Origami, Sumi-e, and Haiku

We are wrapping up our study of Japan. We had fun trying out some Sumi-e art (above), writing our own Haiku poems, and reading some great stories. I did not have fun with origami. I am not very good at it and not very patient. I managed folding the frog about 6 times today! I might have daddy try another form later this week. Poor Zeke kept telling me that I could quit, he'd pick an easier one...I think he saw the steam coming out of my ears! Here are the poems we came up with...it was a beautiful afternoon, so we just sat on the deck writing poetry. I am not a big prose person, so this was new territory for me, but the kids are quite good at it :)

Spring is finally here
Little plants are sprouting fast
In the dirt they grow

Step outside and see!
Pretty purple blossoms bloom
Bees buzz around them

Fish move with their fins
Fast and swift they go, go, go
Up the river home

My favorite hi-light of the week is this:


Zeke wrote a biography! It was nice to have our English curriculum coincide with our read aloud book assignment! We had just finished the David Livingstone Heroes Then and Now book, so it was very natural for Zeke to pick him for his biography. We had one tough day where we butted our stubborn heads, but other than that, he did an excellent job!

We are starting our tour of Russia tomorrow, and hope to finish up Australia by the time we leave for Disney...in 16 days...but a lot of other things have to happen in 16 days too!!! I have forgotten the camera for two big events this past week: gymnastics ribbon class and Eli's Day out with Thomas trip with Daddy and buddy Isaac! I'd forget my head too if I had to think about collecting it before going out the door! I will try to do better this week and get some shots of soccer games, since we spend many hours a week at soccer fields!

China Town

We finished up another country in our Exploring Countries and Cultures curriculum this week. The kids really enjoyed our stories and projects while we studied China. The Chinese lanterns were so easy to make! And we enjoyed a meal at a new chinese restaurant right around the corner. It was a buffet, which I do not usually like, but I survived it without getting food poisoning :) The kids were SO excited to go and had fun trying out the chopsticks and all had pretty good attitudes trying some of the foods!











On the non-school front, I have been very overwhelmed with so many things going on lately. Soccer frenzy has started, which is fine and fun, but my mind has been so pre-occupied with the planning of a certain 5 year old's birthday party coming up this weekend (which is all I really want to do). And then there is our Disney trip I'd really like to sit down and plan all the details for (it is coming up in less than a month and our housing fell through)! And then there are always so many other things we could do. I had to say no to my husbands request to go to a carnival night at the dental conference he's attending this week. A carnival?! Really, I have no time for that! ARGH!!!! The poor man just wants a fun date with his wife...so we are running errands tonight together instead. Yeah. **sigh** I just can't make everyone happy, but I strive to. I am still trying to learn how to say no and live by my priorities (I think this is a life-long one for me)!

Back-Tracking

I wanted to catch up on my school weeks here! Before Easter and after Micah's birthday, we had a great time studying India. I am determined to crank out Asia and Australia before we head to DISNEY (!!!!!!YEAH!!!!!) in May. Anyway, we spent a week and a half on India, and will do the same with China. Then I think we can fit Japan, Russia, and Australia into a week each. I love that MFW is actually flexible enough to allow this kind of scheduling to happen. I will say that we are doing A LOT of work each day, and this is teaching me to be way more diligent during the beginning of the year and not to take a month on a segment that was scheduled for 2 weeks! We finally finished our David Livingstone book, and I will be skipping the last two biographies...instead I picked a read aloud for China from the book list and am saving Mr. Popper's Penguins to end our school year with.

