something beautiful

Funny, effective method to help you remember the Greek alphabet. (It takes a few for him to get to it, but it’s worth it.)

… that Mercury is NOT the hottest planet? You’d think it is, because it is the closest to the sun, but no. It actually gets down to -300˚F at night. That’s because Mercury has almost no atmosphere to trap the heat on the side that is facing away from the sun. Add to that the fact that each day on Mercury is the equivalent of 59 earth days, and I think Mercury is making Alaska look like a sunny paradise of mild temperatures. (I only mention this because living in Alaska has been on my mind lately – I have no idea why.)  Daytime temps on the now-smallest* planet reach a scorching 750˚F, making Arizona summers also appear mild in comparison. Not that you’d want to live on Mercury anyway – meteors killed all the dinosaurs there. (OK, I made that last part up – there is no evidence that dinosaurs ever lived on Mercury.) Mercury really does get hit by a lot of meteors, though.

* Since the IAU declassified Pluto as a planet on August 24, 2006, Mercury is now the smallest planet, but we refuse to mention it without an asterisk. We are a little sore about Pluto’s demotion around here….

When it comes to school, I am very fortunate in two ways: 1 – that we live in a state where I can both homeschool and still take my kids to elective classes at the public school, and 2 – that I live in a school district where I’d actually want to take my homeschooled kids to elective classes at the public school. With that in mind, we spend a lot of time working our schedule around the school’s schedule for things like P.E., Art, Band…  not to mention a good chunk of time in the car every day getting to said classes and back.

Which is why Mondays are so special. On Mondays, my youngest does not have any classes at the public school. And because I think there should be some cozy benefits to homeschooling – at least few totally non-academic, kid-pleasing perks that make their public school friends instantly envious when they learn of them – we have decreed that every Monday is Pajama Day.

It works for us.