i'm finding a lot of really excellent rabbit trails in our homemade unit study with the 21 balloons. one day last week, our entire home lessons were centered around my favorite newspaper, usa today. let me back up a bit... in the first chapter, the story focus' on newspapers. so, i thought to myself... i'll make another newspaper treasure hunt up! i had no idea how much can be learned and taught from a newspaper. the stock market and how to read it, the international weather section, politics, entertainment (tommie learned who the rock group kiss was), and even how to read and find the top 10 songs of the week. i also took this time to explain how advertising works and where the most costly ads are located and why. our morning was also spend figuring and learning how to calculate percentages in our head. something i do all the time in real life, when i'm shopping. the real estate section was a very fun part of our morning... reading all the different offers and prices. we wrapped up the day with tommie writing a nice letter to his cousin in college.