Nothing new for the basics...we are just cranking through math and language arts. Eli is enjoying the new Dick and Jane or Benny's Adventures book I place in his bucket each day. And he is just working on printing his letters with our memory verses. Abby will finish her Alpha math book with flying colors. I'm debating whether to do another year in Math U See for her or to switch her to Singapore next year like I did with Zeke. She doesn't seem to have the issues with Math U See like Zeke did...hmmm.... Speaking of Zeke...he's doing great, but we have had to have a lot of discussions about attitudes and Philippians 2:14-16a (we made it our memory verse for last week!). I will always butt heads with him since he and I are SO MUCH alike: rule followers, stubborn, perfectionists!!!! It is good to have the pep talks from my husband that remind me to focus on the important things... character issues are more important than completing a math page or a craft project! Issues are very inconvenient when they occurs during math time and take 45 minutes of discussion and training to solve, but I know it is the right work. :)

Here are our face paintings during our India study. The kids had fun performing a little skit for me after their paintings were done.



Here we are making volcanoes. The funny thing was getting a phone call during this project, answering it, exiting the room, leaving the children with vinegar and baking soda and having a LARGE mess to clean up! But it was OK. They had fun.

We ended our unit on mountains doing this activity suggested in the textbook. I'm pretty sure Zeke was the only one that understood why we were doing this activity.

And over the span of 2 weeks, we fit in a "green craft" activity from the Family Fun magazine. It fit in well with our science lessons on Reducing, Reusing, & Recycling. These fish are made from 2 L pop bottles. Fun!

Times a flying'

Wow! March is just about over?! I hope I finish all my curricula by June! I always panic at this time, but the Lord always works it out just right for me and the kids. We had a pleasant but quick study of the middle east, focusing on Saudi Arabia this week. I am really finding this curriculum fascinating and love just sitting and staring at the world map and thinking about all the people that god created in the world and how very different our lives are from those around the globe from us...yet we have the same creator who loves us and knows us and wants to be with us forever...it's overwhelming, really....anyways....

Again, we are just plugging away in math and language arts. I'm taking it easy on Eli for the remainder of the year and decided to just find random readers for him and work on his handwriting of letters. That is enough for him, really. Let's see...here we are writing the Arabic alphabet and our names in Arabic. That was tons of fun!



And we had a birthday boy in the house this week! My little grouch turned 3. (He really is grouchy and I HAD to get him this shirt! I think he is growing out of it, though--the grouchiness, that is, not the shirt. He is eating much better now and dropping all but one or two naps a week has helped his sleeping. He's turning the corner to being a big boy!)



We also got to go to a friends' school play, which was great fun for the kids. We stuck around late and played in the cafeteria and roamed the halls of a real school. Something very foreign to homeschoolers! Here are Abby and Zeke with their buddy Nate, who was a squirrel in the Willy Wonka school play. Good job, Nate!

Micah and Amelia:

And these two. Don't be fooled by their cute smiles. They are TROUBLE, and double when together! They need their own post someday...


Then we had a FUN weekend with a big party for Grouch and then church and a wedding shower and another birthday party for a friend. Here's Micah with his "wormy" cake at his party.

And here, it is almost 10pm and the kids are overdosed on gummy worms and Mario Cart. They had a blast!

PHEW! What a way to end a month! I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Random School Thoughts

We had a great time in school this week. We got to do our art project and some science outside since it was gorgeous spring-like weather here! Here we are after identifying some grasses at a nearby park for our grassland study. And then we had to have recess on the play structures, of course! Yeah!


We are studying Africa in geography for the next couple of weeks. We tried out plaster of paris and made some royalty hangings of our own. Someone else had suggested that we remember we are royalty because we are part of God's family. We are a holy nation!




Zeke began some division this week in math and it was a bit intense....spent a long time on math each day. I'm sure it is because it is a new concept, but I hope he gets the hang of it and can get a little quicker and more independent with it in the next week or so! Abby will be finishing up her math book in good time.

I finished our read-aloud for Abby and Eli this week, Jerry Muskrat, which in fit incredibly well with all our river and pond studies a couple weeks ago. I really enjoyed reading many of these Thornton Burgess Animal stories (we started these last year when I used Little Hearts for His Glory for Abby's curriculum...the read alouds were the only part of the book I ended up using! This year I am following this book for Eli's math, but I skip a lot of the activities). We are starting Lions at Lunchtime with Abby and Eli since it will fit in really well with our Africa theme. And we finally finished George Muller tonight and will start David Livingstone tomorrow!

