Back to School - Day 4 of 2012

We actually started back to school last week; but, it was an odd week, we just had school on Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday turned into a half day because of frustration and bad attitudes on the part of several members of the family (I'm included in that unfortunately.)  I've learned my lesson in the past, when everyone seems to be at their wit's end, and I'm ready to loose it....STOP!  There will always be another day to do school!

So, after lots of prayer this weekend, and a long prayer over the school table this AM, we started off our morning back in the Proverbs. One verse a day will be how we're going to start each day.  I had gotten away from that, we're going to add it back in after prayer and the pledge.  We talked about what "wisdom" is, what "understanding" is and what "instruction" is...it went well.

Our morning went along smoothly with all subjects completed (yahoo!), we didn't have any errands to run today, so the kids got a bit of play time after their work was done.  They said they wanted to play "church".  Hmmm, we haven't played that before, so I was along for the ride.  Krypto was the Pastor and he said we needed a name for our church...they came up with "The Cross".  Then he started off telling us all about how we're a "Christ Centered, Culture Creating, Community Church", and he sounded just like Charles Porter, our Pastor at the Ocean.  Charles, SOMEONE is listening to you and he got the explanations of each point down pat.  He and Gwangi then had us sing some songs and we split up so that Gwangi could do Children's Church with Sissi.  I went over to the door to listen in, it was the Nativity Story, very cute retelling, wish I had recorded it!  When we got back together, Krypto read Mark Chapter 1 and asked us questions about it and then they took an offering ;)...it was super cute!

We had lunch, quiet time, and then back to school.  This afternoon we did our Bible story, it was about Abraham and Lot dividing up the land.  Gwangi asked me what "pasture" was and I thought he said "pastor", so I go into this whole explanation about what a pastor is and he is looking at me so strangely.  Krypto pipes up and says "No, Mommy, passs-turrre." OH, got it!

We read a book about Handel for History and then were looking up different Youtube videos of his music.  When I typed in Handel's Messiah, we got the Flash Mob at Christmas of 2010 in the mall, the kids loved it...have you seen it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

We moved on to some Science and talking about covalent bonds.  I had them drawing O2 (hmmm, how do you make the 2 go low ;)???) and H2O (same problem here) and here is a picture of Sissi turning her drawings of covalent bonds into people.  Super funny!

Sissi turning her drawings of covalent bonds into people with faces and hair.

Then the boys got their math done while Sissi worked on some painting and we moved onto music practice, the end of our school day.  It is usually anti-climactic, not today.  We were in the middle of Krypto practicing his violin and the bow literally popped, cracked at the tip, and the hair fell out.  We were in shock!  He's played for 2.5 years and I've never seen anything like that.  In December the bridge broke, another first.  It's been glued and seems to be holding while we wait for a new bridge to cross the Atlantic...but we were still able to play; but, with no bow..... I'm thinking we're on a hiatus for a few weeks.  Hoping we can get a new one out here soon.  Violin parts, violins in general, are just not played by many people here, so you just can't get them locally.  One of the more frustrating parts of not being in the "land of plenty and the big Walmarts" ;).

A picture from last week, learning to write and organize our numbers using clothes pins and our Kumon book.

Clipping the number pins in order on our folder, she really enjoyed how hands on it was. Thanks to http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/ for all her great school ideas.

Uncle Jon and Aunt Maria, Gwangi built his own Lego Chess Board from the Lego Idea book you sent him.  Super cool and we can actually play on it.

Our hair style today....taken from http://www.princesshairstyles.com/  

Thanks to Jane for the ribbons!

My little "Dancing Princess"

Getting some handwriting done.

Working on the "Letter of the Week" - J

He's in Explode the Code Book 3 and moving right along!

For his "free time", while he's waiting for me to do reading, grammar, and writing with him, he built his own maze!