper) Landscape (acrylic on cardboard) "Lost in Life", one of Erin's recent compositions, harmonized by her mom.

Erin likes doing creative things as well, from telling stories, playing imaginative games, drawing or painting, to playing the violin or designing complicated pictures and multimedia files on the computer using KidPix or SimTunes. She's recently been taking art classes with a group of other homeschooling children, taught by family friend and professional artist, painter Ron Mulvey. These classes involve lots of humour, rhymes, songs, rhythmic movement and drawing and painting. She enjoys crafts such as paper-making and designing fridge magnets. Her violin work proceeds in fits in starts but we've discovered that she knows best when she's ready for new challenges on the instrument. When her formal study is on the back burner, she still enjoys playing for fun and composing tunes in an improvisational manner. She's now working hard on her instrument again and has recently been polishing up three short Minuets by Bach. Sometimes her violin comes out several times a day and she likes showing off. All her improvisational experience has given her an impressive ability to play by ear, sounding out tunes from memory.

Erin likes to play with Duplo and Lego, K'nex, puzzles and, especially lately, board games like "MoneyCents", "Snakes and Ladders" or "Checkers". Her dad has become her board-game-slave. He is a worthy and charitable opponent. Erin also encounters math and mathematical relationships as she helps bake, plays with several of her computer games, uses her Cuisinaire rods or pattern blocks, helps with the family grocery shopping or occasionally works through a few pages in the first Miquon (Grade 1) book. She adds and subtracts single-digit numbers easily using manipulatives, and is starting to remember many of the simpler math facts through repeated use. She has recently learned to tell time after becoming fascinated by clocks while listening to a classical music story recording called Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock. She also enjoys playing with money, and we are finding that the Canadian loonie ($1 coin) has made learning about place-values very simple. We play with pennies, dimes and loones and generaly math concepts are illustrated in a simple and natural way.

Duplo boat and its proud captain K'NEX: very cool stuff!

Two-wheeling it on the driveway Erin and Noah enjoy helping to care for our flock of chickens.

Erin gets a fair bit of physical activity running around indoors or out playing with her brother Noah. She is a maniac on her bike, and rides all around the property, on the driveway circle or "off-road" at will. This past winter she has been involved in swimming and skating classes, locally and with the regional homeschooling group in Nelson, where she has a wonderful social time. Erin enjoys seeing other children, although she tends to be rather shy with large groups of five-year-olds. She is comfortable in larger groups that include children of varying ages. She has recently been participating in singing/dancing classes with a group of a dozen other children aged 5-15, and she is very comfortable in this environment. She has a couple of good homeschooling friends her age with whom she visits at least one morning a week, and is good friends with her family members, including her best pal, her younger brother Noah. She is also fortunate to have a number of special older friends, from older children on up to retired adults, and is a well-loved and full member of our wonderful local community. When Erin talks about "my friend", you can't necessarily assume she's talking about another five-year-old, or even another child.