I've really backed off on our bible times in the morning and am still trying to figure out the best routine for us. I am convinced that we need to be learning more scripture, but I'm having a hard time knowing what to focus on! I'm really going to do some research for next year and try to do a better job in this area.

I'm looking forward to plugging along the next couple months...we are a bit behind in some areas, so I need to find a way to combine some weeks of ECC and get through English a little quicker! I don't want to be in school till the middle of June!

Very Ordinary

With the exception of a few unfortunate "PMS moments", last week was quite enjoyable. We had a short, but intense study of Germany, ending with a meal out at a locally owned German restaurant. Here's 2 shots from school this week: Eli and his Cuckoo clock (we modified the crafts for this week), Zeke's drawing of a lake.



Steve is gearing up for his yearly El Salvador mission trip. He will be co-leading a team of 19 students. This yearly trip really refreshes him and refuels his passion for the gospel and great commission, although it means extra time without daddy :(

I was thrilled to look out my window this morning and see many inches of snow :) And thankful I did not have to go anywhere today as I watched about 3 cars get stuck on our street! Unfortunately, the snow was not the best snowman making snow, but darn it! we were going to make a snowman sometime this year, so above is the picture of our "snowhead". You can see how proud Eli is of his decorating abilities!Here is Zeke shoveling the many heavy inches of snow!


I was NOT thrilled on Sunday when Abby came down with the stomach virus...wondering when rounds 3-6 will come about...sigh...

School Times

We've had some good school time this week. We enjoyed the scheduled crafts for our France study, as you can see! Zeke spent an hour and a half (although he claims 2 hours) on his Eiffel tower model. I really enjoy giving the this much time and freedom when they are "in the mood" to accomplish something and work hard at it! Abby and Eli had a good time with the building too...Eli just kept building and building...and eating and eating the marshmallows! It feels like we've been reading about France forever because of a few interrupted weeks. I'm glad to be moving on next week to Germany, which I am going to condense into one week.

Abby's model:

Eli's model:
Eli is reading amazingly well...I am flying through the kindergarten On Track book(SSRW) with him. I like the strong foundation SSRW gives young readers, but once they are getting it, I see no reason to draw it out. He reads a new story every day! He works really hard for a little guy...I'm so proud of him and can't believe he'll be turning 5 soon! I thought this math activity was cute, although a little girlish...And then there is a picture Eli drew of his best friend Gabe, in his bathing suit, no less! This is one I want to remember forever and put in his baby book :)



Abby has moved onto the 2nd grade workbook for SSRW and then I just listen to her read from a Pathway reader every day. It is good to see her challenged a little more in language arts. She was very excited about starting subtraction this week. This gal is FULL OF ENERGY and she is CONSTANTLY jumping up (not exaggerating here) from her desk every 2 minutes and LEAPING over to her brothers' desks to see what they are up to. I moved her desk to the living room to see if that would help her distraction, but no, it just provides room for the leaping moves....sigh...her daddy claims she's just like him...her brain just moves so fast and is always thinking, onto the next thing...I am SO OPPOSITE! I sway between getting frustrated with her and trying to figure out how I can get her to sit still--to embracing who God made her and loving the freedom that she has being schooled at home. I think watching her sugar intake would be helpful. If any one has any suggestions, I'm all ears! Here is her with her doggie that she chose from the prize table at piano lesson, a portrait of the doggie and her and her cousin Anna.


Zeke is doing great. He still loves geography, has been doing some extra science sheets this week out of the big book of animals (for ECC users), and we are amazed at his math. We did have a little discussion about how he needs to start writing neater for his math! He will sometimes write 1 inch numbers for the problems, very sloppily. Mom is not a pushover when it comes to sloppy work.

