Tuesday, May 24th

Yesterday, (Monday) we were camping in Tobermory and coming home, as it was a long weekend, so today (Tuesday) is our only homeschooling day this week. Noam started off doing some reading while I took Maeve to school. Noam had a snack of pineapple, so we talked about where I got the pineapple (Foodshare's good food box) and why Foodshare exists and sells food boxes. I told him that much of the food in the food boxes they sell come directly from local farmers, and why buying local is better than from a distance (relationships with farmers, environmental impact, outlawed pesticides on food from other countries). We also talked about the cost of food and that some people in Toronto can't afford healthy food for themselves and their children, so Foodshare offers low-cost food for everyone, boxed by volunteers to keep costs low. Pineapple, of course, is not local, so we looked up where it came from - originally South America, but now most pineapple comes from Thailand and the Philippines. Brazil also grows a lot. Noam loves fresh pineapple! We also talked about farmers markets, and Noam listed some of the benefits of farmers markets (environment, relationship with farmer, local produce, and community).
Next we turned to studying pirates. We read through some of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates and learned many things. He was first interested in looking up the Barbarossa brothers, which we did. We also read about women pirates, pirate weaponry, the cruelty and absolute authority onboard of pirate captains, the golden age of piracy (late 17th- early 18th c.), and the abrupt end of the golden age. We also learned about how people are still fascinated by pirates and many movies have been made about them. There is much, much more we could learn about them! I'll ask Noam if he wants to continue learning about them as I would like to immerse ourselves in a topic before we move on.