Friday, September 25, 2009

This is my Father's world

We've added something to our plans for this year that is working out wonderfully so far! We are attempting to learn a hymn each week. We've found some beautiful videos on YouTube for the hymns we've done so far:

All things bright and beautiful
This is my Father's world
For the beauty of the earth

You can see we've got a theme going here.
We start our "morning service" watching our hymn on YouTube and attempting to sing along. Some of the videos have the words on the screen which is very helpful. Z-Man will also get a printed copy of the lyrics to put in his notebook.

Here's a particularly nice one for your enjoyment:

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

And we're off!


Well, our first week of school was a little shaky (I almost wrote a post titled "The burning embers of our day" but decided against it) but things have gotten MUCH better since. Thank God. (And my sweet husband who prayed for us.) It's just hard for some people to switch gears, even if it's done gently. Not naming any names here of course.

But THIS week - well, this week is a different story! That anti-change boy seems to be settled in and even said one day, "Mom, if we don't get through all the countries this year, can we do this again in fourth grade?" Ah. A gift from God.

So, what did we do?

Well, we started out with the United Kingdom (our plans are here). There were a couple of little changes - we read Wee Gillis instead of They Were Strong and Good (which we will probably save for America).


By far the boys' favorite thing in the United Kingdom was the Loch Ness monster. But our little paper model of Big Ben and the British guards came out so cute too!

They should have no problem guarding that.

Oh, and we learned how to say "hello" in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Russian and Japanese. How fun is that?! The boys couldn't wait to practice on the german lady that works at the library - she loved it and taught them "thank you" and "good bye."

Next stop - Ireland!

Auf Wiedersehen for now!






Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Patio Schooling


This is the life...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Cooking with Daddy

Those of you who read this month's issue of Homeschool Enrichment (which is a WONDERFUL magazine!) probably noticed the "how dads can help" articles. I am happy to report that Mark has stepped up his efforts to teach our boys valuable skills. Below you will find some "food channel-worthy" culinary instruction being imparted to our Little Man at the Strong Museum of Play.

Disclaimer: No dachshunds were harmed in the making of this video.

Further Disclaimer: There was NOT an earthquake at the museum during filming. I was just laughing so hard that I shook the camera. Sorry about that.