Micah received a little "desk" in place of where his sister's used to be in the school room. One day he informed me that he needs do school too. Come to find out, he is really good at using scissors just like Eli was! And he loves to glue beads and noodles onto paper, although I usually just find them all over the floor. Maybe he will start having a little 10 minute school time!


If any ECC users have any advice about bible times, I'd love to hear it. How do you do your bible times? I try to have us all read together, but it is too long and too deep for the younger kids, and I wind up very frustrated, angry, and discouraged by the end of our "bible time". But I love having discussions about it with Zeke. I already do the read aloud for Zeke at bed time, so can't move it there...I need something shorter and more interactive for my younger kids...but don't want Zeke to miss out on the content. And we've been wanting to focus more on character with the kids...start learning some Proverbs, for example. But I'm not sure I want to miss what the curriculum has for Zeke. Help?!

Well, I'm off to make Quiche and Crepes for dinner ( I grew up eating my mom's awesome crepes!!!), although Zeke can't partake since he's the one that came down with that awful virus. :(

School Days

Thought I'd give a school update! We are finishing up our 3-4 week study of South America, Brazil, and Rain Forests in My Father's World ECC this week. We made some paper mache masks last week and they are dry, waiting to be painted this week. We plan on having a little Brazilian mini-carnival next week sometime complete with the shirts and masks the kids made. Of course, I've found a few authentic recipes I've got to try out!



Abby is almost done with the first grade book in Sing, Spell, Read and Write. She is an amazingly smart little girl. She informs me that she can do her math "in her head" and doesn't need the blocks (Math-U-See Primer). And she is incredibly cute with her missing two front teeth!



Zeke has an amazing work ethic and gives his all in each subject. I am impressed at his math skills. I think Singapore really pushes him to use logic and mental math. It is getting to the point that I am challenged too! It takes me longer to check his work now, for sure! He is writing a persuasive essay this week in english. He really seems to grasp things quickly and apply what he is learning.

Eli has been really working on his reading, and it is ALL self-motivated. He can read all of the first BOB books and Animal Antics and Playful Pets level 1 books! He read the Macy's sign today at the mall. He said it phonetically "Makys" and I explained that that was a "c" that steals the "s" sound because of that y! It melted my hear to hear him trying to read all the signs he sees. He has no fear and will just give any word a go! I am going to go ahead and start the kindergarten curriculum in Sing, Spell, read and Write after Christmas for him. I'm bored with the stuff I'm doing with him and it isn't challenging him at all. He's ready to read those little stories!

Micah continues to, well, be two. :) He LOVES glueing and painting projects, so I've been trying to let him do a little more of that the last couple of days and it helps keep him out of so much trouble. Just leaves a big mess to clean up!

Here are some samples of our work from the last couple of weeks:

Zeke's Anaconda Report:



Our egg experiment to see how strong arches are (I may be missing something here, but I'm not sure how this fit in with anything we are learning in science right now...but it was listed as an experiment to do):


It held all of these books before breaking!


Eli and Abby drew an illustration of our read aloud, "Jerry Muskrat". I was so impressed by Eli's interpretation of the "merry little west winds": those little swirly lines in the sky!





An example of Zeke's science notebook sheet. He is never very fond of this assignment, but I love his little drawings! This is a Roseate Spoonbill. And I am having real problems with my camera. It will only focus on the left focus box in my viewer; I don't know how to change it! I've got to have Steve change some setting for me...that is why this picture is not the greatest!



I'm REALLY looking forward to the next two weeks to casually finish up some projects (mask making, a rain forest mural to name a few), make lots of homemade ornaments and christmas projects, bake Christmas cookies, visit the library (which we never do any more!). We are going to try to make it to Grand Rapids to take advantage of the Meijer Gardens Christmas trees from around the world display. That will fit in perfectly with our curriculum! Lots of fun and good learning going on here!

And this has just made my night! If you know me well, you know that I love snow!!!! It is a pretty wet snow, so I'm sure it won't be around long, but WE HAVE SNOW, HURRAY!